blow it out your hairdo because you work at Hardee's
FRIDAY WORD SALAD
After today I swear I will quit quoting ancient medical textbooks at you. That is a promise from me to you, and you can come smack me over the head with the biggest heaviest ancient medical textbook you can find if I am lying. Herman Boerhaave (what a name!) wrote this book called Aphorisms: Concerning the Knowledge and Cure of Disease in 1735. My favorite section is called “Defects of the Liquids of the Body,” and one such defect apparently is
A sluggish Fatness, from the too great Use of fat Things, either of Land-Animals, Fishes, or oil Vegetables; hence the Obstruction of a bilious Rustiness, an Inflammation, Corrosion, and worst sort of Putrefecation.
By the way, Boerhaave was of the sort who thought that everything could be cured with the right kind of enema. Although I am a Very Modern Sort of Girl, who is addicted to her Creature Comforts (help the old-timey capitalization disease is contagious), I occasionally wish I lived in the 18th century. And then I remember the fact that doctors had an enema for every problem, and I take it all back. (Seriously though, being a chick was way better in the 18th than the 19th century, at least if you were well-off [isn’t everything better if you are well-off?]. I’ll take some Enlightenment-style separate-sphere power dynamics over the fragile-flower bullshit any day.)
Speaking of “a sluggish Fatness”—McDonald’s! Have you seen these signs that proclaim McRIB IS BACK? Maybe it is just me, but I think these signs have a touch of evil, taunting, sneering, triumphant sadism about them. “Although you begged and pleaded with us not to do it, McRIB IS BACK! BWAHAHAHAH TAKE THAT YOU GROVELING WORMS! CHOKE DOWN YOUR RIB-SHAPED McFOODSTUFF IN SILENCE!”
All the neighbors whose houses back onto my beloved alley (see countless earlier posts) are infected with some sort of home-improvement virus. Stumps are being pulled out of the ground, garages are being built, decks are going up on the rooftops of already-existing garages. (This last makes me very envious. What could be better than a six-pack of beer and a view of the alley on a warm summer night?) This is good, I guess, for property values and aesthetic pleasingness (is that a word? pleasingness? it is in the dictionary but it still sounds stupid). However, I have been worried that the alley will go all upscale and lose some of its trashy charm, and there will be a massive cleanup of all the roadkill and unusual items that provide me with morning entertainment. Plus I still hope to someday find that head. I need not have worried: last night the alley yielded massive gnawed-clean rib bones (RIBS AGAIN! WE’VE COME FULL CIRCLE!), a whole roll of chicken wire, and a totally waterlogged and destroyed book about the Romanov dynasty.
With a blissful demeanor, squeaky voice and high-pitch giggle, Snuggle, the longtime spokescreature for the Snuggle brand of fabric softener, used to behave like a Care Bear. Now cuddly Snuggle is getting an image update, becoming a devil-may-care bear, complete with sunglasses à la Tom Cruise, dates with models and knowing winks to the audience.
No, seriously. Check out the New York Times story on Snuggles, the fabric softener bear, who used to act so damn cute that you just wanted to wrestle him to the floor and squirt battery acid in his button eyes. He is now going to be a ladies’ bear, and I would like to point out that, in the ad that accompanies this story, if Snuggles would just turn his head the other way he would have quite a nice view. Registration required. It’s worth it.
Oh oh oh hooray for Friday. Hooray for good moods. I am eating gummi worms and wearing striped socks. I get paid today. My playlist just magically put together Freezepop’s “Science Genius Girl” with “Crayon” by Manitoba and then “Little Mouth” from Sleater-Kinney. There is beer tonight (Mimi, you say, what else is new? And I say YES I KNOW, YOU HAVE MADE THAT JOKE BEFORE! L TO THE O TO THE MOTHERFUCKING SECOND L ALREADY!) Also, I just received the interesting news that this here web Thing is apparently mentioned in the print version of June’s Venuszine, in the context of “Recommended Weblogs.” If this is true (have not yet seen it with my own eyes), I am flattered, and slightly freaked, because how can you recommend such a jumble of brightly colored nonsense like this page? My writing here is a lot like that magic trick where a guy pulls a string of scarves out of his mouth—odd, kind of appealing, but ultimately meaningless. Anyway, thank you venuszine. You are an excellent magazine (subscribe! do it now!) and you throw a rocking party.
As long as we are plugging zines, Tight Pants #10 made me laugh out loud on the train today. This girl reminds me a tiny bit of me, with her punk-rock past, Catholic upbringing, occasional obscure and self-conscious references to Marxism, and her frequent use of the exclamation “Ack!” I highly recommend searching it out at your local zine store. I think the price has gone up slightly, to a whopping (not) two dollars, and the distros I found online have older information, so if you want one you can e-mail me and I will give you Maddy’s address directly. I think she is in France for the summer though. Her original writing is my favorite, but I can’t resist reprinting her reprint (oh! art in the age of mechanical reproduction, indeed!) of Dee Dee Ramone (R.I.P.) quotations:
It was when we were recording on Long Island that [Marky Ramone] flipped completely. I had just walked into the studio and John and Joey were waiting for me by the door. “Don’t go in there, Dee Dee,” they said. “OK. What’s happening dudes?” I replied. “Go home,” they told me. “It’s Marc, he’s flipped his wig. He’s in there now doing that chicken beak boy dance. He’s really out of control. It looks bad, Dee Dee.”
I just received spam that told me of a miraculous soap that washes away fat. But where does the fat go? That can’t be good for your drain. I would also request that if I must receive penis-enlargement spam, I receive kinder, gentler, penis-enlargement spam: all this “Make That Slut Choke On Your Gargantuan Knob” is not very endearing.
TWO SMALL LINKS
1. Generic macaroni and cheese. Somehow I think this one is the most depressing. Something about the parsley garnish and the wheat stalks attempting to portray wholesomeness. And the wooden spoon! And the black box! Oh it fills my head with misery.
2. Talk about depressing. Read George’s Help Desk tickets. Spelling much?
No more depressing! Friday! LT has the day off and is at the racetrack as we speak, betting on the ponies, wearing his porkpie hat, and generally furthering his quest to act like a 1930s gumshoe Sam Spade hero. Between his gambling, my boozing, and our mutual skirt-chasing, we are truly a married couple of sterling upright moral character. Where did I put my Book of Virtues?
—mimi smartypants, double or nothing.