I take it all back

OK, I'm sorry for my snarky tone of yesterday.

33 degrees with wind and rain? Feels pretty muthafuckin' cold to me.

I HAVE BECOME ONE OF YOU TEXAS WEATHER WEENIES.*

*But I will NOT wear the burnt orange. Unless you're in the national championships. Hey, but don't feel too bad...the Alamo Bowl is just as good!

There's another Texas Weenie topic for us to have out...y'all bitching about being, what, 9-2 this season? Poor little Longhorns, having to settle for a lesser BCS bowl! I'm crying for you, really, I am.

(Cranky old man voice:) WE Mizzou Tigers always had to go to the Insight.Com bowl, and we LIKED it!

Weather! Aaaaagh!!!!

My impersonation of Central Texas weatherpeople when there is anything approaching, weather-wise, on the rare days that temperatures are not above 70 and/or it is not sunny:

"Folks, batten down those hatches, cover those plants, bring MawMaw in from the root cellar, because it is going to (rain/rain a lot/be slightly cold)! We'll have NON-STOP WEATHER REPORTS until this NATURAL DISASTER has passed us by. Stay tuned! Aaagh!"

And they run the radar CONSTANTLY over whatever I am watching, in tonight's case "Bones," thus irritating the fuck out of me. (That's a good show, by the way! Karla, I think you'll like it, if you haven't seen it yet. It has David Boreanaz, another Buffy alumnus, which is always a good sign. I just started watching it last week, and I'm kinda hooked. It's X-File-y! Pretty funny, too, which is the factor that seems to be missing from the CSI clones.)

To the weathermen...or, let's face it, to all y'all Texans... let me break this to you gently:

• To most of the rest of the country, 50 degrees is NOT COLD.

• In most of the rest of the country, they don't cancel school pre-emptively because it LOOKS like it might get a tincy bit icy in the morning before it all melts by 9:00.

• That line you always try to push off onto strangers - that one about "if you don't like the weather in Texas, wait an hour, and it'll change?" That is BULLSHIT. Visit the midwest if you'd like to see a 60-degree plummet in one day, darlings. (Austin weather is thus: From May to November highs 90-100, lows 70-80, and it won't rain. Ever. From November to April it might rain, will dip below freezing at night about 10 times per year, and though there is an odd coldish day here and there, and you have to wear a coat in the mornings, the average high temperature by afternoon is 60 effing degrees. It DOES NOT CHANGE.)
  

I'm sorry, but it's time you were told.

Now go get your parkas, loveys, because the high is ONLY GOING TO BE 47 DEGREES tomorrow. And it's going to RAIN! Be sure to watch the news updates...and don't drive your car into mine in the panic.

But are they as fly as me?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 18 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

(I guess that should be "Are they as fly as I?")

Mags Pop Culture History 101: College, and What the Title Means

Wherein we left off, I had just graduated high school. (That was one of the happiest bloody days of my life, by the way; it was seriously up there with wedding and childbirths. I didn't get drunk, I didn't go party - I went swimming in the lake with Tricia. And I believe that was the day of the swimming citation that we received for swimming too far into the cove. That was one of my finest law-breaking incidents ever. But I digress.)

High school and early college (at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. Oh, by the way, "Rock, Chalk, Suck On It," K.U.!) was the time of the jangly floppy-haired white boy music for me. I had just gotten my first CD player at about the time The Unforgettable Fire came out, and it was one of the very first CDs I bought. I think I bought Life's Rich Pageant early on, too; Green came out my freshman or sophomore year in the dorms, and it is largely the soundtrack that plays in my head during that portion of the movie of my life.

(Another digression...who would play you in the movie of your life? I always used to hear that Drew Barrymore should play me. That's probably as good a fit as any, but I kind of wish I could find someone new. Maybe Reese Witherspoon, who could play me, except 40 pounds thinner? I'd be OK with that!)

The first two years of college, I had a lame-ass hanger-on of a boyfriend who I ill-advisedly allowed to follow me from KC. (As little as is said about that, the better. He lived in his car. A winner!) As I started to avoid him more and more, I began re-formulating friendships that had started in high school and moved up to college, and meeting other various cool people through my old friends.

The crux of our nightlife revolved around two clubs in Columbia that are still in existence, The Blue Note and Shattered. (Damn, the latter has a really skeevy website now! Ladies' Night? What the hell?)

The Blue Note is a revered (and justly so) club - in the early days, a warehouse, and then later, a renovated old movie theater - in which all of the great bands played....Uncle Tupelo, Poi Dog Pondering, Bob Mould, the Violent Femmes, Fishbone, The Rainmakers - lord, I can't even remember a quarter of the bands I saw there. (And that had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that they'd serve me enormous cups full of Long Island Ice Teas when I was 17.)

Shattered was the "punk club," a nasty little dive in a drippy little basement. (After one sweaty, condensation-filled night, looking at the cigarette butts, beer, and general scooge all over the floor, I observed that it was "the dance floor that made its own gravy.") People in black, only black. Maybe white to be ironic.

We dahnced. To the Bauhaus. To the Ministry. To the Sisters of Mercy. And on the "Retro 80's night" - that was still new, then, mind you - we'd get shitfaced and sing "Major Tom" at the top of our lungs. And we smoked and smoked and smoked. And we snuck in bottles of Rhinelander beer ($6.99 a case! In bottles! No shit!).

Funny, as awful as that place was, now that it's nigh on 20 years later, it seems only like the BEST FUN EVER. Just for one night, I'd like to be that goofy 20-21 year-old with some of my best buds in the world, knowing that I wasn't hip but having a really fun time pretending to be. I think that, honestly, is my secret self; the one inside the soccer mom who cuts coupons to stretch the paychecks. Sometimes, she burns a little on the inside.

Hey, now, hey now now...sing this corrosion to me. (I'm singing it to you, yo.)

Christopher Guest, Where Art Thou?

As I've mentioned, This is Spinal Tap was a seminal movie-going experience for me, as it was perhaps for many of you. I seem to attract Tap fans, or they me. (Out of all my friends, it is only Mick who does not love it, and she and I have diametrically opposite taste in movies. The Matrix? Seriously?)

I also had a very deep attachment to one of the first short Christopher Guest movies that I saw on SNL - the one about the male synchronized swimming. I remember seeing it for the first time - must have been high school? - and nearly falling off the couch laughing.

I was thrilled when I heard Waiting for Guffman was coming out, and loved it. I thought Best in Show was perhaps the lesser of the two movies, but still enjoyed myself immensely. Children have interfered dismally with my moviegoing, so I actually had to watch A Mighty Wind on DVD the first time.* This one, I thought the critics were a little hard on...I think that the consensus was that it was funny, but not along the lines of the first two. However, it might have been my folk-music upbringing (I've seen Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert! Several times!), but I absolutely adored it, and seriously watch it every time it is on.

So, I was of course very jazzed to hear that For Your Consideration was coming out. When Mick asked me to go to a movie, it was my very first pick, and believe me, there are like TEN movies out that I want to see right now. (Borat, Shut up and Sing, The Queen, Fast Food Nation, Tenacious D, Stranger than Fiction, Bobby, Babel, American Hardcore...and even though I do not think I have ever sat through a James Bond movie, I'm kind of curious about Casino Royale, but that's just probably because Daniel Craig intrigues me.)

As usual when I see movies with Mick - who usually lets me pick, since I don't get out much - about 15 minutes into the movie I look over at her and knew that she hated it. So I figured that meant I would love it, right?

Ehhh...?

That cast is always going to be great. Fred Willard and Jane Lynch will make me laugh just by standing there, as will Jennifer Coolidge. John Michael Higgins is awesome, so is Parker Posey and Catherine O'Hara...they're all perfect. But, to be honest, I didn't think it was as funny as it should have been. I almost felt as though they'd been to the well too many times; though this wasn't a "mockumentary," it might as well as been one.

I don't know. Maybe I need to see it again. Almost always, Christopher Guest's movies are funnier to me with repeated watchings. Anyone else see it?

*ed. note: The Man says we did see it at the theater af ter all. The mind; it goes. Starting at exactly age 37, as it turns out.

Confession

I have looked at all those pictures from yesterday's post at least 10 times today.

Top Ten REAL Reasons to Be Thankful

Howl-dy, loves, and happy Thanksgiving. I'm stuffed like a little sausage; yourselves?

As per usual, we had the family time in Rockdale with the husband's kinfolk, and then made it McJo's in time for leftover fried turkey (six flavors this year, including curry and "hotter than hell") and dessert. This year, though, the chillun stayed over with Grandma and Grandpa, so The Man and I drove straight home for wild, passionate lovemaking all night long. (Nah, I'm just kidding; we stayed over for a poker game until 11:30, then we came home and passed out.)

Tonight, as pertinent per the occasion, I got to thinking about reasons to be thankful this year. Yeah, we're all clear on the whole family and friends bit, yada yada yada I love them and you all, blah blah blah. Reason for living, everything in the world to me, another year around the sun with them makes me ecstatic... booo-ring.

So, I suggest that I provide to you the Top 10 Men that We Should All Be Grateful For In Terms of Sheer Yumminess (BESIDES George Clooney, who is clearly the Apex Of All Things That Are Smokin' Hot; Amen):

1) Stephen Colbert.

Could he be any sexier? COULD HE? No, he could not.

2. Alan Rickman.

Severus Snape or not, he is a goddamn dreamboat.

3. Peter Saarsgaard.

I think he and Maggie Gyllenhaal's baby is probably extremely good looking. And has many "a's."

4. Nathan Fillion.

Maybe it's just a Firefly thing, but I looove that Captain Tightpants. I think he has mad charisma in just about anything he is in.

5. Heath Ledger.

OK, yes, he is a rather obvious, pretty-boy choice for me. But that man is a way talented actor on top of having a great ass.

6. John Linnell and John Flansburgh of "They Might Be Giants."

I accept that I might be alone in this one. That's OK.

7. Sting.

You may be getting on in years, but baby, you still got it. And these new pop/rock guys? Compared to you in your sexiest days? They have NOTHING on you.

7. Jake Gyllenhaal


OK, another no-brainer, but I've liked him ever since "Bubble Boy."

8. John Cusack


Duh.

9. Tim Robbins

Always and forever, my darling. Mwah.

10. Jeff Goldblum.


Jeff, LY4EVA! Call me!


So, this Thanksgiving day, I hope you'll learn from my example, and give thanks to what really matters in YOUR life.

(Damn, maybe I'll go wake up The Man now.)

For the ho who has everything

For your early Christmas shopping perusal: the "Ho on the Go" kit.

It comes complete with two latex condoms, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, and a wet wipe for raccoon eyes. And, of course, a nice pair of clean thong underwear with the "Ho on the Go" logo.

I'm totally thinking "Boss's Day." Aren't you?

Oh, yeah...

Oops. It's PMS!

You'd think, that at nearly AGE 40, I would be able to recognize it.

But no, I just assume I'm a horrible idiot and that the world is crashing down around me for two days that just HAPPEN to fall right before my period.

So sorry. Carry on.

Oh, and contributing to my somewhat uplifted mood are the following factors:

• My keys have been located by Shannon, who was the beneficiary (?) of my maternity clothes when she came over to the party. I guess they were just sitting there in one of the boxes. I'm very pleased to have them again...but d'ya think that Leif Johnson Ford will give me my $178 back, since I don't need the replacement keys anymore? (Yeah, me neither.)

• OG got the approval from her doctor to only wear the brace outside and at P.E. - and the response from the other children was overwhelmingly "Oh, cool, you got HURT!" - so she is feeling relatively more chipper.
  

• We're going to try yet another BC medication to see if I don't get a bit more even.

• The day off yesterday helped bunches. And the valium that my dentist prescribed for my TMJ. (Because, you know, my jaw hurt. Or something.)

Sunday, Sucky Sunday

How did my Sunday suck? Let me count the ways.

1) As previously mentioned, I was hung over; not violently so, but I had a good slammin' headache and was nauseated all day. (Not the kind of nauseated where you don't eat all day, so even though you feel bad, you feel thin. My hangover nausea is the kind where you need to eat half a bag of potato chips and leftover sausages for breakfast.)

2) Perhaps accompanying the hangover, perhaps caused by it, or perhaps caused by my wildly fluctuating hormone levels (due to premature perimenopause and the ever-changing birth control pills and other medication I am using to treat it,) I am experiencing some really crazy post-party paranoia. I can't shake the feeling that, in my drunken state, I did something really stupid to somebody; like I was a horrible bitch to them, or I stuck my tongue in their ear, or I totally blew them off. I have called everyone I can think of, and I can't find any validation that I did anything, but I can't shake them. (And, of course, I feel more crazy when nobody else knows what I'm talking about.)

Damn, I wish I could figure out who I called a golldam fucking ashhole. If I did. Which I probably didn't. Aaaah!

3) Somewhere at the party, I lost my keys. I cannot find them, anywhere. Everything was on there - car keys, house keys, and work keys.

A perenially sucky side trip: Lowe's. I spent a good part of my afternoon there having them try to make me a new set of car keys and house keys. The house keys were fine, but neither of the car keys they made me will work.

Do you know how much it costs to have a car manufacturer make you a set of keys with a remote control, as it turns out? One hundred and sixty motherfucking dollars. That, children, is my birthday present to myself.

4) The creamy center of my day was the bike crash that OG got into with one of her little friends while I was at the store.

It was about 4:15, and I had a cart full of groceries, when The Man calls me and says, "You'd better come right home. I think [OG] has to go to the emergency room." (Remember, I had his keys, so he had no car.) So, I throw the refrigerated stuff back into the cases, and haul ass home to find OG with a split open chin and a swollen left wrist. (She's not crying, mind you, as she has the pain tolerance of an NFL linebacker.)

As I am the carrier of the insurance cards and so on, I was elected to drive her to the hospital. We got there, and were told that the rooms were full, and that there were several people ahead of her. So, we waited, and waited, and waited, her sitting there with a bloody paper towel to her chin, me holding my head and trying not to weep.

Dinnerless, bookless, and bereft of anything to do besides playing Hangman on her DoodlePro, we ended up staying there until almost 8:30 last night. (For an extremely hyperactive girl, she was a patient little trooper the whole time. Hungover Hungry Mama was about to go Incredible Hulk on those people.)

She got 10 stitches in her chin, and though the X-rays of her wrist were fine, the doctor thought she should wear a wrist brace for a week or so.

Now, I ask you, between crashing your bike and slicing open your face, having a needle stuck into your open wound and having someone sew you up with a needle, or being told that you have to wear a mildly inconvenient brace for a week, which do YOU think would set a six-year-old off into a screaming, crying fit? Yes, of course, it was the wrist brace. She cried for the whole last hour that we were there, cried all the way home, cried herself to sleep, and cried ALL THIS MORNING about the goddamn wrist brace. When I dropped her off at school - still sobbing - she would not initially go into her classroom door for fear that someone would make fun of her.

Jesus, I just don't understand irrational fears and paranoia. Where in the fuck does she get this?

Soooo....today, I'm taking the day off just to chill the fuck out, get new keys made, and take varying children to varying doctors. (And to go grocery shopping again. Two trips to the HEB in two days - near Thanksgiving? Almost more than I can stand.) I need a fucking break.

Is this 37? Are the cracks showing?

Could you all be very very quiet, please?

The sound of you reading your paper is making my head throb.

Another karaoke birthday party has come and gone. It seemed that a good time was had by all, from what I could tell from inside my gin-induced haze. I made several songs my bitch, including "Billie Jean," "Africa," and "Separate Ways."

When I woke up - at 4:00 AM - I was reminded of the side effects of my drinking too much. First of all, I can never sleep well afterwards. After trying unsuccessfully to fall back asleep for a couple of hours, I gave up and came in to the front room to watch all the episodes of "Veronica Mars" that I had on my TiFaux. It is now 9:00 AM, and while I'm not as hung over as I would have thought, I definitely do not feel right.

The second side effect of my drinking too much is that I seem to lose all sense of body proximity. I seem to remember draping myself over every person at my party at one time or another. I hereby extend a heartfelt apology if I touched you in a way you didn't like, or if I insisted that I luuurrve you. (I do, but still; ew, drunk girl!)

The third side effect is - well, I don't know how to phrase it delicately, but my body seems to want to purge itself of toxins or something the next morning. So, I spend a good deal of the day, erm, in the bathroom.

So, it's that kind of morning. I'm embarrassed, tired, and running to the toilet.

I must have had a great time.

Thanks, everybody, for coming and for putting up with that drunk girl.

Can't Blog, Gotta Clean

Birthday weekend, y'all. Karla's here. Big Bloggamamahotcha get-together tomorrow. Kids going to in-laws right before then.

Yay! Fun's afoot! Rev up ya Vespas...there's gonna be a rumble.

And mopping. Maybe dusting. Shit, my house is messy!

Truly Stretching for a Post Idea

(Ed: Good lord, this is sad. Stop reading now.)

If you Google "37th Birthday," you get:

1) Many references to the 1996 movie To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, and Peter Gallagher's eyebrows. (And Seth Green, illustrious Buffy alumnus.) Haven't seen it, but apparently the 37-year-old woman in question is dead, so I ain't seeing it this week.

2) Breathless tabloid reports about "Grey's Anatomy" star Ellen Pompeo, who apparently got proposed to on Friday, her - yes - 37th birthday. (As per Badger, "Grey's Anatomy" is on my list of things that we don't do in this house. No disrespect intended; I tried it once, and I just wasn't into it. It made me paranoid and gave me the munchies.)

3) And - my favorite - "Matthew McConaughey gets Wasted for 37th Birthday."


Yes, I know you thought that was scenes from the rehearsal of the new Jesus Christ Superstar revival. But, no, darlings, it's Matt, right before he either puked or totally nailed the blonde to the right. Or both, perhaps simultaneously. Matt, who are you, and what have you sacrificed?

Because, you know, why should a birthday be unlike any other day?

(Ed: Told you. Go read someone over there on the right. Damn you, NaBloPoMo!)

Mags Pop Culture History 101 Continued: High School

As previously mentioned, the end of junior high and the beginning of high school was a step upward, insofar as a step out of the actual shit river of a sewer and into the pee and wastewater river is a step up.

Sophomore year represented my entry into the "theater crowd." God love the high school theater crowd; for yea, they accept yon outcasts and rejects without (much) judgment. I look back at those folks with bemusement, as I cannot pigeonhole any of us...certainly the "freak" contingent, with their stenciled jean jackets, were well represented, as were the tech geeks, the swing choir kids, the punkers, and of course the divas. Here and there, a football player, a cheerleader, a student council member. It was, for a time, what I considered to be our own little happily functioning Breakfast Club (which came out that very year).

Our theater teacher was, not surprisingly, very charismatic, as theater teachers are wont to be. She gave all appearances of relishing her role as the pied piper of this mad little bunch, and - for quite some time - I was a devoted follower.

About junior year, I developed a mad crush on one of the freakier boys in the theater crowd. Prior to meeting him, I had never listened to Pink Floyd much - oh, yes, we'd all heard "Another Brick in the Wall" ad nauseum when we were younger, but that was pretty much it. (As previously mentioned, I was not so much into the overarching KC Album-Oriented Rock Culture.) But, of course, to attempt ingratiate myself with a guy, I bought The Wall on album (no, wait, I believe we had graduated to cassette tapes by then,) and listened to it fairly constantly my junior year. Wish You Were Here and Dark Side of the Moon soon followed.

Sadly, however, though I became very conversational about the Roger Waters/David Gilmore oeuvre, said freaky boy never looked twice in my direction. Ah, well; looking back, that was probably REALLY for the best.

Otherwise, when the rest of my class was discovering early rap music - and yes, still wallowing in crap metal - I stayed partially locked into this retro mode, started largely with the Pink Floyd thing, and spurred on by my sister's renewed love for The Monkees, who were doing that whole big reunion tour right about then. I ended up listening to a lot of 60's music - The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Turtles, that sort of thing - which was all OK in the schema of the accepting theater geeks. For the first time in my life, "different" finally, FINALLY equaled "good;" even if it was only us that thought so.

Senior year, the cult of personality surrounding the drama teacher sort of fell apart for all of us. We started drifting away from her - some actively disenchanted by what I can see now were unprofessional hijinks, myself included - and others just moved on. For me, somewhere that year, 60's music gave way to R.E.M. and their jangly white-boy music counterparts, which form the segue into the next time period (most likely to be detailed during the next insomnia bout).

What I took away from that crowd, culture-wise, that stuck with me for what appears to be ever:

• The aforementioned Pink Floyd, many songs from whom are even now on my iPod
• More and more and more Monty Python
• This Is Spinal Tap (Oh, how I love the Tap. Even saw them live in college once. Brilliant.)
  
• All things Mel Brooks - particularly obsessive watchings and rewatchings of Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The History of the World, Part I.
• The holy John Hughes trilogy of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty In Pink
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Don't ask; I've lost count. Definitely more than 20. But it was in the day of the toast, cards, and hot-dog throwing, the water pistols and the newspapers, and the lighters. Do they do it anymore?)
• The Monkees (yes, YES, don't hate.)
  

I'm leaving things out; I don't remember a lot of high school. (That's probably by choice; we weren't really imbibing many substances...YET.) Part of me does not really want to go back to the reunion, as most of the people I had actual fun with are still good friends of mine, and I really couldn't care less what happened to 85% of the rest of them.

(Readers, any recommendations? Didja go? Didja not? How was it? Sounds like Karla liked hers...maybe the vodka is the way to go.)

Next up: College, or The Era In Which I Could Finally Get Laid.

An Ode to Fall, or Five Days Until I Turn 37

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

-- "Spring and Fall, To A Young Child," by Gerard Manley Hopkins


Sigh.

No Mo NaBloPoMo

I have failed. I did not post last night.

I was knees-to-the-tile hurling my guts out last night after we got back from Wurstfest. Yes, WF did me in again, but not in the usual way. Though I drank some beer early on, I stopped early so that I would be the sober one to drive home this year, damn it.

Sadly, pathetically, I think it was some bit of errant fair food that did me in, probably the spur-of-the-moment purchase of fried shrimp-on-a-stick, upon discovering that the fried pickle line was too long. (No, it was not one of those South Beach days. Yes, I know that I had better get on that.)

So, late last night, shivering and sweating in my bed, I had the occasion to question the wisdom of ordering shellfish at a fair. A fair devoted to getting drunk. A fair devoted to getting drunk that is three hours from the nearest ocean.

I freely admit that it may not have been the shrimp, though...perhaps it was just my stomach rebelling overall, from the other things swimming around in there...beer, sausage, cajun chips, and a sip or two from YG's Cherry Icee, which are so much more disgusting than I remember.

(It may also be related to the fact that I took OG and the Noxious boy on the Tilt-A-Whirl not long before we left, and the waaaay stoned carny LEFT US ON THERE for what appeared to be three turns worth of time. Seriously, and I'm not just being an old woman about this. Bill and Bob will attest to the fact that every adult on that goddamn ride had their head lolling by the end of it.)

For what it is worth, in those horrible, bed-spinning few minutes between bathroom and unconsciousness, it did occur to me that I should go try to blog something before I passed out. (Clearly, I did not, as I am sane; I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you.)

Steppin' Out

Tonight, dearest Mick finds herself without a husband-slash-date, so, for my birthday, she is taking me to the Paramount to see Sarah Vowell. Huzzah!

As previously mentioned, Assassination Vacation was one of the best books I read over the summer. Like David Sedaris, her writing style is what I aspire to - she's morbid, obsessive, and hysterically funny. (Anybody have Amy Sedaris's new book yet? It looks like I'd like that one, too.)

And, of course, tomorrow...it's the wurst little celebration in Texas, y'all! Oh, come on down to New Braunfels and join us and about 5000 of our closest friends as we drink beer, eat sausage, and ride carnival rides to the point - and yea, at times, over the point - of vomiting.

Come on, let's put our children's lives in the hands of stoned carnies! It'll be fun!

(And is it just me, or is there something kind of icky looking about this, the "official" image of Wurstfest? It kind of looks like a party at Mark Foley's house, to me.)

Come to think of it, pity me. I'll be the one driving home, as I drew the short straw this year. It sucks to be the sober one amongst a group of lushes and neer-do-wells.

Detritus

(Detriti?)

We're still feeling flush with victory over at the Mags household. It's been so long since The Man and I felt like we were at all relevant to the country we live in. I was beginning to be sort of convinced that we'd have to move to Europe to have our ideals be considered normal, you know? I realize the victory was razor-thin, and that we are still a very divided nation, but...finally, finally, it appears that I am not in the minority anymore. People finally realize that Bush is a dangerously incompetent man.

Oooh, I get shuddery just thinking about that word...majority. I think I have Majority Wood. Like Morning Wood, but it only happens every 15 years or so. Actually, for me, that's about the same frequency as Morning Wood. (You listening, The Man?)

I realize why George Allen and Burns in Montana just rolled over tits up today. They're handing us the shit sandwich that is Iraq, and they're probably just as happy not to have to deal with it. It's not going to be a fun couple of years. I just hope that the Democrats heard us. Sometimes, as sad as I am to admit this, they just don't.

And, though Travis County remains the defiant blue spot in the center of the state, Texas, of course, remains as backwards-assed as ever. I cannot stand the thought of staring at Rick Perry ad infinitum. (Do you KNOW there is not a term limit for governor in Texas? Do you KNOW THAT? He could be our governor UNTIL HE DIES. Worse yet...oh, Christ, he's considering national office. President Perry! Aaaaaaaah! My brain hurts!)

Tonight, though, we're singing "O Happy Day" over in central Austin. One day at a time. This is it. Straight ahead, and rest assured, you can be sure. But while you're here enjoy the view; keep on doing what you do. Hold on tight, bitches, we'll muddle through, one day at a time.

Post script of no relevance whatsoever: It's really friggin' hot for November, and, as usual, somehow manages to be humid while there is no rain whatsoever. Really, now, I moved here solely because of Kansas City winters (oh, and long-haired hippie boys,) but 91 degrees the week before my birthday? I could handle, say, 10 degrees cooler. If I just didn't have to have the fucking A.C. on in November, I'd be fine.

Oh, and you lurkers out there? Nobody's replying, but I know some of you are out there. You are warmly invited to delurk and greet. (However, you may not criticize my big butt. Or my lame late-night token blog posting crapola that I am putting forth in the effort to put some piece of shit piece of writing out there every day. Or anything. It's about the love, people!)

Lastly, some belated Halloween sugar for you, from the one obsessed with her naughty bits:


She doesn't look like trouble, does she? She's a princess! They're NEVER trouble.

Can two-year-olds be at risk for becoming slutty?

Overheard at the dinner table last night:

YG (at table, shirtless, singing The Hokey Pokey:)

"You put your nipples in,
You put your nipples out,
You put your nipples in,
And you shake them all about."

Good Morning, Starshine!

You really shouldn't have.

I mean, I know it's my birthday month, but...I am just flabbergasted by this wealth you have bestowed upon me. I'm stunned, and flummoxed. I'm stunnoxed.

All it would have taken was the House for me to be pleased beyond all reason. Seriously, that was the diamond anniversary band right there. But, you went ahead, and you GOT ME THE SENATE, TOO? And Rumsfeld's head?

I love you guys. Seriously.

Morrissey Say Please

Good time for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad

So please please please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time.
Lord knows, it would be the first time

Vote Tomorrow!

It's time, y'all. Take to the streets.

A Town Called Malice

Topic: Mags' Pop Culture Obsession, The Origins
Title: Part II, The Pink Hair Gel Years

Suburban Kansas City, Missouri, in the 80's, was the absolute middle of America. Smack-dab in the center of the country, it's one middle-sized city, with middle-road values and politics. The "aware years" started there. (However, as previously discussed, my "aware years" clearly started WAY after those of my peers.)

After the Shaun Era came late elementary school and junior high school. Somehow, in those years, I managed to become unbearingly unpopular. (Now I'm well aware that everyone says that, but I'm pretty sure I hit a nadir that not too many of my friends reached.) I had a couple of on-and-off friends; one of whom was "bad," and whom I gladly followed to misadventure when available, Largely I was alone. (Or, at least it seems that way now.)

I did, of course, have a family, and a sister who still lived at home up until I was 11. My sister seemed to have good music - the B52's, Queen, Meatloaf. The Ramones, Cat Stevens - so I was kind of well-off there. She also had great taste in movies and TV, so we watched Soap and SNL, usually taping episodes on our first-generation Betamax and watching them over and over again until we had committed them to memory. I snuck in her room and stole her Monty Python records, who I heard for years before I had ever watched. We went to see a lot of movies, and most of the best ones. (Reading this, it sounds like I should have been cooler, but I was also watching and The Music Man and Oklahoma! and Guys and Dolls, and I don't think I could then differentiate between the hip and the dramatically un-so.)

But, Kansas City reveled in that Bob Seeger, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner/Journey/Boston sort of mindset. It was so...macho, so AOR. (I'm totally not insulting lovers of those bands; Boston is a guilty pleasure, and god knows Steve Perry is my personal karaoke idol.) I did not catch on to this Truth be told, I didn't notice anything about what was going on outside my own head a good deal of the time, so I kinda missed that era altogether. When I came around enough to try to conform, it just never really worked out for me.

Somewhere in the haze in which bad permanents and braces were just cherries on the cake of my life, I got cable. We got Showtime and The Movie Channel, and I started to really watch even more movies (some with soft-core! Woo!). Finally saw Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Showtime used to play music videos in between their movies. The first video I ever saw was "Once in a Lifetime," by The Talking Heads. (Somewhere around the same time, I also saw "Private Life" by Oingo Boingo, "AEIOU Sometimes Y" by EBN-OZN, and "One Step Beyond" by Madness. (And I just realized that I still have all of those albums!)

I got MTV a year or so after we got cable - it was originally a pay channel, you know, and damned if my parents were going to pay for THAT. I believe it was right about then that I demanded to be taken to - oh CRAP, what was the name of that mall store that sold "new-wave clothing? Not Chess King, that was for guys. Karla, help! Anyway, I would only buy clothes atTHAT place- and I renounced my mother's K-Mart shopping. I grew my horrible perm out and my bad friend cut my hair into spikes, which I began to tip with that red hair gel. And, logically, I discovered Duran Duran.

Lord, let it be known that I would STILL, to THIS DAY, drop my pants at any place, at ANY TIME, for Simon LeBon. I saw their concert tour two years ago, and I LOOOVED IT. Needless to say, the fixation on them left Shaun in the dust. (To see them on their 1984 tour, I made my mother drive me downtown at like 7 in the morning so I could get in line for line tickets. Now that I'm looking back, she was way nicer than I thought she was.)

Somewhere in there, I had more seminal movie moments - Stripes, Tootsie, not quite to John Hughes yet - but I think the apex was Valley Girl. First of all, there had been no doubts about my sexual orientation - at least, not by me - up until that point, but seeing a 19-year-old Nic Cage without a shirt pretty well cemented it. And, of course, there was that amazing soundtrack. You see, you youngsters out there will have heard all those songs eight million times on 80's compilations by now, but you have to remember, there was a brief time when those songs were not mainstream. Having cable and a Betamax, I watched that movie until I had committed it to heart, and knew all the songs before a copy of the soundtrack of the movie was ever available in the mall record stores.

For what it's worth, that movie seemed to represent a turning point. I was still not cool, but at least I started to feel more like a human, and I started to be less concerned with looking like the cheerleaders. Somewhere in there, friends started to happen, several of whom are still here.

Thank you Martha Coolidge, and of course my darling Nic. No matter what crap you're in nowadays, I am yours forever. If you ever need me and Simon for any kind of fun, you know, call me.

Happy Diwali!

I just got back from my first Diwali party, hosted by dear friend/co-worker at her house.

She fed us an enormous meal, from appetizers (puff pastry around potatoes; like samosas but smaller and not as crispy, and these little, fried dough balls with spicy peas in the middle and a tamarind sauce) to a huge main course (a paneer dish, dal, and curried cauliflower and potatoes, with rice, naan, and puris) and then kheer and a carrot cheesecake for dessert. Heaven.

However, not only did she feed us, she gave us all saris! I am currently bedecked in an orange tunic with hand-sewed floral and mirrored accents. (I'd post a picture, but something is apparently wrong with my camera, as it keeps making me look tired, drunk, and fat.) They are so comfortable! If I wore these all the time, I'd never worry at all about what I ate, because nothing would ever be tight. I've been living the wrong life, it seems. (I'm not sure I'm cut out for the bindi, though. All night long I kept thinking I had a zit or a big scab on my forehead.)

But, damn it, the WHOLE NIGHT, that song from The Office was playing in my head (to the tune of the Adam Sandler "Hanukkah" song, for those poor souls that missed it:)

Diwali
A festival of lights
Let me tell you something
Tonight has been
One cra-a-a-zy night
So put on your saris
It's time to celebrate Diwali
Everybody looks so jolly
But it's not Christmas, it's Diwali
The goddess of destruction Kali
Stopped by to celebrate Diwali
Don't invite any zombies to a celebration of Diwali
Along came Polly
To have some fun at Diwali
If you're Indian and you love to party
Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Diwali
Happy Diwali!

Damn you, Steve Carell.

Pimp That Snack!

I'm not really up for any blogsterbation tonight; so you get links. Just links. And you'll LIKE it.

First off, from Todd, a strangely mesmerizing little UK website called "Pimp that Snack."


The gist of it is that you - yes, YOU - have the power to make ginormous versions of your favorite snack foods, and then take snapshots of them to show to the world. (The most popular one, the Giant Cadbury Cream Egg, is pretty impressive, I must say. But - I'm mildly disgusted by just the normal-sized Cadbury eggs, though I'll eat one every year - so the picture of the hyooge one kinda makes me want to hurl.

Other places in the world that are making me happy tonight (thanks to Karla May and The Presurfer:)

Cats that Look Like Hitler
Disgusting Candy
Monster Sneakers

And that's it, babies. That's what I have on a Friday night.

You know I really love you, don't you? You know I don't WANT to hurt you, right? So, why you gotta be checkin' the blog all the time and making me mad?

Whew; thanks for the picture capabilities, o Blogger gods. Blogger giveth; Blogger taketh away.

Topic: A Brief History of Mags' Pop Culture Obsession
Tonight: The Origins

In my early years, I was generally ignorant of the musical tastes of the world around me. My parents were older - both 38 when I was born; how HORRIFYINGLY OLD! - and were not ones to have any interest whatsoever in popular music.

My family, steered by my older sister, did watch the great TV shows of the day - All In the Family, Maude, The Carol Burnett Show, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, etc., and we did go see some great movies (my earliest moviegoing memory is seeing Young Frankenstein, which scared me in the beginning where the corpse in the coffin grabs the book).

Musically, though, up until about the age of eight, I was beholden either to my parents (whose records I listened to for a rather embarassingly long time; these included Spike Jones, Mitch Miller, and Patti Page) or my sister. My sister, who is seven years older than I, brought the first pop records into my life. I vividly remember listening to her 45's of "Silly Love Songs" (I loved that chorus..."I....loooove....yooooou") "Seasons in the Sun" and "I Think I Love You." Vicious, edgy pre-punk rebels, we were not.

The first music I can really remember picking on my own was, predictably, that of Mr. Shaun Cassidy. I don't remember what was the impetus - maybe my sister's love for David Cassidy? - but I remember my heterosexuality asserting itself rather suddenly and violently when I first saw him, 'round about the end of third grade.


Oh, lord, I loved him. I loved those big doe eyes, those white teeth, and that swoony voice. He was sixteen, and sick of school, and didn't know what he wanted to do. He bought a guitar, he got the fever, and THAT, my friends, was ROCK-N-ROLL.

Thus began my downfall. If it was screamy, and teen-y, I was THERE. I agitated to go to the grocery store with my mother every week to see if the new issue of Tiger Beat (or its inferior imitator, Teen Beat) was on the shelves. When I got a new one, I cut out pictures of Shaun in little heart shapes and glued them to my dresser (sidebar: If OG did that now, I would cut out her lungs). My walls were plastered with his centerfolds. Screw those pale, flaccid wannabes Leif Garrett and Willie Aames. Shaun was my darling, my life, my everything.

Somewhere in the 4th grade, I heard on the radio - which I, by this point, NEVER turned off - that there was going to be a BIG CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENT. I knew - I just knew - it had to be him. When they announced that it was, I cried. I begged my mother to drive across town to buy tickets for several of my friends - I actually had friends by this point, which was a step up - and she did. (Another sidebar: I just realized how fucking cool that was.)

So, there you have it, friends; my first big concert was in 4th grade, and it was Shaun Cassidy. He came onstage by breaking out of a big, white paper circle, sillhouetted in smoke. I died, right then and there. My heart felt like it was literally going to burst out of my chest. (My mother, concerned, ended up taking me to a cardiologist after that. Word.) We didn't know then, but it was absolute joy that was making my heart explode.

And, somehow, after that, it was...kind of over for me. But, the radio stayed on, and I got older.

Next up: The Dry Period, Duran Duran, and How Valley Girl Saved My Life

More on Slut-O-Ween

This is a very excellent post on the Slut-O-Ween phenomenon from a blog of someone I don't know, but apparently would like.

Welcome to NaBloPoMo!

(Ok, so there will be no pictures tonight, either. Bloody fucking hell. And I had the cool logo ready to go.)

It's National Blog Posting Month, as declared by someone I don't know, but who apparently has a really funny blog. The goal is to post something every day, no matter how inane it is or how buttfuckingly tired you are. The other goal is for lurkers and spiers to say hello, how ya doing, make a comment at least once.

Plus, November is my birthday month I'm on the Slip-n-Slide towards 37. It's the Mags Season of Deeply Annoying Introspection, anyway.

So, I am your bitch for 30 days.

I cannot share with you how effing lame I feel, however, to not have come up with a fabulous theme for 30 days, like Badger did.

The best I can do is to make the theme this time about what makes me truly me. You know, Mags would really be nothing without her dearest loves, her absolute reason for living. No woman is an island, and of course, I am supported completely and utterly by these people.

I speak, of course, of the editors of Entertainment Weekly. They are my weekly pop culture junkies. I have had a subscription to this magazine for YEARS, people. Yes, I used to get The Nation and The Progressive and Mother Jones, but we got too poor to keep all our subscriptions, so I only get THE ONE. Yes, I ditched nearly all of my progressive magazines for EW. Because they have movie reviews, and book reviews, and talk about all kinds of music I can't afford to check out. Because I'm really shallow. I admit it.

However, I loves me the pop culture. So I'll try to drop in a reference or two every day.

Tonight: How continually FUCKING amazing is Lost ? Damn, that show messes with my head. Who the fuck were that guy and that blonde girl? Did I miss something completely? And it was really, really sad tonight.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this show has the potential to join Twin Peaks as some of the most addictive shit I have ever seen. I'm kind of liking Heroes a lot, still; it has potential, anyway. We'll see. Tons of other shows have faded away with really good premises, too. (Whither Firefly? Really! It was great! And, of course, the dearly lamented Freaks and Geeks. Buffy was the only one that really got a long-term shot at greatness. More on that one later.)

I hear I would love Battlestar Galactica, too. From what I've seen, I'm sure I would like it. I hope I can catch up someday...I have have precious few opportunities to watch shows, so I just haven't had time to fit it in. (I'm probably canceling NetFlix, too; shit. I hate that.)

Lost plus a glass of good red wine and the girls good for me even on a Single Parent night; a little slice of Wednesday night heaven was had this evening.

(I have to share...this was punctuated by a sleepy YG stumbling into the room just at the climax of Lost tonight, and me being the Mother of the Year candidate that I am, I made her stay in the room with me until it was over. Some of the most complex sentences I've ever heard her use came out of her mouth: "Mama, did the big storm pick up that man and bang him down? Is he hurt? He's bleeding!" Erm, probably was supposed to take you out of the room before you saw this.)