nice to meet you crazy, i'm dumbass

i used to think that crazy found me no matter where i was. after some healthy reflection, i think i've decided that i have a tendency to not only invite crazy, but also to perpetuate crazy.

often times, i find myself taking conversations so literally that i can get lost in details and miss out on the big picture. please allow me to share the following example: the story of crazy at the dog park.

the setting was a neighborhood dog park in the level opening at the base of a hiking trail. it was february and the snow was deep enough to require some serious footwear, yet not too deep as to trouble the dogs.

an older woman, dressed in a long sleeved tie-dyed shirt, sans jacket but equipped with a pretty hefty scarf, approached my perch on the picnic table. her pen-on-a-string swayed to and fro as her long legs marched deliberately through the snow.

polite chit chat ensued, nice nice blah blah.

then she says 'the good thing about all this snow is how it freezes the biems in the ground, even when they're still hot.'

trying not to show my confusion, i attempt to process this statement. did she just tell me she freezes bagels in the ground? does she reheat them or just eat them frozen? is there some sort of 'end of days' bagel stash outside her house?

you see, when she said biem, i heard bialy, somehow mispronounced. for those of you who might not know, this is a bialy:



a weird bagel with no hole. completely unacceptable if you ask me, but that's not the issue.

only after days of pondering the strange conversation, did i realize that she mean bm, not biem. bm for bowel movement.

she was talking about how nice it was that the snow freezes her dog's poo, thus making it easier to pick up. i, however, was completely unaware of this at the time. i asked her questions about how rapid the freezing process was, depending on the size and other factors. i even went so far as to ask how often she tried that method, and with any other things.

we had this parallel conversation in which we talked about two very different things for close to ten minutes. she was happy to oblige my inquiries and seemed to get more excited the longer we talked.

if my clever little monster hadn't chosen the perfect moment to attack her poor, ragged looking mutt, i might still be there now discussing the energy efficient option of using snow as a freezer.

take that, sucker

hey reader, yes, you...

can you smell me?

i've worked up a dangerous sweat-stench that's most likely emanating from my body in visible stink lines. the noxious odor is probably making its way into my computer as i sit here type type typing away, through the nest of wires behind my ancient monitor, and directly into your private slice of internet.

this morning i had a glorious battle.

i wrestled with nature herself.

i bested a beast and made it squeal in agony.

i killed a spider.

but not just any spider. i discovered the queen disgusting spider of all gross spiders. she was rotund, with wiry black hairs covering her middle. she was about the size of a golf ball, or my hand. she moved so fast it was difficult to be certain.

she had built an elaborate web encasing the outer storm window in my bedroom, the one flanked by the pine tree that occasionally says 'hello' with a gentle scraping of pine cones across the glass.

within her masterfully crafted realm were two lesser spiders, probably males that she used as sex slaves. they were brown and skinny, small knots with little legs twisting out from their centers.

i took them out first.

as i slowly removed the web from the windowsill, i kept my eye on the queen. she darted towards my hands and then backed away slightly while circling for a better position. she was planning her attack. i knew time was running out.

in that moment of trying to keep my cool and finish the murderous job, i was struck with an idea. a notion so simple and yet so powerful that i knew i would not be defeated by the queen's venomous strike.

i reached for the hose of the nearby vacuum cleaner and switched on the suction.

the queen let out a singular wail of protest as her body was pulled through the vacuum hose and smashed into the filter. it was a defiant sound. one that makes me feel as though she may be back, vengeful and ready to rebuild her domain.

but not today.

today i am victorious.

and now, i'm going to recover from the exertion of this morning's efforts by sitting around feeling smug and superior to all spiders.

i'm legally bound to keep my mouth shut

not really, but kind of.

yesterday i lived on the wild side, for about three hours. i was out gallivanting, during the day, with no babies.

i should have known it was going to end badly.

unfortunately for you, i can't give any details about meeting chuck norris yesterday and his wifey, who clearly has him on lockdown. but if you're even slightly intrigued, you can read about it here, and hear about it on the mantime radio show live today at 1:00.

i'm somewhat afraid to post my pic of the chuckster here before the full story is revealed. and also, it's a little grainy. so instead, i'll leave you with this stunning visual:

that's what he said

b said to me last night 'i wish i still blogged because i need to write about that shit.'

sensing something hilarious, and most likely offensive, brewing in his brain, i offered up my little slice of the internet for his use.

please enjoy, my husband brian:



Lana watches a show called "Hoarders" on (ugh) A&E. It's basically about a bunch of slobs who can't get their act together long enough to throw out the massive piles of garbage cluttering their filthy homes. The usual suspects are middle aged women with the ridiculous need to keep every single item and trinket that falls within the gravitational pull of their useless lives, and their pussy-whipped husbands who can't put their feet down and scream "enough!"

Is this all it takes to produce a TV show these days? Replete with darkly toned music and quack "doctors," A&E does a nice job trying to convince the viewer that these losers suffer from a disease, and that it's a "real problem." Please. All I see are a bunch of clowns who have decided that candy wrappers, old band-aids, and broken furniture are valuable objects to be cherished and protected.

I mean, is this like a joke or something? I could see if these people were hoarding actual treasure, then this would be something worth watching. If some dude had an obsession filling his home with gold and silver bars? Sure, I'd watch that. Or if it was at least something badass like a compelling drive to collect medieval death weapons. But some twit that hasn't figured out that rotten containers of milk and expired coupons hold zero value? No thanks.

I'm not sure who I hate more, the asshole junk collector or the buffoonish professional they always trot in to offer advice on how to diagnose the problem. Are they fucking serious? It's as plain as day! Throw that trash in the goddamn garbage and be done with it! No person on Earth has any possible reason to fill a 3,800 square foot house with used pistachio nut shells. What's even more insane is that some of these enabling spouses actually buy a second or third home to allow their bonehead partner to keep stuffing away more and more tons of rubbish.

Man, go find someone with a REAL problem, like a heroin addiction or something. These hoarders? They're seriously just homeless people with mortgages. Yea, exactly.

death may come and her name is crow

sometimes i can be a little indecisive. sometimes i can be a little spontaneous.

sometimes i have a problem with starting sentences with 'sometimes...'

sometimes i like opinions, i want feedback, i need help.

sometimes i don't give a shit what anyone else thinks.

today i care about what you think. today i want your opinion. but that could be because i'm a little scared of the answers i gave myself.

so in a totally self-serving way, i am going to pose an interactive question for you.

first, check out this ten second clip. please.



thank you.

now, is the sound:

a) my own private death harbinger

b) a bird possessed with a baby demon

c) the gates of hell opening up to swallow me alive for hating birds so much

or

d) something else that might have nothing to do with birds and/or hell


ps. i hate birds.

i hate their feathers.

greasy, dirty feathers.

i hate their beaks and their beady eyes.

i hate that their nests are germ cavities in which they breed more germs.

i hate their sounds.

i hate their wrinkly, leathery textured legs.

i hate their eggs.

i can't help but picture the eggs covered in slime, nesting in the nest, waiting to birth baby birds also covered in slime.


maybe they know.

that must be why they stalk me so.

he said what?!

the man was tall, but not big. his roundness was evenly distributed for his height. his greying hair peeked out around the edges of his well worn cap.

his clothes looked as if they'd been washed a thousand times over, soft spots in the fabric were easily noticeable. the man's smile was friendly, despite the jagged bits of teeth that seemed to dance in every direction across his mouth.

the pungent, yet not altogether unpleasant odor of white lilies hung in the air as he rinsed their stems in the sink. his eyes were focused intently upon the work at his hands.

and so, with this initial impression, i was disarmed.

as i washed my hands in the adjacent sink, we said our polite hellos. i turned my back to him as i reached for the paper towels to dry my hands, thinking our exchange was complete.

'so you work here, in the kitchen?' he asked me as i walked back to my table.

i answered him with a friendly smile of my own, and a simple yes.

'what do you do, work the salad bar?'

this was confusing to me, someone who tends to take things literally more often than not, as there was no salad bar anywhere in the manor house that we catered events from. i may have shown this in my face with some sort of unattractive brow wrinkling and nose twisting. his next remark was more to his point.

'i mean, all you do is make salads and stuff, right?'

oh. i finally got his implication, that because i'm a woman my job must be to make salad. the old florist was, in his sexist way, just trying to make conversation.

i asked him, 'why would you assume that? because i'm a woman?'

his grin was wide, his eyes sparkled at my eventually coming to understand his statement. this must have made him feel more comfortable. 'yeah, that's it. because, you don't cook here, all by yourself.'

that last part wasn't a question.

while i felt my face flush and my palms sweat, i knew that i was very, very close to saying some rude things to this man, this stranger who had only minutes before won me over with his gentle touch of the beautiful lilies.

the insult that i felt was growing exponentially by the second as my brain took his friendly smile and then interpreted it as smug. at the peak of my indignation, however, i realized that no matter what i said his opinion would never be changed.

i opened up my knife bag and took out my eight inch suisson chef's knife. its carved wooden handle, slim and molded to my grip, and it's gleaming stainless steel blade sharp enough to cut bone, helped me to center my thoughts and block out the man's ignorance.

at least, i thought to myself, i have a way cooler weapon than your words, old man.

badass

saturday night i saw three captain jack sparrows, two alice in wonderlands, and one badass.

no, wait. i wrote that wrong.

i meant one bad. ass.


this picture doesn't quite do the kneepit hair justice, but you can just take my word for it, it was lush and plentiful.

perfect imagery for a monday morning if you ask me.

you're welcome.