Amusements of an Italoanglimerican

Sweet Jesus!

2009-03-12T08:13:00.005Z

This totally made me hungry for Cheetoes. Thanks a lot, JESUS.

Still on my mind.

2009-02-24T19:44:00.000Z

Basically, I want to be that guitar.

Too Good To Wait

2009-02-08T16:35:00.008Z

Were I a good blogger, I would have waited a couple of weeks to post this. March 2 would have been my late husband's* 61st birthday, you see. But it's getting near sundown, it's snowing again and we are alone in the house together. Like so many times before, I am too overcome.

Happy early birthday, my darling. I miss you.

*Wedding may have taken place in my imagination.

Windier Days...A Bell-Kick Montage (The girl is me)(The producer is Beulah)

2009-02-06T15:04:00.002Z

Susan Sarandon Angst

2008-11-21T08:09:00.003Z

Every once in a while, I get sucked into the evil vortex of totally flat, ostentatious displays of schmaltz so syrupy you could attach a spigot to it and use it to dress your waffle. Stepmom. First of all, Stepmom isn't meant to be a tear-jerker. It's meant to be a tear-RAPER. And “I’ll remember always always!”, which is supposed to be the emotional climax of an exasperatingly melodramatic film, actually made me burst into laughter. Sorry. I just don’t know how Susan Sarandon managed to keep a straight face. And when Julia Roberts calls up Random House (just in general) and asks for Jackie, and the voice at the other end says, “This is the editor at Random House. I haven’t seen Jackie since she quit eleven years ago”, I face-palmed so hard it left a mark. What kind of puppy-torturer must she have been in her previous life to warrant that level of occupational karma? The only editor at the headquarters of a huge international publishing house, and not even a secretary to answer their single phone line! You’d think she’d be too busy eating potato bugs and talking to the bathtub to dispense sensible advice about looking for the house with balloons, but she is clearly a remarkable person (as evidenced by her savant-like memory as she recalls, without a moments' hesitation, exactly who an ex-colleague was even though she hadn't seen her in over a decade. What a trooper.)

Also, it totally re-affirmed my Susan Sarandon angst, which goes hand-in-hand with my Robert De Niro angst. You guys…IF YOU CAN HEAR ME…nobody is going to remember Thelma and Louise or Bull Durham or Taxi Driver or The King of Comedy if you keep this shit up! You’re legacy is going to be Meet the Fockers and The Banger Sisters…is that what you want? IS IT?? I mean, sure, the subject matter of The Banger Sisters prohibits me from hating it totally, but Susan? It’s a terrible movie. Curiously magnetic, but terrible. And I want to be as hardbodied and hot as Goldie Hawn when I'm in my mid-fifties, but again...terrible. And I do appreciate that someone finally attempted to immortalize Pamela Des Barres, but yes...terrible. And fine, I admit I own it on DVD, but only because it was reduced to £2.99 in the bargain bin. But nevertheless...terrible.

You take the good, you take the unbelievably bad...

2008-08-22T13:05:00.013Z

I'd say that I'm a big fan of everything through Edna's Edibles. When it burned down and became Over Our Heads, the show started to lose me. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was no longer ten, but it suddenly seemed that there were too many tertiary characters appearing out of nowhere, and Mrs. Garrett's presence got more and more confounding, and the homoerotic tension between Blair and Jo went from charming to FREAKING DO IT ALREADY, and then, out of nowhere, Cloris Leachman. The whole premise of the show suffered major suspension-of-disbelief problems after the first two or three seasons anyway, since no 18-20 year-old women I know would voluntarily share a bedroom unless the circumstances were very, very not what you would base a 1980's network sitcom on.

Of course, The Facts of Life as most of us think of it--Blair and Jo trading barbs, Natalie and Tootie gosh-golly-gee-ing around in pigtails--didn't actually come about until season 2. The FIRST season was thirteen episodes of pure bliss, and it stands alone in its unintentionally Felliniesqueness. Don't get me wrong, the first couple of Jo seasons are great, but nothing--NOTHING--out-camps the the houseful of superfluous girls hilariously overacting some of the most appalling dialogue every written. Sue Ann smokes pot! Is Cindy a lesbian? Blair wants to do the headmaster! Natalie finds her birth mother! Nancy loves Roger! Mrs. Garrett's ex-husband teaches the girls how to gamble! Blair's mom is a slut! Tootie, the original Rollergirl! Natalie buys a bong from a record shop to put jelly beans in! Plus, you have the sleaziest, 1970's-jailbaitiest costuming imaginable(one false move and we would have been able to see Lisa Whelchel's virtue for ourselves), you have Molly Ringwald as an 11 year-old, you have the Drummonds constantly popping up for no apparent reason, and nothing makes any rational sense whatsoever. It's a hot mess made in heaven.

The clip below is what started my lifelong girl-crush on Lisa Whelchel. Not even her descent into blithering, fundy psychosis can shatter my love completely (although it has facilitated significant erosion), because freaky-for-Jesus or no, she took my breath away--especially when her character was still vaguely skanky and chilled and kept a joint in her lipstick tube. The uptight, overachieving heiress Blair Warner of post-season 2 still bewitched me, but I clearly remember thinking that, when I got to be a teenager, I wanted to run around in purple satin hot pants and have long, luxurious, golden hair. This was before I was old enough to understand the cruel genetic lottery, of course.

Bloody Pagans!

2008-08-18T13:19:00.009Z

I walk through the St. Giles cemetary every morning, not because I'm like TOTALLY goth right down to the route I take to work, but because it's the most direct shortcut between the bus stop and my desk. In the summertime, all the homeless people set up their tents amongst the tombstones and trees; I don't know if the cops hassle them less or if it's just generally nicer or what, but you walk through there in early-morning July and it's like Glastonbury sometimes. Today I was talking to a guy called Kevin and he told me this:

At the end of one particularly intoxicated evening spent ambushing theater-goers with the standard "can you spare 50p so I can afford a cup of coffee" routine shouted at full auctioneer's tempo so as to get in a heartstring-tugging plea before the subjects managed to hurry out of earshot, Kevin crawled back to his tent in the cemetary to pass out. He had just about managed a full exit when he was suddenly jarred into confused, panicked consciousness by some loud chanting right outside his door... "Bloody Pagans, dancing round a tree and chanting at FOUR IN THE FUCKIN' MORNING!" he told me, completely appalled by utter the lack of decorum. "Well, I come runnin' out with my fist, an' I shouted 'You bloody Pagans! Can't you see that people are TRYING TO SLEEP!!" Despite his initial bravado, however, in the cold, hungover light of the next day, Kevin decided it was best to move on, because "Fuck that spooky shit."

Also, my humming improved.

2008-07-24T10:44:00.007Z

What a bizarrely chipper mood cycling puts me in! I loathe to imagine that I'm on the road to becoming one of those hardcore enthusiasts with the neon spandex and special gloves, but who knows. I might be. I made pretty good time this morning, too. I would have arrived even sooner had the bike not tipped over while I was wrestling with the front door on the way out. The basket on the back, into which I stuff my work clothes, lunch, purse and all of the zillion items those things entail, snapped completely off and I couldn't figure out how it had been affixed to the back in the first place. I stood outside, still half asleep, staring at the fallen bike for a while before I managed to get it together enough to go back in the house and find some bungee chords. I probably could have made it in by 7:30 had I not been forced to faff around and conjure WAY too much problem-solving, analytical brain power for that hour of the morning.

Oh, and I swallowed a bug. It was on Five Mile Drive. That doesn't happen as often as you might think, especially when you consider that I have to go through some areas that are positively rainforestesque in their insectiness. In fact, it has only happened one other time--a couple of years ago, but I will never forget that day because I was cruising down Jordan Hill, which is the only truly fun part of the trip (a very long, steep decline--very "WHEEEE!" and welcoming, especially on a hot day) when a bee...a freaking BEE...slammed into my tonsils with such force that the impact killed it instantly. At least, that's what I choose to believe. I swerved madly, sputtering and gagging and amusing the passing motorists, screeching to a stop on the overpass and desperately trying not to swallow, but it was too late. I ate the bee. I was totally disgusted and shuddery for the rest of the day. However, I did not suffer any negative gastrointestinal consequences, so there's a survival nugget for you--if ever you find yourself starving in the jungle, feel free to eat bees.

This morning's bug wasn't as big of a deal. It was a little gnat or something. It wasn't actually that disturbing. I think the bee incident made a woman out of me.

Awesome House of Big, Happy Fun

2008-07-23T08:07:00.004Z

He's been on my blogroll forlikeever, but I wanted to give a proper shout-out to the Bighappyfunhouse today because it's one of the best dern destinations on this whole confounding internets. Apart from my own lifelong fascination with vernacular photography (which,until Ron came along, I thought was just some weird and possibly unhealthy voyeurism issue involving other peoples' old pictures--who knew it was an actual thing!), what I love about this site is its simplicity. It's totally without prentention or wizardry of any annoying kind. They way he assumes that his hypnotically beautiful found art will showcase itself proves that he is, on a very crucial level, a true genius.

I could (and do) spend hours rifling through his treasures. It's impossible for me to comprehend how anybody could let go of their souls like that. At the same time, though, it warms my heart to know they've found a loving home.

Thing I discovered on walk today:

2008-07-21T12:26:00.013Z

There are certain items on my iPod that I have no choice but to skip over if I am in a public place. Added to that list today is anything off of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" album.

I was meandering down one of the (normally deserted) residential streets, running a finger along the low stone wall separating the houses from the pavement when, convinced of my solitude, I gave in to the unbearable temptation to (ever-so-softly) sing along with Jimi when he got to the "some people say...daydreamin's fo-hor the...lazy minded FEW-EW-HOOLS" part in 'May This Be Love'. I had my earphones blasting, though, so it was probably more like a moderate and hideously off-key shout, because I looked up from my reverie just in time to see a guy sitting in his parked truck, eating his lunch and laughing his ass off at me. Then he gave me a thumbs up. I can only hope that meant "Right on, Hendrix girl!" and not "Your assery on my behalf is much appreciated!"

Eh, either way. Let them laugh, laugh at me. Right Jimi? I wove you.

What the fuck is "workflow"???

2008-07-21T08:16:00.029Z

The fact that I was born missing the soft chunk of gray matter essential for allowing me even the most rudimentary understanding of corporate politics is something that I've always been proud of. Even after jumping ON the corporate bandwagon, which I was too mired in the muddle and existential panic of the mid-20s to properly think through, I always approached meetings and seminars and those infernal obligatory-by-implication, let's-everybody-get-wasted-and-sexually-harrass-each-other office social outings with a dismissive wrist-flick and the conviction that my ignorance simply illustrated the purity of my soul or some such dude-man bullshit.

Now thoroughly ensconced in the early-thirties rite de passage of receiving a daily skull-thwack from the crowbar of reality, however, I am growing ever more alarmed at my overwhelming ineptitude. My plaintive battle cry of "I will never understand you people!" has gotten less haughty and more panicked with each passing year, and I've come to realize that I most likely will never understand it, and not because I can't be bothered with spiritual mundanity of it all. I will never understand it in the same way that I will never understand nuclear physics or organic chemistry, and that might even be all right because lots of people don't understand those things, but that's why said people leave the nuclear physicsing and organic chemistrying to those with the capacity to deal with it. Right? One doesn't flunk basic chemistry in high school and then think, "Hey! This could be a career path!" Right? Of course not! Usually.

It's not that I simply disagree with corporate philosophy but, like so many of my colleagues, recognize that 99% of people in this world do what they gotta do and that's life, baby. My lack of understanding goes so, so far beyond that. I mean, that is what I aspire to. That's the physics. I can't even clearly define what it is about the corporate environment that I so strenuously disagree with, apart from the fact that it sucks the soul right out of my body and vomits it 40 hours per week closer to death. But doesn't it do that to everybody?

It's all very well and good to heroically suffer the indignities like a line-toeing martyr until you realize that you've been doing the same job for five years and people far stupider than you are making a lot more money and hey! Let me try that! and you come out of a meeting with Production Department upper management feeling like you've been listening to Ronnie Wood recite Japanese poetry though a voice modulator and all you can wonder is who, in fact, is the real member of the idiot masses.

The Shat In the Hat

2008-07-04T13:59:00.002Z

Because I'm currently struggling to produce more substantial wordsmithing and yet I still long to share my innermost being with you, I embed a Youtube treasure that is particularly close to my soul.

99.89996% of everything I love about life is contained within its five minutes and two seconds, not the least of which is The Shat himself.

"We're all fucked. It helps to remember that."

2008-06-23T09:22:00.001Z

Goodbye, Daddy.

The Deal sisters are gods.

2008-06-06T21:02:00.002Z

But of course, we all knew that.

Why can't I own Canadians?

2008-05-19T19:40:00.008Z

I'm currently watching a thoroughly depressing episode of Dispatches that spotlights the importation of fundamentalist Christianity from the U.S. into the U.K. It seems that a growing number of Brits have got the whole schtick worked out to the letter, right down to the goldmine of fundy wisdom that includes "I have 20 grandchildren. I don't want my grandsons to think it's okay to get shit on their penis." (I'd kill for a Youtube link to insert here, but it's only just now airing. I'm sure it will come in time. For now, as hard as it may seem, you'll just have to take my word for it.) Sigh. For fuck's sake. Why, with a wealth of import-worthy fabulousness including 3 Muskateers bars and washing machine technology, does the U.K. keep scraping my homeland's colon for cultural inspiration? And, I mean, yes, thank you, Dispatches, for giving the whole thing the circus side-show Louis Theroux treatment it so richly deserves, but still, British people? I beseech you. Please. Stop it. Stop it now. And stop it good. And FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED (mit irony), don't elect them to public office. The world has been through enough.

Update:
The shining paradigm of godly virtue can be found at 1:35.

The problems with today, in order of suckiness:

2008-04-29T18:07:00.007Z

1. Rainiest, coldest, most minging day in recent history

2. Leaving magnificent bag of Manchego cheese, mortadella and fresh Medjool dates--purchased from the swank deli down the street expressly for my gastronomic pleasure since I knew I'd be dining solo tonight--in the fridge at work

3. Gym closed for "renovations" which, most likely, will not include the chiseling of six months' buildup of encrusted body fluids from the surfaces of the equipment

4. Perky, adorable and innovative personal trainer who thinks it would be a GREAT IDEA to do circuit training in the adjoining field in full view of the junior high rugby team (because nobody is more courteous and able to keep their opinions to themselves than thirteen year-old boys)

5. An hour and a half of progressively gustier winds and sandblastier rain whilst jumping through the mud trying to negotiate said circuit

6. The kind offer of the gym-renovation staff to let me use the stankiest toilets in the history of stank toilets to briefly mop my hair and "waterproof" mascara-streaked face with .0005-ply toilet paper before venturing back out into the monsoon to wait a further 30 minutes for the bus.

Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow...cannot possibly suck so much.

Screaming Fans

2008-04-15T16:54:00.014Z

I've always been a freak magnet. As far back as I can remember, I've sported some kind of irresistible forehead tattoo only visible to the criminally insane, and no matter how I've tried, I can't seem to shake it. The pants-wetters, the booger-eaters, the inappropriately tactile, the uncomfortably direct...I am their queen. Once, as a teenager, I sat on the Spanish Steps in Rome and endured a particularly brutal string of increasingly disturbing propositions from a Dutch junkie who's name, I still remember, was Yoopie. Brimming with seventeen year-old gumption, I said to him, "Yoopie, let me ask you a question. What is it about me that makes you think this is okay?" and, after a few seconds of honest thought, he answered, "I don't know. Perhaps you should just go with it." And honestly, I thought that was fair enough. Sound advice coming from source. I wanted an answer, and I got one. So I've tried. Through the years, I've tried to train myself not to freak out when people lurch toward me reciting street poetry, dribble a-flying. I've made an honest, valiant effort to allow for the off-kilter logic of the reality-challenged. Honestly, I have. But no matter how I try, and no matter how much of a compassionate Zen master I tell myself I truly could be if I only tried HARDER, I can't seem to stop my innards recoiling in horror when the old man on the bus rubs up against me and yells "UNCOMFORTABLE?UNCOMFORTABLE?" In fact, it seems that the more it happens, the less used to it I get.

Today, I stepped out of my office for some...fresh air, and a man lunged up to me and asked if I had an extra cigarette. I said no because I'd only brought the one out with me, and he said thanks anyway and continued up the sidewalk. I knew it was too easy to be over that painlessly and, sure enough, when he got to the other side of the street, he turned around and started screaming "YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL...YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL IT'S TRUUUUE..." all James-Blunt-on-crack-style and would not stop. I couldn't really do anything but stand there awkwardly and feign confusion as passersby gave me WTF-eyes. I finished my cigarette in three long drags and hurried back toward the main gate as he trotted after me on the opposite side of the street, declaring his admiration for my silhouette in supersonic, pornographic detail. As I pawed desperately around my purse for my swipe card, the security guard said, "Looks like you've got a fan!"
And my reign continues.

EuGENIUS.

2008-04-07T19:28:00.006Z

I’ve been quietly digging Eugene McDaniels for several years now, and it has recently exploded into full-blown obsession. Only the best music creeps up on me like that. When the roots are there and suddenly the flower blooms and fills my soul with colors, that’s when I know it is real love.

Eugene McDaniels has a voice that is clear, mesmerizing and completely without trickery, which is the rarest, most wonderful musical talent that can be bestowed upon a human being. Look for it sometime. It’s a lot more difficult to find than you might think. That he gels with deceptively gentle funk and biting, hilarious, intelligent lyrics that are classically timeless and timelessly profound is just a happy coincidence. The magic tumbles out of him and into me, closing a 38-year gap in time like it’s nothing extraordinary and he just happens to be standing right behind me with his finger on my spine. Mostly, though, it just makes me so butt-shakingly happy I could kiss my iPod.

Quintessential “Cherrystones” below. I recommend it loud, and with adequate boogieing space.

Blasphemy can be hilarious.

2008-04-03T12:48:00.001Z

Italians do it better...usually.

2008-03-17T08:49:00.008Z

I've been a hatin', non-updatin', procrastinatin' gutter wench. Consider your forgiveness begged. And just to prove how much I still love you, please enjoy this...how do you say...hilarious monstrosity.

Also, please know that my 'draft' posts are too numerous to count. And, unlike Alberto Camerini after making this video, they will be coming soon and often.

R.I.P. Buddy Miles

2008-02-28T14:35:00.004Z

Goodbye, Great One.

King Yellowman

2008-02-08T15:27:00.014Z

When I moved to Naples at the age of fifteen, my intake of American pop culture was virtually severed at the carotid artery. Every once in a while something would trickle through but, for the most part, my perception of what was legitimately cool and cutting-edge trailed off somewhere around Sam Kinison. I know.

At the time, I felt like my human rights were being sadistically violated, but you make do. And, for the most part, I’ve found that my complete and utter lack of cultural reference points between 1990-1997 seems to disturb others more than it does me. I've made it this far without collapsing under the weight of cruel deprivation brought on by never owning a Pearl Jam album, so I doubt it had any lasting ill effects. I'd even go so far as to say that can only thank my lucky stars, musically speaking, because Italian pop was strictly of the Eros Ramazzotti School of Metaphysical Crap, but there were two pretty good vinyl stores in downtown Naples—this was a couple of years before CDs really took off, and southern Italy seemed to have mysteriously bypassed the whole cassette revolution completely—and I spent many, many productive hours clopping through the cobbelstones, sniffing around for something new.

My strategy for finding a record to buy consisted of flipping through the stacks until something stood out, either because the band name was so stupid (The Dentists—Heads and How To Read Them), the album cover was cool (Death In June—The World That Summer) or it just sounded titillatingly evil (Bad Religion—Suffer). This method was pretty hit or miss, as one can imagine, but when it worked, it worked like crazy and oh, how my mind dipped and swayed! By far the most awesome of these sound-unheard purchases was Yellowman & Fathead—Bad Boy Skanking. Everything about the album--the title, the cover photo, the names of the songs--radiated awesome. There was NO WAY this wasn't going to be good. I remember sitting on the train as Mergellina and Montesanto whizzed past, gazing happily at my 11,000-lire purchase and dying to just get home so I could listen to it.

Having just digitally re-visited the album fifteen years later, I'm struck by the debt to late '70's, early '80's Jamaican dance-hall music. Yellowman's first major, 1982 release sounds like it could have come out last week and won a Grammy. Innocent, simple, uncomplicated. What a lot of hip-hop would be if it learned to let go and stop being so self-conscious. But twenty-odd years before hip-hop charged its way to the foreground and started making wealthy, Western youth overcompensate for their lack of street cred, Yellowman was turning his own gravely disadvantaged youth and outcast status into a profound artistic statement. I didn't know any of that at the time, though. I just remember sitting in front of my parents' rickety turntable, transfixed, amazed, delighted, head-bobbing myself into whiplash, wondering where Yellowman had been all my life, and how ignorant I really was about heaven and all of its treasures.

An opening.

2008-01-09T08:18:00.000Z

This morning, I got an e-mail from a friend that started like this:

Ok. Am I such an idiot that I never responded to this? Probably. Lo siento. You can't begin to imagine what a mess I am.

Maybe it's the insomnia talking, but I just kept thinking, "Beautiful, man, beautiful."

Rocket Science

2007-12-02T12:02:00.000Z

The other day, Karl and I were discussing million-dollar homes. Specifically, why in the name of all things good and proper would someone with a million dollars to spend on a home would choose a run-down, two-bedroom, terraced, rat-infested toilet just because it's in the middle of a large city. Specifically, London. London is a city that always seems like one discarded prophylactic away from Victorian times. Every time I go there, I feel as though I could have been wading knee-deep through feces and murdered prostitutes as recently as last Tuesday.

A few months ago, I was dispatched to the house of a well-known and beloved athiest to deliver a manuscript. Oxford is infinitely more pleasant than London, but it still blows my mind that people of means voluntarily sandwich themselves amongst the potholes and puke puddles of urban centers when they don't have to. When I think of million dollar homes, I think of space and green and circular driveways, not wobbling through gravel and cat shit to reach the door of a whatevery brick structure that stands approximately six inches from the next whatevery brick structure. Karl said, "His neighbors can probably hear him thinking." I mean, seriously.

For a rich genius, it seems awfully stupid.

The Earth is round.

2007-11-28T09:16:00.000Z

And RX is glorious.

Well HELLO!

2007-11-26T13:14:00.000Z

I think tomorrow I'll go for the orange lipstick.

Waxing Nonsensically and Unwhimsically About Masks Because it's Halloween or Something

2007-10-31T14:53:00.003Z

I've always maintained that I am sorely lacking in star-power. Nothing about me translates into "fabulous". I know a lot of people who have it in abundance, who get showered with bursts of rose-petaled adoration by everyone from their family members to total strangers on the street, and I always watch them like a newly-hatched baby hawk. Slack-jawed. It's beautiful to contemplate, but so mysterious and incomprehensible that it might as well be quantum physics. As someone who has never made it past the first round in anything, who has plodded uninterestingly through life amongst the throngs of the profoundly ho-hum, I often find myself wondering what it's like to be so dazzling. A commander of attention. A winner of hearts. An earner of admiration. A brusher of luxurious, flowing hair. A breather through an adorable, button nose. The people who have these things aren't talking. It is the first rule of the Fabulous Code to swath oneself in silky, translucent modesty. I learned that when I was five and my best friend, Sarah, told me that my hair was prettier than hers. It wasn't true, of course--my flyaway, albino fuzz was practically dust compared to her lustrous handfuls of chestnut curls--but it was the first time I became conscious of the phenomenon, and even more conscious of the fact that I wasn't a part of it.

Honestly, it's not an affliction tragic enough to earn much sympathy. I think the main component is some kind of superhuman mental energy that I'm not even sure I'd have the strength to summon, let alone maintain. One time I watched the movie and Barbra Streisand said to Lauren Bacall, "What was it like to walk into a room and KNOW that you were the most beautiful woman in it?" and Lauren Bacall said, "It was...really nice." and I clutched my chest and went *gasp* and my eyes brimmed with tears.

And then I felt tragically stupid for the whole rest of the evening.

Spider John Koerner makes me want to marry Minnesota.

2007-10-23T18:55:00.001Z

For a sleepy, snowy, non-newsworthy state, my homeland sure has produced an impressive little collection of adorably-accented people who have made my life worth living.

I got to see Spider John at a festival a couple of years ago, tucked away from the main stage in a less auspicious tent where 50 or so people sat on fold-out chairs or in the dirt. For me, he was THE stand-out in a three-day marathon of stand-outs.

Love.

Blessed are the weak plot lines.

2007-10-18T08:59:00.000Z

Last night, I caught the last fifteen minutes of My Science Project on TV and, I have to say...wow. Just...wow.

For one thing, I hadn't seen it (or even thought about it or even remembered that fragments of it existed in the cobwebbed annals of my memory) since about 1986. Secondly, it was really interesting to find out what happened to John Stockwell, who was everywhere in the 80's, and with whom I was, therefore, in love with by default. (According to IMDB, John Stockwell always wanted to direct.) You remember My Science Project, don't you? John Stockwell needs an A on his science project or he flunks the 12th grade? His best friend is the Italian stereotype guy? Dennis Hopper, in a wildly uproarious lapse of judgement, is the science teacher? So they go to a military junk yard and find a laser ball, the kind they sell at Spencer's? And they don’t know what the fuck it is? And they play around with it in amazement? And they figure out that it’s a time machine? And the crossroads of the space-time continuum localizes in their high school? And Dennis Hopper uses the time machine to go to Woodstock? So then they have to save the town? And John Stockwell uses his really fast car to outrun an electrical current? And then he falls in love with the nerdy girl? And in the end, he gets the A? It’s like, Weird Science minus Kelly LeBrock plus Fisher Stevens taking itself way too seriously.

It is tremendous.

It is late-night popsicle entertainment for the seasoned insomniac at it's fragrant best.

Me and my magic man, kinda feelin' fine.

2007-10-15T12:56:00.001Z

Uriah Heep and a particularly lucious week on Geekologie (the headline of this entry alone was enough to reduce me to a spasming pile of high-pitched, wheezy, inhaler-giggles) has made for the most pleasant Monday that I can remember in a while. It's all downhill from here, of course, but at least I can revel in my own, personal feel-good cache of opulent cheese for a few brief moments before succumbing to "Come on, your knees don't hurt that much, do they?" personal-trainer hell.

Whilst cleaning out the refrigerator this weekend, the OM and I were waxing lyrical about what makes the music of the not-born-yet(-or-just-too-little-to-care)bygone era so vastly superior to anything else in the history of the universe. We came up with a lot of things, but my favorite was the assertion that even the most cheesy, horrible, commercial, vulgar display of shallow musical trickery could still be rocked out to, and with minimal guilt.

Sick and tired. And bored.

2007-10-08T15:24:00.002Z

I meant to work on The Screenplay today. I really did. I suppose taking an Alan Lomax book into the bathtub with me could qualify as research, but really, I could have accomplished so much more. Granted, it's only 4:30, but let's face it--there is laundry to be folded. Dinner to eat. The new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm to watch. Nails to paint. Playlists to re-shuffle. All of that stuff takes time. Anal-retentive, painstaking time.

Every year, as soon as the temperature drops below 60F, every non-fatal malady on the British Isles makes a beeline for my immune system. While I appreciate the brief escape from the woes of every day life and the opportunity to pursue much more worthwhile projects (in theory), I can't stand being sick. I feel like it takes away too many options. No, I probably wouldn't have gone skydiving today anyway, but I'd like to think that, if the urge suddenly overtook me, I wouldn't be locked down by my body's steadfast commitment to overproducing phlegm. And, as much as every day life makes me crazy, it almost makes me crazier when I can't be a part of it. I'm just sure that the one day I miss will be the day something fabulous finally happens.

I have only this to say about daytime TV: I think public marriage proposals may have taken over from men spitting on the street as my number-one pet peeve. Who honestly believes that is a good idea? Who looks forwared to telling their children and grandchildren that one of their most personally significant moments took place on a JumboTron? Or in front of a hooting studio audience? And why do major television networks think it's a good idea to "surprise" people with a wedding ceremony? That really confuses me, because if ANYONE had come up to me and said, "You're getting married tomorrow! And here's the dress you'll be wearing! And here are your rings! And there will be a cake or something, don't worry! Just pretend the cameras aren't there!", I'd have had a brain hemorrhage. Yet, these women all wax glowingly rhapsodic about how they felt like princesses and couldn't have asked for a more perfect day and it was like a fairy tale and bleat bleat bleat. They're not even a little irritated about it? They're not experiencing even the tiniest shred of famewhore panic? I find that hard to believe.

Maybe the problem is that I don't really get weddings in general. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed mine. Once we got to the restaurant and I was able to take the heels off and have a shot of whiskey, of course.

Ya sure you betcha.

2007-10-06T18:07:00.000Z

I've been flat on my back all day with a fever, totally entranced by a season 2 marathon of Who Do You Think You Are?. Who Do You Think You Are? is one of those shows that reinforces the BBC's reputation of creating television viewing experiences that are, truly, high-end kickass. Celebrities (most of whom, with the exceptions of Stephen Fry and my "distinguished gray" fantasy-crush Jeremy Paxman, I've never heard of) trace their genealogies back through several generations and find out who sympathized with the Nazi party or worked as a prostitute in Victorian London or what have you. It's absolutely riveting, and it has fed my already healthy genealogy fetish sufficiently enough to justify forking over for a membership on ancestry.com. Bless techology.

Genealogy fetishes run in my family. There is a stunningly extensive photograph collection of stern-faced, pale, Scandinavian people scattered throughout my mother's house, including a beautiful portrait of Great Grandma Hilde as a teenager, before she immigrated to America from Norway. She's swathed in black petticoats, a Mona Lisa grin touching the corners of her mouth, her thin, light hair spilling over her shoulders. People always think that it's a picture of me dressed up for one of those goofy, old-timey joke photos. I've always loved the fact that I look freakishly like her. And I've always wondered if, had she been clairvoyant enough to know that her great-grandkid would come out looking freakishly like her, she would have loved it a little bit also.

On the 1910 federal census, Great Uncle Rolf is listed as being 5 years old and named "Ralph". Maybe he told the census-taker that his cat's breath smells like cat food.

Dizzy Nerdorama

2007-10-05T09:58:00.000Z

I love going to class. I love saying “I’m going to class.” I’ve loved it ever since University, when I used to tear into the new course listings every quarter in a manner not dissimilar to the way I salivate over the menu at Greenwood’s whenever I visit my brother in Atlanta. I’ve always had a strong penchant for situations where people in positions of authority are legally obligated to be nice to me, but even my raging case of Teacher’s Pet Syndrome is but a pebble on the vast, pebble-strewn beach of reasons why I love going to class.

I love all of the trappings. The syllabi. The lists. The notes. The new pen that glides across the pages of a dazzlingly empty notebook, which have both been purchased mere hours before during a giddy stationery-shop spree. I love the stationery shop, but I don’t often buy anything in it because I’m self-flagellating about (pretty much everything, including) spending money on items that do not directly contribute to my survival. But if there’s a class…a shiny, new, desk-and-eraserboard class…the shelves of notebooks are laid out before me like tantalizing, necessary candy, dripping vibrant colors and patterns all over my solar plexus and drawing me into the world of infinite, borderless possibility. It doesn’t matter that, within three months’ time, the notebook will join its psychedelically-painted brethren in the graveyard of unfinished business at the bottom of my bookshelf while I work through another bout of self-loathing. No. That isn’t even a thought right now. All that matters are the college-ruled stars in my eyes and the brilliant, beautiful words that I haven’t yet written, but just know that this time I will. Possibility never looks tarnished.

I love knowing things I didn't know a half an hour ago. I love going back over what I've written and figuring out how I can apply it and revelling in its sense of promise. It's pure raw potential, a new horizon, momentarily breaking free from a self-imposed prison of boredom and doubt. I love listening when somebody knows something that I want to know. I love feeling like I'm being told something useful, a phenomenon that occurs increasingly rarely in my everyday life. I love a new book, the weight of it in my hands, the way I just want to consume it all at once like a mouthful of steak and mashed potatoes.

I hate homework, though.

Eight is the dorkiest number that I ever did.

2007-09-27T18:43:00.001Z

First, THE RULES:
1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Second, of the magnificent bloggers to the left, a whole two of them know and/or care that I exist. One of them is the steaming-hot mass of awesomeness who tagged me. The other one is the steaming-hot mass of awesomeness named Mary. So I will tag her. And her alone. This meme dies with me.

As you can see,

1. I am a rule-breaker. As you can also see, however, this is not because I'm a minxy rebel who drips charming irreverence in my freshly-cut path; it's just that I am too lazy and/or ambivalent and/or unsavvy to adhere to very many rules.

2. I have a passion for raw fish that truly pushes the limits of culinary decency. The displays at the fish counter in Sainsburys make me drool. And, as I press my nose longingly against the iced glass, all I can hear is John Bender's nostril-flaringly indignant, "You won't accept a guy's tongue in your mouth and you're gonna eat that?"

3. The single greatest thing anyone has ever said to me is:Being with you is like being in a bad Fellini movie.

4. I sincerely believe that, with the exception of John Mayall's albums from the late sixties and early seventies, saxophone solos lame up just about every rock and roll song they touch. "Sweet Virginia" by the Rolling Stones is a perfect example. Just as it's approaching its hair-swinging, foot-stomping crescendo, the sax blows in and sends the whole thing spiraling down into the cheddar-scented bowels of Lamesville, like that one overbearing, talentless guy who always ruins open-mike night.

5. The second greatest thing anyone has ever said to me is: Of course I remember you!

6. I don't think Woody Allen did anything wrong and I love him and Mia Farrow is a psycho bitch and he's a genius and he's handsome and shut up and I love him and no, he has NOT sucked for the last fifteen years and his glasses are sexy and I love him and will he marry me?

7. I'm a retard. I got the tiny scar under my chin when I fainted after holding my breath for too long whilst trying to fight a particularly stubborn case of the hiccups. True story.

8. Brigitte Bardot deserves a little respect. Hear me out. She's gotten a lot of flak for being a homophobic, xenophobic, racist harpy mainly because she is a homophobic, xenophobic, racist harpy. But I saw an interview the other night in which she addressed her infamous comments by simply shrugging her aged shoulders and saying, "Look, I just hate people in general. I've been used, hurt, manipulated, taken advantage of and disappointed by people my whole life. And I hate them." Now THAT is what I call self-awareness. It doesn't make her any less sad, but I can't help but feel a pang of respect for someone who really knows where their shit comes from.

Mary, I tag you out of love. The love I have for your writing. And for you. Won't you please come back.

There, I did it!

And I've got to say, I feel a little dirty.

Avoid Boring People (elementary, my dear Watson)

2007-09-07T13:06:00.000Z

You never stop outgrowing shit. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it just fades out like a radio signal. There’s no heady, explosive epiphany that gets burnt into the pages of your encyclopaedia, no birth, no death, no sirens, no Hallelujah chorus. I couldn’t tell you the precise moment I stopped rapturously sprinting down the Barbie aisle at Toys ‘r’ Us, or thinking that Top 40 radio was worth listening to. Those things were there, and then they weren’t. When you’re a kid, though, you can zip through a rapid-fire succession of dizzy phases and nobody so much as blinks an eye. It’s a lot harder to let go of something that has long outlived its usefulness to you when you’re in your thirties. Eyebrows are raised. You feel obligated to explain yourself. You don’t want to confuse or inconvenience anyone.

I miss the old days. I miss announcing that I now wished to marry Ralph Macchio instead of John Schneider, taping a new Tiger Beat centerfold to my bedroom ceiling, and just assuming that everyone around me would figure out a way to deal with it. I long for that kind of freedom again.

Good manners can feel like a prison sentence.

Lovely Luciano

2007-09-06T09:40:00.000Z

Goodbye, Luciano Pavarotti. To a life beautifully spent.

You will remain forever etched in our cultural history not only as a voice but also as the only famous living Italian never to appear on The Sopranos.

Adieu.

Post Vacation

2007-09-03T08:42:00.001Z

And feeling every penny.

My first run in six days was apocalyptic. By the 25-minute mark, I felt like I was going to hurl any second, and I was gasping and moaning and sweating except in a very, very bad way. I had to walk for two minutes before my heart stopped feeling like it was going to leap out of my chest and splat against the mirrors. Then I blew out my knees. Thanks, genetics!

So now is the post-vacation sag. I mean. One day off of work so that I can spend 72 hours with my in-laws in North Wales ain't exactly two weeks in the Bahamas, right, but I think the key idea is extricating yourself from the sinkhole of the every day and changing scenery. And North Wales is nothing if not a drastic change of scenery. It really took the edge off.

To capture what I fear to be a most fleeting yet exquisite case of mellow, please join me in marvelling at the hazy, drug-fuelled landscape of stoned madness that was children’s programming in the 1970s. You'll never be able to take the Oscars seriously again (in the highly unlikely event that you did in the first place.)

Sam's Creek Blues

2007-08-17T12:18:00.000Z

I never used to drink beer. I preferred the far more efficient (if less sociable) gin approach. I kept bottles of Fosters in the fridge anyway, though, because my co-workers tended to drop by a lot, and they were beer guys, back-slappin' Southerners in flip flops, and we'd sit out on my balcony in plastic chairs and I'd chain smoke and they'd take long, cold draws and make me laugh about whatever was upsetting me, if there happened to be something upsetting me, which there usually was. I never drank it myself, though. Then, one time, totally out of the blue, and for no reason apart from Jerry Douglas's dobro, the inkling took hold of me and I sat out in the plastic chairs alone, taking long, cold draws and watching the sun go down over the Atlanta Highway.

I remember flying down Vaughn Road with the windows down and Bruno’s bags full of Healthy Choice turkey dinners defrosting in the back seat with this blasting, blasting, blasting so loudly that I could feel it in the backs of my thighs. And it’s acoustic.

Little pockets of happiness filled with fairy dust and zing. Frozen forever in suspended, rose-colored animation, just how I like it.

I can't help missing the days when I didn't really have a mindset.

Now, I’m overtaken with homicidal rage the second I set foot inside a grocery store. Screaming hellions ripping things from the shelves while their corpulent mothers jiggle ineffectually after them. Overpriced slop, rotting vegetables. Mushy, brown apples.

Lettuce used to taste as luxuriously symphonic as raw honeycomb and cream cheese.

This must be one of the crappiest places in the western world.

Ah, songs.

Yay.

2007-08-15T12:19:00.000Z

Back when spell-check was a thrilling new concept with virtually endless entertainment possibilities, my friend and I entered the name of every family member, musician, band, celebrity, lowlife, acquaintence, historical figure, city name and dead politician we could think of into auto-correct. Something, and I can’t remember what, was auto-corrected to "Ripping Sensual Funghi." Those three words moved me so much that I vowed right then and there that I would find a way to incorporate them into as much as possible as often as possible as long as I remained on this good Earth.

Today, one more teenage dream came true.

Lookit Muy (for what else can the title be?)

2007-08-13T06:56:00.001Z

I should peer out from under life’s gray straightjacket a little more often, because I almost always end up getting clocked across the jaw by a gun butt of pure, uncut sunshine.

That’s right! New series! Woot woot! *mixing it up*

To the other, non-Australian reader of this blog, I implore you…familiarize yourself with the bottomless well of asthma-attack gasp-laughter that is Kath & Kim . Post-haste. I haven't been so delighted from down under since I was eleven and Paul Hogan corrected my fellow countrymen’s typically-inferior knife-identification skills.

Plus, this little tidbit of information

“…the fourth season will introduce characters played by…Little Britain's Matt Lucas”

made me emit the involuntary, ecstatic moan of a rapture frenzy which is not always advisable in an open-plan office situation but I am JUST! THAT!! EXCITED!!!

Happy legal viewing, Australia! And to the rest of us…by any means necessary, okay?*

No-ice!

*I do not officially condone the viewing of ill-gotten torrents hint hint wink wink call me I'll love you forever.

Mike Gordon Meandering

2007-08-09T20:58:00.000Z

I like Mike Gordon's hotline.

I like Mike Gordon's hotline in the same way that I like Mike Gordon's music. Quietly, and with shame. And then more shame about the original shame. And a couple minutes of wondering just how big a tool I actually am. And then a mini-exsitential crisis. Followed by a little more shame.

I mean, the man actually has a hotline. I think he just likes to record himself. But then, that's the basis of any musician's career. Why I am inclined to hold that against him remains a mystery so deeply buried within my psyche that it must be intertwined with some kind of womb issue. There's no other explanation. After all, music the one aspect of my personality that I've never felt the need to beg forgiveness for. I'm one of those people that would marry albums if they'd let me. Cosmic Slop. Head Hunters. Axis: Bold As Love. Forever Changes. A Space In Time. Can't Buy A Thrill. Joe's Garage. Houses of the Holy. Pearl. I'd have a dress and a cake and a priest and bridesmaids and black calla lilies and I'd be the worst polygamist on the planet and they'd do a documentary on me for the Discovery Channel. I'd load them all onto my iPod and take them to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. I love music with irrational intensity. I'm not even embarrassed about wanting to have seventeen babies with Alvin Lee based solely upon his guitar solo in "I'm Going Home." Genius has always been like a giant, phallic death ray.(Call me, Alvin!) And I don't just mean wirey, nubile Woodstock Alvin, either. Present-day, chubby, leather-vest, grandfather Alvin has only to say the word. (Seriously. Call me.)

I sincerely believe that the precedent I set when I was four years old and choreographed an interpretive dance routine to express my love for Chuck Mangione's Children of Sanchez should have negated any embarrassment that may have gotten in the way of flinging my soul at Mike Gordon's feet the first time I heard "Clone". Besides, he's never accepted a knighthood or married a Playmate or collaborated with anybody who used to be in a boy band. He hasn't been clubbing in L.A. without panties on. He hasn't allowed reality T.V. cameras to follow him around with a microphone pack poking out of his trousers. He's never asked me to accept public intoxication as an indicator of his artistic credibility. By all accounts, I should be offering up my ovaries to him by now. Why? Why can't I do it? What is standing in my way? Why is his hotline a covert morning ritual that makes my face turn hot with chagrin despite the fact that I'm religious about it because it always makes me giggle?

Like everything else Gordonesque, I have no idea. Part of me finds it extremely suspect that he would maintain a hotline for the specific purposes of recording his "like, duuuuude" verbal swaggering in the first place. Something in me snaps into the fetal position when I think about the hundreds of fans who call in and listen to it and leave him breathless messages, the contents of which I can't even bear to think about. It also bothers me that I am one of them, even though I NEVER HAVE AND WILL press nine to leave a message OR the pound sign for more options. Okay, maybe I did the pound sign thing once. Just to see what would happen. And then hung up in such a panic that I knocked over my paperclip holder. Maybe. But I keep doing it anyway, because I can't resist the pull of his relaxed timber and his sweet, conversational, it's-three-in-the-morning-and-I've-just-finished-off-a-bottle-of-gin musings. I still like hearing American accents as long as they're not yelling "OOOH! KICKASS! THEY HAVE KFC!" when I'm trying to walk downtown. Plus, he's funny. Plus, there are books I want to read now because he keeps recommending ones that sound interesting. I don't know if I'll ever get around to it since the mere notion of buying a book that I know I am buying specifically because it was recommended to me by Mike Gordon via his hotline fills me with so much dread that I'm sure I'd run screaming from the checkout line at Borders, if I even made it that far, but still, I like it. It's nice. And horrible. And nice.

Why?

Reason continues to elude me. Thanks, Mike Gordon. Am I being sarcastic? To quote Random Grunge Kid in the classic Simpsons Homerpalooza episode, I don't even know anymore.

I think I need a honky-tonk vacation.

2007-08-02T13:00:00.000Z

I am kind of wondering if I should lean more toward biker-chickdom in accordance with my 3rd-decade metamorphosis plan, even though I’ve only been on a motorcycle once in my life and it scared the bejeezus out of me. I really like tattoos and leather. Plus, I already talk like one, so it would be a bonus to have my appearance more accurately reflect my proclivity for effword usage.

Someone needs a nap.

2007-07-20T08:59:00.000Z

I never cease to be amazed at how busy I am. I keep stepping back, trying to re-asses, economize, work out where corners can be cut and time can be saved. I’m a bare-minimum gal, after all. I always have been. I’ve never subscribed to the philosophy of overachievement. Even "achievement" is a bit of a stretch for me. I mean, sure, I complain about being a thirty-two year-old minion and blah blah blah no respect and blee blee blee waste of college degree and bloo bloo bloo no intellectual stimulation whatsoever but I suppose the flat truth of the matter is that if I really wanted to be the Senior Commissioning Editor and BFFs with all of the Lord Snotburies and Professor Sir Dookiepantses in this entire town, I could be. It would require a whole lot more effort at work, though, and a lot less watching of humorous talking-dog videos on YouTube when I’m supposed to be attending departmental briefings, so at the end of the day, I'm not sure how worth the effort it would be. Not that the Senior Commissioning Editors don’t do more jerking off under their desks than I could ever hope to dream about, but then of course I don’t have a misleadingly prestigious-sounding degree and practicable oral sex skills.

Why are so many people so anxious to entrust so many things to a person with this much apathy? I think that says more about them than it does about me.

Weirdos.

Adventures of an Italanglimerican Asthmatic

2007-07-11T18:33:00.000Z

I do not, and may never, posses the superb, succinct verbal-dagger artistry of the most recent object of my swooning fandom, but I'll self-consciously throw myself into the murky depths of Michael Moore bandwagonism nonetheless.

It's very difficult to ascertain exactly what the arguments against Moore's new film, Sicko, are. The summation of the preceding "journalistic report" to the instantly classic, 10-minute Moore diatribe on CNN was essentially, "Michael Moore is right. Our health care system sucks. Here is some stuff that may or may not look kind of sort of sketchy if you squint your eyes really hard and spin around three times while holding your nose and downing a fifth of vodka. In sum: he's right." But I think--I think--the vapors that Big Pharmacy are desperately grasping at can be summarized in the jerkoff Hannity & Combs piece that my husband sent to me at work this afternoon:

1. Americans have the shortest waiting periods EVER!
2. Nations with socialized medicine pay so many taxes that working people have live in shacks and eat dirt and sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" while drug addicts and gypsies eat caviar and take money baths!
3. The cases Michael Moore features in his movie are isolated and never actually happen in real life!

A personal-experience rebuttal might not be the most statistically effective, but dammit, I know I'm right, so here it is.

A signifiant chunk of the four and a half years I spent living as an adult in my home country are wacky, free-wheelin', students-with-no-health-insurance anecdotes. It was all very fun and Kerouacian until the end of my first semester at college, when I thought I was going to die because I have asthma and couldn't come up with the $250 I needed for that month's medication. My (goddess of a) doctor managed to amass a grocery bag full of drug company samples--tiny little inhalers worth about ten good squirts each--to hold me over until the next semester's worth of academic scholarship money came through. Had it not been for her generous resourcefulness, I would have been in serious trouble, and what followed were four long years of similarly touch-and-go, cloak-and-dagger rain dancing to keep me from suffocating in my sleep. And trust me--it was very, very far from isolated.

When I arrived in England, ignorant of just about every facet of English life and receiving little help from my similarly befuddled boyfriend (who was still a fairly recent arrival from Italy), I lost many, many hours of sleep panicking about what was going to happen to me when my medication ran out. I'd heard vague rumors about the NHS, but I wasn't married yet, and only in England on a temporary six-month visa that did not, as far as I knew, entitle me to any citizenship rights, whatever they might have been. I wasn't allowed to work. I had virtually nothing. All I knew was that everything seemed to be about a hundred times more expensive and, if that also applied to medication, I was well and truly fucked.

After putting off the inevitable until the last minute, I braced myself and registered at our local National Health Service clinic. Name. Nationality. Contact phone number. Known medical issues. "Asthma", I wrote shakily, feeling like I was filing for bankruptcy.

"Let's set up an assessment," the receptionist chirped. "Say, tomorrow at 11?" (Total waiting time--approximately 21 hours.)

I couldn't bring myself to ask her how much it was going to cost.

The next day, I submitted to the usual peak flow tests and symptom-trigger questions, the cash register in my mind chinging madly with every word that came out of the doctor's mouth. He handed me a prescription containing the Anglicanized versions of all the necessary preventative and rescue meds, and I made my way to reception with my credit card clutched in a sweaty palm, praying that they accepted credit cards that may or may not have been maxed out.

The receptionist looked surprised to see me standing there. "Do you need another appointment?"

"No, I need to...pay," I choked.

She looked utterly confounded. "Pay for what?"

"The doctor?"

"Pardon?"

"What?"

And it went on like that for a couple of passes until she was able to identify my accent.

"Oh, you're American, aren't you?" Bless her. Trying so hard not to laugh.

And, I must say...five years on, and I'm a full-fledged legal immigrant with a big-girl job and an easy familiarity with the NHS system, and I still can't help but feel like a cat burglar every time I skip out of there without greasing any palms.

I learned about prescription costs in a similarly embarrassing fashion. I was moaning to a patron of the pub I worked in, and I said, "I have these prescriptions to get filled, but I'm broke! I'm going to die or something!"

"No, it's not so bad. They'll cost £6."

"What? Why? Do you have asthma too?"

"All prescriptions cost £6, no matter what it's for." Unspoken subtext: "Oh, you're American, aren't you?"

As I struggled maintain nonchalance while the Hallelujah Chorus resounded in my head, I went home and slept the first night of beautiful sleep I'd had in months. And I kissed the sky and did bell kicks all the way there. I mean seriously, you can't imagine. After four years of life/death constantly in the back of my mind,it was better than winning the lottery.

These days, my monthly NHS contribution is automatically deducted from my paycheck. If it was so astronomical that it actually affected me in some way, I'd be able to tell you exactly how much it is, but it doesn't, so I can't. If I'm drowning in taxes, I guess my nice life and I are just too busy enjoying unobstructed breathing to notice.

I'm aware that the system isn't perfect. I'm aware of the issues, and there certainly are issues. But when you're young and sick and frightened--terrified--and you don't know where your next breath is coming from, and then, for the first time in your life, you're told that everything is going to be okay, and then it IS okay, and you weep with relief...your punching fist tends to want to penetrate your computer screen and shove itself down Sean Hannity's knobby little throat.

And, today, an Australian puppy is spared.

Take a walk on the wild side.

2007-07-04T06:54:00.001Z

I feel just terrible about not posting in this blog more often since I discovered that people actually look at it. O, flags-of-English-speaking-countries-round-the-world-and-also-Poland, how you do bring out the responsibility in me! What to say without being lame...it is indeed a slippery slope. But I'll get there. Soon. Very soon. Sooner than you can say "Embedding Youtube videos gives the illusion of worthiness."

Will the cycle be unbroken?

2007-06-19T14:05:00.001Z

And, what ho! Cycling season is upon me. It is time once again to walk the bike up the road to the Local Villiage Grumpy-Assed Bike Shoppe (Where Your Custom is Our Inconvenience) for a once-over before I jump into another summer of swallowing mosquitoes and getting flipped off by bus drivers. Woo! It doesn’t seem like it could have possibly been a year ago since I last did this, but it has. The first couple of rides of the cycling season are always so exhilarating. Look at me! I'm health conscious! Excercising at 7 in the morning! Whilst saving the environment! I deserve accolades! ACCOLADES! It gets old really quickly, though. Old, hot and uncomfortable. Old, hot, uncomfortable and worrying. I worry about the fact that I’ve had no major spills (excepting the time during my first cycling season when I was menaced by a man with a lawn mower). Everybody who cycles between towns has some kind of horror story about being chased down by crack-smokers or going head-over-handlebars into a pile of rocks or being side-swiped by traffic. I am shadowed, everywhere I huff and puff, by the overwhelming sense that I am due.

There is a gig tonight. It’s at the pub I don’t like, the boring one, but I feel as if I have to go, and it actually will be the first viable opportunity I’ve had to get a full evenings’ use out of the beautiful camera Bubba gave me for my birthday.

I’m all about positive negativity.

"He made the whole world sing, dance, have fun, dream, fall in love with his innate good humor and his music. Including China."

2007-06-13T12:02:00.000Z

--Sorrentoradio.com

It's called "Flying the Flag" and I found it on Ebay.

2007-05-02T13:31:00.000Z

My internet radio station turns into hair metal after 1:30 PM because I'm pretty sure that's when the guy wakes up, goes down to his basement and starts making it all about his lost youth. Right now, I’m being subjected to “Bringing On The Heartbreak” by Def Leppard, but I'm tired and I just can’t be bothered to perform the complex operation of expansions and contractions that would be required to take my earphones out.

Sheesh…KROKUS? Were they even a band? I thought they were just a bad dream I had when I was twelve and fell asleep watching Headbanger’s Ball when it was hosted by Adam Curry. This is like The Scorpions meets Foreigner over at Tom Jones’ house and yet, YET, I still can’t seem to gather the strength to rip the offending appendages from my ear canals. This station is such a different animal in the morning. “Seasons” by Dave Mason followed by “Lovin’ You” by Minnie Riperton followed by “Never Been Any Reason” by Head East followed by “Ah Leah” by Donnie Iris followed by “Dreamweaver” by Gary Wright followed by “Home Tonight” by Boston followed by “I Love You” by Climax Blues Band and really, that’s about as close to perfect as a radio station can get. “I Love You” by the Climax Blues Band ALONE is worth every sullen moment I've ever had in life, and if you think I'm going to be embarrassed about loving it or owning the album on vinyl or slow-dancing with my pillow to it, then you obviously aren't familiar the ridicule-withstanding capacity I have when it comes to embarrassing music.

All right, that does it. I draw the line at Guns ‘n’ Roses “I Used To Love Her”. The earphones are coming out. So long, internet radio station out of Madison, Wisconsin. See your automated DJ, who has better taste in music than your human DJs, tomorrow morning, at which time I expect to be showered with heavy doses of semi-categorizable late-seventies weirdness that was probably forgotten for a very good reason…a reason that is clearly lost on me because I think it rules.

It's almost like livin' a dream.

Plum

2007-05-02T13:16:00.000Z

These sort of afternoons make me feel so willfully twisted, like the universe trying to point me in the right direction but I keep on buying diet Cokes and having a desk job. And I always picture “The Universe” as a Daddy/God with a long white beard, but instead of robes, he’s got on a Hog Papa t-shirt and is holding a bottle of schlivovitz.

Breve

2007-04-23T14:13:00.001Z

I shall dwarf the brilliance of every other blog ever written in the history of the Universe with my witty, perceptive, socially relevant observational banter! I'll only admit being a tool for pop culture if it makes me seem retro (my favorite Golden Girl is Rose!) and/or cool (my favorite type of music is obscure 1960's garage psyche!) I'll only post pictures of myself that are high-contrast and so flattering that you can barely tell it's a person!

Maybe I give up.

We'll see.