Monday, August 27, 2007

Epistles at dawn

Dear Violet,

totally possible this is just a manic episode, but I think I'm ready to be a famous blogger.

How's that sound?

Friday, August 24, 2007

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Lunch

I lost that last post once and then rewrote a bunch of it, but it ended up being about how lazy I am.

And here I am, writing a whole new post.

But a short one.

Funny How.

Everything that rises must converge

This is where I try kind of a novel thing and link to a blog that I actually read all the time. This probably says a little too much about me and exposes the extent of my intellectual adventures of the past several years. Come to think of it, maybe I've linked to him before, but I'm not about to go back and look it up. What do you think I am, some kind of "blogger"?

So here's what I'm trying to say: the other day, Apartment 3-G featured a character named Gary Walker. "Gary Walker!" I exclaim inwardly, "He's the second Walker brother!" (I can't name the third and again, I am ergonomically opposed to looking up this information)

So What? you say. SO: Gary Walker sings a great song about masturbation, called "Magazine Woman"... and here he is, not singing Magazine Woman:

Basically, I'm the laziest blogger in the world.

Songs you won't hear on television

Snappy Something-day, Violent Beekeeper.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

smashmession

So, on acounna whatever combination of genetics and singular touchiness and being a special delicate flower in this wintry world, I shlep around a diagnosis of depression, now very very much in remission or hey, you know what, CURED now with the help of the things that help that sort of thing.   Anyway, as anyone who is or considers themselves* to be or would like to be depressed knows, people like to talk about their depression in humanland and on the internet.  I know!  Me too!  They like to pick it up and examine it and compare it to yours and reflect with you and create their narrative.

I am making a conscious decision to cut that out right here and now, and to not engage in conversations or read writings on it.  You know why?  It's depressing!  Not just in the sense of  reading about downers is a downer, no, there is something about the rhythm of the language and the reaching and the searching that mimics the dark waves of the feeling itself.  And then you are kind of diluted and you are like, I recognize this dilution... could it be...?  Is it...?  Bc you have just been reading about depression, so you know, you are predisposed to blame things on it.  And then you get worried that you're getting depressed, and none of it would have happened if people kept that crap off their blogs!

Despite everything I know about teh neurochem, the old complaint about depressives being self-indulgent kind of resonates with me. But like, what are you going to do, not indulge your brain? 

*I am so so fine with using they as a singular pronoun.  Stuff it, perscriptivists!

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Performing a public service

I forwarded this for a friend; I hope everyone enjoys and learns from it.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Failing The Turing Test

Facebook, when I put in my fake place of employment - let's call it Siccing Baboons on Jerks Inc.:

"Would you like to find co-workers at Siccing Baboons on Jerks Inc.?"

Yes.  Yes, I very much would.
My bank is offering me a 15% discount on bank-logo merchandise as a birthday-month gift.

Maybe I'll treat myself.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

My father and brother are both little bike-monsters. They bike to far
away states, to work, and in my brother's case, for work. As a kid, I
really liked to bike. Really, really liked it. First, I had a blue
bike, and I didn't even need the training wheels on it for ten minutes
I was such a natural. Then, I got a flashy black 21-speed BMX bike
with gold spokes which was the envy of the kids in my apartment
complex, and finally, when I got to a semi-adult size, a red 18-speed
cruiser. I rode it about twice, and I've barely ridden since.

See, I was getting too old to just pedal around the park; I wanted to
use it to get places, and take it on trips and so on, but I was
absolutely (and rightly) forbidden from going helmetless on any street
on which cars ever even thought about going. I HATED wearing a
helmet. They looked ridiculous and I could not bear the thought of
being glimpsed in one. They were also sweaty and the chin strap
chafed, but this was really not a concern, the problem was that maybe
one of the many thirteen year old boys who might become totally
smitten upon seeing me biking, my braids flying in the wind, the
lovely top of my head exposed, would instead see me in a helmet and
barf all over themselves. I was so self-conscious about helmets that
wearing one took all the joy out of riding for me - I could not feel
the wind, though the wind was there, or sense the speed though I still
went fast or hear the hum of tires on asphalt though; I was consumed
by imagined mockery. Gender! Awesome! So my brother went on to be a
bike monster, and I got a cigarette habit (now defunct.)

Now that I'm a)old enough to not be quite so totally self-conscious
and b)old enough that my parents cannot tell me what to do, I've taken
up riding again. My dad's passed me a pretty old yellow single-speed,
and I've put a willow basket on it, for gamine-ing purposes, and I've
ordered a helmet. It's light blue, and close-fitting and round like a
skateboarding helmet or a Kaiser Wilhelm helmet. I showed a picture
to Hazzard.

"Huh," he said. "It's kind of a Mongo helmet, yeah?" Then he lowered
his head, made a sort of bleating noise, and rushed at the wall,
stopping just before he hit it to look up at me for approval.

And so the work of years of therapy is undone.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

she-wolves are just like us! they write letters...

Toldja it was coming. It's kind baring my menstrual-geek soul to you,
the internet, but then, again, I mean, my husband is here explaining
to me exactly why you cannot plug a microwave into a two prong outlet
even when the thingy only has two prongs, so I feel like I am allowed
some gender-stereotypical geekery. And so I, Daughter of Luna,
acknowledge my sacred blood-bond with the She-Wolf, Mother Of All.

To the Editor,

In respect to Karen Houppert's op-ed piece "Final Period" (July 17,
2007), I would note that, benefits and detriments of suppressing
menstruation aside, this is exactly what women taking oral
contraceptives have been doing since the 1960s. The period women
experience while on most forms of hormonal birth control is not
menstruation at all, but rather a lighter bleeding caused by the drop
in hormones during a week of placebo pills. This bleeding serves no
health or reproductive function, and is a feature of oral
contraceptive regimens only because makers of the Pill had, until now,
presumed that women were more likely to accept (and purchase) courses
of therapy which mimicked a standard cycle. Lybrel's makers are far
from the first to market menstrual conformity.

Sincerely,
Violet G. Beekeeper

you know what works really surprisingly well? liquid callus remover.