cafe

As I mentioned before, I'm going to Seattle shortly.  I'm soooo looking forward to asking for a tall drip with room and getting what I want.  I am also looking forward to getting a mocha made with real chocolate.  I'm also looking forward to cookies and cupcakes with pink frosting.  Watch out librarians, I am going to be caffeinated and buzzed!

I first started drinking coffee in college.  After dinner, my friend Julia would get the pot from the chow line and bring it around to her pals.  She also ran the Saturday night coffee shop called Cafe.  Different women would do the coffee making and serving and get their share of the profits, usually for a campus group like the Women's Center or Habitat for Humanity.  She always had a big basket of condoms from Planned Parenthood since it was Saturday night, after all.  The Cafe women had this mystique--they always wore black and often wore scarves.  One Saturday I got to be one of them.  I served cappuchinos and pastries with my most mysterious half-smile (unfortunately not very mysterious...).  We stayed up late cleaning up and singing along to the Indigo Girls at the top of our voices.

Coffee is very much a ritual for me, a pleasurable treat I associate with my old womyn* friends and that delicious feeling of being accelerated and still somehow enjoying every second separately.

*that's how we spelled it back in the early 90s.

recipe for disaster

Seattle Cocktail:

Take one tired and slightly dehydrated (from the plane) girl, add fresh clothes and a few dollars burning a hole in her pocket, as well as a friend she hasn't seen in a year and a half.  Shake well.

Ceviche:

According to my faithful leaders of the training I'm about to go to, we're attending a good old fashioned fish fry at one of the local Native lodges on Saturday night.  For this recipe, you'll need a slightly nauseated (from the boat) girl, several enthusiastic librarians and a great deal of fish.  Stir briskly.

Panic-stricken Panacea:

On the last night of my training, instead of working in the computer lab on whatever thing I'm supposed to be working on, I'll be at my friend's in Tukwila.  Only those with a strong stomach should attempt this one!  Take a grouchy and short-tempered girl (from staying up late with aforementioned enthusiastic librarians), put her in a car with someone she's never met, whisk her away to Tukwila and fill her with beer and barbecue.  Then return her to the computer lab.  Stand well back in case of explosion.

i couldn't drink another drop

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Seattle, I've been trying to drink more.  My family is familiar with this phenomenon: a few years ago I visited them before going to Seattle for New Years Eve.  They put a beer in my hand at every available opportunity and because of their hard work and perseverance, I had a lovely holiday with no lasting ill effects.

The problem is that my funds for the month are nearly depleted and I'm not one of those gals who gets drinks sent over from some fine fella at the bar.  Okay, that has happened to me but not in the recent past.  Anyway, we were finishing our first beer the other night when the Shiner people arrived.  Two busty women and a dude with many many bottles of Shiner Light and a very unpacked bar.  For a while we had fun filling out the email cards with our friends' email addresses (don't worry--they never picked up our cards and we threw them away) but mostly we set to drinking heavily.  We never even made it upstairs to see the bands that were playing.  About eleven we tottered homeward, wallets nearly as full as when we'd arrived.

The moral of the story is: when you really need some beers but you're broke, god will provide.

run for your lives

Watched 8 Women last night, thinking it was going to be another in a long, long series of disturbing French films.  Oh, it was disturbing all right, but not in the way I expected.  All over the damn box should be stamped "Madcap Murder Mystery Musical--do you really want to rent this?"  At one point M. said, "Are you enjoying this?"  Me, "No.  Are you?"  M., "No.  It sucks!"

Let this be your fair warning: despite glowing sets and costumes and luscious French babes galore, this movie is terrible.  You may feel free to say "terrible" in a French accent, as long as you say "No!" to this film.

ya'd better Sea this film

 
So last night, instead of going to the music festival as planned because it was pouring and we were feeling stay-in-ish, we rented a couple of dvds.  The first was Almost Famous because I'd never seen it and by god I should.  So I did.  Then we popped in the latest wrist slitter and discovered it was, well, ookey.  Really, it was good ookey, but ookey nonetheless.  M. enjoyed it a lot.  So did I, but it was still disturbing and left me feeling scrubbed of a little more innocence.

The film is See the Sea, or Regarde la Mer (think I got that right).  It's about a very bored young mother and a woman who camps out in the yard of the YM's beach house.  The YM's husband is stuck in Paris, so she and the baby are All Alone.  You can pretty much see where this is going if A. you're thinking, hey hey we're gonna see some yummy action or B. you're thinking shower scene in Psycho.  There's a classic scene with a toothbrush and some lovely beach-warmed skin scenes but if you're easily disturbed, you'd better skip it.  Even more if you've already seen In My Skin and are as creeped out by the writer/director/star of that as I am.

The raisinettes all melty in the microwave popcorn were the stars of the evening.

dum dum da dum

Everything in the past 24 hours has been about marriage.  There's a big bridal hooha going on here at the convention center this weekend, all of the tv I watched last night somehow had weddings/marriage in the theme.  I'm so susceptible to that that I actually dreamt that my ex-bf and I were getting married. 

When I was little, my grandma made me and my sisters wedding dresses for our Barbies.  Each one was completely different.  I remember that mine had short sleeves and a long, wide ribbon down the back.  Of course my Barbie always married Big Josh, the short muscular dude, rather than that poncy Ken.  Our Ken had all of this fake facial hair that you could paste on in different formations.  It was a metrosexual's wet dream. 

I was very bitter about weddings as a child.  Both of my sisters had been the right age at the right time to be flower girls in my aunts' weddings.  They had cute velvety and satiny dresses, funny stories and the satisfaction of a job well done.  I had nothing.  When one of those aunts got married a second time, she didn't even ask me to be in the wedding--she had my younger cousin.  I was so hurt I wouldn't talk to her for a long time.  We did finally make up (I confessed why I was mad and she apologized) and she's still one of my good pals, but it really set me against the whole wedding thing for most of my life.  Only when I got old enough to have friends of my own jumping over the broom did I start to see the appeal--all of that attention, all of the gifts, picking out a fancy dress and making all of your friends dress up (haHA!).  I mean, it's not worth the money people spend or the ugly displays brides to be make, but getting friends and family together to make a spectacle is now rather appealing.  So maybe I should just save myself the headache of a groom, buy a sweet dress and throw a big party.  Sounds good, right?  You'd come, you know you would, and instead of tossing a bouquet, I'd gather the single guys together and toss out sexy undies with my phone number tied to them.

 

the fertile rock

This morning, between the time my alarm went off and the time I actually got up, I had several dreams.  In one of them, I was about to get a new tattoo.  Just before I got in the chair, I realized that I couldn't remember what I'd planned the new tattoo to look like.  I was wracking my brain, going through a mental list of animals, as if I could only choose an animal or my tattoo artist could only do animals.  "Chicken, pig, goat, cat.....no....spider" etc.  Even odder, my tattoo artist was one of my colleagues, but her normally short hair was longer and bouffanty, like she was playing a trailer trash version of herself.  Anyway, I woke up before I got the tattoo, so I'm still not sure what it was supposed to be.

whatchew lookin' at?

Last night, out on the town (if being in a dingy club with one token table, where the bar is nearly as big as the club itself counts as Out), I spied a young lady standing in front of me.  She and her beau were holding onto one another in the hand-almost-but-not-quite-on-the-butt manner and she had that multi-level garage hairstyle that was over sometime last year.  What really caught my eye, though, was her outfit.  She was wearing red fishnet stockings and black dance shoes under a short skirt that was riding up a bit on her rump.  My god, I thought.  Tap shoes?  How Arthur Murray.  Then I found myself wondering if my legs were that fat.  I said as much to my companion, only to find out She Was Thinking The Exact Same Thing.  I am never wearing fishnet stockings again.

my new boyfriend

I know I said that I wanted Lance in my pants, but I have a new baseball boyfriend.  This is nothing new--I tried to keep myself to 5 Mariner boyfriends at a time and until now I had zero Astros boyfriends, so I'm not being slutty or anything.
 
Anyhoo, my new bf hit a homerun for me last night.  It came at a crucial time and he knocked in some extra runs that would have won the game if Miceli hadn't then allowed 2 Dodger homeruns.  Miceli was very much in a homerun or strikeout mood last night.
 
They also showed a video clip of my bf helping kids and generally being all cute and sweet.  I know he has a wife and kids but he's definitely on my safe list of men I'd do if I had the chance (because you know I'll never have the chance). --Correction, he is married but apparently does not yet have children.  I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.

goat issues

My sis has been looking for a new house with a lot of yard space.  My first thought was: I can get a goat and keep it there!  M. asks, "what will you name it?"
 
"Little Pink Petal!" I say, as if I'd been harboring that name as a part of my goat fancy for years.
 
So my sis buys a house that doesn't have a big enough yard for a goat, not to mention the fact that she has no interest in taking care of a large animal.  I am highly disappointed.  Then I discover that my friend has bought a piece of land that is perfect for goats.  That is goat-plural.  His wife is also interested in goats.  Little Pink Petal may be on the horizon.  She may be a baby goat in her mama's oven right now. 
 
I will let you know.

i don't know why

I was talking to a little kid the other night.  She was hypothesizing that in order to reach the ceiling, we'd need several people on top of each others' shoulders (with her on top, of course).  I said I didn't think it would take that many people, since the ceiling wasn't really that high.
 
"What if they were midgets?", she said.  If the answer doesn't fit your question, change the question.  And don't forget about midgets.

think for a minute, stop for a minute

I've been thinking lately about getting a new kitty. My last one got sick and couldn't breathe or eat so I had him put to sleep. Now I've gotten used to having the place to myself, not buying catfood or litter or scooping said litter. It is sort of lonely, though, coming home to a completely empty house.

My (ex) bf and I had come up with a name for our theoretical kitty ("I'm a kitty, I'm a kitty. Well, I'm not really a kitty. I just like to represent myself as one..."): ennui. More recently: umlaut. I usually name my pets after someone I especially admire, though. My first cat was named Gabe after Peter Gabriel, and the second one was Stewie, after Jimmy Stewart. One of my longtime heroes is Jimmy Carter, but an old boyfriend had a cat named Carter, after his roommate (there's a funny story that goes with that...) so that's out. One of my library heroes is Ranganathan, but what a moniker for a little beastie. Besides, I want to get a girl kitty this time.

Maybe I'm destined to be pet-less for a while longer. Maybe I should give my outdoor pet Lizzie a more individualized name. I could name him John Redcorn because he always gives me the red-throated high five whenever we meet.

i never i never i never

As I was (literally) flailing my arounds around, wondering why the more reserved folks around here aren't overjoyed to see me, I glimpsed my colleague, standing outside the door, watching me and laughing.

I was a clown or a standup comic in a former life and now I'm paying for it.

spiderman, spiderman

I dreamt the other night a very disturbing dream. I looked into the mirror and noticed that I had a small but definite red mustache. Then I stepped back and looked at myself and I WAS HARRIS from Freaks & Geeks.

In other news, I saw Spiderman II yesterday. It definitely lived up to the hype, what with all of the special effects, girl-on-girl action and the development of the characters of Peter and MJ. I didn't see George Bush in it, though, so I'm not sure what everyone was talking about with that.

i'm a tumblin'

I was visiting my parents in the house where I grew up and I was sleeping in the basement. I was down there putting my things away. When I walked into the main part of the basement, where the couch and tv used to be, there was a crowd of older African American folks having a party. They weren't rowdy or anything, and as I pushed my way politely through them toward the stairs the only question on my mind was "when did my basement become a bistro?"

i've got an itch

I've been reviewing a book on household pests. When I got home, there was a little blip on the news about bringing home bugs from hotel rooms. So, before I went to bed I became convinced that I had bedbugs. I searched the bed, the cracks of the mattress, under the mattress cover, but I didn't see any. The author of the book said that bedbugs can hide anywhere near the bed. I don't have the symptoms (bites near the midsection) and the bugs themselves are big enough to see, so I may be suffering from delusory parasitosis--the unwarranted fear that you've been overrun by bugs. The funny thing is that I like bugs. People often call me for a bug consultation and identification.

Jeez, I hope the next book I get to review is about fluffy puppy squirrel kittens or something.

So I'm drinking some beers and watching the game with J. at our local watering hole when our (shared) baseball boyfriend comes up to bat. She says "Lance!" I say "Lance the Pants!" which is of course a reference to one of my fave cartoons, Recess.Then I say, "I'd like to have Lance in my pants."

Who says women don't make good sports fans?

sucker, bloodsucker

My dad emailed me yesterday to let me know he was changing his isp. I never hear from him except for yearly birthday and xmas cards and we see each other, well, once a year at most. Last night I dreamed that I had just gotten home after semi-breaking in because I'd forgotten my key. I heard a loud noise like the lock of the front door breaking (note: this was actually taking place in my childhood next-door-neighbor's house) and when I got out there I saw my father, grinning, covered in dirt and blood. He said, rather triumphantly, "I shot him! The police will be here soon." I walked outside to assess the damage and noticed that there were two cars on the street, smashed into one another. One of the drivers was walking toward me, shaking her finger at my dad, and I knew that he had somehow caused the accident.

no carbs=death

Sorry that blogger is f*ing up today--you may see two versions of my earlier post but I've actually deleted one so it should eventually disappear. Anyway, that's merely an extra added twist to my overly complicated life...

My point: this weekend I tried to do the extreme carb and sugar elimination diet that is also the beginning of southbeach. I'm not trying to lose weight, but trying to get my body used to eating less sugar for a variety of health reasons. I'm a major sugar junky. I can't prove I was born that way, but I have vague memories of asking mom to sprinkle some powdered sugar on the teet.

Anyhoo, if you're still reading after that disturbing image, for two days this weekend I ate only cheese, nuts, eggs, fish and vegetables. By the end of the first day I felt awful. My gut hurt, I was nauseated and sweating and things were generally not working the way they are supposed to. By the afternoon of the second day, I made an emergency phone call to someone who had done a similar elimination kind of diet. "Is it normal to feel like shit?" I asked, heart racing. "Isn't it crazy how addicted to sugar we get?" she chirped, in response. By the end of the conversation I was convinced: my body needed carbs, STAT.

About an hour after eating a mission burrito in a bowl and downing a regular coke, I felt much better. In fact, about 15 minutes after starting, I looked up and realized all of the colors around me were brighter. My conclusions are this: I still need to cut down on my sugar intake, but this wacked out "diet" is not the way to do it. I will try adding rice (brown, I swear) and some fruit and see if that keeps me from wanting to die during the process. In another week I may have new results.

Alert to My Readers (all 1 of them)

Thanks to J., I realized that blogger's default is to make you login to comment. I've changed that now, so comment away, you crazed ferrets.

whoaaa be good to yourself

I'm a little reluctant to share this dream, since it's typically considered Freudian. However, I'll give my own analysis after.

Someone hands me a cigarette. She's been smoking it but now has to leave in search of someone. Why she can't do that with a cigarette in her hand is a dream-mystery.

I put the cigarette to my mouth and inhale. It's never like in real life, when I try to inhale anything and immediately begin to choke and get all red in the face. The smoke goes down, deep into my lungs, and I suck in more and more until the cigarette is completely down to the filter.

Okay, so you Freudians are thinking: sex, plain and simple. You may be partly correct, but there's more.

After I finished my first master's thesis, my advisor said to me, "Ranger, I just don't feel like you've sucked the marrow." He really meant it and I took it to heart. Now, when I find myself watching tv night after night or complaining about something someone said at work and how much that annoyed me, blah blah blah, that rebuke comes back to me. It makes me want to suck harder, not just the marrow of life but every part of it, good and bad. My mantra:

Suck, Ranger. Suck as hard as you can.