Some Scary Sh...t

Scary: This is one of the many spiders we keep finding in the house. It's similar to the one Veda was wrestling with a couple of weeks ago. Where the hell do they keep coming from and why won't they die die die die die? By the way, for size comparison, think of a small dog.


Scarier: this comment from my mom's friend, "I'm worried that if Obama wins the election the black people will think they can take over." Dude. It's not like she lives in the south. This is coming out of California. Now every time I see someone with a McCain/Palin sign I think "racist motherf----". That ain't right.

Scariest: pictures from this year's Halloween party. We were comics/cartoons, and, yes, Silvia, you can say "I KNEW it!" because when you have glasses and not a lot of time (and already own most of the clothes) Velma is the easy way out.

That's me with my "date" Racer X. Her costume was borrowed from the cousin/roommate who couldn't make the gig, so she wasn't sure about wearing it, but wanted to go to the party. ("I don't even know who it is," she said. He's the most misunderstood racer in Formula 1, I told her. "Oh. Okay. Do I have to wear the mask? I feel like a condom.") Jaysis, I look fat, smug and a-sexual. Costume success. Yeah, that's not my hair, by the way.

Wuh was the great (greatest) Marlys, which is funny because I also checked out Lynda Barry for costume ideas, but couldn't scrape it together fast enough. Wuh even decked out in freckles. She's my hero.

But the winners...

You know, I thought their Gene Rayburn/Julie the Cruise Director were good outfits, and the Wes Anderson combination was masterful (we won't talk about the year he was Yanni), but Cruella and Yukon Cornelius? Come on. The best ever. Haven't we all secretly wished for the marriage of Disney with Rankin-Bass?

K-9, 24-7

Who'da thought this term would be worse than that time I took Information Gathering? But, when I'm not writing papers, watching films, or getting beat on headline writing, I get to do really cool stuff like ride around with the cops.

Spent 4 hours in a K-9 unit yesterday with a Czechoslovakian dog named Creck and his human, Tony. We toured the town looking for crime and finding nothing. Creck didn't get out of the car except to chase his rope-ball or intimidate some stoners in a stolen car. It'sa' nicea town, this Oregon. We don't have a lot of trouble with the bad people. Two of our calls were for nothing and one ended before we even got there.

I likes small town living.

Maybe I'll be a cop. It's got to be better than sitting in here on a Sunday and responding to emails calling me "Sir" or "Gentlemen" -- mein Gott, when will the old men learn that women are in the fecking workplace?

Roger that. Hateful out.

The Bomb

I'm o'pposed to be working on my paper about The Seventh Seal, but in my weekly newspaper reading for typos and copy edit errors, I came across the review (and full-page ad) for Dr. Atomic, John Adams' new opera ... and I'm totally obsessed with it. The YouTube videos have weird pop-up notes ("This is my favorite song") which irritate me too much to add any of them to the blog, but I can't stop staring at the photos and wishing there was a way to make the opera entirely black and white (apart from "Red Alert").

Heh ... I have nerdy opera fantasies ... heh heh ...

Okay, yeah ... back to Bergman. Religion, art and death ... yah yah yah.

Reporting Has Made Me Sic

Dude, I know it was that kid next to me coughing up a lung on Thursday. School is a germ breeding ground, my friends. Half of the editing class was out with it, and now I had to cancel my police ride-along.

So to all the people I asked to commit a crime, I'm sorry. If you got pulled over I was not there to report it. Can you do it again next week? Thanks.

Not so sick that I can't work on a Halloween costume. This year it's cartoon characters (don't say it Silvia ... I know. I KNOW, it would be so easy, but I'm not gonna do it, ya hear? I'm not.) and we've been to the Value Village to stock up on props. The cousin/roommate is going to be awesome, although I still think Skeletor would have been great, but still, he's hit on a good one ... hey, maybe I'll be Skeletor.

That is all.

Badda Boom. Badda Bing.

I just forgot my password to log into Blogger. That's where my head's at.

Every year I've got at least one class that breaks'a my heart. It's usually in the Journalism school, and this term it's that Reporting class. You know, friends, I want to stay positive about it, but when you get your story back with a page full of typed notes on what's wrong with it (with a brief pat-your-back start) and there are red marks throughout the piece ... mein Gott. It's a crusher. What makes it worse (and I know, I KNOW, good students don't do this) is that I looked across the table at someone else's story. There was a 3 line cover sheet and 2 marks of red pen.
2.
And I'm sure one of them was "great job!"

To balance, I got 100% on a copy editing assignment -- So I'm done with writing. I'm just going to correct other people's junk from now on. That's the job for me. Too bad copy ed. internships are in places like Ohio or Pennsylvania or Iowa.

I mean, I don't want to regret going to school and all, but I like Eugene. I don't want to live in Winesburg, Ohio and work for Little Town News. I want to stay here, where I just got the books shelved. But, apparently, if I want to translate this experience into real work I'll need to be flexible on location (and pay scale). Had I known that by graduation I'd be getting an unusable degree I would have switched over to the English Department a long time ago and worked at a bookstore/library/legit job like the majority of real people I know. You were all totally right. I chose poorly. As it is, I'll just pay this off and be thankful that I learned a little something about Italian, Beat poetry and Bollywood.

Cah, and I'll come out of my university experience without even having met a husband. Why? Why? Shoulda' rushed a sorority when I had the chance. If only I'd gone Kappa Delta...

ver. min. man.

We came home from the market on Thursday and found Veda wrestling on the floor with what turned out to be a giant spider. The f**ker was almost too big for the pint glass to get around him. And the big toothy-looking things on the front ... dude. Huge.

Then, last night while I'm cooking food and moving back and forth between the counter space, I hear behind me: "Oh. My. God."

The cousin/roommate had just gone outside to check the meter to see what kind of damage the ceiling heat might do, so I had pictures in my head of the thing spinning out of control and what winter would be like without heat and how much that would suck because it would be yet another winter where I freeze in my room -- But then he says:

"There's a dead mouse in the kitchen."

Yeah, right there. Right where I had been standing and picking out which onion to use.

So, on the one hand, Veda's proven that she can finish the job, which was something Cat never did. Cat would carry a mouse around in her mouth for fun and cousin/roommate always had to seal the deal. But, on the other hand, does this mean we're going to be sharing the house with critters all winter? If so, watch your backs. She looks sweet enough, but...

Veda, what's happened?

He's dead. He said horrible things. He didn't want me around anymore. He told me to get out. And then he laughed at me. He wouldn't stop laughing. I told him I'd kill him. He said I didn't have guts enough. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to, I tell you. But the gun kept going off, over and over again. Then he was lying there, looking at me, just looking at me. You've got to help me. Give me money to get away - and time. I've got to get away before they find him.

(wearily) I can't get you out of this, Veda.

Essay Time

School is stupid. I hate it. The end.

Women & Minorities in the Media -- Apart from learning that I'm racist because I'm white, this is so far all familiar territory, which makes it a see-saw class: one moment comforting and familiar, and the next boring and a little tedious. But, just so you know -- You. You're white. You're a racist. So was Richard Burton and the Crocodile Hunter, who were also, by virtue of being men, sexist. Mind it.

Philosophy of Film -- That professor is a super hard-ass. He makes us watch movies and talk about them! Fecking' A. Who the hell does he think he is?

Newspaper Editing -- Fine until we had a math quiz. But I think I'd like a job as the grammar tsarina at the local daily. This may be my niche.

Reporting II -- If I start to talk about it I'll cry. I have no time to do the work because everything we're reporting on takes place during the day (except the football game, which starts at 7 pm and we have a story due by midnight). I want to drop it, but, honestly, I'm going to have to do it sometime, so it may as well be now. But, fahhhhhhh, I'd like to pay my rent this term and I don't think skipping work to cover a civil case is going to help me with that.

Sum up: My GPA is probably going to drop like a hot rock because all focus will go into Reporting II. I even considered dropping the movie class, but I need it for the film certificate and it's the only bright spot in the entire schedule. Okay, I don't get philosophy and mentioning Kant in a sentence to me means only a little more than mentioning Spinoza, but it's good to watch movies with an eye toward a larger meaning. I just have to let go of studying narrative over style ... the struggle ... the struggle...

It's my job, man.

This email was waiting for me at work this morning. It's got everything except the dogs nipping at his rear-end (defiled all medical treatment indeed...):

My name is David Ibrahim, a merchant in Oman. I have recently been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer, which has defiled all medical treatment. Expert diagnosis has shown that I have few months to live.

The intention of this email is to employ the expertise of a business entrepreneur, who can identify a viable investment and guarantee reasonable returns on my wealth. This is to secure a future for my 4 years old son who lost his mother during birth. I cannot rely on his closest relatives any more, as they did not show responsible behaviour two years ago when I entrusted half of my wealth to them to invest on his behalf. They thought I wouldn’t survive the operation and then used the money for their personal needs.

To prevent any more mishaps, my attorney will act as a check, monitoring every aspect of the investment. Funds should be split in half and distributed to charity organisation and the other half, as investment for my son.

If this interests you, please reach me on the email address: --------------- to discuss terms and compensation.

Kind regard
David Ibrahim

The Political Blog

I got the laptop ordered, but only after crying into the phone: "This is the fourth phone number I've had today. They won't talk to me in Finance. How am I supposed to get this done?" -sniff- "Sorry ... I'm just so ... frustrated." Crying women make men nervous, I guess.

She breaks just like a little giiiirrrrlll.

Watched part of the debate, but, gosh, that opening bit about the mahms and dads on the soccer field kinda, you know, made me, well, gee ... kinda fecking furious. Dad's deciding on how to change his vote to Democrat. Seriously. He told mom "I wish the positions were reversed," which means he feels obligated to vote with the party, something he told me NEVER to do: "If the better man is on the other side, then you need to vote for him." He'll come around and see that light, unless Palin cries and then, well, gosh ...

I counted about 11 uses of "nu-cu-ler" from Palin before we turned it off to watch an old episode of Ryan's Hope -- the cousin/roommate didn't believe that the psycho bad guy from Dirty Harry played Frank, so we recorded it. (Man, the Soap Opera Channel ... what a crazy thing.)

But the funniest part of the debate, apart from her accusing Biden of "throwing up the white flag of surrender," which I thought was pretty ballsy for a girl, was her phrase "environmentally friendly drilling."

Will someone please explain to me what the f**k that is.

Award-Winning Customer Service

If that award is WORST, I believe it.

For 5 days I've been trying to buy a fecking Dell mini laptop. They had a PayPal option and I used it (why not? It's secure, right?). PayPal wanted to verify it was me placing the order, so I went through their dog-and-pony verification process, and all was good. Tuesday I check my order status and it's cancelled. I call Dell. 7 times -- although technically only 4, since they hung up on my twice and once they transferred me to PayPal who had already fixed the problem!

So I put through another order. It was cancelled. I'm told that I have to talk to Dell finance, who won't call me back. I was put through to voicemail AGAIN. I called to put through another order and was transferred to THE PARTS DEPARTMENT ("You called the wrong number, ma'am." "THEY TRANSFERRED ME TO YOU!") who said they couldn't help me with the laptop order and that I had to call someone else or put it through online.

May I speak with your manager? "There's no manager here right now, ma'am."
They just hung up on me again.

Dell. You. Suck.

I rool the skool

The first day of my senior year and someone caught it on video. Weird.

Suburban Outfitters

Moved in, wired, and the clothes in the closet are arranged by color, although it'll be another month before the books are put up again. But the coffee maker and kettle are plugged in and working on the kitchen counter and that's all that's important.

So far we have not been interrupted at night by screaming, yelling or barfing in the street outside, so I can't really find it in me to miss the old place much. The new landlord over there didn't like my color scheme in the library/bedroom anyway ("blue, white, green -- like a tennis court, you see?" "Huh. I guess."). The weird thing is I have no impulse to paint any of the rooms here. I like the off-white and brown trim look of the place. I'm having trouble imagining all of my art going on the walls as well. I think I may end up keeping it really simple.

I know. Weird.

Debate: Did I or did I not hear McCain say "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" when referring to the war in Iraq? I don't know. I wasn't really listening anymore at that point because I was irritated by then. We eventually turned it off and watched Juno.

You know, I didn't really get into Juno. No one talks like that -- or do they and I'm just not hip to the lingo? They were all just ... really impolite n' stuff. So we turned that off and watched Black Caesar.

Black Caesar is the superior picture. See it.

Work tomorrow then school on Monday. weeyeeha!

Moving blows. I'm never doing it again. Ever. I'll set this stuff on fire rather than move it in another fecking box.

That is all.

Mater Dei 26 - Edison 58

I don't follow football, and I'd told my high school that I was deceased, but I still felt a one-up on the wee brother when I saw that Mater Dei ranked higher than Edison (Huntington Beach) on the Yahoo Sports top 100. I won't further embarrass the brother by telling everyone that he used to play football for Edison (whoops) and had once shaved his number into the back of his head (was that out loud? Sorrrr-reeeee), but I will embarrass myself by admitting that it was a Mater Dei football game that changed my mind about going to a Cat-olic school. It was the cymbals. I was watching the half-time show and said "Those. One day I'm going to do that. I'm going to play the cymbals." And, lo, the next year I did. If only everything worked out as simply as that.

(Oh, and Servite -- 74. Ouch.)

And thus a great darkness settled on the land of hateful

This moving thing kinda blows. I like the idea of going into a house with a yard n' junk, and there's no knocking the 2 car garage even if it has an old pump organ in it (or especially because it has an old pump organ in it), but changing over the utilities makes me manic.

I nearly cried to get out of the $825 deposit on the electricity (I know -- what the f...? $825? What kind of a power-suck are we moving into?), but we're stuck without internet or cable until September 24th. That was the earliest they could schedule some guy to come out with the box and the flip-switch job. What a drag. That means nothing between the Friday and Wednesday. No internet -- no blog, no daily horoscope, no facebook now that I'm starting to figure out what all the stuff is about on it, and no Fishdom for 5 whole days unless we can sneak in on someone else's WiFi. And no cable means I miss the second House M.D. of the new season. Why? Why? I tried crying to Comcast ("NOOOOOOOOOOO!"), but it got me nothin' but a "sorry, ma'am" and I hate being called ma'am. "Jaysis," I said, "we'll have to read a book!"

I predict we'll be getting out the felt board and puppets by Monday night. Or we'll have killed each other.

But if we can stick it out we're upgrading to HD on the new install. Now I get to see Kimi lose the F1 championship in high def. oh. boy.

Fear & Loathing (and why I still need t'ai chi)

So I jumped the gun a little with the last blog. We'd only just signed off on an application for the new house and hadn't actually been approved to rent it yet. I checked my credit online and it looked good, so I didn't think there would be a problem ... but then we didn't have a call from the landlady. All day. Then, at noon, the real estate guy calls and leaves a message on my cell phone telling me how the duplex was sold to some guy who not only hadn't seen our side, but he was also buying it as a rental and not a live-al, and won't that be great, and he wants to meet us on Friday.

Shite. Shite. Now what? Do I call real estate guy back and break the news? What if I do and new landlady calls to say that for whatever reason we couldn't move in -- yes, I know it's totally irrational. But what if? That's just the kind of thing that would happen now, isn't it?

We have new phones at home so I hadn't set up the remote message-checking yet, and we'd taken bikes to work, so there wasn't time to speed home at lunch. Why didn't she call the cell phone? DEAR GOD, WHAT DO I DO?

But, yeah, we got the house last night and we're signing over the money this afternoon. In a nutty twist, I have to borrow from the cousin/roommate for this one (I used a credit card to move into our last house), but we'll be able to move on the 20th.

I'm trying to work up nostalgia for this place, but after listening to drunks roll up the street last night for the millionth time, I'm just not feelin' it. It'll be nice to sleep at night rather than wonder who's breaking into the garage at 3 am.

Side note: Over the past few weeks I've become obsessed with House, M.D. (Parallel lives indeed, Mrs. Haske. Prison Break ... House ... why is Fox turning into a channel for quality programming? That can't be right.) I'm trying to catch up on season 4 before next week and had to jump discs from season 1 -- suddenly Cameron has blonde hair. Crazy. I didn't even recognize her -- thought she'd left the show.

Friday night I crashed your party/Saturday I said I'm sorry

Friday a realtor came to the house and showed it to people who asked un-landlord like questions like "Do those windows open?" and told me how they would definitely use the spare room for art projects. They spent 20 minutes on the lawn next to our open front door discussing the merits of living in our half of the duplex and renting the other side, that is if they can get the current owner to knock another $20k off the price. (It's not too big of a stretch to think that he will, because he just wants out from under it.)

That night we went over to our friends' house and played Bauhaus records and drank -- although with the ITP I had only one glass of wine and how fun to be the only sober one in the drunk room: "You knowha yer prollem is? Yer fraid ufah goo time." yeah yeah yeah.

Saturday morning I found a house on Craig's List. It's HUGE, but cheap, but needs a lot of work, but it has a yard for the cat to play in, but one room has red loop carpeting, but it has a dinette kitchen and a 2-car garage that will (sweah ta Gawd) actually fit 2 cars. The landlady has never rented to strangers before and was asking me things like "Do you think I'm charging too much?"

I'm going to call her today to accept it, which means we're looking to move in 2 weeks so it can be done before school starts. I don't know how these things happen. One minute I'm relaxing in the prospect of a whole month without school and now I'm boxing up books and counting pennies to see if I can put down the deposit. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep last night.

Last word: Frank Rich's editorial in the New York Times pleased me.

That is all.

Was? Wuh, übersetzen Sie, bitte.

... and God is a superstition

Pop likes Palin. Says she's "a fighter." hmpf. Go figure.

I am a false prophet...

So remember how I was barking about McCain's poor PR? Friends, look no further than the University of Oregon and the Oregonian: 'Dynamic Duck duo' help propel McCain's campaign.

I just don't know what to think --- except to say that I'm pretty sure my dad isn't going to vote for McCain with the idea that Palin would become president if the old man kick's it in office. He may, on the other hand, vote for Biden, the Catholic working man's hero. Say what you want about McCain's canny choice of a woman VP, but she has less experience than Obama. Although there's this little gem of a quote from the Los Angeles Times : Tamar Fenton, 45, of suburban Minneapolis, said she admired Palin, a mother of five, and was not bothered by the governor's relative lack of experience. "If you can go up against a teenaged kid," said Fenton, "you could go up against a world leader."

Made me think of poor Mrs. Wilcox from Howard's End:
"My idea has always been that if we could bring the mothers of the various nations together, then there would be no more war."