Le maudit Mo D.

overstate the taqueria!

The aforementioned Ryan called this morning and he and his hubby Steve came by my house for a bit. It was Steve's first time in the US of A (Ryan, as you might recall, is an expat to the UK) and I was anxious to hear about his first impressions of it. Isn't it sad that my initial expectation was that he'd find it to be a seething shitpit of ugliness? He noted that the cars here are bigger, but that the drive from Houston to Austin was lovely and green, like the English countryside.

I suggested that we go grab some tacos and so off we went to Arandas, the local taqueria for Mexicans, by Mexicans. I was seriously excited about this. A British national who has been in the US for less than 48 hours is getting his first dose of authentic Mexican food! The paparazzi of my mind was taking a shit-ton of photos! I thought fondly of my first Cornish pasty from the cart in front of Liverpool Station and wondered if this would be as profound an international culinary experience for him. Of course, I daydreamed a lot about that first pasty, about what root vegetables it might have or if its dough was made with butter or lard (or both). I doubt Steve was sitting at home in London Googling horchata and looking forward to his first taste of al pastor.

OMG! BRITS AT ARANDAS! Ryan has picked up an accent, too. Totally cute.

Ryan reports that he had to quit wearing my Vermont t-shirt because Vermonters on holiday to the UK would accost him on the street and ask if he was from Vermont. Tourists just want local friends, I guess.

my issues with the sun

I hate the way the sun sits in the sky over Texas. I know that sounds stupid and petty, but it's true. There is something so close and mean and cruel about this sun, that I can't help but want to punch out its face.

Fortunately, I'm headed to Massachusetts in eleven days, where the sun sits in the corner and only comes out when told. It defers to the trees and is gentlemanly in the presence of rain.

In case you haven't noticed, I like Massachusetts better than Texas.

Sorry.

In other news: I did something today that I swore I'd never do again: I babysat. For a real baby. Delia is 4 months old and therefore at the peak of babysittability--no mobility, no demands for play. All smiles and gurgling and lying around. Sure she cried when we had some confusion over whether or not she actually wanted that bottle (the answer was negative) but soon after she conked out in her swing and it was all sitting around and reading until her mama got home. I even got paid, which I never did when I was babysitting Little Bro back in the day. Free family labor. Sheesh.

Babies generally do nothing to stir my ovaries and make me want to have one of my own, so the occasional two-hour spate of intense baby care is a pleasant reminder that I will probably not regret the hell out of my decision in ten to fifteen years when I'll officially be "too old." The question remains, however, what the hell am I going to do with my life? (novels and improv, I can live with that!)

novel #3?

The cover article in today's Times Magazine is about gay men who marry in their early twenties. I was a groomsmaid in one of those weddings once. Then I remembered that Ryan, one half of the young gay couple I used to hag, is somewhere on Texas soil right about now and that he should call me so I can meet his new spouse and so we can knock over a margarita machine together.

I also remembered the time that his former b-friend Dan sort-of kind-of asked me to have their baby, back when they were thinking about those things. I was honored that they adored me so much that they'd want to raise a half me, half them child, even though they'd be getting some fucked up genetic material out of the deal. I really can't have anyone's baby for health reasons (damn aorta!). I suppose that if I really really REALLY wanted to and didn't mind risking death and/or early delivery, I could do it, but there are plenty of unwanted kids floating around who need homes and love, so putting my ass at risk just to bring another beaky Armo with a leaky heart valve into the world has never seemed important to me.

But if I were in perfect health, I really would have done it, although their time frame put me somewhere near 40. Alas, they have found other loves of their lives and probably better surrogate mothers with better-quality eggs to bear any future offspring. My tubes will never be used and instead of children, I will raise novels. But for vanity/biology's sake, I liked the idea of my offspring having two fabulous dads to dress her fashionably and raise her in the UK, although she'd probably grow up to hate me for having abandoned her.

Novel #3 idea: woman bears a child for her favorite gay couple and goes away for ten years. The couple breaks up and a custody battle ensues, and the child, on the verge of her teen years, asks to be placed with her mother. Mother has been wondering over the last few years if the father of the child she bore was one of the gay guys or if it was another man. Comedy and sadness, trouble and desire, ensue.

Don't, like, steal my idea, 'kay?

And Ryan: please call me!

the duh heard 'round the world

Okay, so it's 2am and I'm tits deep in the Ladies Are Funny Festival. I need to brush my teeth, too. I'm not updating so much this weekend, but I thought I'd share with my readership an exchange I had while working at the box office tonight:

MALE PATRON: One ticket please.
ME: Here you go. Have you seen improv here before?
MP: No.
ME: Well, you're in for a treat, because its the LAFF and all the performers are women!
MP: (shrugs) Oh. That's okay, I guess. I like Amy Poehler. (says "Amy Poehler" in the tone I usually reserve for "garbanzo beans" or "toilet paper.")

So...yeah. Fest so far has been great. Kaci and Val were cute as buttons and those Skinny Bitches were so pleasingly funny/dirty. I love funny ladies.

muscle worship?

Last Saturday, German friend and Geegster groupie Andreas lent me a copy of D. Savage's Skipping Towards Gomorrah. He had multiple copies and, like me, Andreas digs some Savage. I am an ardent fan of the Savage Love Podcast and am made quite gleeful when Dan starts laying into the assholes whose words and deeds his takes issue with. Dan reliably rips new assholes for men who dislike cunnilingus, fags who emotionally mess with their hags, people who do not cheat the responsible way, and other sexual transgressors who need a stern talking-to. I highly recommend it.

Tonight, I finished the book and was laughing out loud at the very end, where Dan goes to NYC and hires two escorts, a male and a female. The escorts happen to be a couple in their non-escort life, and both cater to male clientele (women just don't pay for this sort of thing). The male escort is an enormous muscular specimen of male flesh, 6'6", 240, and is paid by gay dudes to do "muscle worship," meaning he gets $250/hr to get his ripped body felt up. I guess he's got a special product that not every man can sell, being all big and buff and everything.

Dan admits that he has never dated or been sexually involved with a man with this type of physique and it really isn't his thing. Although he paid to feel this dude's muscles, he's not really into it and he feels weird about doing it. I got to thinking, yeah, big muscley dudes: not my thing, either.

My BFF Cassi just happened to accidentally marry a bodybuilder. She didn't set out to do this. This was never her taste. It just happened that way. She has admitted that at first, she was weirded out by his body, all whatever amount of rock-hard muscle he happens to have. She told me this when they started going out, about how she was sort of embarrassed by it. The first time I met her now-husband, he grabbed my hand, placed it on his rock-hard abs, and said, "everything you've heard about me is true." He was clearly proud of his assets and assumed that as an allegedly straight female, I'd love to be treated to a brief feel of everything he worked so hard for.

Chicks obviously dig this shit. So why can I take Bob's consistent panda bear shape seriously but if he were to come home all ripped and bursting with rock-hard musculature, I'd be freaked out about it? Shouldn't I be into guys with nice bodies?

Well, one answer to this is, I've never been an aesthete. It's all about the brain with me, so if you've got what I need upstairs, whatever ambulatory meat you're using to carry your brain around doesn't really matter, as long as your dick is at least average-sized. Second, since getting married, I don't really look at guys the same way. This is not to say that I don't find other men attractive. I do. I'm just not really looking to look at other guys right now.

I skew toward nerds out of solidarity, of course. Popular dudes don't have the requisite painful dating history that I require. I tried to date one of those guys once and it was all wrong. He had two dates for his high school prom and there was a fistfight over them, or so he said. I was always confused about what he liked about me (answer: my class status--he was from some hick-ass Texas town and was ashamed of it) and he always had plenty of hot babes wanting to ride his stick. So I demurred.

Although it is not out of the question that a nerdy guy could be into bodybuilding, in my experiences nerdiness will always trump the bod. For example, on a date with my former coworker at the House of Lex, I learned that underneath those impeccably tailored suits he wore, he was packing some serious guns. Of course, you wouldn't know this unless he decided to clue you in on it. He was short, bald, aged like a soap opera baby (I found a recent pic of him online and even though he's only 6 years my senior, what's left of his hair is all white and he looks like he could tell you what he was doing the day Kennedy died) and any woman with an IQ under 180 would have a tough time getting through dinner with him, but he was also kind of buff, too. I was really into him for all his braininess, but not so much the guns. I was under the impression that concealed weapons were illegal in Massachusetts.

What about the whole protector thing? Isn't that why these muscley guys are always on the cover of romance paperbacks? Women want to be protected, right? Maybe feminism ruined the enjoyment of finely chiseled male bodies for me. Muscles=dominance. Muscles=oppression. Muscles=power. Muscles=overcompensation. I also don't care for sports. I like soft, cottony things, like puppets and stuffed animals, and my beloved husband personifies the best that stuffed friends have to offer.

I feel I'm pretty safe from Bob deciding to go out and get a six-pack of anything but Firemans #4, but still, I harbor no desire to cuddle up to anything but fat and moosh. Not that I'd pay $250/hr for that, but you know...bodybuilders just weird me out. So do people who pay large sums of money to do a buff man's laundry for him.

in a room full of zavens

This coming July 4th weekend, I am joining my mother at a big Armenian banquet event in San Diego. The last time she attended a big Armo event, she met the ex-stepdad, so clearly I need to be there to run interference should some limp-ass loser crawl out from under the dessert table and try to marry my mom. She doesn't need that and though it would be nice if she had a quality male companion, I doubt that he'd come from the tribe. Armo men don't age well, and many of them are divorcees with impotence problems who would either want someone to do their laundry and fix their meals or are fixin' to gold-dig. NO THANK YOU.

The real reason I'm going is, of course, research. This is the type of event that my Armo character Zaven would attend, and so I am going to find the real Zaven Melkonian. I will wear my full wedding ring set (I'm not a bling girl) and do some Armenian line dancing (I sort of regret not having a few Armenian dances at my wedding) and try to talk to people, although I suspect it will be an older crowd. Like, my mom's age crowd.

I will also count how many natural Armenian noses are left in the room. Kef Time SD!

Also, if you're looking for the most polite teenagers in central Texas, look no further than Luby's. Bob and I dined there tonight (Bob had the Tuscan Chicken--they're performing miracles with chicken at the Lubes) and we were, of course, treated to some down home hospitality. Even though I love Luby's, it always foments some unpleasantness between Bob and I. He knows I pine for the northeast everyday and have for a long time and since I can't have my Borpe and my autumn leaves simultaneously, whenever something very Texan shows up I get kind of snotty and Bob gets mad at my snottiness.

I tried to antedate "improv" today for my own enjoyment and folly and have found I need to hie mine own arse to the UT library to do so. Beloved Former Employer has it as 1978, and I'm thinking there is proof that it was used prior to that. I did find their 1978 citation in the NYTimes, though. :)

what am I doing?

To answer Bob:

I am eating a rare French songbird, covering my head with a napkin to shield from God the sinful act of consuming l'ortolan, which is consumed whole, bones and beak included. Its luscious juices squirt all over my face as I chew with great sadness, disgusted at my own gluttony. Eating the songbird is almost like foreplay, for there is a freshly-killed 2 lb. langouste awaiting me in the kitchen, upon which I plan to exact acts of lust so intense that I expect that it will revive itself after I remove its tail meat only to smack me across the face with one of its dense, meaty claws. After this rich meal I will recline on the divan nude while my personal band of strolling violinists serenade me with songs that WWI soldiers died to on the front in 1918. If I get cold I will ask my muscular African butler to fetch me a coverlet. I do not anticipate this happening, for we keep the drawing room quite warm all year long.

What are you doing?

in lieu of baby pictures

As I will not be giving live birth to any humans at any point in my life, indulge me, why don't you? Photos of my proudest creation:

Just, so you know, I really wrote a novel and am not lying about it or spending my days dicking around. PoE's little sister, AitS, is still a bun in the oven, but she'll be a total cutey, too.

preach the gospel

Today I had coffee with my writer pal Carla. Carla offhandedly mentioned something to me about taking an acting class and I lept on her with all the fervor of a Mormon missionary finally finding an interested party.

"YOU MUST TAKE SHANA'S IMPROV 101 CLASS!" I said in an Owen Meany-esque all-caps voice. "OH LOOK THERE'S ONE STARTING MAY 5!"

"Okay," she said. "But I was more interested in acting..."

"EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANY INTEREST IN PERFORMING YOU SHOULD STILL TAKE IMPROV 101 BECAUSE ITS NOT JUST ABOUT IMPROV. ITS ABOUT LEARNING ABOUT YOURSELF, BEING PLAYFUL, INTERACTING WITH OTHERS, TAKING RISKS, COLLABORATING, UNDERSTANDING HUMAN MOTIVATIONS, FEELING GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF, FAILURE IS OKAY, MEETING NEW PEOPLE, AND A HUNDRED OTHER POSITIVE THINGS! IMPROV IS THE SNAKE OIL OF THE 21ST CENTURY, ONLY IT WORKS!"

I had Shana on the phone five minutes later sealing the deal.

Carla is excited about her class and I apparently get $25 off my next Merlin-Works class!

I'm just happy to preach the gospel wherever I can. Without improv, not only would I not be married to Bob, but we also wouldn't have played the most intense bout of "What Are You Doing" in the history of the game last night. Which we did. It was intense and descriptive and has changed our marriage forever. (I am not talking about sex. Purely a game of "What Are You Doing.")

where have all the trash-talkers gone?

Next week is the second annual Ladies are Funny Festival, aka LAFF (har de har har), sponsored by the City of Austin Arts Commission and organized by Las Geegsters. Troupes and stand-ups from such far-flung locales as Tempe, NYC, Chapel Hill, and Houston will be traveling to Austin to celebrate that most controversial member of the fairer sex, the funny female.

Last year when we did this, we experienced a bit of, how shall I put it, backlash against the idea that ladies should have their own funny festival. Such an event would fly in the face of gender parity and egalitarianism. Besides, it was mentioned, never in the history of Austin Improv has any male performer ever bulldozed a female performer or endowed her as his mother/sister/prostitute/secretary.

LAFF isn't about putting down the dudes, we explained, but several members of our community vocally (meaning on the internet) spat upon what we were doing, saying we were a big deal out of nothing. Not surprisingly, several females aligned themselves with this philosophy. We made a few people mad. Some guys threatened to go eat meat in a parking lot somewhere.

Even if people were joking or just blowing off steam, it still hurt our feelings. I promise you that it would be a most unpopular thing to be openly unsupportive of pretty much anyone else's improv endeavor except for ours. We might as well have been putting up the Aryan Brotherhood Improv Festival Sponsored by NAMBLA, the way people were carrying on. Yeah, I guess an all-female improv fest is, by definition, exclusive. But last time I checked, improv troupes themselves are exclusive, so what's the difference?

When the fest actually happened, it not only brought in an audience who hadn't come to see improv yet (one of our main goals), but a lot of the guys who we adore and love performing with came out to take tickets, watch the show, and empty the keg with us. The fest was a success, even if there were people who think we're assholes for doing an all-lady weekend (I assume these peeps think we're assholes the rest of the year too, so nothing we can do about that).

This year, public vituperation has been nonexistent, unless there's a friendslocked LAFFhating forum I don't know about. We've had plenty of volunteer offers from both men and women who want to support all forms of improv. Most guys recognize that what we're doing is intended to be inclusive and fun and that we're upping the Hideout's percentage of single women next weekend. This is good for community, and as always, improv wins.

If you are in Austin and want to come see all the funny ladies, click here for more info!

more happy cake posts

Even though it's Manischewitz season, there is one cake, available year-round, that I covet on the daily. It is served in numerous coffeeshops across Austin, including the one I frequent, T-bird. In fact, I am looking at it right now. Celeste's Best Pumpkin/Carrot Cake w/Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting.

A slice of this delicious baked good will set you back $4. A pretty penny for a square of single-layer cake. However, Celeste makes the frosting out of Tofutti vegan cream cheese substitute, and that stuff ain't cheap. The whole cake is vegan but also moist and delicious. I like to cut out dairy products wherever I can (I think I'm lactose intolerant--yesterday's latte caused much gastric distress, so I'm back on the soy) and this toothsome treat keeps you from missing them.

I want a slice of cake every time I come into the T-bird but since daily dessert is verboten among us figure-conscious American women over 30, I limit my intake to once a week, usually Saturdays. It has carrots and pumpkin in it--it has to be sort-of healthy, right? The cake is staring at me, though. And it is so damn yummy.

more jew than you

A couple weeks ago, a local Jew pal was commenting on getting all the Jewish improvisers together to have a Seder. My ears pricked up and I immediately demanded an invite. I've spent most of my adult life among the Jews and even kept Kosher during the time I lived with Lyd (and was expected to keep that up even when she was doing non-Kosher things outside the apartment, like eating bacon and touching boys while menstruating). I am a delightful presence at any seder dinner and I have references to prove it.

She laughed and gave me a confused smile, and it became apparent that I was NOT getting an invite. I explained how in my Easty-Coasty life I was counted among the tribe and was schooled in all matters Judaic. I was a quick learner, absorbing the Hebrew alphabet, major themes in Seinfeld, and what all the things on a seder plate mean. I even managed to convince my (Jewish) boss at Simon * Schuster (those are Jewish names) that I was Jewish and got paid time off for the Jewish holidays. AND GOT AWAY WITH IT! Unimpressed with my honorary Jew credentials, the subject was swiftly dropped, and I felt like she'd just aimed a big, powerful middle finger at me: "YOU ARE NOT A JEW, MO! MUA HA HA HA HA HA!"

I'm not saying I'm a Jew, but shit like this still hurts my feelings. Why would one set of Jews include me in their holiday celebrations and another uncomfortably but blatantly not? This is too bad, really, because there is nothing I look forward to more every spring than this delicious shit:

THAT'S RIGHT! Manischewitz kosher for pesach BROWNIES! And YELLOW CAKE!

"Real" Jews hate this stuff, but the crazy matzoh texture has appealed to me since the first time it graced by taste buds back in college. It comes with its own little Kosher pan and everything. I go out of my way (Kosher HEB on Far West, thank you) every March to load up for the year on my fave cake mix. This shit is, like, $6 a box, too! I'm for real!

Why I would cruise for an invite to a seder that would so not include KLP cake (heckshered by the OU no less--do you even know what that means? like I said, I can outJew a real Jew any day) is beyond me. L'chaim to me and my cake.

trichterbrust chirurgie

I am considering having the pectus excavatum surgery again. This time, I am considering going overseas. Germany. The most successful and respected pectus repairman in the world is in Berlin. They run an entire clinic dedicated to this and a few other thoracic specialties. I have heard about a dozen testimonials from patients of both sexes and a range of ages (teens to mid-40s) who are all pleased with the level of care and the surgical outcomes they have received from this doctor.

I would, of course, have to pay cash for this. It would come out to around $25,000 US for the surgery, plus travel. This, of course, is cheaper than what it would cost in the US for what would amount to inferior care plus battles with insurance companies. (had I done my surgery in LA last summer, it would have been $70K, easy, and we would have had to pay at least $20K of that ourselves) In Berlin, you are expected to stay in the clinic for at least two weeks post-op. They monitor your vitals, provide pain management, and keep a close watch on you. After a few days, they put you on a physical therapy regimen. A week after the initial surgery, you are expected to walk, stretch, and even swim.

After a week in the US, they send you home with a pill prescription and tell you to go to the ER if you have trouble breathing. And good luck getting your surgeon to talk to you. The last thing you want, after having eight of your ribs cracked and a metal bar inserted into your chest, is to be given the silent treatment by your medical team.

I feel bad dissing US doctors because a lot of them are limited by what insurance says they can do. I feel the standard of care in countries with socialized health care automatically goes up because your doctor isn't thinking about cash money as he's cutting you open.

I've been having trouble with my chest lately. Austin allergy season hasn't been helping with my breathing, which is already poor. I wake up with a sore chest. I can't lay on my right side anymore and I'm already drugged beyond where I should be in terms of my irregular heartbeat meds. I am not getting any younger and it is starting to seem ridiculous to continue to live like this, into my 40s and 50s.

This isn't the perfect solution. I hate transatlantic flights and I don't speak German (Bob does, sort of). But as sad as it makes me to admit this, putting my health in the hands of the American health care system seems risky and that I could pay less for superior care in another country, I'd be a fool not to do it.

Auf wiedersehen, Trichterbrust!

philip i am

I had a wonderful improv week. Two well-crafted, well-received shows, including a Cagematch win and a new Geegster format. I also learned via Shana's character in the show (who was a Henry Fool-style novelist) that intellectuals have more rights than common people (whew!). Tonight at rehearsal I realized that my improv life and my noveling life are melding together in a really weird way.

My character last night was a sweet, humble Boston Irish Catholic guy who sells chowdah from a caht on Boylston. I think I dropped my Baaston accent for a Brooklyn one a few times (I was mindful of dropping my Rs but a few snuck in anyway) but he was vulnerable and likable and he got the girl in the end (awww...). Today in rehearsal I played a similarly mild-mannered, nerdly older man with a bowtie.

Only I would know this, because no one has gotten to read the shittacular first draft of the hottest novel of 2011, Angel in the Snow, but all weekend I've been playing my male protagonist, Philip. He's a sweet, thin, nerdy, wistful guy who just happens to be in love with (post-traumatically, but love is love) with his dead daughter's 18-year-old school chum. And they are married now (I'm on page 137, which is almost the halfway mark) But everywhere I go, Philip seems to be with me these days.

I have to figure out at least one or two more things to happen to Carol and Philip before Vera shows up. I also realized that the fact that I've made my Texan character unlikeable but my New Englanders sympathetic may be cause for much scrutiny by future critics.

best line

GGG
4.12

MADS and SHANA order drinks in the Beauty Lounge: "A Manhattan and a Grasshopper."

ME as WAITRESS: (serving their drinks) Manhopper. Asshat.

There were other great lines in the show, which was a great show. Yay Cabaret Format! Chowdah!

got your boobs

For being a supposed straight girl, I sure get to handle a lot of breasts. I mean, seriously folks. Improv changes your life, but it has also put in my hands at least eight different sets of boobage over the last few years. The rumors are true, the Geegsters do really grab each other's boobs for good luck before a show. Most improv troupes do "got your back," a meaningful statement of support. We take support a step further.

I was in a really awesome Cagematch show last night. Jason V., brave soul that he is, wanted to do a show with himself and all women (since most troupes are mostly dudes with one or two ladies). So Twisted Knickers was born. We just did scenes, no gimmick other than the gender thing, and OMG, what great improv we did! I am still thinking about the really patient, weird, wonderful pool skimming scene (you had to be there). GGG's musical format doesn't really allow for much patient scenework (get to the song!) so it is a rare treat that I get to do pure improv. I had a great time and TN won for the night, so we get to go back and perform again (I hope it's not in May when I am out of town!)

During one of the scenes, I played a skeezy traveler in a Greyhound bus station waiting room. I made some off-handed (!) comment to Audrey about her breasts and she invited me to feel them. So I did. Had she not been wearing a bra, I could have been feeling for lumps. I was that thorough. I think the girl-on-girl tittie feel-up action might have secured our win, but it was still really good improv.

I just had coffee with my new pal Mary Jo. Mary Jo is sort-of famous. She's a writer too and I had a great time chatting with her. Yay new friends!

geegsters in a row

Foxy, soxy Geegster promo shot! Beautiful! This baby is going to run in a national magazine this summer.

Seriously, do I have fat upper arms or what? My upper to lower arm ratios are such that I regret not wearing long sleeves. Caca. National magazine.

Say nice things.

behemoth day

If you're me, you spent most of the afternoon wishing you were in NYC at the Behemoth Man of Mailer's Carnegie Hall memorial event. Prominent friends (authors and acolytes all) such as Didion, T. Brown, S. Penn, his nine children, and humble Behemoth archivist J. M. Lennon, were scheduled to speak on the man, the myth, the behemoth.

I'm out of the Behemoth archives loop at this point, but apparently an invite to the event did get sent to Harry's, although it did not include plane tickets. Not that I would have been tagged to go. Still, it would have been brilliant to be there, for all sorts of selfish, curious reasons. I look forward to reading about it on Gawker tomorrow.

Bless you, Behemoth!

who i am

My StodgyCats have been bringing in a lot of new traffic, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce myself and explain who this maudit Mo D. is.

Name: Monique/Mo. Last name starts with D.
Title: "Le maudit Mo D." is pronounced "le mo-dee mo-dee" and means (albeit with a gender error) "The Cursed Mo D." I like it because its French and it rhymes.

The correct La maudite Mo D. doesn't do it for me.

Who I am: A 32-year-old aspiring novelist, improviser, perennial gifted child, and proud alumna of a New England women's college. I am of Armenian/French extraction and my large nose confirms this. I hail from the great state of California and have been a resident of crazybutt Austin, Texas, since 2000.

Recurring themes: Improv, Ladycollege, pectus excavatum, Bob (my excellent, sexy, geeky husband), giftedness/nerds, Austin, New England, music, my former library career, people of lesser intelligence, personal demons/crises, food, grammar, Armenian stuff, girly/feminist stuff, upper-middle-class white culture, people from my past, friends, nonfriends, writing, trials, tribulations, crapola.

Thank you.

lame-o mater

Lord knows I love the Ladycollege, but as anyone who weathered four years under Sophia's, watchful, judgmental eye can attest, sometimes the place is bizarrely sexist. The fact that the Ladycollege still delivers a protective, condescending, holier-than-thou attitude to its alumnae just makes me sad and the only way I can deal with that sadness is by writing catty quatrains:

Back when we were students
The administration did balk
When we dared to express ourselves
With a stick of chalk!

I don't know how
Smith claims to be so moral
When it is well-known
For lots of girl-on-girl oral

Seriously, "the famous blue dress" might possibly, maybe, offend some unidentified oversensitive twat at the Ivy Day parade? I've been to (by my count) six Ivy Day parades in my time and I've seen references to hot flashes and marijuana smoking on some of the signs from the classes from the '60s, but somehow a vague reference to a topic that was in the news every freaking day for the better part of 1998 is in bad taste?

Who are they trying to protect? Some codgery old lady alum who might see our sign and decide not to leave her millions to the college? I seriously doubt that our sign is going to prompt a detailed discussion of the Lewinsky scandal between a parent and their five-year-old, but Northampton is full of supposed gifted children, so what do I know?

I also thought of asking them to change it to "4000 Americans dead in Iraq including a member of this class," since sex is so offensive and the pointless slaughter of our own young people isn't.

no untoward ejaculation on ivy day!!!

From my Ladycollege Reunion contact:

Hi Monique and Christine,
I've reviewed parade sign copy for all classes, and I wanted to touch base with you about one of your signs. While the reference to "the Famous Blue Dress" is not blatantly offensive, I'm concerned about its appropriateness, given the broad range of ages who will be viewing the signs. When we consider the signs for the parade, we must be sensitive to the audience who will be reading them. We hope you'll replace this sign with an alternate that might be a bit more in keeping with the positive spirit of the parade.

Thanks in advance for your understanding,
Amy

I guess that "Wellesley girls can't give head" sign definitely wouldn't have passed muster.

the best shirt for mo

http://www.threadless.com/product/1214/Word

I love this shirt.
I love the dictionary.
I miss my dictionary job. Maybe they'll take me back someday.

i still don't believe in the sun

Are headaches a normal symptom of Austin allergies? I think (hope) that I'm just rocking some allergies and not entering the mordant world of migraine suffering. This and the heating-up weather (it's not even 90 and I'm roasting like a pig on a spit and my eyes hurt!) are making it hard to breathe, and I still have a pretty bad headache, though not as bad as last night.

I don't think that I can spend the next five months in a cold, dark room (it helps the headache), but the prospect of another Austin summer makes me want to cry big bratty "wanna-go-back-to-Mass" tears, even though there is more air conditioning here. So what am I going to do?

i don't believe in the sun

Most days, around 4pm, I take a walk around my neighborhood. We live in a nice walking neighborhood and so I put on my iPod headphones and listen to whatever mopey indie rock is striking my fancy these days and take a lap. My usual route takes 35 minutes and gets my heartrate up just enough so that I don't feel like I'm going to pass out.

Yesterday was the first day that it was uncomfortably hot for me to take my walk. It was in the high eighties. I had enough water and was wearing the correct clothing. I soldiered through anyway, which was a bad idea. I didn't have sunglasses and by the time I got home I had charred my corneas. I was seeing spots, and I was really hot and couldn't cool down. I had two glasses of water, one with Emergen-C in it, and still felt like total shit on toast.

An hour later, I left for Geegster rehearsal. I was fine up until about an hour in rehearsal, when I got this really awful headache. It felt like screwdrivers jammed into my temples. I offered to direct the run-through since my energy was being spent on trying to not go home. Eventually, I felt like such crap that I got up and left rehearsal 45 minutes early, missing out on seeing the new GGG photos! POOP!

I came home, took off my clothes, and got in bed. I woke up a bit before Bob got home and ate some spaghetti, and then went back to bed.

Today, I am mostly okay.

WTF headache? I hope I'm not turning into a migraine person. That would suck. Headaches are weird and pointless.

we have been called out on our cultural vices

The feverish thrills my people (white overeducated thirtyish types from the coasts/urban areas) are receiving at the vibrating hand of the website "Stuff White People Like" can now only be articulated via the super-self-conscious medium of blogging about how much the memes on the site apply to your life. Also, I am copying Swilkes.

# #93 Music Piracy

# #92 Book Deals Yes. My life will be meaningless if I don't get one. So there!

# #91 San Francisco

# #90 Dinner Parties

#89 St. Patrick's Day

#88 Having Gay Friends I love me some gay friends.

#87 Outdoor Performance Clothes

#86 Shorts I live in fucking TEXAS. It's hot here!

#85 The Wire (Nope. Couldn't get into it at all. I tried, though.)

#84 T-Shirts

#83 Bad Memories of High School (I actually liked my high school, where 80% of the students weren't white!)

#82 Hating Corporations

#81 Graduate School

#80 The Idea of Soccer

#79 Modern Furniture

#78 Multilingual Children

#77 Musical Comedy Could I be any more guilty on this one?

#76 Bottles of Water

#75 Threatening to Move to Canada

#74 Oscar Parties (fuck no. i loathe the oscars.)

#73 Gentrification LOVE IT!

#72 Study Abroad

#71 Being the only white person around

#70 Difficult Breakups

#69 Mos Def

#68 Michel Gondry

#67 Standing Still at Concerts

#66 Divorce (divorce sucks. Shit would have to get super-bad for me to divorce Bob. Fuck #66!)

#65 Co-Ed Sports

#64 Recycling

#63 Expensive Sandwiches

#62 Knowing What's Best for Poor People

#61 Bicycles (I'm too klutzy for bicycles)

#60 Toyota Prius

#59 Natural Medicine

#58 Japan (Bob likes Japan. I am ambivalent.)

#57 Juno (didn't see it)

#56 Lawyers

#55 Apologies

#54 Kitchen Gadgets

#53 Dogs

#52 Sarah Silverman (fuck no to this one)

#51 Living by the Water

#50 Irony (I'm a Coupland kid por vida!)

#49 Vintage -

#48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops

#47 Arts Degrees (I thought about it for a while, but no)

#46 The Sunday New York Times

#45 Asian Fusion Food (why fusion? I was taught to eat at the authentic asian restaurants populated by actual asian persons.)

#44 Public Radio - (count me among the loser bitches who would totally do Ira Glass)

#43 Plays

#42 Sushi

#41 Indie Music Uh, yeah.

#40 Apple Products
Guilty.
#39 Netflix

#38 Arrested Development

#37 Renovations Yes, but I don't get off on talking about them. Our house is sort of dumpy!

#36 Breakfast Places -

#35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report

#34 Architecture

#33 Marijuana

#32 Vegan/Vegetarianism -

#31 Snowboarding

#30 Wrigley Field

#29 80s Night

#28 Not having a TV

#27 Marathons

#26 Manhattan

#25 David Sedaris

#24 Wine

#23 Microbreweries

#22 Having Two Last Names

#21 Writer Workshops I sort of have to do this, though. I don't always enjoy it. Does that count for something?

#20 Being an expert on YOUR culture

#18 Awareness

#17 Hating their Parents

#16 Gifted Children I'm not having kids because if they weren't gifted, I would hate them

#15 Yoga I do yoga.

#14 Having Black Friends

#13 Tea - Delicious tea! Tea is my friend! (So is T-square!)

#12 Non-Profit Organizations

#11 Asian Girls

#10 Wes Anderson Movies I think I'll go watch Rushmore.

#9 Making you feel bad about not going outside -

#8 Barack Obama He got my primary vote!

#7 Diversity

#6 Organic Food

#5 Farmer's Markets I like our farmer's market but only go maybe once a month.

#4 Assists

#3 Film Festivals

#2 Religions their parents don't belong to

#1 Coffee
I am no connoisseur but I have been known to drink it, and I spend a lot of time in coffeehouses.

ONLY 38! Maybe I really am from C-Juana?!?!

welcome international community????

Okay, who put my blog on "stumbleupon?" I see the international community is stumbling upon my worthless crap blog. Thank you, folks from Jamaica and Peru. I don't know you, but hi.

My traffic is way way up and its freaking me out. Why oh why???

Also, welcome to those linking to my STODGYCats. I iz in my sitemeetur, checkin my reefuralz.

maudit travel agency

So, first of all, fuck American Airlines and all her friends. Those bitches are greedy and unflexible. I am paying some large amount of money that could feed an entire village in Malawi for three months in order to change the plane tickets I bought in February for my reunion, which is now a Massachusetts Deluxe Vacation, as Bob's pal Dave was going to be in Boston the weekend before, so what the hell? I'm hanging with my girl Katy Shea, seeing my favorite ex-coworker Ann, Virginia Reeling around the fountain with *l*st**r, and looking at boats. There might also be lobster rolls.

What trouble. We still have to fly into Hartford and drive our asses two hours to Beanytown because its cheaper by a bit.

F.

There are also hotel rooms and car rentals for Geegsters coming up. I am blowing my annual travel load in May and June. Yes I am.

Bob and I often talk about how boring the Lemonheads were in the '90s, in spite of their massive popularity, and they are being played at Ee-pok Coffeebusiness right now. They're like listening to cotton. The aural equivalent of oatmeal. Oatmeal in a sock. Why did we like them so much when I was a teenager? We had Nirvana and they were better!

I should toddle off to my singing lesson now. My weekly foray into singing jazz is pleasurable and makes me a better person. Be-doobley-do-skibbly-dee.

My wedding ring has caused my ring finger to turn red and scaly. I hope this is not an omen. I don't think it is. I'm flying sans ring today, so nobody get the wrong idea.