wheel in the sky keeps on turning

On a camping trip to the Oregon coast, my best pal and I decided that Journey must be a Christian band. Their name certainly has to signify a person's personal journey to Christ, right? If you doubt, take a look at some of their songs:

Wheel in the Sky
A tribute to God's plan for us, known as "fate" to the heathen hordes. "Wheel in the sky keeps on turning, don't know where I'll be tomorrow."

Faithfully
A love song to a Christian girlfriend. "I'm forever yours...faithfully". Cut a hole in that sheet, baby, I'm on my way!

Don't Stop Believin'
A litany of down and out people who have lost the way and a reiteration of God's love. "Don't stop believin', hold on to the feelin' [of Jesus Christ our Saviour]".

Open Arms
One of the most overtly Christian songs by Journey. Signifies that Christ's arms are always open and ready to receive those who've strayed. Accepting Christ as your savior makes a dark world seem bright. Written from Jesus' point of view. "So now I come to you, with open arms...now that you've come back, turned night into day."

So I conclude, Repent You Sinners who thought Journey was about sex and rock & roll and missing your baby.

fffuhfuhfuhfooolin, no no no

Last night I watched one of my old faves, That Touch of Mink. For those who aren't as Doris Day/Cary Grant inclined as I, this particular tale features Doris Day as Cathy (Kathy?) Timberlake, a young woman from Upper Sandusky, trying to make it in the Big City. Her roommate, Connie, works in the Automat.

The story begins with Cathy picking up her unemployment check and simultaneously fending off the advances of the smirky little weasel giving out the checks (John Astin!). On her way to eat lunch at the Automat, Cathy is standing at the curb and a limo goes by and splashes muddy water all over her overcoat and skirt. Needless to say, the fellow in the limo is millionaire playboy, Philip Shane. He sends his financial advisor/whipping boy over to the Automat to apologize and fork over some cash for the spoiled clothes. When said whipping boy convinces Cathy to give Philip Shane a piece of his mind, hilarity ensues.

The plot itself is averagely funny, but there are hilarious one-liners throughout the film that are delivered in such a deadpan manner you can almost overlook them. At one point, Cathy proclaims she wants to kill herself. "Do you hear that? She wants to kill herself!" says Connie. The landlady replies, "Maybe that will make her feel better."

ha. Ha. HA. HA! And so on.

must be an angel

Imaginary conversations with colleague this morning:
1
Colleague: why didn't you slow down to let me catch up with you?
Me: because you're creepy. Besides, I was walking so slowly, you should've caught me.
C: I purposefully stayed behind so I could watch you.
M: see? That's what I'm talking about.

2
C: why didn't you slow down to let me catch up with you?
M: you should've. I don't have much energy this morning. When I was running, it was the proverbial jello slog.

3
M: Houston smells like garbage this morning.
C: I'd characterize the smell more as "ass".
M: tmi, buddy. TMI.

she's a very kinky girl

I was looking around the internet to see if I could find a good image of a leg broken the way Joe Simpson's was (see last post) and discovered that there are a lot of fetish sites about broken legs. I'm an old lady and very little shocks me these days. I know about stomp videos and so on, but fetish sites about excruciatingly broken legs?

So, I didn't find anything good, but here's a nice site where you can see some very hairy legs. Oh, and eyeballs. Lots of eyeballs.

smellvoid: favorite fake band name

I watch a lot of documentaries. They are about pet cemeteries, old men, crazy men, crazy old men, etc. The one I watched last night was most definitely about crazy young men. It's called Smell the Void--I mean Touching the Void [warning: spoilers ahead]. It retells and recreates the adventures of two strapping young lads from England who attempt to climb a mountain in Peru along the most difficult face, taking a route no one had ever successfully climbed before.

They do quite well until they get to the top and try to go down again. They run into some sheer faces that they hadn't expected and one of the guys, Joe, falls and breaks his leg. Never mind the fact that he's just broken his leg while 21,000 feet above ground and still has to get down the side of an icy mountain--he has broken his leg in such a way that his tibia has been shoved up, around his knee, and into his thigh.

The remainder of the movie tells the amazing tale of how he got down the mountain, even after his partner had to leave him for dead and cut the rope that bound them together. That part's the focus of the movie and all, but TIBIA SHOVED INTO THIGH.

I mean, if that guy hadn't been an athlete and had lots of endorphines running around his body anyway, how could he have moved without vomiting?

On a lighter note, we also watched the Animation Show that Mike Judge put together. Some of the shorts were funny, cool, gorgeous to look at, and one was completely boring. I highly recommend the one with the cherry tree growing out of the guy's head and both of the ones set to opera (madame butterfly's an opera, right?). Dolly sex! Also, the one with the balloons was sick and wrong and funny as hell. Definitely a must see for other animation geeks.

more CMC

I'm probably 2/3 the way through the Count of Monte Cristo and woefully behind on keeping y'all up to date on what's happening. When last we left our hero, he was floating gently toward the sea, tied in a bag and about to drown.

After escaping (to find out how, Read The Book), Dantes joins the crew of a ship and figures out how to get to the treasure. At this point he undergoes a transformation and makes himself into several different characters, including the Count of Monte Cristo, a priest, an English lord, and some others that he uses throughout the rest of the book. He begins manipulating people and events in order to gain revenge against his enemies: the men who wronged him in order to put him in prison and those who wronged him while he was imprisoned.

Things get a might complicated from here on out, with a bunch of Paris scenesters, wives and children getting involved, and no one has the name with which he or she began the book. It's a bit like a Russian novel in that sense (insert Oprahkarinina joke here). The Count has also picked up a whole entourage of slaves and servants, most of whom owe him their lives for some reason or another. There's also some backstory fill-in that makes the revenge plots work.

I won't go over every twist and turn, but for those who enjoy intrigue, there are several. CMC still gets two thumbs up from me, but I'm realizing that I will have plenty of time to read another long novel this summer. Suggestions?

raindrops keep falling on my head (and back and legs and...)

We've soaked up so much water here, I want to pick up the grass and streets and squeeze them like a sponge. No end in sight until next week, according to the local weather gurus. I've taken to wearing sports sandals to work to spare my "good" shoes and also to gain traction. Yesterday I nearly wiped out walking up my friend's stairs. Then again, I nearly wiped out walking up completely dry stairs at my favorite coffee place too. If they could make anti-stumbling shoes, I'd buy them. Heck, I'd buy stock in the company.

In other news, I'm completely behind schedule on several projects at work, so somebody come kick my ass. If you see a small person crying and wringing her hands, that'll be me.

ohwowoo owowowow

I had the odd experience yesterday of feeling like a guy was about to ask me out and completely dreading it. Yet there was no way to casually mention the bf during the conversation. Luckily the dude left without grasping a rose betwixt his teeth, kneeling and begging me to attend a chamber music concert with him. On the other hand, I have to see him again several times over the next month. Next time I will definitely figure out a way to ward off any advances. Maybe I'll get a "gay is the way" t-shirt and subtley wear it under a sheer blouse.

I know this all sounds like I have a big head and think every guy likes me, but I assure you, kind reader, that is not the case. This particular fellow just gave me the "i think i like you" heebyjeebies and I had to (literally) shake it off after he finally departed.

On a lighter note, the powers that be decided not to announce my job title change or make any workload adjustments until September 1, so I get to kill myself trying to do my old and new jobs simultaneously until then. Whoohoo! Just for that I will be taking lots and lots of...post it notes? between now and then.

hello wisconsin!

Or, actually, goodbye Wisconsin.

While I was gone, I dreamt about work in various incarnations. Here's one:

I was getting into a canoe for a fun trip down the river. Because there were several people in the boat, it was riding low in the water, so low the water was near the top of the canoe.

Almost as soon as we pushed off, a large alligator swam up alongside. It looked at me as it passed us on the left, us going downstream, it upstream.

Then I felt hot meaty alligator breath on my back, as it turned around and began following us. I felt the terror of one about to become an alligator snack.

do yer little thing, hmmhmmhmm

I saw a girl yesterday with a tattoo armband of Hebrew letters. Above them it said "Tenderness leads to the gas chambers." Remember that the next time your sweetie wants a little hmm-hmm.

"I'm sorry, dear. Remember, Tenderness leads to the gas chambers!"

for the funk of it

Once again I've been watching a lot of black guy comedy. This time it was the entire first season of the Chapelle Show over the course of two days. I am officially in love with Paul Mooney and am also unable to stop saying the "n" word. Be warned.

bawk bawk be-gawk!

I was telling M. at lunch yesterday that I had a dream about him puking up a very hairball-like mass of vomit. I felt a little bad bringing up the dream when we were eating, so I asked if I had grossed him out. "You have to get up pretty early in the morning to gross me out." Thank goodness.

When I was growing up, those sorts of mealtime conversations occurred so frequently at our dinner table that my mom's partner named them "sparkling conversation". I recommend it for getting over queasy stomach issues. You might try this as an opener. It's in Portuguese but the pictures tell the story (as long as you realize that the pic on the right is a penis).

i like the way you look

There's been an odd wrinkle in the universe around Elizabeth Bathory. On Saturday, we rented Daughters of Darkness, supposedly based on her life. What a disappointment! There was no bathing in blood, no virgins to be seen. The best part of the movie was the Suspiria-like soundtrack. Then this morning, I was watching Fantasy Island and the episode about Elizabeth Bathory was on. The storyline is that when her "genetic duplicate" reaches the age of 30 (supposedly the age she was when she died, but she was actually 53), Elizabeth Bathory's spirit inhabits her body. I had to go to work before it was over, but I'm assuming Mr. Rourke got the poor bitch out of it somehow. These coincidences usually happen to me in 3s, so I'm waiting to see where the next reference to EB appears from.

a-woman

When is a dead body not a dead body? When no one notices it and you escape into another dream.

In the other dream, I had a baby girl, about a year old. She was hanging out without any diapers on so I had to get her fixed up. We were at a baseball game.

In other news, I got home last night, defeated and ready to eat myself into oblivion, only to find that the gas was out on my block. Since it didn't come on until 9:30pm, I had potato chips and yogurt for dinner, supplemented with raw green beans and salty, salty tears.

doesn't matter where or when there's trouble

I was visiting a school or public art museum that teaches classes for kids and was sitting in for a science teacher while the kids worked on science experiments. Kids from another school were able to transport stuff from their school to ours in the usual star trek kind of way. The tube of liquid I was holding was suddenly filled with hydrochloric acid, which of course I immediately spilled all over my left hand. I rinsed it and rinsed it and tried to wash it off with soap but the acid had already eaten through my skin down to blood vessels and I was bleeding everywhere. I wrapped my hand in paper towel and ran to the office...

speeding motorcycle...of myyyy heart

My boss is back in town. She's been on a leave of absence (oops, almost typed "leave of abstinence") and I've missed her quite a bit. Anyway, she's back, but she doesn't have an office, so she's sitting in a pretty public part of the office. When I came back from the bathroom I said, "Boy, I have SuperHappyFunLand hair today!" to which she replied, "I like it. It's like, 'what's R's hair up to today?'"

you're my....laaaady

I'm back in the land of the living after watching 9 hours of Freaks and Geeks and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. While I was watching FLLV, it seemed right to down several beers and some tequila and make plane reservations to Las Vegas.

The video/dvd weekend was kicked off on Friday night when I got to see the premier of a movie I was in, called Un Plato Mas. I think I laughed louder than anyone else in the theatre but my friends seemed to think it was at least amusing. It's hard to tell--seeing oneself on the screen is inherently funny and now I can see why Bill Murray avoids his premiers. It's embarrassing to be caught snorting at yourself.

The next day we trotted out to a local electronics complex to buy a dvd player with the insurance money we got from getting smacked into by a drunk driver. I'm already in love with it, especially since the second season of Six Feet Under comes out on dvd only tomorrow. Now, if I can only wrest the remote away from my bf...

for the "eeeuw" files

It was suggested to me that I post a link to this journal article.


I would like to note that it comes from one of BioMedCentral's open access journals, so I am breaking no laws by posting it here.

Upon reading the title and explaining it to my colleague, I began scrolling down, saying "I wonder if there are pictures. I hope there are pictures!"

Boy howdy are there pictures. I immediately began clutching my boob and squealing, as will you. I guarantee it.

i've got you...under my skin

I am still nauseated. I've been wanting to watch this French movie, In My Skin, for weeks now, ever since I heard about it. Unfortunately, M. described it as a much milder film than it really is. I think I'm psychologically scarred for life. The basic premise is that a woman gashes her leg at a party, but she doesn't notice that she's got a bloody gaping wound until hours later. This event starts her on a spiral of madness. Think Betty Blue meets Alive.

When I feel physically threatened or I'm grossed out by something, the bottoms of my feet start to crawl and feel overly sensitive. This happens to my sister, too, and we both rub our feet together when we're happy. Right now, twelve hours after seeing In My Skin, I can barely stand to rest my feet on the floor.

Yet, the film itself is quite beautiful. I loved the rich colors and textures, when I wasn't peeking at it through my fingers. Should you see it? If you do and don't like it, you'll blame me, but if you don't you're missing out on a very interesting film.

talk about it talk about it talk about it

I was the guest lecturer in three sections of the same class today. I learned that I am at peak funny in class number two. As I was leaving, the students began to clap spontaneously, i.e. their usual instructor did not prompt them in any way. One guy sprawled in the back said, as I passed him on my way out, "It's not quite a standing ovation". I'll take what I can get.

Thank you, thank you very much.

advertising

I don't know if you've noticed, but because I use the free version of blogger, there are ads posted around the edges of my blog. Sorry about that, but I'm cheap.

The funny thing is that the ads are for bee control, pest removal, things related to wasps. In other words, the ads are for stuff related only to the url I chose, but completely unrelated to my usual blog content.

Bzzzz.

climb out on my bean bowl baby

I watch a lot of documentaries. Most recently I watched Devil's Playground, which is about Amish kids going on rumspringe, the time when they're 16 and they get to do whatever they want while they decide whether or not to join the Amish church.

I do mean "whatever they want".

My prior experience with the Amish was being behind slow moving buggies on backroads in Indiana. It turns out there's a lot more to it than that and I'm wishing I had lived closer to them so I could have partied with them in high school.

I've also seen some interesting French movies lately. Last night I watched Irreversible. If you're at all squeamish about either sex, violence or violent sex, do not watch it. Don't even think about it. However, it's a really good movie, with a good storyline, sexy French actors and rich colors. The camera work is amazing and you find yourself wondering how the hell they got many of the shots. At the end I wanted to rewind it and watch parts of it over again, but I also felt a little nauseated so I took it back to the video store.

It's probably waiting there for you to rent it.

do you hear me, do you hear me calling

Another of my recurring dreams is the one where I'm home visiting and I realize I am going to be late getting to the airport to go home. That one's fairly easy to figure out--I am worried about being trapped with my family, etc. etc. Here's what happened the other night, though.

I am at work, at the desk, and I realize that my flight is in two hours. Plenty of time to get to the airport from there, barring unusual traffic, but I'm scheduled on the desk for another hour. That gives me an hour to get to the airport, park, get the shuttle into the airport, check in, get to my gate and get on the plane. In other words, Ain't Gonna Happen.

I start to figure out if I can talk someone else into covering for me so I can leave but then I just decide to go. I'm walking down the hall behind my co-worker who has hurt her foot and is making obnoxious moaning sounds every time she puts her foot down. I yell at her to quit it and stop being a baby as I zoom past her toward the elevator.