Slow Adventures in Slothville

Pack 'em Up & Move 'em Out

2006-03-13T16:03:00.000-05:00

Well, everyone, our tenure here at Blogger is at an end. I've put together a little shanty town with some corrugated tin, rags and rusty pipes in a very up-and-coming area. If you'd like to visit with me while I work on my links and enable my comments and generally clean house and set up our new home, I'd love to have you. It looks a little dingy right now, but all it needs is a little TLC. If you're not too sassed about being uprooted and would like to check out the new digs, please email me at findslothville@gmail.com for directions and password instructions. Tell me who you are, how I know you, and direct me to your homepage if you have one. You may not receive a reply for a day or two, but that's only because I'm still trying to put everything together and I don't necessarily want people poking around while there's still broken glass on the floor and the doors are falling off the hinges. And, oh, the paint job. Horrendous. A couple days, tops, eh? Thank you all for coming with me!

Rage of the Sloth

2006-03-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

You know what? All this cutesy Wordpress shit about how their server has a personality and yay it's a public forum and look how easy we make everything is really really annoying when you can't get any of their crap to work. Slothville IS moving for privacy/security purposes. It's just a little glitchy at the mo. As soon as possible I will update with instructions on how to receive your password and we'll put all this behind us. Onward and upward with the Sloth!

Grrrr....

2006-03-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

All attempts to switch to Wordpress have been thwarted. Soooooo irritated. More efforts to follow.

Morning Quickie

2006-03-09T09:38:00.000-05:00

I wish. Overheard in Cambridge: Harvard Professor - "You know the ironclad rule of chatrooms, right? Does everyone know this? The ironclad rule of chatrooms is that if they are unmoderated people always end up talking about Adolph Hitler." Douchebag - "I think I'm a pariah because I'm good-looking and I say emotionally charged things and because I'm interesting looking that makes me a target when I say things that are, like, controversial. People feel they need to argue with me all the time." (At which point I mention that I say emotionally charged things on a regular basis and I don't feel like a target to which he replies, "Yeah, but you're a pretty girl. You can say anything you want because nobody really takes you seriously.") Warrior Steve - "Whenever I'm walking toward someone on the sidewalk and they don't move, I just assume they're a scientologist."

Oh, The Drama

2006-03-08T11:57:00.000-05:00

I hate to say this, but it looks like I'm going to have to put a password protection on Slothville. I have no idea how to do this. If you would like to help me please leave your email in comments.

One-Shoe Monday

2006-03-06T13:20:00.000-05:00

I am so busy at work today and I apologize, but I only have time for one shoe today. This one. This shoe (let's call her Shoe) wants to talk to you about Celexa - which is an antidepressant, apparently. Shoe tells me (and everyone within earshot) that Celexa saved her life because she was sooooooooooo depressed and ohmygod, it was like totally a chemical thing and even though she caught her boyfriend giving her brother a blowjob while he was visiting and looking at colleges and sleeping on the couch and eating all the cereal, like no matter how much she bought he would just eat it all because he's such a pig and now it turns out he's a gay pig who has no respect for her relationship and ohmygod, how could he even DO that - he's her BROTHER - it's practically incest!! And even though she's been having to sleep on the couch while her boyfriend and her brother "get it out of their systems" or whatever (god! there's probably cereal crumbs in the bed!) and she's pretty sure they're using her vibrator for something that uh! she doesn't even want to know about, it turns out that this whole depression thing and all that cutting she was doing with the bread knife while those two were whirrrrrrrr-ing away in the bedroom - perverts! - it was all CHEMICAL. So she got these pills called Celexa from her doctor (and also a crapload of Ritalin from one of her 8th grade science students who trades it for passing lab grades) and now she feels SO MUCH HAPPIER AND BETTER AND AWESOME ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!! Yay for MEDICINE!!!!!!!!

Hybrid Holla

2006-03-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a couple of days. I've been....busy. And muy distracted. So here is (belatedly) the story of my trip home from Dantobindantobin's 30th birthday party. First of all, the thought of going to Dorchester (Dot) made me giddy inside. I'd never been there, although I've lived in Boston for about eight years. Eight years ago, if Dan Tobin was having a 30th birthday party in Dorchester I still would have gone, but I would have worn sexy kevlar and packed some heat. Yay for gentrification! The Trifecta was on the scene: Ninja Sloth, Fashion Explosion Emily, and Warrior Steve. On the way there, as we drove through every single neighborhood in Boston in vain attempts to find the mythical land of Dot, Warrior Steve expressed a great deal of interest in Emily's hybrid car, from which emerged this fascinating bit of foreshadowing: "Yeah, I love only filling the gas tank once a week but the problem with it is that if you leave anything on even for a short time - headlights, wipers, whatever - the car dies really fast." After a somber, "Hmmm, really..." we promptly forgot this vital, potentially life-saving piece of information. Toonces: our designated driver. After driving (unnecessarily) through the Back Bay, Jamaica Plain, Beacon Hill, Ontario, and Nevada, we finally found Dot. Thepartywasgreat, icecreamcake, drunkDanTobin, etc. Oh, and there was this cool music remote control gadget thing that I wish I could explain better but it confused and intimidated me and also Warrior Steve hogged it the whole time. So then it was time to go home. In the horizontally blowing snow. And off we went, the Trifecta, pleased with successful party attendance and fortified with sushi and cashews. Did I mention the horizontal snow? The magical realm of Dot where feeling sad will cause you to sink into the mud with your horse and die. Driving down a busy road, Toonces was momentarily distracted and the stupidfuckinghybrid hit a stupidfuckingcurb and got a stupidfucking flat. It was scary and we were nearly hit by a bus. Toonces pulled over and faster than Emily and I could say "Where's the AAA card?" Warrior Steve was leaping out the door into a) traffic and b) horizontal snow with a casual, "I'll change the tire, it'll just take a minute." After a brief discussion about the so-not-obsoleteness of men and how feminism can go fuck itself when there's a flat tire involved, Emily went to join Warrior Steve and help him by hollering girlish words of encouragement into the driving wind, leaving me in the car. With the radio on. And the headlights on. And the wipers on. Warrior Steve changed that tire, alright. Oh, he sure did. And fast too! Maybe 10 minutes? Juuuuuuuuuust enough time for the stupidfuckinghybrid to turn into a worthless pile of dark, silent metal, mocking us. No, really, there was mocking. (Gutteral voice) "Looks like the triiiiiiifecta is triiiiiiiiifuckeda...." So. Driving snow, dead car. Emily, nearly hit by another bus, was attempting to flag down passing drivers with the power of her sexy fuzzy hat, which wasn't working because said hat was covered in 10 inches of snow. No one stopped. No one. Until, FINALLY, thank the baby Jesus, three gigantic black men smoking blunts in a stolen car decided to help us out. This was right about the time I went from being Ninja Sloth to Holy Shit We're Going To Get Jacked And Taken To A Disreputable Part Of D.C. And Forced To Smoke PCP And Maybe I'll Just Pee My Little Pants Now Sloth. Warrior Steve was unfazed. He happily chatted them up while unfurling the jumper cables from the stolen car and after a brief interlude the Trifecta was on its way home. Men, worry not about turkey basters and cloning. Lots of women know how to change tires and wrangle jumper cables. But those of us who are too lazy to learn things like that; we will always need you.

Shameful Shoe Monday!

2006-02-26T23:19:00.000-05:00

Ok, so tomorrow I'll tell you all about how my friends and I almost died in several different ways on the way home from Dan Tobin's 30th birthday party. Good times. But we have business to attend to and attend to it we shall. Here are the shameful shoes you've been waiting a whole long week for. You know what these brave soldiers need... Ok, well, they need to not die. But other than that they need FASHION! That's right - nothing disarms the Viet Cong like a snazzy pair of cammy pumps. Wait, which war are we losing again? WHEN KOOSHES ATTACK! Man, this is a CARAZY epidemic. Just ask these people: Oh, I'm sorry, you can't. They have all been transformed into a slick of viscera coating the pavement. Ohhhh well. Well, it's not like I didn't WARN YOU GUYS!!! Where have I seen these? Where, where, where???? If I could just get into the groove of my memory, if I wasn't so hung up on this brain lock, if I could just remember it would beeee a holidaaaay!! Got it! They were on THIS bitch. (This bitch I totally idolized and wanted to be for exactly 71% of my pre-teen years, natch.) Whaaaaaaaa??????? GodDAMN!! I could have SWORN that dude was a dude!! Must have been all that simpering that threw me off. And finally: You know what would have made this experience a lot more luxuriant? The proper toilet seat. Even inebriated frat-boy assholes deserve a little comfort in times of need. Happy Monday, peeps. Hope your weekend was divine.

The Answer You Seek

2006-02-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

Someone got to my website yesterday by Googling "What's the most a sloth can grow up to." The answer to your question, dear anonymous reader, is, in my personal experience, exactly five feet plus two and one-half inches. Circumference is another matter.

Friday List

2006-02-24T11:47:00.000-05:00

Bad things that have happened this week: Well, other than Iraq teetering on the edge of civil war, I would have to say that the South Dakota abortion ban tops my list. I had to get all the way to page 16 of the Boston Globe yesterday before I heard anything about it. Now I can't find anything about it online that isn't on an anti-choice website. Basically, it is now a felony in South Dakota to perform an abortion under any circumstances other than to save the life of the mother. That includes rape and incest. Yes, you read that correctly. And here we go, off to the newly re-shuffled Supreme Court to determine if daddies are to be allowed to force their daughters to give birth to their brothers. Way to go South Dakota! Them's some mighty fine priorities ya got there. Good things that have happened this week: 1. I took myself out for sushi last night at the very best sushi place in town. They tried to sit me next to the kitchen, not seeming to realize that I have at least a corpuscle of self-esteem. I demanded a better spot at the sushi bar and proceeded to drink allllllllll the sake in the wholewideworld. There really is something about sitting at a sushi bar, reading a book, drinking sake and eating raw fish that makes a person feel classy and civilized. 2. I FINALLY got a bunch of people who I like but don't know each other in the same room together. Dantobindantobin and his anerable wife Meaghan came over to my place for brunch and joining them was Emily "Fashion Explosion" Neill with her brand-new pocketbook-sized child, Theo, Steve "Warrior" Steve and my roommate ChrisI'lldothedishesifyoucook. And they all seemed to get along which is what I consider unparalleled success. 3. Chocolate and peanut butter covered banana bread happened. To me. There was also milk. Clearly there is some sort of karmic goodness floating around. 4. Speaking of karma, someone gave me this pair of brand new $90 shoes for FREEEEEE. Having a reputation as a shoe maven can come in mighty handy sometimes.... 5. And best of all - the deeeeelicious icing on the motherfucking cake - was this email: Dear Members of the Harvard Community, I write to let you know that, after considerable reflection, I have notified the Harvard Corporation that I will resign as President of the University as of June 30, 2006. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have served Harvard in this role, and I will treasure the continuing friendship and support of so many exceptional colleagues and students at Harvard. Sincerely, Larry Summers Sayonara douchebag!! Have a lovely weekend, all. Slothy kisses to each and every one of you.

Ssssssssssssssslice........

2006-02-21T16:57:00.000-05:00

You'll never believe what happened to me in the shower the other day.......Ok, wait, I have to preface this. My shower has seven - count 'em, SEVEN - shower heads. They are not all up over my head, they vertically line either side of the tile shower. In order to keep a lather going I generally have to turn off three of them so that at least one side of me can stay soapy at a time. So. I'm facing the shower wall that is not gushing water, shaving under my arms. I'm not sure why I persist in doing this since, as you can see - - it just makes makes my armpits look nekkid while the rest of me is furry, but so be it. So I finish the first underarm and bring the (new) (pink) (3-blade) razor down in a sweeping arc with the intention of rinsing it off under one of the lower shower heads behind me. Perhaps you've already gleaned where I'm going with this. I cut my butt. Total butt cheek carnage achieved in .03 seconds. I felt a little woozy as I watched the long red slice along the right globe of my ass pouring my life down the drain, but I held it together. Then I realized that the only disinfectant we had in the house was rubbing alcohol and upon applying it to my ass cut I promptly stopped holding it together and invented all manner of new and naughty words such as "treecunt" and "sinkfuckhole." Oops. Still like having seven shower heads though...

Aaaaaand, we're back!

2006-02-20T16:00:00.000-05:00

With our first-in-a-while Shameful Shoe Post. I hope you've all been well - let's get to it! Well, I think we can all guess where the leather for this shoe came from... "Get the fuck away from me Donna Karan or I will cut you!! I will CUT! YOU!!" This Marc Jacobs shoe costs $100 and doubles as a dish strainer. Ok, I know, I know. I'm always picking on the fuzzy boots. I can't help it - they're funny! Especially when they're RAINBOW COLORED. But in this case I really just wanted to share with you one of the customer reviews of this wicked hawt boot. "LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THEM- Ooooomy god these shoes are awesome!!!!!! I have them on right now!! THEY ARE SO COMFORTABLE AND CUTE. I can't get enough of em! They even make your legs look skinny! I got the pink kind, YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY GO FOR IT!!!!! GET THEM! I wear an 8 and got a 9 and they fit PERFECT." Oooooomy god, I JUST ACCIDENTALLLLY SCRATCHED A HOLE IN MY CHEEK WHILE I WAS READING THAT!!!!!!! Anyone who wears this boot deserves to be lured into the back of a van by a man with a fake cast on his arm and then dumped down a well and forced to rub the lotion on its skin, no questions asked. This ONE THOUSAND DOLLAR shoe looks to me - and feel free to disagree - like it was riveted (badly) by Alec Baldwin's chest. Alec Baldwin's chest doesn't have opposable thumbs (last time I checked). Perhaps that's why so much of itself got left behind. And finally, this handy boot is super for those times when standing in traffic, holding that cardboard sign that says, "IMA HORE WITH A DERTY ASS PLZ CAN I HAVE SUM MUNNY" starts to be a killer on the triceps. No sign needed - these babies speak for themselves. Well.........Slothville's doors are once again open. Welcome back to crazytown!

Hiatus

2006-02-02T10:22:00.000-05:00

Due to technical (emotional) difficulties, Slothville is temporarily closing its doors. You may have noticed that a cyclone came in and knocked all the buildings down. Well, we need to keep the public out for a little while as we re-build. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that you will return when renovations are complete. Thank you for your loyal readership. In the meantime, a little light reading.

Floozmail

2006-01-31T14:36:00.000-05:00

My mother sent me this in an email today: A Curious Juxtaposition This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day. As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog."

Floozday

2006-01-31T09:58:00.000-05:00

Uh!!! Not only is it cold and rainy and drizzly and damp and dark and wretched outside, it's TUESDAY. God save the Queen!!! I need coffee. I need to accomplish approximately 15,000 separate things, the majority of which would be considered an emergency. Then you will get updates. I so swear.

Frizzy Funday

2006-01-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

Cybele had it right. It's an eyebrow issue. It's not this: It's not this: It's really more like this: I looked in the mirror yesterday and thought, "Hey, there's a giant, gleaming white cat hair sticking off my face." This, of course, made perfect sense considering that I spent the weekend in the company of Felix: I don't know how long it takes to grow a 2.5 inch milk-white eyebrow hair, but my guess is that it has been poking out there for a while. That's fine. I mean, it's cool, you know, but I guess I just want to say that for all of you who didn't bother to tell me that I was turning into Groucho Marx, you made your bed. And no, you don't have anything in your teeth. Shameful Shoe posts resume 1 week from today.

Fuzzy Monday

2006-01-30T10:05:00.000-05:00

I have training this morning so will be absent for a few hours. Updates to come on how I am turning into Albert Einstein and not in a good way. It's so hard to find good tweezers these days. They can be so resentful. Everything's fine until you ask them to do a little work and then it's all, "Ohhhh, I don't get paid enough," and "Ohhhhhh, my work is so hard," and "Ohhhhhh, what are you going to do when you're too old to grip me...." Happy Monday - I'll be back in a bit.

On a lighter note...

2006-01-26T16:53:00.000-05:00

Some poor sod found Slothville today by Googling "why am I the only one reprimanded at work." .............I guess we all have our battles.................

By way of explanation...

2006-01-26T09:19:00.000-05:00

I feel the need to acknowledge what most of you have probably noticed by now, which is that Slothville is on thin ice at the mo. I'm blogging about television and other random non-personal bits because that's all I have going on. The truth is, I am going through something that is so monumentally horrible that I have completely shut down my life. I come to work in the morning, I get through my day, I go home, pour myself a drink and turn on the tv. Emotionally, that's all I'm capable of right now. You should feel sorry for my boyfriend, he deserves some pity for putting up with me in this state. This is my blue-and-green softhead. She looks how I feel. Click the link in the sidebar if you would also like a stuffed head to emote for you. I can't talk about what's going on with me on this blog. I can't talk about it anywhere, actually. Suffice to say, it is so amazingly, amazingly bad that you are better off not knowing about it. I'm not abandoning Slothville. I will still be posting regularly. Just know that if things seem a little spotty around here for a while, it isn't that I've lost my edge. It's that I've lost something much, much worse. Everything's going to be fine. Just not right this second.

Mattress Mouth

2006-01-24T16:18:00.000-05:00

There are times, not very often, mind, but just every once in a great while..... ......that I see a picture of Angelina Jolie and she just looks so............... so....................... ..................homely.

New Weekly Feature?

2006-01-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

And now for this week's (first ever) edition of "I Can't Believe It's Not Florida!" Have you ever noticed that most retarded crime happens in Florida? Fark gives Florida it's own category, for god's sake. So it's always disconcerting to hear about dumb, white trash shit going down in other states. Little girl is shot in the head when her grandaddy and some other shmuck get all road-ragey and shooty.......... Only in fuckin' Florida. Naked guy gets beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat and the cops arrest him.............. Only in fuckin' Florida, my friends. Drunk dude falls asleep at the drive-thru and demands five double cheeseburgers and a frosty from the cops? FLORIDA!! But wait. What's this? The genius EMT who decided to play a ha-ha on his coworker with the defribillator and accidentally killed her was in.......... was in............. Virginia? Would it kill the world to have some kind of consistency? What's next, a trailer park tornado in Connecticut?? I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING.

Blogtastic

2006-01-24T12:08:00.000-05:00

Michelle Collins, uber funny comedienne extraordinaire and author of "You Can't Make It Up," has just been nominated for a 2006 Bloggie award in the Most Humorous category. If you do not visit her site twice a day like I do then you don't have all that struggle not to steal her lines like I do. The other blogs in her category are better known, but not, in my opinion, nearly as funny on a consistent, everyday basis. Every time I click on her site I feel like I just took a harpoon to the frontal lobe. And I mean that in the best possible way. Please go vote! For her! But read her site first otherwise that would be weird! And she's wicked worth reading! Thank you!

Toxic Tuesday

2006-01-24T10:06:00.000-05:00

Uuuurgh. You all know how much I hate Tuesdays. Tuesdays are a pustule smack in the middle of an otherwise smooth week. To make this Tuesday even worse, I cooked baked beans from scratch last night and I think the best word to describe this sloth today would be "toxic." The winds flowing from my furbutt could level a small town. Including the roaches. I will be updating throughout the day today. First post: a picture of my living room, just blurry enough that I don't have to bother covering up peoples' faces.

Wewief!!

2006-01-19T23:48:00.000-05:00

At this very moment I am cackling at The Colbert Report. This guy he's interviewing from, what is it? The 17th district of New York? Oh my god. He's BRUSHING HIS MUSTACHE. I'm sort of surprised to say it, but honestly, this show just keeps getting better. Anything that makes me break out the big teeth laugh is worth a look. Ok, so the test is over, the semester is over, the next one starts in a fucking week so if I'm going to do any good drugs I'd better get on that. 1-800-ASSFORCRACK. Check. Interesting exam. The first essay was painfully general. "You are addressing a government body and explaining to them the nature of folklore, what it is and why they should care about it and fund your study because they have no imagination but might give you money if you blow them, blah blah blah" or whatever. Truthnotkidding: my answer incorporated a giant mushroom colony. My TA. He's a fun guy. The second essay question - and let's be clear that there were only two so they REALLY REALLY COUNTED - was about something that I had first heard of approximately ten minutes before the exam started. No, I'm sorry I should have said EXACTLY ten minutes before the exam started. I was sitting in my seat, looking at the clock, waiting for the professor to pass out the tests, and I thought, "Wasn't there something about some dude that seemed kind of important in all that reading I didn't do?" So I checked out the syllabus and, whatdoyouknow, there was a whole, like, book I was supposed to read. Lucky me, I had the book in my bag. The dude's name was Parry. And he had a friend named Lord. And they were wicked famous in NERD WORLD which is where I currently live. I mainlined a chapter and scanned the index and I swear to god, that essay was kissing MY ass by the time I was done with it. The moral of this story is this: you know that whole thing people always say about how you shouldn't study for the last hour before the exam? Give your feeble brain a rest? BULLSHIT. Work that feeble brain!! Up to the LAST SECOND, bitch!! That's how the Sloth rolls. And now I can finally get some muthafuckin Z's, dawg. Yeah hell, yeah hell, yeah.

Stwess

2006-01-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

Studying foe exams was intewupted wast night by "Wost" and "Pwoject Wunway." Wegular posting will wesume once this test is hunted down and wipped to shweds. Ah, I wuv it when my exams smell like onions...

Monday Mini Post #2

2006-01-17T12:19:00.000-05:00

It's a television theme day. I bet you can guess what I did all weekend. Ohgoodgoddamn!!! Something terrible has happened. I may as well just pack up my crime scene kit and call it a day. What's the point of going on? What's the point of EVEN LIVING?? I have reached the mythical, dreaded, "Law & Order" threshold. GODDAMN YOU, TNT!!! After days, nay, WEEKS, nay, YEARS of watching "Law & Order" reruns stacked on top of each other like unrealistic, overly complicated flapjacks, the end has come. No joy, no mystery, I know all the answers. SVU, done. Criminal Intent, done. The original, SO done. I've seen every episode, guffawed at every laughable confession, rolled my eyes at every crappy pun, remained disturbingly undisturbed by every child rapist guest-star. You're off the hook, man. There's nothing more to do here. Stretch those neck muscles. Spring for a shave. Fly free!!

Mini Monday Post #1

2006-01-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Oh you did NOT! Real World/Road Rules Dumbfucks!!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING??? Dude, the Veterans team is fucking retarded to pit Beth against Ruthie in the Gauntlet. I mean, come ON. First of all, that stupid bitch Montana just wanted to sit out the challenge and she freaked out all over Beth because she was just waiting - WAITING - for even the flimsiest excuse to make it seem like Beth is a crappy team member, which she is NOT. Beth outright ADMITTED that she is the fattest girl on the team and that she should sit out the challenge because she would be the heaviest girl to carry! And they all turned on her! And then she did better than any of them!! Fuck them! They are idiots!! So then they put two strong players in the Gauntlet together? Like THAT'S going to help the team?? YOU FUCKING MORONS, THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS TO SHED YOUR WEAKEST PLAYERS. And now you lost Ruthie. Your team captain. The one person who can get everyone to rally, the one who weighs like 90 lbs. but still wins all the time. You put her in the Gauntlet with a girl you hate BUT WHO HAPPENS TO BE STRONG AS A HORSE. You know what? YOU ALL DESERVE TO LOSE FOR BEING STUPID ASSHOLES WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO STRATEGIZE. And now you have the girl you despise the most as your team captain. Waaaaaaaaay to go. I hope she DRIVES YOUR DUMB ASSES INTO THE GROUND.

Survival Tips

2006-01-12T09:36:00.000-05:00

1. If you want to keep your throat and the fleshy areas of your neck, DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME IN THE MORNING. 2. I am not going to be nice to you in the morning so don't even bother talking to me. See how I am staring at you with an expression of disbelief? See how I turn to my computer and start typing while you are still talking? See these pointy teeth dripping with the blood of the asshole who just gave me a good morning hair-tug? Run, motherfucker! Run!! 3. Treat the sloth like a toxic chemical spill and STAY AWAY. Don't drink the water, don't eat the food, drop everything and leave the area immediately. Failure to do so may result in a disfiguring disease and/or sterility. 4. And if you fucking touch me again, if you are really that stupid, I'm going to eat your children for lunch.

Cultural Exchange

2006-01-10T13:34:00.000-05:00

IM between and my friend Chris who is in medical school in London (via Australia, via Boston) and myself:

chris says:

had the uncomfortable "patient giving me bedroom eyes:

chris says:

today

Sloth says:

eep

chris says:

what do you do?

Sloth says:

tap it

chris says:

HA!

chris says:

tap it and kill the evidence

Sloth says:

penicillin and vinegar, all set.

chris says:

fuck yeah!

chris says:

get this

chris says:

there is a BAR in the HOSPITAL

chris says:

for the MEDICAL SCHOOL

Sloth says:

oh that is marvelous

Sloth says:

mahvelous

chris says:

until recently, it was OPEN for LUNCH

Sloth says:

haaaaaaaahahahaha

chris says:

serving DRINKS

Sloth says:

that is the weirdest thing i've ever heard!!

chris says:

it's crazy.

chris says:

i was getting the tour and i was like.

chris says:

why is there a fucking bar in here?

chris says:

you go from like, dying patient to med school lockers to bar in like 20 paces

Sloth says:

oh great, they probably closed it down because of YOU.

chris says:

true

chris says:

i drink like a fish these days

chris says:

ficking 5% alcohol beer is getting me, though

Sloth says:

no, it's good. you get used to it and then you slay people in drinking games when you come home.

chris says:

that's true. i'll be an UNSTOPPABLE drinking machine

chris says:

stupid liver

Tuesday...

2006-01-10T09:37:00.000-05:00

........not so bad this week. Thought for the morning: there are few things more endearing than watching my boyfriend teach himself how to juggle.

Apropos of Celibacy

2006-01-09T14:28:00.000-05:00

My friend Steve and I just saw Rivers Cuomo at Tealuxe in Harvard Square.

Suh. A Montage.

2006-01-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

I would have thought that "suh" would speak for itself, but there apparently is some confusion. Suh! Anyway, the word has many uses and here to illustrate them are some of our favorite big screen personas. Emphatic: Ok. Imagine that I am the biggest loser you have ever met and I have an unlikely name. I also have a blonde afro and big poofy lips. And moon boots. Now imagine that I am squinting over your shoulder and going, "I'll do whatever I feel like doing, GOSH!!" Now replace "gosh" with "suh." Eh? Are You Fucking Kidding Me?: Ok. Now imagine that I am an unlikely French exchange student and you are a tubby, self-absorbed momma's boy who wants to speak the international language with me. When you give me a superfine portrait of yourself for Christmas, I smile and accept it graciously, but in my head I'm saying, "Suh..........?" Dismissive: Ok. Now imagine that I am an unlikely genius. I'm way better looking than anyone you know and all of my friends are adorably spastic. When the professor says, "From now on I want you and Mitch to spend every waking moment in the lab" I reply, inmyheartbutnotoutloud, "Suh." And then I have a pool party with hordes of randy student beauticians just to let off some steam. "The only thing I can't figure out is how to keep the change in my pockets.... I've got it. Nudity." Reproachful: Ok, moving on. Now imagine that I am unlikely escaped convict who only uses one very particular kind of hair gel. We'll call it......."Capper Can." When the store tells me that it will take two weeks to get some I reply, "Suh. Well, ain't this just a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere." And then I grapple with John Goodman who is a scary cyclops monster both onscreen and in real life. Righteously offended: And finally, imagine that I am an unlikely petty thief playing an unlikely slave to high school popularity opposite some jackass with a baboon heart and a drug problem. Upon finding out that two jocks are spreading rumors about having a "swordfight in [my] mouth" I am rendered speechless at the UNFAIRNESS OF IT ALL. Even if I am not saying "suh," I am thinking it LOUD AND CLEAR. So I kill them. There you go. Just some of the myriad uses for "suh." It's a multi-purpose word for a limited vocabulary. And if you don't like it you can kiss my furbutt. Suh!!

Apropos of Nothing...

2006-01-06T11:02:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading "Death of an Expert Witness" by P.D. James and my new favorite phrase in the wholewideworld is "clunch pit murder."

Thank you, Dan.

2006-01-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

What, you were not all on vacation? You mean people WORK this time of year? Suh. Posting shall resume promptly. Promptly after I hand in my 20-page project due today at 5:30 which I have currently completed 8 pages of. Sweet.

And a 'Splosive New Year!!!

2005-12-23T12:12:00.000-05:00

Earlier this evening, after ten hours spent at the hospital followed by a couple glasses of wine, my mother hollered at the top of her wee lungs, "HAVE A HOLLY JOLLY CHRISTMAS!!! IT'S THE BEST TIME OF THE YEAR!!!" To which I responded, "YOUR APPENDIX MIGHT 'SPLODE AND IT WON'T SNOW, BUT AT LEAST YOU'RE NOT A QUEER!!!" And then we laughed for waaaay too long. So, as you may have sussed, the Appendichristmas sitch wound up a bit more serious than we thought. Turns out, with the pain my stepdad was enduring, John Wayne himself would have peed his chaps and begged for his mammy. The organ in question was no longer in evidence as it had been torn asunder by its own infection ('sploded). After two and a half hours of surgery he was wheeled out of the OR with an IV, a tube through his nose draining his stomach, a catheter, and a whole lot of, "Get these fucking tubes out of me." I have to be honest, it was really gross. (I think I'll delete this before he gets outta the 'pital.) So we're having Christmas in the hospital this year and goddamn if it isn't all on me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. The parentals had planned on doing their shopping on the exact day that a certain useless, pinky-sized extension of the intestine decided mutiny was on the menu so I guess that last-minute frenzied shopping gag-fest I put myself through last night was actually worth the years of my life that it cost me just so there can be SOME presents to go around. ...........That sounds pretty complainy, doesn't it? Pay no attention to the Grinch behind the Sloth! Truly, every time someone you love goes under general anesthesia, the world just stops until they wake up. The world is slowly getting back on its axis tonight, but seeing my stepfather, who anyone should be lucky enough to know, all taped up and puffy and miserable was really scary. It was the first time I had a premonition of what lies ahead for us because it was the first time I had ever seen him look old. But enough of that. He's awake and it's almost Christmas. You know the refrain: "God bless us, every one..." I don't believe in God, but I sure as hell believe in thin excuses for sneaking booze into a hospital. Baby Jesus <--- annoyingly vindictive

Merry Appendichristmas!!

2005-12-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

Last night I called my parents to wish my mother a happy birthday. She was busy saying goodbye to some guests so I chatted with my stepdad while I waited for her to get on the phone. "I ate something that disagreed with me," he said. "I have a really bad pain in my stomach. It won't go away." Our friend Bev, who happens to suffer from chronic colitis, had assured him that it was a rebellious colon but I was unconvinced. It was my stepfather's demeanor that unsettled me. He has something like two months of sick time accrued. He never calls in sick and even when he is sick, he just powers through it like a warrior. So when he said, "I hardly ever get sick but when I do I guess don't handle it very well...." the worry bees started a-buzzing. That statement is patently untrue and the fact that he had convinced himself of it in order to explain how miserable he felt led me to believe that he was experiencing a level of misery that was all new to him. "Don't rub it!" I said. "Maybe you should go to the hospital," I said. "I think I'll wait and see how I feel tomorrow," he replied. Yeah, so my stepfather is currently in the hospital on a morphine drip, awaiting his emergency appendectomy. Methinks someone mebbe pissed off the Baby Jesus this year, eh? Way to go!

Why you gotta H8?

2005-12-21T17:02:00.000-05:00

I only had to click on "next blog" once to stumble upon this curiosity. Because I tend to voraciously scroll down the page it took me a moment to understand the premise... Ok, I still don't really get it. Insights? ~After further consideration it seems like a community forum sort of thing. But hating America is as dumb as hating any country. You can hate the people in power or the people trying to attain power, you can even hate a culture. But a country? That's like saying, "I hate Earth" because there happen to be people on it and people generally suck. That's not Earth's fault. America is awesome! It's just that a whole bunch of people who live inside of it happen to be complete assholes with a lot of power. That's not America's fault. Besides: America includes more than the United States, eh? Don't be hatin'!

Horror Top

2005-12-21T14:12:00.000-05:00

You know how some fools, upon ingesting something particularly odious, say, "Oh my god, this is so gross, YOU HAVE TO TASTE IT!"? Well, I used to pity those fools. But now I'm one of them. I accidentally looked at this picture of Carrot Top working out and now I'm making you look at it too because if I don't, if I have to carry the burden of this horror alone, I will (not kidding!!) set myself on fire in the middle of the street.

Ah, youth.

2005-12-21T11:34:00.000-05:00

Now that my boyfriend is growing a beard, he's looking more Peter Hortony than ever!! And with the havoc that it's wreaking on my face, I'm looking younger and younger by the day.... Thank YOU, sensitive skin!!

Bush Gone Wild

2005-12-21T10:23:00.000-05:00

Caught on tape: George Bush assuring us that, duh!, wiretapping requires a court order! The Patriot Act is just a harmless bit of.....you know, whatever. Caught on camera: Eliza Dushku has the right idea about Bush. More updates later. I have a lot of free time on my hands today......

Berfday

2005-12-19T13:37:00.000-05:00

Happy. To me. A new decade. Existential crisis alert: ORANGE

Oh, it WOULD BE.

2005-12-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

I'm getting sick. I can feel it. *sigh* The timing of the sloth - it is impeccable.

My Awesome Job

2005-12-16T13:35:00.000-05:00

I am the approver for all travel reimbursements and invoice payments in our massively huge department. This is the kind of shit I deal with every. Single. Day. Dear A - In the future, please don't hang up on me. I'm just trying to do my job which revolves entirely around making your job easier. I could send this over to the Travel office and wait for it to come back just so that when I tell you it was not enough documentation you will see that it was Travel who said so, not me, and then maybe be even a tiny bit polite to me. I guess you think I'm some kind of mean, demanding nitpick but when was the last time something was sent back to you from the Travel office? I am thorough in my work so that things don't have to be done twice. If you prefer, from now on I will just send things over incomplete and wait for them to come back before contacting you, to save myself the trouble of wrassling with you over paperwork. It certainly doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. -Slothy Dear Slothy - I fully understand that you are trying to do your job and prevent complications down the line. My frustration is not with you but with a ridiculous system that occasionally boils down to outright harassment. The documentation I supplied is very clear -- and complete; the vouchers are clearly made out in the amount of $39.95 per month in the name of [Vendor]; the letter on the [Vendor] letterhead stationery clearly acknowledges payment for the month of July, and even though the amount is not stated all the other vouchers are for $39.95/month, so one could probably correctly assume that the July figure was for the same amount. I appreciate your attention to detail, but I would also like to think that the people at Travel can demonstrate common sense occasionally and not subject everyone to this frustration when everyone has made a good effort to supply what is required. Thanks. A Dear A - This is absolutely confusing to me. Some people just include an MRA (missing receipt affidavit - trumps all other paperwork) with everything they do in case I need it, which I rarely do. Some people see the provision of a requested MRA as exactly what it is: 30 seconds to fill out a piece of paper and stick it in an interoffice envelope with my name on it. Then there are the people who act as if I am asking them to do something morally reprehensible. As though providing an MRA is tantamount to drowning a sack of kittens. If I asked you to drown a sack of kittens then I would completely understand if you hung up in my ear, but an MRA? The Travel desk sees hundreds of these transactions a day. They have neither the time nor the inclination to dig into the minutiae of "assuming" things, not to mention that while yes they are strict, they are simply following IRS guidelines. I have done this job for several years and it never ceases to amaze me how personally everyone takes these rules - as though they are a personal attack. There is nothing personal about it. The rules are the rules. I didn't make them up and I don't even enforce them - Travel does. Go ahead and expend energy on being mad if you want to, but I don't see why you have to shoot the messenger in the process. If you want me to send this reimbursement over to Travel as-is, let me know. I'm more than happy to do it. -Slothy p.s. You're a stupid cow.

Cult Much?

2005-12-16T11:45:00.000-05:00

From today's MSN celebrity gossip: Dec. 15, 2005

Psssst. Did you hear? Katie Holmes has a bit of a crush on Tom Cruise. And it seems the only way she can truly express the deep feelings she has for her future baby daddy is to repeat the same automaton-like soundbites she's been spouting since they first stepped out together eight long months ago.

"I'm so thrilled!" the glassy-eyed starlet mantras to OK! magazine. "I want to tell the whole world."

You don't say.

Any bets on the next word Katie uses to describe her much-mocked romance with the L. Ron Hubbard-loving, shrink-hating, wedding date-pushing Cruise? We'll give you a hint: It's not "incredible."

"It's amazing," she enthuses for the umpteenth time. "I'm so proud to be with him. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I feel like he's made my life. I love him."

So much so that she and Tom, who recently came in second on Star magazine's list of the tackiest couples of 2005 (they were topped by Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown), are now even dressing alike.

On Wednesday night in New York, the "Dianetics"-devoted duo stepped out in matching togs, with Cruise sporting a brown topcoat and Holmes, who is rumored to be about six months along with a baby boy, donning a mocha-hued sheath that emphasized her endlessly scrutinized belly.

The occasion was an annual fundraiser for the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a Scientology-backed program co-founded by Cruise after Sept. 11 that claims to help firefighters and others exposed to toxins from the collapsed towers clear their systems.

The New York Post says supporters who forked over $6,250 for a ticket were given the chance to glad-hand and strike a pose with Cruise at the event, which reportedly raised $1.6 million, about $400,000 more than last year.

"I started this project out of the great respect I have for the courage and service of the rescue workers," the toothy star declares to "Entertainment Tonight." "When I started this project I was in a position where I knew I could help. I absolutely consider it an honor and a privilege to be here to help these men and women."

But some are glibly taking issue with Tom's idea of help, which, according to the organization's Web site, revolves around a Hubbard-devised "precise regimen" of "exercise, sauna bathing, and vitamin, mineral and oil supplements."

The Post, citing medical professionals, calls the purification process "worthless quackery consisting of sauna sweating, ingestion of cooking oil and large doses of niacin," adding that it has raised concerns within the New York fire department because participants are purportedly counseled to stop taking their prescription medications or using inhalers.

********************************

Yes, great. Could Tom Cruise be any scarier? I can't help but wonder what Katie Holmes is going to give birth to. If anyone sees her eating raw liver I hope the appropriate actions will be taken. (As in, send in the S.W.A.T. team...)

Short Attention Span Friday

2005-12-16T10:45:00.000-05:00

It's about time we had one. I'll be updating throughout the day today. First off, guess what my sister got my for my birthday? An email!! In the email she says that she's going to be in Argentina next week. Awwwwww, I'm so touched. Those are some thoughtful fuckin' birthday wishes. On whatever planet she lives on.

I Have Arrived.

2005-12-14T16:43:00.000-05:00

Nothing equals an imminent party in its ability to send a sloth into reeling panic. Suddenly, my surroundings come into sharp focus. I never before noticed how the Lucille Ball and David outfit magnets are globbed all over our refrigerator like arterial spray. And why do our block letter magnets read "FEEL QUEER MAN BOOTY?" Did I do that? Oh my god - last year's Christmas card from my mother is still on the freezer door! Panic! Panic!! When did I acquire thirteen half-empty boxes of tampons? And this shampoo - I bought it a year ago and never opened it. Does shampoo go bad? The walls of my shower, they are.....no longer there. This smooth white substance covering the inside of the shower makes it pleasantly resemble an ice cave, but I doubt my guests will see it that way. Oh my god, is my toilet CROOKED?? Panic! Panic!! Look at this stack of paintings and mirrors that I never put up on the walls when I moved in over a year ago.... They are sitting in the only spot in my bedroom that has not been declared (secretly, just to myself) a biohazard. Gah!! A pile of Patricia Cornwell books!! Ohmygodohmygod, where can I hide these? "The DaVinci Code" in HARDCOVER??? Panic! Panic!! The arboreal environment in which I live could use a little work. Soooo......... My yuppie status is official. I have hired a woman to clean my apartment. Check out the legs on that filly! She cleans good too. I love it when they prance. It's so...ethnic. What? I'm TURNING THIRTY. I cannot be expected to scrape shower walls and cross over into a new decade in the same week. It's hard enough hanging up all the clothes that have migrated out of the dense foliage of my closet to the more spacious and sunny terrain of my bedroom. I don't know why they insist on doing this. I try to tell them that the fresh water is at the caves - you have to move inland! But they insist on frolicking on the beach and getting themselves all crinkly in the process. I banished them to one chair that groaned and collapsed under the weight of eight hundred thousand wrinkled blazers. My biggest accomplishment: I corralled all of my sandals into a bag in my closet. The Blahniks made a feeble swipe at me and the Gabriella Rochas got a respectable swing in there. It was the Danskos that did the most damage. GodDAMN those bitches were mad! I'm getting my retina re-attached next week. Tonight The Den is coming over with picture-hanging accoutrements and the lights are going up. My apartment WILL be festive. Oh yes.

Momma Sloth

2005-12-13T00:42:00.000-05:00

It's a balmy 17 degrees here today. Rejoice! Things I learned about my mother over the weekend: 1. When she was a child of an age when you still believe that what you do can affect what is on television, she used to beg and plead with Dorothy at the end of "The Wizard of Oz" to only click her heels twice or, alternately, to not click them at all because who on earth would want to go back to a black and white life in the dustbowl after living for even a brief time in Technicolor? 2. She has a cowgirl crush on this cowboy: I really can't imagine why... 3. If she were in an airplane and the guy who was about to take her to jail got hit on the head with a metal suitcase and passed out while the plane was crashing, she would SO NOT PUT AN OXYGEN MASK ON HIS STUPID FACE. 4. If you get her drunk enough she will laugh all the way home. Holidays are complex emotional events. After feeling melancholy about the family I no longer have, I spent the weekend with my parents and started feeling jolly about the family I do have. Tuesdays suck less in December.

Monday Shameful Shoe Gallery

2005-12-12T11:35:00.000-05:00

Some days it just seems like the whole internet is broken. Grah! After a spate of technical difficulties that left me on the verge of unprecedented violence, I offer you this week's Shameful Shoe Gallery. Make sure you lace up that........sneaker! Boot! Horrible, cheap piece of human excrement! You could SAY that anyone who wears this shoe DOES NOT IN ANY WAY deserve to be strung from a tree and riddled with hollow-point bullets, but those are just words. Silly, untrue, misguided words. Let us never speak of this again. For SOME REASON, I honestly couldn't tell you why, this shoe is on sale for 81% off!! Why? Why? It has all the things we like about shoes: kitten heel, slingback, distracting plastic ornamentation, metallic, pointy toe, curled up pointy toe reminding us of a leprechaun, it's charming, like Lucky Charms, like a rainbow, like a pot of gold, like a fucking leprechaun, it's all metally and shamrocky and leprechauny, you just want to tweak its little cheeks and steal its money, am I right? Am I right? I know! Aaaaaaaaaagghh!!! Get it off! Get it off!! Fucking mummy boot just took a chunk out of my leg!! Where the hell is Brendan Fraser when you need him? Jesus, that guy is NEVER around! ............you know, there's a cream for that. Look into my swirl....you are getting verrrrrrry sleeeeeeepy..... I am a gorgeous shoe..... I am soft and comfortable and there is nothing wrong with the teal suede, loafer, sequin combination.... I am fashionable.... I am beautiful... You want to buy me.... When I click my heels you will wake up and remember nothing except that I do not in any way represent a sorry, geriatric attempt at the sparkly shoe trend.... Oh dear. This shoe has several issues. First of all, it's gender-confused. Sweetie, if you can grow that kind of facial hair, you should consider lightening up on the pink. No, I don't mean lighter pink! I mean, try some argyle or something. You might love it! You NEVER KNOW. Second of all, did someone forget to tell Gabriella Rocha that the "justache" went out with 70's porn? The only guy who still embraces the justache is Ron Jeremy and NO ONE emulates THAT guy anymore. What is this, a club? You and pink-stache up there trying to form a little group? Look, you made a valiant effort, I'll give you that. The pink is inoffensive, your facial hair is under control, the sparklies are pretty. I can see you've put a lot of work into your outfit. Small, teensy problem: YOUR WING WANG IS HANGING OUT. EVERYBODY CAN SEE IT. What is this? The inept transvestite club? Man, these Unitarians will let ANYONE meet in their church basement. No standards at all, these people! And another week gets under way! Ciao!

Friday in the Universe

2005-12-09T10:45:00.000-05:00

Good morning, internet. I hope you've had a nice couple of days. I am one of only two people in my office today as the sky is sending down a shower of dandruffy delight and everyone else seemingly took one look outside and said to themselves, "Yeah. Right." My office window faces out onto a narrow courtyard which also serves as a sort of wind funnel, blowing the snow that just fell right back up into the air again. As a result, my little piece of the world looks like a snowglobe today. A snowglobe featuring a sleepy redhead clickety-clacking on the keyboard, feeling nostalgic, wishing she could get her shit together for the holidays. I bought lights. And this gold star wire stuff to wrap around things. But I don't have a wreath yet and I need to do laundry in the most desperate way imaginable and I don't have a domestic bone in my body and I'm turning 30 in a week or so and sometimes I just wish the world would slow down a little so I could catch up. On Wednesday night I went to see my second-most-favoritest band in the wholewideworld, Calexico, at Avalon. They're touring with Iron & Wine and, although I can appreciate a little Iron & Wine now and again, I don't believe that the distinctly Ent-like appearance of the lead singer is a coincidence. Their songs are long and slow and haunting and luscious and they will put you to sleep as reliably as a codeine overdose. Calexico, on the other hand, is all kick and sass, so I was disappointed that they played first as I was in an Ent-induced coma by the end of the show. When I arrived home there was a package from my Aunt Suzi that said "Open Now," the assumption being that any packages I receive around this time I will will stow away until my birthday or Christmas. Yes, I actually do that. So I opened it and there was a card from her saying that they are sorry they won't see me this year for the holiday and here are some of Grandma's Christmas ornaments. Well, I just fell apart. I called The Den sobbing and after an exhaustive cry I passed out dramatically on the couch where my roommate found me the next morning with dried mascara rivulets on my cheeks. It's the second Christmas without my grandmother and I'm looking out the window at the snow falling on a world that doesn't have her in it anymore. All of those little things that made her unique - the way she tucked her strawberry blonde hair behind her ears, the way she ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass, the way she loved too much and forgave not enough - are gone. They exist nowhere else in the world. We went to this latest war with Iraq soon before my grandmother died and when it began, she cried and railed, powerless, at the television because she had lived through so many wars, had served in the foreign service, and knew better than her children or her grandchildren what the real cost of war would be. And now there are thousands of people - American and Iraqi - who no longer exist in the world either. All of the things that made every single one of those people absolutely unique are just.....gone. I mourne my grandmother because I can. I can remember all of the bits of her that are lost - all the tiny, quirky things I miss. But I don't know how to mourne all of these other people that deserve no less than abject sorrow from each and every one of us at their sacrifice. This holiday is going to be a horrible, wretched time for so many families who remember the way their son or daughter or mother or father crooked a finger when making a point, ate soup in their favorite bowl with that wonky spoon, tugged on a necklace for comfort, sat in the car in the driveway for a few minutes to finish a song on the radio.....loved in their very own special way that will never be replicated anywhere in the world ever again. It's snowing on a world where so many people no longer exist. Our contemporaries, our ancestors, and someday, us. My friend Emily is going to give birth sometime next week. Cold and snow and death and life....it's all so much bigger than one person or one war or one conviction or one sleepy redhead clickety-clacking on the keyboard, feeling nostalgic, wishing she could get her shit together for the holidays.

Short shorts

2005-12-06T10:58:00.000-05:00

1. Thanks to my friend Steve, I have discovered Pandora. She's the bomb. All you have to do is type in the name of a band or musician or song that you like and, based on your perceived tastes, Pandora will create a streaming radio station of other songs she's pretty sure you'll like too. You can create multiple stations and it's a cinch. If you're like me and have trouble finding new artists to listen to who fall comfortably into the not-quite-defined genres that you like, trust me and give this a try. 2. Someone called me a "tard" a couple of posts down. I still remember the first time I heard that word. I believe I was wearing a rugby shirt, tapered jeans and a whole lotta Aquanet. I sort of miss "tard." Has its time come round again? Can we reintroduce "tard," "grody," and "gag me with a spoon" to the popular lexicon? Does this mean that "talk to the hand" and "don't go there" have only 15 years to wait and "for reals" has 25? It's sort of like the cycle of baby names. My great aunt's name was Eleanor. I used to hate it and think it was a weird, old fashioned name, but now I'm sort of loving it. My great uncle's name was Earl and now there is a popular tv show starring a dude named Earl. Madonna's new name is Esther. ........well, I guess everything, including "tard," comes back around. I'm wearing pointy shoes with flared pants today - I'm the 70's AND the 80's! What was intended as a limp-fisted insult has instead succeeded in making me feel sweetly nostalgic.... 3. There are lots of things to like about Penn and Teller, but this is my new favorite. ******************************** From "Overheard in New York": Guy: ...And she had the nerve; she didn't even ask me to be her friend. She just sent me her profile! Chick: Omigod, you should so send her a frowny. --Columbia University Overheard by: djlindee

Monday Shameful Shoe Gallery

2005-12-05T11:32:00.000-05:00

It's going to be a good week - I can feel it. I'm making lists, getting ready for my party, Christmas shopping... There's snow on the ground... My boss is late.... A kick-ass gospel choir performed at the function I went to on Thursday so my soul-food quota is filled (oh yes, I was swayin' and clappin', praise Jesus!) Friday I got drunk at our holiday party and then went to see "A History of Violence" which was waaaaaaaaay better than I expected it to be - thriller quota filled. Saturday went to a baby shower where I gave away my tiny mitten collection and got an earful of labor/pooping/episiotomy talk which more than filled my please-stop-talking quota. Quotas: I set 'em up, I knock 'em down. Right! So here, without further ado, is our weekly Shameful Shoe Gallery. PETA style!! (mostly) Ok, look. I don't know what the bunny did to you. I've heard that they eat crops, I've heard some stories about carrot-stealing and leaving little blue jackets lying around, but I'm not convinced the punishment fits the crime here. A turnip goes missing and suddenly you feel that stuffing the rabbit in a wiffle ball and sticking your foot up its ass is appropriate? Jesus Christ, dude. Get some fucking perspective. Check out this overly complicated, open-air, futuristic-yet-strangely-eighties boot! Wait, wait....is that Tina Turner in there?? Look, she's peeking out down by the heel. "Two feet enter, one foot leaves..." Uh, ahem, excuse me - again, I really must protest. The Moonboot Moth is a protected species. You can't just use the caterpillar for whatever you damn well please. Besides, shoving your foot inside a Moonboot pupa has been linked to prostate cancer so THINK TWICE. Okaaaaaaaaaay. Well, all I have to say about this boot, which proclaims the (presumably female) wearer to be the "King of Kings," is that it costs $1400. I think that's all the information we need, don't you? *Sigh* Excuse me. I guess you did not get the memo or perhaps you do not subscribe to the PETA newsletter or perhaps you are just an ignorant dickhead, so it is up to me to inform you that FRAGGLES ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING PAIN AND EMOTION. How do you even live with yourself? How do you EVEN. LIVE. Boot Jenga!! See how many pieces you can remove before you are left barefoot and frostbitten in the snow, fucking retard. One upholstered loveseat plus one fuzzy, yappy, carpet-peeing, guest-annoying, trash-tipping, tampon-eating dog equals...........this. Recycle, recycle, recycle!!! Finally, I would like to offer an apology to all those who have been adversely affected by my unfortunate addiction to raw onions. You know who you are, and I believe there are several thousand of you. At least two of you suffered egregiously this weekend and I do honestly feel bad about that. But not enough to stay away from Indian buffet for lunch today. Onion chutney will be had, oh yes. Happy Monday!!

Quickie Updates

2005-12-01T10:42:00.000-05:00

1. I got all the way to the bus stop before realizing I was wearing these: Apparently I don't choose my shoes, they choose me. Too late now! And tonight I'm wearing these to a function: So I'm not good with authority, sue me. 2. Anyone else getting a little tired of the weird-animal-as-personal-demon theme on "Lost?" Anyone? Anyone else want to be ravaged by Michelle Rodriguez? Anyone? 3. Public Service Announcement: I have discovered the ultimate, no-fail hangover cure. V8 juice with a little too much Tabasco sauce added. Yes, I know they make spicy V8 now. It's not the same. 4. I did not, apparently, win the Daily Show couch raffle. My ass cheeks demand an explanation. That's it! It's a busy day!

Awesomeness!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-11-30T11:24:00.000-05:00

Not. I bought these shoes yesterday: They're made by Dansko and, although you can't tell from the photo, the heel is really beautiful. Just slightly curved inward, almost lime-shaped. My timing is so amazingly amazing because........! This morning I finally went to the doctor about my coital ankle injury. I have done everything I could think of - ice, ace bandage, leverage, everything. Still, after two weeks, it remains the size of a prize-winning yam. And yes, it is sprained for real and why did I not come in sooner, yadda yadda yadda.... So now my doctor has ordered me (ordered!) off my high heels (off!!) for a month. A MONTH. I killed her with a tongue depressor. Oh, AND I have to go to stoopid physical therapy so I don't re-sprain. She asked me if I ever injured this ankle before and I responded with a sprightly, "No!" Then, on the way home I vaguely remembered falling off a sidewalk in Paris after a lovely drag show and a nine-course meal, drunkenly waving to a stranger and collapsing into the gutter, spraining (yes, spraining!) my ankle. And we wonder why they hate us. At any rate, I'm wearing my Docs and bemoaning my fate and already planning on SO defying doctor's orders, like rilly rilly soon. What, you think I'm wearing FLATS on my BIRTHDAY? Fuck you! "Well, hey, Ah mean, if y'all didn't want to go to war, you shoulda said somethin' at the time! Ah mean, Ah hate ta tell ya, but Ah'm not a mind-reader. Well, hell, why's everythang always gotta be mah fault?" And in today's celebrity gossip: The mother of two of Michael Jackson’s children has reportedly said that the babies were conceived from a test tube. An Irish publication is quoting Debbie Rowe as saying that Prince Michael Jr., 8, and Paris, 7, were both conceived using semen from a sperm bank. “Michael knows the truth — that he is not the natural father of Prince Michael Jr. and Paris,” Rowe said, according to the Irish newspaper Sunday World. “He has to come clean.” Well....DUHHHHH. I've said it before (like, eighty-seven times) and I'll say it again, people. HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN THAT MICHAEL JACKSON IS BLACK?? How does someone who used to look like this: Wind up with children who look like this? Those children are whiter than Hilary Duff's teeth. Why do people not care that Michael Jackson has two (or three?) children in his clutches WHO ARE CLEARLY NOT HIS?? WHY? WHYYYYY??? What is it, politically incorrect to say, "Dude, you're BLACK. Remember? Remember back when you still had a nose? Maybe you wanna tell us whose kids those are? No?" Fucking Hollywood.

Monday Shameful Shoe Gallery

2005-11-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

Today's Shameful Shoe Gallery is short and sweet. Because I'm feeling lazy. And vaguely bitter. Almondy, if you will. If there's anything that the movie "Snatch" has taught us, it's that Brad Pitt is at the top of his game when he's speaking gobbeldy-gook. That wall-eyed ranting was SO compelling, didn't he win a Golden Globe or something? Well, he should have. He should have won a Golden Solar System for that shit! If it were up to me, he'd win a Golden Shower, but that's a story for another time. Oh, I almost forgot! The OTHER thing we learned from "Snatch" is that pigs will eat you if they are hungry and/or feel so inclined (are trained to). All I'll say about the lovely clog shown here is, ladies, watch your toes. This pig looks famished. One thing that most women know from birth is that shoes speak to us. They have inner messages that float along the airwaves and enter our feeble, hormone-addled, non-science-understanding minds. They say, "Buy me!" or "Wear me to the prom!" or, in this case, "Please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, hog-tie me and throw me in the back of your van!!!" This one simply says, "I......can't.........breathe.........." and clearly needs to be rescued by Johnny Depp in the most swashbuckling manner possible. All you need is a pair of eggplant-colored Uggs (appropriately named) and a bedazzler, and you too can look as though you just walked through a town of teeny, tiny people with bad cases of bronchitis. I've been racking my brain to figure out what the crocheted "M" on the back of this purple, tweed, pom-pommed, montrosity means. The most likely canidate seems to be, "Might as well kill myself now..."

Traitor

2005-11-26T13:52:00.000-05:00

Saw Harry Potter. Thought it were crap. Sorry.

Happy Thanksfarting

2005-11-25T00:52:00.000-05:00

This year's potluck involved: 1. A frank and enthusiastic discussion of my sex life with people who have known me since I was three. 2. A game of charades with a room full of ex-hippie liberals that was so politically incorrect that we should have all been arrested. 3. A laughing fit that actually made me pee in my pants a little bit. (See above.) 4. The sobering realization that I have gained 10 pounds in the last year. (I only weigh myself once a year - at Thanksgiving. What? It's a ritual and they're the only people I know who own a scale.) 5. The development of what my mother fondly refers to as an "air baby." I'll let you figure that one out for yourself. (See title.) 6. My best charades clue contribution EVER. "Charade." One of my favorite movies - who can resist Cary Grant taking a shower in a suit? The woman who had to act it out simply reinacted our entire game in fast forward, it was great. 7. A casual conversation about meth and anal sex over turkey, stuffing, mashed, peas, gravy and cranberry chutney with my friend Marcia who works in an AIDS clinic. 8. The discovery that my parents were really hurt that I didn't invite them to my thirtieth birthday party. We live in different states!! It didn't even occur to me!! Still, I feel like an asshole, especially since my folks are actually a little cooler than my friends (sorry, friends). * 9. The sad acceptance that since I once ate garlic mashed potatoes when I was knocked up, I will never be able to eat them again no matter how many years have gone by. 10. Truly giving thanks this year for the simple fact that I could sit in a group of 16 people and say, "I can't eat garlic mashed potatoes because I ate them once when I was pregnant" without a single one of them judging me. I don't know what I did to deserve all this love, but I'll take it. I adore Thanksgiving. The people I spend it with are my parents friends but they're my friends too and I'm so lucky to have them. I may not be rich or famous, but there are times (more than you might think) when I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Because I am. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. You are lucky too!! And it's the beginning of the holiday season - from here on out it's all pine scents and ribbons and snow on our hats. Don't you just love this time of year? Me too. *Yes, the parents are now invited and will be joining us for brunch. If you are reading this and are coming to the party, don't worry - they really are cooler than you. (Sorry again.)

Pizza Farce

2005-11-22T09:33:00.000-05:00

(Portland Farmer's Market, Labor Day Weekend '05) Setting: gourmet pizza place in my neighborhood, early evening. Cast: Sloth, The Den, Cashier, Pizza Guy. Scene 1: The Order Sloth and The Den enter stage left. The Den (hurtling towards the counter): "Two slices of pepperoni, please!" Sloth:"...." TD: "Oh, sorry, I always just jump in. What do you want?" S: "I, uh, hmm. What's the slice of the day...? Oooh, can't have sausage, I'll 'splode. Ummm.... letsee..." Meanwhile, The Den has received his slices and is over at the table stuffing them in his maw. S: "Ok, ummmmmmm..... can I have a small pizza with tomatoes -" Cashier: "Diced or sliced?" S: "Uhhhhhhhh.... sliced?" Cashier: "Ok." S: "And, letsee... basil? And onions. And onions." Cashier: (one eyebrow pointing upwards like a little teepee) "Onions and onions?" S: "Yes." Cashier:"...." S: "I'm basically looking for like a blizzard of onions." Cashier: "For here or to go?" S: "For here." Scene Two: The Order Change Sloth: "Hi there. Um, my boyfriend already finished his slices and I'm still waiting for my pizza so I was wondering if I could change my order from 'for here' to 'to go.'" Cashier: (crooky eyebrow again) "Sure." S: "And, I'll also get a slice of the day and a slice of pepperoni to go. For my roommate. In case he's....hungry....and I'll get a glass of cabernet too. For here." Cashier: "As opposed to a glass of wine to go?" S: "Haha.....uh....yeah." Cashier: "Ok, that will be twelve million dollars." S: "Jeepers." Scene Three: Where Shit Really Starts to Go Wrong Pizza guy: "Sloth!" Sloth: "Yes!" Pizza guy: (handing over a brown paper bag) "Here you go." S: "Great, thanks. Is this the pizza or the slices?" Pizza guy: (completely baffled) They're.........slices..........of pizza. S: "Right, right, ok. Thanks." Five minutes pass. Pizza guy: "Sloth!" S: "Yes!" Pizza guy: (handing me the full pizza) "You're going to have to eat some of this pizza now because they make it bigger when they think it's for here and I can't close the box. S: (groveling) "Oh! Well, that's good information to have!" Pizza guy: (fangs dripping with sarcasm) "Yeah, so change your order every time." S:"....." The Den: "Sweetie, you look sort of.....stricken." S: "I can't believe it. I'm THAT customer. I'm that customer that everyone hates because my logic is broken. Everything that comes out of my mouth is retarded." TD: ".........yeah, they hate you." Scene Four: Denouement Sloth: (approaching the counter, trying to figure out where to put my empty wine glass) "So, do I give this back to you guys?" Cashier and Pizza guy: (clearly wishing they could tell me to feel free to shove it up my ass and take it with me) "Yes, we'll take it." Fin.

Monday Shameful Shoe Gallery

2005-11-21T10:14:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that day of the week again and here we go with more shoes that have wandered away from Staten Island and gotten themselves lost. Let's send them home, shall we? Oops! Looks like someone forgot to trim before a hot date. This is why I always carry a pair of manicure scissors with me at all times. You never know when you might be thrust up against a yacht-owning, Rolex-wearing, brandy-drinking millionaire at a crowded Abe & Louie's. Wouldn't want to end up in the sack with a little extra fluff on your muff! Snippety-snip and you're screwing your way to St. Barts! And then, of course, there are those of us who are just trying to screw our way off of Sunset Boulevard. You know how it is these days. Everyone's all "recycle, recycle, recycle!!" Well, now all you tea-cozy makers and mitten-knitters can do your part too. Did you know that tub skirts are waaaay out of style? Well, they are and it's time to start putting them to good use. Don't forget the ruffle! Somewhere, Sheena Easton is rifling through her closet like a pig rooting through a pile of shit. She has a hot date and can't find her favorite pair of pumps, poor thing. I hope she remembers her manicure scissors... Umm....excuse me, waiter? There's a lung cancer on my shoe. Well, it's not like anyone PLANS on going to Hell, right? I mean, shit happens. And yeah, the lake of fire isn't any fun, but we get little breaks for stuff like eating (maggots), sleeping (on tacks) and sex (with Satan). For some reason he's really into rim jobs. He's got this long, red tongue and, man, does your ass burn afterward, but hey, anything's better than sitting on a fucking cloud, playing the harp with Pat Robertson. Oh, wait, I just saw him in the lava room. Fuck! Why can't I get away from that guy?? Happy Monday! New post tomorrow.

Wee Snippets

2005-11-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

1. I'm putting together my 30th birthday invitation list. I know it's vain and stupid but I would much rather be putting together my 29th birthday invitation list. 2. Now that he's nominated for what would ideally be a non-political job, Scalito is all like, "Dude, I wrote that memo saying that abortion should be completely and totally illegal like 20 years ago and I was trying to get a job with Reagan, gimme a break, it was a political job." Seems to me that Scalito's most obvious talent thus far is telling everyone exactly what they want to hear. Personally, I want to hear the sound of Scalito getting fisted in a leather bar, but to each her own. 3. There is a huge bee trundling around my office. Aren't the bees supposed to be dead already? It's moving slower than the Senate, but it's still moving. 4. I sprained my ankle having sex. No, it wasn't embarrassing at all, why do you ask? 5. I know you were wondering and, no, I did not win the lottery. Some wanker in California did and I DON'T RECALL APPROVING THAT. Five is enough. The week's half over. Time for a nap.

Monday Shameful Shoe Gallery

2005-11-14T11:09:00.000-05:00

It's the beginning of a new week and time for another installment of the Shameful Shoe Gallery where we take a gander at footwear that would be better off if shoved with gusto down the garbage disposal. These probably shouldn't even be included in the gallery, since they are not even meant for human beings. These are leprechaun shoes. More specifically, they are leprechaun social worker shoes. If you are small and jaunty and wearing a green hat and need to know where the nearest soup kitchen is because some asshole just stole your pot of gold, chances are the person at the agency who is helping you fill out po' folk forms is wearing these shoes. Two words: IDENTITY CRISIS. Is it crocodile? Is it snakeskin? Is it paisley? Is it leopard print? Is it painful? Is it offensive? Is it headed for incinerator? The answer to all of these questions is: INDUBITABLY!! When I was a kid my parents let me get a rabbit and we kept it in a hutch in the back yard. I promised I would feed it every single day but after a while I decided I don't like rabbits so I let it starve to death in the cold. Then I shaved it, skinned it, cut off its ears and made a pair of pumps. Voila. Awwwwwwwww. Look at the little bear. Isn't that sweet? Isn't that just the cutest little cuddly thing with its blue fur and demure smile? Did you know that in Japan they make vibrators with that motif? Adorable!! Let's just say there's more to Fred Flintstone than meets the eye.... This blingtastic boot is made by a company called "Baby Phat." I don't see a lot of baby fat on this boot but I sure do see a lot of shit. I think it had pureed broccoli and mommy's jewelry box for dinner, what do you think? For some reason, this Donald J. Pliner shoe is really, really, really suprised to see you. The uninitiated may not be aware that designers give their shoes names. The name of this $575 shoe is "Entangled," apparently because it got entangled in Elton John's bowtie when Sharon Osbourne kicked him in the neck at a charity event. Happy Monday, folks!

Quickie Update

2005-11-12T16:44:00.000-05:00

Exams are over and I kicked so much ass that there is no ass left in the whole city. My apologies to the residents. Also spent five hours of quality gettin' drunk time with Dan Tobin who, as it turns out, is a total dick. With a mohawk. And no, we didn't talk about you, but we might next time. Dan, have your people call my people. And tie your gloves together with a string through the sleeves already, sheesh. Ok, people, this is a call to action. All I need is FOUR MORE PEOPLE to click on the link and do the thing with the thing over there in the sidebar and I WILL GET AN IPOD. And then all you will need is five people to click on YOUR link and YOU WILL GET AN IPOD TOO. Come on, guys, it's almost my birthday. Just four more of you. I'll send you something nice. I'll be your BFF!! And.....curtain.

Midterm Exam Alert

2005-11-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

Will return after dragon is slain. Thanks.

Splat.

2005-11-03T10:27:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I ordered sixteen thousand items from Old Navy online. They arrived in the mail yesterday and exactly four of them fit (one is a scarf). The item I was most excited about was a light blue fleece. I've never actually owned a fleece before because I'm the sort of moron who buys $70 sweatshirts from Ann Taylor. I won't even try to justify it. So I wore my new, cozy, fuzzy fleece over to The Den's house after work and around 8 o'clock we decided to watch a documentary about cable car construction in Hong Kong because that's where he went to high school. What goes great with cable car documentaries? Red wine! Duh!! One thing that The Den's apartment is sorely lacking is a proper wine key. The one he has is the kind that starts out as a tube with a hole in the top and you pull the tube apart to reveal the screw bit and put the bottom of the tube through the hole in the top to make a T. It is retarded and Satanic and I always break the goddamn fucking cork with it. Last night's misadventure began when I broke the goddamn fucking cork in a bottle of cabernet, leaving about three millimeters of cork left in the neck. It was at this time that The Den suggested I push the rest of the cork into the bottle with a chopstick. What? I don't know! It seemed like a good idea! Anyone here ever seen "Dead Alive?" Well, APPARENTLY, pushing a bit of cork into a bottle of wine can sometimes leave one with that hip I-just-lawn-mowered-someone-to-death look. It causes a sort of "geyser" effect in which the wine suddenly decides to leave the bottle with a great deal of force and go straight INTO YOUR EYE, among other places. Those other places include the refrigerator, the floor, the wall, your hair, your ear, and your brand-new-just-arrived-in-the-mail light blue performance fleece. Learn from my mistakes, people. I make them so that you don't have to. In less depressing news......... How is it possible for someone to be this attractive? How is it EVEN POSSIBLE? Hasta Pasta!

Answer Day

2005-11-01T13:52:00.000-05:00

I'll just let this picture (and my unhealthy addiction to it) speak for itself. Ok, I said I would answer questions today so let's get to it! LiAps asked: You do NOT really want me to ask you questions about pooping. Do you? and Where is the love, Sloth? An auspicious beginning!! Let’s just say, LiAps, that if you HAD chosen to ask me a pooping question or two I would have been bound by my offer to answer any questions. In that sense, it is probably best that your question teetered on the edge……and stayed there.

As for the love, it’s fickle and always on the move. Right now I think it’s in the dining room.

Seth asked: How often is socially acceptable to shave your legs in winter? and If you had to pick year-round cold or hot, which do you choose? You can make up any other parameters. A/C, live on the slopes, or the beach, etc... The short answer is: NEVER. But there are caveats. If you don't treasure the heavenly, slippery feel of clean sheets on smooth legs AND you are a single gal, then fuck it. Let it all grow out, be a yeti for a few months (who's going to know?) and break out the gardening shears come Spring. If, however, you are in a relationship, your significant other may not appreciate this sudden pilary change, in which case it is back to every other day (if you're me). Secondly, if I had to pick year-round cold or hot, I'd pick cold. There are simply more fashion choices when layering is involved. Dave asked: If I was going to attempt to sell my photos online, is it worth the hassle? And why not? I ask why not because it seems your cart at smugmug doesn't work, which means the selling wasn't worth it? Dave, it all depends on how good your photos are. I think if you have talent and you believe that your vision would look good on someone's wall, then you should go for it. Set up a PayPal account or request checks/money orders, find a system that works for you and do it up. If you are computer savvy then you can perhaps create your own photo page, but I believe Flickr has purchasing options as well. There was a brief time when I wanted to sell my photos online and then someone left me a crappy, negative comment on Smugmug and I decided to remove my email address, the price list, and the option to buy from the page. I didn't intend to be petty, I just decided it wasn't worth it for me. And, honestly, I was embarrassed at the time that I had ever thought my pictures worth buying. Now the photos are just there for perusing, although, if anyone wants one, all they have to do is ask. Tot asked: Can you recommend a winter boot that is practical for this harsh Canadian climate and feminine? Since you mentioned "feminine," I went with all high heels. Let me know if you'd like me to recommend some flats as well. Or some with a chunkier sole. But anyway, the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Oh, and JESSSSSSSSS. Cooter asked: I would like to know why my $300 Donald J. Pliner shoes can't keep their zipper up. They're so cute, but I've stopped wearing them because I ACTUALLY stepped out of one once. Hmm......I'm sorry to say that I don't, in fact, know the answer to this question. So, as with many other things... ...I'll blame it on the dog. Vince asked: If you could not be a sloth, what animal would you be? And what would you call your blog? I would be a sea otter. I would call my blog "The Kelp Forest" because otters sleep wrapped up in giant kelp leaves to keep them from drifting out to sea. No shaving for me - every square inch of my skin has more hair than there is on your whole scalp I need it to keep warm. Instead of challenging you to best me at my sleeping abilities (as I do right up there under the title), I would challenge you to be ANYWHERE NEAR AS CUTE AS ME. Not possible, friend. Don't even try. E-Lo asked: Why am I so attracted to the color green? What should I name the Fuzz if it's a boy? There are times, E-Lo, when a certain color grabs you by the nape and insidiously manipulates all of your decisions about fashion, home decor and baby clothes until you are able to shake it. The colors that are ruling my life at the moment are wine red, winter white, and chocolate brown. I am obsessed with putting together a winter wardrobe that incorporates all of these colors to their maximum possible capacity. I went through a green phase, too. That's how I wound up with several pairs of green shoes, green pants, scarves, handbags, and etcetera. Last year I could not leave pink alone. Actually, it wouldn't leave me alone. How many pink handbags does one girl need? Well, according to myself last spring the answer was, apparently, FIVE. So don't feel bad. The thing is, if you're careful and prudent (unlike anything resembling me) you will eventually have a wonderful wardrobe of all sorts of colors that you can mix and match. One green scarf and maybe a handbag to go with it are enough. For boy's names, I'm partial to Aaron. Julie asked: How in the hell do you afford all these shoes, girl? and What maple syrup? A) Crack whore, shoe whore, same thing and B) THIS maple syrup. Coco asked: Are you still escorting at Planned Parenthood? The answer is..........no. I had to take a fuckin' break already. Have you ever woken up angry and not been able to figure out why? That was starting to happen to me more and more often. Also, there were a couple of mornings that I just. Couldn't. Do it. I would wake up at 6 a.m., look outside at the FREEZINGNESS and think, "I can't stand in front of these hateful people for three hours this morning and be screamed at. I just can't." The second time it happened I took myself out of the rotation because I figured it was better to not be scheduled at all than to be scheduled and not show up. I am not religious or spiritual, as you all know. I am an atheist, simple as that. But at some point I forgot that spirituality is not a black pall of evil over society and that believing in God doesn't make a person stupid. All I ever saw of religion, for 5 years, was those assholes standing in front of the clinic with veins standing out on their foreheads as they screamed at us and called us murderers. That, to me, was religion in all its glory. My perspective was dark, dark, dark. I forgot the power that belief has for healing wounds and giving strength. I forgot about all the good things that networks of churches do for the less fortunate. I forgot all the positive aspects of faith and saw only the rotten parts. Now, after a few months away from it, I feel a little rejuvenated and possibly ready to return soon. In any case, I sort of feel like I did my time. If I choose not to go back, I won't feel guilty. Evil Science Chick asked: Given the choices of your areas of expertise: sleeping, pooping, and buying shoes...which is your favorite? Also, if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one pair of shoes, which pair would it be (can be ones you don't currently own, if there are in fact shoes in existance that you don't own)? The answer to your first question is absolutely and without a doubt SLEEEEEEPING. I am very sleepy and slow and when I'm not sleeping I enjoy ACTING as though I'm sleeping and when I'm not acting as though I'm sleeping I enjoy reposing in a position in which one might sleep while I am reading or watching tv. Girl, I am more lazy than Forest Whitaker's left eye. As for shoes on a desert island, it would definitely be this pair which I do not, in fact, own. Yet. They are comfortable, airy, and they protect the toes while you are hunting for sea urchins to eat. They can be worn in the water and are made of wicked strong stuff. Cybele asked: If you were to create a man, Mr. Perfect, as it were, would he a) share your shoe fanaticism b) support your shoe fanaticism without participating c) not be involved at all or d) other option that you will define? Option D: He would whole-heartedly support my shoe fanaticism while also paying for it. The Retropolitan asked: What's Sloth sound like? I will sincerely try to do an audio post at some point soon so you will really know. I'm a little squeaky but I try not to be. Ask Fleece, she knows. And finally, Pup asked: What would your stripper name be? What could be worst than having to travel (for work) on Halloween, the bestest holiday EVER? A) Spazzy McShavebumps B) How about THIS?? From today's celebrity gossip: Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis may have to temporarily trade their stilettos for sensible flats. The "Sex and the City" stars have both suffered recent injuries that will make slipping into their Manolos a wee bit painful. "I ran down the block a few weeks ago in these heels, just like I did for seven years, and woke up in the middle of the night in agony," Parker tells Closer magazine. "And it turns out that I'd torn the tendons in my foot -- just from running in heels!" Still, the actress insists she'll never give up her vertiginous footwear. Davis, meanwhile, tore a ligament during a fall at a Spanish hotel, says Sky News, which quotes her as saying, "I said to the doctor, 'I don't have any flat shoes! What am I gonna do?' I was conditioned, I was brainwashed for seven years that I have to wear heels ..." Aaaaaaaaaand we're done!!

Shameful Shoe Monday

2005-10-31T09:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween! Or whatever. I had completely forgotten it was Halloween until I walked into the office this morning and was confronted by one of my coworkers dressed as......well, frankly, I'm not sure. The costume reminds me vaguely of Strawberry Shortcake (that's a character name, right? Not just a dessert?) but it's mostly orange. And there's a green hat. With a wig. An orange wig. It's very confusing. Hey, remember when our parents used to cut our candy into little slices before we could eat it to make sure there were no razor blades in it? And it turned out later to be an urban myth? Well, that's ONE way to scare the crap out of yourself on Halloween. Another way, this year, is to turn on the news this morning. I don't know about you guys, but I have a feeling that Harriet Miers was just the only woman stupid enough to be willing to take one for Team Bush. Raise your hand if you think her resignation letter was written before her nomination was even announced. Now Bush has nominated his token woman (who just happened to be so unqualified that both parties were like, "huh? are you fucking kidding us with this shit?") and now he's free to nominate Antonin Scalia's Mini-Me, Samul Alito. Or, as he is casually referred to, "Scalito." A THIRD way to scare the crap out of yourself this Halloween is to take a look at these shoes which are entered as the second installment of our new weekly tradition, Shameful Shoe Monday. Like many women, I get blisters on my feet from walking around the city in my fancy shmancy shoes. There is also a thing I have heard of called a "corn," though I've never had one that didn't come from a cob. (And as an aside, since when did "cob" become a dirty word? I can't say or think "cob" without also saying or thinking "cobhole" which is just wrong.) This shoe has strategically placed holes for all of the most unattractive bits of your feet to peek through and get some goddamn AIR already. And to highlight the ugly foot bits, the designer has chosen the ugliest color imaginable. This green makes every shade of skin look cadaverous, without exception, and should be banned. Except for zombies. They can wear it - they're already dead anyway. Once, when I was little, my parents broke down and let me go to the Ice Capades with my friend Bree. They sucked. I wonder if they wear this kind of crap on their downtime too. They should. Then we could recognize their Wonder-Twin-esque outfits on the street and punch them in the kidneys for sucking. Gah!! Don't look!! This shoe was shot in the lower abdomen during a convenience store hold-up and it's intestines are spilling out all over the floor! (Although, if you have a strong stomach, this is an interesting opportunity to check out where shoe sausage comes from.) I learned this equation in my high school home ec class: Shoe + Flickety Tabs + Nail Gun + Lime Green = Bad Idea It's like the quadratic formula - everyone learns it, like, sophomore year. Perhaps this shoe designer never made it to high school? And finally for today, I present you with the footwear equivalent of my great-grandmother, Dottie, who died a couple of years ago at the very respectable age of 97. Feel free to get last minute questions in. Answers will be in tomorrow's post. And if you dressed up today, please tell us what you dressed up as. Happy Hallowha??

Search for the White Myth

2005-10-28T09:05:00.000-05:00

Oh, hello. Sorry for the long silence. The reason you haven't seen much of me lately is........oh my god, you are all going to think I'm an utter lunatic. Which I am. When it comes to certain things. Sometimes I wish I could just go live in the woods and meditate and cook a lot and never need anything ever. I'd make my own clothes out of, you know, hemp or whatever. I'd learn Kung Fu and like a zillion polenta recipes. I'd have a cute little house in the wilderness with rosebushes and shit. But I can't do that. I'm caught in society's web and I'm never, ever getting out. You know what I am? I'm a consumer. A rabid, teeth-gnashing, hair-ripping consumer. Or, more accurately at the mo, I'm a hunter. And right now my quarry is a WHITE WINTER COAT. I am completely obsessed, people. OBSESSED. All I've done for three days is look for the perfect white coat. I want cashmere. I want A-line. I want....something I can't pinpoint!! All I know is that I haven't fucking found it yet and it's driving me UP THE MOTHERFUCKING WALL. Does the perfect white coat even exist? I'm starting to wonder if it's a myth. The great white hope/whale/rabbit/shark.... I hate these women. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate them. Where's my fucking coat, bitches??!! You are USELESS!!! Oh, I almost forgot, some people had questions. Mandy, those boots are GREEN. Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. They are made by Sam Edelman and they retail for $232. I didn't end up buying them because I, uh.......already have green high heels. Snakeskin, actually. Kate, you asked how to store your shoes. I generally prefer to store my shoes in a sort of tornado formation, in which they are scattered about my room like the wreckage of a trailer home after it gets hit by one. You should not do this. I repeat, do NOT do this. I don't even know why I do it. Very mysterious. Anyway, I suggest one of those clear pocket shoe holders that you put on the back of your closet door. It keeps the dust off and you don't have to hunt through a pile of shoe bags or boxes to get the ones you want because you can see them through the plastic. And now I am inspired to take a page from Bunsen's book and offer to answer any questions you may have about my various areas of expertise. Namely sleeping and pooping and buying shoes. But you can ask any question you want about anything at all and I will do my best to answer it in my next post. I might even try to be witty. Good show!

What?

2005-10-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

What? Stop staring at me. What are you even looking at? Quit it. I had a big breakfast. IS THAT OK WITH YOU? Today I am going to watch the last two episodes of the first season of "Lost." I don't know about anyone else, but my favorite character on the show is Hurley, the fat guy. He's sweet and funny and jiggly and says "Dude!" all the time. I want my own Hurley. Everyone should have one. Hurleys are comforting. Jovial. And strangely insightful. My only problem is, HE SHOULD HAVE LOST WEIGHT BY NOW. In every episode, he is just as fat as he was in the last episode. Um, excuse me, but he's living on guava and papaya and didn't he mention something about having some serious gastrointestinal distress? After a month of that, he should have lost, oh I don't know, a third of himself? If I was stranded on a desert island, eating fucking fruit all day and shitting like a champion, I'd be the size of a Sharpie. He's clearly still getting McCarbohydrates every day from craft services on the set. I mean, I don't want to be rude, but someone should put that motherfucker on a diet. I am so caught up in this show, it is sick and sad. And if anyone spoils anything or reveals anything in comments they will be BANNED FOREVER AND EVER I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING. The cool thing is, my friend informed me yesterday that once I have finished Season 1, I can download all the episodes I missed from Season 2 through iTunes!! YA!! ........... From "Overheard in New York:" Drunk girl: I love scrotum! Guy: Dude, we should completely ask her to come home with us. --10th & Broadway Overheard by: danie

Shameful Shoe Gallery.

2005-10-24T09:08:00.000-05:00

We begin the week with some of the worst shoe designs I could find for your viewing pleasure. Many shoes are ugly because they are just plain. They don't do anything. They have no pizzazz. You look at them and don't even see them or you look at them and think, I hope I never wind up wearing foot-turds like that, no matter how old I get. The shoes in the Shameful Shoe Gallery are not that type of ugly. They are the type of ugly that wants to be noticed. They scream, "Look at me!! I exist to offend you!!" These are not foot-turds, oh no. These are FOOT CRIMES. What follows is only the tiniest, miniscule fraction of what is out there. We could do posts like this all week and never even scratch the tip of the iceberg. Ok. Say, in some fit of, I don't know, epilepsy or something, you decided to buy this shoe. Issue #1: how does one prevent oneself from taking a steak knife to that horrible black leather lump on the toe? What IS that thing? I believe it's supposed to be a rose but it looks more like a lung specimen from a dead coal miner. This shoe wants you to seduce it (with the cute little hearts and everything) and it's idea of seduction is a lump of black lung? Mmmmmmmmmmm.......sexy!! I HATE this trend. The three buckle toe box. Why? Why?? Is the shoe so poorly made that it will fly apart if not held together with cheap-looking, yellow plastic buckles? This is not an accent. It's a cry for help. In case you're wondering, the cry goes like this, "Help! Help! They think I'm crazy and they put me in this straightjacket and MY HEEL ITCHES SO BAD!!!" Imagine your foot in this strappy, sexy shoe. Now imagine a giant scorpion sitting on top of your foot and chewing on your ankle. See the difference? Me neither. Hey, check it out! It's Elmo's new girlfriend, Shoemo! Actually, it's more like a "friends with benefits" type thing but he hasn't really clarified that with her yet. Shoemo is just as high-pitched and demonic as Elmo is except she doesn't laugh when you tickle her. Can you help Shoemo? She's lost her way and can't find Sesame Street. If you put her on your foot and walk her back home, she'll reward you by making you look like a complete asshole the whole way there. Yay!! You know, I actually almost like this shoe. It would be pretty cute if that Shar-Pei wasn't taking a nap on the toe. Give that dog a chew toy and see if it will go sleep on someone else's foot. Nothing says no-class-havin' muthafucka like a giant fuzzy flower thing and a lucite heel. As Chris Rock says, "I haven't heard of a college that takes dollar bills. I haven't seen any clear heels in biology. I haven't ever gotten a smart lap dance!" That's right, folks, if you're wearing these shoes, you are no stranger to sticking your muff in some dude's face for cash. Hannibal Lecter is BORED. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. In his spare time, which is basically all of his time when he's not cooking up beans and attending wine tastings, he designs shoes. Here is his first creation. Mariah Carey has already bought 17 pairs which constitutes, like, a whole entire person. Hahaha!! Fooled you! These aren't actually shoes, they're crawfish traps!! Oh, this poor shoe. This shoe deserves our pity far more than our disdain. First there is the identity crisis. Is it a sneaker? Is it a dress shoe? Is it a blood worm? And then there is the most unfortunate thing of all - it has a tapeworm! Now wonder it's been having so much trouble gaining weight!! I made these in art class when I was six. The next day I made a magic wand out of a popsicle stick, some macaroni, glitter and Elmer's glue. Aaaaaaaaaaand, I'm done.

Election, 2005

2005-10-21T09:24:00.000-05:00

Slothy needs new shoes. The candidates are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 1,2,3, Vote! (You can pick more than one. In fact, please pick more than one.) These boots below are not contenders because a) I hate the cowboy boot trend and can't wait for it to go away and b) even though they are marked down 40%, they're still $600. But I just had to put the picture up because they're kinda kicky, eh? I think tomorrow I'll put up some of the ugliest shoes I can find on the internet. Some of the styles are so stomach-curdling, they simply MUST be shared.

A Slothful Weekend

2005-10-20T08:08:00.000-05:00

Today my boyfriend leaves to go "on tour" with his "band." Luckily for me this "tour" only lasts a few days and when told they would be driving the "van" back from Chicago, he said "fuck that" and bought a plane ticket home. So I will be getting my slothful ass up early on Sunday because I personally feel there is nothing worse than arriving at the airport and having no one to meet you there. That is a SUCK-ASS feeling. I HATE that feeling. My boyfriend will never have to feel that feeling unless I am in traction or dying of ebola. Let me tell you a little about the members of this band. I don't know them very well, but well enough to paint broad caricatures. The lead singer is built like a log. He's a perfect cylinder, neither fat nor thin, and if he didn't sway around and prance so much he'd make a perfect piling for a very low dock. His mouth is always smiling, even when the rest of his face isn't, and to be honest it's not so much a smile as it is a general teeth-on-display type of thing. When he speaks he sort of has to talk around his teeth. He pings on the gaydar, but I think it's because of the prancing. From all accounts he's straight. The guitarist is a skinny 40-year-old with big, spiky black hair and a penchant for leather pants and wrist cuffs. He lives in an apartment with two other guys which, at 40, strikes me as a little pathetic. I feel bad saying that, because he's really nice but do you think he has a girlfriend? If you said "NO" then give yourself a pat on the back. The backup vocal singer is a helium balloon with blonde hair and big droopy boobs. I know this because she seems to have a thing against bras so I've met her boobs personally. They are smarter than she is. In her defense, she's only 20. I was pretty stupid when I was 20 too. She has Molly Ringwald lips and big, vacant eyes and boy, she just couldn't be friendlier. She'll probably end up on the Supreme Court someday. The keyboard player is a small, round Asian girl who hasn't really learned any of the songs yet. The one time I met her she was completely shitfaced so it's possible that my impression of a tiny, giggling Oompa Loompa with fashionable glasses and waaaaaaaaaaay too much energy is a little off. Wow, she's really super duper friendly though!!!!!!!!! Suffice to say, after five seconds I wanted to smother her with a pile of bar napkins. They were in my hand, but she wouldn't hold still. And then there is my boyfriend, the unbelievably good-looking, blonde 6'2" guy who plays drums and who FINALLY has a nickname. My friends and I have decided to call him The Den for reasons that shall remain a mystery to you. Unless you figure them out, which would be fine. I really don't care. Have a LOVELY Thursday, everyone. From what I understand, you'll all be in various states of undress. I still haven't quite grasped the concept but if you'll take a look at the above picture you'll notice that I am completely and utterly nekkid. Weeee!!

Blaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhh!!!

2005-10-19T08:46:00.000-05:00

Please see above. *Update* Well, at least I'm wearing cute shoes. They are slowly but surely improving my day every time I glance down and see PINK!!

Monday Minis

2005-10-17T08:54:00.000-05:00

I took this odd (read: loser) picture of myself when I got to work this morning to illustrate the fact that..... IT IS HAT WEATHER!!!!!!! Weeeeeeee!!!!!!!! I love the fall!! I am wearing my long leather jacket and my new hat with, though you can't see it in this photo, FUZZY POM-POM on top!! I bought the hat in a consignment shop in August when it was about twelve-hundred degrees outside and my mother totally made fun of me for buying it. And how many degrees is it outside now? Hmm?? Fifty!! That's right!! Ha!! Ok, so a couple things. First, thanks for all the well-wishes. My near-death exhaustion was, as it turned out, hormonal. I went home early, fell asleep at three in the afternoon and thankfully woke up when I was only half-way across the River Styx, with the worst.cramps.ever. Second, see that iPod thing over there in the sidebar? That is totally for real, people. It's a pyramid scheme where you get people to sign up for a thing and the referral counts as points for you. Get enough points and I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING, you will get an iPod. I have proof in the form of someone I know who, I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING, got an iPod this way. My mini just died on me and, as I explained to someone who I can't remember now, I am merely a husk of my former self without it. I signed up for the Blockbuster movie rental thingamabob, rented the entire first season of "Lost" which I haven't seen (no spoilers, please) and after I watch it I'm going to cancel my subscription because, duh! I already have Netflix like everyone else in the free world! Third, I just ate a Krispy Kreme doughnut so expect Hell to freeze over any minute now. Fourth, I did NOT go bowling because one of our bowling partners woke up with swollen eye a la Ahnold Schwarzenegger in "Total Recall." No depth perception = no bowling. Personally, I suspect that they just didn't feel like going anywhere on a crispy Sunday on which the wind was blowing so hard that branches were flying off of trees and babies and kittens were being sucked up into the atmosphere and, really, who can blame them? A WIND ADVISORY?? For the city?? I stayed in bed and read a trashy murder mystery all day. So far the chief medical examiner's ex-boyfriend is my main suspect, but that's all I'll say. That's it! Now go get me an iPod. IN FACT, if you sign up for something and give me my iPod points, I'll send you a free 5x7 of any of the photos in the Slothville gallery. It's called INCENTIVE, people! Make it happen!!

Extra Slothful Sloth

2005-10-14T09:13:00.000-05:00

Ohmygod. Ihaveneverbeensotiredinmywholelife. Sosososososososotiiiiiiiired. It's that kind of tired when just trying to keep your eyes open gives you a headache. Last night I slept for eight hours and woke up in the exact same position I fell asleep in. My right ear has been molded to my skull and my boobs now point permanently at my right shoulder. I really, honestly, need another eight hours of sleep, preferably lying on my other side to even things out. In class last night I was so tired that I was actually, literally hallucinating. I kept thinking there was someone standing in front of me but there wasn't. And then the piano would do a little wiggle dance until I realized it wasn't a piano at all, it was a cabinet sort of thing and it wasn't dancing but it was at least oozing across the floor. I'm not kidding - I was actually seeing things that weren't there. The fact that it has now rained for eight days in a row cannot be helping this situation. I haven't seen the sun in over a week. The only glimmer of joy I can find in the world at the moment is that "The Simple Life" has been cancelled and these two useless whores are back on the street where they belong, selling their asses for crack. Ahhhhhh.....what would life be without people to pity?

Short Shorts

2005-10-13T08:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, first of all, what the fuck happened to Lori Petty? She used to be a nice, pretty alive person. Now she's a re-animated cadaver. If she's dying of a terminal illness, well, I fucking apologize, ok? I hope she's not. But if she's not dying, what IS she doing? Second of all, I thought you all should be aware, in case you did not already know, that JEWS RULE THE WORLD. (According to the Haitian cabbie who drove me to work this morning, anyway.) I just want to say, Michael....Gooch.....you coulda told us. Third, I am going BOWLING this weekend. SLOTHS LOVE BOWLING WITH A SCARY FANATICISM. Unfortunately, this sloth lives in Boston so bowling opportunities are hard to come by. There's always some stupid lecture or museum or dive bar that requires my attention. You see, you can't DRINK while you BOWL here. Ok, I know some of you are picking yourselves up off the floor now. Take your time. Yes, that is correct. Bowling alleys are dry in Boston. Sick, evil, and twisted as that is, you have to remember that the city was founded by Puritans. Blowjobs are still illegal here too. As a Mainer, I grew up with candlepin bowling. Candlepin be muthafuckin' HARD, yo. This is why I so enjoy FAT pin bowling. The pins are fat, the balls are fat.....basically, both the target and the projectile are larger and therefore the game is necessarily easier. Regardless, for me, bowling is like put-put. I suck at it, but I love it anyway. So, in conclusion: I would like to apologize to Lori Petty who is clearly carrying a virulent strain of TB. I would also like to apologize to my fellow non-world-ruling gentiles - I should have picked up on that whole "Jewish = evil genius" thing earlier. And finally, a big fat apology to whoever ends up on my team this weekend. I'm sorry, we're going to lose, and all I can hope for is that you are graceful in defeat.

Boobleaguered Sloth

2005-10-12T13:16:00.000-05:00

I did not wear the green dress because of these: I put the green dress on, registered the fabulousness of it in the mirror, walked into the living room to model it for my roommate and got this: "Um, sweetie..........not wedding appropriate." Fine!!! Whatever the fuck!!! Today I am wearing these shoes and for that reason alone I am feeling pretty good. Do you see why shoes are muy important?? Do you SEE?? It is gray and gross and cold out, but my feet are making everyone's day better because they are so delightful. From "Overheard in the Office:"

HR Manager: Hey guys, I'm starting a new club in the office. Do you want to join?

Employee: Um sure, what kind of club is it?

HR Manager: It's a club for people with Wham!'s song "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" stuck in their heads. Congratulations, you are all now members!

85 E Street South Portland, Maine

Overheard by: Brian Brinegar

Only in my home state...

Happy Genocide Day!

2005-10-07T08:35:00.000-05:00

Jalapeno, Farmers Market, Portland, Maine, Labor Day weekend '05. Green! Green! Root for GREEN!! Ok, a few updates for you before this lovely long weekend that is going to be rudely interrupted by a wedding I have to go to. I haven't decided whether to wear my sexy GREEN ruffle dress with silver shoes and purse or go more conservative with a (sigh) suit from Ann Taylor. My mother seems overly worried that I'm going to wear something too fabulous and make a spectacle of myself. I mean, I know you're not supposed to upstage the bride, but no one every really does, right? Come on, she's THE BRIDE. How do you upstage the chick in the white dress? I don't get it. And yes, the green dress *may* require some double-sided sticky tape but if I don't wear it tomorrow then when?? WHEN??? It's OCTOBER. It's 80 degrees out today but it's supposed to be in the 50's on Monday. The season of the green dress is coming to an end AND I HAVEN'T EVEN WORN IT YET. Gahhh!! Ok, on to the updates. 1. Michelle Collins has rabies. Yes, that is correct. RABIES. RAYYYYY-BEEEEEEEEES. How did she get rabies? A dog bit her on the ass. The only other person I can imagine this happening to is Pete. Because Michelle is Michelle, she is being rather cavalier about the whole thing, even suggesting a "Rabies! the Musical" but I have to give her huge credit for even thinking, "Hey, I might have rabies..." in the first place. I mean, yes, she was bitten by a dog, and yes she wasn't feeling well and had a cough, but PLEASE. Even if a fucking raccoon ate off half my face I would have to be foaming at the mouth and stabbing my roommate with a chopstick before it would occur to me that I might have RABIES. So, props to Michelle for ignoring all the medical advice she was given and going in for her shots. 2. As you may or may not have noticed, I missed the first two weeks of school so that I could lay on a beach reading trashy murder mysteries and getting a tan. I went to my first Folklore and Mythology class last night and I LOVE IT. I love it for one specific reason. My professor is obsessed with Jack Chick. !!! I! Am also! Obsessed with Jack Chick!! Jack is so mind-blowingly insane that even though he's an evangelical fundamentalist, he has tipped over into the cool category. Pat Robertson: not-cool. Jack Chick: COOLEST MOTHERFUCKER EVER. Except, maybe, for Joe Bob. Joe Bob could be cooler. 3. Do you recall how I was forced to bitch-slap Heath Ledger for whining like a sissy baby about having to suck face with Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain?" Well, my vindication (and my hopeless obsession with our doe-eyed, Dr.-Sunken-Tits-loving thespian) is now complete. Jake, as it turns out, wasn't put off by the hot cowboy-on-cowboy action at all, because he's an ACTOR. Someone should let Heath Ledger know how that whole "acting" thing works. Wanker. And.......I believe three makes a list, eh? All of you have a happy and safe long weekend during which we celebrate the mass genocide of an entire race of people on our own soil. Ciao!!

Rise and Shine!

2005-10-06T09:45:00.000-05:00

And we're walking.....we're walking...... Now, if you'll look straight ahead you'll see the sun rising over the ocean. It does that every single day. Like clockwork! Isn't nature amazing? And now, if you'll take a look to your right you'll see a completely empty beach. Yes, it's dawn right now, but it's pretty much going to stay that way all day. Now look to your left and you'll see....more empty beach!! Ok, now look down at your feet. Is it a flying saucer? Is it a piece of glass? Is it a puddle? Is it Superman? No! It's a jellyfish! No touching! Now back to bed.

Trouble With A Capital "T"

2005-10-05T09:27:00.000-05:00

You like that? Fashion forward! In case you can't tell, the button on those shorts is undone. Took this photo at Oregon Inlet. Our last night on the Outer Banks, my uncle and I went to a restaurant named the Jolly Roger. This place is not what one might describe as staid. At the entrance to the parking lot is a parachute-sized sign that says WELCOME BIKERS, there are hundreds of shiny Christmas ornaments hanging from the foil-covered ceiling in the dining room, one of their "vegetable" options on the menu is mac and cheese and the locals gather in the adjacent room every night for karaoke. Tourist season is over, man. What else is there to do? Over the years my uncle and I have grown very fond of the Jolly Roger for a couple of reasons. One, they make a fucking killer veal parmesan. Two, it's the biggest freak show on the Outer Banks. After finishing our tortured baby cow meat we always head over to the karaoke section of the restaurant to ogle the local flavor. Mullets abound. Acid washed jeans scissor back and forth, "wisk, wisk, wisk..." Big hair, menthol cigarettes, and country music. It's a good time. On this particular evening I was wearing a pretty fabulous outfit - black and white flared skirt, tiny black t-shirt, slingback heels and pigtails. Feeling confident and voyeuristic. A little old round lady was singing "The Rythm is Gonna Get You" by Gloria Estefan for the second time when Danielle walked in. I didn't know her name was Danielle at the time. What I did know, in that way that women sometimes have a sense about each other right off the bat, was that she was Trouble. My first thought was, "Wow, that girl is really damaged." My second thought was, "That damaged girl is going to come over here and talk to me." I was right on both counts. Danielle was really attractive, but it seemed like she didn't quite know how to put herself together. She was younger than me but looked a little older because of years spent in the sun - her skin was the color of caramel. Her hair was in braided pigtails and she was wearing a halter top, a mini skirt and....boxer briefs. The Tommy Hilfiger logo on the boxers could be seen clearly above the waist band of the skirt. Oh, and she was covered in tattoos. My sense of her was of a girl who wanted to be tough as nails but pretty and feminine too and she was having a hard time reconciling the two. She had a friend there - a guy who was totally hot and totally bad news and who had totally hit on me about three seconds before she walked in. So she walked right over to where I was standing and before you could say "molested as a child" she was showing me a huge scar on her arm that she had acquired while working a gill-netter. This progressed quickly to an earnest confession that her nipples were pierced. You can see where this is going. I was drunk enough to be fascinated with the nipple piercing so I asked her if it hurt. I don't remember her answer because at the same time that she was talking she was making me pinch her nipple. With the ring in it. In the bar. It was at this point that a lot of people starting watching us. She then turned toward the wall and pulled her tank top over to the side so I could peek at the piercing. Still drunk and fascinated, I stuck my face right in there for a good look. I said, "Are they both pierced?" I'm not sure what she said then because I was busy pinching her other nipple. It was, in fact, pierced. You can see where this is going. Before you could say "incest survivor" she was telling me about her clit piercing. As I may have mentioned, I was drunk. And fascinated. So I pinched that too and no one was watching the karaoke anymore. I sort of tugged on it and that made her laugh and then I asked her a billion or so questions about how much THAT piercing hurt and she explained that it's not the actual clitoris but the little hood over it that is pierced. I felt very much relieved at this new information. So we hung out for a couple of hours and my uncle, the psychiatrist, got dragged into the conversation. At some point I was whisked off to the dance floor by a very drunk middle aged guy until his wife busted it up by pointedly "apologizing" for her husband in a way that made me fear for my hairdo if not for my life. I scurried back to Danielle and my uncle and the totally hot, totally bad news guy and some other dude who I think was Danielle's boyfriend. He told me they were going to go smoke some coke and *bing!* it was time to go home. As my uncle and I walked to the car he told me that while I was dancing with the bad husband, "Danielle showed me her vagina!! There was a little rhinestone in it!!" Apparently, she had pulled up her skirt and pulled down her boxers right there in the bar to show my poor sixty-year-old uncle her clit ring. He seemed a little traumatized. I gently explained to him that "vagina" was really not the proper term for this sort of situation and offered him an alternative noun. "What's a cooter?" he asked. On the drive home he shook his head and said solemnly, "I could spend the rest of my career with Danielle as my only patient and she'd still be a total mess by the time I retired." Amen, brutha.

Edible Brain Sloth

2005-10-04T09:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I forgot my camera again today. My brain is not actually a brain but is instead a massive bolus of oatmeal. I think there might be some peanut butter in there too. If a zombie comes along and eats my oatmeal brain he may pleasantly surprised. Or disappointed, depending on what kind of zombie he is. Well, when he stops by I'll let him know ahead of time that I have an oatmeal brain and not the smooshy, bloody brain he may be expecting. I mean, if he doesn't like oatmeal anyway (or is allergic to peanuts) then I've saved him a lot of trouble. I didn't write a thing during my vacation. Nothing. Part of the problem was that I bought a hefty book called "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" right before I left and since it was 850 pages long I figured it would last me at least a week. I finished it Tuesday night. Really really good book. Anyway, the language of the book is this old fashioned, proper English in which people "shew" each other things instead of just showing them things and everyone speaks in this clipped, prim manner and I don't know if this ever happens to you, but try as I might, I couldn't stop thinking and talking the way the people in the book did. This always happens to me. After I read "Bridget Jones's Diary" the pronouns that normally reside comfortably in my vocabulary vanished for about two weeks. It was very embarrassing in hindsight, looking back and realizing that I had been writing in incomplete sentences and considering myself so fabulously witty the whole time. Well, after a week of dancing around like Rumpelstiltsken, pointing and laughing at Ophelia's slow-churning, pathetic attempt at being a storm, she decided to come up to Boston on the night I flew out and bitch-slap my dumb ass by delaying my flight for three hours. Lesson learned. Don't make fun of hurricanes because they might notice and come kick your butt. I started the book in the airport and after finishing the first two chapters I called my uncle to tell him that a sandwich I had just attempted to ingest at the airport lounge was "positively wretched." Regrettably, it was all downhill from there and hence I began to use words like "hence" and "regrettably." Since I was unable to retain any sort of grip on my own dialect I found myself unable to write until the problem passed. In the meantime, all sorts of things happened which I'll tell you about tomorrow. For the moment I fear I must end this post for it is tea time and tiny cucumber sandwiches await me in the parlor. Farewell! P.S. Yes, that last photo was chosen for its resemblance to a clitoris. The story will be hitting Slothville soon, just as soon as I find the words for it. They're somewhere in the oatmeal.

Little Brown Sloth

2005-10-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

It is waaaaay too cold here. Ok, I'm back. I have a killer tan and WOW, a lot of fucking emails to read. (I find it's best to break out the profanity ASAP.) I have a few stories to tell about fishing, karaoke, a newfound love of trashy novels and tugging on a complete stranger's clit piercing, but I really need to decompress and answer these FIFTEEN BILLION emails that are crowding my inbox. I'll post a couple of pictures tomorrow. None of them will be of the clit piercing. (This photo of some flowers in my parents' garden will have to suffice.) More later. If I can prevent myself from jumping out the window. The beach is still right there where I left it. What am I doing here?

Booby Bite and Buh-Bye.

2005-09-16T08:50:00.000-05:00

This is a picture I took a few weeks ago of Felix's brilliant idea to walk through the back hall while it was being painted. The day before yesterday I was waiting for someone in front of my building, reading Newsweek (Headline: "How Bush Blew It"). The whole street here is basically under construction, so there were construction workers as far as the eye could see, with their orange hard hats and suspenders and dirty t-shirts and all. As I was standing there, innocently perusing, something fell into my bra. I think I wondered for approximately 3 or 4 seconds where it came from and if it could perhaps be alive before it started eating my boob. Boob: "Let me out! Let me out!! Something is biting meeeeeeeee!!!!!" Biter: "Chomp chomp chomp chomp......" Boob: "Get me out of here NOW, bitch!!" So, in a flurry of motion, the Newsweek went flying, and my left breast saw sunlight for the first time........I don't know, ever. And I flashed a street full of construction workers. Good times! The biter, incidentally, was an ant. An ant that seemingly came out of nowhere and upon seeing my cleavage thought a) "That looks like a nice, warm place to hang out" or b) "Look at that!! I gotta bite that shit!!" Either way, I wound up with a bunch of red welts on my boob and the ant wound up very very dead. Ok, people, I'm off to the Outer Banks for two weeks. I promise to tell you all about it upon my return. And remember! These guys are on tour and if you can catch them, I promise it's well worth it. You have no idea. FOUND's Lone Surfer Tour "2005!" Monday, Sept 19, 2005 PORTLAND, ME Space Gallery, 8 pm, 538 Congress Street, 207-541-3842 Tuesday, Sept 20, 2005 BOSTON (Brookline) Coolidge Corner Theatre, 6 pm, 290 Harvard Street, 617-566-6660 Wednesday Sept 21, 2005 MONTAGUE, MA Lady Killigrew, two shows! 7pm & 9 pm, Greenfield Road, 413-367-9666 Thursday Sept 22, 2005 BROOKLYN Galapagos, 8 pm sharp!, 70 n. 6th Street, 718-782-5188 Friday Sept 23, 2005 MANHATTAN Housing Works, 7 pm sharp! 126 Crosby Street, 212-334-3324 Saturday Sept 24, 2005 PHILADELPHIA Fergie's Pub, 2 shows! 8 & 10 pm, 1214 Sansom Street, 215-928-8118 Monday Sept 26, 2005 DURHAM, NC Man Bites Dog Theater, 8:15 pm, 703 Foster Street, 919-682-3343 Tuesday Sept 27, 2005 CHAPEL HILL, NC The Nightlight, 8 pm, 405 w. Rosemary, 919-933-5550 Wednesday Sept 28, 2005 RICHMOND, VA Firehouse Theater, 7:30pm, 1609 w. Broad Street, 804-355-2001 Thursday Sept 29, 2005 CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA Gravity Lounge, 8 pm, 103 s. 1st Street, 434-977-5590 Friday Sept 30, 2005 WASHINGTON, DC Politics & Prose, 7 pm, 5015 Connecticut ave NW, 202-364-1919 Saturday Oct 1, 2005 WASHINGTON, DC Wonderland Ballroom, 9 pm, 1101 Kenyon Street NW, 202-232-5263 Sunday Oct 2, 2005 BALTIMORE Atomic Books, 7 pm, 1100 west 36th Street, 410-662-4444 Monday Oct 3, 2005 PITTSBURGH, PA Future Tenant, 7:30 pm, 801 Liberty Avenue, 412-325-7037 Oct 4, 2005 Buffalo, NY Medaille College, 7 pm, Main bldg., call Jerry at 716-884-3281 x.174 Oct 5, 2005 Toronto, ON The Drake Hotel (underground), 7 pm, 1150 Queen Street est, 416-531-5042 Oct 7, 2005 Detroit, MI 555 Gallery, 8 pm, 4884 Grand River Avenue, 313-894-4202 Oct 8, 2005 Grand Rapids, MI Division Ave. Arts Coop, 8 pm, 115 s. Division Street, 616-774-4842 Oct 9, 2005 Kalamazoo, MI Kraftbrau Brewery, 7 pm, 402 e. Kalamazoo Avenue, 269-384-0288 Oct 12, 2005 Chicago, IL Neo-Futurarium, 8 pm, 5153 n. Ashland, 773-275-5255 Oct 13, 2005 Lagrange, IL Borders, 7:30 pm, 1 s. La Grange road, 708-579-9660 Oct 15, 2005 Madison, WI Orpheum Theater, 10 pm, 216 State Street, 608-255-6005 Oct 16, 2005 Minneapolis, MN Pulaski Auditorium, 7 pm, 2114 5th Street NE, 612-706-7879 Oct 17, 2005 West Lafayette, IN Hicks Library Bookstall, 7 pm, Purdue U, 765-494-4740 Oct 18, 2005 Indianapolis, IN Big Car Gallery, 8 pm,1043 Virginia Avenue, 317-408-1366 Oct 19, 2005 Bloomington, IN Playwrites Project Theater, 7 pm, 314 s. Washington Street, 812-339-8710 Oct 20, 2005 St. Louis, MO Mad Art Gallery, 8 pm, 2727 south 12th Street (Soulard), 314-771-8230 Oct 21, 2005 Columbia, MO Barnes & Noble, 7 pm, 2208 Bernadette Drive, 573-445-4080 Oct 22, 2005 Montana, KS SUPER-SPECIAL EVENT! details tba Oct 23, 2005 Denver, CO Hi-Dive/Sputnik, 9 pm, 7 south Broadway, 720-570-4500 Oct 24, 2005 Salt Lake City, UT SLC Public Library, 7 pm, 210 east 400 south, 801-322-8133 Oct 26, 2005 Seattle, WA University Books, 7:30 pm, 4326 University Way NE, 206-634-3400 Oct 27, 2005 Portland, OR The Wonder Ballroom, 8pm, 128 NE Russell, 503-284-8686 Oct 28, 2005 Eugene, OR Sam Bond's Garage, 9:30 pm, 407 Blair blvd., 541-343-2635 Oct 29, 2005 Sacramento, CA True Love in Exile @ Mother India, details tba Oct 30, 2005 Santa Cruz, CA Bookshop Santa Cruz, 7:30 pm, 1520 Pacific Avenue, 831-423-0900 Nov 1, 2005 Berkeley, CA Cody's Bookstore, 7:30 pm, 2454 Telegraph, 510-845-7852 Nov 2, 2005 San Fran, CA Intersection 4 the Arts, two shows! 7pm & 9pm, 446 Valencia, 415-626-2787 Nov 3, 2005 San Fran, CA A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books, 7 pm, 601 Van Ness, 415-441-6670 Nov 4, 2005 LA (Los Feliz) Skylight Books, 7:30 pm, 1818 n Vermont Avenue, 323-660-1175 Nov 5, 2005 Long Beach, CA Koo's Art Center, 8 pm, 530 e. Broadway Blvd., 562-499-6736 Nov 6, 2005 LA (Hollywood) Bang Studio, 7 pm, 457 n. Fairfax Avenue, 323-653-6886 Nov 7, 2005 Phoenix, AZ Modified Arts, 8pm, 407 e. Roosevelt, 602-462-5516 Nov 8, 2005 Albuquerque, NM Guild Cinema, 8pm, 3405 Central Avenue NE, 505-255-1848 Nov 9, 2005 Taos, NM Caffe Tazza, 7 pm, 122 Kit Carson Road, 505-758-8706 Nov 11, 2005 Dallas, TX Lakewood Theater, details tba Nov 12, 2005 Austin, TX Alamo Drafthouse, 9:30pm, 409 Colorado Street, 512-476-1320 Nov 13, 2005 Houston, TX Aurora Picture Show, 8pm, 800 Aurora Street, 713-868-2101 Nov 15, 2005 New Orleans, LA Handsome Willys, 8 pm, 218 s. Robertson Street, 504-525-0377 Nov 16, 2005 Jackson, MS Lemuria Books, 7:30pm, 202 Banner Hall, 4465 I-55 n, 601-366-7619 Nov 17, 2005 Birmingham, AL Rojo, 9 pm, 2921 Highland Avenue s, 205-328-4733 Nov 19, 2005 Ann Arbor, MI Michigan Theater, 8 pm, 603 e. Liberty Street, 734-668-8463 Ciao for now!!

Show Me Your Bloomers

2005-09-15T08:04:00.000-05:00

This is a night-blooming cereus. It's a cactus that spends most of its time looking like a dead shrub and then blooms once a year. At night. Sometimes evolution is really confusing. The flowers are huge and very pungent. I guess they have to be since they only see any action one night a year. I don't know what pollinates them, but I'm guessing moths. I was lucky enough to visit my parents on the night that their cereus bloomed. It had four enormous flowers on one plant which is a lot. Just thought I'd share. It's raining here and the sky is slate-colored. I think Ophelia and I are going to pass each other as I head south. I'll wave at her when I go by. "Have fun in Nantucket, bitch!" Also, Michelle Collins has disabled her comments section. I can only imagine that the unfunny twattage had reached unacceptable levels. Grrrrrrrr........

Our President's Crazy....

2005-09-14T13:49:00.000-05:00

.....did you hear what he said...... Band I most regret being unable to see live in my lifetime: The Talking Heads. Green tomatoes, Farmer's Market, Labor Day, '05 Shorts: 1. And this is number one because I have just now discovered it: fruit punch and spaghetti go together much like, oh, I don't know.....cacti and tampons? THEY SHOULD NOT EVEN BE IN THE SAME ROOM. 2. My to-do pile shrinks while my did-done-it-already pile grows.... 3. In two and a half weeks I will experience the most gratifying day of the year in regard to my job. It is the day I return from vacation and my co-workers collapse all over each other and exclaim from the floor with melodramatic sincerity, "Thank GOD you're back!! We HATE doing your job!! This was the worst two weeks EVER!!" 4. I'm sure you all know already that Britney's fetus has a blog. But in case you were not aware, here it is. Thanks to Coco for the link. 5. The far right nutters have lost their latest ballot initiative in our fair state. Again. Will they never learn? Poor, poor homophobes. How busy all that hate must make them. Anyway, it's Wednesday! Halfway there!!!

Return of the OTHER Sinister Guy

2005-09-13T19:45:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I thought the how-much-of-an-insolent-twat-can-you-be contest went well. Didn't it go well? Jamie won the day with this zinger: "Your sister is right about you." Goddamn, woman!! How dare.....oh, right, I asked you to. The thing about Davy Rothbart avoiding me is simply too painful to repeat here. So, really, you won twice. You should go into business making insult cards - you blew everyone else out of the water. On to the next thing!! If you are new to Slothville you will have to read this and this to catch up here. Tonight I stopped into Trader Joe's as I pretty much do every single night (yay for city living) to buy dinner ingredients. I was looking decent, sporting the pencil skirt and the pigtails, and I had just decided on Slothy's Favorite Instameal when - oh, what was that? You are wondering what my favorite instameal is? Oh, you weren't. Well, fuck you, I'm telling you anyway. *Organic romaine hearts: they're organic so you don't even have to wash them! But watch out for bugs. No, seriously, trust me on this. I would know. Chop!! *Caesar dressing: mix with above. *Trader Joe's creamy prosciutto pasta sauce: heat. *Capellini pasta: cook. *Parmesan cheese: shred. Mix the above three and you have a meal that takes less than 10 minutes. Jessssssssss!!! So. Remember the guy with the Rutger Hauer eyes who was a FAKE SHOPPER? Well, first he got promoted to manager and then he disappeared. I haven't seen him in at least six months. And you know, there's a lot of turnover in the grocery biz. I mean, Trader Joe's is better than most stores in that it pays a living wage and offers benefits and there's a sense of "family" or whatever with the crew, but still. It's not surprising to see people come and go. Anyway, he's back. And, no the fact that he's back and we saw each other and I was wearing pigtails is not inherently funny. But the fact that at the exact moment that strangely-attractive-yet-creepy-eye guy and I locked gazes a la "Casablanca".... "I Remember You" by Skid Row chose to slam into my headphones from the iPod WAS very very very funny. To me. Which is why I broke into a huge, shit-eating, ill-advised grin while staring at the Rutger Hauer ice-white-eye guy who was staring back at me and who will probably kill me sometime in the near future. You heard it here first. So....now that he's back, I guess we'll get to repeat this process every. night. Since I am incapable of planning a meal until I am actually IN the grocery store. Crap. And lastly, I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. Props and shout-out to you if you can tell me what it is. And REALLY LASTLY, The Onion has a little section this week called "Ask a Man Who's Jowl-Deep in Phyllis Diller's Pussy." I..........don't even know what to say about that.

Huff!!

2005-09-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

I saw this photo (which requires no commentary from me) on uber comedienne Michelle Collins' site yesterday. (How the fuck do you do an apostrophe when the last name ends in "s"? I can never remember.) Of course, it cracked my shit up and then I read the comments. And what do you think!! Shocking!! A bunch of not-funny, uptight twats leaving comments telling Michelle to quit talking politics and go back to being funny! As though...almost as though....it was THEIR website and they were PAYING her to make them laugh in very specific, perfectly defined, non-political ways! Oddity!! Michelle is both younger and much much wittier than I am. She's not better looking than me, but she is at least AS good looking as me. And she must not have the blushing problem that I do, because she is, as I mentioned, a comedian who actually gets up in front of people and performs. So, you know, I have a little envy thing going on. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to act like a not-funny, uptight twat in my comments section because I find that vastly amusing (unless you're Todd Vodka). How dare I introduce levity at a time like this?? About such an awful catastrophe!! Goddamned liberal!! Feel free to derail me on the good-looking comment too. I'm such a narcissistic bitch!! *Ok, Celti scared me into linking her in the post. She posted this pic on 9/9, FOR THE RECORD.*

97-year-old Sloth

2005-09-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

Gah!!! Ack!!! Did you see that? Did you notice?? I TOOK A WHOLE WEEK OFF FROM THE BLOG!! Almost. Anyway, I've been flat on my back for a week and not in a good way. I have the back of a little old lady who lives alone with twenty-six cats and a cow in a tiny house on the edge of the ocean. I'm all crippled and gimpy and worst of all, I CAN'T WEAR HIGH HEELS UNTIL I'M ALL BETTER!!! Do you KNOW what this does to me??? Do you have ANY IDEA how demoralizing it is to not be able to wear my high heels?? I mean, I only have fifty pairs or so, GRAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!! Ahem. So I have a LOT to do this week. Do you know why? Do you remember? No? It is time for my annual two-week vacation to the Outer Banks! Yaaaaaaaaaay!!! In case any of you don't know where the Outer Banks are, I will show you: See there where that swirly, white, hurricaney-looking thing is? That's exactly where I'm going. I heard that maybe somebody named Ophelia will be vacationing with me, but I'm not sure who that bitch is - I've never met her and if she's really talkative and annoying I'm just going to ignore her because I hate people like that and I'M JUST TRYING TO RELAX ON THE BEACH SO SHUT. UP. Don't MAKE me. So I'll try to do little updates every day this week because then I will be vamoosing for TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!! Jessssssss!!!!!!!!

Surgery

2005-09-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

(Felix with amaryllis bulb, 2004) Felix: "Hey, Sloth, what's up?" Sloth: "Nothing, really, I just came to visit for a few days, how are you?" Felix: "That's a stupid question. I am completely awesome in every way as always. I'm going to sleep in your lap now because you are the most boring person in the world and you're allergic to me." *snore* Mom: "Did you notice that Felix has a toenail in his ear?" Sloth: ".........He has a what in his what?" Mom: "He has another cat's claw embedded in his ear. See it? It's sticking right out." Felix: "No it's not." Sloth: "I thought you were asleep." Felix: "I WAS asleep, chatterbox. I do not have a claw in my ear and anyways, I kicked that fucking cat's ASS. You should have been there, I wrecked him." Sloth: "So.....is that how you got the clearly visible claw stuck in your ear?" Felix: "How would you like a claw stuck in your EYE?" Mom: "I think he's feeling a little sensitive about it." Fast forward four hours...... Mom: "Hey, Felix, come here a sec, I want to show you something." Felix: "Oh, my enthusiasm. It is palpable. What could you possibly - oh, a towel. I love towels. I can sleep on it, eh? And then you'll put it in Slothy's bathroom so when she towels off it will make her sneeze? Why does that never stop being funny?" Mom: "Great idea. Just come here and I'll wrap you in the towel and hold you in my lap so you can take a nap." Felix: "Sweet!" *purrrrrrrrrrrrrr* "Oh! Sloth, hi - I was just dozing here and, uh.....what the fuck??? Dude, get those fucking tweezers away from me, man, I am not even kidding I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING." Sloth: "Oh my god, this is so gross. There's too much blood, I have to go get a paper towel." Mom: "Get the hydrogen peroxide too." Felix: "Yeah, and don't forget your last will and testament because I AM SO GOING TO KILL YOU TEN TIMES IN A ROW." Fast forward ten minutes........ Mom: "Did you get it?" Sloth: "Almost." Felix: "MOTHERFUCKER." Sloth: "Got it." Mom: "Ew." Sloth: "Gross." Felix: "Can I still sleep in the towel?"

The Turn of the Tide

2005-09-03T23:21:00.000-05:00

I am on vacation and have been absent from Blogville. But New Guy just called to tell me that Judge Rehnquist died tonight. Bush's approval ratings are below what Nixon's were during Watergate, and that is pre-New-Orleans. If that doesn't stop him.....ladies, say goodbye to what we have taken for granted as an "educated" first-world country. You've already had to say "hello" to your babies born with brain stems but no brains. You've already had to say "hello" to your babies who are doomed to die horrific, painful deaths within weeks of birth. Now say goodbye to your rights as women, as citizens of the United States, as human beings. Say "hello" to the United States of Jesus Christ. Unless people wake up. WAKE UP. WAKE THE FUCK UP.

Blame.

2005-09-02T08:41:00.000-05:00

I keep reading everywhere all this animosity toward people who stayed in New Orleans instead of evacuating. Most of the people who stayed had no means of leaving. That doesn't mean they deserve to die. Thousands of people went to the SuperDome because THE AUTHORITIES TOLD THEM TO. Now they are dying because the helicopters flying overhead aren't dropping water or rations. Bodies are lying there for days. Babies are dying of dehydration. The authorities who told them to go there are trying to get them out, but in the meantime they're dropping like flies. Yes, there is crime happening. There is and will always be a criminal element in every city, especially one that is rife with so much poverty. When the opportunity arises, they take it. THEY ARE A MINORITY OF THE POPULATION THAT IS STUCK THERE. New Orleans has become Hell. I wish everyone WHO HAS NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE GOING THROUGH would stop blaming the people who can't get out and start blaming the people who had the means to prepare an efficient defense against this catastrophe. (Thanks, Dan, for the link.) What the fuck happened to compassion? Why is it so lacking in our culture? In our hearts? Which one of you can possibly look at a woman with a dying baby on each hip and BLAME HER FOR BEING THERE? When the fuck did our souls turn to shit?

Points of View

2005-09-01T16:13:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting thread about the issue addressed below. One of the photographers comments near the bottom. Thanks, Retro.

Yes, I know the horse is dead.

2005-09-01T13:54:00.000-05:00

But I'm going to beat the crap out of it anyway. I'm sure you've all seen this already since it's all over the internet, BUT. Just in case you missed it. Apparently, white people FIND things.... .....while black people LOOT things. According to Yahoo, anyway. Racist much? Thanks for the heads-up, Steve.

Well, Okay

2005-09-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

One little thing - I can't help it, it made me laugh so hard.... From "Overheard in New York": A hobo picks up a fruit stand banana, holds it to his ear like a phone, and says: Hello potassium!

--112th & Frederick Douglass

Overwhelmed Sloth

2005-09-01T08:26:00.000-05:00

Between this and this: ......it just doesn't seem like anything in my life is worth telling you about today. Tomorrow, then.

Return of the Sinister Guy

2005-08-31T08:30:00.000-05:00

Anemone flower, 8/27/05 It's Wednesday! StupidfuckingTuesday is behind us and we begin to look forward to the end of the week, which is silly, really, since there is always a Tuesday in our future. I pledge that if my rack wins the presidential race of 2008 (as previously discussed), there will be three-day weekends for all and the word "Tuesday" will go *poof* and disappear forever. Now then. Remember the guy on the bus who I had an ill-advised crush on and who came to be known as "The Sinister Guy?" Well, my work schedule changed a little bit a couple of months ago and I've been taking a slightly later bus so I haven't seen him in a while. I *may* have *vaguely* wondered if he noticed that I had vamoosed from his morning commute. Or I may not have wondered at all. You decide. ANYWAY, I woke up early this morning, threw on some track pants and my Pumas and mosied to the bus. Now, keep in mind, I usually wear a suit to work. I wear high heels every day. I wear pencil skirts, flared skirts, white pants, flared capris. I wear low-cut t-shirts, cross-seamed tank tops, little one-button jackets that can barely contain my-rack-for-president-2008. What I DO NOT WEAR is TRACK PANTS AND A TANK TOP (although, for the record, the tank top is collared and unzips waaaaaaaay down, thank Baby Jesus). So of course this would be the day, after not seeing him for months, that the sinister guy would wind up on my bus. I saw him, looking scary and sexy and trim as ever, died of shame, and dragged my cadaver to the back of the bus where I could look out the window and mourn my odd definition of "fashion" today. As it turned out, it didn't even matter, because..................eeep! He got off the bus, walked over to the window I was sitting next to and mouthed the words, "I always look for you." I smiled and waggled my claws at him as the bus pulled away. It was a perfect moment and a wonderful way to start my day. Happy Not-Tuesday everyone!!

What's the Crappiest Day of the Week?

2005-08-30T09:01:00.000-05:00

Cactus with blossom, 8/27/05 The correct answer is TUESDAY. Especially if it's raining. If you answered otherwise you are disqualified. Disqualified from what, you ask? Well, I've decided that if I can't ban Tuesday from the calendar, I can at least try to make it bearable by suggesting a little project for all of us to enjoy. This week's project involves embarrassing family moments, preferably involving a significant other. Here's mine: Last Saturday my boyfriend (He-who-cannot-be-nicknamed) and I were having dinner with my parents. Grilled salmon steaks, one of which was dropped on the ground during flipping (and which I had to clean up because I laughed the hardest), salad and corn on the cob. After we had all piled up our plates, my boyfriend confessed (with the opening, "Please don't laugh at me, but...") that he slices the kernels off of the cob and eats them with a fork. As my boyfriend was chopping away at his corn, I noticed my stepfather watching his every movement and sort of fidgeting a little bit. Finally, he blurted out, "Do you...do you suck on the cob afterward?" We were all laughing too hard to breathe when my stepdad finally gasped out, "I just couldn't think of a good way to say it!!" Whatchoo got?

Monday, Shmonday.

2005-08-29T11:19:00.000-05:00

The concert kicked my furbutt. First of all, we had AWESOME SEATS. I am only like a foot and a half tall, and I could see everything. Second of all, Shawn Colvin, who I have never been a huge fan of, opened with a cover of "Heart of Saturday Night" by Tom Waits which caused me to instantly forgive her for that horrible "Sunney Came Home with a Wrench and a Stray Cat" song. Then she talked about how she had watched "Napoleon Dynamite" every night on the tour to which a rowdy audience member responded, "Vote for Pedro!!" and for some reason Shawn said, "He's got a fever." The same audience member, who has now been elevated to shamefully-cooler-than-me-because-I-never-would-have-thought-of-it status shouted, "And the only cure is MORE COW BELL!!!" Thankfully I did not have to pee, because I laughed so hard that there definitely would have been a problem. John Hiatt rocked with such ferocity that he left a giant crater where the Merrill Auditorium had been. Here is the set list as best as I can remember it - I forgot pen and paper and he played for like an hour and a half so I kind of lost track of the order after the fourth song or so.

Master of Disaster

Lift Up Every Stone

Crossing Muddy Waters

Your Dad Did

When My Love Crosses Over

Take It Down

Buffalo River Home

Ain't Ever Goin' Back

Slow Turning

Love's Not Where We Thought We Left It

Memphis In The Meantime

Cry Love

Thank You Girl

Drive South

Is Anybody There?

Native Son

Tennessee Plates

Lincoln Town

Real Fine Love

Have A Little Faith In Me

Lipstick Sunset

I really wanted Hiatt to play "The Tiki Bar is Open" but he more than made up for it by making fun of Pat Robertson for being a crazy douchebag. Then, last night, New Guy and I watched "The Ring II" (or as we call it, "The Bling II") which is about as scary as a basket of kittens. NOT recommended. Got a lot of garden pics which will go up this week. Happy Monday!

Fly-Day!!

2005-08-26T13:53:00.000-05:00

My friend Steve took this picture of me about 20 minutes ago while we were in Harvard Square listening to an Asian choir in pink shirts singing about Jesus. Yay Jesus!! Just kidding. No matter what they tell you, Jesus is not your friend. He hates you and he thinks your hair could use a trim and he wishes you would stop dropping crumbs between the couch cushions. He fuckin' loves my sunglasses, though. NO, JESUS, YOU CANNOT HAVE MY SUNGLASSES SO STOP ASKING. This is promising to be a good weekend - I'm going to see John Hiatt in concert tomorrow night and since he is my most favoritest musician of all time, I am a buzzing, twitching, hopping-up-and-down sloth!! I'm so excited I can't stand it!! If sloths wore pants, I would be peeing my sloth-pants!! John Hiatt, like the Asian choir people, loves Jesus. But that's cool, I can dig it. I mean, look at him. Even Jesus likes John Hiatt - shit, he's only the coolest motherfucker on the earthly plane!! Suh!! Have a great weekend everyone, I'll try to come back with pics.

Complain Much??

2005-08-25T10:52:00.000-05:00

First of all, it's Thursday. The worst day of the week (Tuesday, ack!, shudder) is far behind us. One more day and we are FREEEEEEEEEE................for two whole days. I would like to thank the residents of Slothville for what the Retropolitan referred to as the "monster thread" on the last post. Not only was it the first time we have broken 100 comments since my post-election meltdown/hiatus (btw, the comments are still there even though Haloscan says "zero" and I had forgotten how interesting all that discourse was), it was only the second time in the history of Slothville that we got to 200 comments. Everyone give themselves a clap on the back! If you can reach. I'd do it for you but, you know, the claws. Instead of pat-pat it would be more like stab-stab. Today I have a little bitch-slap for Heath Ledger. From "The Scoop" by Jeanette Walls (celebrity gossip pimpette): Heath Ledger says he didn't enjoy smooching Jake Gyllenhaal in the man-on-man romantic cowboy flick, "Brokeback Mountain." IGN FilmForce interviewed Matt Damon and Ledger, stars of "The Brothers Grimm," and Ledger confessed that making "Brokeback Mountain" was "tough. It was a lonely experience, but it was definitely a real sense of accomplishment once I finished. It scared me [bleep]less." What scared him? "You know, the idea I had to make out with Jake Gyllenhaal for one, which just wasn't the easiest thing to do," Ledger replied. "You found making out with me pretty easy though," Damon quipped. "It was dark and I was drunk," Ledger joked. "This was daytime and there was a lot of lights." Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, poor Heath Ledger. He was forced, due to contractual obligations, to make out with the dreaded Jake Gyllenhaal. Oh, the horror!!! We know, we know. Your job is so hard, Heath. Smooching nubile, puffy-lipped, slightly-feminine-in-just-the-right-way men is so NAUSEATING. Never mind that you made SIXTY BILLION DOLLARS for doing it or that 99% of the known world would collectively fall to their knees to suck that guy's dick FOR FREE. Besides - LOOK AT YOURSELF. Nice tank top, Heath. What's that you've got behind your back there? It's an ass dildo, isn't it? Oh, yes it is. Dude, the only person in Hollywood gayer than you is Gavin Rossdale and if you think that pregnant girlfriend of yours is going to give you a beard, think again. Heath Ledger, you are a whiny little twat. Fuck you and the brokeback horse you rode in on. I am SO not returning any more of your calls.

Secret Sloth

2005-08-23T08:31:00.000-05:00

Daz took this picture when we were on photo safari last year. Well, I am a very busy sloth today and don't have much time to compose a post, so we are going to try an experiment in Slothville. Most of you have visited PostSecret (linked to the right) and if you are like me then you click on it every Monday to be soothed, disconcerted, and tapped into the quiet undercurrents of peoples' lives. Even though they are not my secrets, they make me feel connected, somehow, to everyone else in the world. Because I have secrets too. Today I am going to tell you two secrets. One funny, one not-funny. I hope that you will leave a secret or two of your own in comments. Please feel free to do so anonymously. Tuesday is the worst day of the week. Maybe we can make it a little better by getting some stuff off of our chests. Not-funny: a long time ago, when I was pathologically depressed and angry didn't know how to live with it, I used to cut myself almost every day. I can't believe I used to be that person. I would't recognize her today. Funny: A few years ago I was spending the night with my boyfriend at the time. We had had a huge dinner of sausage with onions and peppers. When I farted in the middle of the night, it wasn't the sound that woke him up from a dead sleep, it was the eau de sausage. Whatchoo got?

Monday Minis

2005-08-22T08:28:00.000-05:00

Although, they all seem to be minis these days, don't they? As fall approaches and I gear up for school my attention span shrinks to the size of a small acorn. 1. Last night I dreamt that I bought a dog exactly like the one above and he had a little round belly and we played around on the floor and I gave him treats and then we went out in the rain and then he smelled all doggy from being in the rain so I gave him a bath and he looked so cute with the suds all over his head. Considering that I usually dream about situations involving varying amounts of blood and which resemble a "CSI" episode without the "I" and that I am currently reading "Blindness" by Jose Saramago in which I just yesterday read about a woman being raped to death, I think my brain just decided to take a little time-out from the nightly gore already. Thank you, brain. 2. I decided to spend the weekend in Boothbay, zipping around on the boat and poking into the tidal pools. It was the one place on earth other than the arctic circle that was cold and gray and rainy all weekend long. One hour south, in Portland, it was 80 degrees and sunny. I was so bitter yesterday I was crying quinine. 3. I watched "Constantine" last night. YES, I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE A TURD-FEST AND YES I RENTED IT ANYWAY. You know, if Keanu Reeves would just be a little less fuckable I wouldn't have to see every goddamn movie he's in. (Except for the Matrix 3 - you couldn't get me to watch that garbage at gunpoint. I still have PTSD from the Wachowski sphincter-explosion that was the second one.) I wish someone would just give Keanu's face an acid bath so I could be spared any future "acting" on his part. And then a meteor crashed into the earth and killed everybody. The end. Have a lovely Monday, everyone.