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“I speak two languages: body and English.”
–Mae West
Dear Person Who Found My Blog by Searching “белые тигры”:
Gesundheit.
Love,
Mel
ETA: “белые тигры” apparently means “white tiger,” judging by the images that come when I copy and paste that phrase into Google. I love the internet.
Sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear; some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into the vibratory fields of earthly barriers, but in neither case does the energy succumb; it goes on forever — which is why we, each of us, should take pains to make sweet notes.
– from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins
Dear Young Man Beside Me on the Metro This Afternoon:
If I can hear your music, with my processor turned all the way down, over the noise of the train, and seeping out from your headphones, you may be listening to your music a tad too loud. Just sayin’.
Love,
Mel
In the childhood memories of every good cook, there’s a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot, and a mom.
– Barbara Costikyan
When I came home from work today, the foyer of my building smelled like tuna casserole, which reminded me of a funny story.
When Nate and I were kids — probably 8 and 10 or so — we asked our parents if we could make dinner for them. They agreed, and we made them promise not to come in the kitchen while we cooked. We decided on tuna noodle casserole, which our mom had made us plenty of times before.
So we set about crafting our casserole: egg noodles, tuna (of course), peas (I think), something to make it creamy (cream of mushroom soup, maybe?), and — just for good measure — a dollop of peanut butter. I kid you not.
We put the whole concoction in the oven to bake and proudly served it up to our parents a little while later. They dug in, and all of a sudden: Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
We didn’t know we were supposed to cook the noodles first.
To my parents’ credit, they both cleaned their plates, and we laugh about it to this day.
Marriage or cohabitation is often a shift from teenage grazing or cooking for one to establishing a family identity. It brings together two independent food choice systems to be coupled as one joint system.
– Amelia Lake
This title comes from an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie movies in with her boyfriend and laments the lack of personal space and time. She says she can’t engage in her secret single behavior anymore – you know, the stuff you did at home alone when you were single and living on your own. In Carrie’s case, her SSB was eating crackers and jelly; Miranda’s was deep conditioning her hands while watching infomercials; Charlotte’s was examining her pores for an hour every night before she went to bed; Samantha claimed to have no secret single behaviors.
I sure did, though, and not all of them I’m willing to share with you, but here’s a few I’ve come up with:
- eating macaroni and cheese from a box – David loves Velveeta Shells and Cheese, but I don’t think I’ve had Kraft Mac and Cheese since we started dating, mostly because I can eat a whole box in one sitting, and no one needs to see that!
- watching marathons of whatever cheesy show is on TLC on the weekends – my favorite is Say Yes to the Dress
- watching the E! red carpet coverage – all of it, from noon to 6 – for every major awards show (except the Grammys). Now I mostly just watch a half hour before hand and then the show itself
- buying Pillsbury raw cookie dough and eating it right out of the package
What about you?
It’s hard to remember what I did before the iPod. iPod is more than just a music player, it’s an extension of your personality.
– Mary J. Blige
This morning at 11:43, Apple Genius Adam declared my iPod Mini dead. Mini was almost four-and-a-half, and he served his purpose dutifully and well. May he rest in peace.
The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.
– Doug Larson
I guess when I turned 32 this past Tuesday, I officially became old, because I was driving past the skate park yesterday, and my first thought wasn’t, “Look how much fun they’re having!”, it was “Look how dangerous that is. And why aren’t any of them wearing helmets?”
Oy.
Reverend Steenwyck: Their heads weren’t found severed. Their heads were not found at all.
Ichabod Crane: The heads are gone?
Rev. Steenwyck: Taken. Taken by the Headless Horseman. Taken back to hell.
– from Sleepy Hollow
Dear Person Who Found My Blog By Searching “baby born without head”:
Go. Away.
Love,
Mel
Sometimes I’m confused by what I think is really obvious. But what I think is really obvious obviously isn’t obvious.
– Michael Stipe
1. Parents who ride bikes helmetless but make their kids wear them. Just because you’re a grown up doesn’t mean your brains won’t go splat if you get into an accident. And by the way, nice message you’re sending to your kids. And while I’m at it, if you’re going to go through the trouble of making your kid wear a helmet, why not be sure it fits him right? I can’t count the number of helmets I see on kids (adults, too, actually) that are set at a jaunty side angle or sit too far back on the head.
2. Personalized license plates that tell you what kind of car it is. “Mustng” – “My CRV” – “Benz” – I don’t know why people do this. Do they think the rest of us are too stupid to figure out what kind of car they’re driving? It says it right there on the car, but thanks for making sure I can’t miss it. Have they simply always longed for a personalized plate but are too boring to think up something good? (Side note: the best license plate I’ve ever seen: PHQRSLF)
3. People who cannot be bothered to return their shopping carts to the proper area in the parking lot when they’re finished unloading them. I mean, Christ, how hard is it to walk the cart 200 feet or whatever to the effing cart corral? Are you really so damn lazy that you just hoist the cart up on to the median or leave it in the empty space next to you or squeeze it into the space between the curb and the car in the next space? Give me a break.
4. People who friend EVeryone they know, or used to know, or think they might know, or would like to get to know, on Facebook. I get a fair number of friend requests each week from people I went to high school with. Sometimes these requests sit in my box for days, even weeks at a time, because I’m conflicted. I graduated high school in 1994. That’s a long effing time ago. On a regular basis, I talk to exactly one person I went to high school with, and that’s Aimee. There are a handful of other people I see from time to time, usually through my brother (who is close with several guys from my class), and one or two others I’ve reconnected with in the past five or so years with whom I maintain a mostly electronic relationship.
I’m not one of those people on Facebook who tries to amass as many friends as I can by friending everyone whose name is familiar or who I had 4th period Geometry with or shared the lunch table with in 10th grade. It doesn’t interest me to share the information that I allow to be public on FB with the girl who threatened to beat me up in 9th grade because her boyfriend – who I didn’t even know had a girlfriend – kissed me. And yes, that person recently sent me a friend request, which I promptly ignored.
I mean, really – what is the point? Communication with at least half of the people whose friend requests I do accept, or who accept mine, is limited entirely to monitoring status updates and making the occasional wall post or comment, if that. Usually the people who request to be friends (and yes, I’m aware of how lame this sounds – almost as lame as the (honest to god) 15-minute IM conversation David and I had about changing our relationship status on FB last August) don’t even send a “Hey, it’s great to see you on here, what have you been doing with yourself?” message. And to be fair, I hardly ever send them, either.
So again I ask, what is the point of friending everybody you passed in the hallways for four years? I confess that I occassionally go through my Friends list and unfriend people. This is, in some circles, apparently a devastating thing to do to another person. But if we’ve been “friends” for months, and neither of us has commented to the other on anything, I’m guessing you’re not even going to notice I’m not on your list anymore.
How do you handle friend requests from people you used to know?
5. Why my apartment complex charges pet rent on top of a pet fee. I’m in the process of trying to transfer my lease from a one-bedroom to a two-bedroom. Yesterday, the guy told me that, in addition to the ridiculous “transfer fee” of $700, I’m also going to have to pay a new $300 pet fee, because the fee I paid when I moved in to my one-bedroom is non-refundable and non-transferable.
The lady in administration told me the fee is applied to the cost of cleaning or replacing the carpet before the next tenant moves in. Never mind that Pico, in all his born days, has never peed outside the litter box (except once when he was very young and had a UTI), and has never had fleas, and so it is unlikely that the carpet in my one-bedroom will need to be replaced and that $300 to clean 600 square feet of carpet is highway-god-damned-robbery. But no one’s explained to me, then, if the fee is for the cleaning and/or replacement of the carpet, why the hell do I pay an additional $480 a year in pet rent? One or the other would be fine, but both seems exorbitant to me.
I love everything about living here except dealing with the leasing and administrative offices. Every time I turn around with this transfer thing, there’s some new fee no one told me about the first four times I discussed transferring. It’s maddening, and it’s turning what should be a fun, happy thing into a giant ball of frustration and anxiety.
Thanks for letting me vent. Share your complaints/confusions/rants in the comments, if you like.
All Englishmen like dresses. It’s something in their genes. Everyone knows it, they just don’t talk about it.
– David Bowie
Dear Person Who Found My Blog By Searching “boy wearing sister’s clothes”:
Welcome; I think you’re looking for this. Don’t fight it, just relax and laugh your ass off at how cute he looks.
Love,
Mel
One day, an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the earth.
– Gloria Steinem
Behold, my new favorite blog, co-written by two women (though mostly by one of them) in their 80s who have been friends for 60+ years: Margaret and Helen. As a warning, many of the posts are political, and heavily left-leaning, but oh my gosh, do these ladies have a way with words – I just started reading today, and they are cracking me up. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
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