A Love Letter to Assigning Things

Dear assigning things,

Oh, do I love to assign stuff to things! And of course the antipode: things to stuff. It's something I do automatically, usually, and well. It's probably because I have a meager morsel of synesthesia. When I say "meager" I mean it. My synesthesia - chromesthesia - is a dinky shrimp of a concept that sounds a lot cooler than it is, and I don't like to talk about it. For the uninitiated: sometimes I see colors when I hear sounds. Or hear colors. It is not nearly as extreme as you are imagining it right now. A symphony is not rainbow of light.  It's not constant, it only happens during speaking, and again...I don't like to talk about it.

It's a problem because some people sound like they are the most sluggish, defeated fluorescent yellow they could muster, and I automatically hate them.  They could be a perfectly nice person, but I will refuse to give them a chance to prove it.  It's terrible.  If you've been reading this blog for awhile (all four of you lovelies), you would know that I ardently judge people based on the sound of their voice. Sometimes a person has an offensive timbre and they can probably do nothing about it without the help of Henry Higgins, so I graciously forgive them for shrilling like a human theremin, but that doesn't mean I like them.

So I will assign that person to the list in my brain headed "people who sound like drabby yellow grass." Of course, colors ebb and vary depending on the types of vocalization, the modality, etc., but in general, some people have lovely voices that flutter from pale blue to the night sky and others sing in a papal purple and speak in scarlet, but not everyone, just some. There is no mapping logic to it all. But once you've spoken a color to me I will remember it.

And although some people sound like colors, most people don't. Which means I need to find something else to assign to them.

The act of assigning, the deliberate synthesis of one thing and another, whether that thing is a trait or a phrase or a responsibility or a smell...it's different than something as omnipotent as naming. Naming asserts control over a thing. It involves taking into account history and future and the summation of the assigned parts.

When something is named the audience places immediate judgement. Compare Avatar to Ferngully, two terrible movies with the exact same plot.  Regardless of their similarities, the titles insinuate that the focus of each is different: one word is the manifestation of a god on a lesser plane of existence, while the other is a ravine fully of shaded plants.

So naming is power.

But assigning...assigning is mine. It's my personal association. Assigning could be interpreted as a claim to ownership, but to me it's more like a claim to relationship. Yes, this thing, this person, this place, it means something to me and I to it. We are relevant to each other. 

Maybe when I assign things to stuff or stuff to things, it's a plea to my personal vanity. Or is it a way to organize impressions, or memories?  Is it a way imbue immortality? Or is it my own personal confusion of the two concepts?

I've assigned sentences to the stars and certain behaviors to the trees on my street, smiles to people with a tendency to frown, friends to flashbacks and flashbacks to friends, degrees of douchiness to flavors (what is going to be the kale or cauliflower of 2014? I need to make a list), gravity to versions of nostalgia, lovability to myself, unfair judgement to drug addicts, giggles to puppies, personalities to letters, stamps of approval to restaurants that sell cream of chicken and rice soup on days outside of Sunday, activities to days and emotions to weeks.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of things I've assigned to humans with or without their knowledge:

Speaking of animal personalities, I'm a bear. 
Which means, I'm sure, that I would be a cinnamon bear.

• animal personality (but only from this particular quiz, and I don't so much as assign animals as take the quiz for everyone I meet always)
• toys
• Hogwarts Houses (one time I assigned a Hogwarts house to every US President)
• Myers-Briggs personalities
• colors
• actors and actresses
• biography authors
• walk songs
• weather
• nicknames
• type of circus performer

Sure, all of these are the makings for a fine Buzzfeed quiz, but not really.  Because it's not like I assign things to everyone, and I don't assign the same things across the board. I assign colors and feelings and objects to humans. Durrr.

Still there's a problem: this turns humans into characters, and explaining away behavior by saying, "well, she runs from confrontation because she's a cottontail rabbit who speaks in peach." It's always unhealthy to turn a fleshy, living person into a character. That's objectification, not a relationship.

I used to objectify myself completely. I thought, "I want people to think I'm this way" and so I would live up to what I thought other people's expectations would be of the person I wanted to be. Then I placed judgement on myself based on how I assumed other people perceived me and tried to anticipate and thwart those assumptions by berating who I thought they thought I was. Like in the mirror.

Honestly? I still do that. Sometimes. But now I realize what I'm doing, and I'm correcting it. Do not objectify everyone. We are people, and therefore unique and unknowable. Stop sucking.  

But assignments help. They reinforce knowledge...I don't think Emi is a gently carved bolt of affable lightning, I know she is. I know Fraya is a bouncy ball with an orange sunset singing inside, Xtine is a crown of perfectly roasted marshmallow stilettos. These are things I know. I have assigned things to them that will last forever.

So thank you, assigning things, for being a thing I love to do.

Love,
Rassles

...

 So I guess I have a Love Letters series now.  I mean, I do. Click here for the list so far.

I Am A Snowflake

I started writing the draft for this post in July.  Since then I've gathered eleven unfinished posts in my draft box, eleven thoughts I muddled over and discarded.  Sub-par stuff, homies.

Their titles, respectively:

 1.  People Don't Bully Because of Their Insecurities, Dipshits
 2.  The Thing About Cheerleaders
 3.  Dear Memes: Stop Being Middlebrow as Fuck
 4.  ONCE AGAIN, AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY
 5.  Drink a Beer In the Shower FTW
 6.  OMG, So Many Baltic Monuments
 7.  Don't Touch Me
 8.  The Wiener Circle
 9.  Cite Your Damn Sources
10. The Trappings of Being Rad
11. All the Famous People Are Friends With Each Other Which Means Everything Is a Conspiracy, Especially Google, I Just Haven't Worked Out Exactly Why Just Yet

So now I will attempt to connect at least six of them in one post:  

Back in October I passed a couple putting up signs around the neighborhood for a missing black cat named Salem. 

Old roommate MoLinder had a giant black cat named Panther.  Around Halloween this conversation would inevitably arise: black cats get fucked with around Halloween because of a, b, and c, where a = magic, b = assholes and c = boredom.  The reasoning goes a bit deeper than that, but I am going to assume (pretend) that anyone who reads this has the ability to discern meaning on their own without having it spelled out for them, and let's face it: life can pretty much be distilled down to magic, assholes and boredom anyway. It's up to us to decide which will define us, as if we want to be defined at all.

I'm totally not into like, being defined, man. I don't like limiting myself to one thing, I want to be free to be who I want to be. And now, upon completion of those sentences, I have assigned myself a label.  Everything is a label, guys, don't go kidding yourself into thinking you're the exception.  We can listen to country and hip hop, we can like action movies and romantic comedies - but then, we are defining ourselves based on what we like.  Is that how we act?  Which determines who we are?

Honestly, it doesn't even matter.

Of course, I am special because everyone is a snowflake, duh, but I still define myself by what I consume instead of how I behave.

I have oddly matched layers with clashing tastes and topography. I know I want serve humanity in life, the point of living is to enrich and subsequently be enriched, although becoming enriched isn't the goal, it's the result of doing it right.  And an enriching life is not, I think, defined by my preference for Coke over Pepsi, and although I drink neither I still have an opinion on both which is fucking ridiculous. Not that I sit around and debate the merits of one or the other, or even think about either on a regular basis, but having an opinion is integral to my progress as a person, therefore I should just have one.

Are opinions consumption because they are something we have? We say "have" an opinion as if we hold ownership over them, as if opinions are something we purchase and flaunt about like preposterous doches in jewelry commercials (he went to Jared, son).

Speaking of segues, here's my problem with engagement rings:

As a middle-class, white, American heterosexual woman between the age of zero and fifty, I have an opinion on engagement rings.

Did you read that?  I have an opinion on engagement rings.

Whatever, so does the rest of my demographic. The Big Bad Media tries harder to target us for jewelry than they do for presidential elections.

Traditionalists want A Diamond and romantic gestures.  Rich Traditionalists want A Something-Cut Diamond, whatever those are (I know one of them is called "princess" but I have spend a considerable amount of effort purposely ignoring the names of gem cuts - not because I don't care, but because I don't want to know - there is a difference). Active moralists want a gemstone with less baggage and blood (pussies, if you ask me - go big or go home, nancygirl - but that doesn't mean you need a diamond, of course, a mere emerald would suffice).  Revolutionaries don't give a shit, and they TELL YOU how much they don't give a shit, and they talk about why they don't give a shit because they've lent the topic a great deal of thought and then sat around waiting for someone to ask them how they felt about engagement rings.

Narcissists - so, of course, me - want an engagement ring uniquely suited to fit them as an individual snowflake with memories and a story behind each facet to serve my gluttonous struggle for authenticity, romance, and self-worth.  This means, of course, I don't want a diamond to represent me,  I want to be A Diamond.

Of course I don't want to literally be a fucking diamond, by the way. It's not that I like diamonds, or that I value diamonds: I value ME. I want ME to be valued. I want ME to be valued as much as I value you, which is, if you actually take the time to read read this, probably a whole lot.

Next order of business: "I want me to be valued." If I was valuable, I probably wouldn't need to tell people about it.

Donald Trump reminds people he is a /b/ illionaire.  Kanye reminds us how valuable his wife is, and I don't know if anyone believes him but I'm kind of starting to. New York City, as an entity, never stops reminding us how goddamn important and special it is.

The only people who give a shit about New York City are the people who (a) live there, the people who (b) lived there, and (c) would live there.  They want to be valued and associated with the mythos, so they yell about how much we should value them like, all the time. And then the people who yell the loudest move there and just continue to be the loudest and the rest of us are like, OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP.  NO ONE CARES ABOUT BROOKLYN.  STOP BEING TERRIBLE.

What I'm saying is this: The people who want to be defined by magic, instead of assholes or boredom, will get themselves a black cat familiar and name it Salem.  Or Jinx.  Or...Panther?

Sure, Panther was so-named because he's enormous, and he was given to MoLinder, she didn't necessarily choose him.  But they belong to each other nonetheless, and MoLinder chose a name that connotes with a badass jungle predator.  Asshole.

So the reason black cats get kidnapped around Halloween is the exact same reason people adopt/purchase black cats, and it's the exact same reason why they name their black cats Jinx and Salem.  They are boring assholes, but they want to be magic.

Someone with true magic would probably name the thing "Matt."

In the end, this post is about basically nothing on my list up there.

...

Please Allow Me To Nerd Out

I caved and watched John Carter about a little over a month ago because I was on this Friday Night Lights kick and needed more Taylor Kitsch, and I'm now on a one-woman crusade to make everyone watch it because it's awesome. 

Remember when I said I wrote something about Star Wars?  I said it before and I'll say it again, talking about Star Wars is fucking cliche, but when something shapes your childhood pretending it's not important to you is just plain silly.  

Then again, this isn't really about Star Wars at all - and it's more about how Hollywood fucks things up sometimes, and how they get it right sometimes. 

Here is the abridged version of what I wrote a month ago:

First of all, I loves me some JJ Abrams.  Alias and Lost are two of my favorite shows, Super 8 was fun (but waaaaaay too polished and aware for a coming-of-age movie) and I thoroughly enjoyed Star Trek, although I am an infant in Trek lore, so any arguments about JJ ruining Star Trek with lens flares don't even register. 

But the man is a walking gimmick.  His name a gimmick.  Obviously he's not as gimmicky as someone like Peter Jackson, who couldn't identify a gimmick if a hobbit kicked him in the nards.  Peter Jackson is so gimmicky he's George Lucas.   Since JJ gained a reputation as a creator of cult TV his name evokes certain feelings of dedication and camaraderie, and Star Trek was his breakthrough for those people who hadn't caught on yet.  

For Star Wars we need a director who is pure and raw with a coming-of-age feel, not well-seasoned and mature with little adolescent idiosyncrasies.  Maybe the guy that directed Attack the Block, but then again THAT was his coming-of-age movie. If this were a few years ago I'd say Rian Johnson, but Looper pushed him up a notch from Brick, which was like watching a snake juggle knives and I mean that with the utmost respect.  Star Wars should MAKE the director and not the other way around. People are looking at this thing in a totally wrong way.

Of course, Star Wars is itself a gimmick, it's a classic hero story and it's totally a coming-of-age movie, and not in the when-oh-when-will-I-lose-that-v-card sense, but in a teenager-learns-to-make-decisions-for-someone-other-than-himself kind of sense. And it works because it was made by a man who was, at that time, coming-of-age in his career. 

Kind of like - okay, Andrew Stanton, who did Wall-E and Finding Nemo, would have been a good choice.  But then he made John Carter.

Before that he hadn't yet made the full transition into adult topics - the first of a trilogy is always about finding your footing and beginning somewhere, so it would make sense to have a director transitioning into more adult topics while still appealing to children - hence "coming of age." JJ did his "coming of age" movie with Super 8, but the problem was he make that movie AFTER HIS OWN DIRECTORIAL TRANSITION, which was Felicity-era JJ, so it was compiled of memories of what things were like, not experiences of how things ARE. 

It's harder to portray that emotional innocence if yours is gone - it'll only work once.

That's why movies like Stand by Me (Rob Reiner grows up) and Now and Then (Lesli Linka Glatter grows up) actually work, but movies like Moonrise Kingdom fail.  Moonrise Kingdom was very cute, yes, but it was never innocent.  Parts of it were supposed to be, but it was far too cunning to ever get there. It was Wes Anderson waving around a giant lollipop yelling, "LOOK AT MY FUCKING LOLLIPOP BECAUSE LOLLIPOPS ARE INNOCENT."
  
The kicker is this: John Carter is what the Star Wars prequels should have been: a vehicle fully aware of the tropes and cliches involved in the story so it utilizes them to its advantage.  Sensational, pulpy, cheesy, and ridiculously fun. 

Compare that to something like Snow White and the Huntsman, which was just a series of bullshit used and irrelevant ideas that were painted to look pretty, completely oblivious to both source material and innovation. 

• Exhibit A: Fuck you, Rupert Sanders.  Use real fucking dwarves.  Haven't Peter Dinklage and Warwick Davis taught Hollywood anything in the past two years?  
• Exhibit B:  Queen that is mean because of some dumb groan-worthy background story that villifies feminism (a woman's only desire for power is to get back at the man that wronged her!  Not everything is about you) and instead turns an otherwise interesting power-hungry character into a hackneyed woman who is bad because she is getting old and ugly, and women do not like to be ugly.  You know what could have made a rad story?  Re-write the whole damn thing to focus on Charlize Theron's rise and fall as The Evil Queen.  It could be like Wicked (the book, not the shitty musical about shallow BFFs that fight because they totally have a crush on the same guy).
• Exhibit C:  Pretty girl that everyone believes is special but we have no fucking idea why, since she's boring and annoying.  And then Thor is all like, "you're a girl, you can't survive in the forest" and she's all, "no, I'm really pretty so no one will kill me" and then Rupert Sanders is like "let's give her a sword for no reason so we know she's a strong woman now! Swords = strong." (??????) 

That movie doesn't mean anything.  It's a pretty movie with pretty people who are all terrible.  

Granted, John Carter doesn't necessarily mean anything either other than the celebration of telling a fun story.  It's also a pretty movie with pretty people, but they're presented differently.  When they give the princess a sword, it's not a novel idea that she's a woman with a sword.  It's not supposed to represent a transformation - everyone in the movie can use a sword.  All of the women and all of the men.  This is never pointed out with a line like, "Our women are equal!" It's just the way it is.  There's no reason to point it out.  Our villain is the bad guy because he wants to be a bad guy. Our hero is the hero because he's...well, it's because he's fucking American.  But they amp that cheesiness up too, and nearly satirize it but never get all ironically detached and uselessly sarcastic, and I dig that. 

I would love it if Andrew Stanton was captaining the Disney Star Wars franchise.  But maybe not anymore...after all, he already made his John Carter.   

...

Seriously, Though, Don't Listen To Me

I avoid Yelp mostly because I think Yelp reviewers (most kinds of reviewers) are a pack of irritable screaming narcissists.

The only way Yelp is going to be effective in the least is by scouring the profiles of a bunch of whiny prima donnas to find one like myself, which can only end in bloodshed. Such is my curse.

This, of course, is coming from an extremely low-profile blogger who is also an ex-reviewer (of goddamn blogs, no less) that has never amounted to anything as a writer but continues to fling gunky brain-glops all over the internet at every opportunity like a monkey with a fistful of poop. No one should be listening to me but me.

But people love Yelp.  I guess people just love being told what their opinion should be about shit in general.  They love reading movie reviews to decide what to watch (there are these things, you guys, called movie trailers, you should check them out) they love Consumer Reports and TripAdvisor and lists of bestselling books, and they love forming an opinion based upon those previously existing opinions ("I don't know, it's only got two stars on Yelp"). In a capitalist society I understand we want to get the highest value for our money, but come on.  That's a fucking terrible reason to rely on other people's opinions.  Why do you let strangers control your choices over the only things you can truly choose? Why don't you learn things for yourself?

Granted, that's the kind of thought process that leads to toad-kissing and cocaine, but...shut up. All this mildly ties into that Domer who made up his girlfriend, to which I say, um, who gives a shit? So have thousands of other teenagers.  He lied about something and people started to care about leukemia because of it - this is bad how?  Because people had feelings about the health of their fellow fucking man?  THAT IS A GOOD RESULT.  Just pretend you were watching Nicholas Sparks movies, which, by the way, are also fucking fictional, and it does not matter how emotionally damaged I am, Channing Tatum is not going come along and tell me that we are actually married but I don't remember because of a terrible accident and I just have to goddamn accept that.

But there are gullible people believing everything they read on the internet, which is the one place where amateurs can actually lie about whatever the fuck they want with zero consequences and plus there is porn of everything except for me and Channing Tatum and I vow to remedy that. 

So then we all struggle around barking and rearranging other people's words all fucking day, and journalists regurgitate more words and we regurgitate theirs and it's this huge international game of telephone that never ends and nothing ever gets done about it.  Here's hoping this wonderful media fuck-up because people DID NOT DO THE RESEARCH changes all that.

 At the same time...don't listen to me.  Two reasons:

1) Don't be me.  There can be only one.
2) You just keep on keepin on.  But do it because it's what you want, not because it's what other people tell you to want.  Doesn't letting strangers make your decisions for you take the fun out of everything?  When you want to learn something, teach yourself.


...

It must be that I am terrible

For some reason I am worried about something.

I have no idea why.  I don't know what it is.  But suddenly a heavy trepidation came barreling down the hall and punched me in the face, and now I am freaking out over something that is actually nothing, and I want to know what it is.

Typing this is making me anxious.  The usual bodily signs of anxiety are creeping all over - my jaw is too heavy for my face, my eyes are too slick to stay properly in my head, my heart is too small for my chest and my back aches from nothing, so to trick my body into forgetting this I tilt my chin upwards and stretch my neck, open my eyes wide and breath deep, willing all of these body parts shift back into a comfortable state.  I am clenching so hard right now. People probably think I'm wicked constipated.  No, that was last week.

It's embarrassing.  How worried I am.  Panic.  I did something.  Or did someone do something?  To me?  To someone? I feel like I'm losing a war I didn't know I was fighting, or perhaps this is the sign on an impending and inevitable war that I'm doomed to fight?

It must be that I am terrible.  That must be it.  It must be because when I'm uncomfortable I'm incapable of sincerity, which is the result of years of practice. It was a brilliant defense mechanism years ago, and earned me friends, but somehow now that I'm an adult it feels silly and embarrassing, which is the exact opposite effect it's supposed to have in the damn first place. It is supposed to ward off the feelings of embarrassment.  The problem is that I get older and the people around me do likewise - but I am not developing into a functioning adult the same way they are because I'm...afraid?  No, that's not it.  Angry?  No. Guilty?  Yes.  I am guilty.

Spending too much time in my head, turning every word over and over and over - I mean, am I obstreperous? Yes, I would say that I am decidedly obstreperous, at least capable of extreme obstreperosity, but would people agree?  Is this a misrepresentation of self saying, "Rassles is obstreperous" and then backing it up with no volume or brawl?  Shall I fight you for the right to label myself? Do people do this for themselves, or is it just me?  It must be a people thing.  Why would someone fancy themselves obstreperous in the first place?  Is it desirable or disgusting? 

I don't know which, but it definitely is. It exists. That is something.  It means something that I have found a word at all, whether it's applicable to me is irrelevant.  It's the journey. 

The more I describe the journey - how I arrive at a thought, why I drew a conclusion - the more isolated I become.  I do not know anyone who does this outside of artists, really. That means something too. That means I think I'm an artist.

Hmmm.

Can an artist be obstreperous?  Oh god, I hope not, that sounds self-involved and terrible. 

It must be that I am terrible.

It's infuriating how many people get journeys wrong, by the way, like because Emerson thinks life is a journey it means journeys are more important than destinations, when the majority of the people I know are strict brain destination people.  It's not that they lack introspection or aren't susceptible to extreme brooding, because they are--it's that they do not feel the need to discuss it, to share it with everyone and analyze how each thought unraveled into the next. 

Of course, that's not what Emerson was talking about, and you want to agree so you sound free-spirited and spontaneous...but the fact is, agreeing with him is having an opinion, it is not acting.  And action is far more important to this concept than an opinion about an action.

Can I be equally guided by action and opinions about actions? Or must it be one or the other?  If it's up to me, I value action more than opinion - but I have more opinion than action.  Perhaps that's why. 

Would writing this post count as an action, or an opinion about action? Now I'm worried about this.

Shit.


...

A Real Conversation I Overheard Yesterday Beween Two Volunteers In My Office Who Are Organizing Auction Items For Our Fundraiser This Friday

"Once I learn how, I'm totahlly gonna have like a ladies poe-ker nahyite."  She says it with conviction, but with that obnoxious high-voiced fucking vocal fry thing.  You heard it here first: I am prejudiced against your shitty voice. 

"No you're not," he says loudly, and runs his fingers through his hair. I feel obligated to call it a lustrous mane.

"Yes I ahm! I totally ahm."

"Really?  You're serious?" He flashes impossibly whitened teeth.  "What are you guys going to play?  Ladies' blackjack?"

"No.  Real poker.  Like, just, Tehcksaahs Hold 'em..." I decide that she probably has a very, very small nose.  I turn and stare.  She does. 

Laughter.  Teeth.  He throws back his head and his hair billows.  But we are inside.  How did he do that?  Do rich people know about something we don't? Can you get tiny air vents full of sunshine implanted in your head that make your hair ripple and glow?  This wouldn't surprise me.  Must do research. 

He speaks. "Just Texas Hold 'em?  Just like, the hardest poker game ever?  Yeah, I'll bet." 

"No, wehll, yeah.  You know.  It'll just be like, light and easy poker, you know, for girls."  But she says 'girls' with a multi-syllabic high Kardashian squawk.  I cannot believe she is a real person.  I cannot believe she is a real person and people can listen to her speaking without smacking her.  I cannot believe she missed out on a pun of gold when he finished his last sentence with 'bet.' 

He is shuffling through boxes of donations. "Oh right, because, I mean, I was going to say...there is no way you can get a group of girls together that can play Texas Hold 'em." Tape rips. A box is opened. "Oh!  Lulu Lemon!  Lulu Lemon is like, the female staple. Lulu Lemon is to women like Halo is to men." 

...

1) It should be noted that I don't know what the fuck Lulu Lemon is.

2) It should also be noted that this morning I discovered he means Halo the salon, and not the video game.  Hair mystery solved.

3) It should subsequently additionally be noted that WHO THE FUCK GETS EXCITED about something called "Lulu Lemon"?
...

But you know. Sweden.

This is Part 8 of the Wir Gehen Nach Deutschland series, which is, apparently, a series now, because I just called it a series, just now, and there are eleven of them, which is bonkers.

Part 1: Fashion Scarves in Fucking Charge

Part 2: Predictable

Part 3: Noishenvantengutencastlestein v. Hitler's Casino

Part 4: Beating Hitler at His Own Game

Part 5: Inhale

Part 6: After the Fox

Part 7: Like Mountain

Part 8: But You Know. Sweden.

Part 9: It's Fine

Part 10: Kiss Off

 Part 11: Red Man Says Nein

We go to Sweden, mostly because we can.  We were in Denmark and now we're in Sweden, like going to fucking Indiana. Trains over there have designated baby areas because they are designed by geniuses.  Katsisch, MoLinder and I avoid them neatly.   Twenty minutes tops, and we're standing in cold, gray Malmo.

Unsure of our first move, we head to Starbucks to check in at 'Sweden.' It feels right, but MoLinder can't find a proper signal, and we leave to wander slowly down an empty street towards what we suspect is a castle or a fortress or something, stopping every so often to see if MoL can jump on the FB.  She is fucking determined to check us in.

"It's fucking cold, hurry up," I tell her, annoyed. 

"Chill the fuck out.  It's not real if it's not on the FB. Besides, I thought you looooved the cold.  Oh, I'm Rassles, and I loooooove the cold, I'm so much haaappier when it snows."  

"Shut up.  Smart phones are dumb." I look around.  "Is that a...is that a house falling into the canal?"

"Hord orn...jursh...hord orn..." Katisch looks up from her phone, also trying to check in, holding her gloves in her teeth while she fidgets and shivers.

"That's awesome," MoLinder says, tapping away on her phone.

"Ish mor rike a shurd."

"A what?"

Katsisch yanks her gloves from her mouth.  "A shed."  

"Whatever, I'm gonna tell people it's a house."  I take a picture. "Do you think it's like a warning?"  We stand at an open intersection, and the wind whips around us.  I put on my gloves.  "I should have brought my hat."
 
"Well, you didn't." Katsisch is only wearing a zipped sweatshirt.  Well, and pants and stuff, of course.  She keeps sniffing.  She is allergic to Scandinavia, and she's been leaking out of her face ever since we landed in Copenhagen, poor thing, and she can't find any allergy medicine because, well...she's afraid to ask the Scandinavians for help.  She's not as leaky when we're indoors, but standing all exposed on this barren, windy street is probably not helping.

"Want a Kleenex?" I ask her.

"I'm fine, let's just start moving."

"Got it!" MoLinder calls, successfully checking us in on FB.  "Now you guys can stop your bitching.  Where are we going?"

I pull out the map from my pocket, because I have no problem being a blatant tourist.  That's something I never understood.  "The castle thing is in this park."

"Okay, you guys, let's just go, can we walk, please?" Katsisch sniffs pathetically and crams her gloved hands into her pockets.  "This way?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"It is too cold for 'I think so.'"

"I'm sure."

"Fine."  She hunkers down and walks into the park, heading between tall hedges that block the wind.

These gardens are probably gorgeous in the summertime, but right now everything is soggy, brown and gray.  People would Instagram the ever-filtered fuck out of this place.  Rugged little blue flowers litter the ground in front of a quaint stone windmill.  Geese are honking and shitting all over things, and there is a fucking moat around the castle.

"I think the entrance is on the other side," I tell them.  We walk briskly, because seriously it is cold as fuck.  Duh.  Sweden.  No one is around. 

"Is this place free?"  MoLinder asks. "Are you sure we can go inside?"

"I'm sure.  I think there's a museum or something in there."

"What kind of museum?"

"I don't know.  Probably a history of the castle or something.  It looks kinda cool from out here, though, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I'm down for whatever."

We walk to the front of the crumbly red castle and hear a blazing trumpet, freezing just in time to watch a giant white swan dive-bomb some geese that are lounging in the moat.  It's terrifying.  We all start laughing.

"What?" Katsisch giggles.

"Dude, swans are bitches," MoL smiles.  

"God, I love it here." I and turn to the bridge across the moat.  "Shall we?"

We cross the bridge - was it a drawbridge once? - and walk inside a courtyard.  It starts raining.  We bolt inside.

A giant stuffed giraffe welcomes us into the castle, and we glance around before heading over to the front desk to buy our tickets.

"Tak," I say to the guy after paying, and he smiles, handing me the tickets.   We decide to head over up to the ramparts to soak in as much history as possible, and start the trek up the stairs.  We turn, following signs for the history of the castle, and walk into a room full of tiny medieval figurines acting out clandestine activities.  Everything is in Swedish, but we can glean mildly their meaning.  A life-size scene shows a soldier shitting in a bucket and drunken monk baffing into a barrel.  Sickness?  The plague?

Turning, we face a collection of dioramas showing literally straw-haired figurines being raped by pirates, muscling the castle's  bellows, rotating in jail cells on small metal spikes with tortured faces.  A mirrored tower of clay pots tricks us into believing the collection is triple its actual size, crude murals of jesters and the castle guard decorate the walls next to shattered pieces of brick that you can touch, just so, even if you aren't supposed to.  Of course I touch everything.

Random planks of beloved ships and gallows are nailed haphazardly all over walls, Swedish descriptions taped beneath them, typed onto yellowing paper years ago.  We obviously don't understand a word of it.

We turn a corner and we're in a circular brick tower laced with arrowslits that have been plexiglassed up, revealing the rainy skies outside.  Piles of cannonballs are scattered around every curve.

Portraits litter the walls.  They're hundreds of years old, but without protective laser-trips and glass casing.  We can just run our fingers over the oil paint, fondle the gold frames.  In the middle of it all there's a lush black and white autographed photo of Spencer Tracy.

The next room is full of ancient furniture and grayed curtains, but again, we can touch everything.  There are no signs forbidding running our rain-tinged fingers over the velvet, nothing preventing us from resting our asses on four hundred-year old dining chairs.  We can just sit, feel, consume medieval tapestries and frayed leather globes.  The Swedes don't give a fuck.

We stroll in a daze, constantly calling to each other: "Holy shit, look at this.  Look at this.  I'm just caressing the portrait of an ancient Swedish king, like nothing."

Eventually we encounter a weathered suit of armor pointing to our right, with a piece of paper masking taped to its chest: an arrow following its extended arm, indicating THAT WAY.

"That way" is a twisting, brilliantly red carpeted staircase encased with more funhouse mirrors.  It seems out of place, but you know.  Sweden.  We climb it.  At the top to the right are signs indicating downward again, down a deep wooden stairwell.  To the left is a slippery brick hole blocked by plexiglass, a worn down shit chute leading outside the fortress.  We go right.  Painted cat-paw footprints trail down the steps, and in English it indicates: Children's Museum.

Giddy, we follow the footprints.

...

The Case of Randomly Appearing Things With Legs

There is a beautiful, fucking massively bulbous spider living outside my window.  I named her Sherlotte, because she is ginormous but friendly, and we have had many nervous chuckles together in our 127-hour rapport.  As long as she stays on her side of the window life is good.  But when I can't see her I get all fidgetty, thinking she decided to come inside and join me for hot chocolate.  We are not there yet, Sherlotte.  Slow the fuck down. 

She spun herself a six foot web that stretches across the whole window, but the bulk of it is only on the upper half.  I first saw her when I opened my blinds and I shrieked and tried to scramble up on top of the object closest to me for the protection of higher ground (which was definitely a book).

I texted Al the landlord and told him about her and made him promise not to squish her because that would be very messy, like those videos of draining abscesses, and then I thanked him for my new kitchen chandelier.

About two weeks ago I got a text message from him which read, "you are the proud owner of a golden chandelier" and I was all "baohwr?" and then when I got home from work there was a fancy magic chandelier in my kitchen, and I almost hoped Al the Landlord hadn't texted me because then I would have had a thaumaturgical (thaumaturlogical? thaumaturgenical?) mystery to solve ("The Case of the Appearing Chandelier") and that would have been a very exciting mystery indeed!  For the sake of this blog post I wish the chandelier had eight golden curly arms, but there are only six, and because of that this transitional sentence into the next paragraph functions with less than the rhetorical ease I would normally strive towards--

I'd put her at about an inch and a half without legs.  Sherlotte.  And she has eight of those, by the way, golden black, striped and curled shiny dagger legs.  She is easily the biggest spider I've ever seen in person that was not (a) in a terrarium or (b) nailed to a wall in a museum.  This is Chicago.  Not the outback.

You know how spiders are either plastic or furry (those are the legit biological terms, don't fight it) and sometimes they are just pretty jewels with terrifying knives for arms?  Sherlotte is a very pretty plastic spider.  We're friends, because I have to make friends with things that scare me.  It's a thing.

Still, plastic spiders are way less scary than the furry ones.  Furry things usually come with teeth, and teeth lead to bite marks, and I am a fucking ambrosial peach.  Everyone wants to bite me all the time.  

...

Debates for the Universe

Is there a God? Why is it that when you slice a seashell in half, you find math inside? Why can't I start working at noon as I am not a farmer? Does a man really want a woman with a sense of humor, or does he just want a woman who laughs at his jokes? Who is the sadist that keeps on airing those ASPCA commercials?

When did irony stop functioning as a rhetorical device and become a cultural slogan for sloppy contrast? Who steals my pens when I'm not at my desk? Are dragons real? Chickens and eggs, which came first? Who is the most important musical figure since the inception of Rock and Roll: Elvis, Les Paul, or the Beatles as a cheeky whole? Why does everyone buy Puffs and still call it Kleenex?

Who coined the phrase "throw you under the bus"?  Where do they live?  Is it near a bus stop?  Why do people repeat that phrase when it makes no sense and sounds fucking idiotic?  Why are potato stems useless? How many apple seeds can you eat before you feel the effects of the cyanide? How is it statistically possible that I am undefeated in air hockey (Holla)?

Does anyone ever enjoy a Hollywood reboot? When did rope become irrelevant? How did Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup become a proven placebo cure-all for everything bad ever ever?  How did I get so close to one set of grandparents and retain such antipathy for the other? Fucking magnets, how do they work?  Which is better: quality or nostalgia; sub-question: So which is the best Weezer album?

My grandpa died last night.  This one.   I am sad.  My grandmother, from the other side of the family, passed away about a month and a half ago.  I was not nearly as sad.  Oh, I really want to get drunk. 

...

Hielten sich für Captain Kirk

Day 8: a song that you know all the words to

December 30, 2010. I walk up to a DJ at a bar. "Hey. Can I ask you a question?"

He looks down, raises his eyebrows. Slides the bridge of his shades down his nose and back up again. "Bitch, if you ask me to play Chumbawumba or Baha Men you can just go sit yo' ass back down."

Joey Lawrence whoa. I just start laughing. "Dude. Turn down your shitty Soulja Boy/UB40 remix. No one's dancing and I want to have a conversation with my friends." I walk back to my booth, cackling. "Dick."

I sit down at the table and scoff the story back to my friends. "It's just horseshit. Do I look like the type of person who listens to goddamn Chumbawumba?"

"Well, when you get knocked down you do get back up again," Sean says.

I narrow my eyes at him. "Sean. I expect better from you."

He giggles and shrugs. "Well, you're wearing a shirt from 1997. That guy reads people like you read the liner notes for Tubthumping."

"Better."

"Wait. Is your shirt really from 1997?" Meatball pipes in.

"I can't keep track of these things. But do I dress the same way I did in high school? Yes. Basically. Still, I mean come on. I never listened to Chumbawumba."

"Yes you did," MoLinder inserts herself. "You know all the words! I've heard you sing it in the bathroom. You know you cruised to Tubthumping in high school. Don't lie."

"That was when I was drunk by myself, ass," I glare at MoLinder. "Besides, that was hilarious. I kept myself entertained for hours."

There's a pause, and Meatball bites. "What were you--"


"Pissing.  The night away."

"HA!" Sean freaks out. "You do know all the words. That DJ was right about you. Don't fight it. It's a song that reminds you of the good times."

"It's a song that reminds me of the better times."

And the sing-a-long began.

That's basically just a story that I wanted to tell. I really don't want to subject anyone to "Tubthumping." I know the words to a shitload of songs. I know all the words to basically all of the songs I know. I can hear a song once, twice, and repeat it back to you if I'm actually listening to it.

So I sang this at a wedding once.





Honestly, I used to know all the words, aber Deutscher ist schwierig so I basically just make up words that sound like the lyrics and no one can tell the difference because I am amazing. Once I sang it for ze Germans. They thought it was funny.

...

We Know That His Pobble Be Magic

I'm going to do it. I'm just going to be lame and do it. It is a meme. Blame Ginny.

You know, lately my life hasn't been too eventful. Or perhaps I'm out of practicing observation skills. I don't talk to crazy mumbling people on the bus nearly as much, I don't drink or go out as often. I've been a black hole for books lately, just swallowing them whole. Hell, I don't even watch TV anymore. After LOST ended I just felt...lost. What is the point of watching a show that isn't LOST? Answer: there isn't a point.

It snowed on Wednesday and I was bowling at Fireside, and I haven't been there since 1998 when it was a brokedown-bowling-alley-turned-shitty-music-venue with years of sweat and grime gunking the floor and the buckled lanes served as an unsavory den of drugs and flyers. I don't know how people still bowled there in the nineties. Man, I used to do stuff. Now I'm tired all the time. It's so clean there now, and the walls are all like, you know. Clean. The bathrooms were clean, the place isn't even a shadow of the shows of the past, it's a poor reboot of the 70's Fireside that nobody remembers.

Anyway, topic at hand, and jumping in late in the game because punctuality is a problem for me and I've been using all of my artistic inspiration for writing things that aren't this blog:

30 Videos in 30 Days: or, how I am a big fat meme sell out

Day 1: Your favorite song.



There's no arguing here. "Rainbow Connection" is the single greatest song ever written ever ever, so as far as I'm concerned that makes Paul Williams the greatest songwriter. I've known it since I was a wee tot, and there was this stretch of pipe jutting dangerously out of the rear corner of my parents' backyard that was just Rassles Microphone Height, and I would sit on the rock behind it and give concerts to rabbits, singing this song and waxing nostalgic about life and silly observations, like Garrison Keillor or Mr. Rogers.

There's a video of me at the ripe age of three serenading family and friends on the fourth of July singing a bright, enthusiastic, sometimes mumbled mash-up of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Rainbow Connection." I think my favorite part is when I sing, with gusto,

soooooomeday where there are lemon drops
and so up on the chimney tops
that's where....
youuuuuuu'll...
FIIIIIIND
meeeeeee
(deep breath)
SooooomeWHERE! Ooooover the RAINBOW!
skies are blue
and the dreams that are dreams like the rainbows too
Raaaaaaainbows are fissions
and rainbows are fusions
and rainbows have nothing to hiiiiiiide!
so we been toe and we shoes and bereave it
but I know you're wrong! wait and seeeeeeeeeee
Someday will find it
the rainbow connection

and then my aunt starts to sing along on the video and I reprimand her fiercely, with, "No, no don't SAY that! You wait til I am finished."

and then everyone laughs and I beam like a brat, curtsy awkwardly, and continue singing my song with the Vegas theatrics and Broadway sentimentality. I stroll around dreamily and wrap my arm around a table leg like Dorothy and the tree, I lean a nonchalant elbow against a khaki knee, I climb onto a picnic bench and dangle my legs like Kermit, slowly bopping and twisting my head just like he does in the swamp and then I look wistfully at the camera and furrow my eyebrows and belt, "we know that his pobble be maaaaaaagiiiiiiic!" while my dad laughs as he films and mumbles, "My daughter, ladies and gentlemen. The damn hammiest of hams."

It's one of my earliest memories and the greatest moments of my life.

...

Tsynq Yr

Dude, my bookshelves look awesome. It's the dawn of an arranging revolution. Much like John Cusack's flash organizational disclosure in High Fidelity -

"What is this, um chronological?"
"No."
"Not alphabetical..."
"No."
"Then what?"
"Autobiographical."
"No fucking way."
(and then hipsters across the world were overwrought once again with Cusack-induced orgasms of jealousy)

- I am changing the face of bookshelves. So get on that. But then today I googled, which is an inevitability of modern times. So I am not the first person to color-code their shit. Lame. Even worse, my shelves are puny compared to the libraries pictured. And I've got a shit-ton of books. Pre-0rganizing, though, I pulled out about 30 for donation. Do I really need a copy of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling? No, no I don't. But I cannot let go of Stinker From Space because it defines me as a person in ways only an intergalactic space warrior trapped in the body of a skunk and befriended by a dorky little girl can.

Maybe I should keep some of those books so people think I'm smart. No, because what if someone comes around and sees I read Kierkegaard and postulates ethics and the rationality of faith, and then I'm all like, "remember that part in Wayne's World when they're speaking Cantonese and Wayne's all, 'Was it Kierkegaard or Dick van Patton who said if you label me, you negate me?' That was awesome."

Because if you want me to be honest here (that's what I'm about: fucking honesty) the only reason I read Kierkegaard at all was because Wayne name-dropped the bastard in the first place. I think it's the only reason I ever watched an episode of Eight is Enough, at that. I do lots of things because of Wayne's World.

...

Yester Me, Yester You

I've been mentally preparing myself for Phil's upcoming nuptials, because I am about 99% sure that come 3am I'll be sloppy, drunken, crying mess. I do not win at weddings.

Most likely I'll misquote my favorite authors while trying to explain my emotional plight to someone who will feel obligated to listen because they care about me just enough to put up with snivelly, yelling, abusive Rassles since I gave them advice that one time when they needed it. But they won't get it, they'll put words into my mouth and I'll snap at their lack of understanding because let's face it - I am a misunderstood individual, destined to wander the path of sage hermitage and loneliness and woe. I'll probably shoulder buckets of woe all over the fucking place, and when I spill it all I can just refill from the fuckloads of woeterfalls leaking out of craggy Woe Mountain that totally creates its' own woether, which, of course, is emo for "weather."

Woether, by the way, is 96 degrees and windless, relentless humidity and fat red bug bites. Seriously, for awhile there going outside was like wading through steaming salsa with shinfuls of papercuts. Me and CrazyLiz cranked up the dusty A/C unit, turned off all the lights, closed the blinds and watched three seasons of Buffy until the wind came back home.

I am so glad I don't live in fucking Florida.

Yesterday the wind returned, so I can breathe again. Phil and Rachel (fiancee) came over for porch drinking, and I warned them about dreading the wedding, and Phil laughed and punched my knee and called me a sally.

"Wait, I don't get it," Rachel asked, all concerned.

"Rossi gets drunk and feels sorry for herself at weddings," Phil laughed.

"You do?"

"Hey, I'm allowed wallowing."

"Why don't you just make your date take care of it?"

"Not bringing one. So I guess it's up to CrazyLiz to comfort me," I grinned evilly and smiled at her.

"Oh, fucking great," she sighed, and rolled her eyes.

"Aren't you bringing Adam or something?"

"Nah," I shook my head. "It's too complicated. I'd have to take him to the bachelor party, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, Sunday Funday, camping - this is a big event, man. Any guy I brought would have to be dedicated to me for five days. Even Adam wouldn't do that."

"He wouldn't?"

"He's too clean," I shrugged. "His OCD would kick in, he'd need to wash his hands all the time--"

"He'd get his suit dirty," Phil laughed and chugged his High Life.

"Exactly. Plus, you told me, and I quote, 'if you're not bringing some dude you plan on sleeping with, I'd rather have you just bring Gyna.'"

"Wait - I said that?"

Rachel defended me. "I definitely remember you saying that."

"Wow, I am awesome. But now I feel bad, 'cause I like Adam. You know I just want you to get laid."

"Awww, thanks."

"And if you're not getting laid, then I might as well surround myself with hot chicks with big tits."

Rachel closed her eyes and scoffed. "Do I know Adam?"

"I don't think so."

"How do you know Adam?"

"He's a friend. We're like each other's unofficial dates to everything."

"And that's it?"

"You know me. Plus, he can talk to anyone and he looks good in a suit."

"He's like Moby with emo glasses," CrazyLiz explains. "But like--"

"Like with a little bit of that guy from Crank," Phil adds. "And he always wears a long black leather coat, with a suit and like, combat boots."

I laugh. "He looks like he belongs in the Matrix. Like if Moby and Jason Statham merged in the Matrix. And were very clean and awkwardly quick-witted."

"Dude, EXACTLY."

"That is perfect."

"So," Rachel smirks, "why isn't he coming to the wedding?"

"Could you imagine Matrix Moby Statham camping? No. I don't really need a date anyway."

"Except to deal with the fucking crying," CrazyLiz laughed. She was being facetious. She cries way more than me. Because of the Crazy.

"Hey, I got an idea," Phil lit up, excited.

"What's up?"

"How about you just don't fucking cry at my wedding, you pussy."

...

Like A Dream I'm Flowin' Without No Stoppin'

Yesterday morning I woke up with the Mighty Mighty fucking Bosstones in my head, which is obnoxious because I have never, ever, ever in my life enjoyed their music because it all sounds like blaring Kraft singles and growly, chain-smoking hamsters. That's the impression that I get.

But for thirty five seconds I had this lyrical couplet skittering through my brain--I'm not a coward, I've just never been tested, I'd like to think that if I was I would pass--and for thirty-five seconds I found them lyrical geniuses. Genii. Every single time I think of the plural of geniuses, I wish it were genii. Is this the appropriate spelling? Confer and report.

Then I showered singing Tom Jones (because you gotta sing Tom Jones in the shower, people. I been really feelin' Tom Jones, lately, because his voice is as bright and bombastic as the fucking sun). Went through my usual morning routine of creaking across the hallway in my towel seven hundred times to retrieve forgotten bathroom items, got dressed, made my hair look a little bit pretty, missed the bus, drove halfway to work, missed another bus, sweated through the hot wind, pulled my hair up because it didn't look pretty no more, got on the next bus, became absorbed in my book, missed my bus stop, walked two blocks back to work, entered the office half an hour late and all the morning sweat froze directly to my trembling body because it is fucking freezing in my office.

Someday I will live in a world where this every morning scenario will result in a meet-cute between me and my future not-husband (marriage is a gimmicky trick), who will hopefully have the rich, virile purl of either (a) Tom Jones or (b) MCA.

So was sitting at my desk, imagining myself traipsing around the heat-sensitive Predator-vision forest with lumberjack gangsta MCA (this is a go-to personal fantasy - if you try to knock me you'll get mocked), when it started storming outside and everyone in the office freaked out.

My phone rang. I answered. "So what'cha want?"

Co-worker Amy hyperventilated into her end of the reciever, "It is like thunder and lightning out there."

"Whoa. Superscary."

"It is. You need to come back here and see this."

"Gimme a few."

"Okay." She hangs up.

Phone rings again.

"Dude, are you looking out the window right now?" Co-worker Natalie rushed out before I can even come up with a interesting greeting.

"What window? I have no window."

"It is like thunder and lightning."

"Thunder and lightning, huh?"

"Yeah, it's like Thunder! Lightning!"

"The way you love me is frightening. Shit, what song is that?"

"What song?"

"You know. It's like thunder (thundah!) lightning (lightning!)...the way you love me is frightening!"

"I have no idea."

"Yes you do. Like a million people sing it. Goddammit."

"Whatever, just come look out the window."

"Fine." We hang up. The phone rings again, and I just pick it up and sing, "It's like thunder (boom!) lightning (crash!)."

"How'd you know from all the way over there?" my boss asked, laughing.

"This storm is all the rage."

"Yes it is. I need you in here in five seconds, JJO's got a question about the Floyds' Patron gift."

"Yessir." I hung up the phone and booked over to the corner office, watching the dark wind through the windows on the way, trying to remember that fucking song on the way, recalling details about the Floyds on the way.

Action Man has JJO on speaker, who's saying, "We need to get the Advisory Board to approve of that funding, knock on wood."

AND THEN I FREAKED THE HELL OUT.

...

Explanatory Links:

"The Impression That I Get" by Mighty Mighty Bosstones (check out the microphone that guy is rockin - it looks like he's singing into a giant fucking Smith & Wesson)

"Knock on Wood" by Eddie Floyd

...

LATER EDIT: Just so you know, we have thunder and lightning. We have it in spades. But this was thunder and lightning with limited rain and a cloudless, yellow sky and 40 mph winds - where lightning spidered across the sky - the entire sky - and thunder lasted for twenty seconds at a time. This was some near tornado weather shit.

...

Rock My Adidas, Never Rock Fila

"Rossi! Donation from Sieman, huh?" My boss, The Action Man, calls from down the hall. (Is there a word for like, powering up so you can properly snap into action? I might have to invent one. Actually, I think it's ackshinackshinackshinackshinackshin.)

I snicker. "Khkhkhkhkh - semen." (Okay, so khkhkhkhkh is my weak attempt at properly spelling out a snicker. In live oration, I am a professional Snickerer, and one never mistakes my snickering for anything, but on the internet it just looks like the call of Cthulhu. Also, I am twelve.)

Sure enough, Action Man steams around the corner like fucking turbine and points at me with a ferocious grin. "Rossi! Are you kickin' the new K-knowledge?"

I stop my snickering to gasp as he chugs past. "Sir! Did you just drop the science like Galileo dropped the orange?"

He turns at the door and winks. "I believe I just did."

"I can't believe you're all up in the Beastie Boys."

"Saw 'em in '88!" he yells from outside, and as the elevator dings onto our floor I can hear hammering out, "Right up to your face and diss you..."

My boss is excellent.

...

Standing Was Exhausting

Man, I am not allowed to get drunk anymore, because then I send emails like this:

I haVE DEVELOPED THE BAD HABIT OF EMAILIN O=YOU DURING PERIODS OF INOTOXICATION. I ALSO CANNOT PROPERLY NEGATE MY CAPS LOCK. APPARENTLY.

To poor, unsuspecting souls.

More importantly, Furry Vengeance is the same thing as Avatar edited with clips from America's Funniest home videos. Also - no wearable robots with secret swords.

Yesterday me and Schmee got drunk at the Cubs game from the lofty confines of a luxury suite. They had shrimp. And I hit random speed-dials on the suite's phone asking, "Is this where we get more beer? No? Thank you." And Schmee was all logical and shit and, "Why don't you call catering?" And I explained that...I don't know what I explained, but I gave her a damn good reason for my decision to call every department but catering.

I also stole the uneaten blocks of cheese from the cheese plate and carried them around in my purse for eight hours while we struggled from bar to bar. I was all spinny. Standing was exhausting.

Neither of us know why we kept on drinking, meeting up with new people at each bar and just telling the same story over and over again (and I'm doing it now) (and then I called to get more beer! and then I put cheese in my purse! and Schmee sat next to the owner of the Brewers! OMG so drunk!).

Whatever. I WRITE BLOG.

...

We Should Feed Canada Some Mrs. Grass Soup, But Only Until They Feel Better About SUCKING SO HARD AT HOCKEY

Scene: Seven friends are seated at the bar at Neighbors (you wish you were there) watching the US/Canada Olympic hockey game. Two are Canadian, the other five are USAmerican, and all of them are awesome. Except for the Canadians (BITCH WHAT I SAID IT, EH?)

(Sidenote: if you are not one of the seven people that was there, you will probably find this post tedious. Deal with it. Have some soup.)

...

"Whatever, look at those helmets! Who fucking designed those, Ed Hardy?" Smith Sister Sav giggles and sips her bloody mary.

"Seriously?" I snap and point at the TV above the bar. "Those masks are awesome. Look at it - that's Uncle Sam beating your Canadian ass with a hockey stick that's on fire. And on the other side? That's an eagle with like, fucking adamantium claws or talons or whatever."

"Do the chickens have large talons?" Schmee mumbles.

"HA! Do the chickens have large talons?"

Smith Sister WJ is whiny. "But our helmets are all classy, with our maple leaves, and they're all shiny and pretty."

"They would be better if they were blue."

"Red, white and blue."

"Or just blue like Sav's lame-ass blue Canadia tattoo." Slinger laughs at himself and drinks his Budweiser like a fucking champ. Like an American champ.

"You know what?" Smith Sister Sav declares, snapping with more hostility than she originally intended. "Why don't you show them your fucking blue sun tattoo?"

Slinger ignores her.

"I fucking hate that thing," Schmee shakes her head, eyes glued on the TV.

I raise my eyebrows at Slinger. "You got a tattoo of a blue sun? I don't wanna sit next to you no more."

"Sometimes people have oddly blue tattoos. What?"

"And sometimes TEAM USA SCHOOLS YOUR ASS AT HOCKEY." High-five.

"What was the rationale behind your blue tattoos, anyway?" I ask.

Smith Sister Sav goes back to her bloody mary, avoiding my eyes. "I don't wanna talk about it. Can we please talk about something else?"

"Sure, let's talk about your back-ass boondock country."

"Which is fake," Schmee chimes.

"Totally fake."

"You know what? Okay, fine, let's hear this. How are we from a fake country?"

"Seriously, I fucking love those helmets!"

Slinger laughs. "Do you guys even have a navy?"

"Of course they do, they're called mounties." Everyone looks at me. "Horses can swim."

"Haven't you seen Wild Hearts Can't Broken?"

"Was that in Canada?" Anway asks.

"No, swimming horses."

"I never liked that movie."

"You're lame."

"You're Canadian."

"Bitch, you know you're jealous."

"I wish I had a queen to cry to."

"Hey," Slinger stretches back, "if we give you Wisconsin, can we have your curling team?"

"They have cheese there, eh?"

The bartender comes over to drop of Smith Sister Sav's burger and fat plate of potato skins for Scott, her armcandy, who never speaks or drinks but he digs into his food with zeal. I look at the pile of dirty napkins and onion ring baskets and empty bottles in front of me and try to drag the bartender's attention with my eyes but it totally doesn't work.

"Please take these empties," I mutter, to no one in general, and slide my bottle onto the rail behind the bar. The bartender ignores me.

"She's never gonna clean it up," Slinger says quietly, annoyed. "It's been sitting there forever."

"I know, I don't want to look at it," I agree. I scowl at an empty bowl of chili.

"She's probably from Canada."

"Most definitely." Even onion rings get rejected. It looks sticky. I should order a water, it's really snowing outside. Bitch. Oh! Patty melts are seven bucks.

I snatch a fry from Smith Sister Sav and smile brilliantly. "See this?" I shove it into my mouth. "Round here in the U.S. of A. we call that manifest destiny."

Sav squints and snarls, "You know who invented those fries, right?"

"Frogs."

After a few moments of intense silence, where I'm sure everyone was just trying to sit there and think of proper banter, Anway speaks up. "You know, every Olympics I always want your people to wear Canadian tuxedos, and it never fucking happens," he muses.

"Agreed, that's horseshit."

"Oh, but it could happen, now they have those pajamas that look like jeans."

"Like the snowboarding team."

"Like the snowboarding team." Echoes all around. "Exactly."

"You guys are a bunch of fucking Denim Dans," I yell, and slump back into my beer. Chair. Beer.

The bartender comes over and clears all the nastiness away and I ask for a water.

"Nothing is more bad ass than that helmet, I swear to fucking god."

"What's the Canadian tuxedo?" both Smith Sisters ask, glancing down at their own red-and-white-maple-leafed-Canadiawear which isn't nearly as cool as our Americanwear.

"Are you fucking serious? You don't know your own home jersey?"

"All demin, head-to-toe," me and Anway explain. Perfect unison.

I swivel toward him. "Fucking jinx, bitch."

"The Canadian Tuxedo."

"How is that the Canadian Tuxedo?"

"I don't know. Because all Canadians live in Trailer Parks and weave their own Levi's."

"Have they discovered fire in Canada?"

Schmee's on it like Team USA on ice. "No, we brought it to them with the Olympic torch."

"Speaking of which," Smith Sister WJ adds, "I think Uncle Sam is holding the torch on the goalie mask."

"I like a flaming hockey stick better," I snap, "Because the Canadians are all 'fire bad!' and they totally run away."

"Okay, Ross, that was a bad one."

"Sor." I feel shamed. "Whatever, that doesn't change the fact that you're gonna get housed."

"You know what? I don't have to listen to this," Smith Sister Sav says. "This game doesn't even count anyway." She pops her maple-leaf jacket collar in frustration and furiously hides behind a copy of Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul.

Seriously. That happened. She pulled it out of her purse.

And then we all laughed like we were in a movie or something.

...

People Have Their Preferences

Like so many other people, I spent a large portion of my childhood watching Swiss Family Robinson, reading Walter Farley books, and building Robin Hood pirate fort dude ranches out of Legos.

Now this is important, because my goal was not necessarily to build Robin Hood pirate fort dude ranches, but my Lego options were limited to just that. Eldorado Fortress. Google it. It's one thing to play with Legos, but it's a different situation entirely when you're playing Eldorado Fucking Fortress. And I was mixing it with the stable and the Sherwood Forest shit (I totally don't remember its name but the Lego men were all Robin Hoody and lived in a fucking tree and they had a vine they used to swing across the two inch river).

Are you aware that my Eldorado Fortress had a horse trainer? Totally. She was a young woman with brown Lego hair who snuck into Eldorado on a rowboat under the guise of a punk soldier after getting shipwrecked on a nearby island, where wild ponies and merry men ran free. True story. And after earning the respect of the most honored horsemen within the mighty ocean fortress she revealed herself to be - ah ha! A girl! And her boyfriend was Robin Hood! And then they took over the Eldorado Fortress and made it their private sea fort, and lived in days of relaxation and wonder, exploring the neighboring island, building extravagant treehouses and befriending all of the wild ponies, and their children grew up to be presidents because they were raised with the perfect blend of freedom and regulation!

Seriously, did you know about all the shit going down at Eldorado Fortress?

So I decided, officially, that childhood interests are destructive. Watching Swiss Family Robinson is horrible for young girls, because I still want that. Robin Hood isn't real and Fritz isn't real and the Black Stallion isn't real, and no one steals from the rich and rides zebras in the Kentucky Derby and throws coconut bombs at angry Asian pirates. Horseshit.

And then I read this back to myself, this list of things that I identified with as a child that completely influenced my behavior and interests as an adult. Not like, OMG robinhoodpirateponies yar or anything like that, but the mindset, the characters' perceptions and goals and how they related to each other - I wanted to be on the fringe, forced to prove myself in some way because extreme circumstances demanded it for my survival. Obviously, that never happened.

Then again, why couldn't it happen? Why sit around and wait for it to happen? Why shouldn't I just live like it is happening, right now? I'm not saying I should dress up like a naval officer and sneak into a sea fort and tell people I'm Robin Hood's girlfriend, but that character - I wanted to be her. So, I should try to be like her.

And then I made a list of characteristics that defined her, the girl I wanted to be, and I realized that I basically am her already but outside of the circumstances of my fantasy, and that's kind of neat.

AND THEN, my sister sent me this article, saying, "I feel like this interview with Umberto Eco justifies your whole life. Particularly this quote: 'I like lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia. People have their preferences.'"

This is the first time she has ever shown any interest in my life without antagonistic ridicule. I nearly cried.

...