The best compliment I can give any food

Me: "What's this?"
Uptown Girl: "Baba Ganoush."
Me: "What's in it?"
Uptown Girl: "If you like hummus, you'll like it."
Me: "Ok."
(later)
Me: "That Baba Ganoush stuff is great!"
Uptown Girl: "Told you."
Me: "Yeah! Is there bacon in it?"
Uptown Girl: "Wha-? I don't think so."
Me: "'Cause it tastes really good..."
Uptown Girl: "Er-um-uh"
Me: "...like there's bacon in it."

Dynasty Warriors 4 Song Book, Part 1
(to the tune of Blue Moon)
Lu Bu
You caught me standing alone
Without my bodyguard near
Without a horse of my own
Lu Bu
You knew just what I was there for
To rip out Diao Chan's hair for
She's one I really don't care for
Then you suddenly appeared before me,
The one warrior who can cause me pain
I ducked your challenge, now you abhor me
And when I looked back Player One had been slain
Ow, ow, ow
Lu Bu
Can't crash the gate on my own
I wish you'd fight someone else
I wish you'd leave me alone
I wish you'd leave me alone

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
Tom Stoppard, "Artist Descending a Staircase"

I saw Pollack the other night for the first time, basically because I'd been told it was a damn good movie. And it did have some fine acting in it but...

...perhaps my expectations had been raised a bit to high, perhaps it is just that I don't care for his work, perhaps alcoholism is too old hat for me to find it cinematically gripping...

...I didn't really care for the film. In fact, I was quite bored by somewhere around 1950 and pursued my reading of Watership Down instead of attending. There was a lot of drinking and yelling and painting and then he died.

The saga of the tortured and torturing artist grows stale for me. I can't quite get hold of why the story has such staying power. Do they perpetuate it themselves, so as to be excused from polite behavior, to cloak themselves in a scrap of the mad god, to simply seem more interesting?

William H. Macy manages to be a great artist without being a drunken asshole. Tom Stoppard, too. I'm sure there are many others away from whom one needn't hide the sharp knives when they're over for turkey.

Fantasy Baseball
A misnomer not nearly
Kinky as it sounds

What am I listening to, anyway?

"He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak."
-Michel de Montaigne

I am thankful my apartment didn't burn down.

I am thankful for my cat.

I am thankful Bob saved me a slice of pizza for after improv.

I am thankful there were beers in the fridge.

I am thankful for my bathtub.

I am thankful for my comfy bed.

everybody needs a little

Before the play the other night, grabbing a 2-piece with biscuit and wedges, I passed a couple in serious conversation. He looked very intense. She looked upset.

The first thought to dash through my brain? "Dude, no. Don't break up with her in the KFC. That's just not right."

Fortunately I don't think that's what, in fact, was going on. Of course I'm not sure; I'm an observer, not an eavesdropper.

Which is a strange strange word, now that I think about it. Hmmmm.

More Than This

This evening's date was none other than my husband (cheating, I know) who has asked to remain anonymous. We'll call him Mr. Decisive, since we started the evening by waffling for 2 hours about what we wanted to do; the name change might inspire us.

Finally, time to complete an errand drew nigh, and narrowed our dining sphere to Cap Hill. Our wallets helped narrow our choices further to inexpensive places. This is how I wound up meeting my "date" at the place I always misinterpret as "the female pig" first, because I always eat like one while there and second, because my many years spent studying German don't help me one bit with the Latin-based languages.

(Note: Mr. D tells me the actual meaning is "port" or "door." He also took German in school, so I've no idea how he knows this. He may be making it up.)

After dinner we headed to the Metro to catch Lost in Translation in our all-too futile attempt to see all the Oscar contenders we've missed in the 7 days before the ceremony.

We scored a most fortuitous parking spot in front of a book store, providing a perfect excuse for me to grab a copy of Watership Down, all the better to achieve my puppet vision of same story, my dear.

I'd come up with this flash of brilliance at dinner, while revealing to Mr. D that the two movies that most scared the bejeezus out of me as a child were Watership Down and Clash of the Titans. Departing from his usual policy of sensitivity, he mocked me thoroughly for the second of these. I now get my revenge by revealing that he was afraid of Snow White.

Seated early in the faux privacy of the theatre, I challenged him to a chin scruff duel upon finding a particularly pointy crazy old lady hair emerging on mine. He won.

This should have been diverting enough, but the ladies behind us were having a most engrossing conversation. First they eloquently critiqued several things as being "totally gay" (which makes me wonder if TheatreSeattle.com could perhaps use them). Then they moved on to social commentary: Botox is an outrage because you shouldn't inject Ebola into people and, "besides, it only lasts 3 months."

Finally, they squealed to discover that the Psychedelic Furs are touring with Berlin, a match-up that Mr. D points out would never have happened in a million years (or 20, in this case) at the height of their collective popularity.

There were many trailers, most of them for movies that appear to be worth seeing, though we've both decided that we've seen the trailer for Monsieur Ibrahim enough times to equal the length of the movie.

Lost in Translation is great. Go see it if you haven't already. If you have, find someone who hasn't and take them.

On the way out of the movie, Mr. D and I agreed to a suicide pact if we ever start behaving to each other like either of the fictional married couples we had just witnessed. I observed that if bitterness is required by one's second year of marriage, we had better get cracking at it. I started by giving him the silent treatment all the way home for making fun of my Titans fear.

But not really.

the unexamined life is not worth living

just got home from dinner/show/opening night party, where, among several other delightful conversations, i unpremeditatedly aired some of my views on porn vs. strip clubs.

ie, an abundance of porn tends to weird me out a bit, visiting strip clubs often, not so much.

any strong yet unexplained negative reaction bears exploration; so what's my deal against porn?

it could be as simple as: i just don't get it. have seen porn of print and moving picture and it really does nothing for me. thus there would be no emotional basis for understanding.

or it could be background. many members of my family, and a handful of friends, frequent strip clubs, like I frequent karaoke. it seems to become sort of backgorund noise for them, and thus me.

thing is, i've never actually been to a strip club. perhaps it would totally weird and gross me out. or not. who knows. so it could stand investigation.

i hear portland's the place to go.

Well, I can tell you right now that these folks are gonna wind up getting a lot of my business.

Starting with this.

ahem, FUCK THE MEDIA

So, my boy, Howard Dean, who i still love despite it all, dropped out of the race today. I am sad.

Also, I made the mistake of reading an "article" about his campaign. Now I am angry.

There will be/already is "analysis" of why his campaign failed. The answer is really quite simple:

The media killed it. Thoroughly and relentlessly killed it. Why they killed, I have no good answer on yet, just some crazy theories.

In the meantime, I will not purchase a paper, or watch the "news".... and whatever else comes to mind and hand to do damage to the giant mediaglomerates shall be done.

For now, I think drinking. Yes, drinking.

me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream

I am admittedly not an expert on dream interpretation, but I think it's a sign of something or other bad going on in my psyche when I have a napmare about a giant blond guy threatening me with a hot waffle iron while the ghosts of my dead family tell me where to hide from him.

ooh, zis blog is zo dusty

K, so I'm reinstalling my comments code. This will supposedly fix the problem with the numbers go away (and fervent apologies to anyone I missed responding to because of this). It will also, sposedly, not lose any of the old commenting.

Any bets?

what's pink and red and can't turn around in an elevator?

These are dead brilliant.

i think i'm getting good, but i can handle criticism

Weeeeeeell life has been too-too interesting in SPLand of late, but I promised the story of Mr. Oblivious.

'Scuse: Dr. Oblivious. I'm sure he didn't go to medical school for 7 years to be called Mister.

Which pretty much gives you the idea.

So Dr.O was one of the observers in a practice program. As he had a UK dialect, I was hoping he'd be assigned to my room. He was, demonstrating the truth of the old adage re: getting what you want and, um, its being, um bad and stuff, yeah.

He introduces himself to me in the little hallway. Call me a creature of habit, but I automatically stick out my hand to shake his, and start to offer my name...right as he turns and goes into the exam room. Apparently not interested in any of the, ahem, social niceties, eh? Aren't Brits usually More polite than we are?

I would've been bemused enough, but the scene entire was caught over Dr.O's shoulder ('bout 6 inches below mine) by our newest SP (shout out to aod). Naturally, she started laughing. Naturally, I started laughing. Shot her a point and "stop making me laugh" face, then went into my room. . .

. . .where I had a full 54 minutes to marvel that this man, though British, managed to be neither attractive nor charming. Must take amazing effort to overcome a natural advantage that great. Impressive, sort of.

But not really. Nor was the fact that he had auditioned for a Major Motion Picture. Thanks go entirely to my mom for my forbearing to point out he hadn't, in fact, been in the movie.

I have found a band called The Sleepy Jackson and now I wonder: Must I actually like the music to wear the t-shirt?

oh, we drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and DRINK

My sister, she is turning 21 in 2 days. This is supposed to make me feel old or something, I think, but doesn't really. I'm just a touch melancholic to not be there to help with the heavy drinking and such.

Instead, I sent her really cool presents.

all i ever needed was twice removed

My peace of mind, such as it can never quite accurately be called, has been disturbed often of late by doppelgangers.

The come into my life sort of thing - knocking first, so they're polite, and I say "hello-and-come-in," so if they've turned out to be vampires it's my own fault really - and the studio audience goes wild, because we know them, we think we know them. Better yet in the worst possible way, we used to be/are/will be attracted to them.

So, this puts us in a comfortable discomfort right from the start. Or me, I should say, puts me in relation to this actual stranger where I don't exactly know, as it is a hands-off favourite guess that they're never aware of the conflicted blondish girl in their proximity.

Which is. A great. Relief. To me. Personally.

sock marionette
may astonish or not if
first you spoke by hand

systematically piled-up aggravating mail

i have no problem with the spam. i find spam easy to spot and easy to delete. it does not bother me because i do not need to respond.

when the spam folder hides my important needed mail from me, that is annoying.

when i go away from my computer for 45 minutes and come back to 25 new emails, 20 of which provoke me in some way, that is double annoying.

i'm not a real doctor, but i am a real worm

remind me to tell you about dr. oblivious. tomorrow, perhaps.

rejoicing in the misfortune of others

Arriving home tonight after some post-meeting errand running, I saw not-1-but-2 CableCompany vans parked out in front of my building and wondered if the signal had gone out during The Football Game.

And then I had to laugh. Loudly.