related

Have you seen the new show on the WB called Related? It's a gentle comedy about four sisters in New York and their various goings on and hangers on. Jennifer Esposito plays the oldest sister. I always liked her when she was on Spin City, but I really like the character she plays on Related. She's very first-child-like, in that she takes care of things and bosses the others a bit, but she does it in a very sweet, almost apologetic way. I don't see much of my own family in the characters and anyway I'd have to be combination of the two younger sisters and they are complete opposites. In other family news, my sister called the other day to warn me about the package that would be arriving soon from my dad and stepmom. She refused to say what it was, so I opened it with a bit of trepidation last night. Inside was a snowman nutcracker, size large. It wasn't too bad, considering. I mean, the face wasn't creepy or anything and knowing my dad it probably works. I was just glad that the package didn't include any cookies...

diddleyumdididdddlleeum

Oh my gosh, somebody please save me from the boredom I am experiencing today. I know, I could be reading or working on...something. It's just that the "something" is either escaping me or in itself boring.

big admission

Although I hate Rob Schneider and loathe the idea of Deuce Bigelow, my roomie came home with Deuce Bigelow, European Gigolo, and I watched the entire thing. It was bad. It was really terrible. There were times when they were doing some schtick and I'd be thinking to myself, or saying out loud, "this is supposed to be funny?" Admittedly, there were other times when I laughed a bit or groaned. I refuse to hate myself, but it did make me glad I had 5 Objections in my system as a vaccine.

mentholatum

After dinner, the GE and I retired to his place where I begged him to rub mentholated balm on my chest. My lungs were on fire and practically crackling! I then returned the favor. Soon after, another friend came over and said, "It smells like BenGay in here!" I narrowly refrained from offering him a hard candy from my purse.

snot head

Saturday night I was dreading going to bed because my sinuses had gotten to that point where they were completely swelled up, no air in or out, let alone the masses of mucus. I picked up the GE, in much the same state, and we headed immediately to the drugstore. After some perusal, we decided on a nyquil knockoff. We each had a dose at home, then started watching Lars Von Trier's 5 Objections. I kept falling asleep, in that weird drugged way where you're awake and then suddenly you're not and then, just as suddenly, you are again. We took second doses and we went to bed. Sunday afternoon, after mass cookie-baking, I sat down to relax and read the second Amelia Peabody book. Then I was asleep, awake, asleep, awake, repeat ad nauseum. I have had way too much of this drugged weirdness in my life lately and way too much being sick. Universe, I am ready to be better now! Thank you.

oooh, i'm scared

Last night, while waiting for pie to appear, I looked over and saw a dog in the next car. Look, I exclaimed to the GE, what a cute dog! GE looked over, made a motion as if to wave or something at the dog, and the dog immediately raised its lips at him in a fierce snarl. Hand down, mouth back to dog smile, hand up, dog snarl. We had way too much fun with this for a while, then another car pulled up and parked. As the family walked past the dog's car, the dog snarled, then proceeded to go crazy barking and jumping at them (at the window, actually). The family got a big kick out of the dog. The pie arrived, we showed A. the hand-raising=dog-snarling trick, then we started to back out of our parking spot. The dog kept its head in the exact same position, following us only with its creepy crazy eyes...

croupy crudpockets

There hasn't been a plethora of posts this week due to illness, specifically mine. I've been sitting around on my couch sucking down tea, watching daytime tv, reading and napping with the cat. Now that I'm starting to feel better, it seems like everyone around me is falling down with the crud. I always knew I was ahead of the curve.

aw, i'm not a dude

Androgynous You scored 63 masculinity and 53 femininity!

You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 51% on masculinity You scored higher than 29% on femininity

Link: The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test written by weirdscience on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

one day a year

Today is the one day a year that I can bring myself to wear this particular shirt. Which shirt? you ask. Well, let me tell you. I'm fairly certain my mother bought it for me, as it's two sizes too big. It's long-sleeved, red, and there is an embroidered reindeer wearing a scarf and some xmas balls (no, it's not dirty! get thy mind out of the gutter.). Why, oh why did I wear it today? Well, friends, it's our annual li-berry holiday party, when just about everybody wears something (I'd consider) goofy and red or green or tinsel-y or blinking. I'm just doing my part.

not dead, just deadly

I'm back in the office for real, after many days of being out on sick leave and working overnight. During my absence from the virtu-world, I got two cavities filled (ouch!), had dinner at La Fendee, which was marvelous, worked overnight (more on that in a moment), slept until 2pm, executed an outreach that nearly avoided disaster, ran home with a migraine, attended my friends' art installation opening and spent much of yesterday trying to relax and let the muscle relaxer fix my neck.

The overnight shift started off swell: we all rode our wheeled chairs down the handicap ramp (my idea and yes, as much fun as you'd think) and checked students' ids as the campus cops arrested and cuffed the dude who'd been harassing women. The remainder of the evening was as expected. We listened to music and played 90s trivial pursuit. My brain was so fluff that it took me about 5 minutes to remember the name of Woolworth's.

The art installation, Dolls, by Stephanie St. Sanchez and friends (mainly Jeanie Low and the GE) is still up at the M2 Gallery (325 W. 19th in the Heights) until December 23rd, so go by and get your fill of disturbing and funny images. Yes, the leg belongs to me, as well as the hands.

Okay, off to plow through half a week's email.

morning shopping

I often have a hard time getting motivated to go to the grocery store, so I tricked myself into doing it this morning by getting up, showering and driving directly there before I'd eaten or had coffee. The unfortunate side effect of this is that I came home with two bags of potato chips, which I wouldn't normally buy. Ah, the hazards of pre-coffee anything...

nordic

One of my friends is living with me right now. We have very different internal temperature settings and our external temperature preferences reflect that. I tend to keep the house cool in the winter, partially because I'm a skinflint, but mostly because I hate the feeling of hot dry air blowing on me. I can practically feel my skin cracking and my clothes crackling (static electricity, you know). She prefers it much warmer, even during the night. I like to pile on the blankies and snuggle. We've gotten to the point where the set temp is cool enough for me to have some blankets on and for her to not freeze to death, but for a few days there I felt like my grandparents. One of my funniest memories of them is of one turning the heat up, then, a few minutes later when the heat had kicked on and warmed the place up, the other turning the heat down, etc. ad infinitum.

by popular demand

H-town stinks. I describe its odor in various ways, but this is my most recent:
It smells like H-town is brewing coffee, but has decided to use a stinky sweat sock as the filter.

Mmmm, stinky sweat sock flavored coffee. Think I can sell it to St*rbucks?

beans, beans

After eating much cake throughout the day yesterday and leading donor-types around the li-berry in the evening, I took my starving stomach over to my friends' for dinner. They always have marvelous, tasty, good-for-you food. Last night's fare included salads and beans and potatoes and nuts. I ate two plates of it and then finished the GE's second plate as well. The joy of it is that despite having eaten tons of crap before that, the good food swept through and now I'm feeling fine (although hungry). In fact, I could really go for a bagel right about now...

murder ball

Hey, did you know that jocks who become quadraplegics are still jocks? Duh huh! The GE and I watched Murder Ball last night, which is a great documentary about the USA paralympics quad rugby team. Yes, rugby. The filmmaker mixes in the stories of the players with exciting action on the court (the game is played on a basketball court). It also shows the growing interest of a newly quadraplegic man in the game. Watching that after drinking a cup of coffee at about 9:45pm made it really hard for me to sleep last night. Luckily I have on my new orange tights, so despite my slight dragginess I'm still feeling good.