The WMATA trains of FAIL

Saturday I had to go downtown for a memorial service right in the middle of what my mom would say is "en mitten drinnen," Yiddish for "in the middle of things." And so, in the middle of Jon Stewart's Rally for Sanity (see its 100 best signs), I vetoed driving and ended up in the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority nest of f*** which culminated in 2 mile jog/walk from Dupont Circle to Georgetown.

I spent almost the entire train ride trying not to accidentally start a family with the multitudinous strangers whose lower limbs, vying for space, found themselves wrapped themselves around my thighs during a long, awkward train ride made longer because we kept stopping due to track maintenance and heavy volume. When we DID stop, doors opened and eager riders gazed longingly at us packed sardines and instantly calculated the futility of a fit. Not a single other person was able to squeeze on after Silver Spring, and we weren't even in DC yet . Also, this trek, undertaken after much metro jostling and a sprint up the Dupont Circle escalator of doom (which was broken so no resting!), added a note of comic urgency to the already pressing matter of making a remembrance service on time.

Look at this packed station!

The insanity! Metro photo from Deb

Funny Twitter updates, volume 5

Funny Twitter updates, volume 5:

isweatbutter  "Give me some chocolate or I. Will. Cut. You."

anthropocon At the store I saw carrots packaged to be handed out on Halloween. Might as well just hand out eggs and paint a bullseye on your house.

   

tstyles77 I just witnessed a chicken crossing the road. I now have concrete evidence why they do it. To get to the other side & stare back wistfully.

suzierobb 10 hours of sleep and still sick. The chance of me being a legit zombie by Halloween is getting serious.

CristinGW Driving is evidently a water soluble skill.
 
sintixerr "Do you want bar food, or a real dinner?" "Uhm. What's the difference?"

dallendoug my mom's laptop blue-screened the morning after she was looking art the macbooks. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!


wilw Dog: I HAVE A TOY! Me: Neat! Dog: DON'T TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME! Me: Okay. Dog: WHY AREN'T YOU TRYING TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME?! Me: Oh. Right.
 
tremaine: PhilosoRaptor speaks! If tomatoes are a fruit, isn't ketchup technically a smoothie?

lauriewrites Every time you bitch-tweet about Foursquare, a user who doesn't care gets a badge.

sween As Winston Churchill once said, "Wait a minute -- I never said this."

armsakimbo Today's mood has officially been elevated to "Scorched Earth"  

Veronica OH: "I've been down that road before, and it ends in a cul-de-sac of pain."    

iKarlie Is it possible to die from being awake too early? 

5tevenw I have CDO. It's like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in alphabetical order as it should be.  

someecards One quality I'm not looking for in a partner is the ability to maintain a virtual farm.  

funnyhumour I have an amazing ability! I find objects just before people lose them. The police, however, call it theft. 
 

ebertchicago Why do so many conservatives hit the best-seller lists?

h1661n5 @ebertchicago Small words and large print.

 ihatesomuch And then someone at my table yelled "I didn't douche the other times!" And I knew it was going to be a good night. 


quinncy Chamomile tea, can I get some sense of when you'll give me that relaxed sense of well-being the box illustration promised?

WhySharksMatter "Large crocodiles don't move very much and they eat people, making them difficult study subjects" #GreatTextbookQuotes  

PraxisUniversal Me: "Sorry I'm late. Car trouble." Him: "What kind of car trouble?" Me: "It doesn't go 300 miles an hour to compensate for my late start."  

Superheropaul I'm so tired today that all i wanna do is crawl home from work on my hands and knees and be fed chocolate until I sleep.

 mccanner We already live in the future I care most about: the one where I can get spicy tofu delivered to my door so I can stay inside on a rainy day  

heysuburban I dreamed that I slept on an air mattress that was much more comfortable than the air mattress I slept on.  

denisleary Chrysler finds workers are smoking weed and boozing on the job. Finally - an explanation for the Cordoba. 

 This was volume 5. See:
Funny twitter updates (ARCHIVE) -->

Alas, Edwin the Unbearable was not meant to be.

So, Friday I got a lipoma removed, which is basically a ball of fat. Which, I guess, is basically what I am, except this thing didn't also have a central nervous system.

Yet.

I decided not to name it though I toyed with the idea of calling it Edwin the Unbearable.

The procedure was not as relaxing as I hoped. I now understand what it feels like to have a scalpel scrape across the abdominals. It is not something that would be enjoyable repeating. I also learned something else that was useful: the epinephrine anesthetic, while enthusiastic at inhibiting blood flow (a plus during any surgical procedure), does not really work on muscle fibers. I heard the staff discuss this after they peeled me off the ceiling. Three times. "We didn't realize it was going to be this deep," they explained. Note: next time, request the stuff that actually works on ALL tissue.

So today, the area was particularly tender. The doc checked and determined that I was just doing a bit much but was otherwise okay. They wanted to see me again in a month and sent me up front to make an appointment with the receptionist. This kind of thing happens all the time at doctor's offices, right? People make appointments and stuff?

Here's the ensuing convo that occurred:

me: I'd like to make a followup appointment next month for a wound check (thinking if I am using the EXACT SAME lingo the doctor told me, they should know).

receptionist: For what?

me: A wound check.

receptionist: Why?

me: To... check... the... wound?

receptionist: What for?

me: They said they want to check it in a month.

receptionist: Why?

me: To see how it's healing.

receptionist: For what?

me: To check it! (wanting to scream THIS CANNOT BE THE FIRST TIME YOU EVER HEARD THIS!!)

We finally started speaking the same language, I made an appointment and bolted.

Now I am exceptionally tired and cranky and going to bed in 3...2...1...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

This is how it starts

And this is how it starts, the procrastination.

Yesterday I heard something scratching incessantly at the air conditioning unit in my bedroom. Half-asleep, I picked up the nearest thing within reach, a paperback, and tossed it towards the A/C, thinking the noise would scare off any wayward critters before they ended up inside. I'm no fool. I realize it's warm, comfortable and dry in here and this observation is not lost to birds and squirrels.

So, I tossed this homemade anti-beastie device whilst gripped by the tentacles of slumber, one eye completely closed and the other squinting sluggishly, collapsing immediately back into soft pillows the second the book left my fingertips.

In my eager plans, I neglected to account for the Rube Goldbergesque architecture and placement of the site of attack; namely my bed, a fake plant, the A/C unit, one airborne book, and two decorative vases.

Over the next four seconds, the book, trajectory slightly altered by the fake plant, hit the unit, toppling a nearby vase which fell and bounced off a second vase.

I am convinced that there exists in the human body a separate nervous system designed to expedite the processing of shattering glass, fingernails on a chalkboard, screeching brakes, mating cats and screaming babies. This consists of a direct line linking the eardrum to the ZOMG!! alarm center of the brain.

The last time I heard glass explode at this volume was when I accidentally left a plate on the stove. A burner was mistakenly turned on to "high" and instantly rendered my attractive dinnerware into shrapnel.

At this most recent shattering of glass, I bolted upright out of bed and surveyed the damage. Shards of glass EVERYWHERE. Even across the room several feet away.

Note that it was 7am Sunday morning.

Awesome.

So I did what any responsible person would do: I went back to sleep.

Fast forward to noon.

Mind you, I'm catching up on sleep from Friday's minor surgical procedure and so I wasn't eager to leap out of bed even then. But I got up, carefully focusing on not slicing open my feet. I'd already been cut open with a sharp instrument a few days ago and didn't relish another reason to revisit this activity.

I bent over carefully and began picking up the pieces.

Brain: You realize this isn't going to work. You cannot pick up every last little piece. We need to vacuum.

me: okay.

me: wait. I don't have a vacuum anymore.

Brain: Fine. BUY a vacuum.

me: okay.

me: but... I can't just leave the house. I need to shower and dry my hair and then redress the bandages and then clean out my purse and balance my checkbook!*

*seriously.

And so that is how I started my afternoon nap.

The mere prospect of the steps required to attack this new dilemma filled me with an overwhelming fatigue demanding no less than the complete and utter abandonment of consciousness.

I couldn't just pick up a vacuum and clean like normal people, I had to shower and shave and leave the house and get gas and drive to the store and look for things which will have to be plugged in and tested because I have OCD about buying crappy appliances. . . I could just see entire hours whittling away in which I neither write NOR rest, effectively meeting none of my personal needs for a Sunday.

So I bought a vacuum online.

Then I carefully picked up as much glass as possible, only slicing into one digit in the process. But I got my R&R!

Procrastination flowchart (click to enlarge)

Check!

What a day!!

1. Minor reaction to flu shot, check.
2. Minor car accident, check.
3. Minor surgery, check.
4. Begin reading book about 9/11 death, check.
5. Scour sympathy cards, pick two, check.

Just about the only positive thing is that I have doctor's orders to avoid situps for a month!

I am class example for teh suck!

I think it's annoying when people blog about not blogging, so I haven't bothered to write that I already screwed up my "I swear I will blog every day this month" commitment for National Blog Posting Month. I figured you either noticed, or didn't, and I'd write again when my muse woke.

Well, she rose earlier this week.

I started taking an introduction to drawing class last week. The class description specifically mentioned this was for beginners, for those wanting to learn how to draw. NOT for people who already have talent.

I signed up.

The first exercise was a "contour" drawing: stare at an object and trace it WITHOUT lifting the pencil from paper and without actually LOOKING at what you're doing. "Go slowly," the instructor said, "your hand will outline what your eye sees."

Yeah? Here's the "vase" I "saw":

If you need a good laugh, seriously, right now, try it. Trace the outline of something without actually looking at the paper. You've just done a contour drawing!

We practiced this a few times and I kept snorting at my results. I wanted to try using my other hand just to mix it up even though I am NOT ambidextrous. "How much worse could it get?" I thought.

The instructor began circling the room to check on us.

Instructor: "How are you doing?"

me: "Alright, I guess. I tried this with both hands and it's interesting that I can't really tell which hand did which." I pointed to my paper. "See? This was my left hand and this other one, my right."

Instructor: "Which do you prefer?"

me: "I'm right-handed."

He excitedly grabbed my sketchbook and held it up to the class.

"Look! Here's a GREAT example of how you need ABSOLUTELY NO MECHANICAL SKILL WHATSOEVER to do this exercise. None! See? She did this [awful, crude, primitive, toddler's rendition] vase with both left and right hands. If you ask me, the left hand actually looks a little better."

He circled the class, pointing to my scribbles. "No skill! None! It's perfect!!"

I brightened behind the easel, proud of my lack of talent. I was the class example for teh suck!

Yay?

"See how her brain was less constricted by what she was 'supposed' to be seeing in the left-handed drawing? It's more symmetrical. It's a truer view of the vase."

He delivered the sketchpad back, adding, "See if you all want to try this" to the rest of the room.

(The vases were slightly different.)

The next class focused on "gesture" drawing. This involved scribbling out a shape in 15 seconds.

"It doesn't even have to LOOK like the thing," the instructor stated. "You really just want the *essence* of what it's DOING."

So, uh, here's the chair I was sitting on:

Quite clear, right?

I spent the next 2.5 hours scribbling things and fantasizing about how I maybe should have enrolled in something extremely inartistic like accounting. Every sketch seemed to exceed the previous one by an exponential factor of suck.

Then I got home, threw on some trance music, stared at the CD cover and my brain lit up. Inspired, I tried one last sketch for the night:

I've never been able to draw faces before. People in general are extremely difficult. Either I needed those 2 hours to warmup or trance tunes act as calisthenics for the non-visual brain but I felt like maybe this class could actually help me learn to see.

If I could actually learn to create? Bonus.

ANybody else have anything they'd RATHER be doing than marching UP AND DOWN the SQUARE?

One of my favorite Monty Python clips (2 minutes):


"LEARNING THE PIANO?!?!?!?!" <-- Ha!

The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger (short film clip by Bill Plympton)

Another film I saw at DragonCon: The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger, by Bill Plympton, described in the IMDB as "A children's fable about the power of advertising, the meaning of life and ultimately the test of a mother's love."



See Bill Plympton's blog post for more info.

Skylight, by David Baas (short film clip)

One of the best short films I've seen lately is Skylight by David Baas:



part 2:


These short clips show only about a minute of the very beginning, but the audience I was with was *howling* all the way through. The movie features penguins in their statement about the hole in the ozone layer. If you get a chance, check out a screening. (As of today, nothing's scheduled, but I hope they update their site soon to reflect future indie film showings.)

"I stab you because I care" (and other snippets overheard at DragonCon)

Have you heard of DragonCon? I hadn't before recently. It's a Science Fiction convention in Atlanta that attracts around 30-40,000 people annually; people dress up in bizarre and interesting outfits and attend panels and film showings. I went with a huge group of like 30 people; here are some shots from that long Labor Day weekend:

Overheard at Dragoncon:

(Overheard at a steak house)
"I'm sorry, we are out of steak."
"Why do you hate my freedom?"

"Dude, the term 'laundering money' is
just supposed to be an expression."

"This elevator can hold ten people... or three Americans."

"I stab you because I care."

"I thought there might be a corset in my future until I realized they cost more than my plane ticket."

"Ok, so, an Irishman walks out of a bar...
(loooooong pause)
...and so that's the joke... The Irishman doesn't actually ever leave the bar..."

Photos:

Dragoncon missed connections:
(Reposted from another website, see link to ALL below.)

You - WOW blond wizard. Me - ancient wizard. You were pressing awfully hard into me during our photo. Just wondering if there was a lingering interest. Put your robe color in Subject Line of first email.

I can't figure out why I left without getting your contact information. I know your name is Dan, and you make leather jackets. You were the best Wolverine I've ever seen. We talked for a while, just standing in the crowd. I wish I could find a picture of us. Hopefully, I'll see you at another convention soon. :)

see ALL -->

Tomorrow I'll dig up some of the really neat short films I saw.

Um, so??

My best girlfriend M used to work at an Arby's when she was in high school. They neglected to mention that they were running a special deal where any person who said this certain phrase from a commercial would automatically get a free hamburger.

So, she's standing at the register when this dude walks up and the following conversation ensues:

M: "Hi, welcome to Arby's. Can I help you?"

Dude: "I'M A BURGER BURN OUT!!!!"

crickets

M: " "
(<-- how do you even respond to this kind of unsolicited announcement??)

Dude: "Don't I get a free hamburger or something?"

M: "Um, hold on a minute...."

She went into the back room where her boss proceeded to finally fill her in on the special promotion.

Mr. Burger Burnout did, indeed, receive a free burger for his shameless parroting, M went home with a story so hilarious her friend has now blogged it eons later, the ad company got proof that at least one shmuck heard the script, Arby's got an extra customer, and everyone was happy.

The End.

an adventurous spine-bending evening

If you've been following my Twitter feed, you know that I've been suffering from the plague. The tentacles of death seem to become boldest at night as they've been reaching through my dreams, yanking me out of the underworld and thrusting me into an amniotic sac of wakeful sickness into which I cannot breathe. I'd juuuust drift off into a sweet slumber (a blissful reprieve from this ailing consciousness) and suddenly bolt upright choking and gasping for air. This has been happening all week. And so I am missing about 5 good nights of sleep.

Sleep-deprivation, incidentally, is an exceptionally cruel torture method. This cold seemed to be getting worse, not better, and so last night, weary as I was, could not rest. I'd get 5 minutes into a dream before being rudely ripped awake in above said fashion. This happened repeatedly for hours.

After a particularly violent bout of choking where I almost vomited, I started to cry. Uncle! However, I could not even afford myself the luxury of self-pity as tears bring with them their own poison and I couldn't allow an increase in snot production. I swallowed the bitter feelings of the repose-impoverished and decided to try a new game plan. Even overdosing on medicine didn't seem to help so something else was in order.

I'd BEEN sleeping on a stack of pillows up high. I'm a back sleeper, so this felt not unlike lounging on the couch. But it still didn't help. I decided to try sleeping on my side. Note that with the current setup, this approach required a kind of bending of the spine which probably should not occur at all, let alone for 8+ hours straight:


However, I am pleased to report that it seemed to help. I slept!! And the muscle aches don't feel much different so either I'm already so broken it doesn't matter what contorted position I shape myself into at night, or the spine, when heated to a temperature above the bodily norm of 98.6, is able to bend much more gracefully than expected. Experiment to be repeated tonight.

teh hunch of misery

I just joined NaBloPoMo -- National Blog Posting Month. It's an online community of people who pledge to write out their spleens every day for a month straight. I've been sporadic enough lately that ima try this.

I stand before you, humble in my spleeness, clutching a snot rag in one hand and mightily blogging with the other, to bring to you this masterpiece depicting ME, right now. I call it "Teh Hunch of Misery." Snot rag goes up for auction next month.

Love,
Your half-dead spleeness
(ps. see you tomorrow!)