christmas came early this year

and i don't mean that because the stores have been pushing product since back-to-school ended in september...

on one of my holiday shopping forays this past weekend, i bought myself a little gift from santa while at barnes and noble. since i am an idiot girl picking up laurie notaro's an idiot girls' christmas seemed like a good idea.

in this book, you'll find laugh-out-loud tales of the snorting kind:

• how to combat the forsaken christmas gifts (by just asking for enough white cotton briefs to outfit a convent full of nuns)


• how to make an impression on in-laws at the holidays (by mixing up the tags on the wrapped gifts)


• how to deal with the overzealous holiday decorating style of obviously sex-starved neighbors

i devoured this book, and i'm sure you will, too.

what would you do?

what would you do if you had your life to live over? by some miracle, you got a mulligan on life. a free pass to start back at go (and maybe collect $200 in the process). a do-over.

+ what would you do differently?

+ what would you keep the same?

+ how personally do you think these changes would affect you and consequently, would you be a different person because of them?

+ if this other you existed in a parallel world, would you both end up at the same place?

+ if who we are as individuals is a collective sum of our experiences, can this parallel you even be called you?

+ or are we more nature (vs. nurture) than we would like to admit?

your deep thought for the day... carry on about your business.

on being an artist

a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

okay, it seems far away. in reality, it was about 10 years ago. i had a dream. i had a dream of being a painter.

a real painter. no flowers-and-fruit-to-match-your-fcukin'-sofa type of artist. i was going to have substance and meaning. i was going to shake up people's perceptions grounded in this earth and on a metaphysical plane. an artist who needed to paint like others needed to breathe.

it turns out i really just liked having angry debates, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.

i guess there's still a glimmer of that girl inside me. only she is a non-smoker now and a little less angry. but i still like strong, dark coffee.

turkey day and you: another call for alcohol

any day spent in the company of family calls for alcohol.

not just a class of vino, but hard-core chugging anything that might give a buzz is acceptable. mouthwash in large enough doses can be used. minty fresh breathe and no hang over. sweet!

the problem with my family is the alcohol. we're not waspy wine and port drinkers. no, my grandmother keeps schlitz beer in existence. she gets christmas cards from the ceo thanking her for another wonderful year of sales.

my aunt keeps a lover. his name is jim beam. in fact, when she's in the spirit (usually after 8pm) we like to say she's "beamed up."

me, my poison of choice has always been vodka and vodka drinks. i might as well be russian for my ability to swill the stuff. even in high school when i got caught drinking at lunchtime in the cafeteria it was vodka in my oj that got me busted. (i'm hardcore, baby.)

not that i am proud of my stupidity. i have done a lot of stupid things in my short life. but i can't ignore it either. my bad girl badge of courage has many patches.

so yesterday when the family gets together for the holidays, it's never a dull moment. my cousins are old enough (late teens, early 20s) to verbally punch back in the family sparring matches that take place. us girls tend to gang up on my brother and fight dirty.

my brother files solo as the only boy in the family besides my uncle (who thinks we're all insane) and my husband (who equally thinks we're nuts and pities my brother for swimming in our demented gene pool).

my mom, goddess bless her, is a teetotaller. really, she is the odd one in the group. doesn't drink, takes care of the crazy old bat, and puts up with all the rest of us and our insane antics.

i am in the weird place. my cousin is taking over my role of antagonist in our family. from my pink hair to her purple, her completely liberal politics and ability to filibuster vigilantly, i have handed over the torch. my uncle says by handing over the torch i've officially become an adult. i don't quite like the sound of that.

like the day at mama's vegetarian lunch cafe when the cashier called my ma'am. i spit the dirty words back at her: "what did you just call me?" if i wasn't there with coworkers it could have gotten nasty. the ghetto girl in me was awake and pissed.

i am not ready to be an adult. even if technically i am one. and there is nothing quite like being around family to make you aware of it.

no i do not fondue

chalk it up to my latest cooking disaster.

i cannot melt chocolate. in the microwave. i have sunk to a new low in cooking.

one would think that my well-developed relationship with chocolate would allow something as simple as this to be accomplished without a struggle.

the little freakin' fondue pot requires you to melt the chocolate first and transfer it to the pot after it's throughly melted. (what is the purpose of the friggin pot then?) i know it is a lot to expect the power of a tealight to melt a pound of hershey bars, but c'mon i pictured liquid chocolate when i opened the box.

i realized this would not be the case when i pulled the bowl from the microwave and the chocolate had a smoking hotspot. i had killed another dessert. the chocolate tasted like a heath bar from the chewy bits that fused themselves together. still i hoped if i heated it again, they would melt themselves out of existence.

no, instead i created a chocolate chernobyl. it only made more of the clumps and the previous clumpy ones bigger.

as i transferred the steaming mess to the stupid fondue pot, i realized at least we had a bag of milanos, marshmallows, bananas and peanut butter-filled pretzels in front of us. no matter how nasty the chocolate was, we still had good stuff to gnosh on.

fondue you

i am so excited! i am going to a sleepover tonight.

in lieue of this month's girls' dinner, we are planning a slumber party. i am on deck for dessert this month so i plan to bring the fixings to make a li'l chocolate fondue, in my new fondue pot hopeless bought for me.

the fondue pot is a dangerous thing. i realized this as i walked around genuardi's asking myself the question, "can i dip this in chocolate?"

the unfortunate answer was yes. too many, in fact.

i searched vainly for the sexiest man aisle for a little viggo (mortensen), matt (damon and mcconnaughey), or george (clooney) to dip in the chocolate. they would be yummy.

it looks like we will settle on mini milanos instead.

fait accompli

the sleep-depriving second project is complete. warts and all...zzzzz

food for the soul a look at the lives of 5 friends and their fascination with food and each other.

weapons of PMD (pierogie making day)

in one month, the longest day will settle upon me. no, not the summer equinox, but the day that earns me brownie points towards heaven - pierogie-making-day (PMD).

PMD is a 12-hour day spent at my in-laws' cramped kitchen getting covered in flour, dough, clumps of mashed potato and shreds of sauerkraut. this is served with a big hearty bite of family dysfunction and side of god-awful mix tapes of christmas songs. really, this is what xanax was made for.

"this day is a family tradition," i am told. this is what families who don't have cable tv do for fun. the amish have more fun than we do on this day.

my tolerance for drinking is pretty light lately. in years past, my husband and i would start drinking pretty soon after arriving. a nice buzz makes it easier to ignore the dysfunction and imagine my happy place.

anyone who shares a love affair like the one i do with my in-laws will understand my pain. my mother-in-law has never worked a day in her life. she married young, gave birth to her babies (at an age before i had even graduated from college) and her life stopped soon after that. so my career goals, my education, my fear of children, my life path scares the bejeesus out of her.

the only thing we share in common is the fact that we both are bitches and we both like dick. of course if i ever shared that insight with her, i might cause the heartattack or stroke that i secretly long for on PMD. (not that i wish her dead anything -- swarms of killer bees, fire, flood, locusts -- that allows me to escape from PMD is part of my "happy place" scenario.)

on the flip side, i get to catch up with the latest in medical technologies from her that she's absorbed through watching public television that day (i wasn't kidding, she refuses to get cable tv). things such as how the flu vaccine will make you sick with the flu. unfortunately things often get lost in translation with her.

for the most part, i survive the day. my only real injury are the welts that appear on my forehead from the smacking it endures. homer simpson has more moments of brilliance and he is a cartoon character.

she is showing a moment of true genius this year. our calendar gets booked normally a month in advance; the holiday rush of shopping, decorating and parties start even earlier. she's learned her lesson in years past if you don't set a firm date well in advance, we may get booked with other plans.

so this year, she reserved december 18th as PMD. all the way back in october. joy to the world.

fattened calves

having fat calves is a sure sign that the devil is a man.

why else would the devil tempt me with such pretty high-heeled boots if i should just deny myself entirely of their guilty pleasure?

okay, that may be stretching it but try finding stretchy boots that can cover long "athletic" calves (read: manly and muscular) and you'll better understand the nature of sin and desire. so many pretty boots. sexy boots, kitten boots. but not boots to fit around my big boys.

the devil wears prada?
before the booty welcome wagon rolls into town to pity me, i do own one pair of high, black boots. but there's no sexy heel. nothing quite fun or flirty about these. they fit but don't quite seal the deal. utilitarian in form and function.

who writes home about that? besides, even those live most of the year with the remains of misfit socks balled up in the calf to help stretch the stretchy fabric even further.

fits fat calves and kicks ass
when i wore doc martin's this was never an issue. the laceup feature allowed even chunky calves like mine a chance to be "fashionable". (albeit in this case, rebellious. like every other 18-year-old sporting them.)

the therapist was wrong -- i can blame you for something
genetics unfortunately play a major part in this body part. unlike if i try to wear thigh-high stockings and the roll of pudge pops out the top, these calves aren't my punishment for eating too many of my pal lisa's cookies.

oh no, the blame for this lies strictly on my family. well, my grandmother actually, one fine inheritance of manly calves and icy blue eyes.

catty-tood

we all do it. just some of us get caught.

like i did on the train several weeks back. a fellow train traveler had been looking, well, different lately. my feral pack of train buddies and i observed one day.

"was she pregnant?"
"packing on the pounds?"

my position on the platform prevented me from getting a good look at her, well enough to curry an opinion. i waited until she was standing and about to get off the train to sneak a look.

well, obviously, i wasn't so sneaky. the train conductor caught me checking her out. as my friend caught the conductor checking me check out her, my friend grabbed my arm. "abort. abort." she hushed through clenched teeth while pinching me.

actually, it was her fingers in my flesh that finally woke me from my observational state. she could have screamed the pledge of allegiance in my ear but i was mentally taking notes and as a blonde, it required all brain power focused on the task at hand.

thankfully the object of my stare never caught on to what was happening. afterwards, i received a thorough interrogation from the conductor as to why i was hating on her.

(two good things to know: one, i am friendly enough with the conductor for him to ask this of me; and two, i make faces when in observation mode. my lip curls, i squint. i probably grow horns and a swishy tail too, but that hasn't been pointed out to me yet.) i went back to whatever conversations my buds and i were having before i got dubbed "completely obvious woman".

i wasn't hating though, i was observing. something we all do. we all compare others against the traits we hold in high regard. whether it's body image, hairstyle, clothing, career, religious piety (or lack thereof) we use these to compare and contrast you against them. how they rate. where we fall short.

it's only natural the mental exchange that occurs. it's a compare and contrast book report in your head. the only sad part is when people act on this knowledge.

we are all replaceable

you know your days are numbered when, in a meeting, someone tells you about a new feature on their product that can write commentary.

as writers our ability to express ideas, join facts and provide conclusions and insight to others through the written word is now able to be replaced by a complex set of rules and computer programming.

the concept is called rules-based-text generation. RBT is a complex formula (which i am simplifying here) that looks at the numbers in column A, compares then to column B and depending on the correlation of the two sets of numbers, moves to grab the appropriate, pre-determined response. this can be used to create all sets of reports previously written by warm-blooded mammals with opposable thumbs.

"the scariest thing is, computers don't even need healthcare benefits," whitney said as we all shuddered at her observation. "except computer viruses," dj cracked, "they're still suspectible to them."

karmic bitchslap

one of the funniest lines on tv (in my humble opinion) can be attributed to dave chappelle in a skit he performed on his show as rick james.

"what did the five fingers say to the face, beeyyyatch?"

"ssslap!" as he gets bitch slapped across the face.

today, i heard from a very reliable source that someone near the top of my list of beeyatches is getting her own karmic bitchslap.

before i could contain my glee -- because really, ding dong the witch is dead -- her name came up in another unfavorable, who-the-fcuk-does-she-think-she-is type of diatribe.

every backstabbing moment. every falsehood she told. every moment she stood with her high-heeled hoof firmly planted on someone else's back.

"what did the five fingers say to the face, beeyyyatch?"

"ssslap!"

face value

i see his face each night. he still startles me each time.

by now, i should be used to how his face is disfigured. how his eye hangs slightly lower and the long, jagged scar crossed his cheek holding in, holding back whatever hurt him this way. his slightly pinkish skin casts an odd contrast where his five o'clock shadow should be by 10 pm.

i try not to stare. but want so desperately to see.

i know i wince when he catches me off guard. he bursts through my post-workout endorphin rush as i head to the ladies room to finally release the muscles of my bladder, who maintain their own workout routine.

does he understand my guilt that i shouldn't even feel? i didn't hurt him or cause this physical pain. each time i see him, i am like all the rest.

my eyes, my face, my expression sears new scars onto his face that's already seen too many.

online lit review

sorry for the uninspired title for this post. i just spent the last hour reviewing these different sites and feel sooo uncreative that this is as good as i get.

2river

the landing page is way too cluttered, with a completely balanced, three-column format it lacks any visual hierarchy of the site. the only clue to where the current issue is by the blue header that you see only after your eye settles on the clean white space around the (useless) quote in the top center of the page.

but, once you delve into the issue, settle on a story, choose an writer and then get to the actual piece, i love how it's laid out. it's like peeling back the husk from an ear of corn to get to the actual artwork on this site and we all know how much shucking corn sucks. the use of audio and podcasts are a great (and unique) feature for this site.

brevity

nice color scheme and logo happening when you land on this page, although the large graphic of the marcel duchamp bike on the right sidebar drew my attention before the articles in the center. but you knew you were entering into friendly territory.

one thing that was really cool was the small intro into the work on the landing page with an icon that later became a large relevant graphic on the actual page. this icon as a bullet really drew my interest to an article and then hooked me with the use of a teaser to the article. the subpages with the creative work were neatly laid out but if they decreased the font size you could eliminate the need to scroll sooo far down the page.

summerset review

oooh, very artsy. yup, it was this site that zapped my mojo. i know we're not supposed to like landing pages that make you click to enter a site, but hell, i go anywhere that graphic led me. yep, i am a design slut, if you have a well-designed package, i'll do (just about) anything.

lily

what the hell is this? first thing i thought of was lily's a witch! full-moon, bare tree branches, mysterious female eyes peering back.

after scrolling to what seemed forever did i figure out what the hell this site was selling. and it wasn't worth buying -- blecchhh!

goddess help you if you stumble into the site -- you are literally trapped once you venture onto an article or photo piece. you can only move to the "next" item -- there is no escaping from lily's clutches. mwah-ha-ha!

everything was sized wayyy too big on this site. maybe a worthwhile place for wiccans (and i'm not picking on witches here) with no sense of 2-D design but i'm not trekking back to see what spell she cooked up this month.

philadelphia stories

nice place to land. everything made sense. noticed that just about every site so far has taken advantage of a white crisp, borderless background (except the freak lily).

what confused me was what was happening once you clicked on story or poetry. why two columns of links and the larger groups of links scrolling off and down the right side of the page? someother way of delineating featured content versus additional content was needed. unless of course i'm missing the boat entirely in which case, others may as well. once settled on a piece, though it was pretty easy to move about the site.

ahem, and i will now eat a big piece of humble pie as i finish coding my site.

zen garden of CSS

thought i would pass this along... came across this in my daily creativepro email. it's a pdf called door to my garden: using simple css to build stunning visual effects by patrick lauke that goes into nice detail about using background images as part of your style sheets.

haven't had a chance to play with their ideas yet but for some reason, maybe it was the images used but it made me think of the online literary magazine...

scrabble babble

some discoveries while hunting a replacement for the elusive deluxe scrabble edition turntable:

ebay rules the world. or at least has major stock ownership in google 'cause that site turned up in every search i tried.

you can buy a (used) complete deluxe game edition on ebay for around $9.95. better hurray though, the auction ends on 11/6/2005.

if you prefer new, hit the toys 'r us portal on amazon.com to buy it new for only $24.99.

the hasbro site is selling it new for $29.99. guess mr. potatohead needs a cut in the action.

there is a spanish version of scrabble that comes with 100 tiles. and the spanish call it a replacement pouch, not a bag.

the canadian version (en francais) has 102 tiles. perhaps the french version has more "F" and "U" tiles than the american version?

the french even pretty up the word for the little blue tile holder bag -- le sachet. oh la-friggin'-la... at least it costs more than the bag.

which leads me to... why spend money on a pouch, bag or a sachet when a ziplock baggy will do?

michael graves is everywhere, too. we should see what level of ebay/google stock HE owns.

the customer service page on hasbro.com has mr. potatohead on it. under replacement parts, you can search from 4 main menus of hasbro products that have fallen apart. that's a lot of stuff to screw up. yikes.

mr. potatohead is obviously running a scam of some sorts. him and the missus must be breaking all sorts of pieces before putting them in the boxes... like evil elves trying to pump up sales to support a coke habit. they have been known to have had a nose job or two.

last thought to leave you with, why the hell do you need to replace play doh? sure, it's an edible treat for dogs and kids alike, but do ya think you can just run out and buy more?

septa sucks

and the unions aren't much better.

to the unions:

welcome to the year 2005. people with access to employer-sponsored healthcare plans usually pay something towards the cost of that healthcare for themselves and their families. even those lucky few who in the past paid nothing are experiencing changes to the system due to the rapidly rising costs. which leads me to...

if you are upset with high cost of healthcare, take your beef to the insurers. not your bosses. it's like yelling at the paper boy for the crummy article on the sports page.

now watch the insurers will blame rising costs the doctors and hospitals for ordering expensive, unnecessary procedures. doctors and hospitals will blame medical malpractice suits for why they are constantly covering their asses from the threat of a malpractice lawsuit (which also tends to make drs. insurance rates skyrocket). which makes drs want to leave the states with higher insurance rates (hello, welcome to PA?)

to septa:

snap out of it! you have proven yourself to be inept and inefficient moving people in the best of times, so in this time of crisis you are reduced to a sniveling bunch of cattle herders (without the branding irons).

septa management needs to learn their business. the best managers have an idea of what their direct employees do at their job. an informed and cross-trained management will be much more effective in a strike situation or similar work-stoppage situation.

lining up boarding passengers waiting to board the train at rush hour is a ridiculous concept. lines of people snake through the train stations with people unaware of what the hell they are waiting for. what's worse is that you fail to let people move to the platform until after the train has arrived, slowing loading times even more. countless people are not making the train because of their placement in the line... so rush hour trains are not riding at full ridership capacity.

you have dispatchers and radio systems. if conductors or engineers radio ahead, you could move the people to the platform in advance of it arriving, so at most you have 4 rail lines worth of people waiting on the platform. if only doing this a minute or two in advance, would greatly improve timelines.

i digress... and in the meantime, i'll continue to leave 20 minutes early to catch a train that will get me home a half-hour late. fire all the unions. then fire all the management and start from scratch.