The View From the Top is Lonely

Title bestowed

2008-06-09T11:44:00.004-05:00

I know its been a while, a long while, but i've been very busy. Last week, I was granted the highest academic degree conferred: my doctorate. That's right: Dr. Lady Head, Dr. Mean Christine. Five years in the making. Actually, eight years if you're still counting the time in Chicago. Twelve years if you include undergrad. A long time and a lot of work but still never working a weekend or much past 5pm. Because that is how i roll. I work SMART.

Anyhow, despite all the pomp and circumstance of the event, there is little left to behold when the balloons deflate and the flowers droop and the hangovers resolve. No new baby to care for, no shiny diamond ring, no new superpowers. Just a title. But for me, that is the point. Along the way, i accomplished all these things and more. Shiny diamonds, new babies. All that is left to bestow is a title, so I smile and take it for what its worth. I'm still a wife and a mom--my two most important accomplishments. But now you can call this wife and mom "Dr."

Volume Control

2007-10-09T15:49:00.000-05:00

It seems like every day the volume gets turned up a little more in my head, which is good, very very good, because it blocks out the rumbling doubts and anxieties and fear that preoccupies me. Background noise is important. When things get too quiet, trouble starts. And things had been quiet for too long. I can see the mental dial twisting every day that i wake up, live, and go to sleep. I anticipate the daily changes, the decreasing fear, the increasing hope. I fully anticipate complete recovery from my ailments by Friday. Friday Friday Friday. Another big day. A chance to spring free from this rat trap. A chance to remove a link from the chain that keeps me here.

I'm quite aware of the fact I am a control freak. Very well aware of it, and I dont really see it as a negative. The only problem is that when one controls their lives so tightly, any slight pertebation or loss of control can send the whole delicately balanced tower of blocks tumbling down.

Ah, the burden of earning a livable wage. What do independently-wealthy people have to worry about? They have control. Anytime someone hands you a paycheck, you hand them control. The price of handing over my control is going to be a steep one. I just have to get out of here first.

The Head and i have realized that we may be running in the wrong career race. The question is, do we keep running? We've got the speed but we're not exactly sure what it is we're running towards.

A drink past pensive

2007-10-02T22:03:00.000-05:00

I grew despondent over the last few weeks. Things haven't worked like i hoped. People i trusted betrayed me. Even worse--they disappointed me. I worked very very hard and it went unrecognized. I realized two main things. In science, the field in which i work, you can never pay it forward. The only thing that counts is how many hours you worked yesterday. Not what you did. Not how well you did it. Not how many asses you pulled out of the fire. Not the precision, expertise and excellence you displayed. Only the fact you were present, even though those extra hours were spent surfing the internet for the latest update on Lindsay Lohan. There is no way to pay anything forward in my field. The second thing i realized is that people who openly abide by the rules and portray themselves as nice guys that "do the right thing" can be inherently immoral when it comes to their own self interests. Lying to keep someone around. Offering easy situations that would be suicidal to the recipient and not caring that it is so because they fear change. Doing everything in their power to suspend animation. Not for the greater good. For their good. Not even their good. For their complacency. To quell their fear of the unknown. Applying new rules in the 11th hour arbitrarily. I feel trapped. I dont like losing control. I will only be despondent for so long before i sack up and find a way to regain control. I may not be able to pay things forward, but i most certainly, always PAY. THINGS. BACK.

I skipped work today because i was so depressed that it made me physically sick. But tonight, i looked in the crib. And he is my antidepressant. Fuck everything that is NOT him or the people i love! That little angel. That perfect little man that bears a striking resemblance to the only other perfect man i know. You know, they have the same fat little nose. My little man turned 1 this weekend. But so much more. He turned into a little boy. Babies are blobs of bubbly, screamy life. But little boys are angry, happy, sad, worried, curious, indignant, obstinant. They cling to mama's legs for comfort, and turn red and shake their tiny fists when mama says "no." So quickly the Dude has changed. I look at his little legs and they are no longer chubby little baby legs, but the muscular active legs of a toddler. The Dude communicates with us now--he says words and asks for things in his own ning-ning-da-da-ug-bah language. And he imitates what we say and do. There is nothing, nothing, not a g'damn thing in the world can phase me when i ask my Dude for a kiss and he plants this disgusting, open-mouthed drool-covered smacker on my lips. THAT, my friends, is the cure for depression. I'd sell my distant PhD down the river for mouthfuls of baby spit any day. The Dude gives me perspective. In my hours with him, i need nothing but him--exept perhaps his Dada too. Its the hours i'm away from him and his Dada that require medication.

I'll rebound from my work-related disapointments. But i will harbor resentment--i always do. Spite is a powerful motivator. However, i will spare my soul the agony of defeat because no matter where i go or what i do I HAVE WON because i have the Dude.

The view from the top

2007-09-13T10:10:00.001-05:00

In one word, i have senioritis. I'm ready to be done with graduate school. Yeah, i've been done with taking all the classes i'll ever have to take in my life two years ago but i'm seriously starting to think my tour of duty in graduate school should come to an end. You see, i've been in graduate school for-fucking-ever. Three years in Chicago and i got a candy-ass masters degree in psychology which only serves as a prop for my party-jokes about being qualified to psychoanalyze people for cash, and now i'm starting year 5 of my quest toward a doctoral degree in neuroscience. And year 5 is when i'm supposed to graduate in this program. Now i'm pretty much on schedule to finish this year. I've got my required publications, finished all but one of my crappy experiments, and have a small, convoluted story to tell about phenotypic plasticity in a eusocial mammal (sounds pretty awesome when i can use big words to say "spine growth in naked mole-rats.") So what's the problem then? Well, i have to meet with my committee and convince them that i'm ready to be done, which may be more of a problem in my head than in actuality. Its stressful trying to summarize 5 years of research into a 2-hour meeting time but i'm sure they are sick of hearing from me as much i'm sick of these meetings. But my most concerning issue is that i've realized that i have no motivation about what i should do after graduation. I mean, i know i have to work. Staying home and raising the kids and tending to the farm is not an option for me. But i dont want a job either. I like my current schedule because it affords me flexibility and i can be home every day by 4:30 to spend time with the Dude. A real job might actually put limits on my schedule. I've already decided to get as far fucking away from basic research as i possibly can and will pursue a clinical post-doc, which in turn will help me get as far fucking away from academic science as possible by opening up a world of industry, administration, and private funding. You see, i want to work 9 to 5. I want weekends off. When i'm not at work, i dont want to think about work. I dont want to travel much. When i'm at work, i'll work fucking hard. I want to write a lot and manage large groups of people and i want to be an expert in regulations and procedures and use my skills to design and plan things. I want a lot of responsibility and I want to talk to scientists and businessmen and politicians and translate between these different languages. And i want to make a fuck-ton of money. I dont want to run experiments, or teach, or be a part of the bullshit tenure race. I'm not interested in the creative process of generating Nobel-prize winning research ideas. I want someone to give me a goal, and I'll show them to achieve it in the most awesome manner possible. I'm not a creative ideas person. That's my husband. I'm a realist and a problem solver. I need something concrete to work with, which is why i'll never excel in basic science, because i just cant pull good ideas out of my ass. However, if someone gives me a great idea, no matter how wild or far-fetched it is, i can make it reality. And i can get more done Monday through Friday 9-5 than most people can during an 80 hour week.

Perhaps that is why i hesitate to graduate. I know what i want to do and what i'm good at, but i dont see my dream job waiting in the wings. I'm pretty sure that it is out there too--its just that graduate study at an academic institution has a certain agenda, a certain assumption that we are being groomed to go on in our academic parent's footsteps and be a faculty researcher running the grants and tenure race while being underpaid and overworked. So my dream career options arent obvious, often hidden by administrators and mentors and people who want to perpetuate this great academic agenda and their research legacy, and it may take me a few years of playing "the Man's Game" to find my career. And its absolutely appalling that the PhD is the highest academic degree obtainable, but a post-doc position pays less than many factory workers make. I really have trouble accepting that I can be called Dr. Lady Head, and still make less than a high-school drop-out. And how do they justify this? By saying that you are working hard and getting shit pay because you love what you do and you're receiving this amazing mentorship. Fuck that. I believe a post-doc is just a fucking job, and if its gonna pay shitty, then the hours at least better be decent.

Yes, my graduate program has created a monster. They've produced many lovely drones, but mutations are high in inbred societies and this little aberration wants out.

"Please do not offer my god a peanut."-Apu

2007-09-06T10:07:00.001-05:00

The Great Hindu-Irish wedding was a smashing success. Never before I have I been to a more opulent, exotic but extremely classy affair. It was amazing. It was almost like going to a foreign play that just happened to be serving tons of booze and food. The almighty Ganesh would have been pleased. Never mind the fact that the night before i got blindingly drunk and ended up puking. As i often do when i see my Chicago friends. I havent had a good hang-over in quite a while, and this one certainly made up for a lot of lost time.

The whole experience really got me thinking about what it would be like to move back to Chicago. I miss our Chicago friends so much, and most of the shittiest slums of the city are being torn down and rebuilt as a magnificient yuppy heaven with coffee shops on every corner and a two-story Target and all kinds of delicious new restaurants. And the multiculturalism and lack of overt racism was refreshing. Although, it was a deceptive trip because it occurred in September, the most (or perhaps the only) beautiful month in that city. Any other time its too fucking cold and shitty, or hot enough that the pavement radiates heat and the stench of bum piss. Plus people are really really mean in the north. I used to love this, i really did. Flipping people off while driving, giving dirty looks to children, and hogging seats on trains and benches were all a part of my daily repertoire. But now after living in the south, even the most ignorant meth-addicted hicks will give up a seat to let a mother struggling with an infant sit down. The toothless, slack-jawed hillbilly at Kroger will smile at my son, tell me about his 14 kids, and let me skip ahead of him in line because i've only got one item. And Billy Joe Bob from Physical Plant will always hold the elevator as i make a mad dash down the hall for it. I've softened and grown quite accustomed to these genteel ways. Southerners can be slow, evil, racist, fundamentalist pricks, but overall, they've got their manners, and a certain sense of propriety that causes them to hold doors open for ladies and smile at children. But at the same time life in Chicago appeals to me for reasons i cannot fully explain. Living in the big city always made me feel like i was part of the action, even when i was just sitting in my own living room. Its hard to be isolated when you're crammed right in on top of millions of people. Sure, you hate all those people and wont talk to them, but for some reason, its still comforting to be among them. Except in winter when its snowy and cold. Then i hate everything about being in the city.

All in all, Fat Nick and Deb are now married and we can say we participated in one of the most amazing wedding rituals of all time. We saw the land we love get polished up and de-ghetto-fied. We partied with most of the same friends who partied with us at the Great Head Wedding of 2002. The Dude survived his first trip to the Windy City, and i now question our career trajectory that keeps us in the dirty south. If only the weather weren't so shitty, perhaps we'd move back to Chicago. Maybe the great god Ganesh and global warming will make it so.

For realzy no dealzy

2007-08-31T13:54:00.001-05:00

Well we're off to Chicago this weekend for Fat Nick's Hindu-Irish wedding and i have to say that i'm pretty stoked about it. Normally the thought of traveling with the Dude, six tons of luggage, and now, dress clothes for the wedding seems overwhelming but for some reason i'm oblivious to this right now. We're going to Chicago! We're going back to our second-home town! We're going to a fucking awesome Hindu wedding! How many people (short of Indians) can say they've been to a wedding conducted entirely in Sanskrit? Surely not many people here in the dirty south who, upon telling them i'm going to an Indian wedding, assume i'm whooping it up with feathers on my head inside some teepee in the desert.

Most importantly, we're traveling to a climate zone that's less than 100 degrees out which these days will seem completely chilly. It was 85 degrees out last night and i considered putting a sweater on. And this trip is an important distraction. I'm currently wrestling with how i tell my dissertation committee that i want to be done by summer and have them actually agree to this. I have to wow them with my accomplishments which means there will be a lot of turd-polishing between now and my meeting with them. And i really dont want to think about all the work that lies ahead of me in regards to buffing up these feces i call my data. So the stresses of traveling with a criminally insane 11-month old, the annoyance of controlling an obscenely drunken 32 year-old, and worry over whether my cans hold up the strapless dress i'm wearing to the wedding are a lot more palatable to me right now than thinking about the state of my dissertation research.

I still don't understand thongs

2007-08-24T14:21:00.000-05:00

I just dont know how you do it. Wear g'damn underwear that's sole purpose is to ride up your ass. I've tried for years to figure this out, and i've come to the conclusion that i just can't do it. My butt rejects thongs.

Perhaps you will say its because my ass is too big. Well, i dont think that's true because i know girls with asses far bigger than mine that wear thongs. Maybe its the brand of thong, you say. I've tried all brands. I just dont like things that stick in my asscrack. Its uncomfortable. I've spent far too many years pulling normal underwear out of there when it rides up. Now why would i want to purposely fill said crack with fabric?

Maybe like thong sandals, you have to a build a callus up in there to wear the butt thong. Every spring thong sandals hurt my toes until i've worn them a couple of days and my feet get used to them. However, i shouldnt have to build up a callus in my asscrack. Underwear should be comfortable from the moment you put it on.

So it seems that i am the only person in the world that can't wear a thong. I really don't give a rat's ass about panty lines and even if i did, i'd go commando rather than wear a thong. Maybe i'm right, and all of you silly bastards have just convinced yourselves that thong underwear is comfortable when its really not. Just like all of you who have convinced yourselves that Crocs are cool when they make you look like an ass.

N'uffs e'nuff

2007-08-16T09:55:00.001-05:00

I can't disarm the Mommy Wars. Nothing i say or write or do with any level of creative profundity will change the basic nature of parenting, which is to judge judge judge other parents. I thought i'd start a blog specifically geared toward 100% guilt-free parenting. No takers. I was under the mistaken perception that people can retain a semblance of their sanity, their self, their fucking cool-factor after they become parents. In the case of the Heads, its fucking true. In the case of my close friends who are parents, its fucking true. But its not fucking true of the World At Large. So i will not fight a battle to end a war that doesnt want resolution. You keep judging, and i'll keep feeding my kid hotdogs every night, not breastfeed, and work fulltime and still produce a physically-healthy and emotionally-well adjusted child with a Nobel-prize winning IQ. So suck it. I won.

After 10 months of infant care, its nice to resurface. The resurrection of my life probably began around postnatal month 6, but by now i've really gotten into the swing of taking care of the Dude, seeing him off to bed, and getting my drunk on and staying up past 10pm. Its a big step. The Ash-hole and SEDA were in town two weeks ago and it was a fab time. Kept my drinking right on track. I wished they lived closer. Like, right down the street. Not next door, though. The Ash-hole would bring my property value down from all his waking up drunk and naked on the front porch every Saturday morning. The Wiffins also stopped by and brought mutton. Delicious mutton. The Wiffins are true epicureans and we here at the Head really appreciate that. A devotion to and knowledge of good food and drink makes the world a happy, happy place. And a delicious place. We do not know of any other people who would drive 2 hours for the sole purpose of procuring BBQ mutton and comparing vendors. It brings tears of joy to our eyes.

Along with the joys of resurrecting our hedonistic lifestyle come the pains of realizing how few options we have to revel in our hedonism. We're bored and socially isolated. There have not been a lot of social events to attend. It seems we've been written out of the roster, probably due to our infant-imposed quarantine. But we're back, people. We're back. Let's, uh, go out and do something. The Dude seeks adventure. And momma needs to get her swerve on.

Fuck Tuesday

2007-07-31T20:28:00.000-05:00

I started the day by getting shit on and ended the day not even being able to flush the toilets.

Baby Dude has started this nasty habit of having a personality, and quite an irate little one when he doesnt get what he wants. And lately, what he wants is for us to NEVER change his diaper. He throws a g'damn fit the minute we try to take his pants off and he wiggles and rolls over and tries to sit up as we struggle to remove one diaper and put on the next. This morning, the Master Crapper had the mother of all stinkers in his pants. It was a bad one. So as i'm struggling to restrain the beast so i can change him, he fakes me out and rolls over into his dirty diaper and covers himself waist to feet in a glorious brown pudding mess. There is shit everywhere. I pick him up and race to the shower, trying to rinse the shit off of the boy. Everything stinks, so i scrub every inch of him with soap and pass him off to Da-Da. Everything still stinks of course, because i discover that i am now covered in shit. Precious. So i scour myself and head off to work, hoping the day gets brighter.

Wrong. After several fuck-ups and massive disappointments at lab, i head home with a wanging headache. Baby Dude is teething and decides to be a dick about it. The serial killer that lives next door is soaking bodies or something in creosote and kerosene, which stinks up the entire neighborhood. After the Dude goes to sleep, i decide to water my flowers. Aside from the retching fumes emanating from next door, all is well with the world. Until i go to shut off the hose and the entire pipe from which the spigot is attached breaks in half. Water is now spurting out of the side of the house at a furious velocity. I force the Head into every dank corner of our spider-infested crawl space, we can't find a fucking shut-off valve. The shut-off at the water main on our front lawn requires a tool that we do not possess. Water continues to spew. It would almost be majestic, the water shooting out of a hole in the side of our house and flooding our flagstone patio if i didnt envision the little dollar and cents signs also spilling out as the water meter racked up points. The upshot is that this massive flood is occurring outdoors. This is a major upshot. Dirty and very, very angry, the Head finds some type of main shut-off valve deep within the bowels of the crawlspace. The C.H.U.D. living down there were apparently helpful. So the crying wall no longer sheds tears, but i cant flush my toilets now until Roto-Rooter shows up (imagine more dollars and cents signs flying about) and welds the pipe back together. They said they would show up in 2 hours, and i was hoping they meant 15 minutes. So we wait. The Head, stinking like dank crawl space. Me, soaked but too tired to change. Hoping and praying that the baby will not need a diaper change anytime soon.

That Drunk Guy

2007-07-27T12:59:00.000-05:00

Life has been so hectic this summer that only now, the finality and reality has set in that two of our good friends Broomie and Ms. Everheart just packed their crap away and ran off to Indiana permanently. Fucking jerks.

Sure, i've been missing Ms. Everheart for a while, but she had made it cognitively convenient for me to write her out of drinking scenarios by the announcement of her pregnancy. In my mind, she hasnt moved away--she just cant drink for 9 months. However, i cannot ignore the fact that Broomie himself, who is not pregnant, is gone. Because Broomie was "that drunk guy" at all my parties. So we no longer have a drunk guy. Broomie was a closer. First to show up, last to leave. Or maybe not even leave. He'd come to know our couch well. He'd drunkenly argue about anything. We'd drunkenly argue back. Broomie
would finish the scotch bottle by midnight. Broomie would down shots of Pepto and bourbon. And after a crippling night of drinking, Broomie never missed his 8:30am tee-time. That bitch would call us from the 18th hole, all giggly from the beers he consumed before 11am. That pretty boy Broomie in all his Ron Livingston dopellgänger nice hair ironed shirt glory. It seems like we had been smashing good chums with Broomie and his lovely wife forever, but as i recall, it was Broomie himself and i who met first. Before the Broomster was our investment banker, he was a graduate student in my program. I believe we met at the peak of his disillusionment with science, mere months before he dropped out to pursue the world of finance. I remember the event hazily--it was some departmental function where Broomie and i were the only two people drinking inappropriately large amounts of booze. It was almost reminiscent of the time Hotrod and i got to know the Ash-hole (the original Drunk Guy). Unlike the Ash-hole episode, however, Ms. Everheart did not attempt to strike me dead (you know what i'm talking about SEDA). Anyhow, Broomie and i realized from our mass imbibing that we were kindred spirits, we introduced our spouses who were also mass imbibers, and the rest was history. When I met Ms. Everheart, i remember asking her if i could call her Angie (not her name) because she was a gorgeous tall redhead and she looked like Angie Everheart. She obliged, and i think this set our relationship off on good footing. Now, many hangovers later, those jerks have skipped town to go off and raise their child far from the influence of Aunt Lady Head and Uncle Head and cousin Baby Head.

Alas it is all very very sad, and as we begin to make our postpartum partying comeback we are without "that drunk guy." I'm accepting resumés, but its a tough, tough act to follow.

Its nice that my alcohol abuse hasn't gotten in the way of my weight loss

2007-07-23T21:26:00.000-05:00

Ah, baby weight. Its a bitch. Nine months to put it on, nine + months to take it off. But finally, finally i am starting to see appreciable results and a return to my pre-baby clothes. I was slightly pissed off that my super sweet awesome jeans that i just bought a couple of months ago are now fatty-fat-fatty jeans; where i can hold them up and they look ridiculously huge next to me, but its a small price to pay for losing an ass the size of a tractor trailer. Dont get me wrong, i will never completely recover to swim-suit model status, but then again, the pre-baby body wasnt exactly posing nude for Playboy back in the day either. But its satisfying to fit into my OLD clothes again. So what is your magical weight-loss elixir these days, you ask. Well i have to say that i havent exactly done it on my own. Yes, i've adopted a low-fat diet and push a stroller up a massive hill in the 100 degree heat on an almost daily basis. But i've also started taking this adorable little drug called Alli that makes me poop out any fat that i have eaten. Its pretty fucking gross but it works like a charm and this low fat diet, exercise, and fat pooping pills seem to allow me to lose weight without sacrificing my nightly booze binges. Binges which have been amplifying as a result of needing to decompress after wrangling the perpetual motion machine that is the Dude. God love the little imp but he's in bed by 7pm and then its time for momma to tie one on. So its a lovely plan, these poop pills, that enable me to continue being enabled to drink as excessively as will allow me to stumble about yet not be hung over for my 7am date with the infant. It makes me think that people who scoff at modern science are fools.

Masochism at the Movies

2007-06-14T09:48:00.000-05:00

Sorry i haven't thrown any mad wisdom at you lately but i got sucked into some type of a manuscript-writing vortex at work that stole my consciousness and internet screw-off time for a while. I'm back now, and hey, guess what, i turned 30 today, yippee, happy birthday to me. Yes that's old, no it doesn't really bother me and its because i've already aged 20 years by having a baby and turning 30 couldn't possible do anymore damage than the ravages of childbirth and associated lack of sleep that raising an infant causes. So that's that, and really what i want to talk about today is this: WHY the fuck do people want to watch movies that make them feel like crap?

I tend to be very selective about the type of movies i watch: they have to have a lot of humor or people with superpowers or zombies or junkies or meaningless explosions. You see, i need to be entertained. What i DONT fucking need is to be taught a lesson, or leave the movie feeling fucking depressed. There are SO MANY movies out there that are fucking depressing. One example, and the impetus for this blog, is fucking Pan's Labrynth. Tell me again why this movie was so good? Because it was so g'damn depressing? Is that why? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? Why do people want to subject themselves to two-hours of anxiety, depression, and just plain fucking sadness? Why do people crave the feelings that so many of us try to chase away with medication and therapy? My theory is that these movies exist for people who have never experienced loss, tragedy, or depression in their lives. Therefore, these feelings are a novelty for them, and they seek it. The rest of us that have seen some awful shit in our times like to watch X-Men. Or Stick It. Or hell, even stupid-ass Talladega Nights. Anything that makes us forget about our mothers brothers wives murder rape cancer. I want to watch movies, about things i cannot relate to, or can relate to that are funny. Like kicking ass and taking names X-men style. Not some little girl getting shot by her wicked step-father and realizing what you thought was her fairy-tale story was just some sad, little hallucination. Pan's Labrynth can suck my ass.

And don't you fucking leave a comment on here saying "Well i disagree. I liked Pan's Labrynth and i enjoy experiencing that crazy fun emotion of wicked depression. " Because you'll just prove my point.

Waiting for full-blown abortion of justice

2007-05-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

I usually try to avoid blogging about current events or popular press, but this issue, well, moves me to write. Paris Hilton is going to jail. Well, actually she's not. You and i both know that wonky-eyed looks-like-she's-wearing-a-swimmer's-nose-plug self-promoted celebu-whore will narrowly escape the clutches of those EVIL, oppressive villains who wrongly persecute her for, uh, driving while drunk, and uh, driving under a suspended license she received for driving while drunk, and uh, okay, yeah, well, you know, they are just plain mean! PERSECUTING her because she's so famous and lovable. Not because she committed a crime or anything. Not because she committed a crime, got punished, and thought punishment didnt apply to her wonky-eyed self. Now there are many reasons to hate Paris, and they are all legitimate, but she got snapped up by my radar when she started having people sign petitions pleading for a pardon that will keep her ass out of jail. "Paris doesnt deserve this." Well yes my friend, actually she does. Its not like she's asking for a pardon for her initial offense, if she had in fact been tossed in jail for drunk driving. No, she's asking for a pardon because she didnt even take the initial fucking offense seriously or understand or even care about its repercussions. She firmly and honestly believed that the rules and penalties did not apply to her. And she still doesnt believe that they apply to her, based on her audacity to promote this ridiculous "save Paris" campaign. Her ego is so big and her money is so plentiful that sometimes its hard to see what a fucking complete and total coward she is. Never eating humble pie and admitting she fucked up. Never being accountable for her actions. Minimizing the crime that is a DUI publicly. Pissing off millions of people that have been negatively affected by drunk drivers. We understand that drunk driving is a mistake many of us make, but you apologize sincerely, accept the punishment and fucking adhere to it. And if you fuck that up, dont whine and cry about how you are the subject of a witch-hunt when its time to throw your ass in the can. And for the love of God, with as much money as she has, can't she hire a fucking driver?!?

If my predictions are right, Paris will never see the inside of a jail cell, be forced to wash off the make-up that hides her reptilian scales, or get fisted by Big Bertha in Cell Block 7. No, our darling will buy, sell, and whine her way out of this one too. Because the rules don't apply to her--and if she had to go to jail well, shit, maybe they actually do and that would just deconstruct the monumental creation that is her ego. Lord knows the rules apply to the rest of us, but then again, most of us arent the products of a carefully constructed, over-inflated, and commercially stamped self-delusion. And at least most people's self-delusions don't require media involvement.

Oh yeah-- i sincerely hope i'm wrong about my predictions.

Don't take it personal that i hate riding the elevator with you

2007-05-08T09:45:00.001-05:00

Fuck mornings. Really, fuck them. The only thing worse than mornings is the fact i have to share them with the rest of the world. I don't care for conversations in the early a.m., and in fact, i won't even tolerate direct eye contact before i've had gallons of coffee. My intense maternal love and my infant's adorable toothless grin keep me from smothering the little bugger in the wee hours, but the rest of the world can go fuck themselves. The Head understands this and behaves accordingly; my mom avoids me like the plague in the a.m., but my dad never grasped this element of my personality and this is probably why i have a tense relationship with him to this day. Just don't fucking try to talk to me in the mornings! Avert your eyes!

If i am this intolerant of my own loving family, imagine how i feel towards perfect strangers. This has manifested itself as a complete inability to ride my parking garage elevator in the morning. The thought of sharing a restricted area of space with another human being, whether they avert their eyes or not, incites rage in me. It overrides my overwhelming sense of laziness and holy shit, i end up taking the fucking stairs every day! Interestingly enough, i take the elevator up the 7 floors of the medical research building in which i work because there are very few people that ride the elevators in the morning because they are all tree-hugging organic fruit eating assbags that think 'its good for them' to walk up 20 flights of stairs every day. Good for them, but better for me because i DONT have to walk up 20 flights and can avoid their smug faces during my 8:30 a.m. ascent to my lab. So the parking garage is my main aversion in the mornings because it brings me in contact with other humans, but there is this delightful, dirty little stairwell next to the elevators that i make a bee-line for while everyone else stands, waiting for the elevators. I used to stand with those people, intensely hating them all, and almost lashing out in violence if any of them spoke to me (and speak they do, because its the bloody fucking south and everyone is so g'damn friendly). Do not address Lady Head before 9am! You could almost hear the hissing from the snakes on my invisible medusa head, threatening to turn anyone who was stupid enough to make direct eye contact with me into stone. But then i realized it was better to walk a bunch of stairs than to be in the presence of another human being. Even if no one is standing at the elevator waiting, i refuse to take it, out of intense fear that someone will get on at another floor. Am i crazy? Fuck yes. But admitting it isn't going to stop my hatred of sharing an elevator in the a.m.

I've noticed that the elevator people look at me very weirdly when they are standing there, the elevator has arrived so there is no waiting, and i walk right past to go down the stairwell. Its as if they cant understand why i would choose to take stairs if i didnt have to wait for the elevator (these are clearly not the same health-conscience assbags that work in my building). They probably wonder if they have cooties or if i'm just an assbag, and of course they are right on both counts, but the main reason is that its TOO FUCKING EARLY in the day. They shouldn't take it personal--i'm not singling anyone out--i have a universal hatred of everyone in the morning.

By the time the work-day ends, my hatred of humanity has dissipated. Its fine and dandy to share an elevator--the more the merrier. I still don't care for conversation or eye contact, but at least i wont castrate them for attempting it. And there's no fucking way stairs are even remotely appealing in the p.m.

My infant son has a muthafuckin' crew

2007-05-04T09:53:00.000-05:00

I just made a realization the other day. My little Dude has a crew. Every morning when the Dude rolls into daycare, his posse is waiting for him. His crew consists of two other little babies, and they are always hanging out together and drooling on each other and grabbing each other's ears. Its kind of crazy. In the Dude's crew, K-Dawg is an 11-month old little banger with cornrows in his hair. He's got a mean gangster stare, but a heart of gold and melts into giggles if you tickle his toes. K-Dawg's got the street cred for the group. B-Man is the leader of the gang--mostly because he's the only one that can crawl around and bring mischief to the non-mobile Dude and K-Dawg. B-Man is a weirdo because he's got this great, lecherous smile he gives to all the ladies. Seriously. If this were an adult man looking at me this way, i'd call the fucking cops. But little B-Man has the sexual pervert-smile down to a science and he's only 9-months old, so its friggin' adorable. Although it really makes me fear whoever his father is. And B-Man once tried to steal my car keys, so he's a crafty little bugger. The Dude is the muscle of the organization, and the youngest at 7 months. He likes to pound things and has the most ripped abs of the group. Plus he wears muscle tees and has baby tattoos. No one fucks with the Dude. And its funny. The Dude and his boys all have bitches, but act different around them. They're always trying to steal back their pacis from the girls, or they let the girls grab their socks, or they just have to sit there and listen to the girls cry. But when the crew assembles, they ignore everyone else. They sit in a little circle, passing their toys around, grabbing each other's noses, and acting like they are secretly plotting things. They try to pull the "i dont need kisses from momma before she leaves" bullshit. "Dont embarrass me mommy, when i'm with my muthafuckin' CREW!" Of course when they are by themselves or with the bitches, they cant get enough kisses from momma. But not in the crew. Tough guys. That's just how they roll.

Foot People

2007-04-26T11:32:00.000-05:00

There are few things more indulgent than a good pedicure. The place i go to is top notch: they sit you in these big comfy massage chairs with a glass of wine while they make your toes pretty and even give a long and intoxicating foot and leg massage. Which is odd that i like it, because i don't care for strangers touching me, and i hate full body massages but for some strange reason like it when strangers massage my feet. I'm an enigma. Anyway, i'm sitting there getting my pedicure this morning reveling in how wonderful the whole experience is but wondering why on earth anyone would want to touch other people's feet for a living. I mean, people's feet are fucking gross. Not mine, because i spend a lot of money getting pedicures so that they dont look fucking gross, but feet in general have hard lives and it often shows. Why the hell would someone want to handle these filthy body parts for a living? At my salon, the foot people are young Asian men and women. And they touch feet all day long. And they touch them a lot. And not everyone has lovely little clean chubby dogs like i do. In fact, i was sitting next to this young woman who had what i would call "gnarly feet." Her toes were twisted in a swirl, bunions and bumps protruded from all angles, and she had fucking varicose veins all over the tops of her feet. Fucking sick. Who has varicose veins on their feet??? And this poor Asian dude had to work them over like anyone else's for a $6 tip. I do wonder what these foot people get paid. If its less than $70K a year, its not enough. They are touching people's feet, for chrissakes.

Which brings me to an important point. It is your duty as a woman OR man, to have nice feet if you wear sandals. I choke back vomit nearly every morning as i get on the elevator with people who have scratchy, dried, and cracked heels or snaggle toes sticking out from their terribly unflattering Tevas. And just because you are a dude it doesnt mean you should ignore foot hygiene. Everyone, and everyone should have nicely trimmed and clean nails if they are to wear sandals. And slap a little Lubriderm on those fucking heels, for chrissakes. It aint gonna hurt 'em. So i encourage you to visit the local nail salon for a pedicure. No matter how foul those feet are, the foot people will tend to them, God bless those martyrs. The Head once got a pedicure with me, and he loved it. And the Head has very nice feet, although quite hairy. Bless those pedicurists again. Adhere to this rule and you shall live well: its either socks or salon, buddy. And ditch the Tevas with the velcro straps--no one looks good in them.

Okay, corral

2007-04-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

The Head, Mac-Attack and i were having a discussion about this last weekend. We think that certain judgments about a person's character can be made based on whether or not they return their shopping cart to the "cart corrals" scattered throughout parking lots. In fact, we agreed that people who do not return their carts are not decent people at all, but are the scourge of society and represent all that is wrong with this world. Exceptions to this rule are the disabled, the elderly, and mothers with young infants--since a mother wouldnt want to leave their baby in their car alone as they walked across the parking lot to return said cart. However, as a mother, i've remedied that situation by always parking directly next to a cart corral.

So why is cart-corralling such a judgment of character? Why does cart neglect draw such harsh criticism from the Head, Mac-Attack, and myself? First of all, the entire act of returning one's shopping cart requires MINIMAL effort, yet provides MAXIMAL consideration of others. Yes, we are all lazy, and its hard to do hard things. But this is a very easy thing to do. When people can't do the tiniest little thing to respect the world around them, those people are selfish pricks. Attempting to compensate for their teeny-tiny penises, these pricks think they are sticking it to the man by not bending to the rules of the world that suggests, out of kindness, we return our carts to multiple, conveniently-placed areas where they will not harm other people's vehicles. Apparently this is the only form of power they can exert in their powerless, meaningless lives. Or they are some bleeding heart hippie vegan that protests all these social ills and how we need to stop them when they cant do the most simplest thing to contribute to a sense of community in their own environment--put their fucking cart away.

Another important point to make is that we are talking about a grocery store parking lot, not the valet line at the Chateau Marmont. Everyone who has parked in this lot is just a poor hard working slob, slogging their way through work just to make a pit-stop at the old Kroger on the way home to pick up diapers, spaghetti noodles, beer or cheesy poofs. We dont need to come out of the store and see our fender dinged by a cart that some fat-ass prick was too lazy to put in the cart corral. We're all in this together, man! Once again, minimal effort. Maximal consideration. So burn that calorie, fatty, and return your cart to the fucking corral. I guarantee you'll gain good karma, and be seen as a decent person in the eyes of the Head, Mac-Attack, and myself. And what more could you want?

Conjunctiv-painintheass-itis

2007-04-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

Pinkeye sucks. For the first time in my 29-year life, i've contracted this affliction. I can honestly say that up until now, i was dodging a bullet. Pinkeye SUCKS. I woke up in the middle of night last night and it felt like someone had poured sand in my eye. And my eye was glued shut with all kinds of nasty yellow mook. After knocking my alarm clock and Kleenex box off the nightstand (i now understand how there is no depth perception with monocular vision), i groped blindly for the Head who was sleeping next to me. "I have pinkeye," i screeched to him. He mumbled something incomprehensible in return. "Damn it, i have PINKEYE!" i repeated. He was just not taking the situation seriously. Now i was damn sure it was pinkeye because Baby Head just got pinkeye from the Germ Farm last week, so i knew the bacteria was heading straight for me. I just never imagined it would suck this bad.

So my eye hurts, is all moopy, half-open, and well, pink. Intermixed with the yellow pus draining from it. I went to the doctor this morning and yep, its pinkeye, so i get to douse it periodically with antibiotics. The best part is that i have a luncheon with a visiting seminar speaker today. "Hi how are you? I'm diseased. Nice to meet you." I'm trying to hide the eye behind glasses and my bangs, but its still gross. And highly contagious. And uncomfortable as all holy hell. So that is my pinkeye story. Dont let it happen to you.

Wacked out on wah-wah sauce

2007-04-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

Happy Good Friday everyone! When i grew up, Good Friday was treated like a national holiday. There was no work, no school and shit, you werent even supposed to listen to the radio or watch TV between noon and 3pm (in honor of the time Jesus spent on the cross). Today i'm at friggin' work (gonna bail early though, and if anyone says anything i'll scream religious persecution), the Dude is at daycare, and life rumbles on. We used to get a week off of school for Easter! It was treated just like friggin' Xmas. And the presents, oh, the Easter presents. But shit. I didnt even get Easter baskets for Big and Baby Heads this year. I'm just too lazy and un-inspired. I blame the advertising industry for not inciting a need to shop en masse for inane expensive items for everyone from dog-sitters to the in-laws. When did Easter get demoted as a major holiday? I mean, come on. Here's another excuse for a big commercial money-making holiday and its pretty much relegated to marshmallow chickens and hollow chocolate bunnies. And the secular world is happy to celebrate a holiday based on the BIRTH of a guy they dont believe it, but not a holiday based on the STORY of a guy's torture, death and rising from the grave, just to extend his big holy middle finger at the jerks who persecuted him? Come on, even Mel Gibson knows that story has Hollywood-level appeal! If anything, Easter should be celebrated as "stick it to the man" day. Even non-believers can relate to that.

But anyway, we'll do our part by frying up some cod tonight, coloring eggs, and cooking a ham on Sunday. Next year when Baby Head knows what a plastic egg is, i'll buy him an Easter basket. Speaking of Baby Head, we made our maiden voyage back to our birth-land of Ohio last weekend with the boy. We wanted him to see his roots, and understand why we chose to live 500 miles away from them. Its been 2 years since i've been back there for a visit, and much has changed in my hometown Cleveland suburb. All kinds of new construction and buildings and houses and some areas of town are hard to recognize because of all the new development. My parent's little neighborhood is bright and cheery with nicely maintained houses and green lawns and pretty cars. I seriously thought my parent's neighhorhood would have degraded to a ghetto by now with crackwhores on the corners, but that was not the case. It actually took a step up, and it made me realize what a nice place i grew up in. But its a one-horse town, so i'm still glad i got out of there.

Later that weekend we cruised on over to the Head's east-Bumfuck Youngstown hometown. A booming economy was NOT the case there. The place was still a shit-hole. Same "dirt for sale" signs as two years ago; same truckstop strip club (although that place did make us think fondly of the Evil Doctor since he, Hot Rod, and A.Don toured this establishment when they came to town for our wedding). A new fried chicken shack was put up and a couple of ramshackle meth labs were torn down, but that was the extent of the economic development in East Bumfuck. Its amazing the Head is as smart as he is coming from that depressing dumpsite, but then again, he got the fuck out of there when he was 18.

So it was nice to see the relatives, and even better to see a couple of my old gradeschool/highschool friends, and the Dude even got to party with a couple of my friend's babies, who all happen to be the same age as him (which tells me us Ohio girls were timed to self-destruct into pregnancy around the same time). And Baby Head is an excellent traveler--sleeping through both our arriving and return flights, and being adorable and silly in the airports. But all of us were glad to get back home to TN, and it was hilarious that this was even obvious with the Dude, since he seemed to relax when he got back in his own crib and was delighted to see his beloved Exersaucer. So my boy is a southerner at heart, but try not to hold that against him. We'll make sure he's properly edu-ma-cated, takes care of his teeth, and doesnt talk like an inbred hick.

Ass!

2007-03-23T09:03:00.000-05:00

For some reason this morning, i recalled this conversation i had with Lady Canadian (LC) months ago where a third-party crazy-ass almost Nazi-mom interjected some wildly stupid things into the dialogue. I was telling LC about Baby Head's bout of the hot-poops, and how i temporarily switched him to soy formula and that helped stop the fury that was exiting his ass. Crazy-Ass Mom (CAM) interjects in a smug, self-righteous tone: "I ONLY fed my babies soy formula. They were all on it. Because you know, soy formula doesnt make babies fat." What? The? Fuck? Are you kidding me? Worrying about making your baby too fat by simply feeding regular formula? I mean, WHAT? At this point, i have to manually restrain my eyes from rolling back into my head. So LC asks CAM:"so you didnt have a problem switching from soy formula to regular milk after they were a year old? No problems with lactose intolerance or anything?" CAM responds: "no, no problems at all. But they were on ORGANIC milk. Only organic milk." At this point i had to respond to let CAM know that organic milk is still from cows, perhaps some type of magical organic cows, but even magical organic cow milk still has FUCKING MAGICAL ORGANIC LACTOSE IN IT BECAUSE ITS STILL FUCKING MILK.

And i thought of CAM the other day when i handed the Dude a Cheeto and by-passed the organic baby-food section at the grocery store.

Big Picture

2007-03-21T14:46:00.000-05:00

Its been a crazy week here at the Head Ranch and its only Wednesday. At the top of the week Baby Head contracted yet ANOTHER respiratory illness from that germ-farm i call daycare. This makes 3 colds and 2 stomach bugs in 2.5 months. Remind me again why it is i love daycare so much? Anyway, being male as the Dude is, he melted down from this illness, acting as if his symptoms were catastrophic and fatal, causing the Head and i to scurry away from work to attend to his wailing, snotty needs. And i had a MAJOR presentation to give. Great timing. This is another reason why single-moms amaze me so much. I have NO fucking clue how i would have gotten through the last few days and my pre-presentation stress without my baby daddy. So the Dude is better and the presentation was a smashing success but boy, what a fucked up whirlwind this week turned into.

So the point i'd like to make today is that i kicked ass on my presentation. But no matter how many times i've done it, public speaking is still nerve-wracking. It does get much easier with time, but its always a stressful experience. I tend to feel as if these scholarly talks are performances. I spend a lot of time in rehearsal, i carefully select my costume, i get psyched up, and i walk out on stage like i'm a freaking celebrity and i attempt to work the crowd. I feel that conveying confidence is always good idea, especially when its most likely that i'm suffering from a lack of it. And working an academic crowd isnt always easy. I try to tell a story, make things interesting, amusing, and even humorous without sacrificing formality. But it can be a tough, tough crowd. Great jokes, dead faces. Great data, blank stares. Are they even alive? I cant even tell if they are blinking. My research is interesting, right? Yes, yes it is. Its about weird animals and sex and i've even said the word "vagina" a couple of times. Yes, "vagina" should perk them up. But it doesnt. They just stare. Crickets chirp. Come on people. V-A-G-I-N-A.

Great. I just realized that now all kinds of perverts will probably be re-directed to this blog because of my use of lady-parts terminology. Anyhow, despite a lack of crowd feedback, i know i'm rocking the house. My boss sits up in the back, nodding in approval. My lab-mates are in the front row, appropriately giggling at the v-word. There's a handful of interested parties--smiling and raising their hands to ask questions. A sign of recognition. Life on this strange planet. But what's wrong with the rest of the crowd? Why such blank stares? And i begin to realize that most of them have no appreciation, no understanding, and no related background to what i'm talking about. Most of them are molecular neuroscientists, and here i am, a neuroethologist, studying an animal for the sake of studying that animal. Neuroscience is a broad field and as scientists within it, we should have a basic understanding of the entire spectrum of it. I can read an article about molecules and understand why the experimenters did what they did and interpret what they found. I can speak their language, albeit in a choppy and disconnected manner. Shouldnt they have to learn how to speak mine? This is the problem that i have with many of the molecular neuroscientists in my graduate program--i do not feel like they have a basic understanding of this grand field we work within. Even though you work on molecules, you should still have to know the anatomy of the human brain. Ultimately its what we are all studying! But i remember years ago at a forum where the molecular biologists were bitching about being forced to take neuroanatomy because it was a "waste of time." A waste of time. Its sort of like being a medical doctor, but only wanting to focus all your energy and knowledge on studying the pinkie finger, to exclusion of every other part of the body. I would guess that any MDs out there that are pinkie specialists still have a basic understanding of the rest of the body since things like our skin, blood, bones, muscles, and brain all play major roles in what our pinkie fingers are doing any given moment.

But alas, it seems like the depth of knowledge is more important than the breadth of knowledge in the case of my colleagues, and this saddens me because it makes our field a much lonelier place. I'll go on to give Oscar-caliber performances of my research while staring into the dim bulbs of the audience before me in the hopes that maybe, just maybe something i'll say something that links us both back to the tiny toenail on the itty bitty toe of the footprint of the molecule that they study.

Not cool.

2007-03-06T14:57:00.000-06:00

I know you're gonna be offended. I know many of you wear these things. But as your friend, life coach, and omniscient being, i owe it to you to tell you. "Crocs" look fucking stupid on you. So please take them off. Seriously. They were designed for gardening. And i'm sure they are great when you're actually gardening. Hell, you are probably the most stylish-looking gardening mutherfucker on the planet when you and your little fluorescent pink "crocs" are standing on top of a pile of mulch. But walking down the street? Going to a shopping mall? Traipsing through Target? No. You look like a fucking ASS. Those shoes are g'damn ugly. And your feet look stupid, and they are unflattering. You are simply falling in lock-step with a trend that says to wear something assinine. The manufacturers of these ugly rubber shoes are laughing at you too. They made a bet that no matter how fucking garish and silly something is, you will wear it. And they are winning that bet. And on top of looking ridiculous, you are paying $30 to do so. And i dont know what looks stupider: people wearing them with socks, or without. I really cant tell. It must be a ceiling effect.

More power to you if you want to wear them for gardening. That's cool man. You still look like a douche but most people that work in the garden dont give a rat's ass if they look like douches because they are up to their armpits in dirt. Also Mac-Attack puts these things on Mini-Money, but he's a toddler. Now toddlers make it a point to go about their day looking ridiculous, so its ok. And toddlers get into a lot of dirt. So maybe, just maybe its all right for a toddler to wear them. And doctors and nurses wear them, and this is okay too. Considering the fact that when i was in labor, i threw up all over my nurse. Including her "crocs." I bet she was happy that she could remedy the situation with a quick wash of her rubber shoes. That way, she could hurry back to scowl at me and take away my ice chips. So its cool for medical professionals to wear them. But they still look like dorks, but i dont think anyone other than a first year med student thinks that scrubs are fashionable either.

So look in the mirror before you leave the house. Please. Do it for yourself. Your feet deserve better than this. Grab those hooker heels out of the back of the closet. Give those strappy sandals a whirl. Dont neglect your old Adidas. But please. Leave your gardening shoes at home. Or you run the risk of me throwing up on them. Again.

Superbug strikes again!

2007-02-23T12:19:00.001-06:00

Many great things come with strings attached, so it was no surprise when the unpleasant side of daycare reared its ugly head at me. Behind the bright toys and happy, albeit snot-nosed children, there is a massive melting pot of germs, all just waiting for the right moment to infect. So last Thursday, Baby Head so kindly brought me home a stomach flu of biblical proportions. Now let me tell you--this stomach bug was EPIC. I dont recall being that sick since i was a wee lass. Early that morning i didnt feel quite "right," but i got dressed, dropped the little Dude off at the germ farm and was heading towards work. All of a sudden, i just decided it might be best for me to head for home and lay down. Lay down i did, and within a half hour i was vomiting my guts out. And vomit i did, every two hours for the next TWELVE hours. It was like clockwork. And i had to barf in a bucket because it came so fast and hard that there was no way i'd make it to the bathroom in time. I threw up so hard it came out my nose. And it kept coming. And coming. Four hours into the barf-fest and there was nothing left to throw up, but it KEPT COMING. So i decided that if i was going to throw up, i might as well try drinking something since my mouth felt like it was turning inside out from dryness. Now let me give you the following recommendations on which beverages are best to drink under said circumstances and which are best to avoid:
Soy milk: HORRIFIC
Diet coke: AWFUL, and the carbonation made the puke come out my nose even worse
Iced tea: Not great, but not bad either
Orange Gatorade: Fairly pleasant
My son's Pedialyte: Pretty nice but the stuff was horrible to gag down in the first place
Water: boring
Hot tea: This actually stayed in, but i started drinking it at the 12th hour after my body could puke no more

And the icing on the cake? As soon as i had the puking under control, the business end of my alimentary canal decided to start explosively evicting its contents. And this didnt let up until 3 days later...

When i was finally able to pull myself away from the toilet that day, i had time to reflect on what the hell just happened to me. And i was kind of in awe of how fucking incredibly sick i was. "Well played, superbug. Good show, good show." Seriously. That bug took his work very seriously, and you sort of have to admire that. And my abs got quite a work out from all that puking. And my mother always did say that diarrhea was a girl's best friend....

Life is a beach

2007-02-12T10:13:00.000-06:00

Baby Head started day-care last week. As i suspected he would, the little bastard loved it. Different people and a different environment with different toys and other little kids and Baby Head was in heaven. And his caretakers soon realized what i had been saying--that the boy is crazy and must be engaged in a different activity every 10 minutes or he gets bored and pissed off. Which, as the boy's teacher told me, means he is not likely to EVER be ignored in a daycare situation because he voices his opinions often and loudly. And as long as his needs are met, he's agreeable, giggly, and happy. And lucky for day-care, they have a bigger bag of tricks than i have at home.

Once again, i tried to dig deep into my soul and find that guilt i'm supposed to be carrying for putting my kid in daycare. And its just not there. And i'm sort of starting to feel guilty for NOT feeling guilty about it. After all, the nazi moms say i should feel guilty. And all the parenting websites give advice on how to work through this daycare guilt i'm supposed to have. But i'm just having a hell of a lot of trouble feeling bad about this situation. "Dumping my kid in daycare" didnt seem to affect his relationship with me in any deleterious sense. The first weekend we spent together after starting school, and the boy did not forget his momma. He cuddled and giggled and played and was the sweetest little boy ever. He clearly knew who his momma was, and that he preferred to be with her. He stared into my eyes, and i stared back. He took nice naps, but "requested" that i kiss him to sleep.

One week, and i already feel like i know his daycare teacher quite well. We spend a lot of time talking. She tells me what he does all day. I know what his favorite toys are there, and who he has played with and how many diapers he crapped in and what books he heard at story time. Why? Because i ask. I want to know what the baby dude has done all day. I ask about the other children. I want to know his friends. Other parents blow in and out. I thought i would be the same by the end of the week, but actually, as my routine became more fluid, it allowed me more time to loiter at daycare. I take off my coat and sit on the floor and watch the little dude and his teacher play. And she loves to chat. After all, she spends the whole day taking care of my kid and watching him learn and grow and accomplish things. And she wants to share her hard work with me, and i want to hear about it all. To care lovingly for another person's child, with whom you have no close relation is a heroic act. Whatever she gets paid, its not enough.

I feel like we are all moving forward. Baby Head, big Head and i. We all accomplish so much each day, and start the mornings off and end our days together. And we still accomplish so much during the mornings and evenings as well. Sure, the little dude caught the sniffles from daycare and i had to change my shirt after someone threw up all over it this morning just as we were heading out the door and someone else forgot to take the trash out so the house smells like baby shit and the dog chewed the rug. Its far from utopia, but sometimes it feels like it is as close as we ever would want to get to it. Sometimes it rains when you're at the beach, but it doesn't make you love the beach any less. Because, after all, its still the glorious mutherfuckin' beach and you know you'll feel the warm sun on your shoulders again soon.

Ode to the Ash-hole

2007-02-05T19:37:00.000-06:00

Master of applied mathematics

You bring childlike wonder to the interpretation of my data

Experiments cursed by uncooperative mole-rats

You bring splendor to many rows of numbers

They pay homage to your syntax,

And bow before eta squared

I may graduate after all.

"Its a Winter Fucker-Land!"

2007-02-02T09:12:00.000-06:00

It snowed today in the dirty south. Snow in the south is cute and cheeky, not cruel and painful as it is in the north. Although southerners are quite ill-prepared to deal with it. Tons of wrecks and cars spun out in the middle of people's yards and people trying to use newspapers to scrape snow from their windshields. I remember the first time i pulled my snowbrush out here to dust off my car and a small crowd assembled to observe that "crazy new-fangled device" i was using. And its not like we're in south Florida here either. Its Tennessee. Snow happens. But for some reason southerners are in denial over this. In fact the other day it was 20 friggin' degrees out and this idiot undergraduate girl at my Over-Privileged University was wearing flip-flops on her bare feet. Flip flops. 20 degrees. Seriously. I hoped her french manicured snaggle-toes would grow necrotic and fall off.

I did see some amusing things this morning--like people who clearly were not familiar with snow very gingerly tip-toeing through it (we're talking it has barely covered our sidewalks here people, and its the really wet kind that melts as soon as you step on it). It was adorable! Its as if they were afraid it was going to hurt them if they woke it up. Even with a vestibular system primed for northern weather, i've bit it enough times on the ice to know how to walk on it but i can tell you this light dusting here is not a real threat to balance.

Snow lets me be the asshole here though. I can tell my "You call this snow? Well i grew up in Cleveland Ohio..." stories. Southerners dont know about dry snow. They cant believe some snow is so cold you cant pack it into snowballs, or that it can blow into drifts up to 7 feet tall. They dont know that it takes a LOT of snow to close schools in Cleveland Ohio. "You mean you walked to the bus-stop when there was snow on the ground?" they ask. Yes, dearies. If we hid indoors everytime it snowed like you guys do, we'd never have gotten an education. And we had these crazy new-fangled inventions called "boots" up there.

The Head made an observation today on the drive to work that snow down here is "hillbilly insurance. " That is, hillbillies do not go out in it. They fear it. Or perhaps they are too busy trying to figure out how to smoke it. So snow is a great thing here in the south.

Everyday, i drive past a hardware store that sells sleds. Big sleds too, with the runners that any of my fellow northerners know require a LOT of snow to work properly. I always thought that would be such a cruel gift to a southern child. Hey Bobby-Joe, here's a sled for Xmas. You can use it maybe once a year if you're lucky.

Although now that i think about it, what the hell do southern kids do all winter? Make mud-balls? Shit, snow was the cheapest toy and babysitter money could buy and it was our sole source of amusement from October through April. No wonder kids are so fat around here. They must sit inside and play video games all winter. Or smoke meth. I'm going to have to buy a snow machine for Baby Head when he gets older so he doesnt turn out to be an obese World of Warcraft freak living in my basement until he's 40.

Logging in to your after-life

2007-01-30T09:43:00.000-06:00

Why cant the dead at least be allowed to email? We've created this strange new consciousness, this virtual world of the internet and you would think that a person's wandering spirit could figure out how to send a couple of emails or at least, forward something interesting. Hell, its amazing the people at Microsoft havent figured out how to trap virtual souls because they could make a hell of a lot of money off of it. You really dont need a physical body to send an email. Or write a blog. And perhaps this would free up some room in hell or purgatory if souls could be sentenced to reading chain emails, filtering spam, or downloading donkey-porn. I guess this thread stems from the fact i miss the Evil Dr.'s emails. Of all people, i think ED would have been perfectly fine with only existing in a virtual, non physical realm. He could have created an avatar that smokes cigarettes and drinks beer, and still be charming us with all his inane emails and forwards.

Arrogance is bliss

2007-01-22T10:43:00.000-06:00

Well, we had Baby Head's christening this weekend. All original sin has been washed away, and he's now ready to start dirtying his soul with sin of his own volition. Nothing creates tension like having a bowl full of crazy out-of-towners under your roof while you're dreading what screaming, puking pranks your devilish infant son plans to pull in a quiet and calm Catholic church. But really, it all went well. The out-of-towners' were reasonably well-behaved and the baby only screamed through half of the mass instead of the entire thing. Apparently the boy was chock full of evil since the holy water they poured on his head burned, burned, burned as indicated by his loud protest.

Along with endearing Ohio classics such as Z-man, Big Ron, Little Chrissy, and the Evil Twin, the usual suspects also turned up for the christening after-party: Step Blog (nee Madam Nonesuch) and Loverman, Mac-Attack and J-Money, Lady and Lord Canadian, Broomie and Ms. Everheart to name drop a few. Even a gaggle of pro-religion newcomers attended. Now leave it to the Heads to turn a cherished and solemn family tradition into an epic drunk-fest, but hell, we like to party and $400 worth of booze and barbecued pork sandwiches pretty much guaranteed that rowdiness would ensue at some point. And i'm pretty proud of Baby Head because for an infant, he can really hang. He is pleased by large crowds of drunken people and was all about being passed around until his shelf-life expired from fatigue (its exhausting to have your soul cleansed of evil).

But anyway, all this talk of pork and alcohol reminds me of the point i'm ever-so-slowly trying to make here and its about people getting offended by drunken remarks. Not that any of this happened at the party, but a heavily endrunkened Broomie arguing with me about the sexual conquests of adult males (totally reminescent of endrunkened arguments i've had with the Ash-Hole circa 2003) brought to my mind how outsiders might come to view my friends and i as a bunch of total assholes. And they would be right, but for the wrong reasons. I've talked to some people in the past who are not career-drinkers as most (if not all) of my friends are and i've heard remarks such as "when people drink, they reveal their true character" or some stupid shit like "there is truth in alcohol." Well, maybe our inhibitions are a bit lowered after a drink or two but i can assure you that there is NOT much truth revealed after a six-pack, several bottles of wine, or a fifth of George Dickel. Because the drunker people get, the more g'damn RIDICULOUS they get, present company included. Nothing anyone has ever slurred and slobbered to me when they are 10 sheets to the wind has ever been taken personal, ever been construed as offensive or has caused me to lose sleep over. I've received midnight phone-calls from an intensely drunk SEDA where she's threatened to beat me to a bloody pulp and i've never taken it personally. Hell, Lady Canadian and i tried to drunkenly beat each other to bloody pulps and we didnt take it personally. I believe i've been called an "ignorant asshole" by the closest of friends when its been one too many whiskeys past 3am. And God rest his soul that evil bastard the Evil Doctor gave me many a drunken slap to the head while firmly slurring how clearly "devoid of humor" i was. And my gender, family history and socioeconomic status have been insulted by many of my best pals after 7 or 8 martinis. Do i care? Fuck no. It makes me love those loveable assholes more. Yet i've met some people who have become mortally wounded by one slightly insensitive comment that some person made to them while being incredibly shit-faced. Maybe i'm just an arrogant asshole, but i'm not offended because i know that incredibly drunk people dont really mean what they say. I know my friends like me, or at the very least, tolerate me. At a certain level of intoxication, we tend to babble incoherently, make lots of promises our sober selves have no intention of keeping including those made to the toilet if it just "helps us puke" so we'll feel better. Our judgement is piss-poor (a giant burrito at 5am washed down with "just one more Stolis and soda"), and we're quite insensitive and terribly ill-mannered ("you callin' me a liar? well i'm callin' you a dirty cunt whore.") So i dont understand why people get offended by drunks because rarely, rarely do they mean (or even remember) what they say and i hope you'll consider this next time i drunkenly spill wine on your couch and call you a fat-ass as i puke in your toilet.

Dude! What the F?

2007-01-11T09:49:00.000-06:00

This may be the greatest co-worker story ever told. About a month ago, a new guy (lets call him Gus) was hired in my lab. Even though I was on leave, my other co-workers dutifully reported all gossip to me and the general consensus was that Gus was a top-notch albeit slightly nerdly guy (as most of us scientists are). I had the same impression of him after briefly meeting him as well. So it became quite odd when Gus didnt show up to work last week, with no form of communication from him. The end of the week came. Still no Gus. The beginning of this week started. No Gus. Several phone calls and emails from both the lab manager and Boss Man and still no response. The guy had gone completely AWOL. Conspiracy theories started floating around lab. The first was that he was a deserter. It happens. Science is a harsh mistress, and some scientists lack the social skills it takes to quit a job in a dignified manner. But the clues didnt seem to add up since he left many personal items here. Usually deserters pack up before they disappear. And they usually take the microwave, the $30,000 camera, and our wallets with them. This was not the case. The next theory is that he was lying dead in a gutter somewhere. I championed this theory and it came to be the one we actually started working with. So Boss Man decided to call Gus' emergency contact family member, a sister I will call Kitty who was living out of state in a place I will call Bangladesh. Kitty tried to get a hold of Gus, to no avail, and started freaking out HARD. This was not like Gus, she said. Not like him at all. He loved this job and wouldnt desert. He usually called her every week, and she had not heard from him. He must clearly be lying dead in a gutter somewhere. She pleaded with Boss Man, asking that he drive by Gus' house to see if anything looked amiss, since she herself lived in Bangladesh and could not, and Gus lived alone and was new to the Dirty South and didnt know anyone here besides his coworkers yet. Upon hearing all of this from Kitty, Boss Man grew quite worried, assembled a small posse, and drove off to the bowels of the nasty-ass 'hood where Gus resided to check this shit out. Oh yeah, and all of this transpired at around midnight.

When Boss Man and the posse arrived at the ghetto residence of Gus, they were immediately alarmed because Gus' mailbox was CRAMMED full of mail that clearly had not been retrieved for over a week. Not a good sign. More support for the "dead in a gutter" theory. Creeping around the house with flashlights (also, not a good thing to do at midnight in the 'hood) and banging on the doors, Boss Man thought he might have seen something in the house. A few more phone exchanges with Kitty, and they decided to call the cops. Kitty phoned in a missing person report and a while later, the fuzz met Boss Man at Gus' residence. The po-po did the same thing: peered in windows and then banged the shit out of the door yelling, "Gus, GUS, its the po-po. Are you in there?" all the while getting ready to bust down the g'damn door. But lo and behold, who should answer the mutherfuckin' door? GUS!!!!!!!!!! Holy f'in balls. Gus claimed he was deathly ill and was too busy barfing to answer the door, check his email, or listen to his phone messages for over a week. He thanked Boss Man, Kitty, and the fuzz for caring so much to see how he was doing. What...the...fuck???? Now the only people i know that have been THAT sick for a week that they couldnt answer phones/emails/doors are those people that were in COMAS. If he was that sick, shouldnt he have been hospitalized? On an IV with fluids? If you can make it to the can, you can surely call your boss back when you get a panicky voice mail that says "we're worried and we're going to be calling your emergency contact and the cops if we dont hear from you." I mean seriously. This is all pretty fucked up.

So the end of the story is that Boss Man CLEARLY must fire Gus now, because without calling or contacting him in any way, Gus deserted his position. Interestingly enough, even after the midnight debacle with the cops, GUS did NOT come to work the next day or even call!!! Now maybe i'm just more sensible, but if Boss Man showed up at my door with the cops at midnight, i might be on the phone with him the next day trying to sort things out. And there is still no sign of Gus today either. No one believes that he was sick with a stomach flu that severely and for that long, because seriously, he would have needed to be admitted to the hospital for dehydration. The two leading theories we currently have are that a) he was holed up in his house due to a paranoid psychotic episode or b) that he was on a meth bender (my personal theory). Maybe no one will see or hear from him again. Who knows. All i know is that this story will go down in lab history and that all of us will be really, REALLY good about calling our boss when we are out sick.

Post script: 5 months later. Our lab has never seen or heard from Gus again. And no follow-up from Kitty either.

Part-time mothering, full-time daughtering, and fitting work somewhere in between

2007-01-08T11:55:00.000-06:00

So i went back to work after a 3-month stint of maternity leave and... i... LOVE IT! Seriously, i worried for MONTHS about how i was going to feel about going back to work and leaving the baby. But at the same time, i was starting to go fucking BATTY when i was home alone all day with Baby Head. Now i love my itsy-bitsy baby to pieces, but shit, i'm a scientist, academic and a Gemini and i'm not happy unless i'm doing 10 thousand things at once while checking my email and gabbing with a co-worker. And actually, Baby Head is the same way. I have NEVER seen a baby get so bored so quickly unless his activity is changed every 10 minutes. And he gets cabin fever like you wouldnt believe. I chalk it up to him being the extremely brilliant genetic product of two neuroscientists and MY son, since i cant ever sit fucking still for too long. And because i'm out of the house all day, and Baby Head is with someone different than me all day (and soon will be at daycare which will quell his need to be engaged with multiple people and activities all the time), our together-time in the evening and weekends is well, AWESOME. My work-day flies by and i'm so excited to get home, and the boy and i play so well together in the evenings and i never find myself sick or bored or frustrated with him now, even when he screams his purple devil-horned head off. And he is happy to see the Head and i and squeals like a monkey when we come home. And momma still knows best, even after a long day at work. No one knows what Baby Head wants like his momma. I can read that adorable little bastard like a book. And only one week of new and exciting activities and the kid is already laughing, turning over, sitting up, reaching for us, and supporting his weight on his feet. Fucking A. Part-time mothering really works. Its cliche, but in all honesty its the QUALITY, not the quantity of care that makes a difference in our relationships. And because I dont want to waste a single minute i'm away from my son, i bust my ass at work and accomplish a shitload and the day just flies by.

While momma's at work solving the mysteries of the brain, Grandma is providing nanny service to Baby Head until he starts daycare later this month. Now this is interesting because my mom and i have lived 500 miles apart for the last 6 years now, and even when we did live together, it wasnt always amicable. But its been interesting. I find that i enjoy having my mom stay with us because, well, she loves her grandson to pieces and she still acts like a mom to the Head and i, taking care of us and just being pleasant to be around. So its weird being a full-time daughter again. And hell, she's one of these blessed women (like my friend Mac-Attack) that have no problem being a full-time mother, so she's having a blast staying home with Baby Head all day. And luckily for him, about the time the novelty of "Grandma" will wear off, he'll be starting daycare. Although its definitely an adjustment to have my mom around. I still get unsolicited "fashion advice," critiques on my diet, and we have to hide the weed. And her crazy folk wisdom and republican politics still drive me mad. But all in all, i couldnt ask for a more loving and responsive nanny. Or mother.

So where's my guilt about ditching my son to spend all day indulging my inquisitive nature of studying the brain (and earning the money to keep diapers on the boy's ass)??? Its non-existent. Because i'd rather be an AWESOME part-time mom than a crappy full-time one.

And now for more of the same

2007-01-01T12:56:00.000-06:00

With the Evil Doctor out of commission, I have found that no one reads my blog regularly. Or at least gives me my fair share of insulting comments. This blog began as an open letter to the old Chicago Crew after moving to Nashville, and now i find that these lovable jerks must actually have lives now, or perhaps do work, or be engaged in something deeply important that keeps them from hanging on my every profound word. Feeling that my brilliance has gone unappreciated for too long, I am now going LIVE with my blog. That's right, i'm telling people i have a blog. The good, the bad, the ugly--my cyber soul is now exposed to the masses. I hope i remembered to delete all the insulting things i've said about people...Wait. That wouldnt be fair to the old Chicago Crew since i've used this blog to openly insult them every chance i got...

Right now i'm nursing my second post-partum hangover and contemplating why the liquors had the nerve to hang me over after i've invited them to share a major part of my life. Thank GOD the nanny is in town because a screaming Baby Head and the dry heaves dont make for a pleasant afternoon.

Now i dont make New Year's resolutions, but a resolution that i made before Xmas is that i'm going to stop feeling "mommy guilt." For those of you unfamiliar with the term, there is this epiphenomenon that as soon as one becomes a parent, they suddenly feel guilty for every wrong or right thing that they do, and i believe that this is perpetuated by the "Nazi moms" of society. "Nazi moms" are bored, useless women that spend their days judging all the other parents out there. They tell you that you are a horrible parent if you put your child in daycare, suffer from post-partum depression, dont breastfeed, or dont spend $400 on a Britax carseat. Nazi moms do this because they are quite insecure and ineffective parents themselves, so they must boost their self-esteem by criticizing others. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them out there and they write a lot of books and spew masses of propaganda so naive, unsuspecting, hormonally-captive new mothers like myself can get taken in by their bullshit. However, now that the hired goons of my brain have been tamed again, i've realized that inherently, i dont feel guilty about any of my decisions. I'm an AWESOME mom. The only reason i've even considered feeling guilty about something is because i read somewhere that i should. Fuck that. There's plenty of things to feel legitimate guilt about, like accidentally bashing Baby Head's noodle against the sink or practically amputating a finger when trimming his nails or leaving him in the Great Neglecto-matic while i write this blog. But putting him in daycare? Not gonna feel guilty about that. So for all you judgemental Nazi bitch moms out there, i say this. Suck it.

Farewell to Evil

2007-01-01T12:50:00.001-06:00

A rare shot of J.D. in a t-shirt. Farewell, Evil Doctor. In the back of some dimly lit pub in heaven, the Evil Doctor is throwing darts and insults, smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey and becoming exasperated by idiots.

Solidarity

2006-11-26T15:07:00.000-06:00

The Evil Doctor died last night. Its stills seems very unreal and i think it will be hard to fully acknowledge the reality of it for a long time. I am not qualified to eulogize him so this is not an attempt to do so, but i am merely trying to sort through how it feels to lose a friend. E.D. was considered a close friend of the family. No, he and i werent bosom buddies that shared our "hopes and dreams" with each other, but we were friends, we respected each other, and we did share a very close personal friend with whom we did share hopes and dreams: the Head. And the Head did have a very special relationship with E.D., as did many of you.

This is the first time the Head and i have lost a friend. Sure, our familes have overfilled their quotas for untimely deaths, but all of our friends have managed to keep themselves alive up until now. Friends are supposed to be invulnerable to death. Friends are the ones that comfort you when your family members die. Friends are just always there: they send frequent emails on mundane ridiculous bullshit, they dont expect Xmas presents, they'll hit a guy in the head with a broken beer bottle if you get into a bar-fight, and they pick up right where you left off even if they havent seen you in three years. Friends arent supposed to die. Except when we're all wretchedly old, sitting around the nursing home together taking bets on who kicks off first.

Which brings me to another thing i've been thinking about. The Evil Doctor was not a terribly young man. He was in his 50s. Now this doesnt make his death any less untimely because 50s are not terribly old either, but it does make me think that age may be a fairly important factor in friendships. You see, we have a lot of friends that are 20+ years older than us. Hell, we've even got friends in their 70s. By virture of such an age difference, odds are we're going to see a lot of our friends leave this world before we all have a chance to sit around together at the nursing home bitching about what assholes young people are. Granted, bad shit happens to really young people too but the fact of life is that the older you get, the closer you come to your mortality. Its funny--when i was younger it seemed unheard of to be friends with people that were even FIVE years older than you. Five years is a big difference when you're 16, perhaps even 21, but by the time you reach your late 20s a 20-40 year spread in age makes no difference at all. Especially when regardless of age we're all just a bunch of arrogant, pontificating, drunken, intellectual assholes. And that's how we stood together, for better or worse. Although now our little group is minus 1.

We'll all grieve the Evil Doctor in different ways, but the similar thread we share is that we've lost a friend. I look back on these blogs and see the comments E.D. has left for me and i feel that these words, often insulting with a pinch of wryness and a dash of wit are now entombed in these pages. He'll never be able to comment again, but yet i still possess his words and somehow there is comfort in that. I wish that all of you are able to find sources of comfort in your grief, and ultimately, peace. The truth of the matter is that THIS SUCKS. Losing a friend, really, really SUCKS.

To end this on a lighter note, i will tell you that the Evil Doctor and i did have a special relationship when it came to an embarrassing (for him) little indulgence that we shared. Ordinarily he'd kill me for telling you this, but under the current circumstances he's in no position to protest (although that if that Evil bastard could spite anyone from the grave, he's the type to do it). Last year, E.D. and i were devout, closeted Desperate Housewives fans. I shit you not. Every week, we'd email each other like mad, "dishing" about the episode we just saw. Every Monday i'd come to expect an email in my inbox from him gushing on about some detail, such as "how terrible it was that happened to Bree" and "how could she have worn that!" Hell, we even hated the same characters. We were pretty lame and we knew it--E.D. was such a g'damn schoolgirl when it came to our "DH" recaps but i loved every minute of it. It was such a unique contradiction to his stoic, evil demeanor. Sadly, the series started to tank so we both stopped watching it, thus ending our weekly schoolgirl prattle. But afterwards i still came to expect some infrequent assinine or wildly entertaining emails from him.

This sad little blog can't do enough justice to how i feel about E.D.'s death, nor can i claim to understand how much his loss impacts the rest of you. However, i'm sure we'd all agree that the Evil Doctor will be greatly, greatly missed.

I'm a Mother, fucker!

2006-11-02T11:52:00.000-06:00

Whew. Could somebody please stop this ride? I'm getting a bit nauseaus and i'd like to get off. What did you say? You can't stop the ride? And i can't get off? Ever? Not even after my son is grown, married, and has kids of his own? You're saying that i'll be on this dizzying ride for the rest of my life and that i better get used to it? Well, if that's what i've got to do, at least someone hand me a pail to catch the vomit...

Being a parent is a lot harder than it looks. And there is nothing, NOTHING in the world that prepares you for being a parent. You can know its time, you can feel you are ready, and you can believe you're up for it. But you're never "prepared." Its like never knowing or seeing what water is, and then having someone toss you into the deep end of the pool. On a 30 degree day. The only way to know how to parent is to be thrown into the deep end and start treading water even though you're not sure how. But fucking A, its amazing when you realize that you seem to instinctively move your arms and legs and manage to stay afloat, at least most of the time. But you have no fucking idea how you are doing it and you're terrified to think too hard about it, lest you stop moving and sink.

The most important lesson i learned when Baby Head came into this world a month ago was that all expectations about anything and everything must be checked at the door. Labors and deliveries are longer and harder than expected, breastfeeding doesnt quite work out like expected, getting your child to sleep in your carefully decorated nursery and shiny black crib doesnt always work out like expected, you dont fall immediately head-over-heels-in-love with your baby like expected. Therefore the first lesson of parenting is GET RID OF ALL EXPECTATIONS. I've never lived more in the present, in the moment than i do now as a parent. And i've also learned to embrace a "good enough" lifestyle. If it works, do it. If it moves you in the slightest way toward the right direction, do it. Even if its half-assed. And it usually works extremely well especially if its half-assed. The worst thing that ever happened to parenting are TV shows and commercials and stories depicting mother and baby as this overly idealistic fuzzy pink and blue lace fog with smiling babies and well-dressed and rested mothers who stare into their shiny cribs in a motherly bliss watching baby sleep and sleep their babies do for 12 hours at a time and everybody does everything by the book. The problem with all this is that its not real, but when we dont achieve it in our lives (because its NOT real), we feel like failures. Until we realize that its all bullshit. Nothing goes by the book, except maybe the problems! Am i madly in love with my son? No, not yet. Relationships take time, and i'm mourning the loss of my free-time, independence and Self that i traded for a one-sided relationship with a warm, screaming bundle of constant needs. Do i learn to love him more every day? Yes. Have i attended to his every single need since Day 1? You bet. Once again, there is the beautiful instinct inside a parent that no matter how sleep-deprived, indifferent or resentful they feel about parenting, they are on autopilot: feeding, changing, cuddling, protecting, smiling at, getting pissed on and ensuring that everything within their capability is done to provide comfort to their child. Maybe this IS what it means to be madly in love with your baby--its just a different type of mad love that doesnt manifest itself at the cognitive level yet.

And remember how hormones are the hired goons of the brain, bitch-smacking a person's biological clock into WANTING a baby only to continue sucker-punching your grey matter for the entire 9 months of pregnancy? Well they are nothing compared to AFTER giving birth. My hormones turned into full blown terrorists that have not only raped and pillaged my brain now, but they've dropped nuclear warheads on my old noodle. There's nary a coherent cell left. Just ask the Head--the first week after delivering Baby Head i'd go from crying my eyes out about how "happy i was" to quickly crying my eyes out about how "i'm a failure as a mother." Or crying my eyes out about something completely unrelated, perhaps involving the cats. It was actually pretty funny to watch, even from MY perspective. A month later and i'm much better with the crying jags thank you, but those chemical terrorists still fuck with me whenever they get the chance and are still leaving their mark on my poor pregnancy-ravaged body.

So the world marches on for everybody else, but for the parent it begins and ends with their children. That's not to say that some of their own life, hobbies, occupations, interests, etc arent thrown into the mix, but it really does become offspring-focused. And while its hard to reap the rewards of parenting at this early age where Baby Head takes, takes, takes and doesnt really give back except in the form of bodily fluid expulsions, there are some benefits. Its hard to explain, but when you lose people you love during your life, certain "lights" go off in your psyche, soul, whatever. But when Baby Head was born, it was like a light came back on in me for the first time. And its weird because its subtle, not euphoric or obvious, but just this strange warm glow that sort of makes you find just a little bit more peace about those tragedies you've experienced in the past. Death is such a profound event that i think we often forget how much more powerful Life actually is until we experience its emergence.

As much as i denied before and during pregnancy that i would ever lose "myself" after i had children, the reality is that the old me is gone. And there was no point to even fight it. But that's okay--there's a new version now: Lady Head 2.0 with all new advanced features like zombie mode where i can perform all the functions of the average human on 3 hours of sleep, super-sterilie saliva where my mouth is the most effective cleaning agent for my son's pacifiers, a defensive-rage function where anyone who looks remotely cross-eyed at my boy or cuts me off while i'm driving with Baby Head in the car (in an obvious and personal attempt to kill him, certainly) will face certain death and dismemberment by me (the Head has an even more advanced version of this feature). This version also has a disgust firewall where i am not repulsed in the least when my boy pisses in my hair, vomits on my chest, or gets shit all over his ankles, and high speed capabilities of performing most tasks with one hand (since the boy is usually precariously balanced in the other arm). So version 2.o has all these new and wonderful features, and in the coming months, i hope to explore which features have still been left intact from version 1.0...

The Big Niner

2006-09-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

Holy balls. I'm nine months pregnant. This is it. All the preparation, bitching, moaning and complaining...All have been nothing compared to how hellish the 9th month is! Seriously. You would think the body was not designed to reproduce given how hard pregnancy is on a person. But like countless other women, i'll go on to give birth and months later i'll forget about what a pain in the ass pregnancy was and look back on it "fondly." Remember that hormones are the hired goons of the brain, and they have a funny way of making you forget how shitty you once felt after everything has gone back to normal. In fact, my hormones are already making me romanticize my pregnancy experiences so i'll share the gems of knowledge that i've gained from the past nine months:

1. Pregnant women who are single or who have shitty mates are FUCKING SAINTS. Seriously, there is no way in the world i could have handled pregnancy without my baby daddy helping me out the whole way through. The Head is just as responsible for getting me through these nine months as my reproductive tract and all those lovely hormones. Pregnancy is a two-person job and I deeply respect any woman that makes it through on her own.

2. By that same virtue, a good baby daddy is a FUCKING HERO. Maybe he escapes the burden of carrying said fetus, but he gets a lion's share of SHIT dumped on him. He endures psychotic outbursts and childbirth classes. He gets a first-hand account of the consistency and frequency of vaginal secretions. He does a shitty job cleaning the house, but he does it willingly and cheerfully and just good enough to keep the cockroaches and dog-fur dust bunnies at bay while his baby momma lays writhing on the couch with morning sickness. He provides door-to-door drop off service for his 9-month pregnant wife who can no longer waddle from the parking lot to her place of employment, even if that results in him being late to work. He helps his grossly pregnant mate get her pants on every morning, he tells her those stretch marks are "nothing to worry about because they will fade," and he tells her how pretty she is despite her awareness of multiple chins, swollen ankles, and the general sweaty pregnancy stench about her. I've heard women talk about how they "made their husbands quit drinking alcohol during pregnancy because they feel left out and its not fair, etc, etc." Those are some cruel bitches. Good baby daddy's should be allowed to drink as much as they want--they deserve it for their hard work. Throughout my pregnancy, i commanded that the Head drink daily and in large volumes.

3. People that write pregnancy off as a "natural body function" are sorely misguided. Sure, its natural, but that does not equate it with easy or safe or comfortable or imply that you can sit idly by and let it progress with no intervention. In fact, constant intervention is needed to keep mom and fetus healthy and good fucking luck delivering that baby into the world without a doctor or midwife on hand. Yeah, i guess DYING is a natural body function too but no one is gonna write that off as being easy or comfortable or ask why you are complaining so much about it.

4. As pregnant women, the world does seem to revolve around us. So its important to make the non-pregnant women in your life feel involved too. Girlfriends that love you love your pregnancy. Maybe the pregnant woman is sick of explaining what fake contractions feel like, the virtues of perineal massage, or defending her stance on breastfeeding, but your friends do want to know the details. They want to rub your belly. They want to take pictures of you despite how disgusting and how many chins you have. They want to tell you how adorably fat you look. Indulge them. I'm not saying to let acquaintances or just any old jerk on the street have these priviledges (in fact, those people should be slapped if necessary), but the girlfriends you love deserve special treatment. After all, they are cheering as hard as they can from the sidelines while you're a superstar just for walking your fat ass onto that pregnancy field.

5. And the most important lesson i've learned is that: I'm no longer in control. At first, this is frightening. Then it becomes emancipating. Because you just dont give a fuck about minor shit anymore. Sometimes you just gotta let shit happen. And then you have to not care about it. Priorities must be set: my husband, my baby, myself, my extended family and friends, my pets, and well, fuck. Nothing else is really THAT important. Sure jobs and money and looking good are important, but not THAT important. Corners can be cut . Details can be ignored. Cars can smell like wet dog, plans can get cancelled, you can pee your pants when you sneeze, you can trip and fall in front of a bunch of people at Target and the cat can barf in your shoe and it all really doesnt matter too much. But if my husband needs help at work, or the baby in my uterus starts hiccupping or my best friends send pictures of their new house--these are all things worth stopping your day for and paying attention to. And actually the cat is worth paying attention to as well, but just not its barf in my shoe.

The mysteries of the sphynx

2006-08-01T11:45:00.000-05:00

The person i admire most in this world...is my cat. Yeah, it sounds like one of those lame slogans you'd find on a 40-year old bachelorette with a buzz-cut's coffee mug, but honestly, i've been thinking a lot about it lately and i really admire that little son-of-a-bitch that lives with us (i'm speaking of the cat, not the Head, although i admire him too but for different reasons). You see, we have 4 cats but only one that is male and is a completely hairless cat. Here are the reasons i admire him:

1. He runs on pure emotion. I swear his brain is just one, giant limbic system. Unlike other cats that are aloof and independent, the skin-cat wears his feelings on his sleeve. There are no ulterior motives, no passive aggressive attempts to undermine the other cats or destroy things in the house. He puts it all out there. You can see every intention on his face. He loves his humans and his dog with every ounce of his being. He shows constant and incessant affection to the point of which he is a huge, purring pest. In fact, he's so loveable that everyone who meets him thinks he's this delightful little angel because he's never, never shown any mean-ness towards humans. But when the other cats vie for our attention, the angel turns into a raging devil. You can see the spite and jealousy working--he makes no attempt to hide it. Immediately he seeks fierce revenge on whichever cat that has commanded our attention. He will petulantly attack until he feels enough punishment has been dealt. He will do things that will make you exclaim "Wow, what a total dick. That was completely unnecessary." But that is what he does.

2. He has no fear. This is one of the traits i admire him most for. He's really not afraid of anything. Most cats are afraid of something. Not the skin-cat. He'll stare right at a running vacuum cleaner, just challenging it to come near him. He will bite the nose of a dog that is 10 times his size. Loud noises only make him more curious. Strange cats are not feared but only incite more rage from him. He's not afraid to make a jump and take a spill; he purrs when i trim his nails; he only voices minor complaints when he receives a bath; and he works the vet's office like its a Hollywood party. There's something seriously wrong with this animal.

3. He turns lemons into lemonade. When a cat is put into a position it doesnt want to be in, it usually struggles. Not the skin-cat. He immediately looks into the situation to determine what he can possibly get out of it. Picking him up against his will? Not a problem. He simply uses the advantage of being at human chest level to swing at ceiling fan cords or play with your hair. Lock him in a room to contain him? That's okay. He'll investigate every square inch of that room and find something to destroy and/or amuse himself with. Tell him not to do something? He'll systematically try all the parameters of your rule until he finds out exactly how far he can bend it without getting punished (for example, he's not allowed to sit on the dining room table, but he's learned he can sit on the chair with only his forepaws on the table without suffering consequences). One of the brightest moves i've ever seen him make is when we brought home a new puppy. All the other cats were pissed off, and we were worried that such a jealous creature as the skin-cat would really be mad at something that monopolized our attention. But he wasnt. He realized if he inserted himself into the situation by playing with the new puppy and hanging out with it, that it only garnered MORE attention from us ("what a good kitty--he's playing with the new puppy!"). A brilliant, BRILLIANT move. We could all learn a lesson from that.

4. He doesnt seem to realize he's a cat. In fact, he believes cats are an inferior species. He clearly prefers the company of his humans, doing everything we do, being everywhere we are; even tucking himself into the covers of our bed with his head on the pillow, just like us. When we ignore him, he then turns his attention to the dog, purring and cuddling and letting that slobbery beast lick his head until its saturated. Only when he's truly bored or being a total dick does he seek contact from the other cats--he shows temporary kindness to only one of them before biting her on the head, and the other two, well the other two simply exist for his sadistic torment.

5. He trusts his humans. Apparently, the little bastard is quite aware of how fond the Head and i are about him, and he definitely works that angle. However, the relationship goes both ways. Dangling by a claw from a curtain rod, i walk over to save the beast from falling. As i grab him, he lets go. He trusts that i'm catching him. I've never had a cat do that before. The others have always kept clinging on. I accidently clip his nail too close and he squeaks out. Instead of getting pissed and storming off, he accepts my apology and continues to let me clip the other nails. He trusts us.

I've seen more social intelligence in this pea-brained little creature than i've seen in many of my fellow scientists on campus. The question is: what makes this animal so brilliant? Does his lack of hair follicles somehow promote such a strong, consistent and diabolical personality? I dont know any other hairless cat owners so i cant answer that. What i do know is that i admire any creature that can live his life in such a raw, unrefined manner, but is entirely at peace with his conflicting nature of pure goodness and pure badness.

I thought my tattoos would scare people away

2006-06-28T10:35:00.000-05:00

Now that its hot as hell out, it happens EVERY single day. Whether i'm in the elevator, standing in line at the store, or just walking down the damn street, some perfect stranger feels the need to tell me how much he or she really really really thinks my tattoo is "cool, beautiful" or "awesome." Now call me crazy, but if a surly-looking girl with a massive tattoo on her upper arm and shoulder walks down the street, shouldnt you be trying to avert your eyes? I mean, i'm a crazed psychopath, right? I've crazy enough to cover my whole upper arm in a mass of stars and swirls that wrap my appendage like a brightly colored squid. And crazy enough to have wrist tattoos, among several others on lower parts of my body to top off the horrific, disfigured effect. Something has to be wrong with me to mutate my body in such a way, right? Where are the horrified mothers and fathers, shielding their children from such perverse influence, lest they be inspired to deface their own bodies when they grow older? Those friggin' mothers and fathers are standing in line at Home Depot, wearing their wrinkle-free Docker shorts, turning around and telling me that i have a really "pretty" tattoo on my arm. Addressing me without being addressed first. Somehow, not fearing me. I just dont get it. I mean, *i'm* even scared of me sometimes.

I dont consider my arm tattoo to be exceptionally "pussy" or anything. There's no skulls or demons on it, but then again its not a dancing bear and hearts either. Hell, even i avert my eyes when i see big guys with disproportionately small tattoos on their bodies. Granted, that's purely out of disgust for them, but hell, i'll even take avoidance due to disgust these days. But people are neither afraid nor are disgusted by my tattoos.

I'm beginning to think that my obvious pregnancy may have something to do with people not fearing me. Perhaps my rotund, rosy-faced physique is disarming enough to cancel any fear that my tattoos convey. People are probably like: "look at that chubby little pregnant girl with the pretty tattoos. Isnt she adorable. I'm gonna compliment her on her tattoo. A pregnant girl is too slow and fat to strike me. And arent pregnant women supposed to be full of jolly hormones?" Not realizing that my hormonal imbalance makes me all the MORE likely to beat the piss out of them. However, i AM too slow and fat to catch them these days, and really, just too tired and hot to beat them even if i could catch them.

So i've resigned myself to the a smile and curt "thank you" whenever someone throws a tattoo compliment my way, which has already happened today and occurs as frequently as 4 times on some days. Because i'm obviously not scary anymore to anyone other than myself.

The sub of a lifetime

2006-05-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

We went to Chicago this weekend. We had a great fucking trip! But for the first time ever, it felt like we were just visiting and not "coming home" and that part made me sad because i consider Chicago my home. I guess too much time has passed and too many things have changed and my body has adapted to a warmer climate (60 degrees in Chicago is much colder than 60 degrees in TN). But the one thing that remains completely the same are the people. It never felt like any distance came between us. I can go six months to a year without seeing these people and it always feels like we're picking right back up where the conversation ended last time. Time and distance and life changes and we're still all the same loveable assholes we've been since we all first met. And i still end up leaving town with a swollen jaw from laughing my fucking face off (luckily my pregnancy kept SEDA from punching me, which usually adds to my soreness after a visit). And it wasnt hard to be the sober guy around the drunk-asses either. The warm murmur of voices and laughs and idiocy just pulls you in. Pretty much everyone is the same whether they are drunk or sober--they're just a lot louder and a pinch more repetitive when they're drunk.

On this trip our achievements were many, but most notably, i was able to obtain the unobtainable: a veggie sub from Fontanos. This euphoric blend of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, artichokes, hot giardinara and mustard emitted puddles of delicious oil that saturated the bread, its wrapping, and the table i was eating it upon. Bite after intoxicating bite it was just as delicious and perfect as i had been imagining in the years since i last had one. Oftentimes our wildly built-up fantasies and reminescences fall short when they become reality, but not this sub. It was the sub of a lifetime. And i wasnt merely eating the sub--i was experiencing the world through its divine eyes. There i was, hands covered in oil and peppers, surrounded by the gentle chatter of some of the people i love most in the world, hazily staring at the diety i was consuming. That sub became part of me and the fetus, but also i feel that we became part of that sub. I think the whole experience has greatly enriched my life and has made me a better person.

G'damn honey-roasted peanuts

2006-04-21T12:24:00.000-05:00

I've got a serious problem here. The Head bought a can of honey-roasted peanuts and somehow they have arrived at sitting on my desk today. First you eat one, and then a little handful and then FUCK, the next thing you know 3/4 of the can is gone. And of course they cover your fingers with this sticky salt so that doesnt help with my typing. Speaking of which, why the fuck does Mac only make WHITE keyboards these days? Whose assinine idea was that? Anyway, there are few things more delicious in the world than honey-roasted peanuts. Which is why i dont buy them often or allow them to sit on my desk. Their siren song is hard to resist. So with no one being in lab today to take away the honey-roasted peanuts from my desk, i fear for their fate. The good news is that if i eat them all today, they wont be around to tempt me on Monday.

I like to get wrecked

2006-03-28T18:27:00.000-06:00

"I drink to forget." There are usually two camps of opinions on this phrase. There are those who are mad subscribers to it and have nary a cell left in their brains and livers, and there are those of us that are like, "man that's lame. I drink to party. Drinking can't make you forget everything."

However sensible the latter opinion may seem, i have gradually begun to realize how "i drink to forget" rings terribly true. Four months into my fetus-imposed sobriety, and i am plagued by what i remember. Memories i've successfully squashed for years and years have come crashing into my thoughts on a daily basis. Every elementary school wrong that was done to me or that i inflicted upon my pre-pubescent peers has been keeping me up at night. Every stupid thing i've ever said or drunken grope-fest with seedy indivuals or alley i've pissed in is brilliantly illuminated in my mind at completely inappropriate times. The most incidental bullshit--shit that under normal circumstances would be difficult to actively recall is right out there, parading about in my psyche. And of course, its only the events that cause me utter chagrin. Its not the time i got an A on a spelling test, or got a puppy, or hell, made out with that incredibly hot guy at the bar. Its only the mundane chagrin. And dear friends, you also suffer in my affliction, because i now recall all the stupid things you've done and said while you were wrecked in my presence!

While i'm sure the nauseating cocktail of pregnancy hormones that bathes my brain doesnt help my situation, i'm honestly convinced that my former practice of habitual drinking kept the painful intrusion of the mundane chagrin in check. I always wondered what people who don't drink do all day to keep themselves busy, and now i realize they are probably spending the majority of their time dealing with their intrusive memories. This is no way to live, people. So please, save yourselves. Keep on drinkin.' If someone criticizes you for your drunken misconduct, tell them you need the sauce for survival. You need to drink to forget. And if they ask "to forget what?" you simply say, "yes, that's the point exactly." You see, right now, you dont know what you're drinking to forget because its working. You are protected. Take it from me kids [insert imagery of weathered old woman with raspy voice, taking a drag off a cigarette] , i know things you don't know. And i know you want to avoid the mundane chagrin.

Because no one should have to lose sleep over the time they vomited down the side of a friend's Ford Festiva after consuming half a bottle of Absolut Citron. Life is too short to be bogged down with these minor details.

Ever hear of freakin' Mapquest?

2006-03-15T09:39:00.000-06:00

I am SOOOO sick of giving people directions on how to get places. Really. I'm actually quite bad at it. Left is right in my mind. I can never remember how many stoplights you'll pass on the way to my house. And this especially pisses me off when i have to give these instructions to companies that are providing services to me. YOUR COMPANY HAS A WEBSITE. Therefore, i know someone there has access to the internet. Why dont you save me the stumbling, backtracking, no-that-isnt-right, up is down fucking explanation of how to get to my house from who the fuck knows where. I've only been living in this for-forsaken city that consists of a swirl of streets and roads that dont head in any particular direction ("take Thompson Lane southeast-ish?") Just go to Mapquest. I've given you my address. I've given you my zipcode. Those are details i can get right every time. So use the technology that is out there, people.

The impracticality of having a Fontanos sub Fed-Exed from Chicago to Nashville

2006-03-01T15:41:00.000-06:00

I'd give my left pinkie for a Fontanos veggie sub right now. The pound and a half of cheese they put on it; the oil-saturated mounds of vegetables and hot giardinara piled high; the crusty bread that slices up the roof of your mouth until the proper amount of oil from the giardinara soaks into it. Mmmmmmm. I know that if I threw $50 at Hotrod, i'd have one on a mail truck heading south today but there is a big problem with this. Fontano subs are so saturated in the loveliest of greases that they self-destruction within a half-hour of conception. Other than supersonic transport, i know of no means to travel between Chicago and Nashville in a half-hour. And a weekend trip is not the answer, as Fontanos holds a strict M-F schedule and closes at 5Pm. Oh, that ever-elusive Fontanos sub. You are dangling just out of my grasp. But your sweet siren song calls me. If i got on a plane at 9am, i'd arrive in Chicago at 10. I'd get to Fontanos about 11, devour my sub, get back to the airport by 12:30, fly back to Nashville no later than 1:30. I'd barely miss a day of work. That and $160 worth of airfare seem like a small price to pay for the glory of a delicious $5 veggie sub from Fontanos.

Lifestyles of the rich and entitled

2006-02-23T12:56:00.000-06:00

The country music capital of the world hosts two of the most extreme socio-economic statuses i've ever encountered. One end of the city is teeming with gobs and GOBS of old southern money. The other end supports the economy of toothless, dirty hicks that depend upon God's good graces to prevent their mobile meth labs from going up in smoke along with their only source of income. Being middle class, i hate both ends of the spectrum with a pinch more animosity towards the wealthy, since of course i'm quite jealous of them. Then again the hicks did steal my lawnmower. However, being surrounded by the artifical tits-wearing-Land Rover-driving 18-yr olds at my Privileged University, i had really begun to stereotype and classify all wealthy people into a very unpleasant category.

But then two things happened. First, purely by accident, i started hanging around with some seriously rich-ass old blue-bloods, who were entirely kick-ass and pretty damn likeable despite their gobs of money, champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Second, i started thinking. Socioeconomic status really had nothing to do with why i generally hate people. There was just a selection bias skewed toward the wealthy for a trait i find most deplorable in people. And many poor people possess this trait as well. Its called a sense of entitlement. When people think that the world OWES them something, that the rules dont apply to them, that because they are rich or because they have government-subsidized income that they DESERVE certain things and special treatment. For example, these spoiled little shits here at PU think that because their parents shell out 30 grand a year to send them to this school that they can leave trash in the hallways, piss all over the toilet seats, and just generally stink up the place with their filthy disease-infested genitals. Because you know, they're like, spending so much money that like, someone ELSE can clean up their crap. When tossing their half-empty Starbucks cup in the corner of the elevator, they'll say "well i'm paying that janitor's salary." These are also the same people that think they are entitled to receive an A in a class just because they show up, not because they actually passed a test or turned in an assignment.

And the dirty hillbillies are no better. You've got your disgustingly obese, stringy-haired basketball jersey wearing guttersnipe who's gonna "sue yer ass" because while HER kid was breaking into YOUR shed to steal YOUR weedwacker, they tripped over a rake and broke their femur. Or the Axel Rose looking muther-fucker in the grease-stained pants that publicly berates the waitress at Denny's because the kitchen took too long getting the meal prepared and there's a little burnt-looking french fry under all the others on his plate, because HE's paying GOOD MONEY for quality food and service (c'mon. you're at DENNYs), its ALL her fault, and of course, its the only sense of power over others he can exert in his pathetic little inert life (and of course he's also with his 7 kids and makes a point to tell them, "see, this is how you deal with waitresses that dont do their job right").

So FUCK people that live their lives under the assumption that they are entitled to everything, even though they didnt do a g-damn thing to deserve it. And i've determined that the dividing line between people is this: those with CLASS, and those who dont have an ounce of it. Wealthy or poor, people with true class do not assume entitlement to anything. They dont take for granted the work others do for them and they dont put unreasonable demands on others based on some silly perception of what they feel is OWED to them. People with class understand what it means to honestly EARN something, and realize they are paying for services and products and not someone's fucking soul. The biggest misconception in society is that having money means having class, and i think the wealthiest celebrities provide clear evidence against this assumption (think Britney Spears, in all her wealthy white-trash whore glory).

The moral of the story is this: if you spend all your time thinking you deserve things, you really probably dont deserve them. And no amount of wealth can hide the emblem of poor white-trash you wear on your sleeve when you point out reasons why people should be catering to you.

Nothing more refreshing than a delicious cup of C

2006-02-08T20:26:00.000-06:00

Its not my birthday. And its not Christmas. I didnt see any stupid Easter bunny hippity-hopping its ass around here either. Surely this gift was heaven-sent. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Most girls pay a lot for surgery. I didnt spend a dime. Like Christmas morning, I woke up in a blissful haze and found that my meager little B cup breasts had transformed into massive jugs.

Its like having that B- you fought so hard to get in Chemistry raised to an A+ on your report card. Its like getting a tank full of 93 octane for the price of regular. Its like getting a free upgrade to business class, just because that incredibly fat smelly guy sitting next to you in coach oozed onto your seat. Its, its, its like waking up one day with C-cups for free!

Now we all know my giant ta-tas do in fact come with a price, but let's ignore that for now. C-CUPS, honey! I had to go out tonight and buy new bras because my ta's were slopping out of the old ones. Too much side-boob, and the straps had become high-tension wires, threatening to snap and cause bodily harm. And my new 34-C bras are nice and snug--these jugs aren't just "nearly" a C, but a holy-fucking-hell big brass balls solid C.

I'm off to check out my new ta's in the mirror now. They swing around pretty nicely--i'm gonna go try and see if i can hit the cat in the head with one of them. Maybe i'm just lucky, but perhaps if you girls say your prayers tonight, the Boob Fairy will come visit you too.

A 28-year timebomb

2006-02-05T11:44:00.000-06:00

Hormones. They are the hired-goons of the brain. Most neuroscientists try to ignore them but as a graduate student i study them because its actually pretty amazing how these silly little substances can wreak havoc on the brain. All the while, never realizing that my own brain had hired these little bullies to push around my own grey matter.

Growing up, i hated children. Even as a child myself, i considered myself above them. As a teenager they represented the worst consequence of sex. As young married person, they were just one more stupid thing for relatives to nag about. Have kids? Are you fucking crazy? I dont even LIKE kids. I've never changed a diaper before and i wasnt gonna start now. I dont get "googly" around babies. I find their "dependency" repulsive. I always thought kids were the short way to wreck a great marriage and a fun life.

Tick tock. I turn 28, and just like that, a little explosion occurs in my brain that destroys my youthful defiance and any sense i have left. Suddenly, i am struck with the urge to procreate. I employ the pattented Lady Head Ignore It and It will go away plan. The urge only goes stronger, compounded by a new-found sense of complacency and boredom with my life. I had always believed that people only decide to have kids when they've truly become bored with their lifes, and here i was, treading water in a big pool of ennui. Fuck. I tried fighting it with rationality, but it all went out the window. This IS probably a good time to have them--i am chronologically young so its likely they wont end up too retarded and my body should be able to handle this better than when i'm in my 30s. I DO have a good handle on my graduate career--i'm finally on the downslope toward the PhD. My health insurance COVERS every little thing including pre-natal and delivery and post-natal costs. Logic was not in favor of NOT having a kid. Fuck. Okay, what about the husband? The Head has been PRO KIDS since day 1. Nothing to stall me there. Okay, fine, let's try this. We dont even know if our reproductive organs are tip-top. Lots of booze and confections and laziness may have given the gonads amotivational syndrome. One month later, i realize for lazy drunks, we are an incredibly fecund couple. Fate has a great sense of humor.

So here i am, 8 weeks pregnant. I still dont care much for babies in general, although i really like the ones' my friends' have. I still have never changed a diaper. And i'm not even gonna go into detail on how those fucking prick gangster hormones have essentially made my body their own private amusement park. And the reality of 9 months with no drinking has made me rather bitchy. It will be interesting to see how all of this pans out. I've seen a lot of friends come through this and still be quite cool despite all their new responsibilities. I've seen aspects of them change, but I've also seen the things i like about them remain the same. After all, one of my fondest memories of a post-baby friend was where she was breast-feeding her baby in one arm and slopping down beers with the other. I wanna be like that. So i promise this will not become a pregnancy blog. Hormones will not transform Lady Head into a complete douche-bag. But unfortunately, i wont be able to chronicle my epic drunkeness either. I'll guess i'll just have to rely on my other skill of perpetuating evil gossip. Did you hear that Fat Nick is a chronic masturbater? And that he does it while thinking of DUDES?

The breast is yet to come

2006-01-26T12:23:00.000-06:00

Boobs. Knockers. Gazungas. Ta-tas. Call 'em what you like. They are arguably the most distinctive external feature of the female body. Despite the fact men would like to believe they were put on earth for their amusement, more likely the breasts were put here to annoy women. Whether its pre-menstrual tenderness, self-perceived image on their too-small/too-big-ness, breast cancer, lactation, or ham-handed teengage groping, the breasts suffer for their existence. Like Rodney Dangerfield, breasts have a hard time getting the respect they deserve.

So several months ago, upon performing my monthly groping of myself, i found what every woman has been programmed to fear--a breast lump. Eek! I says to myself. Did i somehow accidentally inhale a kidney bean? Well my next decision was to employ the pattented Lady Head Coping With Scary Health Issues Approach--i ignored it in the hopes that it would go away. So ignore it i did until the next month's scheduled groping when i noticed it was getting smaller. Yippee!!!! Ignoring it DOES work! A month of happiness goes by, only to be shattered by my realization that it had reared its ugly head again, and this time, it was much bigger. Oh fuck, i says. The kidney bean is at it again. So i get thee to the doctor for a routine visit, mentioning that there may be a lump in there, it may be getting bigger, and hoping that maybe, just maybe he wont find anything. Poking. Prodding. A lot of "ahems, hmms, and yikes." Suddenly i find myself with a referral to have an ultrasound done on my ta-tas at the Breast Center of my hospital. Days later, i find that the "Breast Center" is an affiliate of the CANCER CENTER. WHAT THE FUCK? How come i have to go to the Breast Center that is affiliated with the Cancer center? What about the Non-Cancer Breast Center that apparently only exists in my mind.

Two weeks i have to wait for my appointment to see if my ta is gonna kill me. And of course, every magazine i read or show i watch or news i check has some article or episode on breast cancer and how its ultimately gonna kill me, strip me of my ta, or worst of all, make me go through chemotherapy. Then i begin to realize that as women, we are really, really over-inundated with breast cancer information. Statistically, 80% of all breast lumps are BENIGN--that is, they are not cancer. Therefore, why does every article on breast lumps immediately sentence women to hell-fire and damnation? I know breast cancer awareness is hugely important, and real women do get it and i know several who have and its a fucking prick of a disease, but are we going a little overboard by PETRIFYING women every time they inhale a kidney bean? In the longest two weeks of my life, i was convinced i had cancer, was gonna either die or lose my gorgeous eyebrows (who cares about the hair) or have my ta removed, which after many years of having tense relations with them due to their small size, i had finally come to terms with and learned to love those small but sassy freaks.

Because of all this media, and the fact my doctor examined the lump and thought enough of it to send me to the freaking Breast Center (lets not forget that it happens to be affiliated with the Cancer Center), i am silently stressing out about this until the day of the ultrasound. So i get to the cancerous Breast Center. First of all, i am the youngest person there by several orders of magnitude. I'm still ready to crap my pants at any moment. But interestingly, this is no ordinary clinic. Its all pimped out. Apparently they realize anyone that comes there is traumatized, so they are super sweet, give you these big, warm fluffy white robes instead of hospital gowns and have all these cushy waiting areas and all the rooms are painted nice warm colors and everything smell like flowers. The nurse cops a preliminary feel. "Is that all? That squishy little thing? Moves around quite a bit. Has fluctuated in size." All good signs. The urge to wet my pants is slightly abating. The doctor comes in, all friendly. Not wearing a lab coat, but this tremendously smart brown and blue houndstooth suit. I suddenly become distracted by the awesomeness of her suit. And she smells like happiness. She warms up the ultrasound and whisks it across my ta. "I dont see anything, hon. There's nothing in there. Its a perfectly normal breast. The tissue is just lumpy there, but its perfectly normal." No Cheetos stuck in there, not even a kidney bean. Basically, an air bubble, or a few pieces of breast tissue that were not happy being Bs and were trying to become double Ds. This glorious women in the incredible suit has told me my ta-tas are fine. Abort plan to wet pants.

As i laughed and skipped my way back from the Breast Center, i thought to myself that many women in that position are not so lucky, and the lump turns out to be bad, bad stuff. BUT the vast majority of women ARE laughing and skipping away from these kinds of tests. So while we desperately need to pray for and support the women that suffer the worst for their most prominent female feature, I also feel like it would do women good if we took some stigma away from the insidious breast "lump." The lesson here is to get thee ta-tas to the doctor, but don't mentally masectomize yourself just because you inhale a kidney bean.

Oh Deere!

2006-01-19T14:33:00.000-06:00

Mutherfucker. Shit, shit, g-damn, cocksucking mutherfucker. You kids ARE NOT gonna believe this. Someone stole our 20 year old, 500 lb John Deere riding lawnmower out of our carport this morning. Son of a fucking bitch.

You'd think we live in the fucking ghetto. First of all, there are no riding mowers in the ghetto. Secondly, we live on a cheerful little middle class street full of elderly people (none of which saw a fucking thing of course). Here's how it went down: the punk bitches took the beast in broad daylight, shortly after i left for work around 8:30 am, while the Head was soundly sleeping in the house. And since no keys were left in it and the battery was likely dead, they either had to roll it out of there (unlikely because there were no tire tracks across the lawn and they would have had to push that beast up some major hills) or they drove a flat-bed over and hauled it onto there, which makes this pre-meditated and all the more insidious. And here's the rub. ITS A PIECE OF SHIT. 20 years old, coated in soot, rust, grease and sloppily painted with the words "The Slappywag." The fucking thing barely starts and when it does it pollutes the whole neighborhood with smoke and could wake the dead. So why go through all that trouble to steal a piece of shit riding mower? Not the small, brand-new self-propelled mulching mower next to it, or the $500 chrome grille on the patio, but the piece of shit John Deere. Despite the heap that it was, we're pretty fucking devastated over it---we loved that piece of shit and it did a hell of job cutting grass. We had sentimental attachment to the Slappywag--from the wonderful surprise of learning we had inherited the beast from the previous homeowners, to the delightful glee of the Ash-hole proudly sitting atop that green chariot with his cowboy hat on, to our bubbly joy and sense of accomplishment we shared after we replaced its battery "all by ourselves." How sick of a fuck do you have to be to steal a 20 year old rustbucket from us in broad daylight? I am really, really really really really really fucking sick of hillbillies. They are the worst of all stereotypes and the most true. I know it was hillbillies because it was hillbillies that robbed our house the first time. Hillbillies are the only people who steal g-damn riding mowers. Two major fucking crimes committed on Casa de Head!!! Unbelievable. G-damn mutherfucking no-tooth dirty hillbillies.

You know how much its gonna cost us to replace the Slappywag? Probably over a grand. And our deductible on our home insurance is far too high to make it worth us filing a claim. If i ever, EVER see anyone of those dirtbags driving the Slappywag, i tell you what i'm gonna do. I'm gonna grab the Head's metal police baton, and i'm gonna go to work on that hillbilly piece of shit's shin. Then i'll go to work on his ribcage. Because that's MY MOWER, bitch, and you've broken our hearts by taking it. Now i'm gonna break your bones.

Despite my overwhelming urge to kill, i keep hearing a little voice inside. The voice keeps telling me that we havent seen the last of the Slappywag...Optimism aside, if anyone has any information on the wearabouts of our mower, you will be rewarded. The reward will be letting you use our baton to get several beatings in on the perpetrator.

Get thee to a fucking dentist!

2006-01-18T09:35:00.000-06:00

We're only half-way through January, and its already been a pain in the ass year for me. So i figured i'd start a blog series on health care so that i might educate you while traumatizing you with the ordeals i've been through in half a month. All hypochondrocizing aside, i've had to shell out shitloads of money and experience many a sleepless night because my body has decided it wants "attention."

The saga begins with my teeth, rather my gums. I have lovely teeth and they've been through a lot to get lovely: braces, retainers, polishing/seeing the dentist every six months, brushing after every meal, flossing daily, no unnecessary fellatio. Only 1 teeny cavity in 28 years. Well, i started to think my teeth were invincible, so four years ago i decided to stop going to the dentist. Actually, i didnt decide--i went to graduate school and we had shitty (if any at all) dental insurance so it just wasnt in my budget to go. What could happen, right? I brush. I floss. My teeth were perfect when my dentist last saw them. Four years ago.

Fast forward to Christmas evening this year. Out of the fucking blue, i was struck with the worst fucking pain i've ever felt in my mouth, right under my lower incisors. My initial decision was to ignore it in the hopes that it would go away. But it got worse. Strangely enough, my teeth themselves didnt hurt, but the gums below them did. And the gums swelled up really huge, and started spurting fountains of blood. I'm not shitting you. I'd brush my teeth and spit buckets of blood. So i says to myself, i says "fuck. I cant ignore this and it isnt going away." So i had to call a random dentist since i didnt have one (big props to SEDA for recommending i call 1-800-dentist. After all was said and done, the dentist i found ROCKED), and of course they couldnt get me in the week after Xmas so i had to get an appointment the following Tuesday. I was in serious fucking pain. I couldnt eat, i couldnt drink. Hell, i was sober on New Year's Eve. The only thing that helped was excercising, strangely enough. Probably that natural release of endorphins or whatever bullshit they tell us to motivate our fat asses to get on a treadmill. So i ended up going to see my general practitioner for some other bullshit and he put me on antibiotics for my gums, which saved my life because the swelling started going down and the blood fountains decreased to a trickle. However the cause and treatment of this condition were still unknown and i started expecting the worst. And friends were suggesting the worst: abscesses and root canals and infections going straight to my heart and oral cancer and FUCK.

So i get thee to the dentist. Xrays. Poking. Prodding. A lot of "ohs," "ahems" and "yikes." The verdict was in. Because of exceptional tartar buildup (all because i had not been to the dentist in the past 4 years to have it removed), bacterial infections had set in, causing my gums to recede and the actual bone in my lower jaw was damaged. HOLY FUCK! Pictures of myself, toothless, with lower jaw missing appeared in my head. FUCK FUCK FUCK! On top of it all, i had six cavities! Count 'em. SIX. I BRUSH MY TEETH, PEOPLE. But that was the least of my worries. When people tell you that you've lost bone in your lower jaw, you begin to imagine the worst. "BUT NOT TO WORRY!" my dentist lady says. We'll fix things and its at an early enough stage that the damage can be reversed. So they tell me what they are gonna do (weekly visits for three weeks), they show me what its gonna cost (HOLY DOUBLE FUCK!--ITS OVER A GRAND!), and i say OK. Sign me up. Its my teeth. Few things are more important, especially when you live in the south and see all the disgusting toothless hillbillies around you.

So here's how it went:
Round one: Gross debridement. A sandblasting ultrasonic cleaner is used to scour all the tartar off my teeth. Needed novocaine. A LOT of novocaine. It hurt like a bitch until they pumped my face full of the good stuff. Learned that i LOVE novocaine. It cant get you high, but i just enjoy playing with my numb face for the rest of the day. (i've got this great bit i do where i go to put on lip balm and i end up with it all over my chin because i cant feel my face). Other than initial soreness from sandblasting, i experienced IMMEDIATE relief of my gum infection. One week later, my gums and soul had started healing.

Round two: Planing and polish. Scrapey, scrapey, scrapey, the dentist digs into the surface of my teeth and roots to remove any and all leftover tartar. Not as bad as the sandblasting--only needed a little topical lidocaine around the lower incisors. Gums are healing like a champ now.
Big props for my mouth.

Round three: Final inspection and cavity filling. Gums are looking good, looking tough. No more pain. The bone should start healing soon and we'll check back in four months. As for cavity filling, here comes the big old needle of novocaine. LOVE IT! I'm not even bothered by the needle pinches of the injection--that sweet, sweet numbness is to follow. Drill. Fill. Like i wasnt even there.All done.

Now i have a bionic mouth. Six-million dollar (actually more like $1200) gums. My teeth shine and my gums dont bleed. My dentist even sent me flowers, because she was so proud of how i followed through with all this treatment. She better send me some freakin' novocaine too. I need my sweet, sweet fix.

So dont be a dumbass like i was. See your dentist regularly. Yes, your teeth can be fine, but your gums will fuck you up the ass when you're not looking. And believe me, they want to, those sucker-punching little bitches. And $100 a year for a dental visit is cheaper than $1200 for a three-week mouth restoration.

Taking your clothes off for money is not "dancing," hon.

2005-12-20T14:44:00.000-06:00

Seriously. If i had a nickel for everytime i heard some stripper describe herself as a "dancer" i'd have at least $50. "Exotic dancer" maybe, but without the modifier she is implying a whole different profession. "Dancing" implies using skill and a formal education to execute well-choreographed moves for the intention of executing well-choreographed moves that dont typically involve a pole and a bunch of seedy businessmen in tacky suits ogling you. Not that swinging upside down from a pole and waxing your butthole doesnt require skill--i mean sheesh, my hat goes off to any girl that can give a great "peek-a-boo-hello" through her crotch while balancing on 8 inch heels. But its really not "dancing."Dancing is what happens BEFORE clothes come off. I'd give a stripper more credit if she called herself an exotic gymnast. Gymnasts spin around and use poles but i guess they do have painfully small tits and usually their clothes stay on so maybe that doesnt fit either. Let's just calling strippin' what it is--strippin'. Its not derogatory, hon. Hell, non-scruffy strippers probably make more money in one night than the prima ballerina does during the whole Nutcracker season. So stop "dancing" and STRIP with pride.

Working hard or hardly working

2005-12-13T13:47:00.000-06:00

I'm surrounded by douchebags. Seriously, graduate students are some of the most annoying creatures on the planet. That is other graduate students than myself; specifically those involved in the molecular biologies. Faculty and post-docs are just fine; technicians and other assorted scientists are no bother, but i find that i want to gouge my ears out when i talk with most other graduate students. Everytime i talk to them, its the same. They must tell me how excruciatingly hard they are working. "I worked until 3am today; i ran 300 gels yesterday; i did 450 meaningless bullshit experiments this morning." They wear it like a badge of honor that says "because i say i work hard, i must be a real scientist and deserve to be here." I even overheard one girl complaining about taking classes because she cant wait until they're done so she can "spend more time at the bench" (nerd scientist terminology for running experiments). First of all, you want classes to be over because you want to do less fucking work and not have to study. Second, if you have to BRAG about how hard you are working, then you probably arent working very hard at all. After a rough day of actually doing work, the last thing i do when i'm away from it is want to revisit the gory details. If work = hard and free-time = fun, the last thing i want to do is make my fun free time= talk about work which = i suck. Secondly, why the fuck does anyone have to work until 3am? That just tells me you are inefficient at what you do. And by bragging about the hours you log, you're basically telling me you are a crappy scientist that doesnt really know how to do your job.

If you're a grad student and want to brag to your boss about how much effort you are putting in, more power to you. But i dont know your boss and i'm not gonna pass along the information so spare me the bullshit details on how you waste your life. So i'll work at my own pace and be home by 6 and talk about my fucking dog during my free-time and lets see who gets their PhD first and who's a much more interesting person and better scientist. Because i'm pretty sure its gonna be me. Douche-bags.

God bless us every one!

2005-11-29T10:22:00.000-06:00

Here's a few important lessons i've learned this Thanksgiving:

1. There is no substitute for fried turkey. Once you have taken a bite from this forbidden turkey of knowledge, your eyes are opened, your veins are clogged, and there is no turning back. I'll never eat a roasted turkey again (unless its in the form of deli meat).

2. Spending time with your friends' families on the holidays is much superior to spending time with your own. Because like the neighbor's baby, you can hang out with them while they are cute and charming and as soon as they become holy terrors you can leave them behind and go home. Plus its fun to watch your friends' parents ride THEIR asses while you are exempt because hey, you arent family, and of course they'll be polite to you.

3. Good holidays require early and frequent drinking. A steady-state of drunkeness ensures a festive demeanor and if you start before noon you can prolong that cute early-morning fuzzy haze that only comes with drinking in the A.M. If you do it right by making sure you have a drink in your hand every 15 minutes, you can pound several bottles of wine yourself throughout the day and not so much as have a headache the next morning. The main point is to never allow yourself to sober before you pass out for the day, while also not launching yourself into a nasty case of the spins by drinking too much too fast. Good holiday drinking takes skill and years of practice but the payoff is that it can make the crappiest, most dysfunctional daddy's-in-jail-again-for-pushing-mommy-and Bobby-Joe-down-the stairs- holidays festive and fun.

4. Traveling is for suckers. In fact, the only time anyone should travel for the holidays is if they actually truly WANT to go see other people. But there is another faction of us where family tries to GUILT you into traveling to see them for the holidays even though its the last thing you want to do. What makes their place better for celebrating than yours? What makes celebrating with them better than celebrating by yourself or with your local friends? Basically family is telling you that you must be a big fat friendless loser incapable of enjoying life because you must, absolutely MUST travel 500 miles through crowded holiday airports and endless snow to sit uncomfortably in their house and engage in boring conversation about the gory details cousin Gina's fifth baby delivery and yes, of course she'll show you her cesarean scar while all the fuck you want to do is sleep and wake up in your own comfy bed and watch crappy holiday specials all day. That's why they invented Christmas cards. So you can send your holiday greetings to your family's front door while you stay the fuck home. So i am DONE with the guilt-induced holiday travel. If my family wants to see me for the holidays, they can spend top-dollar to travel 500 miles through crowded airports and crappy weather to sit uncomfortably in my fucking house while i sleep and watch crappy holiday specials all day.

5. And finally, the biggest lesson i learned this holiday was that i can go a day without saying FUCK. And i didnt even come close at any point despite how drunk i was (recall lesson #3). Somehow, my brain has a "best behavior autopilot" feature i didnt know about so when i was around my friends' families the worst thing that came out of my mouth was "crap" and only after my friend's mom said it first. I'm such a good girl. If i can go a day without dropping the f-bomb, i am pretty much capable of anything.

So i hope these festive tidings fill you with holiday good cheer and prepare you for the ever-repetitious always inconvenient and too expensive Christmas holiday that awaits us. And remember: holiday drinking commences with the beginning of Advent so that's four more weeks of heavy drinking we've got to prepare us for the holidays.

Doomed to Fail

2005-11-02T10:30:00.000-06:00

Man, today sucks. One of my precious, critical experimental animals that I have been x-raying twice a week for over a month was found dead this morning (sweet little CC3-811). And the circumstances surrounding its demise have prompted a full-scale investigation on my part. You see, i smell foul-play. While I cannot figure out the means by which this rodent expired, its cadaver looks like it was hit by a friggin' truck. As far as i know these animals do not drive so vehicular homicide is probably not an option. Now CC3-811 had been living with his sister as a roomate, and they have always been on good terms with each other. It is possible that my prompting that they engage in incest could have driven said rodent to take his own life. Perhaps he bludgeoned himself to death with a sweet potato, and slammed his own torso against a tunnel or something. While his cadaver does not display any bite or attack marks that would indicate a fight, his sister still remains a "person of interest" in this investigation. However, the lead suspect i have in my mind right now is our animal care technician. It is possible that he may have accidently crushed my animal while cleaning cages. I am awaiting results of an autopsy from my forensic examiner (i.e. the vet) before i make any allegations, as animal care technicians tend to be quite sensitive about being accused of murder. So as i sit here wondering what happened to my darling little CC3-811 (he was a charming character--really, and will be very much missed) i realize now that my experiment is doomed to fail. I'm never gonna get my PhD now so i might as well drop out of grad school. You see, this experiment was practically perfect. It was beautifully-designed with the most amazing controls and I could collect the best data and no animals would ever be harmed in the process. Therefore the only way it could fail is to be doomed by the fates. Which apparently it is.

I must pick up the shattered pieces of my study on move on toward further failure. Perhaps i'll crappily patch together this now imperfect experiment by adding some half-assed new replacement animal. However, i will wait until the sister of CC3-811 is cleared of all charges before introducing a new potential victim to her. She could be a rodent version of Hannibal Lechter for all i know. Its a shame these animals are naturally blind because it would be great to have some witnesses come forward to aid in the investigation. Anyway, the result of all of this is that i'm left with a delightfully crap-tacular experiment, or crap-eriment as i've come to call it now.

Your head is a cornucopia of emptiness

2005-10-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

I'm all about giving idiots jobs--especially jobs that require very little skill and idiots that have very few skills. I mean, even a rat can be trained to perform a task accurately and consistently. Humans possess a lot more neocortex than rats and even if its atrophied, small, or unused, they should still be able to perform as well as rats if not better on basic tasks. Like ringing up my produce at the grocery store. If you work in a grocery store, i dont think its asking too fucking much to know what the hell vegetables are. Last weekend, i was in line at my fine local southern grocery store chain, and this mouth-breathing idiot was trying to ring up the lady's produce ahead of me. Every fucking vegetable on the conveyor belt had to be called into question and the boy genus couldnt even read well enough to look up the price code that corresponded. Now i understand many people dont know what the fuck a ginger root is (hell, i'm surprised i knew), but fucking zucchini? Can't you tell its not a cucumber??? And just because the potato is sold individually doesnt mean its not a fucking potato!!! No, buddy, its filet mignon. Dumbass. A gourd from the Halloween display 4 fucking feet away from the cash-register? Mush-mouth had to ask "wuzz this?" Now its my turn. Green onions, cabbage and mushrooms. Fucking hole-in-his-head had no clue. Never seen any of those vegetables before in his life. Was he raised on Yoo-hoo and Doritos? How the fuck do you live your whole life and not know what green onions are? And better yet, how do you maintain gainful employement in a GROCERY STORE without having the vaguest idea of the identity of the strange objects that run across your conveyor belt 10 billion times a day? They say those "self check-out" lines take jobs away from people. Maybe they ought to. Because if schools arent teaching kids what the fuck potatoes are, at least we have computers that can competently ring up my produce as cabbage instead of fucking celery.

Cannibal Run

2005-10-10T10:48:00.000-05:00

I can stop vomitting yet. Nothing comes up anymore, but I can't stop jamming my finger down my throat. The gag reflex has been sensitized from constant prodding with my index finger, and i've got the lingering taste of good old syrup of ipecac in my mouth. Why all the puking you might ask? Well i really feel the need to purge my system.

You see, i went to a mediterranean restaurant for lunch yesterday. Gyros and falafel were my favorite foods. "Were" being the key word. You see, yesterday i had a sapien-flavored falafel and its just about killed my taste for the formerly delicious chick-pea based treat.

Apparently, one of the gentlemen preparing our delicious middle-eastern dishes had a little accident. Using a massive deli slicer, he shaved off the base of his thumb. SICK! You know that massive mound of flesh your thumb sprouts from? All gone. Shaved into thin slices, and shredded. And oh my freakin' God, somehow rolled into those delicious little balls of fried chick-peas. Eight of us in the restaurant at that time ordered the falafel and pita wraps. Eight of those wraps were tainted with human flesh. Its ironic that a strickly vegetarian dish like falafel could become cannibal without anyone knowing. I feel bad for the vegetarians that consumed these Bob-kebabs. However, vegetarians dont believe in eating fuzzy little defenseless animals, right? Humans are big, bald, ugly and mean so maybe it was okay.

Long disgusting story short, mistakes were realized. But the mistakes were realized a little too late, as the gentleman who provided our lunch had run to the bathroom to stop the bleeding and passed out, before the assembly line that prepared the meals had time to intervene. There is still no clear answer on how meat ended up in a vegetarian dish. Settlements are being discussed, and most of us are still doing shots of ipecac on an hourly basis. I know you want to ask the most important question. The answer is, we taste like falafel.

Its a revolting story, and would be even more revolting if it were true. Yep, all that human-flavored falafel eating is a big pack of lies. I havent even had falafel in over a year, let alone a delicious chick pea and primate sandwich. Come on people. I'm just trying to get your attention. Read my fucking blog and post comments, bitches. Or the next time someone will lose more than a thumb.

That poor girl

2005-10-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday as i was making an unscheduled emergency trip up to my laboratory to determine how and why my experimental animals were roaming around the university, i saw a horrible thing. The girl that was driving several car-lengths in front of me hit this teenage kid that ran right out into the intersection. I mean, it totally wasnt her fault--it was night-time, this kid ran right out in front of her (he was running like he was being chased) and she slammed on her brakes but still mowed him down. He got up, took a few steps and starting clutching his side as he slumped into the pavement. I doubt it was a fatal injury, but shit, probably a crushed pelvis and broken ribs and who knows about internal bleeding so maybe it was fatal. A dozen people witnessed it and ran to help, so i didnt feel bad driving off to my lab emergency, shocked. But then i started to get really pissed off. That stupid fucking kid! That poor girl that hit him! Everyone always thinks its the car's fault when they hit someone, but that kid ran right out into traffic like he was high on fucking PCP or had just stolen something. And that poor girl! She was my age, probably just driving back to her dorm or home from her job and this fucking little shit fucks up her life because he was careless or was running from trouble. Despite it being the little prick's fault, i'm sure that poor girl is racked with guilt about the whole thing, plus her insurance will go up, plus i'm sure that degenerate piece of trash's parents will try to sue her as people like that often do, plus if that fucker dies she'll live her whole life knowing she killed someone. And it wasnt her fault. She did nothing wrong. She wasnt even speeding. She didnt run the light. God-forbid she should have had any alcohol in her. I'm sure they'd be fixing the noose right now if that was the case. That poor girl. It could have been me that hit that little fucker. Anyone could have hit him, even the safest driver on the planet. It was that insane that he could have been so stupid to run directly out into traffic like that. So am i an asshole? For having no sympathy but intense hatred for a kid who's likely lying in the hospital with a broken body from getting hit by an SUV? Maybe i'm an animal, because i have no mercy for him whatsoever. In fact, it was good i didnt stop to help at the scene. Because i would likely have bludgeoned his injured body to death as he lay writhing on the pavement. For fucking up that poor girl's life late on a Sunday night because he had to be an asshole.

The quiet art of buzzing needles

2005-09-27T15:55:00.000-05:00

So yesterday i went and got a pretty sweet tattoo on my upper arm. Its big enough that i hope to scare people on the elevators now. Who's gonna mess with the girl who has a giant tattoo on her upper arm? Not those dipshits on the elevator! Fuck those bitches!

Tattoo parlors are always an enchanting experience. I've been to several in scattered places--Toronto, Cleveland, Bruns-tucky and Willoughby Ohio, Chicago, and now the dirty south. And they are usually pretty much the same. With the exception of my Chicago experience, my previous artists have always been incredibly talented but painfully monosyllabic. I mean, most artists i've met tend to be quite "tortured" in general, and pair that with the anti-social subculture surrounding tattooing and you've got a sullen, murky individual jabbing an exquisite design into your arm. So it was no surprise to me that my artist yesterday was no conversationalist. However, it strangely bothered me because its a stark contrast to the southern culture of loquatiousness i've become accustomed to in these last two years. So sitting there with my mouth shut (but thankfully immersed in a blast of metal music that broke the tension), i took to staring at all the unique artifacts that adorned his studio. That's when i discovered this fascinating photograph of a woman. It looked like a Glamour Shot, and the woman had big tattoos and was naked but she was holding a fan over her breasts and lower pelvis so you couldnt see any business. And that is where the problem set in. Without breasts or a hoo-ha, i wasnt quite sure she even was a SHE. She had man-hips and handle-bars, but wasnt overly muscular anywhere else. I noticed strangely broad shoulders. And then i looked at the hands. They were man-hands! Holy crap, i says to myself. This is a really great tranny. His face is convincingly female, but the body gives it away. But what a nice make-up and hair job. Thanks to the sullen murky artist code of silence, i didnt ask my tattooer who the she-male in the photo was--even though it was at the tip of my tongue. Maybe it was my artist himself, the product of some drunken lost bet. But all of a sudden, one of the receptionists walks in to talk to my artist. There's something strange about her. She has the exact same tattoos as the tranny in the photo! Holy crap, i says to myself. Its not a tranny in the photo! Its this manish woman! And it appears that this manish woman had some sort of romantic entanglement with my sullen artist, hence her Glamour Shot on his studio wall. Wow. Thank GOD for my murky sullen non-communicative tortured artist. His silence saved my ass a lot of embarrassment and possibly a fucked-up tattoo and even more likely an ass-beating. Ironically, the man-woman kept stopping by occasionally to give me stink-eye. Could she have read my mind? Or did she not like having her man carving up another woman's arm? I'll never know, but i have learned an important lesson here about how the absence of conversation can be quite a lovely, lovely thing.

Its clear to me that Karl Rove may very well be the devil

2005-09-23T10:45:00.000-05:00

Seriously folks. I think Karl Rove is actually Satan. When the shit first started coming down hard on him, London was mysteriously bombed, taking the media heat off "Rove-Gate." Then about the time everyone started saying "don't forget about that fat pig-fucker Rove and his trechery to the country," London was bombed again. No more media heat for a while. Then the media started asking questions again about the investigation into Fat Pig-Fucker (is it just me or does he not totally look like a child-molester, or how they are always portrayed in movies--fat, bald, pig-faced with a greedy lecherous stare?). Suddenly, a hurricane wipes out half of the south. Karl must think that we're getting sick of hurricane Katrina coverage. He must be worried about the heat coming back on him. Because there is some nasty business named hurricane Rita fixing to wipe out the other half of the gulf-coast...Is there no limit to his evil? I'm probably in danger now that Great Satan Rove knows i'm on to him. I best get home and clutch my rosary...Where can i get an old priest and a young priest on short-notice?

How i used to hate Gwen Stefani and now i'm not sure i do anymore

2005-09-22T10:23:00.000-05:00

When No Doubt arrived in the late 90s they were an incredible joke to the musical genres of ska and punk of which they claimed to be vanguards. Of course the MTV masses loved them--what's a frat boy not to love about green mohawks and sparkley eyeshadow and chain-wallets, right? So they sold a shitload of records and soared as musicians while old-school fans of true punk and ska grumbled about these wannabees posing on the scene. I mean, it wouldnt have been so bad if No Doubt hadnt tried to cling to some tuff-guy image as rocker-kids. Fastforward to 2005. Gwen Stefani has dropped the punkster image and is just a pretty girl with small tits and great abs and pointy shoes and wicked clothes doing some really catchy little tunes. That's not to say her solo album is great--you have to sort through a lot of nonsense on there to find the good stuff, but its there and well, its fucking GOOD. I like it so much, i start searching through old No Doubt stuff on Napster and i find there is some yummy stuff mixed in there too. Unappreciated because it was passed off as some kind of tuff rock, but quite delicious when taken as the bubble-gum pop that it truly is. So i dont think i hate Gwen Stefani anymore. I think she's genuine now. I know it sounds bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. God, what have i become?

Word eradicatin'

2005-09-21T10:15:00.000-05:00

Here's a list of the following terms, phrases and or statements that must never be uttered in my presence again:

"-Nut flush
-I got this tattoo in Mexico
-Yeee-aaah baby
-circumlocution (reminds me of a circumcision done while being electrocuted)
-tickler
-all-natural (unless referring to nude sun-bathing and pronounced "au naturale")
-transvaginal ultrasound
-do you have any spare change"
-any permutations of "work hard enough" or phrases combining "work" and "weekend"
that don't include a negative adverb

That is all.

Boom-chucka-boom

2005-09-19T18:33:00.000-05:00

Freeeeedom. What to do with all this spare time? Freeeeedom. What to do with a stable digestive tract? Freeeeedom. What to do with a solid mental state and the return of my alcohol-digesting liver enzymes? Ah, i'll start my freedom off with a little self-indulgence and i'll answer the Proust questionaire as the Ash-hole suggested (see the Head's blog on "Fuck Donald Sutherland")

What is your idea of perfect happiness? My mind awaking into an ethereal fog where a snoring bulldog lies at the foot of the bed and a sticky naked cat is curled up in my sweaty arm; snuggling up with a down comforter and hairy husband and there's nothing to do and no where to go and no responsibilities and cool air blowing in through the open windows and a Bonanza marathon is on and hangovers do not exist and looky here ten AM is the best time to have a little drinkie

What historical figure do you most identify with? Godzilla

What living person do you most admire? My mom. Crazier than a shit-house rat with a 30 gallon garbage size of emotional baggage, she's always had an incredible sense of humor.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I dont "deplore" anything in myself. I'm pretty awesome, and i'm always improving. I am mildly annoyed by how my emotions can get the best of me sometimes.

What talent would you most like to have? I would love to be able to sing as i cannot even remotely carry a tune. I would want the most beautiful voice in the world and i would only sing for myself and for my family & friends--no one fucking else.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be? I wish my parents would have gotten divorced when i was younger and remarried to different people. Preferably, to wealthy step-parents who believed in buying my love.

What is your favorite occupation? Coroner. Or pet owner.

What is the quality you like most in a woman? I like "sturdy" women. What i mean by sturdy is: strength, class, and a bit of masculinity. Maybe that makes me sound like a butch dyke, but i hate weak, weepy, manipulative, emotional girlie-girls. My best women friends have all grown up with lots of brothers, and we all seem to get along well because we exhibit "sturdy" qualities and relate best to men. We arent fragile.

Who are your favorite writers?
Truman Capote. JD Salinger. William S. Burrows. Bill Peet. Not James Joyce. He's a fucking douche-bag...

How would you like to die?
When we're like, in our late 80s, i'd like for my husband and i to step up onto a puffy cloud surrounded by angels and stardust and ride that sucker to heaven while holding hands and waving to the world below.

Don't hate me because i'm AWESOME

2005-09-16T12:39:00.000-05:00

Hear ye, hear ye bizznatches. I have passed my qualifying exams, and with the added bonus of flying colors. Four months of blood, sweat and tears. The meeting was a dream. I had four of the most prominent scientists at my university asking me questions about the coolest aspects of my project--the stuff i love to talk about. And they thought i was brilliant. It was an amazing experience. In this field, we dont often get a lot of praise or feedback on a regular basis so i'm riding this massive euphoric wave of confidence and encouragement that i actually am more than cut-out for this biz, but will be excellent at it. And i did it all without the help of my advisor. Bless his soul, he lets me do what i want which is nice. But he really wasnt involved with anything regarding my exam. The only thing he did regarding it was read my literature review, but then didnt even critique it. Good thing i had another advisor: Dr. Head. The Head really took on this role, and fullfilled it to a high level--reviewing concepts with me, working with me on my talk and my studying. Plus the moral support. I have every confidence that Head will be awesome mentor to students one day. Although maybe he's only a good advisor when he's nailing his student. Regardless, props to the Head!

The biggest success of the week was not my passing my quals, but me fitting into these beautiful Limited pants that my chubby ass could not stuff into for over a year. I thought, wouldnt it be great if i could wear those pants for my qual meeting? Lo and behold, i pulled them on the night before and not only did they fit, but they were loose. Hells yes! Chronic stress is excellent for promoting persistant nausea and irritable bowels and i now see that was a winning combination. Although i did chug half a bottle of Pepto before my meeting yesterday so i probably wont poop for a week now.

Another funny thing i noticed now that i am all awesome again is that my fellow graduate students seem a little peeved at me. Maybe the endorphins are clouding my judgement, but they seem quite perterbed that i had such a good meeting, that it went well, and that all these wonderous things have been said about me by high-level scientists. In fact, one student, known as The Mouth was trying to diminish my success by saying "i wish i had your committee when i took my exams." No, you dumb bitch. My committee was NOTORIOUS for being hard as hell. I AM JUST THAT FUCKING SMART AND WELL-PREPARED AND THAT IS WHY I KICKED SO MUCH ASS. Dont try to diminish my success. And now i know for a fact that i am smarter than all these jerk students. The only edge they have on me is that they are insanely competitive, and i am not. So let 'em compete their heads off, work 70 hours a week and brag about it. I'll put in my less than 40 hours, take the weekends off, and still smoke them bitches. Because that's what we Heads do. We smoke bitches.

So i'm sitting at home today screwing off. Gonna paint my kitchen this weekend. Its wood-paneled, and we're gonna paint the wood a sage green. I've heard a lot of people say "i cant believe you're going to paint that beautiful paneling." Are you kidding? The only people that say that (or think paneling is still stylish) are:
1. People that consider the 70s the best years of their lives
2. Men
3. Pirates

So the paneling will go and my kitchen will rock even harder now. Tonight we are hosting a sophisticated wine and cheese party this evening in honor of the Head's birthday and my awesomeness. We'll feature a couple of lovely vintages and i guess i must head out into the city to find some cheese. There will be jazz playing, mood lighting, i'll actually dress up and even wash the hairless cat. So raise a cocktail this evening or a glass of wine and toast yourselves. You're all beautiful people. Really. Take a page out of my book and recognize yourself for the awesome bizznatches that you are.

Happy Birthday to the Head!!!

2005-09-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

A hero of modern times, the Head begins his 31st year of drunken ramblings today and i encourage you to celebrate. In honor of my dear, sweet, assinine husband, i have decided to list for you my top-ten favorite qualities of the Head:

1. Propensity for yelling at the TV
2. Unhealthy adoration of Burt Reynolds and mustaches in general
3. Ability to take a punch to the face
4. His bouncy duck-like walk
5. Visual field impairment that prevents him from seeing things right in front of his face
6. Drunken ramblings and multiple repetitions of those drunken ramblings and multiple repetitions of the multiple repetitions of those drunken ramblings...
7. Frequent expressions of incredulity usually beginning with "WHAT!?!"
8. His classification of pork as its own food group
9. All the tiny little broken blood vessels in his nose from excessive whiskey drinking
10. His massive wang

Do share your favorite Head qualities with us today! Happy Birthday Head!

Suspended animation

2005-09-02T13:29:00.000-05:00

I want my life back. Really, can i have it back please? Because it feels like my ass is owned by the qualifying exam process that has now gone on since May and will culminate on September 15. Talk about chronic stress. The students in my program gave me a practice examination yesterday and let me just say that it was GRUELING. It felt like i was in there answering questions for 4 hours, when in fact it was only 2 hours. However, i feel much better about the real thing now because i've demonstrated that i really know my shit and the few things i dont know will be easily addressed by the time September 15 rolls around. And then perhaps i will get my life back. For chrissakes, i have barely been drinking these last few months. I cant even remember the last time i had a hangover. I'm falling apart at the seams here. I want to be me again.

However, that brings me to the topic of who i really am anymore. Having my personality sucked out of me for several months seems to have exerted a deleterious effect on my identity. I feel like i've grown up. Of course, i feel like i'm smarter, but maybe that's only because i realize how stupid i was before all this learning took place. And most importantly, i feel like i've got to start living my life right now. I think graduate school encourages this feeling of suspended animation. Because you are working toward this ultimate goal of a degree, you feel like you are never quite grown up, you're not quite "there" yet, and that your life is really only a state of preparation. And for what? At the end, its just a degree and a job change. I've got to start living my life now. No more "waiting until i get my PhD, waiting until i get a job, waiting until this aspect of my life is over." My life is right now. If i want to do something, i need to do it now and just adapt my life as a grad student to it. I'm glad i bought my first house and a car and a bulldog now while i'm a grad student, whereas other people would say "why dont you wait until grad school is over and you know what you're doing with your life." Because i doubt i'll know anymore then than i know now, and hell, the one security i do have in my life is that i will be in grad school for the next few years and that at least guarantees me a paycheck and health-care and all those things for the next few years. If i want to start making financial investments, or having kids, or traveling, or learning a foreign language or whatever the fuck else, the time is to do it now. Maybe its because i took the long road and have now been in grad school for 5 years (with an expected 2 more ahead) and i've realized i cant keep letting my education push my life around. Sure its a priority to me, but i think its fine time i started balancing my priorities and start living. I'm not Lady Head the Grad Student, but Lady Head, Mistress of Her Own Domain. Who just happens to be in graduate school. But still keep your fingers crossed for September 15. I need to get through this exam and then i wont have to be Grad School's bitch anymore. At least for a while...

My Body Lie But Still I Roam

2005-08-10T23:49:00.000-05:00

Beloved Brother

STD
June 30, 1972--July 31, 1995

The 10 year anniversary of my brother’s death softly slipped by on July 31st. A small ripple in the pond, compared to the crashing wave that was brought down on me ten years earlier. To know me is to know that I owe everything I am today to the influence of my brother’s life and death. This fact cannot be denied or changed. So chilling as it is to share this “vulnerability” to the world, it is a disservice to my brother not to do so. And there is nothing vulnerable about it whatsoever.

Once I was talking about my brother to a rather ignorant friend of mine who reacted by saying “Wow—its hard to imagine that if I died, my sister would still be fucked up about it this many years later.” Is this guy fucking crazy? If you knew and loved a person for so many years, you should be allowed to mourn them at least twice as long. In fact, I plan to mourn my brother every day for the rest of my life.

When we were kids, my brother tortured me. Older brothers do that. As a small girl, I was the recipient of pile-drivers and Indian burns. My toys and even my body at one point became targets for BB-gun and nunchuck practice. Beatings were a plenty. I was teased relentlessly about every last little insecurity and weakness I had. And if I told mom or dad about any of it, there were threats of worse to come. And of course my reaction was to idolize him. I believe that our siblings are what make us tough enough to handle the rest of the world, so even now I thank him for the abuse.

When we got older, the beatings and teasing ceased. Young adulthood leveled the playing field. We could tell each other things we couldn’t tell others. We could be delinquents together, with my brother leading the way by dabbling in drugs and getting in fights and getting hammered and driving too fast and getting covered in tattoos. I soon followed in it all. But I was different. My brother was a genius, but a reckless wanderer in life. Sure I was smart enough, but naïve, and I carefully plotted my course in the world. I knew things would change between us when I headed off to college. But the one constant in the world was that he was my big brother, and he would have done anything for me. He was reckless, he was brave, he was strong, but he was also very proud of his little sister. When all of my other family members and friends crumbled to personal weaknesses, or became hypocrites, or disappointed me, my brother did not. And he’ll never have a chance to disappoint me now. He has been immortalized as I knew him best and can never fall from grace in my eyes. Few people in my life can claim that accomplishment.

So death knocked on his door and unfortunately he always had the balls to answer. One day he was there and the next he was gone. I was 18, he was 23. In what was the biggest most freakish most inexplicable accident that I will NEVER be able to comprehend, he managed to fire a very powerful bullet from one of his very powerful guns directly into his brain, obliterating any trace of the organ that sustained the very vital functions of his life and being. Based on witness accounts on the sequence of events and a complete investigation from the coroner, his death was ruled an accident; something quite uncommon for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Could it have been suicide? That doubt always lingers, and was likely put there by the ignorant fucks that assumed that much upon hearing his fate. The fact is we’ll never know why a stone-sober, accomplished and well-trained marksman was pointing a .44 Magnum anywhere near his head.

The news of his death made me stagger and my mind fell into a dizzying haze that did not lift for a year. It was as if I was this ceramic doll, standing there, and someone had just thrown a hammer at me. I watched as the person I was shattered into a million pieces on the floor. I stood there, a naked frame of who I once was, staring at those god-damned shards. When dealing with these kinds of irrevocable changes, you have two choices: Lay down and die, or walk on. It was all I could do to lift the legs on that weakened frame of myself, but I took a step and walked on. I haven’t stopped walking since. In ten years, I’ve graduated from college. Moved to Chicago. Got engaged. Got married. Got a master’s degree. Moved to Nashville. Bought a house. Am working on my PhD. Have made and lost friends, laughed and cried, watched others suffer incredible losses, which jabbed at the open wound I still carry. All in ten years. With not a day going by that I didn’t think of my brother, wishing he was still alive.

But I like who I’ve become as a result of suffering such a loss. I am far less vulnerable. The world is less scary. None of the mundane day-to-day trials of life are insurmountable. Once you’ve stared the devil in the face, minor irritations can never become the tragedies that they do in so many other people’s lives. Although I lament the events of my life that have created who I am, I like seeing myself without that ceramic exterior. It’s a lot easier to see my brother smiling back at me in my own reflection.

Phase I is complete, and now the calm before the shit-storm

2005-07-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

I turned in the written portion of my qualifying exam today, and was the first person in my class to do so. Its due Monday. I am awesome. Tour de force writing, i must say. It will wow the masses. But this weekend will be the calm before the shit-storm. You see, i am lucky. I have this weekend to worry about NOTHING. But come Monday, i will begin the arduous task of preparing for the oral exams. Memorizing details of paper after paper, attempting to recall stuff i learned in my classes, answering questions on the fly when my nerves are jacked out of shape in a room full of high level neuroscientists. Basically i'm fucked. And not knowing when this misery will occur is the worst. It could happen anytime from the end of August to mid-October. Hopefully i will find out the date soon, but then i suppose the panic will REALLY set in.

At the beginning of my oral defense, i have to do a 5-minute presentation hitting the high points of my paper. Yes, 5 minutes. I cant even say my name in 5 minutes. Five minutes is like no friggin' time at all.

So i'll enjoy my weekend. Especially since all those other suckers are still working on their written exams. And then the shit-storm of studying blows in on Monday.

And the world keeps on movin' & groovin'

2005-07-28T00:14:00.000-05:00

The heat wave finally broke. And the Ash-holes will be moving from Chicago in a week to their new destination: the East Coast. The Chicago Crew slowly disbands and disperses. I feel very sad for all of them--such a great loss and i hope everyone realized what a special moment in the great fast lapse of time they shared. I wonder if many felt the same when the Head and i took the plunge to the South. I hope so. But the Ashes are special. They unified the Chicago Crew. No more bathroom door that doesnt close well unless you lock it tight; no more cramped ass kitchen where the garbage piles high because the Head, being a terrible house-guest, doesnt take it out. No more cozy and comfy futon living room vodka-intoxicated fuzz with happy pictures on the wall while watching crappy TV and two big hairy cats giving you stink-eye and some psychopath starts banging on the door and shit its only Turbo and Hotrod and hell yes you can come in and lets all drink some whiskey and watch Family Guy and Who's All That is Man Saturday morning when we're all dry-heaving from the party with Jenny and Thomas and Fat Nick and Big Dave where we all decided that shots would be great at 3:30 in the morning when none of us could even remember our names and the peanuts were not salted. But i guess we all move on. We'll sail to distant shores. As we look off the stern of our boats, we'll realize the sun rises and sets in the same place: whether its Lake Michigan, land-locked Tennessee or the Atlantic ocean. Good thing that this evil electronic business keeps us all together, but unfortunately, spares us the indignity of our weaknesses. Because it is our beautiful, sacred weaknesses that keep us all so very close. Your drunken imperfections make you gorgeous and make me feel like i as imperfect as i am, am welcome and in the right place. Goodbye and hello, bitches! I'll be here for all of you wherever you are. Lord knows you're only a Southwest airlines flight away.

2005-07-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

Butthead wants YOU to stop being a toolbox.

The Giant Toolbox

2005-07-19T23:27:00.000-05:00

Do you think that people know how much i hate them? Suffering fools is not one of my strong suits, so i would think these individuals could detect the derision and scorn that i surreptitiously emit toward them. Not that i'm talking about any of you guys. I love all of you very, very much. Its those other jerks. The jerks i loathe. I'm convinced those jerks just HAVE to be able to tell that i hate them, but they're just not letting on that they know.

There's this guy i know that bears a striking resemblance to Butthead. Now i wont call him "Butthead" because Butthead is incredibly cool and has a lot of style. No, i call this guy the Toolbox because he's such a fucking tool that it requires a description of the whole g-damn box. Toolbox is many things, but mostly a wang. He's one of these people that perpetually believes he's being crucified by the world, and that everyone he meets is out to screw him. As if he's that fucking important that the world would want to waste their time trying to screw him over. The Toolbox is also a teetotaller. Never trust a man that doesnt drink unless he is a recovering alcoholic, and even then, its probably not wise to put too much trust in a recovering alcoholic. The Toolbox also lives in a very "me-centric" ("me" as in the Toolbox himself, not Lady Head) world where he will not lift a finger to help you unless it provides some direct benefit to him. Sure, we're all like that to a good extent, but at least we respect our friends and aquaintences enough to try to conceal it under the guise of being a "team player." And if overt selfishness is your life mantra, you shouldnt elect to work in an environment where cooperation is necessary and you yourself depend upon others. However, Toolbox's most charming characteristic is his completely twisted and often times cruel sense of humor. Its as if he were raised by wolves and never acquired the basic social skills to determine what is funny and good natured versus what is spiteful and tragic. Whereas most people make silly little jokes or tell amusing little stories to each other with the sole purpose of being funny, the Toolbox's attempts at humor come out horribly, horribly wrong. Here's my interpretation of what normal people joke about and how it sounds when Toolbox tries to make a "funny." Amusing story from normal guy: "Say Toolbox, i was riding in the elevator this morning and Nancy let out this massive fart and it smelled like tacos and just then Juan got on and cried 'este elevador huele como cocinar de la mama'" and we were all just dying..." Funny story from Toolbox: "So i was driving down the road and ran over this box of kittens and then i discovered that the kittens that were already dead, ha ha ha ha hee-haw, and rotting even, geeze, ha, can you imagine a box of rotting dead kittens laying out there [snort, laugh]on the road [more snorts, chuckle] it was so fucking [snort] hilarious, probably like the time you found your dog dead, right? " [Silence. Sound of crickets chirping]. Joke from normal guy: So you're complaining that your eyes are getting bad, eh Toolbox? Must be from all that masterbating you're always talking about..." Joke from Toolbox: "Your mama is so fat that she must be a fucking bitch cripple whore with gonnorrhea and i hope you both get cancer and die." [People gaping in shock, more crickets chirping]

And that my dear friends, is the Great Toolbox. Lucky for me, i dont have to interact with Toolbox very often but the fact he exists as a human being within a 10 mile radius of me still causes me great disgust. But i often wonder if he can detect the repugnance that drips from my voice when i must congenially address him, or if that miseducated savage considers me a good pal...

Has your life lost its purpose?

2005-07-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry kids. I know you live and breathe for every word i type, so my blogging hiatus has probably left you with suicidal ideation, scars from cutting, and possibly a neurotic tic. But i've been busy fucking off for the last week, and i've never felt better.

Senior Head abandoned me this past week to be a biologist and observe animals in the field. As much as i missed him, i was really fucking glad i didnt go on that trip. I've been on it before and its horrifying. You're out in the middle of bumfuck bear country PA, where cell phone service is nonexistant and the locals have only heard legends of something called the Internet. You have to slog through bug-snake-bear-infested swamps every four hours searching for animals, and yes, that means you are out there at ugly times like 1am and 5am, not to mention all during the day. You're smelly, wet, hungry, angry and often terrified (at the 1am shift) and you never get enough rest. Its a trip that's run with Gestapo tacticts, and lacks the flair and fun of a David Attenborough field documentary. It COULD be a better trip, but the current administration prefers the boot camp mentality. When the Head and i get our own lab, we'll make it something the students WANT to do instead of something they dread. There'll be more people, better scheduling of shifts, entertainment, and a hell of a lot of liquor. We'll put the fun back in uh, fun field-work. Until then this swampy trip to hell can take years off a purgatory sentence, which is the only upshot to it.

While the Head was bribing Baby Bear with porridge and contracting Lyme disease, i spent the week in what i thought was going to be an equally harrowing experience. My parents were coming to visit. Now this was the first time they have traveled from Ohio to visit me in TN to see our new house and all the pets, and the first time in years they had gone on a vacation together. You see, my parents hate each other. Hate may even be too weak of a word, and yes, this has been going on since i was a little girl. Catholic guilt and financial restrictions have prevented them from obtaining a divorce so they still live in the same house but rarely speak a civilized word to each other. So i invited my mom out to stay with me in the Head's absence, and when my dad found out about it, he couldnt let my mom come and have all the fun. Then when my mom found out my dad was going to come, she changed her mind and decided not to come. What.the.fuck? After a scathing email on my part about stranding me with my father (we're not particularly close and it would be really, really WEIRD to spend anytime alone with him), she recommitted to the trip, but booked her own travel accomodations. So my dad drove all the way down here and my mom took a flight. So you can imagine that i anticipated utter catastrophic chaos. But to my complete disbelief, i had a SPLENDID visit with the both of them. They were well-behaved with only a scant few rude remarks toward each other, and they fixed all this shit around the house and painted and landscaped and bought us all kinds of stuff. I mean, shit! My mom walks into the house, declares that i need a new stove because my old one is ugly, and proceeds to purchase me this new pimped out one! My dad buys all these home-improvement supplies and paint and yard tools (including my new pimped out weed-wacker) and proceeds to fix EVERYTHING and even manages to change the oil on the Head's car. Then my mom decides she wants to spend more money than my dad and goes out and buys the Head this $500 stainless steel grill with a side-burner (why one needs a side-burner on a grill, i dont know, but the Head has it now). Then she feels bad that she didnt dump enough money on me personally, so she goes out and buys me this KITCHEN ISLAND that i only dreamt of getting. Yes, a fucking KITCHEN ISLAND. So now i have a perfectly maintained house and yard along with a fancy grill and a boss-looking kitchen. I guess the trauma of growing up in a dysfunctional, emotionally-catastrophic family pays off when your parents compete to buy the most love from you. But crap. They had my love when they fixed the toilet that ran too long and the windows that were stuck. Aside from all the wonderful purchases, it was the most pleasant time i've spent with my family in over 10 years and i can say that i honestly ENJOYED the visit. And here i thought i'd be ahead of the game if i could merely TOLERATE it.

So the parents have returned to Ohio, the Head has returned to our fabulous manor, the doctor decided to remove my treacherous mole, leaving behind a huge hideous wound with stitches, and i returned to work after a week of sitting outdoors getting ripped on Stolis and watching my parents work. All is well with the world, and the hurricane has given us splendidly cool (mid 80s) weather so hopefully the Head will grill us some fat chunks of cow tonight on the stainless steel wonder. Now that we're all caught up, i hope you'll forgive my absence since i've put the purpose back into your life.

Hobophobia

2005-06-28T12:30:00.000-05:00

I overheard a strange conversation in the elevator the other day. This smarmy-looking hausfrau soccer mom was telling her companion about how uncomfortable she was because a bum had just stopped her on the street and asked her for money. Of course, she whipped out her wallet and gave him a dollar, but upon seeing her wallet, the bum (as bums do) criticized her for not giving him more. I dont know if she gave him more, but she appeared completely traumatized by the experience and the companion kept apologizing for making her wait on the street, which is apparently how she fell prey to this hobo. Previous to the elevator ride, i saw the entire interaction and wondered why a woman was talking to a bum for so long, and holding her wallet open in her hand when the shit-bastard could easily grab it and run. This is a perfect example of the naivete of my city. People dont even know how to handle bums.

Not that there are even a lot--there are several downtown and a few raunchy guys that mull about in front of the parking garage across the street from my university. Its kind of like an invisible fence--they dare not cross over the street onto the Privilegded University's (PU) property, but they hang out along the very border. Its surprising PU allows their presence because they might be a downer for some overpriviledged rich college kids to have to endure seeing poor people, but i do notice these friggin' hobos are more prevalent during the summer when the kids are gone.

But in all honesty, i fucking hate bums. I really do. Too bad they are down on their luck. Luck has nothing to do with it. There are probably of myriad of reasons how they got to that state, and i doubt any of them had to do with shitty luck. More likely, bad personal choices and selfishness. I dont give bums money, and it takes all my effort not to give them shit for asking. Not because i care about what they would do with it, because i really dont, but because i fucking hate self-righteous free-loaders. For christsakes, i have a free-loading Evil brother-in-law that i give handouts to, and i hate doing that. At least he's family, and he may or may not wash a dish when he's at my house. That fucking bum on the street is gonna give me nothing but a burst of his rank odor. And its not like bums are nice. Often, they waste your time with some half-assed bullshit story about how they need a certain amount of money to get a bus ticket to get downtown to see their kid or some cockamamee bullshit like that. Once, some fucking dude approached me in a parking lot and asked me for $30 so he could get his car from the mechanic and drive home. I just laughed and said "are you fucking kidding me?" Not only do bums waste your time, but they also get MEAN if you dont give them cash. Name-calling, persistant asking, following you. Who the fuck in their right mind approaches a lone woman these days without fear of mace or a kick in the groin? Not gonna work when you violate my rights of feeling safe, you fucking smelly hobo.

So i know this sounds pretty close-minded, and i agree. But i cant fight the hatred i feel when bums approach me. I'm sure you've got stories about some great bum who really did have a shitty life and bad luck but believe me, he or she is the exception, not the rule. I dont even like strangers who have money talking to me on the street. Let alone some asshole approaching me for money i dont have. Fucking bums. I'm terribley hobophobic.

28 years together and you're gonna try to kill me NOW??

2005-06-21T16:37:00.000-05:00

I have an evil mole on the back of my hand that has been with me since birth. Its an unremarkable little dot the diameter of a pencil eraser and it lies about a half-inch below my left pinky finger. That little fucker has been both the bane and pride of my existence. As a kid, other kids viewed it as a catalyst for making fun of me. "You've got something on your hand. No, ew, its a mole! You're a freak!" Etc and so on. Never mind the fact they were cross-eyed knock-kneed overweight piss-smelling kids of some fat suburban parents. I was perfectly normal and smelled great, but egads, i had a mole! On the other hand, i sort of liked the damn thing. Its very rare to have a mole in that anatomical location. I considered it an identifying characteristic of myself, should i ever be kidnapped or my body chucked in a dumpster (i was a very logical, albeit morbid 8-yr old). My conflicting relationship with that keratinized spot continued through attempts to remove it myself (at age 13), thoughts about tattooing around it (age 18), and periods of years where i totally utterly forgot i had it (age 25--stoned; "whoah dude--i totally forgot i had this damn thing."). Even when good HMO coverage made mole-removal feasible, i decided to keep it anyway. I mean, it deserves props for good behavior: it never raised up above the skin and never sprouted hairs. What a good little mole.

Cruise ahead to year 28. For some reason, i'm starting to notice this damn thing on my hand a little more. What? Am i crazy? No, no no. I'm noticing it because its changing. Parts of the little fucker have changed color, black spots have snuck into it and the creepy bastard has started extending its borders in an irregular fashion. You little fucker! Anyone that knows that ABCD's of skin cancer knows that this pig-fucker mole has just scored 3 points for the melanoma team. And i'm not even gonna describe the crazy shit i saw going on in it when i looked at it under the microscope! Ugh. That rotten little cocksucker. 28 years and it pulls this shit on me now. I saw the doctor today and she said it doesnt look like it will kill me in the two weeks it will take to get me a dermatology appointment, at which i will need to get a routine skin cancer screening.

Not that any of this is a worry at all, i mean, not a worry in the least, so dont even waste your breath on reassurance or anything silly like that. Skin cancers when caught early are 100% curable with no other treatment than just lopping off the diseased mass. Its not like you even have to worry about other parts of the body--these skin things are pretty local. And because i'm such a paranoid hypochondriac, i notice subtle changes on every speck on my body so i'll catch anything in its earliest treatable stages. And shit, the doctors can take the whole finger if they want it. Its not like i ever use that one. So i'm not worried AT ALL, but its the lack of respect that really bothers me. 28 years, stuck together through thick and thin, and its gonna try and kill me now? I dont think so. I'll gouge that little bitch out myself if i have too. But that brings up another issue. If the doctors decide to remove it, can i live without it? I mean, what if its not really trying to kill me? I could be excising the innocent. You just dont expect these things from someone that's been by your side for 28 years. What's next? My liver? After sacrificing my dignity and moral constitution to douse it with its "happy bath" of alcohol all these years? Those recalcitrant, ungrateful, nasty little organs. Little bitches just sit on their asses and i have to cart them around. And this is the thanks i get.

Gentlemen start your engines...

2005-06-20T16:00:00.000-05:00

This week i will begin the month-long process of writing my qualifying exam (followed by the month-long process of preparing for and freaking out about the oral exam). We've had our "meeting," been told all the "rules," been given examples of what is expected, and our advisors have been told not to put any demands on us for the rest of the summer. Generally, writing commences at the beginning of July but i'm ahead of the game by 2 weeks. Because i'm ready, bitches. Here i come to save the world. Er, uh, um, or just study this really cool animal. And maybe it will end up saving the world someday. Probably not, the little shit-eaters...Anyhow, i'm as ready as i'm gonna be to write this tour de force masterpiece of science. Time to set the spell check on stun and discontinue further use of flowery adjectives. It will be hard keeping my cunning wit under wraps for the duration of this manuscript.

Ironically, while i commence writing my exam, the Ash-hole has been handed a job offer as a faculty member at a university. What is the irony you say? The irony is that Ash-holio and i started grad school at the same place and time. Granted i've changed schools and climate zones since that point and he's kinda gone straight through (the sissy way out: doing it the right way) but i love the occasional dose of self-pity where i can say "Look at the Ash-hole; i should be getting my PhD and a job now too." And then the reality sinks in that once i pass these damn qualifying exams, it will be back to sitting on my comfortable ass for the next two years, not worrying about that crazy work-a-day life of having a job in the real world. Suckers. That means i have two extra years to figure out how to become a "kept" girl. And then i'll never have to work again.

Now that i'm properly motivated, its back to work time. Gotta help the Head publish more papers so he can get that fat science career and support my expensive pet and cheap shoe habits.

Fuck you! It's my birthday!

2005-06-14T15:45:00.000-05:00

Waaaaaaaaah. Lady Head down, Lady Head down. I always knew there would be a rise before the fall. The Superbug has paid me a suprise birthday visit. Motherfucker struck last night at 8:30. Yessir, i can pinpoint the very moment my health disintegrated into the dizzying, dry-heaving, stomach-wrenching, toilet-destroying state that i call my life today. I mean, shit. I deserve the day off from work for my birthday, right, but not if i'm fucking bedridden. Typing this is the first upright thing i've done all day and only because i need to take a break from lying on my incredibly sore body. Yes, i can feel every fucking bone in my body right now and they all hurt. Have you ever actually felt your ribcage hurt? I am feeling it right now. Even my ankles hurt. What kind of crazy toxic bacterial weapons are floating around out there? And i tell you, i have never been this weirdly sick this frequently since i moved to this sewer of a state called TN. I'm noticing on my deathly pale body some pretty weird rashes from recent bug bites so i probably have Lyme disease or malaria or fucking Black Death.

My late night and morning have pretty much been: yell for the Head to bring my barf bucket, twist and turn in bed, put on covers because i'm cold, take off covers because i'm hot, make a run for the bathroom, whine, moan, repeat. Moving brings dizziness, and dizziness brings dry heaves. The puppy started crying when he heard me yelling at the cat who was trying to steal the straw out of my iced tea, so i had to take him outside to pee. I walk outside from my house of 71 degrees to a g-damn furnace of 94 degrees with 53% relative humidity and almost vomit my ice tea all over the patio. Then the dog decides to lay down in the grass, just out of my reach because he's in the sunlight. Knowing full well that i would burst into flames if i ventured into the light to drag his bony ass back, i curl into a fetal position and huddle in the shade until i figure out how to trick him back with a biscuit. Once i'm back in the house, i stagger to bed (with emergency bathroom trip en route) to find that the bastard naked cat stole the straw out of my drink and hid it. Moaning, i lay down until it hurts to lay anymore. Now my ass hurts from sitting. And a bathroom trip is imminent. Therefore i must bid you good day. Happy birthday to me!

Holy crap am i a spoiled little bitch!

2005-06-12T16:19:00.000-05:00

My new jeep is tuff. That's right. T-U-F-F.

Holy crap am i a spoiled little bitch. The Head and my brother (posthumously) went in on a new friggin' car for my birthday. Holy hot-balls is it friggin' sweet. I look totally awesome in it (see below). Its a fully-equipped pimped out mutherfucker and it drives like a dream. And i can even 4-wheel it out of ditches and over most of the crap i usually run into. Too bad its been pouring for the last two days or i'd kick it into 4W and drive it across my front lawn to show the neighbors (who also have a Jeep Liberty they love). And the best part? I can tow up to 5000 lbs. That's right, bitches. I can pull most of YOUR cars out of ditches now. My new jeep is friggin' tuff. Special thanks to the Head, who makes all my bulldog puppy dreams and hairless kitty wishes come true, and to my brother Steve, who although dead for the past 10 years, made sure he left his little sister enough money to squander it on fun things like the down payment on a "tuff" jeep. Its the least he could do for stranding me alone with our crazy-ass parents...

I rise up from the depths, triumphant

2005-06-10T17:00:00.000-05:00

What a great fucking week. No, really. I'm not being sarcastic. This is the best fucking week i've had in a while. I will not recap, but direct you to two blogs ago (Hot damn tonight) and tell you that today was the icing on the cake. The project that i was actively trying to develop from scratch for the last month, that i had worried about developing for the last 6 months was approved by an expert in the field and my advisor today. Both are very excited about it, and gave me the go-ahead to pursue it. And i did it all on my own (with help from the Head, of course) without my advisor handing me a project or shit, even ideas. Even though i must now polish it into a literary masterpiece, orally defend it as a qualifying exam, eventually carry out the experiments, and defend a dissertation, i feel that the hardest part is now behind me. And the best part is that its friggin' good. And interesting. And somebody else besides me thinks so. Finally, i feel like i might actually like what i'm doing, care about science, and feel like a real functional graduate student. In fact, i'm actually quite excited about all of it. EXCITED! Can you believe it? I dont even know if i've used the word "excited" in first person prose when referring to anything i've ever done at work.

I'm sure my feel-good-ness will all come crashing down as my fear of impending examinations sets in, but as for now, i am riding this euphoric wave. I have risen up from the depths of my fears, malice, envy, disgust, and apathy; triumphant, optimistic and proud of my little, convoluted paper-clip containing brain. Good job, little guy. Good job! [pats own head]

So now, i will screw off for the rest of the day. Maybe i'll check CNN.com, or the Jeep website, or hell, see what's going on with the summer handbag line at Coach. Then about 4pm, i'm outta here. Gonna go buy some curlers, and roll my hair up tight. I'm one of the guests of honor at a party tonight, being that it has been thrown in honor of my 28th and the lady Canadian's 30th birthdays, which occur on the exact same day, June 14. The party has a 1920's-30's theme, so i must put finger curls in my hair and don my flapper [drinking] hat and go get drunk on sidecars and rickies.

Wham is now on the radio. God bless this crazy new radio station that plays everything from Barry White to Whitesnake. I'll see all ya'all bitches next week. Much love to ya. Out.

Left out of Lady Marmalade

2005-06-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

I've become a victim of pop culture. My newest dirty little secret is my obsession with the filthy reality series involving that hoe-bag Britney Spears and her sleazeball baby daddy. Its called "Chaotic" but "Moronic" would be a better title. Basically, this show has done for me what xanax and alcohol have tried to do but failed: it voids my brain of any stress, rational thought, or feeling. When i watch it, the person you know as Lady Head is reduced to nothing but brain secretions and basic medullary activity necessary to sustain life. I love it. Its my giant, moronic, harping, whiney, sleazey, big-titted hillbilly valium pill.

Aside from its anxiolytic effects, the show has nothing to offer. Perhaps it appeals to my inner urge to rubberneck at car-fires or endulges the trend of watching trailor trash self-destruct. But even the people on COPS are more complex. No, i think i like Chaotic because it has taken one of the most idolized women in the world, a woman who men (and lesbians) spank to on a daily basis, a woman who's tits are on every magazine cover, a woman who fourteen-yr-olds are aspiring to become, and it reduces her to the pile of dog-shit southern-drawl moronic inbred hillbilly that deep inside, we all knew she was. And it goes to show you can be the most popular woman in the world and you can still end up with a douche-bag for a boyfriend/husband. Watching this nonsense feels good, but guilty, sort of like scoping out that car-fire you pass on the interstate. Smoldering, smelly, and destructive, you can't help but be mildly amused even though you'll forget about it in an hour. Because like a car-fire, its smoldering, smelly and destructive but no one was hurt and no lives were changed and no one really gives a fuck but they are glad it wasnt their car that caught on fire. And i feel sort of bad for all the people that put old Brits up on that pedestal. This show has caused her to come crashing down for many, and one has to wonder where the hell her PR people were when they decided to air this mindless dribble. I have two words: Career suicide.

But i am thankful to that delightful little hoe-bag, because i believe she is sacrificing herself for my amusement (or numbness, as the case stands). She's taking one for the team, and people like me can tune in Tuesday nights and forget about our problems or anything else that matters as our brains slowly leak from our ears. At a stressful time in my life as i prepare my dissertation work in neuroscience, i really appreciate that Brit is having trouble saying "i love you" to Sleazeball (after like, what? two dates?) because she's been hurt before.

So i'd tell you to tune in, but i really dont recommend it to anyone unless you really need to shut down ALL cognitive function once a week. Which for me, is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Hot damn tonight!

2005-06-07T16:25:00.000-05:00

Well my face has still not completely healed from the kayaking incident, so i may have to bail on my next lesson this week. I cant get back on that watery bronco just yet, and if i did, it would violate my lifelong credo of "when things get hard, quit." But failure comes at a good time because there are many other positive aspects to my life right now.

First of all, some friends donated vicodin for my pain. SCORE! Believe it or not, they didnt like this pharmaceutical because it "made them feel funny" so they donated their Rx to the cause of my kayak-imprinted jaw. Now the fact it "makes me feel funny" is the precise reason why i like it so much, especially after two glasses of wine. After a little "treatment," my jaw is of no relevance to me, and Robot Chicken, Mythbusters, and the Head are even more profound and amusing than usual.

Secondly, guess what i had for breakfast this morning? A big plate of BROTHER-IN-LAW MOVED OUT! Hells yes! We packed up the Evil Twin last night and sent him off to the suburbs to live with an old queen hairdresser who was renting out a room. Perhaps the Twin's new roomate can finally convince the Twin to come out of the closet. Or perhaps confirm his questionable (in my opinion) heterosexuality. Who knows, but more importantly, WHO CARES because the Evil Twin has finally moved out! Its like my birthday present came a week early this year!

The Head and i are well on the way to becoming productive members of the scientific community. We just submitted our very first article to one of the premier journals in our field. Premier, people, PREMIER. Its like the New Yorker of the science world. If it gets accepted, you'll probably be seeing us on CNN. I'll be the cute one with the pigtails in my hair.

Also, i think i've finally come up with a killer thesis project. It involves the interaction of the brain, puberty hormones and vertebral bone growth in cool little rodents that live in a female-dominated society. I smell a Nobel prize (or at the very least, a dissertation)!

And finally, the best news: just the other day, the bulldog puppy's testicles descended. He's finally a little man (with massive bulldog 'nads). Such a shame he'll be losing his manhood to the neutering process next month. So i urge you tonight to drink a toast to the bulldog's junk before the vet has at it!

Vicodin and no brother-in-law and productivity at work and testicles on a puppy and hot damn are we gonna have a good time celebrating tonight!!!!!!

Kayaking is hard

2005-06-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

So the Head got sick of my incessant bitching about his incessant internet-poker playing. He started saying silly things like "you dont have hobbies. You need to get a hobby of your own to enjoy." He seemed to forget my hobby of adoring, training, and taking care of our 5 baby mammals, my hobby of designing and decorating the interior of our house, my hobby of gardening and landscaping. So anyway, he pushed this hobby thing, and i looked to see what kind of things were available for me to learn at my university's rec center. And i saw kayaking. I says to myself, i says, i could learn to kayak. I love canoeing, i love being outdoors, i love building upper body strength. How hard could it be? I mean, i'm a champion canoer. Everytime we go canoeing, the Head just lays in the back of the canoe and lets my scrawny little girl arms paddle. So i was excited about kayaking because i felt it was something i would be good at.

WRONG. Kayaking is fucking HARD. Kayaking is fucking DANGEROUS. Kayaking is fucking PAINFUL. I just went to my first kayak workshop yesterday, held in the safety of my university's pool. Now this is a bit of education for those of you, like me, who have never set foot in a kayak. First of all, it is NOT a canoe. Its a death trap. You are literally SEALED into your kayak. It doesnt leave your lower body unless you know how to escape from it. And that instills a panicky feeling of being trapped. Now what do you mean you're pushing me into the water when i'm trapped in this friggin' boat? Sploosh. There i am, floating in my kayak. Any miniscule movement on my part sends the boat tipping. Basically, i can control the boat with my hips. If only my hips had any control. I am not a dancer. My hip muscles and obliques are weak. Who the fuck ever uses their lateral hips? Even sex requires an anterior/posterior motion of your hips, not lateral! I guess i'll have to work on ghetto-swinging my ass when i walk. As for kayaking, i'm already fucked, as this is a movement not familar to my central motor programs.

Now the point of the kayak workshops is not to teach you how to paddle on your merry way. That is the simple part. The whole point of kayaking and kayak training is to show you ways to save yourself from your kayak itself. I mean, isnt that ridiculous? Here's a sport where the device itself is gonna fucking drown you and the whole point is to learn to circumvent that. Good God! So we practice "rolling" and "rescues." Basically, its how to flip yourself upright once your easily tipped kayak turns upside down. This is a VERY scary situation. Unlike when a canoe tips, you cannot bail out. Remember i said you are SEALED to the kayak? When the kayak tips over, you are dragged underwater with it and you have to use those stupid weak lateral hip muscles to flip the boat back over. And its so fucking hard, and any amount of time you are TRAPPED underwater you start to panic. We are practicing this and its so hard to do because the kayaks are so heavy and many of us in class are freaking out for fear of drowning. So the instructors teach us how to roll ourselves out by grabbing onto the bow of a kayak next to us. Easier than rolling on our own, but still heavy to lift our friggin' boats off of us. So what happens next? Lady Head is upside down, drowning in her kayak, and goes to grab the bow of the boat next to me. I push my g-damn kayak up, but my hand fucking slips off the bow. The weight of my body, my kayak, and the force of the kayak flipping smashes the side of my face onto the bow of the adjacent boat. BOOM. I see stars. I thought blood was gonna come pouring out of my ear. I was in so much pain it was unreal. But i managed to shake it off.

Today i woke up today and looked in the mirror. My face is strangely asymmetrical. My mandible right next to my ear is massively swollen, painful to the touch, and i cannot chew solid foods. I doubt anything is broken because like Wolverine from X-men, i have indestructible steel bones. But if this swelling doesnt go down i may have to make a trip to the emergency room. Oh yeah. After all that whole fiasco, i signed up for another kayak workshop next week.

Cheap vodka and the downfall of Lady Head

2005-05-31T13:55:00.000-05:00

Memorial day is one of those fabulous holidays that commands binge-drinking. Barbecue and Lady Head's Hillside Croquet Challenge and Bulldog Bocce Ball and horseshoes are events fully supported by a perfect lazy drunken Tennessee afternoon. But why, oh why, Country Club vodka, could you do me so wrong?

Maybe it happened a couple of days ago when i drank up all the Stolis in the house. You see, my Evil brother-in-law (aka the Evil Twin) has set up temporary residence with us. While outwardly being the agreeable "family guy" that welcomed him and allows him to linger, inwardly i'm a pretty resentful little bitch about it. He cramps my style. I like to pee with the door open, walk around in my underwear, have time to myself, and perhaps enjoy some "relations" with the husband. None of that now. The Evil Twin is up at 5:30 in the morning pacing the house, drinking coffee like its liquid crack, and throwing off the puppy's and my agreement that we are not to convene before 9am each morning for our daily business. Plus, of all shitty things, he tries to talk to me in the morning. Imagine that! Anyone that knows me knows well enough not to try and start a conversation with me before 9:30am. For some reason, waking sensitizes the rage circuitry in my brain and it takes a few hours for the synapses to cool down. That being said, the Evil Twin has been on his best behavior and tries to be helpful, which is why i must hide my resentment. He's being a good kid. But a truly good kid wouldnt have to crash at his brother's house. Because he's got no job and no apartment and no viable credit history and a relapsing drug addiction. There is a reason why the Head and i dont have roomates and chose to live together and dont have children. We enjoy being a "couple" and like our Heads-only time together. To end the digression, the stress of having a roomate led me to consume all the Stolis in the house.

Then comes Memorial day weekend. We've got a gallon jug of Country Club vodka for all the crappy mixers we're serving to the guests. I wasnt worried: i hadnt planned on drinking. You see, it was the first big party with our baby puppy and i wanted to be a concerned mother. If i was drunk, i might miss an opportunity to break someone's fingers for attempting to feed the bulldog Cheetos. But things went too smoothly. The guests were well-behaved. The puppy just slept. Good times we were a having. Madam Nonesuch, who usually makes a quick appearance and departs, stayed the course and got tore-up. So naturally, i couldnt be the jerk-off sober guy. It wouldnt be fair to my guests. Therefore, i HAD to start drinking. But all i had was the old Country Club. So i started choking down the Club with a little seltzer. After the first one, they went down a little too easy. For someone who started the day pacing herself, i went from zero to stinko in approximately 2 hours. I was making up for lost time. Suddenly it became of the Tour de France of drinking and i was in the lead. I was truly the comeback kid. Next thing i know i'm in the house, vomiting into a purple bucket. I recall requesting the Head's presence and i believe i was hauled off to bed while the party continued. The next morning i awoke a mess, puke bucket next to the bed, wanging headache, and all the other assorted joys of a MASSIVE HANGOVER. That hangover was so epic that i'm still feeling a little like shit two days later. When you start the morning dry heaving in the shower, you know the day isnt likely to improve much.

So i blame the Country Club vodka. Stolis would never do that to me. Its got too much class. But that tricked out white-trash crackhead hooker of a vodka punished me for my prima donna ways. That fucking bitch schooled me hard. So i've learned now not to run with riff-raff. They will fuck you in the end. I've got to remember that i'm high-class. I cant stoop to the level of Country Club vodka. Next time i run out of Stolis, i'll start drinking scotch.

Hope you all had a happy memorial day!

Why am i so fucking delicious?

2005-05-23T02:10:00.000-05:00

I'm itching like crazy these days as a result of a fucking jihad the neighborhood mosquitos have launched on my body. Between my two feet i have about 18 different bites since the little fuckers take advantage of my drunk-induced analgesia and attack the only parts of my body not covered by chain mail. And just yesterday, i was out in the yard for a half hour around fucking 5pm and got two massive bites (one on my wrist and the other on the back of my neck) that have swollen up into edematous nodes that make me wonder if in fact i shouldnt be rushed to the hospital. West fucking Nile, here i come. I must taste like chicken-wings to these fucking bloodsuckers.

Too sore to type today. Spent Friday night stripping all the wallpaper off my bathroom walls (note to the world: there is NEVER a good reason to put up wallpaper. I dont care how much you want some lame-ass pattern on the wall of your crappy chinz-themed room, but just dont do it, you fucking retards.) while the Head played internet poker. Fell off my ladder twice and burnt my arm on the bare light fixture while i was grinding the wallpaper off. The Head continued to play poker. Spent Saturday painting the bathroom. Fucking perfect Art Deco, South Beach style. Its so Miami that i'm gonna be kicking J.Lo out of there by the end of the week. Four walls, four different colors. The Head continued to play poker, while ignoring the puppy that i now had to watch, while i was up on a ladder painting the bathroom four different colors. And the Head didnt even win enough money to cover the cost of my paint. Plus he had the nerve to shit in my new Art Deco bathroom.

I think i have an eating disorder. I binge and then i unintentionally purge. I eat this low-carbohydrate candy made with sugar alcohols and for some reason, within mere hours of consuming it, it explosively leaves my body, taking anything else i've eaten with it. Its such an unpleasant experience, you'd think i'd learn. But i dont. I'm back eating those fucking low-carb goobers again the next day. Its kind of nice because i can eat all the candy i want, and actually lose weight. However, something tells me i'm only a step away from using Head's Patented Best Excuse for Leaving Work (i.e. Sorry boss, i shit my pants!) for real.

My last thought that i'll share with you today is that i really want a new car. I want a Jeep Liberty. Will you guys pitch in so i can buy one? I only need 5 grand so i can put down a sensible downpayment and have easy monthly payments. And i want a good one that has 4WD and is fully equipped. A car without cruise control and power windows is like a wedding without booze--its just plain cruel. I tried to get a Hybrid SUV (not to be environmentally conscious, but to save gas money) but the ones i can afford are all sold out around here (we dont live in a "green state.") So the Jeep Liberty has the next best gas mileage, and its small enough i can still maneuver it in traffic like a true Chicagoan. If you help me out with the 5 grand, i'll drive it to come visit you. Or if you are further than 8 hours away, i'll send you a picture of me driving it over someone's front lawn. And i'll get the jeep in black so i'll look TUFF. Yeah, that's right. TUFF. You want me to look tuff, right?

I bid you good day.

Stupidity Runs Rampant Even At the Highest Levels...

2005-05-16T12:15:00.000-05:00

I'm in my usual Monday morning bad mood ("sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!") and the puppy took a massive dump on the kitchen floor this morning, so i'm surprised i'm not in jail yet. I almost launched this dumb bitch out of the elevator this morning for taking it one floor (and yes, she had working legs) when i was reminded about my newest pet-peeve about the elevators. You see, i work in a 9-floor biomedical research building so there is always a gaggle of white-coat clad little scientists scurrying about with various chemicals and experiments and such. In fact i might be considered one of them if i a) ever wore my lab coat or b) ever did work. So, i was riding the elevator one afternoon when geek scientist woman gets in and she's carrying a tray of some type of nasty business that requires her to wear gloves. Now these trays of nasty business contain a myriad of harsh chemicals, most of which contain carcinogens, or at the very least, are toxic, and can also be associated with levels of radioactivity, bacteria, viruses, etc so on. So what does this dumb bitch do? She takes the gloved hand that was holding the Culture O' Contamination and presses the elevator buttons! What the !@##$%%??? If you need gloves to hold this thing, then those gloves have NO BUSINESS touching anything the public touches! Now i was too dumbfounded to do anything at that point, but now i've realized i've seen this before and i'm lauching a campaign to publicly derride any asshole i see doing this. I sort of see it as a crusade to prevent innocent victims from contracting a wealth of real serious health problems. If i'm gonna get cancer, its gonna be through my own vices or bad genetics, not because some overachieving research assistant used their grubby finger to ride one floor on the elevator. You may say, arent there rules about these sorts of things? Well yes there are, but apparently no one reads them or understands common sense. And because of their ignorance, i will now punish. And my justice will be fierce. I'm sure publicly chastizing people in the elevator will cause quite a stir at this Privileged University where no one believes in confrontation or directly addressing anything. So you may see me on the news when some fucking high and mighty post-doc gets upset because a grad student tells them to "stop touching my g-damned elevator with their contaminated gloves" while questioning their manhood and then proceeding to shove that juicy cell culture of death up their high and mighty ass. We'll see who's contaminated then. And i do this, my friends, as a public service to you.

The Annoying Cell Phone User Must Die

2005-05-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

Cell phones are a necessary part of my life, as they are for millions of people. But with all new technologies and new cultures and any attempt at progress in our lives, etiquette rules must rise up to the occasion and place their crisply ironed white linen glove on the matter. Etiquette is needed to prevent us from regressing back to savages, and high-tech savages are still fucking savages.

First of all, STOP HAVING LENGTHY CONVERSATIONS ON YOUR PHONE WHEN YOU ARE DRIVING! Asshole! I understand you get or make a call quickly on the road--that's fine, that's the purpose of the phone. But every single blessed day i've driving next to/behind/head-on towards some fucking lunatic that is yapping away, not paying attention, damn near fucking running me off the road. In 10 out of 10 daily events where some asshole cuts me off or almost hits me, or is just plain driving like a fuckhole, they are on the phone. I shit you not.

Secondly, STOP HAVING LENGTHY AND LOUD CONVERSATIONS ON YOUR PHONE IN PUBLIC! Fuckface! I know the Evil Dr. has posted on this topic before. Some motherfucker standing behind me in the supermarket says loudly "hey, HEY, what are you getting there" and i turn around because i think they are talking to me or someone else but no, they are talking on the g-damn cell phone. This happens in elevators, walking down the street, in fucking RESTROOMS! What's worse are the conversations. "Did you know that Shelly wanted me to sleep with her last night," booms a faceless voice behind a restroom stall. "Yeah, yeah, so i spent the night and Bobby was wondering where i was when i didnt come home." So just from me having to take a piss, i learn that the stupid bitch in the stall next to me is not only bisexual, but a fucking whore. I'm sure these are elements of her life she doesnt even share with her parents, but now me, Stranger Who Had to Pee, is privy to it. Oooh, i feel so special. People are pushing their ultra-fucking pathetic self-absorbed lives on ME now with their whiney public cell phone conversations, and for that, i cannot forgive them. And another gem is when people are talking on the phone while trying to interact with a store clerk or some other live and present human being. I am on the verge of becoming the Caped Cell-Phone Polution Crusader because i was about to shove this skank's cell phone up her well-worn ass.

So please. Fucking PUH-lEEEEESE. Stop abusing the wonderful technology that is the cell phone. No one wants to hear your self-indulgent crap-filled conversations. And dont give me that bullshit about how i shouldnt listen: i would LOVE not to but its polluting every aspect of my environment. Your one-sided public conversations make you look like twice the idiot and drunks drive better than these micro-penised pigfuckers that are on the phone. Just remember: because i'm NOT on a cell phone, one of my hands is free to flip your fucking douche-bag lazy-eyed face off when you cut me off on I-40E. And punch you in your cum-dumpster of a mouth when you're talking to Brandy about fucking Josh while you stand in line at CVS. Cocksuckers.

Pilgrimage to the Homeland

2005-05-02T17:38:00.000-05:00

So i dont feel like doing any work today, which should come as no surprise to anyone, but i'm going to blame it on my excitement. I'm excited because on Thursday, the Head and i set off on our journey to the balmy shores of Chicago.

I always feel its a grand homecoming everytime we go back to Chicago. We'll fly into Midway and as we get off the plane, i feel like i'm the champion of the world! We'll stumble our way through that cluster-fuck of an airport until we find the train to the city. I'll remember to clutch my travel bag tightly and scowl at the bum that is eyeballing it. We will ride that rickety dirt-encrusted mechanical eel towards those tall buildings that get taller and taller as we rattle our way closer to them. We will alight from that noisy toaster at the California blue-line stop, and i will stand on the El platform and look down at Logan Square in all its cement glory. The Head will tip his hat to the Vas Foremost liquor store sign and I'll inhale deeply the aromas of greasy burritos and stale bum piss. In that time and place, there are no finer sights and smells in the world.

BUZZZZ! We've stumbled our way to the Callner building and by some miracle we are able to make it in the door while holding our luggage and hugging each of the Ash-holes. It only takes a few minutes to settle in and in no time we're on the couch or out on the porch with cocktails in hand. Hotrod and Turbo will magically appear. And Fat Nick and the Evil Dr. and Deano and A.Don and a myriad of others will filter in and time and sobriety will no longer have meaning as a wave of drunken clarity befalls us. The images are crisp, but the sounds blend into one melodic composition of sass-mouthing, arguing, yelling and most of all, laughing. Laughing until our cheeks spasm in pain. This element is the most charming aspect of our homecoming: Laughing together with our friends. About what? Who cares. It doesnt matter. Everything from that point on is irrelevant because we are home.

So i think i'm gonna be a little distracted this week. We're returning to the homeland and i'm pretty excited. The liver is dusted off, the drinking shoes are polished and i've been relearning to encorporate the word "fuck" into every sentence i speak. Because on Thursday, we're hitching a ride on a little gold and red bird that will whisk us away to the homeland. It only takes an hour and 20 minutes, but at the end of our journey, we'll be a million miles away in a whole different world. Sheh sheh shaaaah!

End of the Beginning

2005-04-29T17:35:00.000-05:00

Sweet. I just turned in my last final exam EVER. Nine years, three universities, and two degrees later, i'm finally finished taking all the courses i will ever need to take to get my doctorate. No more classes! Holy shit. I can't tell if i'm sad or happy. I've been taking classes so long i've become institutionalized. I don't know how to function outside of a classroom.

In actuality, i'm pretty sure i'm happy about all of this. I've had a massive case of senioritis ever since i started this semester and i've only been working hard enough in class to achieve mediocre passing scores on my exams. Let's hope for that same level of mediocrity on this last exam i turned in to ensure my passing. I see all these other idiots around me working so friggin' hard on their classwork. When you are in graduate school, no one gives a shit whether you get A's or B's. No one was ever refused a PhD for the sole reason of getting straight Bs (the Head got a D in Japanese and they still gave him a doctorate). That's not to say i havent gotten straight A's since i started this program. But if i get my first B in my last class, i'll be pretty g-damned proud.

See, it took nine years of education but i've finally learned something about myself. Its that i really just dont care. I am smart. I am creative. I am capable of working really really hard and getting awesome things done. But i just dont care enough to work that hard anymore. There was a time when i was feverishly studying so that i could get straight As. There was a time i was feverishly studying so i could get good GRE scores. There was a time i was feverishly productive in an undergrad lab so that i could get into grad school, feverishly doing two TAs a semester so the school wouldnt cut my funding and throw me out, feverishly trying to finish my MA degree so i could change schools, feverishly trying to kiss ass so i could get in my "priviledged university" (PU) feverishly working on presentations so that people in my new PU would think i was smart. But now, my temperature has been reduced by a big innoculation of idontgiveafuck-enol. Sure i'm gonna have to bust ass this summer working on my qualifying exams. I dont want to fail them. But you know, if i do, i doubt i'd really care. Because after nine years of being tense, intense, feverish, self-deprecating and fear-motivated i realize that i was never particularly happy. Now that i dont care anymore if i reach that ultimate goal of a PhD, i'm a more happy person. Maybe it took the extended journey of a nine-year PhD pursuit (and being married to the Head) for me to realize that there is freedom in not being a slave to anxiety.

So if i ever get my PhD now, it will be the PhD of an intensely brilliant underachiever. I am not driven by the fear or anxious motivation that drives other students. I'm pursuing it simply because i want to do it, not because i have to. And i think this psychopathic approach gives me an advantage over everyone else whose lives have been made miserable by the education process.

I feel that i have accomplished something great here today with the cessation of classes and my no-nonsense idontgivearatsass attitude, and i have many people to thank. To my dearest Head, thanks for showing me that a half-assed approach means suffering half the stress you normally would. Thanks, baby. To Ash-hole, for teaching me that everyone else is wrong and i am right and the rest of the world are idiots for not recognizing it. To Hotrod, who demonstrated that procrastinating increases the likelihood of not actually having to do what it is you've been putting off in the first place. To Fat Nick, who, well, is just Fat Nick and that's plenty. To Turbo, who has shown me the virtue of finding a career that one loves especially if it involves boobies and never stepping outside one's home. And last but not least, to SEDA, who's backbreaking schedule of laborious undergraduate classes and holding a job and still pulling straight A's makes me hate my fellow whiney graduate students at this PU all the more because they dont work half as hard and they bitch twice as much. So to all you overachieving, highly competitive, anxiety-guilt-ridden graduate students, i say this: Suck it.

Sage Advice from Your Spiritual Advisor

2005-04-22T14:45:00.000-05:00

Greetings, my faithful brethren. Brother Head and i bring you the good news of a way you can bring a new sense of clarity and spiritual peace to your life. Hurry now to your Netflix queue or local Blockbuster and rent Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. Assemble in small groups for viewing and be prepared for a dose of renewed spirituality. For the first several minutes, you will want to turn the movie off. Do not do so--this is a test of your faith. Your steadfast viewing diligence will be rewarded as the movie progresses. Revel in the powerful masterpiece that is Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. You will be moved by the spirit, whether you are christian, muslim, jew or aetheist. Brother Head and i charge you to go out and spread the message of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter as we have done for you.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and we were introduced to this movie by St. Jude (aka Kid Awesome), of all people.

Your spiritual advisor,
Sister Head

I have new puppy and you don't

2005-04-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

He's so cute you'll crap your pants.

This is Orson. He's fat, he's lazy, and he fits right in to our household. Amazingly the hairless cat Kraepelin has adopted him and is helping raise him, which takes a lot of pressure off us. Only problem is that Kraepelin doesnt care if Orson pisses and shits on the floor. We'll have to work that problem out. I dont want our house smelling like the Osbournes'. Anyway, Orson is dumb as a bag of hammers and disgustingly cute. But he has already learned the joy of Snausages and to flinch when the cat swings at him. Prettiest little bulldoggy i have ever seen!

Lessons from a Southern Yard Sale

2005-04-11T17:00:00.000-05:00

Well i had my first TN yard sale this weekend. Five of my buddies brought their secondhand crap over and we made it a massive event. Nothing brings the dregs of humanity out like the promise of cheap used crap and the opportunity to argue over fifty cents. And wow, were there some massive stereotypes at my sale. Toothless, dirty locals that wore clothes from 1985 were turning their noses up at my Limited dress suits and Puma tennis shoes. Bib overalls were abound (on adults), and every last woman that came was either a) obese, b) emaciated, or c) pregnant. None of the men had haircuts in the last year, nor cleaned underneath their fingernails. We also had a large customer base of non-English speaking Latin Americans (my neighborhood diversity is Puerto Rican, Mexican, Arab, Hillbilly, and Elderly) and i can only count to cinqo in Spanish so everything was priced cheap for them due to my language barrier and the fact that my fellow merchants had all taken French (like myself) in high school. It surprised us all that most of our high-end stuff didnt go as fast as the UTTER CRAP, and everything was priced similarly whether it was a Ralph Lauren sheet set or a crappy mechanical Santa Claus. It was the mechanical Santa Claus that won out. I felt pretty good, though. I unloaded a ton of CRAP, made $80 and got drunk, all in the same afternoon (drinking beers boosted our morale). My favorite memory of the event concerns three beautiful little hillbilly children. Two little boys and a little girl, probably ages 6 and under. Dirty, wide-eyed and adorable, they crowded around me to pet the hairless cat (he was doing a cameo appearance to boost sales) and told me their tales of woe. Mi-ma (presumably "grandma") was taking them around to a bunch of yard sales, buying them toys. They claimed they had some cool stuff in the car. Plus Mi-ma just got them two new puppies. Two puppies, i exclaimed! Yes, two puppies because "daddy is in jail". Daddy is in jail? Yes, daddy is in jail. "Daddy is in jail because he was smoking those funny cigarettes." I told them it was okay, that it happens, and he still loves them even though he's in jail. I'm thinking, after all, daddy goes to jail for smoking the doob and they get two friggin' puppies. We should all be so lucky. They were good kids. They petted the hairless cat so gently, so lovingly, and were so polite and sweet and just talked their little heads off to me. They were hillbilly kids spending a Saturday afternoon going to yard sales with Mi-ma and playing with yard-sale toys and two puppies and their daddy was in jail (who the fuck knows where mommy was) and they were sweeter than most of the rotten little kids and rotten adults i've come in contact with in this cesspool of a state. I wish i knew where those kids lived because i'd take the hairless cat to visit them. And make sure daddy had my number so he could hook me up when he got out of the clink.

"I'd kill for a brownie!"

2005-04-07T15:05:00.000-05:00

Its hard for me to blog when i'm not pissed off but i've seen nothing but the good side of humanity for the last week. While this is positive for my psyche it is bad for my readership so i had to dig to actually find something that greatly annoys me and hence, will annoy you. But this is a good one.

Have you ever seen these commercials for Midol or some other period-PMS-treatment where there are these three girls at the beach, and two of them are incredulous at the fact their friend is in a bathing suit because, gosh golly gee, how scandalous, she HAS HER PERIOD? I believe the pretense is that she should be so bloated and unattractive that she dare not show any skin. But its super-duper Midol or something that has saved the day! Can't even tell she's got her period! Excuse me, but when have we ever been able to tell when a woman has her period in this day and age? Its not like she's sent out to the tent to bleed on her own for 5 days anymore, wearing a red X on her forehead. Despite your menses, if you feel good enough to be out at the beach, then you probably look damn good enough to be in a bathing suit. IDIOTS! And they end the commercial with Period Girl saying "but i'd kill for a brownie!" and her two idiot friends chime in unison "she's definitely menstrual." A man who has never been around a woman before must have wrote that commercial because no self-respecting woman would ever be a party to such dialogue. If any of my friends ever said about me "she's definitely menstrual" i would kick them in the cooz. But i wont have to because women dont say these assinine things to each other.

There's a brilliant new commercial now, where Period Girl is in the gym. This time friends are incredulous that she is able to work out while she is on her period. What. the. fuck? Can't work out when you're on your period? I cant remember paralysis being a symptom of menstruation. And to the very contrary, doctors will say that working out while on your period helps relieve cramps, etc. So this asexual MAN who lives in his mother's basement had to have written this commercial because every woman on the planet knows having a period does not preclude you from working out! I mean, GET FUCKING REAL PEOPLE. The commerical ends with Period Girl declaring she wants "something salty!" Think about the double intendre on that.

Here's what the Midol commercial would be if i made it:

[Two girls are talking to each other from their individual stalls in college dormatory bathroom]
Period Girl: Hey, you got any tampons? I'm out.

Non-period Friend: [Digs through purse and finds make-up stained tampon in crumpled wrapper. Hands to period girl under stall] You finally got your period? Sweet! You arent knocked up after all!

Period Girl: No shit, right!? Its a good day for me. But damn i'm bloated.

Non-period Friend: I know what will help. Take some Midol and lets go get some beers. Piss that bloat right out or at least you'll forget about it.
[Period Girl and Non-period Friend leave stalls, walk to sink, and proceed to touch-up their heavy black eyeliner.]

Period Girl: Hells yeah. Let's head to Bennigans. Michy Ultra is on tap for $1.75 and i'd kill for those fucking seasoned fries and one of those chocolate crapachino shakes.

Non-period Friend: Fuck yeah. Let's get a double order of the fries. I got the munchies from that mean joint we smoked an hour ago.
[ They leave the bathroom, get into trendy light blue Volkswagon bug and drive away]

The Bigger and Dumber They Are, the More You Love Them: A Eulogy for Nacho

2005-03-31T13:35:00.000-06:00

Our dog died yesterday. Actually, we took a little more active role in the process by signing the form that led to her euthanasia. But she was dying already. She had a spinal cord injury from compressed vertebrae and had lost all mobility and feeling from her midsection to her feet. Compressed vertebrae are common in large breeds, but no one knows why it happened so fast and drastically. We had a bright, cheery, healthy dog a week ago. We tried all viable treatment options and when nothing worked, we sat and petted her head as she was put to sleep. She went willingly, comfortably and it was one of the most peaceful things i've ever seen. After she passed, i lifted her big, fat head up so i could remove her collar. It was so heavy without life to hold it up. It felt just like a bowling ball. I smiled because that is just like my big sweet dumb dog to have a big bowling ball head.

This wasnt the way i pictured Nacho dying. I've had that dog almost nine years. While it was recognized universally in our family that i am the alpha pack member (with the exception that the skin-cat recognizes no one superior to him), we all had our attitudes. Nacho was well-trained, well-behaved, and adored the Head, myself and the cats. But she did not suffer fools and she was a bitch (both literally and figuratively) when she didnt get her way. She wasnt afraid to use her size and her snarl to her advantage, but i was never afraid of her. We got in our share of battles, and we both knew how best to push each other's buttons. But i wouldnt have had it any other way. I saw a lot of myself in that dog. And at the end of the day, i knew that dog would kill to protect me if she ever had to.

In my mind, this is how Nacho should have died. She'd be old, mangey and real angry. I'd take her out back Old Yeller style. We'd square off in the back yard, making threatening circles around each other. The Star Trek fight scene music would start playing. Nacho would be there, foaming at the mouth, fangs out, hackles up, thirst for blood. There i'd be, foaming at the mouth, shovel in hand, poised to attack. She'd lung for my throat, i'd swing for her face. Blood and saliva and fur would fly. I'd clang her in that giant bowling ball head of hers, knocking her out. I'd rest for a moment, thinking the worst was over. But no, Nacho would rise up and lunge at me from behind Cujo-style. She'd tear off my arm, but not before it would be wrapped around her throat, continuing to choke the life out of her in its disembodied state. We'd both fall to the ground, only this time i was the only one getting up. I'd rise up, the victor, and drag my bloody, armless body over to her corpse, give her a kiss on her fat nose, and tell her "good girl". THAT is how i wanted to see my dog die.

There will never be another big stupid wonderful dog like her. I'll miss seeing her waggle her ass and little tail stub at us. I'll miss her excited little bouncing when we announced "car-ride" or "want to go for a walky?" I'll miss her pure unadulterated hatred for every other human except the Head and i. I'll even miss her awful, awful farts. But i can take comfort in knowing that she had the happiest 5 months of her life with us since we retrieved her from my parents' house in Ohio, and that we were able to provide the compassion, time, and expense it took to see to it that she was comfortable, pain free, and under the best possible care until she died. And she will be cremated and buried out by our compost heap where she so loved to loiter. So goodbye, sweet Nacho. I'm sure in dog-heaven there's an unending supply of used Kleenex to eat and plenty of squirrels to chase. And your memory will live on with us in our hearts, and in the mountains of dog-crap that remain in our yard. Bye bye, Nacho-bacho. Guard the house.

To Kill a Mocking Bird (and then eat the little bastard)

2005-03-29T15:24:00.000-06:00

I have always liked the rest of the animal kingdom much more than humans. I have a great deal of appreciation and respect for the critters of the world but occasionally i come across a species that does not return this respect to Lady Head. I tend to eat those species (e.g. rabbits) to put them in their place in the food chain and the dominance hierarchy that is my life. However, i have recently encountered a new foe that appears undefeatable.

Northerners have not usually had the eyebrow raising experience of encountering mocking birds. Their range is limited to more southern areas where these perky little imps are present. A mocking bird is meaty little fellow about the size of a bluejay with unremarkable grey and white plumage. They are quick and don't usually travel in flocks so you are lucky if you catch a glimpse of one occasionally. But if you do, you will spy the arrogant little look on their faces, the sly smirk that creases their bills, and the sassy way they hold their tails up in the air, almost if they realize that its insulting to you that they are flashing their rumps. But whether or not you lay eyes upon these bastards, you'll hear them as they have a vast repertoire of vocalizations and are constantly repeating new sounds they hear in their environment, even if its a car alarm or a cat meowing.

You'll note they are called "mocking" birds. Not parrots, not mimics, not repeaters, but MOCKING birds. And mock us they do. For several mornings now, the Head and i have been hearing the incessant noise of our cell-phones as their batteries run down. Annoying muffled beep-beeps that send us out of our warm, comfy to bed to shut the damn things off. You'd think we'd learn, but day after day we heard the annoying chime of "battery dead." So one day i says to myself, i says, this is weird. Why do our cell phones keep dying? They are fully charged. And why do they die at the same time every morning? Well i shut off the phones that night before i go to bed. And at 5:30 the next morning, i hear the muffled "beep-beep" of a cell-phone dying. Okay, i says to myself, something is weird here. I dont believe in ghosts but i sure believe in conspiracies but i'm too tired to do anything about it so i go back to sleep. Now spring has sprung in TN and i decided to open a window one night to let the cool air in. Lo and behold that morning, i hear the very loud "beep-beep" of cell phone death. Fucking A, i said, and ran to the window. And there sits the little pig-fucker himself, the mocking bird. Mocking me. With the sound of dying cell phones emanating from his seed-hole. And now every morning that little fucker beep-beeps his way onto my shit-list. And as a non-human animal, you have to work pretty hard to get onto my shit list. And this mother-fucker has. So i dont know if anyone has a good recipe for mocking bird stew but i might like to try some. However, unlike the dimwitted rabbit, i fear the mocking bird may be a smarter quarry, perhaps even smarter than myself. I mean, look what the motherfucker is doing to me. Despite my ill-will, i sort of admire him. I find that i respect the bastard because of what a pure, unadulterated asshole he is, and its hard to find examples of that outside the human species.

Will to live or living will?

2005-03-25T14:00:00.000-06:00

Terri Schiavo. Come on people. Come aaahhhhnnn. Here's what i think about the situation and i make no apologizes for how crass and insensitive i may sound.

How bad does it scream "i was a rotten parent to you all your life when you had a brain that now you are brain-dead i will treat you like the infant that i miss and look heroic and wonderful and make the world think that i'm a good parent (when i was an asshole) because i'm trying to save your life." Schiavo's parents are pathetic. They are obviously guilt-ridden for being crappy parents because they are trying so hard to convince themselves and the world that they are wonderful, caring, and loving by beating a dead dog. Yep, beating a dead dog. That is exactly what they are doing. In a sick, twisted way, it reminds me of Weekend at Bernies'. Research has shown that parents of women who have eating disorders are often manipulative, cold, image-conscious people. I'm not saying there's a connection (or am i?), but Terri spent her pre brain-dead life with an eating disorder. And now that she's a vegetable, her parents can use her to resume working on their public image.

The woman is brain-dead. Once a thriving, attractive, normal young person, just like you or i, she has become the equivalent of a leech. Not a rat or a toad or a cockroach, but a leech. And not even quite that, because a leech can at least feed itself. Terri smiles and blinks her eyes and moves because those are reflexes and orienting behaviors. Leeches have reflexes and orienting behaviors. You dont need a cerebral cortex for that. Our cerebral cortex is what makes us human, and WHO we are. Terri's cerebral cortex is dead. And i think her husband said it best. There is no hope for her recovery because "you can't regrow a brain."

CNN can suck a big fat bag of dicks. I usually watch them because they are biased in my favor, but this time they are biased in the favor of Schiavo's parents. And they keep doing these pieces of sensationalized dribble on people who have woken up from comas after 20 years to live normal lives. Let me tell you what's wrong with these stories. #1. They are the exception, not the standard. #2. They probably werent officially declared brain-dead. #3. Twenty-years ago it was a lot harder to definitively declare someone brain-dead since we didnt have fMRI, PET, and all these amazing highly refined brain activity-assessing techniques.

And don't even get me started about Congress and the courts getting involved in this. Such a crock of shit. And people who are out on lawns protesting? Such a crock of shit. This is supposed to be family business, but the selfish-fucking Schiavo parents have drawn the world into this. Protesters and republicans yell about preserving the "sanctity of life." What about the DIGNITY of life? Would people still be carrying on this way if Terri Schiavo did have a living will that said to pull the plug on her? Probably not. So why can't anyone of these fuckhole protesters consider the fact that although we dont know for certain, there is a 50% chance she DID want the plug pulled, and that we are abusing her by prolonging her life and making her the focus of a media circus? Arguing a point that has a 50% likelihood of being right seems to be a risky argument, and not certainly one i would be willing to risk in a public arena on strangers.

There is much irony with the ideologies of people i've seen on the news (and heard) arguing for Schiavo's life!
-Idiot pro-lifers. Abortion and the death penality are the acts of killing something. Pulling Schiavo's plug is the ommission of un-natural activity that is sustaining her life. Apples to oranges. Does this mean it is morally wrong to have a living will that specifies that one wants their plug pulled? Because that's the impression i'm getting.

And this is surprising, but i've seen it now:
-Idiot abortion-advocates. They advocate keeping the courts out of women's bodies and health, but are happy to have Congress step in and take domain over this woman's body and health? Can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e? You can't reject the government's involvement with YOUR body and advocate its tyranny over someone else's. Wake up you lousy self-righteous fucking losers.

And last but not least:
-Religous freaks. You can't use religion to justify sustaining this woman's life. No where in the bible does it say "thou thall keep on life-support." If left to nature, this woman would have been dead years ago. And by artificially keeping her alive, arent you delaying her entry through those Pearly Gates? That seems pretty cruel and evil. Don't you want her to go home to God? He's obviously trying to take her.

The moral of the story is: people are wangs, the government has no business getting involved, living wills would help but manipulative, sick people would still find some way to use the misery of others to promote themselves. So do me a favor and don't keep me on life-support if my brain is dead or join protests to do so. Because in my vegetative deranged state i'll still reach into the abyss of my deadened synapses and find a way to stab you in the fucking eye and kill you. They'll charge me for murder and put me on death row and everyone that knew me will be able to revel in the irony of the situation and know that i'd be pleased about it if my damaged brain could sustain such an advanced cognitive function.

The South: A third-world country for the US to call its own

2005-03-23T17:15:00.000-06:00

The below article made me want to dry-heave. First of all, it should demonstrate to you what a cultural sewer it is down here in the South and cause you to feel great pity for anyone possessing a neocortex that lives here. Secondly, it should make you bang your neocortex-laden head against a wall because the marketing director at the end is suggesting that film-makers will need to take the SCIENCE OUT of SCIENCE. Good grief. I understand a redneck's need to keep evolution (and colored folk and the fairer sex and queers) out of his bible and his schools, but the mere suggestion that documentary-makers omit the discussion of evolution in scientific films defeats the purpose of creating the documentary in the first place-which is to provide the science behind the subject! I guess the bigger it is on screen, the smaller the brains are that absorb it. Fuckwads. Chromosomally-challenged fuckwads.

From CNN:

IMAX theaters reject film over evolution
Some theaters in South believe 'Volcanoes' a tough sell

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) -- IMAX theaters in several Southern cities have decided not to show a film on volcanoes out of concern that its references to evolution might offend those with fundamental religious beliefs.

"We've got to pick a film that's going to sell in our area. If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said Lisa Buzzelli, director of an IMAX theater in Charleston that is not showing the movie. "Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution."

The film, "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," makes a connection between human DNA and microbes inside undersea volcanoes.

Buzzelli doesn't rule out showing the movie in the future.

IMAX theaters in Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas have declined to show the film, said Pietro Serapiglia, who handles distribution for Stephen Low, the film's Montreal-based director and producer.

"I find it's only in the South," Serapiglia said.

Critics worry screening out films that mention evolution will discourage the production of others in the future.

"It's going to restrain the creative approach by directors who refer to evolution," said Joe DeAmicis, vice president for marketing at the California Science Center in Los Angeles and a former director of an IMAX theater. "References to evolution will be dropped."

At least i cant see your ugly purse and ugly feet through the tinted windows of your Lexus SUV

2005-03-15T14:23:00.000-06:00

I'm on this new plan this week to work late hours on a paper so i can get that monkey off my back and start working on something relevant to my thesis. I find that the hours between 4-7pm are my most productive (because the rest of these fuckers leave and i can crank the tuneskies and knock back some brew-dogs and wax scientific), which means i get to screw off the rest of the day until my peak productivity kicks in. Did you guys know they make "baked Cheetos" nowadays? Delicious and healthy i tell myself and they still turn your fingers orange.

Anyway, for this blog, i decided i will attack the personalities of the the big-breasted anoerexic ultra rich bimbos that constitute the majority of undergraduates on my campus. Jealous of their waistlines? Maybe. Jealous of their leather-brown stupefied faces that daddy paid a plastic surgeon for? No thanks. My first complaint has to do with the "all-weather sandal mentality." [I'm sure Hot Rod is gonna love this one.] Listen. We live in Tennessee, not Cancun. December through March, temperatures typically range from 30-50. Fifty degrees is NOT fucking warm. But for some reason the minute the sun peeks out from the clouds on a 40 degree day, these idiots strap on their flip-flops and stroll about campus. Its. fucking. COLD. Now i dont know about you, but when my feet are cold, i am very uncomfortable. Plus almost every winter day that starts out sunny in TN ends up raining, so these miserable little bimbos have soaking wet, uncovered feet on top of it. What is this immediate need to bare ones feet the minute one perceives the slightest bit of warmth? Just because you have fake tits doesnt mean your feet arent fucking ugly. And they are. Pretty pink nail polish cant hide that gnarly shame you should be hiding.

Its almost as if these New England rejects were sold some sort of dream to come down to TN by imagining that its all palm trees and sandy beaches. Therefore, gee golly whiz, it must be warm enough to wear flip-flops year round. Wrong. The closest thing we have to a saw palmetto is a magnolia tree and i hate to crush your tropical dreams, but TN is a land-locked state. So fucking can the flip-flops, throw on some trendy new loafers with the little bows on the top that you got at the Gap, and just hike up that ultra mini skirt a little higher if you feel you're not showing enough skin. By that same token, sheepskin boots are a bit superfluous for TN winters but i'd rather see you in those so i dont have to look at your ugly snaggletoes.

And another thing. Those fucking ugly-ass quilted bag purses. You know what i'm talking about. The kind of bag your grandmother carries her knitting needles in on the way to her sewing circle. There is this massive trend of young girls on campus carrying these FUUUUHHH-UGLY ass old-lady quilted paisley flowered SHIT bags around campus. But they are "Vera Bradleys" (who herself, must be 95 years old to design such SHIT) and they cost about $400 each. No fucking kidding. There are knockoffs abound, but the original VBs are super expensive. Imagine dropping so much money on something so ass-ugly. I mean, i like to spend excessive money on designer purses, but shit, i only buy the leather ones made from famous race-horses. Anyway, I bet the quilted bags really attract the boys' attention. So when you go to get your diaphram out of your granny bag so you can fuck Jimbo the quarterback, you slut, i'm sure he really wants to see something that reminds him of his grandmother's Efferdent flavored kisses. The good news is that those granny-fuck bags are big enough to hold an extra pair of flip-flops in case the ones you are wearing get wet on this cold, 40- degree day.

I just dont want to grow up but i think i already have

2005-03-14T13:48:00.000-06:00

This weekend i realized for the first time what a fucking old lady i'm becoming, and i'm only 27. I was actually driving through my neighborhood getting disgusted at all the garbage people pile in their yards. Do you really need six lawn chairs in your front yard all the time? Ever hear of a shed? And what's up with those stupid crystal balls on pedestals? I want to dress up like a ninja one night and go around smashing them. And when is parking your rusted-out car on the front lawn NOT white-trash? I mean come the fuck on! Cant you see none of the other neighbors do this? Try to defy the stereotype for once in your life. One of these pig-fuckers hasnt even taken down their giant gaudy-ass light-up Christmas wreath that is attached to the eave of their house. Come on, mutherfucker. Its practically Easter. And that fucking hot-pink flamingo-shaped mailbox? We're not in south Florida. Nor is it Pee-Wee's Playhouse. So i started thinking about how these fuckers are bringing down the value of my house and how i want to start a neighborhood association that would censor these idiots terrible sense of decor. And then i realized i was truly becoming an old lady.

Also, i bought a white cardigan from the Gap the other day. A WHITE cardigan. The GAP. What am i becoming?

I also heard myself saying the other day that i dont drink wine anymore to get drunk. I drink it to appreciate it. And i'm like only drinking one to two glasses a night. And i swirl my wine and know why. What the fuck is wrong with me? The only redeeming characteristic is that i'll still pound a quart of Carlo Rossi, but i doubt anyone checks the "nose" on a Pisano anyhow.

This weekend we went to see Madam Nonesuch's boyfriend's band. Even though i was the youngest one in our crowd, i was annoyed for a while that we chose to sit directly in front of the band. Its so loud. God! I cant even hear myself blather on. What's become of me? I'm such an old fart.

I'm practically deaf from all the shows i went to in my younger years when i would stand right next to the stage, in front of the amps, and have no problem carrying on a conversation. Those were the days. Now i cant even go to shows for the music i like anymore because i'll be that creepy old woman with the tattoos in the audience bobbing her head to the music that i used to make fun of when i was the creepy young kid in the audience. Anyhow, Madam Nonesuch's beau's band was a classic cover-band, which you can say what you want about cover-bands, but at least you know they will eventually play something you like. Which is good in my case, because i think all new music is crap. My primary music of choice is a slightly obscure scene: "hard core" which is a particular brand of punk. I dont even know if they still use that term properly nowadays. There are no better bands than the Bouncing Souls and Avail. Along related lines, i highly enjoy NoFX, Descendents, Vandals, OLD (and i stress OLD) Face to Face, Pennywise, Strung Out, Slayer, OLD Unwritten Law (i mean like Oz Factor and Blue Room and that's it), The Queers, Screeching Weasel, Riverdales, etc, so on, i think you get the point. Now those are bands, back when a show used to be a show. When everyone was less political and more about jumping around on stage drunk with their pants off. Back when a pogo stick was an acceptable stage prop and circle pits were friendly enough that people helped you up when you fell down. Civilized crowds where no one would spill the beer your underage ass worked hard to obtain, or at least if they did, they'd buy you a new one. Back when strangers would share weed with you in the bathroom. Back when bands still shaved their heads and didnt worry about looking "deeply intellectually turmoiled" and wore Dickies instead of Gap hip-huggers and everyone got wasted and wailed on their guitars while flashing you their dicks and a big charming drunken smile that simply said "we are having a fuck-load of fun, hope you are too." Nowadays these young punker bands are so worried about their "rocker image" and looking cool that they've lost this amazing stage presence of drunken idiocy where great music is played and the band members make fun of themselves and embody the true nature of PUNK where the only rule is not giving a fuck.

Dont worry i'm not trying to claim to be this great punk-rocker (see the above about the white cardigan sweater and neighborhood association) but i USED to be a punk rocker and basically the music preferences, tattoos, and memories of the glory days have stuck with me. So excuse me if i hate your crappy new radio music. As long as the Bouncing Souls keep putting out albums (and they do, those wonderful fucking bastards) i wont need to pick up a Linkin Park album. And to get back to my main point which is miles away right now, i'd rather listen to a coverband that plays the friggin' classics like Beatles, Hendrix, Clash, Petty, Elvis etc than listen to some lame-ass new school shaggy-haircut deeply brooding wangs that think they are hard-core. So maybe i am becoming an old lady because i hate all this new music these damn kids are playing these days.

So clean up your yard and stop listening to crap and find out what gets red wine stains out of a white sweater and maybe, just maybe we can be friends.

You can't keep a good woman down

2005-03-04T12:02:00.000-06:00

Free at last! Martha Stewart is free! That woman is a national treasure. This Thanksgiving wasnt the same without her guidance on how to make the perfect centerpiece from items found in your backyard. Poor Martha was the victim of a witchhunt. People say she's a frigid old bitch but if you watch her show, she's a lovable blue-blood old bitch with a sentimental heart and good business sense. We live in a society where good business MEN are considered "driven, ambitious, and power-hungry" and good business women are considered "frigid, bitchy, and evil." Martha is not guilty of a sinister and evil crime, and she certainly has more integrity in business than those fuckholes at Enron. Honorably, she decided to start serving her sentence rather than wait for appeal after appeal. And she served that sentence with dignity. The media criticizes her for being in jail at "Camp Cupcake" but for chrissakes, she's not a violent criminal! She SHOULD have been in a white collar prison, which is where she was. So bravo, Martha, bravo. I will toast you tonight at a happy hour held in your honor and you can bet i'll be wearing my Sunday best.

When the going gets tough...i prefer to quit

2005-03-02T18:00:00.000-06:00

Like a fool, i married for love instead of money. And although there are many benefits to this and i'm dreadfully happy, it doesnt pay the bills. Or allow me to be a Lady of Leisure so i can spend my days redecorating rooms and driving my golf-cart down to the mailbox and lounging out on the veranda checking out the muscley new poolboy. So i guess i have to ultimately find a career, and in order to do so, i must be trained for one. But i tells ya, grad school is bummin' me out and in a whole new way.

I'm anxious, and i dont like it. The scent of qualifying exams is in the air. Quals, prelims, orals, call it what you want. Essentially, they separate the men from the boys in terms of whether you are actually, honestly going to achieve that Ph.D. you are working towards. At my school, they consist of: generating a creative new research plan, writing it up in grant form, presenting this orally in a 12-minute presentation (you think a short presentation is good, but no, it sucks. You barely have any time to convey a meaningful point) to a pack of hungry hyenas, and whatever's left of you after they've devoured your flesh has to submit the document as a grant proposal to a government funding agency. And the worst part about all of this? Its an epic event in the department. All students in the same class take the exams at the same time. All of our written documents are due in August, and the orals are all scheduled during September and October. You are forced (and i mean forced) to present your quals to a group of older students beforehand (called a mock qual) where they, although completely ignorant, attempt to take all the stress and pain they experienced from their quals out on you by giving you "helpful pointers." Because everyone takes them at the same time, there is no hiding the fact that you are a) fucking flipping out over all of this or b) have failed them miserably and have to take them again. And if you fail, chances are you will pass the second time around, but you are given a scarlet letter to wear for the remainder of your time.

Our department leaders sent an email out last week (yes February we need to start thinking about this already) about getting ready for the impending quals this summer. An actual line in the email stated that: "According to previous experience, it is not recommended that students buy a house, get married, go on a trip, etc. during [the qual writing and defending] time." Basically your life is on lockdown for several months.

The best analogy i can think of regarding the qual process is: diving into a shark- tank naked with raw meat wrapped around your genitals and you only have a plastic fork for defense. The hard part for me will not be so much writing and presenting and fainting during the presentation, but COMING UP WITH A FUCKING INTERESTING, SOLID, FEASIBLE RESEARCH PLAN. I mean, i've got about 5 experiments i want to do right now, but not a one of them is related to the other. So i have to generate a bunch of related experiments that i can actually carry out that will lead to some bigger picture. Oh yeah, and it has to involve the brain. Generating my research plan is the critical step because if my intitial plan is shit, everything else will go downhill from there and i will fail miserably and more importantly, i'll hate working on the project, which will ultimately fuel my quitting of graduate school.

So wish me luck in my endeavor as i head out to solve the mysteries of the brain one step at a time and all by myself, as my advisor provides little to no input or encouragement other than "i dont want to pursue that technique because our lab has never done it before." I've pulled a lot of ideas out of my ass before and if there ever was a time that i needed my big old badunkadunk's inspiration, it is now. Sweet chubby cheeks of sitting, dont fail me now.

A Dear John Letter to My Most Intimate Friend

2005-02-28T17:40:00.000-06:00

My beloved friend,

It takes tremendous strength for me to leave you behind today. It would have been easier if you irked, annoyed, or abused me. But you've done none of those things. You've always conducted yourself with dignity and grace and i loved and cherished you. But for reasons unknown to me, i now must move on. People are constantly growing and changing and the times, they are as well and often we are helpless against the direction in which the wind blows us. The sad reality of life is that it is ever-changing and we must change with it or die.

I've loved you for a long time now. We've had some tremendous times together, you and i. You have been through some major life events with me--you were at my wedding, you celebrated with me the night after i defended my Master's thesis. You were there, smiling with me when my husband was crowned a "Dr." You cried along with me when i had to move from Chicago and leave all my friends. You comforted me in my hour of need, my happiest moment or my darkest despair. I loved you and you loved me right back and our deep passion intertwined our souls in a relationship that we both thought would last forever.

The first few times i went behind your back, i regretted it. I rationalized it as "trying something new," or that "you were not around." But i always came back to you, yes i did. But recently things have begun to change. You've noticed i havent been coming back to you at night. I know you thought for a while that i was just taking a break, not seeing anyone at all. But the truth is that i've been seeing someone else, and we've become quite close. His taste on my lips is all i can think about, the cologne he wears is so masculine yet sweet. I did my best to work things out with you, but for reasons i cannot explain, i find that i no longer recognize you, no longer feel the passion we once shared. For reasons i cannot explain, your once-tender kisses only leave me with a sterile, antiseptic taste in my mouth.

So i love you and all you have done for me, but i must leave you now. Please don't cry--i cannot bear to see the sparkle of your beautiful crystal clear tears. Its best we end this now, cleanly. I will always reflect upon the good times, and remember you fondly. However i must move on in a bold new direction with a bold new love. Goodbye, my dearest Vodka, i hope this letter finds you well with the promises of new beginnings and a new life with someone else. For now my heart races as i feel the amber-colored warmth of my new love, Whiskey.

My Fondest Regards,

CMC

The Rage That Burns Inside Episode IV: Dear Pope, I think its time you retired

2005-02-24T14:14:00.000-06:00

Good God. Literally. I think its time for the Pope to retire. One of the biggest reasons why so many young people have left/ are leaving the Catholic Church has to do with the legitimate criticism that the church doesn't reflect the changing times, culture, and intelligence that are products of a modern society. The church has trouble stocking a new generation of priests, and is desperately losing young intelligent members that will proliferate the next generation of Catholics. I thought this was a huge enough problem that the church was making attempts to modernize. I've seen modernization happening in local progressive parishes, and in the attitudes of many young Catholics. Times, they were a changin', and they were a changin' for the better. But in a brilliantly backpedaling move, our esteemed, neurodegenerative disorder-laden pontiff publicly crucifies gay marriage and makes stunningly inane remarks equating the Holocaust with abortion. Nice. Fucking. Job. Let's alienate MORE Catholics, and make those of us who remain faithful look like ignorant inbred jackasses. It really pisses me off to see the friggin' pope fucking up my efforts in the great fight i wage to get people to respect Catholicism as intelligent and progressive. So thanks a lot, Pope, and here's my public rebuke of your counterproductive "Memory and Identity."

First of all, stop crucifying people who are gay. Of all the people who are truly homosexual (and i dont mean the chicks that are just making out with other chicks to get into a Girls Gone Wild video), 100% of them did not wake up one day and say, "Shit. I'm bored. I guess i'll be queer. I love being publicly persecuted and estranged from society, and want to up those lifetime odds of being the victim of a hate-crime." Wake up fuckers. Homosexuality IS NOT A CHOICE. I can take a perfectly heterosexual rat and give him the right hormone cocktails at the right developmental time and in the right environment and get him hoisting a rainbow flag from his water bottle. In all seriousness, biological and environmental factors beyond our control are responsible for homosexuality and if you don't know that then you've been misinformed, living under a log, or are an ignorant redneck that also believes "cull-ahhd folk cant use the same drinkin' fountain as us brothas of the confederacy". So what if gay people want to get married to express their love? Straight people have been doing it for centuries. The Catholic church says its a sin to have sex outside of marriage. Gay Catholics would like to get married so they no longer live in sin. And our darling pope, that silly old goof goes on to call homosexual marriage part of some "ideology of evil." Direct quote. I'm sorry, am i missing something here? Raping children is EVIL. Terrorists blowing up buildings with hundreds of people in them is fucking EVIL. But two people, who are probably good decent average Joes, wanting to do something to express their love and commitment to each other (which is indeed a beautiful moral value), and they just happen to be two dudes? Wow, is that evil, eeee-vil. What a threat to humanity! All the bloodshed and bodies that will fall as a result of this union! Yep, gay marriages lead to nuclear stockpiling. They should warn us about it in airports, yellow alert: elevated gay-union levels. Didnt you know all the 911 hijackers were gay? Children would never be molested and suicide bombers would never kill people if there wasnt so much g-damn gay marriage! [Obviously, sarcasm] Come on, Pope. You're the leader of one of the largest churches in the spiritual world, and you equate homosexuality with evil??? Has the Parkinson's finally started eating away at your pre-frontal cortex? Obviously, you havent even begun to understand what true EVIL is.

Now let's go on to John Paul's brilliant gem of comparing the Holocaust to abortion. Now, i wont lie even though all you feminists will hate me--i DO NOT agree that abortion is a wonderful privilege for us women to express our freedom and rights over our bodies. [On an aside: i never understood the contradictory legal justification of abortion as a "woman's right to domain over her body", because if that is the case, why the fuck do i get arrested and criticized for pumping illegal drugs into my system to get high? Its MY body. By that legal logic, i should be able to do with it what i want including get hiii-iiigh.] HOWEVER, i dont believe the abortion issue is black and white as Pro-lifers would like to believe. I believe that women who are raped or who's health is threatened by pregnancy SHOULD have every right to have an abortion. Shit, i even like the idea of a morning-after pill. But i just don't believe abortion of a fetus should be used as birth control in lieu of condoms, pills, and responsible sex. THAT BEING SAID, in my opinion, abortion under any circumstances is NOT IN ANY WAY ANALAGOUS TO THE HOLOCAUST. Yes, a human less than 9 months old is being euthanatized. Pain is involved, and it makes me squeamish. But the humans who suffered the holocaust had established lives full of memories and relationships and ideas and hopes. And they were tortured physically and emotionally and watched the people they loved be tortured physically and emotionally. A fetus does not have a life with memories and relationships and ideas and hope and maybe its sad that they never have a chance to get them, but its far more tragic to see these things violently ripped out of the hands of a 5-yr old boy or a 65-yr old grandfather or a young couple with a family. Therefore, the suffering is massively different by order of magnitude and quality and to compare abortion to the Holocaust is to demonstrate profound ignorance and immense disrespect to what Holocaust victims endured.

So Pope, i dont think you are evil. You've had a good run. But some forms of Parkinson's are linked to dementia and this symptom is clearly beginning to show itself. Retire, get the gold watch, sit back and live your remaining days peacefully by stepping out of the position as leader of the Catholics. That way, you'll stop doing damage to my church by stunting its growth and teaching messages of intolerance and ignorance.

The Gross Misuse of Ribbons

2005-02-21T20:00:00.000-06:00

I see it all the time here in the Dirty South. Maybe it is a southern thing, but something tells me this phenomenon may be more ubiquitous than i ever imagined. Magnetic ribbons on the backs of cars. Yellow ones to support the troops, pink ones to fight breast cancer, green ones to prevent masturbation, whatever the fuck, there is a rainbow of g-damn magnetic ribbons littering my daily drive to/from work. Some people have several on their cars, in fact, i've even seen some real dunces with multiples of the same exact color. Wow, you really MUST support those troops because you've got three yellow ribbon magnets on the back of your Chrysler Town & Country!

Now, i've got no problem with people supporting their causes, but here's the rub. WHAT DO YOU NEED A MAGNETIC FUCKING RIBBON FOR??? The whole point of colored "ribbons" as symbols of support for these causes was so that you could WEAR ACTUAL STRIPS OF CLOTH. People WEAR ribbons on their clothes. Cars dont need to have a PICTURE of a ribbon magnetically attached to their trunks. You can get bumper stickers that say "SUPPORT BREAST CANCER RESEARCH." You can get a big old magnet of an American flag with "SUPPORT THE TROOPS" blazing off the side of it. Why the fuck do you need a picture of a ribbon when you could just tie a g-damn ribbon on your antenna? Its kind of like carrying a picture of a burrito with you because you're hungry. Just go get the real fucking thing.

So i'm absolutely sick of these stupid magnetic ribbons because they are on EVERY SINGLE CAR here in TN (other than mine). Even more sickeningly, they also seem to have become a contest for who supports the most causes the very most. "I gots me 12 troop ribbon magnets on the back of my pick-up, 3 soo-nam-ee ones on the front, and a support the bible one on my roof." Its only a matter of time before they come out with confederate flag-colored magnetic car ribbons.

I ask you, cosmopolitan friends of the blogosphere, is there a gross misuse of ribbons in your city as well? Or is this just another dumbass inbred charming feature of this cultural backwater called the South?

Pseudo-intellectuals, the mental circle jerk, and my fist in their faces

2005-02-18T12:15:00.000-06:00

The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side. Really, it is. Because i sit here way over-educated in a career that requires my constant intellectualization of every g-damn thing, and in my free time i want to discuss who had the fattest ass on American Idol. And pseudo-intellectuals, after long day of selling steak knives, telemarketing, or writing articles for the Free Times, can't wait to impress you with their knowledge on politics, philosophy and science. Go fuck yourselves, you egotistical ignorant know-nothing fuckheads.

A pseudo-intellectual, by the Head's definition, is someone who actually doesnt do the work of becoming smart, but wants everyone else to think they are smart, opinionated, and savvy of the world. They spout sound-bytes, poorly substantiated opinions, and have read one or two highly biased pop-culture books on a particular subject matter that they subsequently use as gospel as they wax expertise on the material. My brother-in-law, the Evil Twin, is textbook example of this but his ignorance actually bleeds quite visibly from him. Every last true intellectual can see right through the flimsy veneer of the pseudo, but unfortunately the non-intellectuals often become victim of these charlatans. And the only thing worse than a pseudo-intellectual is a group of them. They feed off each other's sound bytes like a fat kid on a Xmas ham. And listening to their mental circle jerk is as infuriating as it is funny. Asshole #1: "Have you read the latest commentary on the Da Vinci code? It proves that Mary Magdalene never gave a blow-job in her life. She truly must be the wife of Christ!" Asshole #2: "Yes, yes, and i read this book that says if you read the bible backwards, it tells you that Christ was in fact a woman. So that makes Mary Magdalene her lesbian lover." Asshole #3: "Of course, the church has always had a big conspiracy against women and gays from the beginning of time. Nothing good is said about them in the bible, i'm told. And this proves homosexuality is a choice, a religion, just like it is a choice and a religion to follow Christianity." And the biases and downright untruths are perpetuated in these circles of idiots and speculation becomes "fact".

My point is: what drives the pseudo-intellectual in his craft? Why is it so friggin' cool to appear intellectual? Here i sit, a TRUE intellectual (and yes i fucking am because i am trained and paid to be so. 21 continuing years of schooling and scientifically solving the mysteries of the motherfucking BRAIN give me a wee bit of credibility) and i've tried to hide it the majority of my younger life because being a true intellectual is quite nerdly. So why, now that i'm in my late twenties is it suddenly cool to appear intellectual? Why is not as cool that i pretend to understand the logic of programming, be athletic, be a talented musician, or use creativity in design or problem-solving? These are important qualities that i admire that are as equally important as appearing "intellectual" in my opinion. So what is the pull of pseudo-intellectualism? Does it get you laid? I would think being a musician or athlete would be more helpful for that? Does it help you get paid well? Not fucking really. Maybe it gives you power over others. "I know something that you don't. Or at least with my use of buzz words in the field, i can convince you that i know something you don't, and boy howdy, will you be impressed!"

So my advice to the pseudo-intellectuals of the world is this: beware, be-really-fucking-ware of who you try pass your bullshit knowledge off on. You can fool some people, but you'll never fool the real intellectuals and we tend to run in gangs. And when you have the misfortune of crossing my path, i'm gonna hand your ass to you as punishment for tainting the sweet honest non-intellectuals that cherish the skills they have instead of pretending to be something they're not. Because you dont know your ass from a hole in the ground, and i'm gonna make you look like the poor dumb ignorant fucker that you are.