Thursday, March 26, 2009

funnybone heartbreak

My father just made the following assertion:
“People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling… It’s a pastry analogy.”
He’s the cutest little misanthropist in the whole wide world.

I drove (but mostly dozed) the 8 hours home with Zoe and Jeremy, who both had legitimate excuses to be here. Zoe had a doctor’s appointment and Jeremy apparently needed a haircut. I’m still not entirely sure of what I’m doing here, but my mother told me that I can take as much toilet paper as I want back with me (it seems she knows a guy who can always get her more…)

I’ve just been paling around with my fellow Panhandlers. It’s been a pretty sober spring break spent in Pensacola. I don’t count the drunken kayak expedition I undertook yesterday because this activity has become something of a divine ritual for me. And besides, the bayou beasts are best faced with a little booze in the belly. The alligators are pretty scrawny, but the pelicans are ferocious. I get the impression that someone has trained them to go for the eyes.

I didn’t run into our neighbor Mr. Stump-hand Man, the crazy old squatter who raises pigs next to the land my parents own. It’s just as well though because I always feel awkward waving at him. I fear that I will offend him somehow with my two perfectly intact hands. I usually attempt to greet him with the same-sided hand as his five-fingered one, my greatest dread being that he will vigorously flail his stump-hand at me in response.

And speaking of missing digits, this guy took the next logical step and went digital. After losing his finger in a motorcycle accident, Mr. Jalava, a Finnish computer programmer, fashioned himself a replacement with a USB drive attached. Fancy that!

One more day buckled up in the Bible Belt and we’ll find out if I’ve really learned to charm myself out of a paper bag.
I’ve got more love for you (and you and you) than I care to shake a stick at. Besides I’ve got no time for phalluses/fallacies.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Psycho beach party



So…
I’m not pregnant!

Like not having any severed limbs, It’s one of those things that you don’t really appreciate until you find yourself sitting in the shower with the lights off, with nothing but one soggy novelty sock on, seeking counsel in your dead Grandpa Eddy, who would know exactly what to do in such a situation…

Don't feel tempted to give me the safe sex talk. There's only so much faith you can put in a thin film of latex, after all. And I'm an atheist, doubt is in my nature (self-doubt most of all). I did have a healthy glow about me for a while there...

Well, I spent last weekend binge drinking and chain smoking (just in case) and also because Emma, my gal pal (a term I’m trying to insert into youth culture), came to visit me in sunny Sarasota.

On Friday we split a family size bottle of wine and while she did the sensible thing and slept it off, I decided to take a shower to sober myself up. Somewhere between the suds and the alcohol, I guess I was feeling pretty limber because I attempted to do a little yoga. Somehow I managed to slip and scuff up the spiney part of my neck pretty bad. I thought for a second I might have broken my neck because everything was spinning, but then I remembered that I was drunk. Thank god for boozey clarity.

Saturday we went to the aquarium, where I am now a “member” (meaning I get the newsletter twice a year). The big selling point for me is the giant squid specimen they have pickled on display. Emma told me that if a giant squid is ever captured alive the aquarium in Sarasota has dibs. Since I’m a member and everything, I think that means I would be a partial owner of real live giant squid, so here’s hoping.

On Sunday we toured the Ringling Museum, where we spent the most time exploring the racial dynamics of the miniature circus replica. We were looking at the “backstage” section of the model where black and white circus employees were preparing for the show. Some of the black figurines apparently came directly from whatever factory specializes in creepily realistic and varyingly attractive dolls, but other black circus hands were merely painted a slimy greenish-brown color. You could tell that they had been painted because the plastic shirts and hair had also been painted over, blending the ugly uni-color from the torso up. Also some of the paint was chipped off in places, revealing a subtle peachy skin tone underneath. I guess nobody was willing to shell out the bucks to actually buy more than a few black dolls (I assume they up the price for ethnic diversity). They probably thought nobody would notice.
“What’s wrong with those negros, mommy? Their skin looks funny!”
“It’s rude to stare, Billy. Look away.”

Monday, March 9, 2009

Taxidermy art of Sarina Brewer



She salvages road kill, dead pets and deceased farm animals and uses them to create her recycled animal art…




Website

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

I want to get high and listen to music with you

My mother gave me a large plastic unicorn head decoration for Christmas. Apparently it was part of a gas station advertisement for some car-related lubricant or other (which explains the adorably phallic horn). I don’t really know how she acquired it, but if anyone knows how to engage in good ol’ fashioned bartering (I’ll trade you a bushel or corn for that there trinket), it’s my mom.

Anyway, lately I’ve been experiencing mild but pleasant hallucinations when I wake up in the morning. I’m pretty sure that these are a consequence of the (totally legal, baby) drugs I’ve been taking. The hallucinations only last for three or four minutes, but the unicorn head has quickly become the leading character in this realm of visual titillation. Mainly it just sort of coyly pulsates, grinning and looking particularly decapitated, but friendly nonetheless. Thanks mom!

Finally, a medication with intriguingly positive side effects! Normally, I get saddled with a “nausea and vomiting,” or “frequent urination,” kinda deal. These are typically things I feel much less compelled to expound upon in a public medium.

On another note, some time ago I had the flu and cigarettes made me nauseous. This gave me the smug and ultimately faulty impression that I had simply lost the taste for them, but after the nausea subsided I was jonesing like a proper junkie. So after a failed stint at quitting cold-turkey, I am now learning how to roll my own cigarettes and feeling unduly righteous about it.

And for those of you looking for new activities to liven up your day…



Group rope jumping!

This new trend is taking Russian cities by storm. The idea is to first assemble a group of merry risk-takers, find a bridge over a sufficiently iced body of water, and when a train begins to chug along over the bridge and the conductor, upon seeing a massive group of people caught on the tracks, frantically attempts to slow those many tons of moving steel, wait until the last possible moment before jumping off the bridge in unison.






Uh-oh, it's the fuzz!

I am king dinosaur

I can’t explain why I seem to oscillate back and forth between complete empathy and total insensitivity…

But I realized I’d reached a new low when I found myself trying to deliver a humorous punch line to a story I was telling about a huge Greek man who had had a heart attack in my karate class… in front of his two children. The zinger? “Oh, I guess he died.”

And just because I have a thing for poorly conceived/ executed tattoos, here ya go