Memories Are Made Of This.

When I was little I used to throw up every Christmas Eve. I would appear, of course, perfectly calm and blasé. I behaved as if it was any other ordinary day. But inside? Oh, Lord. On the inside I was dying.

After all, I’d been watched, all year, by some old fat guy with a beard. He knew when I was sleeping. He knew when I was awake. He knew if I’d been bad or good, for goodness’ sake!

I never knew if I’d been good enough. I’d tried. G-d knows I’d tried but what about that time I wanted the prize out of the cereal box and dumped half the contents behind the couch. I’d attempted not to be wasteful. I’d eaten as much as I could but, after three bowls in a row, I couldn’t see another frosted flake. They had to go. What if the fat man had seen that? Was that enough to black list me?

Santa, to me, was no saint. He was a judger. He made up random rules and punished children willy nilly as he saw fit. He was a jack booted fascist. But I still wanted those presents. Did that make me a collaborator? Oh, Jesus, would I have to name names for that new Connect 4?! What if nothing was enough? What if it turned out to be random and this year was just the year I went on the list for coal?! Oh, the humanity. Finally, around ten or eleven, I’d throw up and be put to bed with a cool cloth on my forehead.

On Christmas morning my mother and aunts would run into the room and jump on my bed screaming, “get up! Santa came ! Presents!” So, I’d think, I made it through another year. Then I’d roll over and go back to sleep.

Later on in the year I’d think, what if there isn’t really a naughty list? What if he’s just trying to wind us all up? Sadly, we’ll never know so we’ll have to stay on our game. Well played, fat man, well played.

People (don't always) Make Me Sad

You. MUST. See. This.

If you aren't laughing like a mad thing until you spew sick within the first five minutes there is something wrong with you and you are, sadly, dead to me. I'll miss you . . . but you're dead to me!

Click below for more info.

http://www.amazon.com/Spaced-Complete/dp/B0019MFY3Q/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1217459210&sr=8-1

Three (3) Random Things

1 (one). There is one thing about working in an office I will never get used to - having to pretend interest in other people’s mundane shit. I mean, in retail, I used to just be able to walk away (look! A customer. Gotta’ go. Darn.). Or, working on the phones at GEICO, I could say “oops! I have a call!” There’s no escape in cubicle city. I hear everything from houseplant woes to why people hate paperclips . This, obviously, wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t expected to join in. But, sadly, I am. It is practically required otherwise people start shouting “hey! What about you? Are you paying attention?!” Um, yeah. I got nothin’. I too hate paperclips?

2 (two). On October 11 I may be singing . . . In Maryland . . . In public . . . At a festival. Hu. Weird. I haven’t performed in public in, oh, I don’t know. Yeah, many moons, young ones (Vivienne!). My cousin volunteered me. She’s pimped me out for her own amusement to someone she works with. It’s not definite yet. I have conditions. We’ll see if they’re met.

3 (three). I couldn’t find my glasses for three (3) weeks. This morning I looked in my purse, which I have checked no less than twelve (12) times before, and there they were. A blind person searching for the glasses which allow them to see is a funny bit . . . But not in real life.

Three (3) Things That Made My Week

1. Spending a morning studying the physical signs of various addictions. Because, let me tell ya’, until you’ve been innocently eating a granola bar and a picture of “meth mouth” pops up on your screen, well, kids, you just ain’t lived. Fun, good times! Please, ignore the fact that I screamed, jumped and almost spewed granola across my cubicle, go Google that shit! (don’t.) It’s pretty! (don’t.) Pinky swear! (seriously, just don’t.)

2. Spending two hours at DMV. You meet such great people there! The staff is super friendly. I may send them Christmas cards this year! Also, of course, it’s great for your self-esteem. There’s nothing like being “cat called” by random, dirty (literally) dudes outside of a government agency to really perk a girl up. It’s hot. White hot. Combine that with all the children who’s parents allow them to roam, free range, around the room and it’s a nice third world atmosphere. All they need, to complete the motif, are a few goats and chickens. I, as a tax payer and lover of a theme, am more than willing to carry the extra expense. Again, I love a theme! Which works out well since the DMV photographic equipment always manages to bring out my inner Mexican. Somehow, I wind up with a tan in any picture they take there. Not just any tan either. But a glorious, dirty tan! The kind of tan that can only be achieved by spending years out in the desert, harvesting cactus to make tequila. . . sans sun block . . . or a hat. Combine that with the fact that you’re not allowed to smile and I look like an angry deportee. Ay!

3. The hotness that is me when I leave the gym. Honestly, boys! Hang onto your control! I’m only one girl!

I do, honestly, heart PITAIYO and know that, in the long run, it’s a good thing. However, that being said, after an average class I look like I’ve been dragged, backwards, across the Serengeti. My hair escapes from my head band within the first ten minutes. Within the first twenty my head scarf is sitting forlornly beside my mat and, by the end, my ponytail holder has given up the ghost as well. Therefore, when I walk out my hair is loose and bigger than ever (it doesn’t like it when I try to confine it and gets . . . Angry).

That’s on a regular day. This week my instructor ate cake before class. We suffered for it.* So, in addition to the hair, this week my pale, sensitive, allergy prone skin was bright red. Which would be fine if it was all over but it wasn’t. It was just in two round spots on my cheeks. Picture it, if you will, stark white face, pink cheeks, huge hair, arms that barely work hanging limply at my sides. I looked like a demonic doll.

Again, boys! Give a girl some room to breathe! I know . . . I know, you can’t help yourselves. Totally understandable. Helen of Troy eat your heart out!

*I, it should be noted, did not have cake. It may be silly but if I’m going to be punished for cake consumption I’d like to be the one consuming the cake. I’m wacky like that!

I Wish I Knew How To Quit You . . . .

F gluten-free. F it right in the ear with a crooked . . . well, you get the point.

I'm A Stealer!

I stole this from Erin. I am, yet again, a stealer!

The rules (gotta' have 'em!):

1. Everyone leave a comment with a memory of me. Whether you've known me for a really long time or not long at all, you can add whatever you like! Something, anything!

2. If you continue it on your blog, then I'll come over and add a memory of you! And if you don't have blog, I'll tell my memory in the comments.

“If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.” - Lord Chesterfield

Bessie Mae Fontlow had spent the first fifty-seven years of her life with the kind of self confidence that can only be imparted to a girl growing up in a small Ohio town as the great-granddaughter of the original founding fathers and possessed of a reasonably attractive face and figure, along with a family fortune that was still pretty darn nice. Until that fateful day when Aleksandr Martel opened his little dress shop at 12th and Main. Yes, Bessie could see the handwriting on the wall with her first look in that shop window!

After twenty plus years as the local fashion leader and Junior League Chairwoman, her time of ascendancy in Port Fontlow was about to come to an end. Sure she'd be able to hold on to the reins for a little while longer by utilizing her well known powers of biting sarcasm after church and in the beauty parlor to belittle that upstart Martel. But Bessie was too much of a realist to imagine she'd be able to stave off the rampantly chic for long . . . and too long an Ohioan to think she'd be able to pull off the new look herself.

A Wee Slice Of Scots Cheesecake . . . Or Should That Be Deep Fried Mars Bar?

Craig Ferguson.

Funny.

Lovely.

Stay up till 1:30.

You know you want to.

"A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life." - Henry Ward Beecher

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

The Rules:
1) Look at the list and put one * by those you have read.
2) Put a % by those you intend to read.
3) Put two ** by the books you LOVE.
4) Put # by the books you HATE.
5) Post.

I've read 71 . . . maybe when people say I read too much they have a point . . . .

**1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
*2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
*3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
*4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
**5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
*6 The Bible (parts of)
*7 Wuthering Heights
*8 1984 - George Orwell
*9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
*10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
**11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
*12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
**13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
**14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
*15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
*16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
*18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
*20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
*21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
*23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
*24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
**25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
**29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
*30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
*31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
*32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
*33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis
**34 Emma - Jane Austen
**35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
*39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
**40 Winnie the pooh - AA Milne
*41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
*42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
*43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
*45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
**46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
*48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
*49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
*52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
**54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
%59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
*60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
*62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
*#66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
*67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
*68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
*70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
*71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
*72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
**73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
*75 Ulysses - James Joyce
*#76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
*79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
**81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
**83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
**84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
*85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
**96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
*97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
**98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (um, didn’;t we cover this under “The COMPLETE Works?)*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
*100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway" - John Wayne

My mother says she knew what kind of person I was when I was six years old. She says everything she needed to know about my personality was clear in June of 1981. That’s when I got my ears pierced.

My mother took me, after much begging and annoying repetition, to have holes drilled into my head. I was, as I recall, vaguely excited as I climbed up into the chair. Most of the other girls in my class had already had their ears pierced. They wore little gold studs or tiny little crosses. I didn’t want those. I wanted silver hoops. What can I say? I’m a rebel and I’ll never ever be any good.

The teenager who worked the “gun” was, for a wonder, very nice. She chatted with me about school and what I had to do to keep the holes from closing up as she lined up the drill. Then she shot me.

Excitement disappeared in a red rage of pain and confusion. I screamed the place down. The teenaged girl dropped the gun and tried to put her arm around me. I jumped off of the stool and backed warily away from her. She had, as far as I was concerned, assaulted me violently and for no apparent reason. How dared she?! I took my mother’s hand and tried to lead her out of the danger zone. Who, after all, knew who would be next? Maybe I was just the beginning! Perhaps the big haired tart would now go on a rampage, running through the department store, screaming maniacally while punching holes in unsuspecting shoppers until the floors ran red with the blood of the innocent eared! We had, I knew, to get away from this crazy person.

My mother took me to sit down and have an orange juice. As I sat there, sipping my juice, I contemplated what had just happened. Nobody had told me getting my ears pierced would hurt. I had asked. I’d done research! I was that kind of a kid. Did it hurt was my first question. Everybody I’d asked had said no and looked at me like I was crazy. The world was full of liars.

I thought about kicking every girl in my class. My mother discouraged this by pointing out that there were more of them and they were all bigger than me. I thought about those pukey little studs and crosses. Who needed pierced ears? Not me! Let that one hole close up, see if I cared! Or it could stay open, I decided. I’d always kind of wanted to be a pirate. Maybe this was my foot in the door to a glorious seafaring career.

After about fifteen minutes my mother and I got up and started walking around the store. We shopped for clothes. We looked at house wares. We tried on shoes. Time, as it is want to do, passed. It had been an hour since my mauling. I reached up and touched my ear. It still hurt. A lot. When I looked at my fingers there were flakes of dried blood on them.

I thought about all those stupid girls. I thought about their twee gold studs and crosses. Screw them, I decided, and the horses they road in on. I told my mother I wanted to go back and get my other ear done. She, doubtful that I’d go through with it, took me back to the jewelry counter.

There she stood. My nemesis. The girl with the gun. She turned around from the display she was arranging and, seeing me, flinched. I walked back to the chair. Without looking at her I climbed up. I sat there as straight as Queen Victoria on a bad day. I crossed my arms over my chest. I looked straight ahead.

The gun slinger walked over to me. “Are you ready,” she asked. I nodded, eyes ahead, chin up, shoulders back. She raised the gun shakily to my unblemished ear. She pulled the trigger and recoiled immediately.

I didn’t make a sound. I climbed off of the chair, back still stiff as a board, and took my mother’s hand. “You didn’t have to do it,” she told me. “Yes, I did,” I said.

I Don't Know Why These Make Me Laugh But They Do!

Texas is called "The Lone Star State" because Texans know that compared to Chuck Norris, their other celebrities just don't measure up.

Scientists collected a single drop of sweat from Chuck Norris' leg after he performed a roundhouse kick. The resulting serum turned out to be the Polio vaccine.

Chuck Norris always knows the EXACT location of Carmen San Diego.

Chuck Norris' digestive system also functions as an oil refinery.

The gallons contained in Chuck Norris' hat rivals infinity.

Chuck Norris' beard is the modern day equivalent of chain mail.

Chuck Norris can grind metal with his stubble.

Chuck Norris' favorite cereal is Kellogg's Marbles 'N' Gravel.

When Oppenheimer said "I have become death, the destroyer of world." Chuck just laughed....then kicked him in the head.

Never play a game of Sorry! with Chuck Norris. It can only end in tears. Yours.

Chuck Norris can peel oranges with his eyelids.

In a fight between Batman and Superman, the winner would be Chuck Norris.

Upon being denied a McGriddle at McDonald's because it was 10:30, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became a Wendy's.

Chuck Norris knows how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Oxygen requires Chuck Norris to live.

Chuck Norris knew that Soylent Green was people.

Chuck Norris is the "I" in "team."

Chuck Norris once kicked a horse in the chin. It's descendents are known as Giraffes.

Chuck Norris never makes grammatical or spelling errors. He just invents new words and grammatical rules.

Chuck Norris CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

Chuck Norris wears bear traps on his feet instead of sandals.

Chuck Norris once took sleeping pills. They made him blink.

Chuck Norris expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Scientists recently found matter to have three states: Particle, wave and Chuck Norris.

All of Chuck Norris' white blood cells have black belts. This is why Chuck Norris never gets sick.

There's Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa, Zeta, Yotta, and Chuck Norris. Nobody can count that high, however, so it isn't practical to use.

Chuck Norris spends hours staring directly into the sun. We call that "night".

Chuck Norris once took up gardening, and tried to "Hoe a row". We now call it the Grand Canyon.

John Donne was wrong:
Chuck Norris is an island.

Chuck Norris consistently wins at Monopoly owning only Marvin's Gardens as property.

When Chuck Norris was 7 seconds old he was reading at a 5th grade level. At 12 seconds he had already published a review of the entire Ayn Rand collection - he found it cliched.

The reason the aborigines won't let you take their picture ----> Chuck Norris.

When Chuck Norris stares into a mirror, even his reflection knows better than to stare back.

The best way to stop a Chuck Norris attack is to play dead. The only SURE way to stop a Chuck Norris attack is to BE dead.

Chuck Norris can breathe in and out at the same time, when he needs to breathe at all, which is never.

Chuck Norris once delivered a baby in the back seat of a taxi cab. He delivered it a roundhouse kick to the sternum.

Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.

Chuck Norris can slam revolving doors.

Chuck Norris is not afraid of the dark. The dark is afraid of Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris lathers and rinses, but doesn't have to repeat.

Geico saved 15% by switching to Chuck Norris.

Charity looks at the need and not at the cause. - German Proverb

When little Avebury Baume-Zwinglie first began seeing visions, everyone said it was probably just a phase he was going through. After all, Grand Uncle Pascalian had been known for his unusual water colors and, back in ‘o8, Great Grandmother Niemcewicz had collected fruit fly stationary long before it became fashionable.

Yes, it could be said that little Avebury was just another off leaf on a disconcertingly diversified family tree. However, when little Avebury began to insist that the Dies Irae could be heard sung by barn swallows and the Ascension viewed every day at 4:00 PM down by the falls people began to wonder if things had gone too far. His father, Gwent Lee, was heard to wonder what, if anything, his son could have been learning in Sunday School all this time; while his mother, HaytieMay, asked what difference that could possibly make once the neighbors found out what Avebury was up to. After all, passion plays were alright for others but the Baume-Zwingli family had been devout Anglicans for generations and everyone knew they just didn’t go in for such nonsense.

In the face of such family ferment, little Avebury decided to record his visions on film. Unfortunately, Avebury didn’t have much, or any, experience with cameras, he wasn’t able to get any color film and the exposures may not have been all that he could have hoped for. But, still, Avebury would like your opinion. What do you think he saw down by the falls that day?

In order to pursue this issue further little Avebury needs your help.
Please send your tax deductible donations to*:
What The Boy Saw & Why
C/A Guido “Fingers” Delgado
P.O. Box 666
Jersey City, NJ 07303

*Edited ICOI** - Don't actually do this
** In Case Of Idiot

"My life needs editing.” - Mort Sahl

A couple of you may notice that a few entries have been taken down. Blogger didn't go nutso I did it. Why? Because I found them both dull and poorly written.

Yes, I left up the stoned dental post. What? That didn't make me yawn.

I'm In Love . . .

With the person who invented sedation dentistry.

It's the dentist without fear and with a day long nap. Seriously. I love this person, whomever they may be, and I would willingly have their babies . . . if they're attractive. If not I'd at least kiss them with tongues. What? I'm shallow. Don't judge me!

I'm still slighly stoned on Triazolam & Valium.

Lovely.

Edited To Add: I long for toast.

To Quote Crocodile Dundee . . .

"You can live on it...but it tastes like shit."

All I wanted was a shelf stable protein bar (that didn't cost a stupid amount of money) I could take to court with me. We get stuck for hours without a break and my blood sugar gets low. Very. Low. This is not good. And, as it happens, neither are these damn bars. Feh!

PS I actually purchased the hazelnut variety but couldn't find a picture of that one.

It's A C-O-N-Spiracy

Why does it cost more for one person to go on vacation than two? What the fuck is that? If I want to spend a week in St. Maarten by myself it costs, for hotel and flight, $1033. If I go with someone it costs, for the exact same thing, $633 a person.

I ask, again, what the fuck is that?!

I'll tell you what that is. That, my friend, is a c-o-n-spiracy!