blah blah blah-ler

Cosby Curious ...

2012-01-26T00:24:00.001-06:00

We are at dinner, a 7-course tasting menu at a favorite local restaurant, and right around the waffle, fried pork, marmalade first course, JCrew gets distracted by a painting hanging in the corner over my left shoulder.

"Wasn't that painting on an episode of 'The Cosby Show'?" she asks.
"Yeah. And now it's here," I say.
When you put the waffle, the pork, the marmalade on the same fork load there is a burst of grapefruit citrus. It seems like a magic trick. JCrew calls it a "Pork Donut."
"Someone probably sold it," she says, still eyeing the painting. "As seen on 'The Cosby Show.'"

Chuck is a trooper, sitting here at a candle lit table listening to restaurant-volume Flaming Lips, Roxy Music, in the middle of his sleep cycle. This is often how it works for him, what with his work-nights, sleep-days lifestyle. I keep singing "Chicken Liver for Breakfast!" It has an AM radio feel.

The server puts a bowl in front of each of us: Tootsie Roll sized pieces of Beef Marrow, Lemon Cloud, something Green.

"Don't touch it yet," she says. Comes back with a metal soup tureen. Pours pureed Pumpernickel, Cream, Anise around the obstacles. These flicks of the wrist. It's like she's painting the bowl. The soup is the color of chocolate mousse.

"Seriously," JCrew says. "Don't you remember seeing that on 'The Cosby Show'?"

She asks Chuck if she can have his sparkling wine, which comes with the dinner. He says yes. We talk about the certain smell of the boys dorm at St. Thomas. The character names and actor names of every woman on 'The Cosby Show.' The texture of chicken liver. The naming conventions of meat dishes in France in 1066. Billy Ocean. "Paradise Lost" and "The Canterbury Tales."

"At one point I had memorized the first 18 lines of 'The Canterbury Tales,'" I tell the table. "In Middle English."
"Brit lit!" JCrew says. Same college. Same senseless assignment.
"Wan that (mumble) shore as shoot, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dupe," I say.
"I had a Brit Lit professor who didn't make us memorize the first 18 lines," Chuck says. "He said that when he went to parties and told people he taught Chaucer, someone always wanted to recite the first 18 lines of 'The Canterbury Tales.'"
"Like I just did," I say.

There is a fish course: White Fish, Tangerine, Dill, Rice Noodle Crab Cakes, Umami Mayo. This will be my favorite part; This will also be the part where I hear the seams in my stomach splitting.

I'd made a rookie error earlier in the night in the face of Pizza Man. It tasted so good. And there was an urgency to my pizza consumption: My Former Landlord was sitting next to me, stacking six square slices at a time to make a Pizza Man pizza sandwiches. My survival instinct kicked in and I kept snatching pieces of the pie to make sure it didn't all just disappear into his face.

"I wish they would bring out the Umami Mayo and squirt it all over my plate," JCrew says.

A shooter of Kefir with a drizzle of Blood Orange. Then dessert: Fried Ganache. Crack it open and a lava of Chocolate seeps from it, muddying the plate. There is a Waffle Tuile, crunchy, with a citrus-y fluff of white for dipping.

"I swear. That is from 'The Cosby Show.' I can't believe you don't remember that," JCrew says.

I do, kind of. But it's foggy.
I know how to solve this. I take a photo, send it to Lil Latrell.
"Was this painting on 'The Cosby Show'?"

"Yep," my favorite Bill Cosby fan replies immediately. "It's painted by Claire's uncle Ellis Wilson. She buys it at an auction for $11,000. Her grandma had sold it."

It's all who you know.

* The painting at the restaurant was not the one from 'The Cosby Show.' It was a sort of re-interpretation of it.

Tonight! Live! Padma's Arm Scar! ...

2012-01-24T00:41:00.000-06:00

This week I've added a new category to my Weakly Reviewed, Trending. This is where I'll post stuff that is so hot right now ... in my brain. Stuff I read (inspired by this post by Chuck about how no one does link blogging anymore), mini-marathons, music I'm listening to, off-roading research inspired by something, whatever I'm into right this second that probably won't last on my radar.

Mostly this is so that when I'm 89 I can rifle through my brain internet to January of 2012, remove my oxygen helmet and say: "What the hell was 'The Only Way is Essex'?"

So, here's the haps: Cooking, Watching, Reading, Not Reading this past week.

MAKING FOOD

Sweet Potato Chickpea Stew with Quinoa: This was pretty good. I'm not sure it needs the quinoa, but I like quinoa so I won't complain. It's just a stew with delicious sweet potatoes. Always a game-changer.

At the grocery store the cashier asked me the difference between sweet potatoes and yams.
"I don't know," I told her. "I use them pretty interchangeably."
"Inter-what?" she asked.
"Interchangeably," I said.
"Oh," she said.
"I do know that if you eat a certain amount of sweet potatoes your skin will start to turn orange," I told her. Fact or fiction? Who cares. It makes for a fun nugget.
"Oh!" she said. "Maybe that's why some people are so orange!"
"Right," I said. "Like Snooki. HUGE sweet potato fan."
"Who?"
"Snooki," I said.
" ..."
"'Jersey Shore'?" I prompted.
" ... "

READING
Daytripper: In this non-linear graphic novel by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, the protagonist Bras de Oliva Domingos dies at the end of every chapter. The obit-writer turned novelist is shot, he drowns, heart problem. It's very well done and art-wise, it's lovely.

Assassination Vacationby Sarah Vowell: Learning history has never been so fun! Sarah Vowell examines the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley while touring around to the most minute of landmarks, checking out the signs and the brain matter and the bloodied this and thats, as well as hitting monuments and memorials.

So conversational, so interesting, so smart and so fun. I'd let Sarah Vowell teach me about anything.

NOT READING
Ghost Lights: A Novel by Lydia Millet: I made it 100 pages into this story about a man who is sure his wife is diddling one of her coworkers and in a moment of drunken angst volunteers to go search for her boss, who has gone missing while on vacation in another country. All of a sudden I realized I wasn't reading so much as just staring at the pages of a book where words zipped past and I wasn't invested in anything that was going on. Abort mission.

TRENDING
"The Only Way Is Essex": This English reality show is about a bunch of young people living high personal drama in Essex. Lauren and Mark just broke up after nine on-again, off-again years, Sam and Amy are glamour models, which is like working for Maxim, but mostly means they work the door at hot new clubs. Dirk is a reformed player who has it bad for Amy. There is an old woman named Nanny Pat who always shows up at Mark's door with a hotdish and then segues into ironing his clothes. It takes about three episodes to understand English, but after that, cue addiction.

I started watching because of this article from Vulture about all that is wrong with "Jersey Shore." (On TOWIE they actually at one point show the key players watching an episode of their own show).

***

I have never watched an episode of Top Chef without mentioning a) Padma's arm scar (which would make a great band name) and/or b) Salman Rushdie. So finding this was a real treat. It's a dummies guide to Salman Rushdie.

Into its vajazzled vortex ...

2012-01-22T03:41:00.000-06:00

The first thing I do is hide in plain sight. I park it in front of my laptop, the scene of the crime, a cup of coffee and twin tornadoes at my feet. I should be writing, but instead I am continuing a "The Only Way is Essex" marathon that started late last night and ended well after the newspaper landed on the porch this morning. This English dramatic reality show, billed as the antidote for all that is wrong with "Jersey Shore," but which actually has more in common with "The Hills," has sucked me into its vajazzled vortex and left me curious about air kisses and eyebrow pencils. Did you know when they hug, they say to the huggee, "Come in for a snuggle"?

As I said, I'm supposed to be writing. Not like this, present tense blog posts that will focus on getting seconds at the Food Court and buying Rosemary Mint shampoo, but writing-writing. Words that can be read in front of a paying audience, writing.

Next Saturday I'm part of a handful-plus of writers who are going to read with a microphone and on a stage. If you're like me, you're wondering what I could possibly have to read. I'm rich in "and then today at Subway, a customer pronounced the H in Herb. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!" I promised myself I'd shelve any sweat over it until Jan. 1, 2012, at which point I would work myself into a frothy lather of salty freak-out-dom.

The first of the year came and went and I got used to ignoring this date so far away in the future. And so here I sit, a week out, going ... "Fuuuuuu--- I should probably just finish Season One of 'TOWIE' so I can really concentrate."

My nightmare is that I will find no way around reading the story about the time a tampon was lost in my body, when my doctor described women's innards as having "Lots of nooks and crannies."

There are actually two seasons worth of "The Only Way is Essex" on Hulu. For real.

***

Whenever I watch shows starring super groomed women I start thinking about my eyebrows and the way I am content to let them grow cartoonishly wild. This is exactly how I treat my leg hair, but this tangled mess is actually happening on my face. Its like the opening credits to "Little House on the Prairie" when the youngest Ingalls girl takes a digger while running through a field of unkempt grass and flowers.

I wish I could find a list somewhere the ranks the grooming hierarchy. Like, is this something I'm supposed to care about, or is it just cool if I dip into Shear Katz every six months or so and ask for the weed-whacker treatment? Anyway, that's what I do today. 911 Weed Whacker. I tack on some Rosemary Mint Shampoo and Conditioner because it is another way to hide from writing and, well, it just smells nice.

***

I'm surprised at how much I like Jessica Simpson's clothing line, especially the shoes. But mostly I'm just craving a hotdog wrapped in pretzel, and here I am and there is the Miller Hill Mall Food Court. They have a new menu item, MINI hotdogs wrapped in pretzels. So popular that the stock is depleted and the cashier gestures to his left where a guy is slicing bite-sized pieces of dough for a new batch.

"They'll be ready in about six minutes," he tells me.
"Six minutes," I say, nod.
"Now. I want you to feel comfortable to wander around a bit, do a little shopping, whatever. They'll be ready when you come back," he says. This is after he explained the dipping sauces in fantastic detail, like a sommelier for things thick and creamy. "Well, we have plain cheese, but we also have a nacho cheese, which has a little bit of bite, but not too much bite, certainly okay for someone who doesn't like things too spicy, Ranch, honey mustard ..."

I'm in Eddie Bauer when a woman asks me where I got my winter coat and I'm able to say for the first time something I've wanted to say forever:

"Target. It's their Converse line."

My first bite of this new delicacy sends half of the hotdog squirting out of the end of the pretzel casing, hitting god-knows-what, hopefully some pussy sucking down a shake from Body by Vi. Eventually I will go back for seconds at this same place, this time opting for pretzel bites without the hot dog weapons.

"Do you need any sauce?" the cashier asks me.
I flash her half a plastic container of nacho sauce.
"I still have some left," I tell her.

***

Chuck and I have just finished dinner, and we've ordered dessert. A threesome comes into the restaurant and is seated at the table next to us. Like, two feet from us, 33 percent of them sharing bench seating with me.

I know them, they all used to be regulars at the Pio, and they include ... dun-dun-dun ... my Former Landlord's baby mama. We're not, um, close. I'm sure I've been an asshole to her in the past, but it's been years. These days I'm a little fiery about some custody junk that is none of my business but that I have TONS of opinions about anyway.

So: This. Is. Dramatic. I'm not one for hoarding enemies, but now I understand why the universe threw "TOWIE" in front of me this weekend. SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS ON EVERY EPISODE!

I greet the dudes she's with and she sits in her chair and very deliberately shifts it sideways so her back is to us and immediately begins screaming about how she isn't staying here at this bar, how everything she says is going to end up on the internet and she's going to be hearing about everything that happens all night from My Former Landlord. She grabs her stuff and storms out of the restaurant, dudes trailing, right as I've begun explaining to one of them that the Cheese Steak is delicious.

It was pretty epic. At first it was just uncomfortable. Then it was funny watching her be SO MAD! Then, as we watched them cross the street and charge into the casino, it just became confusing.

"Wait," I said to Chuck. "Why is she mad at me?"

***

Our plan was to go to JCrew's birthday party, but she texts me as we're finishing dinner and says they are leaving the bar. So we decide to go to the late showing of a play. Then JCrew texts and says that if we can get to the bar in 15 minutes, they will stay.

So now I'm confused. Do we go to the bar or not go to the bar?

She calls me and when I answer I can hear her screaming to her fiance Sea Dawg: "WHO GOES TO DINNER THIS LATE?!"

"People who work nights and sleep until 8 p.m.?" I say to her.
"Oh. Did you hear that?" she asks, cackles devilishly.
"Who goes to the bar that early?" Chuck asks.

She tells me they're on their last drinks and are going to go home. Chuck and I go to the play, which is fantastic and includes a scene with tender puppet lovemaking. During intermission I get a text that says JCrew is still at the bar. So we swing by on the way home and there she is, the little princess, busting a nut with her sister, dancing to the sweet sounds of an 80s cover band.

The band plays one more song and pulls the plug, ignoring her request for "House of Pain" by Faster Pussycat, which is unforgivable, so she sings it herself at the table. Later, JCrew pulls a woman aside and tells the woman is too good for her sleazy boyfriend. "You're smart, you're pretty, you can do better than this dipshit," she says.

In my head I'm writing a Lifetime Original Movie in which JCrew is a vigilante, she has an office in a public restroom. She councils as women re-apply lipstick. Then she's off to the next stop. She storms into a bar wearing a Burberry cape telling women to DO BETTER THAN THIS DIPSHIT!

(Almost) inventor of the BLT ...

2012-01-19T01:14:00.001-06:00

Subway and I are both restless. I see it in the way I pull up and frown as soon as I smell the signature smell. The hot doughy breath of obedient yeast. I see it in the sandwich shop's recent menu modifications: The Sub of the Month, the Twist on Turkey options, the gluten-free bagels and brownies. It's all the same stuff just in a different order and with a new mug shot.

"Ohh. How long have you had gluten-free sandwiches?" a woman asked yesterday, in a very public-radio voice.
"About a month," I start to tell her, stopping as I remember I'm not the Sandwich Artist. She's not asking me. She's asking the professional. It would be nice if I could also remember this when I'm at Barnes & Noble.
"Since the beginning of the month," the Sandwich Artist responds.
"Wow," the woman is at a loss for words. Gluten-free. Here. At Subway. This is the best thing that has happened to society since the invention of the reusable grocery tote. "I'll have one of those!"

(Later I will swear this woman and I are both standing in front of the three shelves worth of gluten-free breads and crackers at the grocery store. Here, too, she has the star-eyed look of someone whose mind has been blown that this option could possibly exist in the same aisle as Hamburger Helper. It's like the time the Butler on Downton Abbey busted Sybil Crawley learning to make soup from the help).

***

I'm so tired of sandwiches. This is a highly solvable problem, I know. But solving requires planning. And planning requires thinking about lunch right after dinner or when I wake up and my stomach is still clenched into a fist that I can only coax from hostile toward friendly with coffee and time. Lots of time.

Anyway, I ordered Tuna Fish, with extra gluten. I know. Tuna Fish. Ugh. But I was desperate for something new. Tuna Fish is one of those things where "like" and "loathe" are way too close together. Once I lean to loathe -- an extra mealy chunk of fish muscle, an unappealing splatter from the sandwich onto my Subway wrapper, someone else eating a Tuna Sub with their mouth open, or even just a passing thought about goldfish -- I can be put off it for a very long time.

I made it through 80 percent of the sandwich before it hit. This time it was just the two-word combination. "TUNA fish. Tuna FISH. Raw pink TUNA FISH in a can, packed in a TUNA FISH-flecked watery soup making a TUNA FISH smell." Dry heave. Lunch over.

***

"I don't know what I want," I whined to the Sandwich Artist last week.
I have this luxury. I eat in the mid-afternoon when the lunch crowd has thinned and the shop is just filled with regulars: that guy playing Nintendo DS, the one in the wheelchair aggressively selling tiles, the fans of the free refill, puck hounds.

"They had to lose sometime," says one guy of Saturday's hockey game.
"Yeah," says the other.

The sandwich of the day is Turkey. Turkey and Ham, great. Ham, Meh. Turkey, double meh. I know it's crazy; They just work better together. I go for the new sub on the block. Something that suggests fire and bravery: The Turkey Jalapeno Melt.

"Let's mix this shit UP," I tell the Sandwich Artist.

She begins crafting it: Turkey, cheddar, jalapenos. She puts it into the toaster oven.
"You know what I like," she says. "Chicken tenders dipped in honey mustard with a jalapeno at the end of it."

Clearly she has been off-roading. Subway doesn't have Chicken Tenders. She takes my sandwich from the toaster.

"Mmmm-MMM," she says. "Chicken tenders dipped in honey mustard with a jalapeno on the end. The honey mustard really cuts the spice and you get the full flavor of the jalapeno."

She scatters a handful of lettuce on the sandwich. Some onions, some tomatoes. A dash of salt and pepper.

"I'm struggling to see the difference between this and an ordinary turkey sub," I tell her. Maybe it's in the finale. A special cream sauce. Otherwise I'll be paying an extra dollar just because I made the error of calling this a Turkey Jalapeno Melt instead of a Toasted Turkey Sandwich.

"It's the heating of the jalapenos in the toaster," she says. "It really gives them a kick."

I nod. I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure Subway has always had the option of warmed jalapenos. It requires jumping line a bit in the sandwich assembly, but nothing so heroic that would cost me a dollar.

At the cash register she gives me a little look.
"I just charged you for the regular turkey special," she says. Wink wink. Which is nice ... and weird. Because that's exactly, technically, what I ordered.

***

I was sitting at a back table eating and reading and The Regular walked into the shop, filled his Subway plastic cup and approached a woman at the table next to me.

"Hear that music?" he asked her. It was faint. Something from the 80s.
"What?" she asked, and as she asked it the music got louder.

I looked at The Regular. I looked around. How did he do that? He does, admittedly, look like a person who would create his own universal remote using pieces from an old tobacco tin, a pocket watch, electrical tape and a mechanical pencil. But I choose to believe this was magic.

***

I've been plotting my own signature sub sandwich. Okay, it's technically a BLT, which I believe is a rather significant omission on the menu.

"I suppose I could just order a veggie sub and have them put lettuce and tomatoes on it. And bacon," I explain to Chuck as we're lying in bed. I can see this sub in my mind. It looks like it should be featured on a commercial or in a two-page spread in a magazine. The lettuce as crunchy as Cheddar Baked Ruffles, one of my favorite side dishes. The juicy tomatoes, bacon sizzling. Me, spreading Lite Mayo to suit my own specific taste.

"I'm going to create my own sub," I tell the Sandwich Artist today.
She looks at me warily. Like how many times has someone said this. No, wait, put the Turkey on it LAST. That's how daddy likes it.

"I suppose technically it's just a veggie sub with bacon," I say and she goes to work. Slices the bread open, lays down matching triangles of cheddar -- so I'm deviating from a traditional BLT, there are no rules here.

She stops with her hand over the bacon.

"A veggie sub with bacon would have two strips," she tells me. "A BLT gets four."
"Wait. A BLT? You have a BLT?" I ask. Robbed.
She steps backward and points at the menu mounted above her head. "BLT: Bacon, Lettuce and Tomatoes."
"Oh," I say. Egg on my face. "I guess I'll take the BLT, then."

Dance Party USA

2012-01-16T01:06:00.001-06:00

Fun news: I have referred to my iPhone as a Walkman four times in the past two weeks. If that isn't bad enough, I called our central speaker system, which was playing music from Spotify, a "radio." As in: "I hope the radio didn't wake you up."

There is some kind of technological Dorian Gray craziness going on in my head.

Also: Could someone call my mom and explain to her that I don't want to be the next Erma Bombeck?

NEW FOODS TRIED!

Butternut Squash and Edamame Zosui with Ginger-Green Onion Relish: So this soup included kombu which was completely off my radar, but does exist in the city limits -- which is more than I can say for finding two full sized leeks. Kombu is a dried seaweed-y sort of thing that I just used in the broth, but omitted the step where it is chopped and re-introduced to the soup because I could tell the texture was going to skeeve me pretty hard. This is really not-adventurous of me. But consider this: I dumped something that looked like jerky into the soup and in the course of heating it unfurled to a de-jerkified sheet of something slippery. Chop it and eat that? No can do, friend. I can't even eat a Gummy Worm, and that's supposed to be delicious candy.

Anyway, brown rice, squash, broth, edamame, miso ... then with the ginger-onion relish. This is pretty good, easy, different from the standard bean-veggie fare we're usually going apeshit on.

Also, this calls for a pressure cooker, but I just eyeballed it and it seemed to turn out the way it was supposed to, maybe a little less watery.

MOVIES
Girls Just Want to Have Fun Of all the movies from the 1980s, this one was embarrassingly influential on a young Catholic school girl with strict parents who wanted to be a wild-child adventurer with a secret exit out her bedroom window. "Which character were you?" CHRISSIE! asks me via text message. She watched it earlier in the day, inspiring my watch later that night. I was Janie with dreams of being Lynn.

Age: Pre-teen. On the school bus, ripping off my plaid skirt to reveal a pair of colorful jams. Unbuttoning my collared shirt to what would be a sexier view if not for pancake chest. Tying my hair into a high ponytail. Slathering my face in tinted chapstick. I love movies like this that are such a time capsule for what movies looked like in the 80s. It's hard to remember if it was funny then, or if it is just funny now, or funnier now, in the way that it is just so so true to the period. Anyway, this one is about Sarah Jessica Parker as a Catholic school girl who just wants to DANCE! She starts up at a new school, makes friends with the outrageous Helen Hunt and they audition for a spot on Dance TV, a close relative to "Dance Party USA."

Vernon, Florida This documentary from the early 1980s is about the quirky residents of a small town in Florida: A worm farmer, a guy who keeps a zoo of animals in a makeshift cage, a turkey hunter, a bored cop. It's pretty agonizing to watch and if it was longer than an hour I'd probably have thrown the TV out the window. It's a little bit assholey, I think, to interview a half-dozen old men and be all like "Look how weird this town is!" Although I understand that allegedly the movie was meant to be about a rumor that its residents were purposely self-amputating to collect insurance. That would make a great documentary.

Comic Book Confidential: The history of comic books, starting in the 1930s through about the early 1980s. It's decent, but really only starts to get super interesting when R Crumb is introduced in the mid-1960s. I'd like to see a documentary starting where this one left off to now. More women and some creative takes on the old genre.

BOOKS
Underworld by Don Delillo: This is the best book I've ever read. Full review will be here.

Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot: by Heather Donahue: The girl from "The Blair Witch Project" spends a year in northern California growing medicinal marijuana. Heather Donahue is totally a riot. Full review will be here.

Brie fever ....

2012-01-15T04:03:00.000-06:00

Today is a day I have been waiting for for more than a decade. I finally, after a half-dozen fits and starts, finished "Underworld" by Don Delillo. Two weeks of gape-mouthed awe at what this late starter to the world of fiction made for all of us. Writer-wise, an intimidating story, no doubt. The kind of thing that leaves a wannabe novelist a little raw and a lot bruised. Who would dare try, even try, to make a complete sentence after reading that thing? Remove "return" key. Demolish it with hair brush. Shut laptop. Bind it with electrical tape. Soil it with feces. Chuck it into Lake Superior. Make sure it sinks. Wipe hands on red jeans. Resign oneself: In a post-reading "Underworld" world, reality TV is the new writing. Grand statement alert: "Underworld" is the best book I've ever read. So there.

***

My reading resolution for 2012 takes its cues from the old bridal custom "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." Except it is "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something graphic novelly." This means that every month this year I will read: Something we already own, something from 2012, something from the library and, well, a graphic novel or memoir. Of course, some of these categories might overlap. I could find something from 2012 at the library. I could read a graphic novel that is already in the house. Any additional reading I do during the month is just extra credit.

Why do rules make everything so much more fun?

No matter how many times I visit the library, the premise of it continues to slay me. I can walk into an architecturally interesting building and I can read the books from here for free. FOR FREE. I can indiscriminately tug titles from shelves, read the inner flap -- or not -- and make a stack in my arms. And then I can scan them in a way that thrills my inner 9-year-old who must have, must have, played librarian at some point, take them home, rub my eyeballs all over them and then return them. Libraries. My god. A girl could lose her mind.

On this trip I feel like I'm stealing three novels with plots that sound a little similar. Like all three stories shared a bathroom mirror when they were 15. And something by Sarah Vowell.

***

I spend a lot of words lauding the magic of nutritional yeast and mustard experiments that thicken into vegan cheese sauce. While I do believe this is delicious, and magic, cheese is still cheese. We used to have a brick of cheddar on hand at all times and I could dismantle that sucker during a single midnight snack. We used to have a tray with salmon, grapes and two kinds of gourmet cheeses -- a blue brie, an aged cheddar, havarti, a Merlot Cheddar mix -- that we ate on Wheat Thins. Now the closest thing we keep to cheese in the house is a bag of Cheddar-flavored Daija, which looks like cheese, melts like cheese, but is actually made from the hippie-tear hydrated toe jam of an organic farmer.

I recently finished reading a novel about an artist from the 1920s painting her muse and in between sessions they picked at a baguette, nipped at cheese. The imagery gave me brie fever. I told myself that on Saturday I would go to this restaurant, order a cheese plate and read. What a simple bit of awesome and a reprieve from being my old, predictable self.

So that's what I did. A plate with a stack of crispy Lavosh, a sliver of Brie, a hunk of a White Cheddar and a Blue Cheese. A bunch of grape. And then, optimizing this "Hey why-not-ness," a Bellini in the middle of the afternoon.

Since it was out of character for me, I began projecting all sorts of stuff the bartender must have thought about me. I imagined that she didn't know what to make of me and was comparing the cleanliness of my hair to the women sitting at the bar, tossing out a big league wine vocabulary. I imagined that maybe she thought I was celebrating something (like finally finishing "Underworld"?) or that I was two hours from handing my car keys to someone standing at a bus stop and then swan diving off the Bong Bridge.

Really I was just waging an inner protest about the lack of cheese in my diet and dousing it with a flute of fruit-flavored champagne.

***

When Chuck wakes up he's still the groggy eyes of a baby chick. We decide that we want to spend date night napping. Back to bed, where I zonked for three hours, him for five. Our pizza is disappointing.

***

JCrew calls with plans to stop over for a little get-together I planned earlier in the week and then never told her we weren't having. I'm on thin ice with my friend, I bet. This is the second time I've ripped plans out from beneath her. Today's was worse because she had spent the day at a bridal show where someone tried to convince her to purchase a wedding dress from a cheesy warehouse and then to bind and gag her with DJ options. She even made cake-pushers, my own personal patron saints, sound like monsters.

***

We watch two movies and work on training Hal to do a common circus trick.

Monday Memoir: That's Don Fey ...

2012-01-12T00:37:00.000-06:00

I spent a lot of time with my dad during some pretty pivotal years, and this period is a blur of denim accented denim, rust and German Shepherd breath. It is all condensed into a single vision: Our blue beater parked in front of the house and we're going for a ride: To a ranch outside of town where he will break horses, to a pool outside of town where a woman who has had great success with quadriplegic and special needs children will fail to teach a snot-nosed ginger to put her face in water, to The Farm, just outside of town, a couple acres of land with hiking trails, a stream, a rust-bucket school bus and tomb for toys from the 1960s, a wooden shed aged to a tilt, with no electricity and cobwebs on the toilet paper.

Any unwillingness to wear a dress growing up, any balking at nylons or religious belief that slips are optional and hoodies mandatory was pinned to my dad.

"He's the one who brought her up through her formative years," was my mom's favorite punch line for at least a decade, although she said it like more of a curse a decade later.

In those days my dad loved Marty Robbins' records and gave equal time to Paul Harvey played over noon hour on a clock radio in the kitchen. Every time I heard Harvey say "And that's the rest of the story" I wondered where the first part of the story went.

My dad could dump a leftover into a frying pan, add ketchup, stick it between bread and call it lunch. He trotted out the delicacy Cream Peas on Toast. We got a deep fryer for Christmas and he made Corn Fritters, but just once. He hid Girl Scout cookies and boxes of chocolates in his closet on the high shelf. He approved rations of ice cream. Survival instinct. He was the second oldest of eight children who grew up in a three bedroom house in a neighborhood that now has lost its sheen. I imagine the attic looked like a scene from an orphanage, a bunch of boys ranging from teen to toddler on single bed cots in a row.

The last time I was in that attic there was a text book called "Your Friends in Eurasia" and the whole house still smelled like hot linoleum and lemony dish detergent.

"We were so poor growing up that we were allowed to run through the sprinkler," he said one time. "But we couldn't afford to turn on the water."

Then he did the laugh he does when he finds himself hilarious, one eye squinched more than the other. He likes a good joke, the cornier the better, especially when he is the one telling it. No judgement here.

One day my friend Elise and I were comparing discipline highlight reels and she passed along a tip: If you're about to get a spanking, run. Just run. So I did that. Out the front door, across the lawn, up a steady grade, my dad chugging behind me. Where do I go now? I wondered. I could never outrun my father. No way. Then I stopped at the top and waited for him, laughing. Not at him, certainly not with him.

My dad cut his toenails straight across, rather than rounding the corners. In my head I can hear them clicking across the kitchen floor, but that is probably an exaggeration.

He worked nights. He slept with the phone in the drawer. My cue to wake him was the end credits of "The Young and the Restless." I can see his puffy white sleep face, a protruding red mole beneath one of his eyes, his hair a light brown mess of curls, poking out of a nubby white blanket and I can see it as though I'm standing at eye-level with the bed. He would make me a grilled cheese sandwich, send me walking the three blocks to school. Later we would all climb blurry-eyed into a two-door car in the dark and cold to drop him at the Law Enforcement Center. My mom was in school to become a teacher and we would pick her up at a turnaround spot on the community college campus.

"Here she comes," he would say. "Mama Mia with the spicy meatballs."

My dad was a deputy sheriff, an amazing thing when you are in kindergarten and it takes no more than siren-on-demand to impress your peers. A uniform, a patrol car, a gun that he put on top of the refrigerator during his lunch break when he went to regular hours. My dad worked in the civil division, plain clothes, when I was in grade school. A confusing thing when he got involved with a custody situation that involves a classmate, the only child of divorce in my class. For the rest of my childhood the mom glaring at my dad from across the church. Her daughter, my friend, unable to come to my house or hitch a ride to a high school basketball game.

"It's not my fault she broke the law," would be something my dad would say. But he never really told me what was going on.

My dad taught me to do a layup a half hour before I went to my first basketball camp. "That's it?" I thought. It was instinctual. Later, at the camp, I was one of the few kids who could do one or had ever even heard the word. He built me a section of a basketball court in our back yard.

When a kid in my brother's class when apeshit with an axe all over most of his family, my dad was involved with the case and escorted the juvenile to a facility in Texas, where he waited for his trial. This was an incredible nugget that made me feel like I had VIP privileges as the case unfolded in the news. Of course we all felt like we had VIP privileges considering two of our school mates had died and a boy with a unibrow we thought we knew had done it. A fit of satanism, was the rumor. An unyielding father, another. And it was all like trying to solve "CSI: Rochester" with Encyclopedia Brown's database.

By the time I was in high school I was terrified of my dad. Not terrified about anything he did, but terrified of his masterful look of disappointment. A shake of the head. A stony expressionless look. Silence. Or a half-yell where his voice bounced. He hated lying, cheating and stealing. "Greg has poor sportsmanship," he would say of a boy on my brother's hockey team who cried after losses and chased down refs with who-me? hands after bad calls. When I missed state, hell missed regionals, because of a case of the yips on the runway to the long jump pit, when I threw my walkman at a sophomore girl who dared to ask how I'd finished, he gave me a talking-to that was less salve for my disappointment than a life lesson: We don't act like that, he said. We don't act like that.

Most of the big rules came down from my dad. The "Dukes of Hazard" made cops look foolish, so we weren't allowed to watch it. Our curfews were strictly enforced because my dad knew what a car accident looked like in the middle of the night. Before I was born, or at least before I saved memories, my father's good friend, a fellow cop, was shot while on duty. Before his shift started, my dad made fun of him for having a stain on his shirt.

When I was 19 or 20 and my parents were away for the weekend my brother dug into the pocket of the jeans I'd worn the night before looking for my car keys. Instead he came out with a handful of beer bottle tops, counting out nine, a mix of Red Dog and Ice House.

"If dad found this he would kill you," he said.

When my dad was my age, 36, I was 12. My brother was 16. When we got the dog, rode around in the pickup truck, he was 27. That time when I ran up the street to escape a spanking he was 29. He built me a basketball court when he was 32. When my brother went to college he was 38, younger than my boyfriend is now. When I went to college he was 42, the same age as my one of my best friend's fiance. It's weird to think that we obeyed him. The idea of someone taking me seriously as a disciplinarian is laughable.

That makes him, what, 60. He's been retired for more 5 years because that's what you do when you become a government employee at age 20. He turned my parents basement into a something that resembles an upscale lodge with built in book cases, a bar, a stone fireplace, two bedrooms and a full bathroom. He has gone fully grey, but convinced my niece a few years ago that he is blond. He plays hockey with other "old timers." I called home a few weeks ago and my mom could barely speak, she was laughing so hard at a bad round of Wii Golf.

I have friends, maybe not friends, but people I talk to regularly, people whose conversation I enjoy, people I can swear in front of, who are within a five year radius of my parents. Aside from a bum hip here, sleep apnea there, my parents are staying the same age but it seems that I am catching up to them.

The Monday Memoir series is a writing project that uses Tina Fey's memoir "Bossypants" as a template for my own life story. I'm using her subjects as a prompt. Tina Fey's memoir is very funny, by the way. It just seemed so easy to do. In Chapter Four she talks about her dad, Don Fey.

1 teaspoon of chitter chatter ...

2012-01-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

There is a lot of stuff here, so I'm going to go light on the chitter chatter. Here is what I've made, watched and read in the past few weeks.

MEALS MADE IN OUR KITCHEN THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN MADE THERE BEFORE

Slow-cooker Bean and Corn Bread Casserole: Crock pot things happens and you get chili with a layer of corn bread attached on top of it. Science! This. Is. Awesome.

Artichoke and Spicy Tofu Casserole: Okay. So this is a bunch of rice with a bunch of vegetables and tofu, a non-cream cream sauce and then baked like a casserole with a few bread crumbs and shredded fake cheese. I'm not sure where I got the idea it was going to taste like Tuna Noodle Casserole, but that is what was in my head. Regardless, I liked this. It was different. It was good. It actually made me hungrier, though.

MOVIES
Super 8 "Goonies" + "Stand By Me" / "E.T." = This is my favorite thing I've seen in awhile. Little geeky filmmakers save their town from an alien.

"New Year's Eve": Have you ever been at a shitty party and every time you turn around you see someone you are trying to avoid?

J. Edgar This movie that includes the secret side of J. Edgar Hoover was good. It was too long, like 90 percent of all movies. But mostly it has given me good background for sections of the book "Underworld" by Don Delillo that include J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson.

Magic Trip: Found footage of the Merry Pranksters and the sights and sounds described in "Electric Kool-Ade Acid Test." This documentary, now streaming on Netflix, was pretty delicious and will make you eternally grateful that you've never been trapped on a bus with that maniac Neil Cassady.

I Love You Phillip Morris: This true-ish story of Jim Carey as a scam artist who meets the love of his life in prison and then proceeds to scam, scam and scam so more is really cute. Like.

Dawning: Anyone who has ever spent time in Northern Minnesota knows woods can be terrifying. But this horror movie is poorly plotted and kind of like a junior high film project. Brother and sister visit alcoholic dad and his new wife at the cabin. Evil ensues. Blerg.

TV MARATHON
Portlandia: Good. God. We started watching this on New Year's Eve Day when I was so hung over I could barely blink or even stand upright long enough to shuffle to the bathroom to dry heave into the toilet. It was physically painful for me to watch because instead of sitting quietly and laughing occasionally this was going to require laughing non-stop and rarely sitting quietly.

For the three people on the planet who haven't watched it, this was my point of entry:

BEEN READING
1Q84by Haruki Murakami: This one is very Murakami. I liked it. I probably don't need to read another Murakami sex scene for awhile though.

Full review here.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: This is the story of an older man who doubles back to think about his past and then has a jarring awakening that things weren't exactly the way he remembers them and maybe he didn't know all the facts. I loved it.

Full review here.

Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel by Eleanor Henderson: This was deese. It's the story of teens gone wild, then falling into a straight edge lifestyle in NYC in the 1980s.

Full review here.

The Last Nude by Ellis Avery: This is about Paris in the 1920s. The art deco painter Tamara De Lempicka and her muse slash lover. I liked it. It's a nice introduction to the artist. Things get a little hokey when Avery brings in other famous people living in Paris in the 1920s.

Full review will be here.

Anyway, I also posted my list of my favorite things read in 2011 (And somehow missed the Julian Barnes book in my tally. Gross oversight). Here is the list.

Eight things I did on Saturday ...

2012-01-09T01:26:00.000-06:00

1. I read a book in its entirety. I did it for all those people out there who "wish they had more time to read." It was like a 5K for people battling beeturia, except it was reading for people who are too busy to read. I read through coffee, lunch and a bath. I read through bed sores and brushes with blindness. I risked coming out of the whole thing having adopted the author's accent. And I did it for you.

2. I went to Target to critique Converse's Winter Collection. There is no such thing as a too many dresses made of sweatshirt material. Instead I bought the cats an industrial strength scratching post that is earning rave reviews from Orin and is not nearly as awesome of a hobby as serial murdering a stuffed mouse with a bell attached, according to Hal.

3. I heard a woman at Barnes & Noble say to a man: "You just can't buy a paperback for less than $15 these days." To which he replied "I know."

4. Chuck and I went on a dinner date to Tycoons where I had the Duluth Cheese Steak with something called "Epic Cheese Sauce." Chuck described a scene in which he rides up on a dirt bike, skids to a halt and then flashes the hang loose sign while saying "Epic Cheese Sauce." The restaurant is so new they didn't even have dessert yet.

5. We walked 50 paces down the block to another restaurant, Zeitgeist, and ran into tens of people we know. We split Flourless Chocolate Cake and it was probably the best dessert I've had in weeks. It was a dense concentration of cool chocolate, like sucking all the air out of chocolate frosting, compressing it, and then eating it.

6. We got to the Incline Station in time for a single game of bowling. I finished in fifth place and won a wonky feeling in one of my bowling fingers and my thumb. Chuck, who insisted on being named Ace for the game, finished in sixth place. I only wanted to beat JCrew, tried to bring her down with big talk about college varsity track and athleticism, and then I lost to her so we'll never talk about this ever again.

7. We watched "Super 8" which was way better than the movie "New Year's Eve." It's like "Goonies" and "Stand By Me" and touches of "ET," if ET was a couple skyscrapers taller and more tuned into electricity.

8. I finally shut down the fun factory at about 5:30 a.m., then slept until 2:45 p.m.

I'm only Cumin ...

2012-01-05T23:55:00.000-06:00

We aren't collectors per se, but Chuck and I have amassed a pretty serious collection of spices. Some he brought to the relationship, some I brought, we purchased some of them together as a couple. I'm not trying to be all "Look at our super global palates," but it is safe to say that I could create a dish from almost any flavor profile in the entire world. (Who wants Yemen-style cauliflower?!) Mostly we just have like 20 jars of Cumin.

I was looking for Cumin last night, in fact. I dug through the spice shelf three times. I moved everything from the right side to the left side, then back to the right again. I read labels, wondered how many times the Ground Mustard had been thrown into a box and driven to a new address, and if there were enough days left on earth to get around to using all that Star of Anise. This is the sort of archeological dig that, in Chuck's hands, would end with him whooshing the entire shelf into the garbage can and suggesting we just start over. Or learn to lean heavily on Pepper.

"Where in the heck is the Cumin?" I asked him.
"I just used it last night," he said. He was sitting at the table. "It's on the right side and toward the front. Move your hand a little further to the right ... That should be it right there."
"Comino Molido," I said. "What the heck is that?"
It's something I've always wondered, but not hard enough to Google it. What is Comino Molido? It must be something Chuck brought to the relationship. It sounds Cumin-y, but not a Cumin I'm familiar with. A sub-genre of Cumin? A higher grade of Cumin? Something like the difference between Paprika and Hungarian Paprika and Sweet Paprika? Not Cumin-related at all. The opposite of Cumin. A question for another day, I guess.

I kept digging, then threatened to get super extreme with this hunt and to check the spare spice cupboard.
"No, no, no," Chuck said. He got out of his chair, peered into the spice shelf, pulled a jar and flipped it to me. There, on the back side -- or front side, depending on your angle -- of the Comino Molido it said Ground Cumin.

It was Cumin all along.

How many years have I used that Ground Cumin, then not used it for a few more years because I put it away with the Comino Molido side showing. Life lesson: Trust your basic Spanish instincts.

FOOTNOTE
Much like a post I started writing the other night about a dream I had, this story was far more interesting as it was happening. But since we're here: In the dream, Chuck asked me if he could engage in a romantic relationship with a woman named Alison. I said "Of course!" thinking there was no way he was serious. Soon after I walked into a pristine, albeit cozy public restroom on a college campus and found condom wrappers littered like confetti on the tile. The red, I understood, belonged to him; the blue, to her. Then, as I was standing there, I heard them talking about what had happened on MPR in calm, public radio voices.

I woke up from the dream suddenly because I thought I heard someone playing the xylophone in the living room. I was so terrified I didn't even get around to getting fake dream-mad.

FOOTNOTE'S FOOTNOTE
There probably wasn't anyone in our living room playing the xylophone. Probably.

Dispatches from Feline Nation: Week 16

2012-01-02T23:21:00.000-06:00

Dear Hal and Orin,

Well, guys. We finally got you trained to do your one trick. It's nothing that will make you YouTube famous, but it's enough singing-for-your-supper to make it feel like you aren't just 10 pound dervishes with the colon health one would expect from animals that eat triangular granules of salmon-flavored horse intestines for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

First Chuck walks up the steps to the bedroom. You run along, sometimes diving in front of him, anticipating his where his foot will fall and then faking narcolepsy in that exact spot. Sometimes you nip behind him. Once in the bedroom, you take your positions beneath the bed. Chuck -- who is also now trained, one could argue -- picks up the laser pointer. You recognize the subtle jingle of the keychain and this is when you really reach your ultimate rev. Teeth bared, claws poised. He creates a small red dot in the hallway and you attack it. Hardcore. Noises from deep in your throat. Pounce. He points it further down the hall and you sprint toward it, sometimes knocking into the wall through sheer momentum, your tiny skulls whacking plaster as you turn left at the top of the staircase. He points it down the steps. You sprint, skip steps, half slide and roll, ripping at the carpeting and wait at the bottom, your tiny hearts beating, practically visible through your fur. He flicks the light into the kitchen and you match each other, leap for leap, colliding on top of the dot. Then Chuck runs back into the bedroom and barricades the door with a piece of furniture to keep you from interrupting his REM by using his nutsack as a springboard for your vaults.

You've turned the leather parts of our couch into something that resembles a teething ring. Chuck, who does more cat behavior Googling than the most serious of feline scholars, says that is because we need to find a substitute for you to scratch. He's done the math and determined this needs to be at least a ceiling-high structure. I see how this goes, our wants and needs pushed to the outer edges of the house. Me, sitting on the kitchen counter holding a Kindle while you dangle from one hairy cat arm, all Peking Acrobat, squealing with glee. I've seen "Gremlins."

Chuck came home one day to find you, Hal, playing with the water in your dish. Face flopping and poking at the drink, making rivers on the kitchen floor. So, as a substitute, he carried you into the bathroom, poured you a fresh bath and set you in the tub. You proceeded to perform water ballet with a big old smile on your face.

Orin, you've gone freegan. Every day we find a new ingredient that you love, an ingredient you found in the garbage. The day we thought you were bleeding, but it was really beet juice clinging to your fur. Onions, onion skins, garlic, garlic skins. Avocados. Cucumbers. You even crave the things that the internet promises will poison you, like tomatoes. "Turns out Orin loves chocolate," I said to Chuck while baking cupcakes. And sure enough, you turned to him with an innocent look, the corners of your mouth fur matted with chocolate. That one gave you the most toxic of cat farts, so raw and ripe they seemed human and inspired by chorizo and egg skillets.

My favorite trick is when I wrap a blanket around me and walk across the room all regal like and you guys claw at the blanket, seemingly waterskiing behind me on the wood floors.

My worst-favorite trick is how you broke both a water glass and a coffee mug in the same day.

Hal, you are a true cat. The most classic of cat pets. The kind of cat that people think of when they think cat. You play hard, sleep hard and mangle anything that moves. You don't give a shit about the soothing touch of a human hand. You recognize when you are doing something wrong, like standing on the table drinking from a coffee mug, and freeze up and act guilty the whole time you are doing it. Orin, I don't know what the hell you are. So damn cute I find it impossible to not use my coo voice while you are probably plotting how to make a pipe bomb out of pieces from your Kitty City playground and chocolate farts.

Tolerating you with all my heart,
Christa

On pink ukuleles ...

2012-01-02T12:40:00.000-06:00

Of all the hardcore: Our friends got married on the beach in Duluth on December 30. That takes 40 pound nuts and an appreciation of Mukluks as formalwear. A big bonfire. It means saying, "You think you know Duluth? I'll show you Duluth." It. Was. Awesome. The bride wore a fur shrug over her strapless dress. There must have been thick-soled boots under that subtle puff of skirt. A friend crocheted white gloves for her. Geo Grrl made an 8-minute walk on the beach from a B&B on the shore, across a mixture of sand and snow, on the arm of her uncle, a former professional wrestler. The ring bearer was on a leash in front of them, escorted by a cousin and the maid of honor. The officiant wore a stocking cap. So did the groom, until seconds before the ceremony. Chuck, the best man, had a boutonniere pinned to his wool coat and he regretted wearing dress shoes instead of boots.

When I slid my car into the parking lot, a wedding guest was lacing up knee-high boots over his snow pants. The boys had built a big fire and everyone gathered around it to watch the bride make her walk and listen to a folk duo sing along to an acoustic guitar. It wasn't too cold -- about 30 degrees -- the waves on Lake Superior about shin deep and everything was pretty grey, more of a fragile color than a dour colorless color.

The photographer split the crotch of his pants during his first plie of the day, back when he was shooting the pre-game. When he stood a certain way you could see a flash of red underwear, but only if you were looking for it.

If you got a little choked up over the perfectness, it would be hard to tell if those were tear-tears or the wetness that involuntarily leeches from ducts in the winter.

***

The reception was at Norway Hall, a recently re-decorated venue the local Norwegians buffed up with warm hues for a visit from Norway's royal family. We ate barbeque ribs and salmon on a bed of dressing and the bride and groom sat in thrones and drank from mason jar shaped goblets. According to wedding day lore, the bride's bouquet had been kept in the venue's refrigerator overnight and ended up smelling like the leftovers from a lutefisk feed.

The wine flowed like wine and the beer flowed like wine and a local rockabilly band took requests. I saw a teenaged kid do a legitimate moon walk. It was pretty impressive. Chuck gave a great speech, short, funny and sweet about the time about seven years ago when he asked The Great Archivist, his oldest friend, about his plans for the night. "I'm hanging out with my girlfriend who I love very much and am going to spend the rest of my life with," he'd answered. The Great Archivist didn't remember he had said that.

Mod Podge and Me

***

Did the wheels fall off at the reception, or was it later when we collected a small group of people and went to a douche-y college bar just because Chuck had about $70 in gift cards? We stood around a table; Chuck made it rain. Hot Rod would stop random bar patrons and say:

"Yeah, we'll take another round of drinks."
"What?"
"Another round," he'd say.
"We don't work here," they would tell him.
"Yeah, one more round."
Until it seemed like this was going to end in injury, this fantastic bar trick.

JCrew and Knifey

Then we stumbled down the block to a better bar. I hung back with my friend Knifey and we sang the hit single "Whiskey, Cigarettes and Country Music" from his 2010 album. I mis-sung the lyrics in a way that Knifey found preferable, or so he said. What if he officially changed them and then he mentioned me during an awards ceremony!

Also: from the annals of Knifey-advice: Don't buy a pink ukulele. A pink ukulele is a toy. Buy a real ukulele and paint it pink.

***

I have no idea what happened at Pizza Luce. Every one in town was either wasted-wasted (on booze) or sugar-wasted on wedding cupcakes (Chuck). What a shitshow. I got to see my friend CHRISSIE! But first I hugged another woman with blonde hair in a fit of wine-blindness.

***

I felt fine on New Year's Eve day. A little cloudy. A little bloated and puffy. My tongue tasted like it had been soaking overnight in a mason jar filled with sweet white wine. We had plans to go tubing, maybe dinner, perhaps a movie. A straight-edge New Year's Eve. I hopped out of bed and immediately begin firing off text messages to the principals. Then, suddenly, hangover. Epic hangover.

Chuck and I spent New Year's Eve holed up on the couch watching "Portlandia," a shitty horror movie, "I Love you Phillip Morris." In and out of almost-sleep, pizza and Coke. A marathon of "House Hunters" that caused Chuck to proclaim "I hate white people."

He passed out during "Ghostbusters 2" while I summed up a years-worth of my favorite books for future publication on the Internet. He set his alarm for midnight and woke up just long enough to suck face and then drop back into where he left off with his coma.

***

Brunch with CHRISSIE! Then Chuck and I went to "J. Edgar."

***

CHRISSIE! and I planned to go see "New Year's Eve." I found her at RT Quinlan's with her mitt wrapped around a PBR tall boy.

"Oh, you came," she said. Stood up, moved toward the door. Set her PBR on top of the phone booth and walked out the door. "That will still be here when I get back."

"Are you going to tell QT (her husband) that you're leaving?" I asked her.
"Nah," she said. "He won't notice."

The movie was brutal. Every time a big name actor cropped up on the screen, CHRISSIE! groaned as though she was physically pained.

"Zach Efron?"

"Oh no, her?" (Katherine Heigl)

"Ugh." (Sarah Jessica Parker)

"WHAT?!" (Robert De Niro)

"What the hell is wrong with her face? Why does she look like that?" (Michelle Pfeiffer)

"Take it all off!" (Ashton Kutcher)

"Is that John Mellencamp or Jon Bon Jovi?" (Jon Bon Jovi)

"There are like five Academy Award winners in this movie. WHAT ARE THEY DOING? (Halle Berry)

"Oh I hate her" (Hillary Swank)

This went on and on and proved to be far better than the movie. When two characters get trapped in an elevator early in the show, she made a noise like menstrual cramps and slunk lower in her seat.

"Is that the girl from 'Little Miss Sunshine?'"

After an hour of not-funny, cliche bullshit I googled "How Long is the Movie New Year's Eve" only to find that we were in for another solid hour of non-entertainment.

"I'd rather just stare at a blank screen than watch this," I told her.

So we left.

The language of percents ...

2011-12-28T00:58:00.000-06:00

In the middle of last week I remembered that thinking of Christmas presents for everyone isn't the same thing as actually buying Christmas presents for everyone. My niece's gift was tucked into my trunk between white Hefty kitchen bags filled with garbage -- medium sized McDonald's cups stained with blue PowerAde, Clif Bar wrappers, receipts -- from the last two times I "cleaned" my car. I sometimes forget that the laws of science apply even to me. That in order to have a gift for my mom, I need to drive to a store and exchange legal tender for said gift. I can't just will it into an artfully wrapped reality. No, Virginia, there is no such thing as brain Internet. Yet.

This ended with a feverish last-minute dash through stores and mall kiosks. A woman in front of me in line at Bath & Body Works is pulling sighs from way down deep. They start in her socks. She's tested every Cherry Apple hand sanitizer and every Vanilla Mocha Lip Balm sample she can press into her flesh. "You've got to be kidding me," she says watching a single apron-ed cashier give each individual customer a final positive Bath & Body Works experience. The chance to be mentally lubed, full body, in Sweat Pea scent.

I'm hot, too. Reeking of fruit combinations not found in nature. Still, I don't understand Christmas shopping on December 23rd and then bitching about lines and delays. Self-induced seizures from rolling your pupils directly against the surface of your brain. You have options, Deep Sigh. You going to get dangerous and complain about the 2-hour wait at Olive Garden, too?

Still, I find myself matching her sigh-for-sigh when I finally get to the front of the line and the cashier tells me, cheerfully, that if I buy three of their signature scents I get three for free. Leaving line. Shuffling to the wall of signature scents, sticking my nose into bottle after bottle after bottle.

***

We time our drive to Rochester to get a sweet-ass parking spot in my parent's driveway for the Christmas Eve party with the Pista side of the family, but late enough to avoid the awkwardness of trying to remember all the church rhymes of Christmas Eve mass. Word on the streets is that the Catholics have recently initiated some changes in wording that have church goers fumbling with cue cards throughout the service. I thought Brother Pista was yanking my chain when he told me. One of those "Oh yeah, and it's a costume party" tricks that would find me genuflecting my way into a pew dressed as a zombie French Maid.

This edict from the Pope seems to be a way of getting the flock away from the rock 'n' roll masses favored in hip suburban churches. To remind them of what is truly important: Not eating food an hour before taking communion.

***

We stopped at Target for new toothbrushes. We can never remember toothbrushes. I studied the faces of shoppers, mentally Photoshopping away 10 years of wear-and-tear, laugh lines and squint creases, looking for one person to nuggie while screaming "THAT ONE TIME ... BUNSEN BURNER!" I never see anyone I know at Target in Rochester.

***

Personally, I recommend having one of your aunts marry your high school track coach. My personal highlight reel unfurled over lasagna. I believe he was surprised to see that the back window of my car didn't have STRAIGHT TO STATE in balloon lettering penned in fluorescent washable marker. I never tire of his stories about long jump-this, triple jump-that 4-by-400 relay. I've always referred to him as Mr. M--. He might be sans whistle, no baseball cap, nowhere near a track. But he still seems like a Mr. M-- to me. And, subsequently, to Chuck.

"You know, you don't have to call him Mr. M--," my mom told Chuck. "In fact, it doesn't even make sense."

***

It's a Christmas miracle. My parents let us share the guest room, even the guest bed. This has been, in the past, an annoyance for me. We are, according to some, middle aged. We have a house together. We are at a point in our lives where there is little that would skeeve either of us more than to do anything more than sleep on a bed surface in my parent's house. This isn't a sexy and defiant college break for two bodies throbbing Morse Code messages, a genital and pheromone stereo of "Now I'm an adult." This is real life in a room decorated in browns and golds, paintings starring beautiful Native American women hanging on the wall. The work of my late grandfather, with some cues taken from John Ford. This is a maroon landline that was in my childhood home and a hope chest with 35 pounds of black and green tulle my Grandma Pista crafted into a freshman year homecoming costume. It's sharing space in cedar with my mom's wedding dress. This isn't sexy time. This is, if possible, stone cold, dead to the world, sleep. We might touch feet beneath the sheets, if neither's foot temperature deviates too significantly from the other's foot temperature.

I find myself grateful for this one concession. Almost as grateful as I am for the black out blinds in this room that keep the sun from boring through the window and burning a crop circle into the crown of my head at daybreak.

I don't feel that I've won, per se. Not at all. I feel like they have just acknowledged that this is my person regardless of whether we've filed paperwork about it at City Hall and crammed sheet cake into each other's gaping maws in front of an audience. Now if my mom can figure out how to use the Nook we got her, the planet will probably explode.

***

Christmas Day is nice. Chuck and I over-coffee ourselves to death on Folger's Crystals while my mom and dad trade off telling me stories about people and places that I've never heard, or at least never heard with this newfound interest in what went down before I was born. The trip my parent's took with my grandparent's to the Boundary Waters, but first getting hopped up on pitchers of Vodka Gimlets. It rained and rained. First one of my grandpa's knees went out, then the other went out when he began favoring it. He couldn't hoist his half of a canoe. My parents saw a moose. My grandparent's saw an eagle nest. My parents thought that sight paled in comparison. My great aunt was a party girl, always with a glass and a cigarette. She lost an eyeball (and the twins she was carrying) in a car accident caused by her husband. They hit a bridge embankment. She got a glass eye and eventually a new husband and never had kids. I used to make poetry chapbooks for her using wrapping paper, yarn and the cardboard from a box of Rice Krispies.

***

Gifts were exchanged. I am now a gift certificate to the Guthrie and Barnes & Noble, clothing, scarves and mittens, an Apocalypse-style crank radio and a Kindle richer.

***

We missed the party with Chuck's family, but caught his dad before his afternoon nap. We visited for awhile. I performed a commercial for life in Phoenix, Arizona. He showed us his growing gun collection.

"Do you want to hold it?" Chuck asked me, a size of his hand.
"Probably reminds her of the one that was shoved in her face," his dad accurately predicted.
"I don't think so," I said.
Chuck wiped his prints off the gun.
"Were those loaded?" I asked him later.
"I don't know," he said.

***
I passed out 15 minutes into our annual viewing of "Gremlins." We went to bed at 8 p.m., but sleep didn't take for me. I read 62 percent of the novel "Ten Thousand Saints." Now I speak the language of percents.

The gold standard ...

2011-12-19T00:44:00.000-06:00

I am a texter. I text a lot. Like, change my cell phone plan, texter. And a lot of the text messages I receive are funny, to the point where if I type "Hahaha," my phone fills in a whole bunch more H and A combos and throws in some extra J's and more to make my laughter appear to be out of control, like I fell face first on my screen. It is at least a line's worth of hilarity.

When that happens, it is genuine. I actually think the comment deserves that length of Hahahas. For awhile I had a hierarchy system, the more hahas the bigger the laugh. The more random letters that fell into the mix, the more funny. A Ha! still counts for something. But it's just a quick burst that denotes funniness, cleverness, irony, or me not really knowing how to respond.

But I have a new marker of the gold standard of comedy and it is this:

It is the LOLFace and it means I'm out-of-control cracking up, laughing my head off, going apeshit crazy with dizziness. It's something to strive for. When one of those lands in your phone, mission accomplished. I'm peeing.

In other news, here is what I made, ate and watched in the past few weeks.

FOODS

Italian Pot Pie: I totally loved this mix of Indian flavors sandwiched between heaping globs of puff pastry. The crust is a way better swab for the gooey innards than any other crust I've used in a potpie.

Chocolate Mint Surprise Cupcakes: This has become the new annual Birthday cupcake. I made them last year, too, though last year's batch was a debacle and this year's batch was seamless. I even bought a piping bag (though I'm not sure how to clean it). Close your eyes and imagine this: Super chocolate frosting, vanilla cake, you bite into it and POW! A HUGE DOLLOP OF MINT INSIDE! Plus I won a cake plate at a Christmas party so the whole thing was displayed on a glass pedestal.

Chickpea, Chard and Soy Sausage Soup: I think I've made this soup before. It's hard to tell when you find yourself regularly dumping chickpeas, greens and fake meat into a broth. Shrug. It's always good.

MOVIES
Heathers: Somehow I made it to age 36 without seeing this movie in its entirety, which is a little like saying "Wham, who?" Of course it fell under that circus-tent sized umbrella of Things I Was Not Allowed To Watch when it was released in the late-1980s, which I'm sure really rankled my scrunchies at the time.

Let me tell you, though. This is exactly what elementary school looked like to me. We had a similar hierarchy system, popularity that hinged on the whims of girls born with sisters who were so cool. In this scenario I would have been Winona Ryder, though it never occurred to me to poison anyone with blue drink. And luckily we all lived through it and rarely played croquet.

I can't remember the effect of the movie at the time of its release, but in 2011 it screams of Diablo Cody more than even "Juno" screams of Diablo Cody.

Page One: Inside The New York Times This documentary about the changing face of journalism, centered around the New York Times, is fantastic. And as soon as David Carr is introduced, he steals the show and it becomes more interesting to watch him both beat the shit out of sources and hold younger reporters to his teat. I'd like to see a "Bill Cunningham New York" about David Carr. It might be time to reread "Night of the Gun." I'm going to start asking myself every morning: WWDCD.

Young Adult: I really, really loved Diablo Cody's new dark-dark, super-dark comedy-ish time capsule. This one stars a super drunk writer of young adult fiction who goes back to her small hometown, one that has become unrecognizable under the neon din of chain restaurants, and tries to win back her high school boyfriend. I cackled like a maniac through the whole thing. And the soundtrack kicks ass. I haven't thought about the song "The Concept" by Teenage Fanclub since 1995-ish.

The Tree Of Life: Uh ... There were like 20 not boring minutes of this one. I had to recuperate with a hearty dose of Kardashian afterward. But I'm willing to hear why it was great.

TV MARATHON

Life Unexpected: The Complete First and Second Seasons So this is classic CW in it's fantastic hair, acoustic guitar backdrops and Pottery Barn-meets-Urban Outfitters-ness. It is the ridiculously hokey story of a 15-year-old girl who has grown up in foster homes and seeks out her birth parents, the super awesome 32 year old bar owner in flannels and ironic Ts and the radio show host neurotic woman. Regardless, I can't stop watching it and then grabbing songs to make super cheesy Spotify playlists that I hide from the public.

BOOKS

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: You want magic, I’ll give you some magic: You spend a week reading a super-magical book with a magical premise, filled with mysterious circumstances, characters in whooshing formal-ware, secret spells and magic rooms and midnight dinner parties complete with a contortionist. You love it, seep into it, can see every magical illusion, every magical backdrop.

Then, when it’s over, you can’t remember what was so big about it. There must be a word for why “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern went from a four point five-ish read to a three-ish post-read. Must be some sort of slight-of-brain.

But while you’re reading, whoa. It’s a lovely way to spend a few days.

Full review will be here.

A duet of medicine ...

2011-12-15T01:52:00.000-06:00

Aside from the malfunctioning body parts that bring me limping, squinting, drooling through the automatic doors, I love going to Urgent Care.

"This sounds really dumb," I say to the girl working the desk, "but I have a headache."

"That's not dumb!" she says, typing "headache" into my file.

I'm adding texture to this accordion. Variety. Something new to break up the monotony of page after page after page of UTIs. There is nothing worse than a one-note patient.

"That's not dumb," echoes the security guard who is standing behind her.

"It's been, like, six days," I tell her, rubbing the side of my face where it feels like I was walloped with an ice skate, the cold blade splitting my right lobe.

"I have a headache, too," she tells me.

"Me too," says the security guard.

"I think I'm just hungry," the girl says.

"Isn't it funny," the security guard says, "how you come here to get rid of your headache, and we come here and get a headache?"

There should be a word for when someone believes they have unearthed irony, but really it's just a sentence.

***

It's the waiting that I like. This undefined span of time between right now and when something will happen. An excuse to dig out my book and crank through 30 pages while drinking vending machine coffee. To yawn and look at the clock. I like it at airports, I like when I'm picking up pizza or prescriptions. It is time to do nothing, unable to do anything else because I'm busy. Waiting, it's perfect.

Plus, I've grown up in an age ripe with TV medical dramas. I like to diagnose the lesions and sores of my fellow patients. I think I could perform ACL surgery with just gauze and an exacto-knife. It's interesting to note our breaking points: Where a person will cry "Uncle" in the battle against their body. A cockeyed ankle. A gash that won't stop oozing. This thing they're pretty sure is cancer. My rager of concentrated pain, it has it's own percussion section, on the right side of my head. That point where a person says, "Hm. I'm not going to be able to fix this with 800 mg of Ibuprofen and a 'Downton Abbey' marathon. I guess I'll go to Urgent Care."

On this day the waiting room is dry of fan fiction. Just an older couple sitting in adjacent chairs watching too-loud cartoons, inconclusive on which is the patient. A woman with a toddler, the patient must be the toddler, except the toddler is too cheerful to be feverish or to have consumed poison. The security guard has moved back to his post. The girl at the front desk hasn't eaten lunch. On top of that, there is no wait. Not only is "I have a headache" not dumb, it is the winningest complaint in this room's triage system.

***

I can hear a nurse and the doctor talking about the dearth of victims this afternoon outside the office door. They use the word "boring." The waiting room is empty. What a waste of wait. The doctor is in a good mood. He sticks something in my ear, then shoots its disposable rubber end into the garbage can across the room. He's a good shot. He looks up my nose and in my mouth, then washes his hands of me: Your gums are swollen, he says. This is a dental thing. He pats me on a back and gives me a handful of prescriptions: Ibuprofen, Penicillin and Hydrocodone. I toss all but the Hydrocondone down the hatch in the McDonald's parking lot with a blue Powerade in a medium-sized cup.

***

I'm always leery of Hydrocodone. The first time I took it I hated it. It was like not being drunk enough. Two and a half beers. I'm aware enough to know that I've started speaking in slurry paragraphs, but I'm too numbed to stop myself. I hate that feeling. I prefer my altered states to be extreme or not at all. These days I lean toward the latter with occasional exceptions. The second time I was prescribed Hydrocodone I found myself in a pleasantly relaxed state. It's not that the pain was necessarily gone, but I didn't care about it anymore. During that same prescription I popped one with a Sugar Free Rock Star to combat the drowsiness and for the next hour everything I said, and I said a lot, sounded like I was yelling it into a cave. So I really only take it if the situation is unbearable and I know I'll be nowhere near a motor vehicle in the next six hours.

***

I imagine this pain is like contractions in my brain. It is so intense that I'm surprised that I can still see. It strikes quickly and it takes at least 45 minutes for the Ibuprofen to cloak and rock the yowl back to sleep. During passive periods I assume I'm cured. It doesn't occur to me to take an Ibuprofen preemptively. Sometimes there aren't passive periods. I seem to spend the day swinging from one handful of pills to the next.

***

The receptionist at my dentist's office tells me I'm due for a cleaning anyway. Why not make it a two-fer? They will take a pick axe to my plaque and get to the root of my head pain. Deal, I say.

Whenever I am at the dentist, prone, mouth wide open, I remember this time I saw a veterinarian fix up the grill on a matted and scruffy dog saved from the house of a hoarder. The dog's teeth were stained to the color of coffee and he had lost a few. She scraped at the buildup with a sharp implement, there was a lot of blood, eventually revealing something recognizable as teeth under that mess. He was drugged during the dental work, his mouth propped open and his tongue lolling from the side like a pinkish ribbon. When he woke, he was perky. Perkier than they had seen him yet.

"You don't chew on the right side, do you?" the hygienist asks me. "Since you don't have a tooth over there."

I prefer to think of her as clairvoyant than to think of her as "CSI: My Mouth." In my head she says this in the dreamy voice of a woman surrounded by scented candles, peering into a foggy ball.

"No," I confirm in my most proud-of-you voice.

She tells me that because I don't chew on that side, plaque builds more easily. It isn't getting moved around by my food. I imagine a piece of chewed apple like a Brillo pad against my molars and make a note to pass this information on to my dad, who has recently lost the same tooth.

She tells me that she sees evidence of swollen gums, but that maybe the Penicillin is working because it's not that bad right now. I test my head and notice that it isn't quite as furious as it has been.

***

I really like my dentist. We both dig Woody Allen, and I intended to ask him what he thought of "Midnight in Paris" and if he saw the documentary on PBS. He reminds me of someone who would have gone to high school with my dad and then remained lifelong friends. If I'd known him when I was eight he would have called me Squirt and asked if I was still chasing all the boys on the playground. His wife would have given me a $25 check when I graduated from high school. He wouldn't seem as old to me now as he did when I was living at home.

He walks into the room, doesn't even look at me, and walks straight to the sink. "Let me get this straight," he says, "I can't even get tickets to the Elton John concert and you're, what? In the front row?"

"It was the eleventh row," I tell him.

He looks in my mouth, requests some mouth photos, and tells the hygienist that I should be put on Metronidazole, another antibiotic. She tells him that I'm already on Penicillin.

He says he would prefer I take both. That they:
"Work in concert with each other," he says.

I love that. Work in concert with each other. It's such a great phrase. Very visual. Tonight! Live! Penicillin and Metronidazole! A Duet of Medicine! The hygienist slips me a new toothbrush, toothpaste and floss and removes my bib. She tells me the bone where my tooth was looks good.

We're all in great spirits. We're on the edge of a laugh. The final scene of the movie, where everyone is smiling really big and hair looks like it could bounce right off a shoulder. My teeth feel like you could roller skate on them. My pain has dulled to something manageable.

Top six ...

2011-12-14T23:08:00.000-06:00

Here are the Top Six comments Chuck made during tonight's episode of "Top Chef" about the contestants and/or their food. I think it stands alone, even if you didn't see the episode. Also: No Spoilers!

In no specific order:

"I can't tell if she's really good or really terrible. I know I don't ever want to be in a car she's driving."

"How can she work with tequila if she's straight-edge? I think that black X is a lie."

"You're drunk."

"Some of these people are terrifying. I wouldn't want any of these people mad at me. I would want the Asian woman mad at me if I had to pick."

"I'm nervous about her sausage, too. I don't even know what that means."

"That venison looks so gross! That's something you'd see on the side of the road. I've seen that in the woods surrounded by wolf prints."

*Chuck did not know I was taking notes until the show was over.

Rally faces ...

2011-12-13T00:19:00.000-06:00

My favorite part of the annual Birthday Rally in Spirit Valley is the part where you go up to a bartender at the Kom-on-Inn and say: "I'll have what the mayor's having."

(A: Summit Pale Ale).

Chuck and his bestie The Great Archivist held their 39th Annual conjoined birthday extravaganza on Saturday night at one of the few untapped bars in West Duluth that hasn't yet played host to this event. That is one of the rules of the annual party.

This is my second favorite holiday of the year and my sixth consecutive year of attendance. This year was noteworthy for the set of headphones The Great Archivist and Geo Girl picked up at an auction earlier in the day and tried to pass off onto unsuspecting guests nostalgic for a time before technology, when you could kill off your friends and teachers with dysentery. We scored a pair, and I am going to plug them in and learn about the state capitols and Spanish.

It was a good night, good bar. Lots of people. I performed some performance art shamelessly swiped from Miranda July.

Notable events in previous years include: Chuck wearing a pair of goalie pads The Great Archivist burned off the wall, then Chuck and me making out in the backseat of JCrew's escalade until we got to Taco John's where we came up for air long enough to order Clam Chowder, cackling as we took turns screaming "Stir the Stew!"

Winning a U of Kielbasa during the Birthday Rally Meat Raffle, then getting strong-armed by an aggressive party guest who did not want to leave a Meat Raffle without meat. I traded her for a beer for me and the mister and then we hugged in the parking lot of Mr. D's after I dug it out of my trunk for her. Now we are friends because we both like to watch Tori Spelling on TV. Later that night The Great Archivist hopped on stage and was allowed to sing his version of "Big Balls" by AC/DC with the live band.

Dining at the Jade Fountain and trying a bite of someone's dinner that included oyster sauce and deciding that oyster sauce is really fantastic.

Leaving the original location of the 2009 party for last call at the Rustic, where the bartender must have turned up the gravity all the way to the red zone. Revelers kept succumbing to it, doing the back stroke on discarded piles of pull tabs.

Last year Chuck got wrecked on Red Bull and I played video games. There was, coincidentally, a buffet that included chili or lasagna, something red and meaty, that had been on a table for the general public for an extended period of time. It was delicious.

Brains ...

2011-12-09T20:27:00.000-06:00

I've had a raging headache for four days. It's just below my right ear, includes my jaw bone and is bad enough to recreationally Google "brain eating itself" in case there are cures I can mix up using the contents of our spice shelf and the tears of a grown woman.

"Well, maybe I'm just a person who gets migraines now," I tell Chuck. It happens. I've always assumed that since I'm a person who gets urinary tract infections that that would be my thing. But I suppose there is no rule that I can't be both. He's a little more level-headed than me, especially since he isn't busy constantly wiping his ear to see if grey matter is leaking from it.

He suggests that this isn't necessarily a lifetime of migraines. It might be:

1. The shifting of my teeth, since I'm down a man. I've recently learned the identity of the tooth lying in our medicine cabinet. It's called "Tooth 30." I know this because my dad just had his pulled and my mom's is chipped. What the genetic is going on with our mouths!?
2. A side effect of the lingering cold I have.
3. Some sort of infection in a nearby ear-nose-throat cavity.

Other non-clinical opinions include that I might be "so dramatic" (JCrew) and that it is a side effect of my birth control pills, according to CHRISSIE!(1) a strong proponent of the rhythm method.

So I've been pushing the boundaries on what is considered an acceptable amount of Advil to ingest in a single day.

FOOTNOTES
(1) In the history of this blog, I've never kowtowed to reader in this way. But the friend formerly known as "Radzo" asked me a long time ago to change her blog name. She requested Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack, which has been clunky as hell to type, but I did it. Then she decided she hated that, too. To which I say, "Blerg." After all that typing, I'm giving her one last blog nickname. She can like it, or she can go find another blog author with tens of readers to be friends with. And maybe that blog author will give her a name that is really, really special. So, Radzo, Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack, whoever the hell you are, you are now CHRISSIE! All caps, exclamation point.

Marrow popsicles ...

2011-12-05T21:35:00.000-06:00

If PMS me was real me, every day would be like this:

Pull into the gas station and the minivan across from me has someone exiting on the passenger side. This long-haired boy or mannish woman windmills dangerously close to my hood. Like I'm invisible and so is my car. Like this entire area near the pumps is her dance floor. Because of this, I have to pull up super close to the pump. Can't open car door all the way, close. I squeeze out, arrange to pay with my card at the pump, can barely fit the nozzle into my tank because we are so squished here, parallel to this minivan. Nothing happens. I see the screen is prompting me to type in my zip code. I type 5-5-0, the 0 is a mistake so I hit cancel. I now see that truthfulness in zip codes at gas pumps is probably not a thing. But cancel cancels my entire transaction and the screen won't reset so I can start again: "See clerk" it tells me.

It's cold outside. Like marrow popsicles cold. And it's not getting any warmer in the next, like, 150 days at least.

"Do you know how to pump gas?" It's the owner of the mini van, who has the exact same face as the dancing passenger.
I give her a look I would never give someone. I'm standing here at a pump holding a gas nozzle. What do you think? I'm just going to wing it. Fingers crossed.
"Do you know how to pump gas?" she asks. "I can't get it to work."
"Go inside and ask for help," I tell her, not kindly. I can't even exhale because she forced me to pull so close to the pump, I'm not going to try to teach her new tricks, like: Insert card. Type in zip code. Remove nozzle.

I'm never like this.

I have to go inside anyway. I tell the guy that I was instructed to "See Clerk." He resets something. "I chose to pay at the pump so I wouldn't have to come in here," I think super loudly. I've budged in front of another customer. No big. It was a close race to the counter. I go back outside, squeeze between my car and the gas pump and everything works okay. I sit in my car and wait for the air to feel at least warmer than the wind outside and the whole time I'm still super mad about nothing.

Anyway, I'm better now. This is what I made, watched and read this past week(ish).

FOODS

White Bean Chili: It is exactly what it is: A great big pot of white beans mixed with lots of seasonings and seiten and soy sour cream. Good stuff. The sauce ends up really creamy. I made a few alterations here, the main one being that I threw a veggie bullion cube into the boiling mess instead of using chicken seasoning. Chicken seasoning sounded ominous. I also sauteed the seiten before I added it to the soup because I hated the idea of boiled seiten. This turned out to be a waste of time.

MOVIES
Castaway on the Moon: This Korean movie starts out like a really embarrassing slapstick and then turns into something that is pretty great. In this corner, we have a ruined man financially collapsed who jumps off a bridge and lands on this weird island in the city. He can't get off of it because he is terrified of water (word) so he does a few things from the school of Tom Hanks' deserted island bible and a few things that are better. In the meantime, a very neurotic girl never leaves her room. She invents an online personae, sleeps in her closet and walks in place to exercise. She notices, through her telescope, this man on the island and they develop a friendship. She sends him letters in a bottle; he responds by writing in the sand.

The Future: Week 2 of gawking at Miranda July. She wrote and starred in this movie about a couple who is planning to adopt a sick cat (that can talk). The dialogue between the couple in this movie is so so charming and great.

Jesus' Son: Meh, I don't know. I think I really would have liked this story of this kid's fucked up relationship a lot better in 1998. Now it just felt like not enough ... everything.

BOOKS
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright: This book is either super sexy or like watching someone crash their life into the ground at 180 miles per hour. Either way, it's deese.

Full review will be here.

Uh oh it's magic ...

2011-12-02T13:32:00.000-06:00

Recently a reader asked me a great question and one I took great thought in responding to:

As you know, I eat lunch at Subway every single day and almost always in-store, unless, as I've said, I happen to make eye contact with another diner on my way into the sandwich shop and that diner has either mustard, mayonnaise or a combination of both dripping from an engorged face hole. That's enough to put me off sandwiches, and actually food. Under these circumstances my stomach bucks and instead of feeding myself with food, I feed myself with the knowledge that I just saved upward of $4.

"Don't most of your stories start at Subway," Brother Pista asked at Thanksgiving before I started a story about something happened at Subway. I had no idea he was still reading my blog.

My favorite sub is a 6-inch BMT on Italian Herb & Cheese, with cheddar, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and jalapenos. I only eat this on very special occasions. Those "YOU DESERVE IT!" moments. I'm not exactly sure what is on this sandwich, besides a handful of meat that includes pepperonis the size of drink coasters. But I like how it tastes just a little more than I like how other subs taste, though not enough to eat it regularly because it is not on Jared's List of Acceptable Sandwiches. I tend to stick to Jared's List of Acceptable Sandwiches. This isn't a diet thing. I'm not a health-food nut. I just don't want to blow a day's caloric wad on my worst-favorite meal of the day. So.

On Mondays I always eat the Ham & Turkey. This is a pretty non-invasive lunch, tastes neither good nor bad. It's the special, though. And when I leave the shop I can safely say: "You can't afford NOT to eat it."

On Tuesdays I eat the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki. It is not on special, but I prefer it to the special -- the Spicy Italian -- which is not on Jared's List of Acceptable Subs. Although, if I am not going to eat in-store, I do not order this sandwich. Eating the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki outside of Subway is too messy for me to seriously consider. It's chunks of chicken, you know, and they will rain from the butt of the bread. Also: I never have them add the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sauce. I do not like how it feels, dripping down my forearms.

This is a risky sandwich. Occasionally one of the chicken pieces is fat and chewy, like it didn't quite make it through the chicken blender. When I encounter a piece of chicken like this, I spit it into a napkin, remember what I am eating, wrap up the rest of my sandwich and throw it away. Game Over. If I plan to take my sandwich to go, I order a ham and turkey sandwich. No muss, no fuss.

By Wednesday I really deserve the BMT.

On Thursday and Friday I mix things up, by either ordering a Ham and Turkey Sandwich or a Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki, depending, again, on whether I am eating at the shop. I might get crazy and order a Chicken Breast, but that requires a leap of faith. I have to really know that I have mentally prepared to suspend my disbelief that this is actually an edible filet taken from an actual chicken.

The other day I was at Subway, sitting at a tall-top table, my untouched Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki in front of me, a collection of short stories by Ann Beattie -- my Subway-lunch book -- and the song "Magic" by The Cars came on the store's radio.

The store's regular, a guy who sits there all day playing with his DS, and another friend began singing along. "Uh-Oh, it's Magic ... when I'm with you." I try to make eye-contact with this regular only about every third time I'm at Subway. I don't really want to become friends with someone just because we both eat lunch here every day. I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with him, and that there is probably something similar wrong with me. I don't really want to know what that is. But one time I saw him eating at the sandwich shop next door to Subway, and I admit that I narc'ed him out to the woman working the cash register that day.

So there they are, singing this song. "Uh oh, it's magic ..." And I thought how this moment really had the potential to get cool. Like, what if everyone started singing. The old lady at the table next to them, the business woman at the front of the shop, the employes in their green polo shirts. Everyone's heads bobbing twice to the left, twice to the right, in time with the music.

Instead it wasn't cool. It was closer to annoying. There is such a fine line between the two.

Lo-Phat Air ...

2011-11-28T22:34:00.010-06:00

NEVER ASKED QUESTIONS
Q. Dear Pista: It is almost the end of November. How is your NaNoWriMo novel coming?
A. Thanks for (not) asking. I'm at around 46,000+ words. Nothing I couldn't finish in a single night with the right combination of demonic possession and finger exercises. Technically I just have to hit 50,000 to win the grand prize of TELLING EVERYONE I WON NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH! But, also technically, it is not a novel. It is, or rather will be, 50,000 words, a fraction of which will be used in December when I write my novel. Things sort of went wonky around 30,000 words and I decided to give up the ghost of writing something comprehendible and instead decided to develop ideas for later use. So.

Q. Hey, Pista: Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?
A. I did. Chuck and I drove to Eden Prairie. We dined with the cover girl from the 2011-2012 Winter Park and Recreation Guide. A little missy who will look at you like you're speaking 1950s if you use the phrase "phat air" regardless of if it is is totally in context.

Any-W. Here is what I've been making, reading and watching.

FOODS

Pumpkin-Corn Enchiladas with Salsa Verde: Someday I'm going to tabulate the varieties of tacos, enchiladas and burritos that have passed through our kitchen. In this version, the filling is made of pumpkin with hot spices, onions and garlic. The whole mess is covered with salsa verde. And, unfortunately, I forgot to buy the Daiya to sprinkle on top and I really think that was going to seal the dish. Instead I whipped up the cheese sauce that I mix into our Tempeh Helper as an optional side. It tasted interesting and on the better side of okay. Unfortunately I was distracted by all it might have been -- and a little grossed out by a Quickfire on Top Chef that involved cooking rattlesnake, which was on while we were eating.

I'll probably make this again just because it is interesting.

Pumpkin Pie Cheese Cake: One thing I choose to be snobby about is who I pull recipes from and let me tell you Paula Deen falls somewhere beneath Colonial Sanders on my hierarchy. Still, this cheese cake. Let me tell you. Something really great happens when you mix a stick of butter with Graham Cracker Crumbs and it only gets better when you top it with three containers of cream cheese and enough other sour dairy to dehydrate the most viciously lactating animal in all the land.

"So I figure," I said to Chuck, "Three hunks of cream cheese, seven people ... we all get roughly a half a chunk of cream cheese for ourself."

Zucchini Quinoa Lasagna: Oh. This is super good. I'm not sure how this all worked out this way, but Zucchini plays the role of pasta, and a mix of quinoa, tomato sauce and fake cream cheese play the role of ricotta. Then fake mozzarella subs for real mozzarella. So, so good.

MOVIES
Limitless: This is one of those stupid movies where you watch Bradley Cooper masquerade as a starving writer with dirty fingernails and dreadlocks, and then he finds a drug that makes it possible for him to use almost his whole brain instead of just a fraction and he turns into a super whiz, money manager, bestseller writer who sees everything in over-saturated color, and you think of people you know who make good films, funny films and smart films and thoughtful films, and you want to just take a really, really long nap. And then take that brain pill.

Me and You and Everyone We Know: I remember the first time I realized that I didn't not like Miranda July, I loved Miranda July. It was during this movie about a quirky artist who makes multi-media pieces in her home by night and drives elderly people around by day. At the same time, a shoe salesman has gotten kicked out by his wife and so he moves into an apartment. The artist gives him the hard sell. His kids are up to curious forms of no good. An old man meets the love of his life.

Take Me Home Tonight: Totally not as dumb as I thought this movie set in the mid-1980s would be. It takes that 80s theme of "WHOA! WE HAD ONE CRAAAZZZY NIGHT" and mixes in an unattainable hottie girl and a recent MIT grad currently working in a video store and all sorts of nuts stuff goes down. I didn't like like it. I'm not going to, like, buy it on BlueRay. But it wasn't as terrible as terrible can be in these situations.

Rabbit Hole: I remember seeing a trailer for this in the theater and wondering, "Why the hell would someone want to watch a movie about a husband and wife mourning the death of their child?" And then I watched it and it was good. Nicole Kidman finds solace in making friends with the kid who ran over her son; Her husband takes solace in smoking weed with Christina from Grey's Anatomy. The best thing about it is the way details are parsed out so greedily. I probably just wrote four spoilers in this one paragraph.

Changeling: TiVo really wanted me to watch this kind of true story about a kid who is kidnapped in the 1920s and then the Los Angeles police "find him" and bring him home, but his mother knows it's not really him so the police have her committed. Starring Angelina Jolie's lips, which are totally invited to my celebrity dinner party. Though she can stay home.

TV MARATHON
Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey: Chuck keeps wondering what this show is actually about. It's a good question. But I love it. It's the story of a family living on an estate in Yorkshire and all that blah blah blah that goes with having an estate. It also follows the servants, a motley crew that includes some pretty evil suckers. I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH AND PBS HAS A COUNTDOWN UNTIL THE NEXT SEASON STARTS AND I CAN'T WAIT!

BOOKS
The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alinda Bronsky: When Rosalinda Achmetowna’s frumpy, stupid and ill-mannered daughter Sulfia gets knocked up, she can’t help but believe that it didn’t happen the traditional way. Who would sleep with Sulfia? No, it must be as Sulfia claims: Something that happened in a dream. Rosa sets out to fix it, using an arsenal of home abortion techniques and finally finds success the old fashioned way -- with a knitting needle.

Full review at Minnesota Reads, players.

It Chooses You by Miranda July: At first I didn’t like Miranda July. She seemed too precious. Her first book of short stories, contrived quirkiness. Like watching Zooey Deschanel shop for leg warmers at Goodwill. But I didn’t like Miranda July in that way that meant I’d be peeking out from behind the curtains to watch her walk down the street. I didn’t like her in a way I understood to mean that I didn’t like her right now, but that wasn’t necessarily my final verdict.

Then I loved Miranda July. It was her movie “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” which she wrote and starred in. It was different. Nice. A little uncomfortable. Mostly different, with clever characters whose motivations I didn’t understand, made better for the not understanding. There was minutia, and I’m really into minutia lately. It was funny, but not obviously funny. It was an hour and a half I didn’t regret at all. And now. And now.

Full review will be on Minnesota Reads.

Up to ...

2011-11-23T23:42:00.001-06:00

FRIDAY
I once read a quote from a writer whose novel was just north of fine and whose advice to other writers was essentially: Extricate yourself from that daily commitment more often and write. Deal, I thought when I read it and then thought in double time when I cleared the calendar a week ago for a day of me, fingertips deep in this laptop and brain deep in my NaNoWriMo project, a novel that is shaping up to be both better and worse than I imagined it would be.

I busted out more than 6,000 words, though still did not catch up to where I needed to be. But I sat there, wrapped in a quilt, timing out hour-long writing sessions then breaking for 15 minutes to crack my knuckles and eat Lick Em Aid. (I also still don't have a plot or anything that links one chapter to the next or any of the other chapters. Pretty!) And then, feeling festive with all this word-count success, I crimped my hair and went into public to listen to a band of ladies who sounded like they would wear the GoGos upside down as accessories.

This was perfect timing, this need to GO OUT AND PAR-TAY and my friend Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack visiting. This is also how I found myself in the back of a cab when the sun came up. My jaw bones weak from the combination of a) having her pour flammable liquids down my throat in a really abusive way; b) uncontrollable yammering.

SATURDAY
Oh holy hangover. It's been awhile, but I still recognize the sound of my own liver's death bleat. I slept until 4 p.m.-maybe 5 p.m., then I curled into the corner of the couch, wrapped myself in layers wearing layers of leisure-ware. I watched four movies. I took a cab downtown to get my car because I couldn't face the walk to the bus stop or parting with my pajama pants, though I'm not sure why I thought I had to dress up to ride the bus. I watched 5/7ths of "Downton Abbey" and ate 2/3rds of a pizza. Once again, I was still awake when the sun came up -- though this time I was working on couch sores, a British accent and a hair do that twists around my head in a way that really screams "M'Lady," instead of, say, seeing if Radzo could, or even would, wear me as a hat.

SUNDAY
Oh holy hangover, Day 2. How bad is a 2-day hangover? Bad enough to a) see a commercial for Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich and actually say, aloud, "Mm. That looks good"; b) get into the car and drive to Wendy's; c) decide this is not nearly enough of the bad bad window food and make a bonus stop at McDonald's for two apple pies; d) pass out into a pool of my own greasy drool for 3.5 hours and then wake in time for bed.

MONDAY
I found myself back into the world, back in public. Wearing shoes that clomp and walking down stairs. Clomp-clomp. Clomp-clomp. Then I took a digger, sliding down the steps, four quick clomps in succession as I windmill arm myself toward a railing, active game of Words with Friends in one hand. I spun a bit, then came to a stop. But it would be obvious to anyone in the room I just left -- and had to return to -- what had just happened. I put my hood up in shame.

Then I went to bed two hours early.

TUESDAY
We start watching the second of the two-part documentary on PBS about Woody Allen, having missed the first, and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen, and when I do it is only to slide more and more of his films into our Netflix queue. I love Woody Allen. I'm fascinated by Woody Allen. And I can't figure out why it doesn't bother me that he hooked up for life with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter.

WEDNESDAY
I met a woman who knew the first owners of our house. I learned that right now I'm sitting in what was once the dining room, but is now the living room, staring at what was once the kitchen, but is now the main level bathroom. And in a second, when I go make a pumpkin cheese cake, I'll be doing it in a room that once was called The Sun Room and had an organ in it.

When I asked her about the OG who lives next door, she called him "Crabby (OG)" which was surprising. The last thing I'd call The OG is "crabby." "Player" seems more apropos. The other night I saw through his window a woman dressed in a quilted robe standing on his landing. He's also added curtains in his dining room that shield me from watching him take lunch. The imagination runs wild, but nowhere near crabby.

Fan mail ...

2011-11-22T11:03:00.000-06:00

Looks like we have a reader complaint from Minneapolis, Minn., today:

Dispatches from Feline Nation: Week 9

2011-11-16T23:44:00.000-06:00

Dear Hal and Your Evil Genius Brother,

Sigh. I don't know guys. The next time I feel myself patting us on the back for getting two kittens at once I'm going to deke left and break my own arm. Yoga meets self defense.

Chuck tells me, after reading my last dispatch from deep within the shit of Feline Nation, that I'm not the only one whose bathroom breaks are your own private interactive theater. While I'm sitting on the can hoping you don't go Freddy Krueger on my naked thighs, Chuck's version of the problem is the version of a person who urinates from a standing position. Two kittens standing up against the toilet with their little paws gripping the seat, trying to poke their little furry and thrilled faces into the toilet bowl to watch the splash party. (Which of course results with Chuck trying to nudge you out of the way with his foot, something akin to figure skating if I understand his re-enactment).

I wish this was all I had to say about toilets, but it's not. Hal, I found you playing in the downstairs toilet last night. You were standing on the toilet seat splashing with a single paw. I could practically hear the "YeeHaws!" When I closed the lid, you licked the porcelain. Let me say that again, Hal: You licked the porcelain. You know we feed you water, right? It's next to your food dish and monitored by a woman who knows the importance of urinary health like some people know Spanish. When I hustled you out of the bathroom, you ran upstairs and played in that toilet. Obviously you are super into fecal delicacies and you know the hot spots.

Orin, you can now jump from the kitchen floor up to the kitchen counter. Bravo, Hollis Conway, U.S. Olympic high jumper. Hal, you tried to walk across the hot stove. I hope it was as much of a spiritual awakening and reconnection with your manhood for you as it was for, I don't know, does Robert Bly do that? Seems like maybe he would. Orin, after a brief hiatus, you've returned to cuddling. "It's another new phase for Orin," we say. Or should we call you Sybil? And by cuddling I mean walking across my chest when I'm reading and sticking your cat butt in my face, then turning around and trying to build a fort with my chunks of my hair. Meanwhile, Hal still hates to be touched. Unless it is a furious rub fest on your prone tummy. Chuck has taught you to lie on your back like a leisure specialist.

Plenty of my updates about your tyrannical behavior come from Chuck via text message:

"Well, Hal just fell down the stairs ... He was playing with a cough drop wrapper. He rolled all the way down the stairs freaking out about it and never stopped playing with it."

"Found another thing cats are supposed to hate: Citrus. I found an orange in the fridge and peeled it. Hal despises it. Orin doesn't give a shit."

Then, of course Orin and Hal, I came home to find that Chuck has scattered oranges and peels all over the counter. In a lesser home, it would look like the beginning of an episode of hoarders.

Typically Orin manages all of the grooming for both of you. It's like you think: "Huh. Well, as long as I'm sucking on the place where Hal's teat would be, I might as well swab his ears and lick his legs." I caught you, Hal, in a very tender moment finally reciprocating all over the outside of Orin's ears. Not quiet inside the ears, but it's the thought that counts.

Love-(ish),
Christa

Brown noise and green soup ...

2011-11-16T15:22:00.000-06:00

From the Great Idea Files: We were shopping Sleep Machines. Those little smoke alarm-looking devices that can make white noise, brown noise, rainforest sounds and thunder storm crashes. We take our sleep very seriously here, even more so now that we actually have a bed. So we shopped and read and compared and played MP3 samples trying to find the right one. Then:

1. Chuck took stereo we have been ignoring since introducing a better speaker system that connects to the TV, record player and to our computers, and put it in the bedroom.
2. He downloaded a white noise, etc. app to an old unused iPhone.
3. He connected the iPhone to the stereo and Viola! Homemade brown noise sleep machine. It sounds enough like a fan or space heater that I actually expect to feel a change of temperature when I walk into the bedroom.

Totally free. Best sleeps ever.

In other news: Here is what I've been making, watching and reading.

FOODS

Cheesy Corny Chowder: Once again, the power of nutritional yeast. Learn it, live it, love it. This was really, really good and tastes like it should be terrible for you.

Butter Bean Stew: This was quick, easy and fine. We used canned butter beans because no one around here plans far enough in advance to not used canned beans. (This is shaping up to be a New Year's Resolution). Anyway, this is pictured with tofu that is crusted in wasabi pea dust.

Vegetable Split Pea Feel Better Soup: Whoa. I'm not sure what I've had against split pea soup in the past, but if this is what it tastes like I would like a do-over for the past 36 years. Ho. Lee. In deciding to make this I completely ignored the part that said "split pea" and zeroed in on the "Feel Better" part because I feel like someone packed cinder blocks into my sinuses.

I'm not sure how this tastes the way it tastes. All I can think is that it has to do with the one ingredient with which I wasn't familiar: Summer Savory. Regardless, step away from your computer and make this now.

Also: I liked the part where I went up to the cashier to buy the ingredients and he said "$4.65."

MOVIES
Sophie's Choice: There are no words. Meryl Streep. Amazing. "Sophie's Choice" is up for both best book and best movie of the 2011 consumption period.

Page Eight: I made a fun rule that we were going to start watching "Masterpiece Contemporary" on Sunday nights after watching this super-exciting political thriller starring that one British actor-you know the one. Then we tried it a second weekend. Alan Richman meets up with an old flame for lunch all while running a super unlikable inner monologue because he works in the publishing biz and so he is writerly and thinks in these complete descriptive sentences with really embarrassing cliches. I think we hit the 30 minute point and ditched out on that new hobby.

BOOKS
Blue Nightsby Joan Didion: How to spend six hours worrying about Joan Didion's emergency contact. I like this, but I love Joan Didion when she's being awesome Joan Didion.

NOW READING
I'm reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami which I had kind of promised myself I wouldn't read because it is 900-plus pages long. But as soon as I touched the book at Barnes & Noble I got full body goose bumps and couldn't set it down. So now I'm reading it in a very slow, very deliberate way. Not much more than a chapter a night and right before bed so that I'll have the same kind of wicked dreams I had when I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel. It is so gah-damn good so far.

In the meantime I'm also reading The New Yorker Stories a collection of short stories by Ann Beattie which feels exactly like staring at the cover of the Barbra Streisand Kris Kristofferson album "A Star is Born." In a good way. I think that Ann Beattie is my spirit animal writer.

Born to be my baby ...

2011-11-13T05:00:00.000-06:00

This must be what it feels like to be born. To go from human-fish being in liquid gooey incubation into the sudden chaos of umbilical cord amputation, bright lights, looming faces and unnecessary chatter. I think this walking into the grocery store at 2:30 p.m. on a Saturday, so newly-awake that I can still feel where my pajama pants have been replaced by more socially acceptable corduroy-ware. I haven't even looked in the mirror yet. There might be a pillow crease mangling my cheek, dried drool on cracked lips. The hair, who knows. For all I know, I'm Courtney Love.

There was no coffee this morning. We ground the last of the beans last night. So here I am, during bell-ringing season, human-fish being, thrown into chaos.

***

I need a winter coat. I want something green and puffy with a fur hood and a belt. My fashion dreams are too specific and possibly not in synch with what is being bled over in sweat shops this season. This is the kind of dangerous thinking that ends with me wearing Chuck's black hoodie all winter long.

Benetton boasts a maybe. It's on sale. Then I get sucked into a decisively non-outerwear store. A pretty store. I'm not even trying to walk there, my feet. It's like I'm on a moving sidewalk. I've never left this store without making an expensive decision. I leave with two pairs of jeans: One so comfortable it feels like I'm sitting in warm pudding. After that I decide a winter coat from Target will do, will have to do. My standards are elastic and have become: Puffy, purple, no fur -- hood though -- and belt.

***

A few weeks ago I decided that I was done with Grey's Anatomy. Watching it had become a tedious imposition on my weekend. Blah blah emo Meredith Grey, blah blah Christina's so smart and sassy. I decided to only watch the final 10 minutes of the show, where all the movement and intrigue happens. Alas, this week's episode did what it was supposed to do: Manipulated emotions and kicked me in the cry place. Fine. I'll watch your stupid show.

***

"Maybe we should make something fun for dinner," Chuck suggests and I groan with my eyes. I know what he means. He peels the veggies, I chop them. He stirs, I queue up the whatever we're listening to. Or vice versa. But there is no making "something fun for dinner." This only happens when there are recipes I want to try, that I'm excited about, but today there aren't. In the absence of inspiration, the only thing "fun for dinner" I can consider making is a run to the Brewhouse for a Beau Burger, Onion Rings and a Wildfire beer.

We dine in. There is, like, one light on in the whole place. If ever I had to pick a place to spend an entire night, an entire week, a month it would be the Brewhouse. A local folk-al is singing like Cat Stevens covering Bob Dylan except it's all original and it's nice. "I wrote this song about my birthday, which is on the Day of the Dead," he says. And I wonder what it feels like to be on a stage as it changes over from dining and half-assed listening to drinking and full-on listening. Who he is talking to when he talks about his songs. Or is that just habit.

***

All sorts of people are tottering out of the Fitger's Complex in various stages of hammered. A blonde woman is sloppy, she's sharing a man's waist with another woman, but she needs it for balance more. An older woman and an older-than-the-older-woman woman are waiting for their ride. The older woman tries to hop into the back seat of a black car, in line at the parking booth. He sees her go for the door handle and zips ahead.

"Wrong car," she cackles. "Wrong car!"
The right car honks, it's three positions back in line.
She cackles more and walks up to it.
"I tried to get into the wrong car!"
"This is extra funny because I've done that," I tell Chuck.

***

Back at home it's time to work on our novels. Every time I get blocked, I just invent a handful of new characters. It's a bad habit that is going to make for a confusing read. The mantra around here, which we say back and forth to each other, is "Just barf it out. Just barf it all out."

We sit at the kitchen table which is covered in unopened mail, unread books, sunglasses, notebooks and drinking vessels. Pens, a lighter, a lamp. We listen to music without words.This week has been the complete discography of Brian Eno on Spotify. Pro tip: Listen to "Thursday Afternoon" from 1985. The song is 60 minutes long, which means 60 minutes without hearing the Spotify commercial: "Hi! I'm Joe Jonas! Check out my new hit single!"

Spotify is a distraction. Last night, instead of writing, I made a playlist and started filling it with songs to slow dance to at a high school mixer in the early 1990s. And that's how I ended up listening to "Bed of Roses" by Bon Jovi upward of 10 times in the past two days.

"Do you remember that time we were getting a ride home from the bar and we decided 'Born to Be My Baby' was our song?" Chuck asks when I play "Bed of Roses" for him today.
"I don't," I say. "Were we hammered?"
"I think we were at about .4," he said.

I write about 1,000 words in my first hour, and fewer in the hours that follow. I have no idea what I'm doing. I do know that no good writing happens in that first hour. Tonight I have written almost 3,000 words and one sentence I liked:

Of all the stunts in sexual repertoire, she drew the line at making fried egg sandwiches the next morning.

Funny porn for smart people ...

2011-11-10T13:58:00.001-06:00

In November of 2006 Chuck and I had been dating for about a month and we both decided to write a novel during NaNoWriMo. He was working on a piece of Sci/Fi; I was writing in the genre "Funny Porn for Smart People."

We both had commitments that kept us from seeing each other until about midnight every day, but were lucky to not have any commitments that required us to wake up early in the morning. This was a golden era. And by golden era, I mean more amber era. And by era I mean black-out state.

One night around 2 a.m. we were doing whatever young couples in the throes of new romance do -- probably staring deep into each other's eyes and whispering "Do you believe in magic?" -- and he kicked me out. He kicked me out so he could "work on his novel."

I was stunned. My pride bruised. "Work on his novel?" I thought. I knew I should have found myself one of those khaki-clad 9-5ers who spend Sundays covered in jerk sauce and screaming about defense. "Work on his novel." Grr.

Chuck will tell you that I pulled a passive-aggressive move that night. That we had been laying there trying to decide how to whittle away at the midnight hours and that I had said, hoping to be contradicted, "Do you want me to leave so you can work on your novel?" And that he hadn't realized it was a fake statement and had taken the bait. Chuck has never been good at gaming. Thank goodness. Gaming is dumb.

I still like to bring up this story, which has been condensed down to "Remember that time you kicked me out of your apartment so you could 'Work on your novel?'" (It would be funny to tell that girl in the car, the one with hurt feelings, that in 2011 he wouldn't be able to kick me out because my mail comes to the same address as his and that he counts on me to saute his kale).

Anyway, a few nights ago we dug up the computer I was using to write the Funny Porn for Smart People. I never finished it because the computer crashed on me about 14 chapters into the project. We got it turned on long enough for me to secure the first two chapters.

Let me tell ya. That's not Funny Porn for Smart People. It's just porn-porn. Chuck didn't finish his novel either. Once he realized it was possible to write 50,000 words in a month the project lost its appeal.

Ol' No name ...

2011-11-08T20:55:00.000-06:00

It might bore you to know that I am always in the process of A) losing something or B) believing that I've lost something. I'm a careless person, which is why I've made it a life mission to pare down my cares. I tend to believe that as long as I have my cell phone, my ID, and a debit card life will be A-OK. This is why if my luggage is ever lost you will read a post here about how liberating it is to send 32 pounds of jeggings into outer space.

Despite holding these three things dear, these are also the three things I most often lose. Right now it is my drivers license that disappeared. For about the third time since I got it renewed when I was 34. I'm pretty sure it is stuck between the pages of one of the library books I returned last week, but not sure enough to do anything more than call the library to see if it turned up in the Lost & Found. Or maybe a long-haired 14 year old boy is using it to buy Sour Apple Pucker as we speak. Either way.

A cop followed me part of the way to the mall, where I had to go to order a new license. I kind of wanted him to pull me over because I thought it would be interesting to say: "Funny you should need to see my license. I was just now going ..."

I thought I was going to be fucked when I went to vote, no ID and all, but turns out once you're registered you're cool. I watched an election judge try to guess a voter's name, just for fun, about 3 minutes before the polls closed.

"I've almost got it," she said, studying his face.
"You've got a few minutes still," he told her.

It was all very charming.

I like that when you lose things as an adult no one yells at you and tells you to get your shit together. They just take your $13.50 and tell you a new one will come in the mail in 7-10 business days.

Greatest obsessions in recent history ...

2011-11-06T16:05:00.000-06:00

Chuck has been scheming. I see a translucent band spread on the kitchen table when I wake up. I pick it up to throw it away and realize it is a strip of tape placed sticky-side-up. There is a matching piece on on his side of the table and two more on the coffee table.

He is trying to keep the cats from climbing on tables when we aren't awake to blast the fuckers in the face with water as a punishment for being, well, cats. I love finding this kind of evidence of the sort of quirky shit that goes down when I'm not around cheering him on. It feels a little CSI. I can perfectly imagine his thought process, this problem-solving, and what he looked like yanking the tape from the roll and carefully spreading it in the danger zones.

Back when he drank I used to find clues to how he spent his drinking nights without me. Clunky headphone cans plugged into a stereo. Eddie Murphy's album sleeve leaned against the shelf. A empty can of Apple-flavored Jones Cola next to the remains of a whiskey bottle. I could trace his night from the exact moment that the alcohol took effect and he decided to mix weird drinks and listen to "Boogie in your Butt." It was almost funnier than actually watching. One of the few episodes of "Growing Pains" that I remember involves Michael Seaver faking sick. In the afternoon the bus goes past his house. Life goes on whether he is participating or not.

***

I eat eggs on the weekends. Today it is hard-boiled, sliced and on an English Muffin with pepper and hot sauce. The extra egg I grind up onto the plate and spoon it into my mouth. During the boiling process one of the eggs came open and egg white seeped from the shell giving the food a cancerous bulge. I try to remember whether I can still eat this escaped mass or if it will make me sick. I cut it off and throw it away, knowing I probably could have eaten it and not gotten sick. It's probably no different from a poached egg, but the consistency of this awkward bump is thicker, meatier, and skeeves me out enough that I might eat yogurt, instead, tomorrow.

***

I've also started going to the library on Saturdays. This week they are holding "Sophie's Choice" on DVD, shipped to Duluth from St. Paul. I felt guilty utilizing the library loan system, thinking of all the trouble it would be for a library in St. Paul to receive my request, pull it from the shelf, and mail it to Duluth. Or perhaps it was passed off to a friend: "You're headed north? Mind bringing along this copy of 'Sophie's Choice'? A woman in Duluth wants to watch it and they don't have a copy at the Duluth Public Library." "Oh, yes. Meryl Streep, no problem."

When I requested it on the library's website, a little badge came up mentioning that our tax dollars make libraries possible.

"Do you think they have that badge so I don't feel guilty about using this service? So I'm reminded that I am helping to pay for it?" I asked Chuck.

Then I realized that once again I was viewing something from the wrong angle. I do this a lot. That actually, this was just a reminder of the kind of services that are lost when funding to libraries is on the chopping block.

***

Duluth, Minnesota is of a size and shape where you can go all day without seeing anyone you know, but you probably won't. Usually when I have social shame it dissolves after a weekend. But I am still reeling with social shame from my own bad behavior at an event in May 2010. Today I encountered the principals -- who surely by now must have forgiven me considering one of them friended me on Facebook and I was assured by a handful of people in his acquaintance that this is not something he would hold a grudge about. Still, here I am waiting for a Smoothie and here he is behind me in line and here I am wondering if I'm incognito with my hair in a bun and glasses and this shirt and he doesn't say anything to me but we aren't the kind of Facebook friends who would play catch up in line while I wait for a Smoothie.

My plans to read in the coffee shop are modified to taking my Smoothie to go, however. All is going according to plan, I'm practically invisible, until one of the Facebook friends I do talk to in public notices me.

"Hey, Christa!" he says.
And his hair is different so I just look at him for a second, then go to talk to him while he tells me about a project he is working on. Then, not knowing that I am currently channeling witness protection, that I'm on the lam, he introduces me to the man next to him, saying my name loud and clearly and including what I do for a living and I sort of shrink into myself hearing myself named and described in regular voices in public.

And so when my smoothie comes I keep my eyes low and jet.

***

For as much as I like to bitch about these cats, they sure do seem to understand how to optimize a Saturday. They have managed to take naps on every surface of the main level of our home in a way that is so enviable.

***

I'm writing a novel. I'm always writing a novel, but right now I'm writing a novel in fast forward. One of those Nanowrimo gluttons. I go back and forth on the the validity of this undertaking. The emphasis on word-count versus content, con. The deadline aspect of getting it all flushed out by the end of the month, pro. Although it makes my shoulder throb and my jaw swell with stress, I work better this way.

There are plot constructions you don't think about the writer grappling with when you're reading novels:

What to do with minor characters? Do you name them and give them jobs or do you keep them vague, like faces in a photograph of full stadium. How do you show the passage of time? The characters are 10, then they are in high school, now they are 42. When do you find time to shower, to read, to start working out again at the YMCA? How do you keep the cats from sitting on the laptop? How do you write the purposeful sentences of the Haruki Murakami, and the self-containment of Jennifer Egan's chapters, the descriptive gore of Ryu Murakami and descriptive non-gore of Joan Didion, all while conveying that this was really fun to write, like Gary Shteyngart?

***

I'm also reading Joan Didion's new book about when her daughter died and aging. Only in the last pages does she finally concede to kick a reader in the windpipe. I can't stop wondering who her emergency contact is.

Reading Joan Didion is like giving your brain a tuneup. I end up paying better attention to the world around me. A plastic bag is wrapped around a parking meter, art or not art? I just asked a barista to make me a smoothie, she'll have to dirty that blender for just me.

***

Chuck springs from bed ready. Sometimes he is slow-going, but I'm sitting here wrapped in a robe and slippers and his hair already looks good and he is putting on shoes and when he asks what we're doing tonight I tell him we're eating dinner at Thai Krathong, going to an art show, watching "Sophie's Choice" and then writing.

He's agreeable to all of it, and is ready to start now so I get dressed and put on lipstick.

***

The restaurant is nearly empty. A group at a table, a handful at the bar, and us in a booth. I order Drunken Noodles, which I've been craving for a year. Each noodle is like fire against my lips. I drink a Thai beer and get a little wonky, then drink a Thai coffee and get full.

***

The art show is at a friend's house, an old mansion-like place that has too many nooks and crannies to not be haunted. There is a band playing in the living room, moans from the one-woman string section and a singer with a Thom Yorke vibe. My friend J is showing photographs, a sort of Side A and Side B he tells us, some taken on the Iron Range and some in France. There's a washbasin filled with ice and a counter top with soda and wine and a keg in the kitchen. There is no definitive demographic of audience. All of this is very cool and Chuck and I sneak through the house, wondering what doors lead to where, how to get into the basement and what each of these cubbies are for. A little dog wanders through the party and every once in awhile a kid pops up doing something hilarious. One of them has made a sign introducing the show and a program that says "Music Menu" and includes the names of the three bands on the slate.

***

Back at home we watch "Sophie's Choice," confirming what I suspected: This might be one of my greatest obsessions in recent history. Meryl Streep is amazing, her Polish accent, her fluent German and her porcelain face which is dripping like one of those decorative walls in hotel lobbies that constantly roll water down the surface.

***

Then we write.

***

Laying in bed in the morning it sounds like bombs are going off on the main level. "I don't even want to know what they're doing," Chuck says. When I go downstairs I see that one of the cats has shoved a planter off the counter and it's broken on the floor, dirt everywhere. (My extremely educated guess is that this is the work of Orin). I clean up everything that doesn't require a vacuum cleaning. They've also pushed Kitty City into the kitchen, up next to the countertops which means they've probably spent the past few hours using the kitchen counters as their runway.

***

"All pizza is bad," an old man says to me at the Co-op. I'm standing in front of frozen foods studying Amy's Brand single-sized pizzas.
He has wiry white hair creeping out of every surface of his head.
"All pizza is bad," he tells me.
He goes on to tell me about the paleo-whatever diet and I shoot a look at an employee that says "CALL A BOUNCER!" The employee doesn't notice me.

Newsletter: Week 7

2011-11-04T01:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Hal and Orin,

Lately I've been thinking a lot about adorable little mice. White pinched faces, whiskers and wormy tails. That cute little bitty foraging sound I used to hear as they gathered in corners to fill their cheeks with tortilla crumbs. The pellets the side of punctuation they left in clumps in the drawer that holds our dish cloths.

Maybe the Department of Health would see things otherwise, I view it all now, in retrospect, as the golden era.

Because you know what, you guys? You, Orin, and you, Hal, are terrifying.

The bloom was still on the rose in the days that followed Week 2.5. That's when you guys discovered the bathroom mirror and spent hours circling the floor-length brass structure trying to figure out the magic behind these cats that aped your moves. We laughed at your stupidity. Great gales of hilarity.

Then you, Orin, already at a fifth grade reading level, got extra curious. And you, Hal, with the athletic ability at least three years ahead of your Little League designation, got extra ballsy. You both added about four pounds and three inches and Orin's voice deepened. You've destroyed your personal playground Kitty City and have turned the house into your own Feline State.

Orin jumped into the shower with me.
Hal almost choked on the broken lid of a spice container.
Orin figured out how to jump onto the countertop so Chuck secured the entry route with a sheet of tinfoil, foe of cats. Turns out Orin loves it. Whaps at it and chews on its ends.
Your fights have become more epic with Orin going jaws wide at Hal's jugular. Hal prone on his back kicking at Orin's eyeballs with his back legs.
You both watch me when I'm on the toilet, and I sit there in fear that you will try to claw your way on to my naked lap.
I have to wear thick-soled slippers at all times because Orin is fascinated by toes, moreso unsocked then socked, but fascinated regardless.
Orin tried to eat my ponytail. Twice.

Whenever we got hypothetical about getting another cat, I said I wanted one with Toonses' good sense to hate people food and to avoid countertops. But you both have all the ticks and curiosities of every cat that came before you. Orin, I think I saw you eating an onion and licking the Tempeh wrapper. It has been confirmed that you adore Almond Milk.

You continue to race from surface to surface, climb curtains and blanketed legs. You found a matching pair of infant-sized socks in some dark recess of this house. And frankly, your shits are the size of a doberman on a burrito diet.

You are both inseparable. You eat at the same time and spoon when you sleep. Orin mops Hal's face and ears with his tongue and continues to give him hickies on his stomach. If one of you spends more than a minute alone, you will send out a distress call and the other joins you in a flash. You do 45-minute intervals of cardio activity, then collapse into a coma for a few hours, recharging for your next round of terror.

"Well, they're still kittens," we say. "Just two more years of this."

We haven't seen any mice since you moved in, guys. And frankly, I miss them.

Love,
Master Christa

* Re: The above photo. I was making dinner and turned around to see Chuck holding the cats by the scruff and cackling in a faux maniacal way: "HAVE A CAT!"

Turbo Cap'n ...

2011-11-01T21:48:00.000-05:00

"You guys got candy?" a kid asks, the henchman in a five-pack of elementary school-aged yokels that includes one carrying a cross bow.

No. This bowl is full of oatmeal, you little shit. What do you think? Lights on, woman with the glazed eyes of a Nerds overdose standing on the front porch handing out handfuls, pretending she thinks a University of Minnesota Duluth hockey jersey is actually a costume.

"Which player are you?" I ask, withholding a precious pouch of Fun Dip.
The kid shrugs. Probably never been to a game in his life. Get with the program. Get, at least, into character. Drop the Fun Dip into his pillow case anyway. So he'll leave.

To judge from the random sampling of 100-plus kids who stopped by our house last night, Generation M is a dud. A greedy bunch of sugar fiends who are going to be charged with analyzing my urine samples and listening to my stories about how I came in sixth to last place in a marathon back in two-zero-zero-four.

I gave a kid a Fun Dip. He saw me reach for another to put in his friend's bag. "Do I get another one?" he asked, genuinely confused. I dropped another in his bag.

"Don't tell," I said. "I don't want this porch swamped with your kind."

A girl stood on the steps with her bag open and didn't even look at me. She was monitoring the street when I dropped a mini snickers into her bag. She didn't move. She kept monitoring the street. I dropped another one in the bag. Nothing. Still standing there holding her bag. I added a Three Musketeers. Finally she came to and noticed me. She closed her bag and moved on.

"It's her birthday," her dad said from the sidewalk. "She deserves two."
"It's her birthday," I thought.

Kids, I decided, are cutest when they are about as tall as my knees, packed into outfits that make their arms look like wobbly propellers. One crawled up on the porch wearing blueface. A Tigger did the same, covered in Snickers' face. Chuck almost took out a bumbling ladybug who was trying to get inside the house. I gave a toddler two packs of Nerds. Rookie error.

There was a dog dressed as a geisha.

A girl stopped by holding two sacks.
"I have to carry a bag for my brother," she said.
"Nice scam," I said.

Then I noticed a head floating behind her, seemingly coming from the crotch of a pair of adult overhauls. It looked like his noggin was on a platter, his shoulders ended without a finale. I gave him a bonus Fun Dip for the effort.

"Even better scam," said the woman guiding him around.

By now I've learned a trick of dropping something into their bag without letting them see the loot. The confusion as they try to discern the new item is just too precious.

A teddy bear got a head injury when he turned around, saw a grim reaper and whacked his head on the front door.

I'm a little concerned about the kids who bitch about what you give them as you give it to them. Or the ones who wait for you to drop a York Peppermint Patty and then say "Aw. I wanted that one."

One dad chastised his kids in the nerdiest of ways:
"Come on, guys," he said. "Say 'Thank you' to everyone."

The fatigue set in around 8 p.m. You could see it in the droopy skeleton faces and the slack jaws of goth teens pretending they didn't always dress like this. By then I'd eaten about 19 mini candy bars and was working my way through my fifth carton of Nerds. I was feeling wild-eyed and crazy, hopped up on the good stuff.

"Did Chuck wake up early to pass out candy?" Rad-attack-ack-ack texted me.
"YES IT WAS SO FUN WE HAD ABOUT 100 AND I ATE SO MUCH CANDY," I wrote back.
"You're sugared to high hell," she wrote.
"HOW CAN YOU TELL??!!!" I responded.
"Turbo caps," she said.
"YOU MEAN TURBO CAP'N!" I said, cackling for the next half hour. Turbo Cap'n. It's still funny.

I want it now ...

2011-10-31T10:44:00.000-05:00

There is no way that the children of West Duluth could ever appreciate the consideration I put into buying Halloween candy this year. This was serious business. I got:

1. York Peppermint Patties
2. Mini Candy Bars, including Snickers, Three Musketeers, Milky Way
3. Nerds
4. Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Joy and Reese's Pieces
5. Lick Em Aid

There is even some left after this past weekend, though I've been acting like Veruca Salt for the past three days with peanut butter-stained fingers and peppermint in my hair.

I'm told we will get 250-300 customers today. Last year I slept through the candy hours, woke at about 9 p.m. and it was over. I sat on the front steps with a bowl of sour licorice and waited for someone, anyone to come along. Finally I stopped some teenagers who were walking past and said: "YOU GUYS WANT CANDY?!" It was pretty pathetic.

In other news, here is what I've been making, watching and reading.

FOODS

Peruvian Black Olive Sun-Dried Tomato Quinoa: This is a good, uncomplicated mix of one of our bulk favorites: Quinoa. Quinoa is magic. You buy it and it never runs out. It probably would have been better if I hadn't burned it, but even burnt it was good. How's that for a testimonial? I made it with just some sauteed spinach and little chunks of Soy Chorizo because Soy Chorizo is my favorite food.

Pea Tikki: Of all the crimes against food, this was one of my greatest. I found this recipe (AND ALMOST EVERY OTHER RECIPE I MAKE) on Finding Vegan. It comes with a nice back story about teaching kids about relatives who are gone by introducing them to the gone relative's signature dish. So what do I do? Create a version that looks nothing like the recipe-maker's version and in fact looks like a crudely drawn portrait of her pretty dish. Ah well. Still tasted good. It's a pea puree with some spice, ginger and seasonings that is then encased in potato. Ideally, it is like a gnocchi Twinkie. Mine, not so much.

Black Bean, Zucchini and Olive Tacos: I've certainly mastered the art of alternate forms of Tacos. This one has a mix of Zucchini, hot peppers, garlic, kalamata olives, and salsa verde. It can also be jazzed up with a mix of plain yogurt mixed with lemon juice, lemon zest, agave and garlic.

Chickpea Picatta: The word "picatta" has come to be a punchline here ever since the time I was making dinner, Chuck asked what we were having and I said "Oh, just a picatta." The word didn't mean anything to either of us. "Oh, a picatta, huh?" he asked. Since that time I've made plenty of versions of picatta and it has come to mean "something something capers."

I love capers. I remember my mom feeding me one when I was really little and being disgusted by this little nugget packed with olive-style flavor. Thirty years later, they are one of my favorite foods.

MOVIES
Night of the Comet: For what this is, it is great. A 1980s horror movie mostly set in the aftermath of a comet hitting earth, turning civilians to a red dust or -- inexplicably -- into zombies. Of course, our hero has shacked up with her boyfriend in a movie theater, which becomes a sort of bomb shelter and saves them both. (Well, briefly).

Two things: A) The star of the show is a very familiar looking woman, who I quickly learned was Kayla from "Days of Our Lives," which immediately brought back Kayla and Steve memories from yesteryear. How come some of my best memories are just plotlines from soap operas? And B) Chuck said in the middle of the movie "They need a montage right here." I agreed and suggested the song "Walking on Sunshine." True story: The next scene was a montage to the song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" which is basically "Walking on Sunshine." Win-win.

Insidious: What a weird mix of when-it's-good-it's-good, when-it-sucks-it-sucks. The premise is great: Family moves into a house that can't possibly be affordable considering the husband is a school teacher and the wife fucks around on a piano all day. Their son goes into something like a coma after taking a spill in the attic. Weird stuff starts happening in the house, they move to get away from this haunted place, and then the medium tells them: IT'S NOT THE HOUSE IT'S YOUR KINDA COMA SON! Then it delves into something super hokey and stupid and vaguely comic.

This marked my first experience renting from Red Box. Now I'm all caught up on modern conveniences.

BOOKS
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin: This is a so-so biography of Steve Martin's life as a stand up comic. Mostly I leaned that my dad pinched some of his greatest comedic moments from Steve Martin.

The Marriage Plot: A Novelby Jeffrey Eugenides: I totally, totally recommend this novel about a love triangle set at Brown University, and then beyond, in the early part of the 1980s. This is now my favorite book of 2011.

Sophie's Choice by William Styron: I got interested in this book when I read an essay by Styron's daughter about what it was like to read this book -- starting it as a child, then actually reading it when she was in her 30s. This is a great, great, great book that I totally loved.

When God Was a Rabbit: A Novel by Sarah Winman: Good. Another new writer with a terrific debut. This one is a coming of age story about siblings with a powerful connection and a best friend and all these events. It's plot light, incident heavy and written in this really spare an interesting way. I love how this was written.

Full reviews on all of these will be on Minnesota Reads.

Ghosts of Halloween past ...

2011-10-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

I don't even remember my favorite Halloween memory. I was in a blackout state, so thankfully Chuck photographed the crime scene. I'd gone as something pant-less, though the exact title of the costume escapes me. I might have been a Walk of Shame. My hair was messed up, smeared lipstick, oversized men's button up mis-buttoned up.

I'd stumbled into the duplex, grabbed a handful of leftover Halloween candy and went to bed. I propped myself up on a pillow and bulimia'd all over the candy, cramming it into my face all while unwrapping the next piece.

Chuck had been at work and when he got home, I was still sitting up with wrappers all over my stomach and the light on. As he reached down to clean them up I woke long enough to say:

"Embarrassing."

* I had to crop the photo for decency sake, since I'm wearing a sweatshirt sans pants, and unfortunately that meant cropping out most of the candy debris. Ah well, you get the idea. Fun Fact: I'm wearing that same sweatshirt right now!

That time someone thought I was a hooker ...

2011-10-24T01:27:00.000-05:00

PHOENIX -- I was mistaken for a prostitute tonight by a very persistent john. Seriously. I had gone to dinner in a less-traveled downtown area, a nondescript Mexican restaurant next door to nothing. I finished licking a bowl of vanilla ice cream about 10 minutes before my bus was due across the street. I paid, clomped through the parking lot and waited to cross the road to the bus stop opposite the restaurant.

A beat up red pickup traveling south slowed down as it neared me and the driver gave two short beeps. I ignored him and crossed the road. Then he did a U-Turn so he was headed north, on the same side as me, and pulled onto a dark avenue half a block away. I ignored two more short beeps, but an Uh-Oh that had started at the U-Turn was getting bigger.

He pulled back on to the main road, headed north, and cruised past the bus stop very slowly. I kept my antennae on him while not giving any sort of gesture or look that would indicate a willingness to star in his own personal Shake Weights commercial. Beep beep.

The driver kept rolling and made a left turn on to another avenue on the other side of the street and honked again. First I just walked quickly away from him, then I busted out a sprint across the street and back to the parking lot of the restaurant. He honked again, like he thought I was confused. No! I'm over here! Where are you going?

I was pretty deep into the parking lot when he sped past the restaurant, faster now, and back the direction he was originally traveling. I watched him disappear and waited until I saw the bus coming to cross over again.

Whether it is a legitimate question or not, you're probably wondering what I was wearing. At least Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack was as I texted her with the close call. A T'shirt dress, cowboy boots and a zip up hoodie. Truthfully, I'd probably wear the dress with leggings in Duluth, but Duluth isn't in the desert and in Duluth it never feels like the sun has singled you out for special treatment.

I hopped on the bus, and hopped off again at a light rail stop because the route would get me closer to my hotel. I sat down next to an older man who was quiet for a few minutes, then drawled: "Hey, cowgirl. Where ya headed?"

I rolled my eyes at him and said: "You know what? I've already gotten mistaken for a prostitute tonight, so I think that's about enough."

His tone changed immediately. Funny how some people are balanced on a thin barricade between creepy and a-ok. He told me that sort of thing happens all the time downtown and then over compensated his disgust with dudes.

At the other end of the spectrum: I was the only person on a city bus today when the driver pulled over at a stop and hopped off. He left the doors open and the bus running and I think he said something about going to the bathroom before ducking into Walgreens.

I sat in my seat, confused, and watched the door of the store. I imagined a wild card with a commercial drivers license coming along, yelling "FREE BUS!" hopping into the driver seat and spiriting us away to the mountains. Then for awhile I imagined myself hopping into the driver seat and making for Mexico armed with just a smart phone and a 17-year-old C+ in Spanish III. Then I decided to get the hell off the bus so that if someone did try to steal it, I wouldn't have to ride along.

About 10 minutes later the bus driver came back and we both got back onboard.

I thought we had shared something important so I confided: "I had to get off the bus so I wouldn't get kidnapped if someone stole it."

He didn't respond.

Limes ...

2011-10-21T03:02:00.001-05:00

"Hey," he says, flapping an 11-by-17 glossy flier like it's the American flag. "Doesn't this look good?"
It's a photograph of, as far as I can tell, cat barf, blood and pus covered in melted hair. Upon closer inspection, it is actually the hot new menu item from KFC.
"You want in?" he asks, like it's an exclusive invitation to join the Skulls.
"Absolutely not," I say.

It seems that he's in a sharing mood, because the next thing to land in my lap is a greeting card in an envelope addressed to my Former Landlord from a woman, the loopy handwriting on the front only accentuated by its lack of glitter. The text is PG Hallmark. A bit of Halloween-theme innuendo, with a punch line that basically says: "I was really talking about this. What did you think I was saying, sicko."And, of course, there is a personalized note. About seven sentences that say: "Hey. If you want to hang out again, here is my phone number. Text me."

"Ah," I say. "That's cute."
"Yeah," he says. "I'm glad she sent it. I couldn't remember her name."
"Are you going to call her?"
"Nah," he says. "She's too old for me."
"How old is she?" I ask.
"33," the 37-year-old answered.
I throw him an incredulous gesture, but it is admittedly a tired look that has lost its potency after all these years and all this incredulous-ness.
"She has kids," he whispers.
"SO DO YOU!" I remind him, though truthfully he has just the one.
"Yeah, that was kind of weird when she left and we didn't exchange any information," he says.

"You wanna go in on Chinese? I have a two-fer-one," he says.
"Absolutely not," I say. "In fact, I actually eat dinner with Chuck like every night. Homemade food."
"Really?" he asks, the idea as bewildering as "cenar con mi novio todas las noches."
"Really."
"You know, I've been drinking good beer," he says, trying to relate. "You know, instead of swill."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Corona, Grain Belt," he says. "Grain Belt has this Nordeast ..."
He rustles through his things and waves a receipt in my face.
"What's this?" I ask.
It lists a single 49 cent charge for two limes.
"For my Corona," he says. "Top shelf."

Pop Culture Curiosity: Friday Night Lights ...

2011-10-20T13:56:00.000-05:00

A lot of my friends who know what MSHSL stands for, and one who probably doesn't, really dug "Friday Night Lights."

"Don't watch it at the Y," said Fannie, the one, when I told her I was going to whittle my way to cardiovascular excellence by watching it one 43 minute elliptical machine workout at a time. "I cried during every episode. You don't want to do that at the Y."

I tried it anyway. Trudging along, the pilot, as the OG QB1's helmet is sliced off his head. I spilled not a drop of snot on the console. But I did see that only watching it in an elliptical was going to require eight hour workouts and the Herculean strength of Tim Riggins' deodorant to fulfill. So I completely stopped going to the Y (again) and cozied into the couch for 55 as-close-to-consecutive-as-possible hours of Texas high school football.

***

"Friday Night Lights" is set in a small-ish town in high school football-hungry Texas. A place where a woman can spend 14 years as a stay-at-home mom, and parlay it into a career trajectory that goes from guidance councilor to principal to guidance councilor to Dean of Admissions at a university in less than six years. A town where a kid can bludgeon a rapist to death and, with his sidekick, pitch the dead body off a bridge and both a) recover from any sort of emotional ramifications by the commercial break of the episode where he is exonerated and b) never have word of the incident land in the news.

It is a town that caused me to Google two different versions of the question: "What is the legal drinking age in Texas."

***

"Friday Night Lights" was seemingly written by dudes who never imagined a future we would stream 55 consecutive hours of the show over the course of two weeks. It asks watchers to suspend disbelief so mightily that we should all earn a tryout with Cirque de Soleil.

There are little things, like: Wait, Tim Riggins. What grade are you in, anyway?
There are bigger things, like: Wait. Coach Eric Taylor has been coaching Jason Street since he was a kid. But Coach Eric Taylor just moved to Dillon, Texas. (This one comes courtesy of Jodi's eagle eye for plot flow. More on Jodi's contributions later).
And the real head scratcher: Tami Taylor's rapid ascension from guidance councilor to candidate for a job as Dean of Admissions at a university.

Until about midway through the series, there is no evidence of technology. No cell phones. The only sign of online life is when Lyla Garrity is outed on a gaudy website for diddling Tim Riggins, soon after her quadriplegic boyfriend Jason Street learns that getting a bone dog could be detrimental to his urinary health.

In keeping with this sort of primitive theme, when Julie Taylor and Tyra Collette are forced into playing powder puff football as a punishment, it is revealed that none of the girls at Dillion High School are at all intuitive about what to do when a football spirals toward ones face. This lack of athleticism comes up again when Tyra briefly joins the volleyball team as a favor to Tami Taylor -- the new coach. (She's a renaissance woman, Tami Taylor is).

When the school district splits into two high schools, there is a racial shift. Dillon was so white it was almost blue. But East Dillion is multicultural. Still, the kids from East Dillon didn't just suddenly move to town. They must have gone to Dillon High School. Where were they the first three seasons? And why don't the kids from both schools seem to know each other when, logically, they have gone to school together all their lives?

And, what? No kid from East Dillon would ever go to Alamo Freeze?

***

I've just never really gotten into football. I guess I don't understand it. I did however fool Chuck into thinking I knew the bare bones. I listened to myself explaining the concept of a redshirt and thought "Oh my God, I'm smart. I'm really, really smart."

***

Season 1 sucks you in. Season 2 sucks you in, too, then suddenly cuts off in a really jarring way that is disorienting when you start, arguably the best season, Season 3. (This is because of the writer's strike).

Season 4 is an entirely different show. The old characters skip town for college. The new characters are hard to love, especially for people loyal to the old crew. You're only watching because now you're committed to the series and you've started to find yourself staring in the mirror and chanting: "Clear eyes, full heart. CAN'T LOSE!"

***

Early in the series, my high school friends and I started claiming which Dillon Panther we wanted to take to Homecoming.

Fannie likes Tim Riggings. She thinks they have the same haircut. "Sometimes when I walk past a mirror, I think it's him," she tells me.
Princess Linda likes Riggins, too. But she could also take Coach Taylor. I sometimes wonder if her greatest aphrodisiac is the whistle dangling from a neck.
I am 100 percent Matt Seracan, bulging Adam's apple, nervous stammer and five years in a yellow Lance Armstrong wrist shackle. Though I know that if I went to that high school, I'd have actually been dating Landry, which is not a bad thing at all.
"I guess I'll take Tyra," Princess Linda's husband Z conceded. I could hear him faux-grudgingly making the concession and giggled.

***

I like a good TV marathon. At the top of the list is "The Wire," which was the perfect example of the possibilities of dramatic television in the 2000s. At its worst was the time Chuck and I locked ourselves in the bedroom and watched so many consecutive episodes of "Weeds" that I could feel my brain recoiling when the theme song "Little Boxes" started to play. This was made more disgusting by the fact that we actually ate pizza in bed, which ranks somewhere near spending four days crouched over a hole in the dirt during menstruation, in terms of evolution. Note: The theme song to "Friday Night Lights" isn't terrible at all.

***

Around Season 2 I started working on my senior thesis about the program: "Tim Riggins as the Pacey of a new millennium." And that is how I got Jodi to start watching the show, by describing it as having a certain Dawson-ness. (A thank-you for the time she introduced me to "Pretty Little Liars," AKA "Best Hair Party on all of the TV.")

As we three watched the show, we kept a running dialogue on Google+ and THIS WAS SO DAMN FUN! It was like TV-book club.

***

As a non-football fan who rarely finds anything worth watching that isn't a reality show about pregnant teens, pretty sisters under the tutelage of American Hero Bruce Jenner, seven strangers, eight self-described "guidos," emaciated Vogue-hopefuls and chefs brandishing spatulas, I'm surprised that I liked "Friday Night Lights."

Really, it was all about the characters, a like em or lump em cast that included wholesome heartthrob Matt Seracan, Tim Riggins, whose abs distracted us from his booze breath, Dillon toughie Tyra Collette and the freckle-faced cutie Julie Taylor. Coach Taylor and his stare that says a thousand words, Tami Taylor and her reluctance to adopt the phenomenon known as "Mom hair." Lyla Garrity, the rich man's Leighton Meester. So pretty that it takes a season to understand that she is vapid. A sponge constantly adapting new extreme personalities. Buddy Garrity, who has the biggest face in show biz.

Truths of "Friday Night Lights":
1. Coach Taylor's team, whether they are Panthers or Lions, are always a second-half team.
2. If a new girl is introduced and is alternative cute, she will become Landry's love interest.
3. Chuck has the same flannel shirt as Billy Riggins, so now we call it his Billy Riggins shirt.
4. As long as Buddy Garrity is alive, there will always be employment for former high school football stars.
5. This show excelled at making characters and their parents look eerily alike.
6. Chuck found a reference to Landry online as "The albino Matt Damon."
7. Chuck also found online that plenty of people had googled 'Buddy Garrity's sunglasses.

Now with fewer entrails ...

2011-10-16T23:14:00.000-05:00

Oh for crying out loud. Here it is the middle of October and I've just now finished watching my first scary movie of the season and I'm nowhere near any sort of reading that describes entrails dangling from a human being. What the. I'm embarrassed for myself. I'm really going to be feeling this in February when I realize I deprived myself of a good old fashioned month long fright fest.

Anyway. Here is what I made, movies I watched and books I read in the past what-say month or so.

FOODS
Easy Crock Pot Enchilada Casserole: I get a little skittish sometimes when I'm chucking pinches of both Italian and Indian seasonings into a vat. It's like: Pick a flavor profile, yo. But this turned out okay. Better than okay. I got to spend five minutes making a dinner that was magically ready to eat when Chuck woke up. One of greater instances of science: The corn tortillas become the consistency of cheez. I didn't take a picture of this one. But if you squinch your eyes real tight, I'm sure you can picture it.

Tempeh Helper: If you knew how much Hamburger Helper I used to eat, you would freak. What a blessed and inexpensive way sop up watery swill. So this recipe is a damn-fine spin on it, using Tempeh, a cheesy mix of Nutritional Yeast, Mustard and a few other things. Fun fact: I'm not sure I've mentioned this yet, but nutritional yeast has a the neon Rock Star effect on pee. True Story!)

Chik'n and Summer Vegetable Tostadas: This is just another one where we do what we do best: Put things on a tortilla. And as always it was good. Plus, I learned about Gardein Chick'n Scallopini, which is an exciting chicken-shaped non-meat that is much more visually appealing than Seiten. Liked it a lot.

Chickpea Frittata: I'm worthless at making real live frittatas, but this chickpea frittata was easy-peasy. Lots of veggies -- Broccoli, shallots and potato -- overlaid with a non-eggy egg-like mix made of tofu, soy milk, nutritional yeast, chickpeas -- covered with scallions and tomatoes and baked.

Roasted Tomato-Tabbouleh Soup: This is what we call "Hungry Soup." It's super good, roasted onions, tomatoes and garlic chopped in the food processor then mixed with some bulghur to give it a bit of heartiness. (About an hour later we had to eat again).

MOVIES
Scream It felt real good to sit on the couch for 105 minutes and watch not-Friday Night Lights. This movie is brilliant in its super funniness, brutal killings and spook-o-meter.

BOOKS
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: All of the world is into OASIS, a virtual reality where you can play games or go to school. When the jillionaire inventor of the system dies, he leaves his dinero to whoever can find it in this online mess of planets and hiding places. A good good geek out with a 1980s soundtrack.

Full review here.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: This one is a YA, but totally worth reading even if you aren't a YA. The heir to a drug store dynasty sees his grandfather murdered by a supernatural something, gets wonky and goes to the island where he grandfather grew up to find out what the hizzo.

Full review here.

The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion: Joan Didion considers the end of the 1960s in this short collection of essays. I like Joan Didion. Except for when she's writing about something I'm not interested in. Then I don't care about Joan Didion. This one has at least four essays I loved, though. So.

Full review will be here.

The Family Fang: A Novel by Kevin Wilson: This one-sitter is about a family of performance artists who have, for years, been performing grand scale public performances at a mall near you. Things get wonky when the adult children come home to recover from A) an online scandal and B) a temporarily disfiguring incident with a potato gun.

This is cute with a few Heh moments.

Full review will be here.

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION
Friends. I love "Two Broke Girls." This is a back-to-basics retro sitcom right down to its polyester waitressing uniforms, laugh track, and the kind of jokes we wince at while watching Archie Bunker tee off in syndication. This is for all those latch key kids from 1983 who were babysit by Jack Tripper and Oatmeal Cream Pies. This is rabbit ears and a wrench-shaped channel changers. This is from when people who had VCRs were obviously rich.

It's created by Whitney Cummings, who is my favorite comedian. The only thing wrong with her is that she has a boring Twitter feed. But that's because she thinks of it as a marketing tool and not a place to test drive the funny.

The premise doesn't really matter because it's Kat Denning's deadpan and ability to rock punk rock lipstick that really makes it shine. But the idea is that Denning's character Max is a Brooklyn-ite cupcake maker scrounging up cash as a waitress and nanny. Then a former trustfunder enters her life, and bed, and brings her horse and it gets all Laverne and Shirley.

No-gurt ...

2011-10-15T17:42:00.000-05:00

The more I think about it, the more sure I am that the following actually happened:

A few days ago I was at a grocery store picking up food for dinner, a trail mix of ingredients that appeared to have been harvested from an air filter. I also grabbed some yogurt. The soy kind. I like it's woody taste and it was on sale for 85 cents.

There was a man bagging his stuff, obviously a regular as he was on a first-name basis with the checker. He was either a hippie or a Manson acolyte or a fiddle player or I guess he was just from Duluth. Once they hit 45, every man in Duluth looks exactly alike: Like a hippie, a Manson acolyte or a fiddle player. And he was taking his own sweet time with his greens and grains.

When the checker began ringing me up, she redirected my goods into a pile near Manson. I paid, began bagging. He was still bagging, too. He finished just before me and as he left he turned and gave me a look that seemed to say "I stole one of your yogurts. I dare you to try to tackle me and rip it from my craggly claw."

Sure enough, when I got home I was short a multi-berry.

At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Nah. Who does that, I thought. I'd have noticed. Wouldn't I? Until today. Today I decided it was real. That some bearded stranger is hunkered over my multi-berry soy yogurt as we speak. It's gone for good, though. Being a bearded man in your 40s in this city is like being in witness protection.

Booking ...

2011-10-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

One thing I do miss about our old neighborhood is the daily intrigue. Perched up on that deck like a sentry. Fights and make outs and pizza delivery. Drinking themselves toward amnesia. The streets running with the urine of one million college-aged students.

I am a gawker. Like, big time. Sometimes Chuck has to remind me: "You are not invisible."

This neighborhood is quiet. Too quiet. The resident party animals are a young, young twenty-something couple across the street, and they usually have it on lockdown by 11 p.m. They also trim the edging on their lawn, sweep the steps and all sorts of other domesticated bullshit that leads me to believe they are qualified to host a Thanksgiving dinner.

But tonight, tonight there was drama.

Seemingly, a pickup truck came rip-roaring down Highland, opted out on the pause at the bottom and rammed into two parked cars before settling to a stop in a front yard. Both victim cars spun 90 degrees, one totally up on the boulevard and the other's back end perched on the curb.

By the time I'd padded down there in my socks there were three police cars-worth of personnel investigating, shooting photos of the scene. The driver of the pickup was long gone and every house in the vicinity was lights-out. Like no one heard a thing.

The guy who lives across the street from us -- we'll call him Gran Dammer -- played his hypothesis about how it happened. His son was tuned into the scanner iPhone app, which I will be downloading post haste.

"I love this shit," I said.
Gran Dammer nodded.
"He must have been hammered," I said.
Gran Dammer nodded.
Finally some common ground with the neighbors. For a minute. Then Gran Dammer didn't seem to care about my theories anymore and my jokes about how maybe the driver was our resident 80 year old OG because "He likes to get all crazy."

This morning it's the talk of the neighborhood.
"That motherfucker must have been booking," I heard the mailman say into his blue tooth.

On a Monday night ...

2011-10-11T11:09:00.001-05:00

I used to be pretty hip to the Monday night scene. That's not true. I used to be pretty hip to the Monday night scene at the Pioneer Bar, which was exactly like the Tuesday night scene, the Thanksgiving scene and the Arbor Day scene. Similar in that each day required anti-bacterial soap, a colon cleanse and bleach gargle to exorcise. Still, I used to live a life that could not be dictated by the strong arm of a calendar. Monday, psssh. You look just like a Friday to me. Pour harder!

My friend the Rock Star AA has been staying with us for two days. She's one of my favorite people in the world and for a long time the only friend in this two-Perkins town who I hadn't met while wrapped in a cubicle. We met while working at a bookstore in Rochester, but before that our social circles had enough links to create thick chain, a decent hip-hop accessory. It would later be revealed that we actually attended the same babysitting clinic while in grade school. I can still picture those classes, and so I sometimes revisit it searching the room for the Drew Barrymore lookalike, looming over a plastic doll and crying "Annie Annie, are you okay?" Eventually we both moved here.

Last night we parked ourselves at a bar downtown for a meet -n- greet and what was literally a Monday night, around us, had all of the makings of a shit show. There were bands, playing so loud we had to Helen Keller our way through conversations. A birthday party that included face painting. Clientele lined up to be caked with white paint, caricature red lips and eyes circled in dark liner. First they looked like juggalos, then clowns, then mimes, then Kat Von D. The bar owner tried to tell me a story about his niece but all I could do is watch his full red lips, the size of a plum, shaped into an exaggerated Betty Boop pucker and think to myself: You must take him seriously. You must take him seriously.

There were spankings for the birthday girl, havoc happened, outside of the bar hordes of smokers in packs and inside the bar decibels begat decibels.

"And on a Monday," everyone had to keep saying out loud.

"That guy? One time he stuck his tongue down my throat and tried to bite off my ear," a woman said. "It was attack the lesbian night."

The Rock Star AA has a collection of Rock Star friends I'd never met: music and books and about how cool it would be to have the keys to the city or one of those oversized checks people win. The Rock Star AA busted out some mime moves from her years of studying the art form. She was stuck in a box! Then she was knocking on the box!

"Gold Bond is like smoking a menthol cigarette through your asshole," someone said outside.

Outside a man had torn a plastic sack to look like a pair of saggy white underpants that he had pulled up over his jeans. The bag was filled to create the illusion of a nut sack that swung as he walked. It was starting to look like the makeup counter at Nordstroms just inside the door. Faces tipped upward while an artist smeared white paint across cheeks.

"On a Monday," we all agreed.

We left the bar around 1 a.m. and began walking toward my car. A man rounded the block, walking slowly. It looked like he was carrying a log and I turned around and said "What is that?"

"An owl," he said.
"Can we see it?" the Rock Star AA asked.

We moved toward him and there it was, a bird of prey tucked into itself and perched on his shoulder. It was low on energy, seemingly wounded maybe even dying. He had found it on Michigan Street and didn't know what he was going to do with it. Maybe take it to a Nature Center in the morning.

I Googled "Owl Food" and the Rock Star AA advised him on various bird organizations she is friends with on Facebook. He seemed like he was going to be wearing the owl into the bar.

Three conversations with my Former Landlord ...

2011-10-04T23:55:00.000-05:00

Former Landlord (on the phone): Christa?
Me: Yeah?
Former Landlord: Can kids eat gum?
Me: ...
Former Landlord: (Taquito) just ate gum.
Me: ...
Former Landlord: She told me she knew how to do it and I believed her. I gave her a piece and SHE ATE IT!
Me: ...
Former Landlord: So I took another piece, broke it in half, and showed her how to chew it. It seemed like she got it. But then she kind of turned her head away and ate that piece, too!
Me: I think she's fine. Don't give her any more gum.

***

Me: If someone cut you open right now, it would smell like KFC.
Former Landlord: Until you quit smoking, you can't say anything about what I eat.
Me: ...
Former Landlord: You should try hypnosis.
Me: I've thought of that. It's pretty expensive.
Former Landlord: Nah. That's what (Baby Mama) did when she was pregnant. We drove to Sandstone. It was like $80 a session.
Me: Did she quit?
Former Landlord: She certainly cut back.

***

Me: You know, now that (Taquito) is two and a half, you probably shouldn't keep Playboy magazines out in your bedroom. I noticed them when I was babysitting.
Former Landlord: Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's just that I'm writing a Letter to the Editor.
Me: You're writing a Letter to the Editor of Playboy?
Former Landlord: Yeah. I was flipping through it and noticed this small picture of this guy. It was Joe Kapp, the former Viking. It didn't have his name on it or anything. Joe Kapp! He's my favorite player! You've heard of Tommy Kramer? Well this was Joe Kapp. Greatest player ever. So I want to tell them they should have had his name on the picture.
Me: ...
Former Landlord: I'll send you his highlight video.

Take me down to Kitty City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty ...

2011-10-02T18:00:00.000-05:00

I check my email in bed the second I commit to waking up. It's wretched sleep hygiene. The equivalent of washing one's face with a pepperoni pizza, or wiping back to front. But I like to know what I'm in for as I brace for the day. A shoe sale from Nine West? New fashions from Free People? A couple friends weighing in on a metaphor linking life with two cats to the bar scene in "Gremlins."

Today it is gobs of goodness. Jodi tells me that she has begun watching "Friday Night Lights," which is perfect because I can't wait to discuss my thesis topics: "Tim Riggins: The Pacey of a New Millennium" and "Dillon High School: How Come None of The Girls In This School Are Athletic?"

Chuck has also sent me two emails, tattling on the Gremlins we brought into our home through our own free will, though I've begun to rewrite history and imagine that we adopted them at gunpoint. It's the only way to explain it.

The first email suggests that one of the demons has urinated on the main level of the house. "It was strong smelling when I walked in, and I can still smell it. I fear it is in the shoe closet." The second, subject "Cats Part 2" tells a story of cleaning the litter box for the first time in his life. A big clump falls out of the garbage bag. He goes to get our most vile broom to sweep it up and when he comes back downstairs Orin is inside the garbage bag taking a piss. "Dude. Can't you wait five minutes?" Chuck asked rhetorically.

Speaking of five minutes: I'm about five minutes from cuffing these little monsters and hauling them off to juvie. Last night when I got home, they had upended another lamp. There is evidence that one of them did a canon ball into the upstairs toilet. They seem skilled as the art of parkour and have developed a taste for Bread records and delicious cords from Apple.

***

"Sometimes I think that I could just love kittens so hard, I'd squish them to death," JCrew tells me on the phone. "It's not the same as dogs."
I'm wandering through the grocery store looking for ingredients to make a crock pot dinner.
"They're more vulnerable. When you pick them up with one hand, you can feel their rib cage," I say.
Doing laps between the paper plates aisle and frozen foods.
"But do you have that, too? That kill them thing?" she asks.
"Oh yeah. Like, I might strap them into their car seats and drive into the ocean," I say.
"..."
"Or, today, I imagined kicking Orin across the room. My foot connecting with his belly, and like lofting him."
"..."
"And their necks are so tiny, sometimes when they're asleep I worry I might wrap my hands around their throats ..."
I go home and throw enchilada ingredients into the pot, plug it in, wait six hours.

***

There is something in my sock. It's like cutting into my my arch. A stray staple. The exoskeleton of a critter. Finally, when I'm sure I've drawn blood, I sit down and take off my shoe. I remove my sock halfway and find a thick rainbow-shaped chunk of toenail.

It reminds me of my dad. We always joked that his toenails would get so long, we could hear them clacking on the kitchen floor when he was barefoot. He squared them off when he cut them rather than styling half-moons. Used a scissors to groom "so I won't get an ingrown nail," he explained illogically.

How did a chunk of toenail get in my sock? It's a mystery. It's also, technically, a 50 percent chance it is mine. Math aside, there is a 100 percent chance it is mine. Frankly, when it comes to toenails, Chuck is much more fastidious. Me: I can go two months without even remembering that I have feet.

***

The only thing more fun than busting through five seasons of "Friday Night Lights" is having Jodi bust through it at the same time. She's keeping me apprised of her viewing on Google+ and I'm responding to questions and comments like "Who is Buddy Garrity, anyway?" and "I think I hate Lyla."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that watching TV in 2011 is really amazing, between the ability to consume reams of episodes in a single sitting, really pushing your investment in the characters, and the ability to connect quickly and efficiently with other viewers. It's a good time to be alive with eyeballs.

***

I drive to the point of the city that is almost furthest from our house just to get an Everything Bagal with a disc of microwaved egg product, cheddar cheese and bacon. At the drive through window, my order is taken by a man with a hilarious Irish accent. It's all very Lucky Charms.

"Is that accent real?" I ask the girl who hands me my delicious meal.
She shakes her heads sadly.
"I didn't think so," I mouth.

***

The kittens need a scratching post. They seem to think they have been hired on to demolish the carpeting on the stairs and sharpen their hooks on Chuck's record collection. At Target I find something called Kitty City, which is like a Tinker Toys collection of pipes, surfaces and scratching posts that can be easily added to for a complex arrangement of amusements for your pet.

I'm assembling this when JCrew and Seadawg stop by to meet the kitties.

JCrew loves animals. Like, italics on the love part, loves them. Case in point: She's recently returned from a trip to Ireland and about every other photograph stars sheep.

She takes them one at a time, holding them high in the air like they are her newborn nephews. Lets them wiggle free and drop to the floor. She cackles and chases them to the stairs. They don't even put on half of the show they are capable of, but it is enough to get the point across: These dudes are whack.

***

Chuck isn't thrilled with Kitty City. He imagines they'll use it as a step stool to reach higher points of our house. He was more interested in a scratching post than a village. But the cats like it. They bat at the dangling balls filled with bells, they hop from surface to surface, attacking each other.

"Just think of it this way," I tell him. "Every second they spend in Kitty City is another second spent not wrecking our shit."

This he can agree on.

Later in the night, Hal will invent a trick where he starts at the top of the steps, sprints down, leaps into the tent on the bottom level of Kitty City, sending the whole structure skidding a few inches across the floor. He leaps out, does it again and again until he has moved it about seven feet.

Orin, meanwhile, is sprawled out on one of the upper surfaces enjoying the ride. A king that is carried around by his minions.

***

Chuck has the night off, so we go to the symphony. We get the cheap seats up in the balcony, so high up it feels like I'm spying on the orchestra rather than watching the orchestra. This is a nice opportunity to sit in the dark and listen to nice music. It's like soul yoga.

***

Back home. Back to "Friday Night Lights." We watch back-to-back-to-back episodes until 6 a.m. when I read a few pages of "Sophie's Choice" and then conk out.

Skitchin' ...

2011-09-29T01:49:00.001-05:00

Scene: Downtown Duluth. Police car pulled to curb, lights spinning like a winning slot machine. Nondescript car haphazardly pulled over in front of cop car. Lanky twenty-something sitting, leaned against a cement planter, feet propped on a skateboard.

Me to skater (Gesturing at the cop car): What's all this? Is it for you?
Skater: Half.
Me: Half? What happened?
Skater (shrugs): I was skitchin'.
Me (Laughing at the visual. And that "skitching" wasn't phased out at the border of 1999. Or heck, 1989): Was it worth it?
Skater: We'll see.

Newsletter: Week 2.5

2011-09-27T22:15:00.001-05:00

Dear Hal and Orin,

Well. I'm glad you boys are still alive, because last night I found myself Googling "24-hour online vet" while Orin hunched himself into a ball, sneezing and dry heaving, in position to send clumps of stomach-stained Iams directly into my purse.

It started when Hal knocked over a floor lamp, mistaking it's on-off chain for a tether ball. The shade flew 10 feet, the bulb exploded. The look on your face, Hal, it seemed to say: "I bet this is something we can laugh about already." But only briefly. Then you saw the look on my face and you ran.

I swept up slivers of twinkling paw pad dicers and thought of the many dangers this modern planet has to offer to beings that are no more than three apples tall.

A few hours later you, Orin, found a chunk of bulb I had missed in my cleaning. A half-sphere jagged and open, white powder from the bulb creating a tempting bowl of poison. Of course, you dipped your nose right into it so fiercely and with such purpose that I saw clearly evidence of your past life: You were a coke fiend. A white suit-and-fluorescent-T-shirt, Raybans, topsiders-sans-socks coke fiend waxing hysterical about Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. I joke now, Orin. In reality I freaked the fuck out. Checked your little face for blood specs. Threw away the demon shard. Began monitoring your vitals.

It wasn't looking good. The sneezing. The hunch. The heaving. Your buddy Hal looked worried. He joined you amid a pile of my shoes and scarves and put his little paw on your back. If you would have died, right then, right there, I'd have had a hell of a time explaining it to Hal. (Even though, technically, he killed you through some sort of butterfly effect).

I'll spare you the 10 minutes of unrest, how I almost threw $41 at an avatar that claimed to be an online vet. By then you were back to kitty boxing and wind sprints. And within a 20 minutes, you and your buddy had discovered a new trick.

There is a tiny built-in bench area in the kitchen that is covered with countertop material and is set about two feet off the ground. Something I wouldn't know without the help of you little guys: There is a kitten-sized crawl space. You are able to weasel inside of the bench and chillax without any sort of interference from anything with opposable thumbs and human emotions. You can also get out. For now. But the way you're eating, Orin. Oof. Enjoy it while you can.

Sometimes I think of your predecessor. Hal, you remind me of him most. The lines of your fur, your face, your big clumsy feet. I watch enough "Teen Mom" to know that he was the "unprotected sex" cat. The one I didn't initially want, then gained full custody of when Toonsers dead beat co-owner decided to bang softball groupies in the bed of his Ford. In his later years, of course, Toonses and I came to an understanding. A mutual respect. But there was some resentment about how I spent my 20s sweating over the ammonia reek of sand clumps. You guys, though. You're my fertility drug kitties. The ones I knit booties for in my mind and imagined suckling at my teat. (Of course, Orin, you've opted to suckle at Hal's teat instead).

Hal and Orin, you boys are staring down your four month birthday and your three week anniversary in our little family. And so far you're still alive. But that doesn't mean I don't hold my little kitty mirror under your nostrils when you sleep. No it doesn't.

Love,
Master Christa

Go Panthers ...

2011-09-27T02:32:00.000-05:00

Quick poll: Anyone else watch 27 episodes of "Friday Night Lights" in the past four days. (Three days. I just don't want to sound like a loser).

Anyway, here is what I've made, watched and read in the past few weeks.

FOOD

Mushy Vegan-ish Burritos: I tried to re-invent the vegan burrito that I ate at this restaurant in Brooklyn with decent results (minus the fact that I accidentally bought real sour cream instead of fake sour cream. Idiot. Sometimes I get so caught up in being at Whole Foods and cramming Soy Chorizo into my hand basket that I forget that not everything is soy this).

First I fired up some minced garlic. Then I added two cans of black beans, that I squished into something not super pretty. Then I added a shitload of Spinach and waited for it to wilt down and stirred it all together. Then I added Daiya Cheddar Cheese -- one of my new favorite things -- about a cup of salsa, and a bit of sour cream. I mashed avocado on a wheat wrap, then threw down the mush.

Pretty. Damn. Good.

Quick Red Posole with Beans: Ugh. When I wait too long to do these Weakly Reviews I forget how I feel about meals. Eating it doesn't stand out as a memorable experience. I'm going to guess that I really liked this posole because, dude, it has hominy in it and hominy is like my favorite. It makes your teeth feel hilarious. Also: These are all the same ingredients we always use, except in a different order. OH GAH I FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO OF IT!

Louisiana Gumbo: This speaks to all your fake meat needs with double dosages of a) soy sausage and b) chicken-ish seiten. Seiten is so hit or miss for me. These huge wing-like pieces of fake meat kind of skeeve me out to work with, even though I know they aren't made with anything gross. I think that I wish I'd browned them up more while making this. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I like my fake meat a little more well-done.

Veggie Pot Pie Stew: I really liked this hearty stew with pot pie flavors. What really makes it is the thickening agent -- flour and water mixed together in a something that the recipe creator refers to as "slurry"-- which gives it a real gruel vibe. Likey like. We skipped the mushrooms. The recipe is from "Appetite for Reduction," my favorite vegan cookbook.

Pumpkin Polenta with Tomatillo (and technically Avocado) Salsa: This is a nice gateway between the end of summer and fall. Pumpkin polenta with a homemade tomatillo salsa (that I forgot to put a hot pepper and avocado into). We had it with fake Italian Sausages.

MOVIES
Mommie Dearest: Movie One of our Mental Illness marathon should have been saved for the finale. One of the best things about it is Roger Ebert's review of it, when it was just released, in which he disses it and says "It left me feeling creepy."

Regardless, it was a totally delicious film.

Sybil This one stars Sally Fields playing everyone. I remember watching it in class in high school. It is so very long. I always forget that it is based on a situation that came from close to my home town.

Terri: This indie flick is the story of a high school misfit who is taking care of his dementia-saddled uncle and has opted to wear pajamas to school every day. He is taken in by the school's assistant principal and two other socially-challenged classmates. It was ok.

Catfish : I want to believe that this documentary about a guy who befriends and 8-year-old girl, an artist, on the internet, then is friended by her entire family and social circle is true. It's pretty gripping and pretty awful as it unfolds. If it's fake, as the internet has suggested, I choose not to know.

Mega Python vs. Gatoroid: This sci/fi original film stars Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, the former as an improbable activist professor, the latter as an improbable game warden. It's cute that someone sat down and wrote this movie and wasn't at all embarrassed to send it to the sy/fi network so that we could watch it.

It's Kind of a Funny Story: My gah. This movie about a kid who checks himself into the psyche ward and in the process learns a thing or two about love (from Zach Galifianakis) is so, so, so stupid.

TV MARATHON
Friday Night Lights: The First Season: I guess the world was right. This show is tits. I think it might require an entire post of its own.

BOOKS
The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach: This is my numero uno book from 2011 so far. It's got a small college baseball team frame, but that doesn't ruin it at all.

Full review here.

The Visible Man: A Novel by Chuck Klosterman: If you are a fan of Chuck Klosterman's essays, but think his last piece of fiction was a little bunk and played outside of his strengths, this will change your opinion. This is a pretty good little short novel about a man who has the ability to become something like invisible and he uses that to observe people who are alone to get to the root of who they are at their core.

Full review will be here.

Mistaken identity ...

2011-09-24T01:42:00.000-05:00

We were wrong about Orin, black and white with an oversized soul patch. He was miscast as the cuddly little bugger. Well-behaved. A foil to Hal, reckless and unpredictable, a true athlete, a blur of grey and greenish stripes who has no time for ear scratching and baby talk.

Orin is actually an evil genius. A cuddly evil genius, yes. But an evil genius nonetheless.

If, for instance, you were settling in to bed and heard repeated crashes from downstairs, it would be Orin who has found a way onto the window sill via office chair then cabinet, has been playing paw-tennis with a 6-inch plastic dinosaur and an All Star Wrestler figurine. It means that Orin is now hiding behind an aloe plant, looking like an old-timey portrait of a dignitary, a single flick from sending the aloe plant crashing to the floor. That look on his face: thinly veiled sarcasm.

If, for instance, you were reading and the door busted open and Hal came sprinting into the bedroom, he's just running decoy. It's Orin who slinks in on tiptoes amid the chaos, slinks beneath the bed.

I assumed that one of the kitties would take lead in the relationship, but at this point they seem to be equal partners in crime. Which is to say that when they collide in mid-air, fall to the earth spinning, then perform three double-somersaults, nipping at each other's faces -- like they do every waking minute -- it's requited. Sometimes Hal chases Orin from the top of the house, down two flights of steps to the basement; Sometimes Orin chases Hal. Sometimes Hal boxes out Orin at the food trough; Sometimes Orin gets his face low and in the bowl and stretches his shoulders all wide-like.

I've only ever seen Orin leap off a box, though, furry arms extended, land on Hal's back and ride him around the living room. Orin also tries to nurse off of Hal's stomach and deigns to clean his buddies ears and asshole. Hal likes to nuzzle Orin's neck, though. These two are just drenched with each other's saliva.

There is something about owning two kittens that makes everything seem like it should end with an exclamation point.

It's easy to see where this is all going. Orin, in five years, a doughy slacker with a philosophy major and ill-fitting Atari T-shirts. It's the power of the soul patch. Hal, meanwhile, is going to stay lean and mean, our champion mouser shrugging off rabid recruiters from rodent infested mansions.

Siete! ...

2011-09-20T01:37:00.000-05:00

You know, from this angle she really does look like her dad.

Usually when Former Landlord asks me to babysit, I limp out of it with some excuse that is either true or sort of true. There really isn't a good time to go nose to snot-crusted nose with a wild eyed demon toddler and that is exactly what she is. You would be more surprised if her head didn't do a 360 on her neck, gallons of something resembling chunky Tahitian Treat gushing from her face like the most powerful of lawn sprinklers.

Dear, dear Em.

Historically, if I set foot near the little monster she weeps like I locked her in a room and made her watch "Beaches." I believe that children have freaky supernatural senses. That her tears have something to do with cigarette burns on my soul. Or the time when I was 23 and jumped on a small stage in a bar in St. Paul on New Years Day, sang "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac backed by a reluctant organist, then flashed the room for no reason I can think of, except that "Girls Gone Wild" was getting popular and the vision of naughty coeds had lodged in my brain as a Bad Idea, yet got carried by a current of Tequila over to the Good Idea territory.

Em sees all of that. I really believe it.

Or maybe she just doesn't like me. That happens. In fact, today I was driving along and a car was coming toward me in the opposite lane. From more than a block away I could see a stump-like figure jutting past the top of the steering wheel. When I got closer, I realized the driver was just giving me the finger -- super hard and for a super long time for no real reason. Huh.

About quarterly I'll try again with Em. See if anything has shifted. If her forked tongue has grown together and the scales have been exfoliated from her skin. I do this with mushrooms, too. You are allowed to not like something. But a responsible adult owes it to the planet to occasionally re-evaluate. Mushrooms, for the record, still taste like the dankest corner of the grossest basement.

My Former Landlord had errands to run, so I agreed to watch Cujo for an hour. I knew it was going to be rough. Luckily, I think her cry face is hilarious. And I planned to tell her as much.

So much for that plan. I was greeted at the front door by Miss Congeniality. All gap-toothed grin and wild hair, dizzy over today's episode of Dora. Dare I say, even friendly? It had to be a ruse.

She led me to the kitchen, where we removed thick slabs of duct tape that were holding one of the two refrigerator's shut and performed a yogurt raid. She wasn't even trying to be hilarious when she got it into the hair on the back of her head and slathered it on her legs like lotion. When I got a cloth to wash her face, she skirted away from me and dove head first into a mound of blankets. The joke was on her: When she emerged, she was clean.

I got her to clean the yogurt splatters that were Pollack'ed into the carpeting and throw away the empty container, sat back satisfied and thought: Huh. I'm good at tricking little kids.

I let her perform all sorts of dangerous gymnastics including the word "BLASTOFF!" and face plants into the couch. Then I let her remove the plastic bag from a garbage can and wear that can as a failed hat. We would've gone outside, but I'm not sure the mangy being has shoes.

An hour later her dad returned. By then Em had taught me to say "seven" in Spanish ("siete"), though out of context. I took my umbrella from the umbrella stand and flew home.

Cat Power ...

2011-09-17T18:27:00.003-05:00

Here Hal does that classic yawn move, putting his arms around a sleeping Orin.

The plan was to get a tiny baby calico the shelter had named Sandy, and that we were going to rename Madam Psychosis. No plans to love her. I accidentally did that with Toonses, then he went mental spinning in circles, running into walls, tipping over. We had him put to sleep and snot oozed from my face like a DIY soft serve dispenser and I honestly thought I would never, ever stop crying for the rest of my life.

Up until last weekend, I had no intention of getting another pet. I said as much to my high school friends while we were on a pontoon. No way, man. It's terrible.

A few nights later I heard mice. I went to plug in my laptop and found evidence that there had been a turd party beneath the dining room table. Insect-sized pellets clinging to the cord. We set out some poison, which was ignored, and started scrolling through the animal shelter websites. I decided to mentally consider the kitten an employee. Perhaps I would develop a fondness for the guy, like anyone who spends years in your employ. But then we were cooing over pinched furry faces and alert ears. First taken with a little guy named Precious, then forgetting him on impact with Sandy mid-stride, sleepy little mug pointed at the camera.

When we pulled into the parking lot, a woman was getting into the passenger seat of a car. Sandy draped in her arms.

"Noooo!" I said. "Was that Sandy?!"
Chuck nodded.

We forged ahead. Were led to a playroom where about 15 kittens and cats were going apeshit, scurrying around like rabid rodents. Tails high, jumping from surface to surface. Wrestling and nipping at each other and then sprinting under the couch. It was panic inducing.

I used to have a reoccurring dream in which I was stuck in a room full of orange cats varying slightly in weight or length. I had to try to figure out which one was Toonses and which ones were feral alley cats coated in gross. They were skinny bone bags, like snakes with hair.

"This is like your nightmare," Chuck said.

A little grey and black guy immediately caught our attention, all daredevil and lightning, while a black and white cutie nuzzled our shoelaces. There was another grey cat, sleek and grey, faster than the rest. Chuck called him Wildcard. We were left in this room alone for about 10 minutes of pure chaos. How do you pick out a future employee?

A woman came into the room stroking a fatty.
"How many are you going to get?" she asked.

"One," I said, streaks of fur zipping around in my peripheral.
Her face fell. Like, you read that phrase all the time -- "her face fell" -- and it's a cliche and a tired descriptor. But this woman's face literally fell. Muscles slack. Like someone had cranked the gravity a few notches.

She told us we should get two. The adjustment would be easier. They keep each other entertained. Best friends forever, and all that.

The grey one was a given. The prettiest kitten in a room full of kittens. Plus he was interesting, energetic and spontaneous. Prone to wind sprints and gigantic, aerodynamic leaps. And who could deny the little guy at our feet. The orphan with pin curls who has perfected big innocent eyes, climbs into your lap and calls you "mama."

So we got two. Neither are female, so there went Madam Psychosis. They are both about three months old and just more than 2 pounds. They seem to get along okay. Right now they are spooning on the couch. They have taken turns chasing each other from floor to floor. One of them has discovered the litter box -- not sure which -- and the other is TBA. I'll know when and if I put a shirt on and it's got a cat-butt sized stain of wet.

This is Hal:

He is a freaking maniac. He busted out of the carrier and had the entire house figured out within 15 minutes. Slipping beneath a bookshelf, climbing curtains, examining the shower drain. He is a holy terror. When his little buddy finally crashed, Hal paced around the couch trying to keep his eyes open.

This is Orin, who after he slowly got some mojo would not sit still long enough to be photographed:

Orin is more thoughtful. He went through the house inch by inch, examining everything very slowly and deliberately. Then he too went loco and wouldn't sit still.

My sense is that Orin likes to cuddle and Hal likes to stab people in the eyeball.

Check yourself (before you wreck yourself) ...

2011-09-14T00:04:00.000-05:00

REALITY
On my way to the self check-out at the grocery store, this older woman on a cell phone cruises past me. She's talking to her daughter, expressing hurt feelings over a slighting. As I begin running cans of beans through the check out, she settles into the adjacent manned lane behind another customer.

She's facing me. Looking almost right at me. I can practically feel her arthritic claw poking my chest. She says into the phone:

"Oh, no. I NEVER use the self check out. NEVER. It costs people jobs. Using the self check-out. I NEVER use it. Nope. A lot of my friends won't. It costs people jobs. I NEVER. Use. The. Self. Check. Out."

I keep my eyes on her, lest I miss the opportunity to give her the finger.

FAN FICTION
I slow down what is typically a pretty efficient system, this self check-out. Match my bagging to her bagging, then jump out just in front of her at the exit. Pull my cell phone out of my back pocket and have a fake conversation:

"Oh, no. I never talk on my phone in line at the grocery store. Never! It's obnoxious! Talking on my cell phone in line at the grocery store. I NEVER do it. Nope. A lot of my friends won't. It's obnoxious. I NEVER. Talk. On. My. Phone. In. Line. At. The. Grocery. Store."

Headlock ensues.
Fade to black.

Blue hoodie ...

2011-09-13T00:38:00.000-05:00

In first grade I had the opportunity to wear my brother's navy blue hoodie to school as a lightweight jacket. This felt like a fantastic luxury, the sleeves long, covering my hands. That's how we wore sweatshirts in 1982.

I felt so cool on the playground. Plaid skirt wrapping around my knees as I ran the bases. Oversized sweatshirt bagging at the elbows. My two best friends at the time, Fannie and Al, grabbed me. They yanked on the sleeves, then tied them together. Zipped up my sweatshirt, cinched the hood and tied a knot so I couldn't see.

When the recess bell rang, they ran into the school, cackling bullies. Especially Al and the daily tutorials from her three older siblings. They had a garage fort filled with lyrics and graffiti and nudie mags. She knew every swear word, had busted a Peeping Tom at her bedroom window, and mimed what it meant to hump, shaking her hips like she was dancing.

I tripped blindly toward the door to the school and was stopped by the playground lady. That was the job title. "Playground lady." She asked me who had done this to me and I wouldn't tell her. My first grade teacher figured it out pretty fast, though. I can't remember if they got in trouble.

We're friends again. Well, at least Fannie and me. Al moved to Wisconsin in seventh grade and I never saw her again.

Ninety-four! Ninety-four! ...

2011-09-12T00:06:00.001-05:00

The truth is: I loved high school. Perhaps karma decided enough-is-enough, Miss Halcyon Days, and made college wretched instead. Forced me to make payments on skating through my early-to-mid teens, a world filled with reams of purple and gold crepe school spirit, giggles, mud-caked shins packed into a sweaty-foot smelling school bus chugging home from track meets. We were, admittedly, a Disney version. Mr. Misty Freezes at Dairy Queen, gift-wrapping trees in Charmin, face paint. My biggest complaints would have been acne, curfew and unrequited love. And none of those really deserve an empathetic nod, and "I'm so sorry you had to live through that."

What's most surprising is that we didn't occasionally bust into flash mob choreography, that the story isn't categorized as a musical, downloads available for $9.99 on iTunes.

Every year my friends from high school rent a cabin near Brainerd for the weekend. The roster has subtle changes from year to year, and in fact this past weekend was only my third trip. Now I'm a lifetime member. I've known half of these people since 1982. Strange to think that I couldn't yet write in cursive, adored "The Eye of the Tiger," my prized possession was a stuffed Garfield dressed in jogging attire and I had the capacity to make friends I'd know forever. Kudos, 7-year-old Chrissy!

I get there late Friday night every year, but this year I had an excuse. My friends Radzo and QT had their wedding reception at The Depot. My friend Tuska had married them earlier in the day. I was bummed about leaving. The overlap was cruel. Regardless, the former wore a kicky white dress, red shoes, flower in her hair and the latter had a white suit. They were lovely, a a kind of glowing commercial for young love. I watched the event unfold on Facebook later and wished that thing had been invented where you could be at a wedding reception at the Depot and in Brainerd at the same time.

I was greeted at the cabin door by my friend Dong, who I hadn't seen in close to 10 years. He's the cutest: Bobby Brady face, with calves that remind me of chicken drumsticks from the Renaissance Festival. I've spent much of my life eyeing those suckers and craving BBQ.

Donger eats chips while wearing my high school track jacket, a retro piece of clothing that rides up in such a way that it looks like a halter coat. Once a year, one of the boys likes to wear it.

Here I am with Fannie Face.

Most people went to bed, but Fannie, Dong, J-rey and I stayed up and played Family Feud on the iPad (Instruments played on street corners? Items of clothing associated with other countries?) Then Fannie and I sat on a dock for awhile.

"We should go skinny dipping," she said.

"No way," I said.

"It's not like we're going to make out," she said.

"Just hug?" I asked.

We stayed on the dock until we were sure the woods across the lake were filled with serial killers and wild boars; the water waist-high in snakes.

Then we went to bed, sharing a room with my friend Polish and his wife Small Fry. I'm sure this isn't on their wish list of sleeping arrangements. But I like to think it is good practice for when they begin hosting the slumber parties they will undoubtedly be hosting shortly.

I spent most of Saturday in a cloudy, sun-stroked beer haze. I make an exception on day drinking just this one time of the year. Outside of Gull Lake, day drinking is a piss-soaked, blood-letting, cry-fit disaster waiting to happen. At Gull Lake, it's a Salt n' Pepper remix singing, Bloody Mary chugging, sunburned delight.

We were on a pontoon by noon, cruising around, listening to music, eating Cheez-Its and getting weird.

Fannie and Small Fry, dressed as a 1920s movie star, bask in the sun.

Polish always likes wearing other people's clothes. Here he is sporting Dong's tank top.

Look at that fun-in-the-sun crew.

This is probably when the wheels came off: Princess Linda, Fannie and Z getting dance-y.

It was a hot day on Gull Lake. At one point everyone decided to jump into the water. I hadn't worn swim suit bottoms. I took my F in Advanced Beginners Swimming and minded the pontoon while the water baby freaks acted like they had never before been submerged in liquid. They were little bobbing heads, cackling at the hilarity of wet.

Eventually I couldn't take it anymore, so I strapped on an orange life vest and backed slowly into the lake in a pair of Princess Linda's shorts that she very kindly allowed me borrow, knowing I would be using them as a sieve for urinations. See? Friends forever. I dog-paddled around, face poking out of the drink. The neck-high in water terror past quickly and I could breathe again.

Here's Z, seemingly in the early stages of a fist bump.

This is my favorite photo of Princess Linda. She looks like she might fly away.

Ahh. This almost makes up for the time we didn't get to go on vacation.

Princess Linda and Donger ... I really did a bang up job framing this one.

Fannie and I were drinking a mix of Berry Weiss and Honey Weiss in plastic cups. Dong walked past, picked a chunk of ice off the floor of the pontoon, wiped it off on his shirt and dropped it into my glass.

We went back to the cabin, cleaned up and got ready for a night on the town. This Super Hot Dance Club in the Greater Brainerd Area. We didn't last long in that sea of bachelorette parties and Humpty Dance remixes. I went outside for a second and could not physically drag myself back into the bar. Everyone else filed out soon after.

Readers: I was in bed before midnight on a Saturday night.

I woke up this morning to the sound of Princess Linda and Z peeling out of the parking lot, gone before I was even awake. We all followed soon after.

Ghostbusters! ...

2011-09-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

Chuck: Whoa. Did you see that?
Me: What?
Chuck: This just slide by itself.
(Takes top of coffee grinder and slides it across the counter to demonstrate).
Me: Sweet! You know what that means!?
(In my head: Ghosts. Ghosts. Ghosts. Ghosts!)
Chuck: Yeah. There was water on the counter.
Me: Yeah.

Weakly super sized ...

2011-09-04T16:47:00.001-05:00

Crikies. I haven't done one of these in awhile. I'm absolutely rich in content. Hold on to your hats, internet faces.

Here is what I've been making, watching and reading, reading, reading.

CLEANING OUT MY PHONE

A few weeks ago I went to my friend D-Rock's wedding, the ceremony was in Leif Erickson Park on what might have been the nicest day of the entire summer. They also had this amazing singer in the dauntingest of high heels perform before during and after. She had this great voice, like Frente, kind of. Our group popped a squat right on the grass. It was all lovely.

Then FScotty and I made off with my friend Dude's son Eli. (Both wondering what we look like holding a child. Answer: FScotty got huge props from his boyfriend, I looked like Rebecca De Mornay from "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.")

FOOD

Red and White Cauliflower Bake: This is a little bit like lasagna, but made out of cauliflower that is on this really moist and flavor-y layer of seasoned tofu and awesome. Chuck made it and he reports low difficulty level, high pot count.

Wasabi Pea Crusted Tofu with Hoisin Glazed Broccoli: Tofu is marinated in first soy sauce, then dragged through a dust of wasabi peas and nutritional yeast and then fried up. We had it with sauteed broccoli that was doused in a mix of hoisin and water. Zoiks! So good. Status two hours later: Hungry. I just dumped the wasabi dust straight into my face.

Once again: Not a plater or food photographer. Obvs.

Steamed Vegetable Dumplings: For those of you who like to use your imagination, these looked a bit like Gremlins. Particularly Spike. First I food processed a carrots, garlic and broccoli, then mixed in some red miso and soy sauce. Stop here! This blend is whoa. I couldn't stop eating gobs of this as I was making the rest. Continue: Wrap these in wanton wrappers and then steam them. They are best served hot out of the steamer. We dipped them in a mix of soy sauce and wasabi mustard. GO, MAKE, EAT!

Warm Kale Salad: This is what I ordered for my birthday dinner. It's an easy mix of Kale, Onions and Tofu. I sprinkled in some hot sauce, because I'm really into hot sauce like big time. It's very fast and easy and good.

And it was a nice preface for the real treat: The Dairy Queen Heath Bar Blizzard Cake.

MOVIES
Good Hair: This is a documentary starring Chris Rock in which he studies African American hair, wandering around the world to the root of weaves and the importing business. It's all focused around an annual hair competition that requires more than just scissors and a plan: Winning requires a schtick -- and in one case a marching band. This is really super duper interesting, and of course funny with Chris Rock at the helm.

In Bruges: This movie has been recommended by about 150 people and it is fantastic. A newbie hitman makes an error during his first gig that lands him in Bruges with his mentor. It's funny. It's bloody. It's twisted. Loved it.

Another Year: Admittedly I was only half-assedly watching this. It's a lot of talk -- plenty of it uncomfortable -- and little action. But it's good in retrospect. Long, though. And hardly satisfying. A little depressing. But good. I swear. It's good. It's about a woman who works as a councilor, that maternally huggish person you wanna spill your guts to. It follows a year in the life of her and the fuck ups in her circle.

Sucker Punch: The opening scene in this movie is super intense. And then it is like watching someone play a video game. I lasted about a half hour before turning it off.

BOOKS
I'm going to be brief here. This list is a monster. As always all reviews are either posted to, or soon to be posted to, Minnesota Reads.

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter by Mark Seal: Aside from a few annoying little ticks and a bit of repetition in the first part of the book, this non-fiction tale of a man who travels through the United States reinventing himself with recognizable last names is pretty fast-paced and gripping. I can't wait to suck it up and download Lifetime's movie about Clark Rockefeller. I'd read it.

The Glass Castle: A Memoirby Jeannette Walls: Unbelievably wicked coming of age story told by a woman with the ultimate in free spirited parents with some lax ideas about addressing when the kiddies are molested. Recommended.

Half a Life: A Memoir by Darin Strauss: When he was 18, Strauss killed a schoolmate in a car accident. This is about how this has affected his life for the next 18 years. It's a doozy. Recommended.

Paying for Itby Chester Brown: When his last girlfriend broke up with him, Chester Brown decided to never have another and to stick to prostitutes for covering his sexual needs. This graphic memoir tells the story. Take it or leave it.

Kiss & Tellby MariNaomi: In this graphic memoir, sexual prodigy Mari writes about the men and women she has rolled around with between the ages of 0-22. Take it or leave it, but leaning toward take it.

Shortcomings Adrian Tomine: This graphic novel is about Ben, a sort of prickly fellow, the bust-up of his relationship with a girl who is way too good for him and his weird issues about race. Recommended.

Lola, California: A Novelby Edie Meivad: Two girls run wild in the streets of Berkeley, one's father is a guru with hordes of followers. Their story is told while he sits on death row with brain cancer. This might be the best book of 2011 (That I've read). Beautifully written.

Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin: Eilis Lacey gets a ticket out of her small Irish town and into Brooklyn, where she starts a new life for herself. This one is meh.

Big mouth strikes again ...

2011-09-02T23:45:00.000-05:00

I'm hardly a foodie since I have a dead tongue and truly believe cheese sauce made from nothing involving actual real-live cheese is delicious. But I do like food. And usually one of my favorite parts of vacation is eating -- whether it is out of a cart, a $6 mash of spicy mush from a no-star restaurant in Thai Town or from a place that Yelpers can't stop yammering about.

Before we went to New York, JCrew asked if I wanted her to make me a list of restaurants.

"No," I said.
"You know this is kind of my area of expertise," she said.
"Uh huh," I said, relishing that incredulous look on her face. "Absolutely not."
"Just a few?" she asked.
"Nah."

Actually I didn't care if she made a list. But it's always funny to fuck with her about something she's super into. It would be interesting, but our tastes lean very differently. She is a sucker for Italian and an awesome appetizer. I'm more Thai and a rich dessert.

That said: She made sure our trip to Virginia in April was filled with mouth explosions -- Those Oysters, ohgod the oysters -- so finally I agreed and she made this gigantic list that included links and kept our location in mind.

Then, of course, we ended up not eating anywhere barely because our vacation was interrupted by that bitch Irene. So.

Regardless, here is what I ate on vacation. This includes New York and then Duluth -- because when we got home we still pretended to be tourists. Also: Before I started taking photos, I had Bahn Mi in Minneapolis when we met up with Fannie and her friend, which was good. I was making homemade Bahn Mi before I'd ever tasted real-live Bahn Mi. So whenever I can get Bahn Mi, I get Bahn Mi.

I've decided to not name the restaurants, but leave defining features and here is why: a) I don't want to be a "Food Writer" in a way that someone takes anything I say at all seriously, though I do want to write about food because b) I do like to be a reader of writing about food so it is natural that I would, on some level, want to do it and so c) It's totally not worth being Google-able about although d) I did name Prune because it's a celebrity.

VEGAN RESTAURANT, Brooklyn
This vegan restaurant was millimeters from our hotel. It was totally cute and had that sort of not-quite sterile vibe that seems to be the trend in vegan dining. A sort of "Oh. You want a clean fork?" eye roll. We sat in a booth covered in throw pillows.

I had a Spinach Wrap, which was a mix of sauteed garlic and spinach mixed with black beans and dairy-free sour cream and cheese, and salsa. It was gooey and delicious, such a simple entree. I'll be making this at home. We also both had Ginger Squeeze, a pint of ginger, lemon and apple juice. Super spicy. (I forgot that it is more aesthetically pleasing to take a food photo before you ram your fork into the middle of it).

For dessert we split Brownie Cheesecake, which was very rich and lacked that tell-tale tofu flavor that sometimes makes vegan desserts a little meh. It was not made in-house, but it did spark this rule of vacation: We will only eat dessert once a day if possible.

Chuck had Sesame Seitan and wasn't feeling it. It was pretty one-note and the noodles were not quite al dente.

Before dinner we got a small bowl filled with these squares of corn chip that were really thick and flakey and a couple dollops of fresh salsa. This trumped all.

STREET FOOD, Manhattan
I had an onion bagel with cream cheese from a cart. Bravo!

PRUNE, Manhattan
This one met JCrew's approval, as we both read owner Gabrielle Hamilton's food memoir at the same time in April and were curious about this tiny neighborhood restaurant she opened. (If you haven't read the book, let me assure you that there is a delicious scene involving a dead-maggot filled rat that she discovers out back one morning that makes the entire book worth reading).

I had a Caraway and Sour Cream Omelette, which was fantastic. Really creamy in the middle and served with some sort of homemade rye bread. Big love.

Chuck had Cold Salmon with Soupy Rice and Peas and found it a little bland.

For dessert we had a baked peach served in cream with candied walnuts. This was also really tasty.

Aside from that, the space is adorable. Very tight quarters with a retro chic bathroom and an open kitchen. No Gabrielle Hamilton sighting, which was for the best as I was feeling quite shy.

GRILL, Brooklyn
When we realized the fun factory was done-zo and that we were leaving town, Chuck wanted to cram some awful dripping mess of food into our faces. This place delivered the delicious.

I had a Grilled Holloumi Cheese, which included a Tapenade that was so flavorful and fantastic. He had a Grilled Hot Italian Sausage that was amazing and zippy. Plus, this place was super fun with half the restaurant opened to the sidewalk and diner style bar seating and a running soundtrack of rock 'n' roll. Perfect last meal ever fare.

SUN COUNTRY, somewhere over America
We got anemic-looking hotdogs that were microwaved in bun with packets of mustard and ketchup and plain potato chips. It was wonderful. I think my dad used to make hotdogs the same way, a little butter on the bun and into the zapper.

PIZZA PLACE WITH LIVE MUSIC, Duluth
This restaurant has existed almost as long as I have in Duluth, and I've gone through phases with it. For awhile we used to regularly order food to go from there. Fake Chicken Nuggets, Tuna Salad, or thick sandwiches on focaccia.

Back when I drank more than I do now I had trouble dining here. It's no fun to return, sober, to the scene of the crime.

But right now this is one of my favorite restaurants in Duluth. They have great brunch options with plenty of gluten free or vegan modifications. Plus the Bloody Mary Bar has a good mix of additions. I loaded mine up with peppers, tons of cubes of cheese and pepperoni.

I had the Pesto Eggs Benedict, which is always, always, always good. They use sausage rounds rather than Canadian Bacon and the Hollandaise is more of a Creamy Pesto Sauce. Zing!

SUSHI RESTAURANT, Duluth
Our local sushi restaurant never disappoints. My favorite thing on the menu is a hot appetizer, the Wasabi Shumai, these pork meatballs with a dash of hot hot wasabi that just bites you right back. (Chuck experimented with making these at home and did a damn-fine job).

I always get the White Tiger Roll, which includes tuna, yellowtail, salmon, crunchy, mayo, avocado and tobiki with tiger skin wrap. I love it. Although now that I'm missing a molar, it feels really weird when the roll falls directly onto my gums.

I also tried an Oyster Shooter, which was oysters and hot sauce in saki with small green onions. Verdict is still out on it, but I think now that I understand it I could learn to love it.

And with that, I shut the hell up about our vacation until we take a do-over.

Check it out ...

2011-09-02T00:06:00.000-05:00

Today I overcame one of my life fears and got a library card. This "fear" is not what you think. It's not used pages tethered together with dried mucous. It is not the pubic hair bookmarks curled in the binding. It was a fear that my name would be fed into the computer and that I'd hear the sound of a distant dot matrix going berserk. That I'd be handed a bill the size of "Congratulations on your Graduation" sign from 1992.

I've had a library card before, used it to check out books. But I've never been able to master the art of the return.

This was a problem even in elementary school where I accrued fines that rivaled the cover price of Tiger Beat magazine. I had no problem solving Encyclopedia Brown's mysteries in a timely fashion or zipping the book into my backpack. But getting it out of my backpack and walking it down the hall proved to be too much of a hassle and handwritten notices would begin to appear. Be ignored. Appear again, with larger fines, penned harder. (I have variations of this problem to this day. I like to think of it as keeping it real).

In one of the first short stories I ever wrote -- I must have been 9 or 10 -- our hero walks into the library, touches a book and is immediately tackled by library officials. She's thrown into the back room where she sees a picture of herself on a Wanted poster. The crime: Unpaid fines. Eventually this is all sorted out and she gets a hero's welcome at the pep fest when her classmates learn that her fines have helped fund the new computer room.

Hip! Hip! Hurray!

I got a library card soon after I moved here almost 11 years ago. I checked out three books, including Ted Hughes' "Birthday Letters," a collection of poems about Sylvia Plath. And then I never went back to the library ever again ever. Nor did I read the book, come to think of it. It is now probably filed in the poetry section in our basement, shelved somewhere between Edward Hirsch and Garrison Keillor.

Funny aside: Chuck actually was on the wait list for the book. Dibs on it when it was returned, which it never was, but now it is in his basement. And he hasn't read it either. Fate!

I got a library card because I spend a ridiculous amount of money on books. This is my financial priority. If I had $28 to my name, an ounce of gas in my car, two rotten bananas on the counter and a new buzz book was released, well. In the last two hours of our vacation I bought six books. Four were graphic novels that I relished buying from a real-live comic book store; Two were at a regular old bookstore on a table filled with books about Brooklyn by Brooklynites, which I justified by thinking "Well. If I can't physically be here on vacation, I can at least read about it."

Chuck has started a new program where he matches my book purchases with a record purchase. This has made me a little out-of-body-experience, hyper-aware every time I hand my check card to a bookseller -- once a mindless gesture, a tick. I don't buy willy nilly, either. I buy hardcovers if I have to. I buy in bulk. I'm a book bulimic.

The unfortunate truth is that not everything I read is worth buying. Of course, you can't always know that ahead of time, but even I can do the math: About 90 percent of what I read is a 3-star pick I'll forget about as soon as I read the first sentence of the next 3-star pick. I'm hoping, with the help of this library card, to hold my purchases to things I suspect of greatness.

"Did anyone say anything to you?" Chuck asked when I flashed him my plastic.
"Yeah. She said 'Ever heard of a certain someone named TED HUGHES?!'" I lied.

Anyway, I checked out a mucous stained copy of "Sophie's Choice" and when I opened it I was greeted with a rain of pubic hair.

NOTE: Oddly enough, I had just started kicking around getting a library card a few days ago when I was struggling to find a copy of "Sophie's Choice" at a used bookstore. Then Kristin wrote a post about getting a library card and she finished off the sale. I will be forwarding all fine notices to her.

The Hallmark of the internet ...

2011-08-31T23:40:00.000-05:00

This year I showed great restraint during my birthday week by not taking the gigantic box that arrived from Zappos, locking myself in the laundry room, ripping into the fucker and then wearing the contents of said box immediately to the grocery store. (Putting them back in the box, resealing it and then sitting on it with my legs crossed, whistling casually when Chuck woke up).

There is a story from when I was just a pimply teenager desperate for a Y necklace. Found one hiding in a box in my mom's nightstand a few days before Easter. Family lore has me returning it in favor of one I liked better before my mom had a chance to wrap it. As much as I want that story to be true, it simply is not. I waited to return it until after I opened it. I can't wait until I'm so old that I only remember the fable version.

I did, however, set my alarm for 12 a.m. and by 12:00.15 I was wearing these suckers -- which I've wanted since I saw Leisha Hailey of "The L Word" wearing awesome cowboy boots on stage when her band Uh Huh Her performed at Pride last year.

Another victorious gift from Chuckles Van Chuckerstein.

I'll say this for Facebook: It certainly knows how to do up a birthday. I haven't been so delighted by responses from friends and family in, like, ever. All these long-lost faces popping up to say "Happy Birthday" or give me some special message -- like that today was also Gina from the GoGos birthday! (Thanks, Jodi) -- what a treat.

Facebook, you are the Hallmark of the Internet.

I haven't gone out wreckin' on my birthday for two years, but Chuck and I found another suitable way to damage our innards:

The Dairy Queen Heath Bar Blizzard Ice Cream Cake. My slice was more like a slab. So delicious. I still wanted to barf. And it provided its own special variety of hangover.

So bummed that now I have to go back to it not being my birthday anymore.

That bitch Irene (owes me a vacation) ...

2011-08-30T00:45:00.000-05:00

Getting shat upon is good luck, my friend Nora Gabora tells me. We're sitting in an Italian bar in Brooklyn on Thursday night. Chuck is to my left, crayon-ing images of Spiderman for her almost 3 year old son T -- a task master with a certain charming smile.

At the time that sounded fantastic. Luck is my religion and if it takes a glob of snot-colored pigeon diarrhea oozing down my radius to get it, well I'll take a gallon. Unfortunately, 24 hours later Chuck and I would be uvula deep in microwaved hot dogs on an un-budgeted natural disaster flight out of New York City, cutting our vacation three days short.

Bird shit became, simply, bird shit.

***

We got to New York mid-afternoon Wednesday and settled into a 42-day-old hotel in the Gowanus, a Brooklyn neighborhood known for the septic stink of its namesake canal. We were about two blocks from restaurants, boutiques, markets and fruit stands. From the roof lounge of the hotel, the Manhattan skyline looked like a back drop for senior portraits.

We had dinner and then went for a walk toward Prospect Park. Wandered through Greenlight Bookstore because one time Gary Shteyngart read there, and then crashed early in our hotel room, a clean space that was at least 80 percent bed with an industrial window view.

***

The next morning we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, site of the Great Cloverfield Battle of 2008. Dorkily enough, this was exhilarating. The views, the enormity of it all. The tourists dodging joggers and bikers. To our left and in the distance were stacks of skyscrapers. In a few minutes we would just be two specks dropped into the middle of this massive ego graveyard.

And then we were in the thick of it with loose plans. We budgeted the next few hours as "Manhattan Day," pinging from thing to thing. Walk past this. Stare at that. Shop here. Maybe catch some live music, or maybe not. Eat food out of a cart. Check. Onion bagel with cream cheese.

We crawled up out of the subway to a burst of rain. Took shelter under an awning at the Hotel Chelsea. Then made for Madison Square Park to check out "Echo," a temporary art installation by Jaume Plensa. This 44-foot tall structure is the face of a girl done in white marble. Elongated head and soft facial indentations. It seemed like if you touched it, it would be warm and smooth. It is peaceful. Lovely.

Then it really started to pour so we skittered under some trees and then it poured harder so we climbed into a dog park where it was hard to tell if were tip toeing through small yellow-tinged pools of urine or water. But there was an umbrella in there, so we waited.

Buses filled with tourists in matching rain ponchos sitting in the upper deck kept driving past and every single time we laughed at the sight.

We ate lunch at Prune, a small restaurant in Nolita and the sort-of star of the book "Blood, Bones and Butter," a food memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton that I read in the spring. Then we shopped for items to work toward completing my transformation from a person who "wears clothes," to someone who "sports costumes."

We stopped into a bookstore to use the bathroom and I learned a fascinating cultural trend: When you use a public restroom that requires a quarter payment, you always hold the door for the next person so they can pee for free. That's just how it is.

***

That night we met up with my friend Nora Gabora and her son at an Italian bar slash restaurant between our neighborhoods. We've known each other for more than 20 years, but hadn't seen each other in a decade. In that time she's lived in lots of places, gotten married and pushed out this kid who is 100 percent personality. "Draw Spiderman," he told Chuck. "Now draw Spiderman's pants." And then he would giggle like gangbusters at the final product.

Nora remembers everything I've forgotten about high school: How Princess Linda and I sat in the balcony at her confirmation because we had come to spy on a confirmation sponsor with a bubble butt and a way with the 3-point line; The time Nora and I went to see that same confirmation sponsor as a sort of intervention to leave Princess Linda alone unless he really liked her. This was great fun.

Back at the hotel, Chuck began expressing misgivings about the rest of our trip. In his eyes Hurricane Irene was going to end with one of us getting beaned in the head with a flying brick. In my mind we had front row seats for a hurricane party. We could sit at the window with the industrial view and watch flood water swallow utility vehicles, domesticated pets swirling in the bonus tornados all while eating onion bagels and sipping from a shared can of Coke.

"It's not like we're going to be able to do anything fun," he said the next morning as we read transcripts of the mayor's catastrophe speech and news updates and weather reports.

The airports were scheduled to close.
The power could go out for weeks.
Public transportation would be temporarily stalled.

We started looking for alternate flights home. Our original plan had been to leave Monday and we had a layover in North Carolina. Our airline still had that flight scheduled to run as planned. And even though North Carolina was getting hammered, that airline's only options out involved that same route home. Eventually we got a flight on a different airline, leaving that evening.

We made a break for some last ditch fun in the streets of Brooklyn on what was supposed to be our Coney Island Day. "I'm going to eat like three different things that come from a cow," Chuck said when we settled into a rock 'n' roll grill a few blocks from our hotel. Then we did something akin to Supermarket Sweep through neighborhood shops.

I sent JCrew an email: "I just hate fucked a bunch of bookstores."

Everyone in every store was talking about the hurricane.
Restaurants had chalked "Hurricane Specials" onto menu boards.
A gas station had about 30 cars vying for room at the pumps.
A man was selling a sump pump in the streets.

When it came time to pack, I started to feel sick to my stomach. I didn't want to leave. Not even in the face of a natural disaster. I wanted to see things I'd never seen before -- including a hurricane. This was our vacation, our reprieve from the real world. We had spent a lot of money to only get one full day in New York. There were still things to do, see and eat. No offense to my little town that I love, but I had no desire to set foot in Duluth, where everything non-vacation exists. I couldn't even look at Facebook. The innocuous status updates from Duluth friends were lemon juice in the lesions of my pleasure center.

We were leaving because in situations like this, I defer to the more responsible person in our relationship. The one who doesn't want either of us to succumb to a traumatic brain injury. The one who gambles on it being worse. The one who remembers that I can't swim.

I was a sullen weepy mess the entire way to the airport and missed out on seeing a prostitute at work and livestock in a pen in the median. I imagined that if this was the first half of a grrl power movie, I would stand at the security check point, shake his hand and say: "Hasta la pasta. I'm staying. Godspeed, good fellow." And then I would walk away, stick a snorkel into my face and deal with the repercussions later. Or not at all. Unfortunately, I'm burdened by being in love with someone who considers keeping us both alive to be a priority. God.

***

I have a short attention span for any sort of dour mood. So by the time they started handing out snack-sized packs of plain potato chips and shriveled hotdogs in shriveled microwave buns, I was over it. Mostly.

***

We got back to Duluth at about 2 a.m. Saturday morning. From then on we've tried to maintain the vacation vibe, keep that fun balloon in the air. We've:

Had brunch at Pizza Luce.
Browsed at Electric Fetus.
Gone on a hunt for a copy of "Sophie's Choice" at used bookstores.
Read books.
Gone out for sushi.

Attended at combined bachelorette/bachelor party at RT Quinlan's.

Attempted a public performance of "Bad Romance" as well as reprising "Midnight Train to Georgia" and "Alone," per the bride's wishes

Ridden a Zip Line at our local adventure center.
Been Old Country Buffet'ed by mosquitoes.

And now that "Last day of summer vacation, wow the pleats in my new plaid skirt are super stiff and these new yellow socks are cutting off my circulation" feeling.

Hurricane Radzo: No evacuation required ...

2011-08-29T00:12:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night we went to the conjoined Bachelorette/Bachelor parties of our friends Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack and QT. This shit show had started earlier in the day as segregated events. The ladies, I'm told, celebrated with the bulging crotch of a friend in the guise of a stripper; The dudes golfed.

We got to RT's after dinner, in time for the part where everyone sang karaoke and Radzo strutted that prowess that made her such a baller in the 1990s by carrying everyone around for awhile. I took a lot of photos. Sometimes the differences are very subtle.

And now: The Unedited Entirety of What Is On My Phone

THE DUET SERIES
(Starring Radzo and Nels)

THE CONVERSATIONAL SERIES
(Starring Radzo and Chuck)

THE PICK UP SERIES, PART I

(Starring Radzo and Chuck)

THE HEAD TRAUMA SERIES
(Starring Radzo and JCrew)

THE LAP SERIES
(Starring Chuck and Radzo)

THE VALLEY FAIR SERIES
(Starring Radzo and Me)

THE THINKING SERIES

(Starring Chuck and Radzo)

THE GESTURE SERIES
(Starring Carlb and Princey)

THE SINGING SERIES
(Starring Radzo and the Backup Dancer)

THE PICK UP SERIES, PART II
(Starring Radzo and JCrew)

THE PICK UP SERIES, PART III
(Starring Radzo and Me)

THE JOURNEY SERIES
(Starring Nels, Millsy, Carlb and The Thespian)

On the outs ...

2011-08-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

NYC -- On this episode of Our Vacation, we try to figure out how to get out of New York tonight so we aren't trapped at an airport, subsisting on burritos from Chili's, rationing toilet paper and writing missives in blood in the pages of mass market novels by Michael Connelly.

This is the worst non-vacation vacation ever. Two hours on hold with our airline. Studying Amtrak routes. We're supposed to be at Coney Island right now riding the Cyclone and barfing up hotdogs right into the Oompa Loompa bronzed laps of hairy middle aged men dressed in their finest Speedos.

That girl weeping on the roof of a hotel in Brooklyn, staring at the Manhattan skyline like a betrayed lover: That's me.

Fuck you, Earth.

Vacation Day 1: Shit stained and loving it ...

2011-08-24T19:09:00.000-05:00

BROOKLYN -- Chas and I were doing our cursory one-over of the neighborhood tonight after dinner when I felt a warm liquid ooze down my arm. Gelatinous green bird shit. I screamed first. Then berated myself for walking too close to buildings, where any old well-fed air rat might pop a squat and make it rain. Shake it's feathery fanny and proceed onto the next discarded half-eaten burrito. All in a day, all in a day.

Then I collected myself and had Chuck take a photo of it.

After chronicling it, I tried to wipe my arm in about a 6-square inch splotch of urban weed grass along the boulevard. A man across the street, who magically had a hose on him, asked if I wanted him to wash my arm.

Yes.

I skittered through traffic and he hosed me down. Later, while browsing in a bookstore, I saw a round hardened ballish clump of crap that he had missed. I flicked it off my arm outside of the store and aside from a questionable stain on the shoulder of my dress, I now seem void of bird butt debris.

I think we should all be very grateful that it was me who was shat upon and not Chuck.

"That's how I know I'm lucky," I said to him. "I mean, who gets shit on and then has a guy just appear with a hose?"
"I don't know," Chuck said. "I think I'm luckier because I didn't get shit on."

Great moments at Walgreens ...

2011-08-22T01:31:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in a chair waiting for a refill and this kid lopes up to the prescription counter and says "Plan B."

The dude working walks away, comes back. Asks for ID.
The kid hands him a license and a piece of paper.

"I just had my birthday," he said, explaining the identification. "Yesterday. 21."
"Congratulations," the employee says. "45 dollars."

Oh, the Fan Fiction. It doesn't take a Sudoku master to decode this one.

The new law ...

2011-08-19T00:29:00.000-05:00

The new law is that I must write every night. It can be a blog post, a book review for Minnesota Reads, or some of that silly nonsense that clutters up my Google Docs with names like:

The Urine Trilogy
Vagina
Exit Only
Putter

Rereading all of them is more like looking at a journal of schizophrenic episodes. Oh, that's the week I was into staccato sentences.

First I turned off the TV after "Jersey Shore" without watching "LA Ink." Then I celebrated my strong will. I plugged in my laptop and then decided to clean the kitchen. Then I celebrated cleaning the kitchen.

Void of blog fodder and currently in the middle of a few books, write-writing it is. Cursor is like a pulse, I think to myself, and in thinking that to myself realize that if this is the way I am going to be thinking, no good writing can possible follow.

I could write a blog post about plunging the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. It's a funny story, actually. And gross. Mostly gross. But there was this really great moment I'd like catalogued for the ages: Me looking at Chuck, Chuck looking at me, me realizing that here we are, adults, living in our own house with a clogged toilet. There is no escaping this chore.

I wrote a haiku about it last night because the new law is that I write. A haiku counts. I texted the final draft to Chuck, who was at work.

He said it made his gorge rise.

But back to that cursor. I wrote a sentence, liked the first half and hated the second half. I took a break. "The Portable Dorothy Parker" is sitting on a stack of books on our table, so I opened it the way some people open a bible and focus on a section and wait for an answer:

"He was a very good looking man, shaped to be annoyed." Like the first half, love the second half.

Three things that have nothing to do with anything ...

2011-08-17T00:52:00.001-05:00

Sometimes when I'm sitting here waxing hysterical about wanting to be in a band, Chuck and I will talk about how I pretended to play the alto saxophone for five years. I would probably still bumble my way through "On, Wisconsin," the school song I played at least 95 times a day for many of those years.

I wasn't much for the social implications of high school marching band and, teamed with my bestie the trumpet player Princess Linda, we found some devious ways to avoid playing at all. FYI: If your instrument is in the shop, you can get out of band. There are plenty of ways to insure your instrument is in the shop if you are creative about it. In other news, you should hear the way a trumpet sounds when it is banged against a saxophone. In other other news, you should hear the sound it makes when you drop your saxophone down two flights of stairs.

"I wonder where my saxophone is now?" I said one night.

Last I heard, my cousin Drewcifer had acquired it. Just another fifth grader repeating the trite "... will look good on my college applications ..." without really understanding the concept of college or applications. Just mumbling memorized word combinations, like "The Hail Mary" or "Our Father."

"Do you have my saxophone?" I texted him.

It's now been 15 years since he was in 5th grade. And he already graduated from that good college and that good grad school. And he didn't stick with band. And he wasn't in speech or debate. He might have played tennis.

"Yeah. I'm playing it right now," he texted back, smartass emoticon inferred.

Completely out of the blue at my parent's anniversary party my uncle said:

"Oh. We have your saxophone."

And then I laughed the inside of my abdominal muscles raw for no real reason.

***

Yesterday JCrew and I had a lunch date at a new pizza place in Canal Park.

"Can you drive?" she asked.

No problem, I said. Then I listed off some ways in which being a passenger in my car might be less than a 4 star experience.

"No air conditioner," I said.
"Meh," she was nonplussed.

We ripped out of the lot in my Barbie Car, which probably felt, to her, even smaller than it is. She drives something that would actually hurt if it ran you over, whereas if I nailed you with my car you would flap your hands and bitch about mosquitos.

We clipped along over the bridge, down a frontage road, windows open, across railroad tracks, switching lanes and saw our friend Tuska crossing a street.

Beep! Beep. I honked.

"Jesus," JCrew said. "I feel like I'm riding in a clown car."

***

I'd like to be a person who can wear lipstick. I dabble in glosses. I also abuse high-SPF chapstick because in the mid-1990s I spent a lot of time outside driving a golf cart. One day I felt my lips chapping and cracking with burn and I only had Carmex to sooth the pain. I applied a waxy coat to my lips and went back outside.

This was like smearing a frying pan with butter. My bottom lip bloated to a C-cup. Now they seem more prone to burn.

Lipstick is tricky. When I'm not currently disfigured by the sun's death rays, I have thin villainous lips. If I wear lipstick I look a man dressed as a 1950s nurse who plans to use this ruse to strangle a wealthy invalid the first time the power goes out during a storm.

No one ever showed me how to wear makeup. This is weird considering I remember my mom driving me high school. She got halfway there, the light by Hardees, looked in the mirror and realized she had forgotten to apply makeup. She muttered something about looking like death and blah blah mascara. She dropped me off and went home to fix her face before going to work.

My parents adopted me from the Indigo Girls.

The summer before sixth grade I'd bought myself a cheap tube of hot pink Wet n' Wild lipstick from Woolwoorth. It was a color that perfectly matched my favorite shorts. My mom had a friend over and I sat at a barstool in my bathroom circling my kisser with color.

I went upstairs to get something, got it, and backtracked to the basement.

"Christa's been experimenting with makeup," my mom told her friend, obviously explaining away a face-wreck.

I think of this every time I wipe my latest attempt at wearing lipstick off of my face before going in public.

A few thoughts on the greatest place on earth ...

2011-08-14T14:22:00.000-05:00

Nothing dekes me out like a collection of metal and wires jutting upward when I'm in the city of Shakopee, Minnesota. (Confidential to Jodi, who lives in Shakopee: HOW CAN YOU EVEN GO TO THE GROCERY STORE WITHOUT DETOURING TO VALLEYFAIR!?)

"IS THAT IT?!" I squealed, pointing out the car window.
"That's a power line," Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack said dismissively.
"IS THAT IT?!" I squealed.
"That's McDonalds."

It took me about three tries before I found the right organized tangle. Once I get it in my head, everything looks like Valleyfair: The greatest place on earth.

I must have been about 5 years old when I woke up one morning and my parents told us to get in the car for a big surprise. My mom had loaded up her special denim drawstring travel bag with black licorice, Lemonheads and car games. They were taking us to the amusement park for their anniversary.

I don't really remember much about that trip. Pista family lore has us kiddies on a mini coaster, easing over speed bumps and hills to a soundtrack of cat-like wailing. When the ride stopped it was revealed that Brother Pista was the culprit, not me. In the 30-plus years since that trip, this story has been used as a metaphor for something I don't quite understand. After that trip it took a few too many years for me to stop thinking every single day upon waking: "MAYBE WE'RE GOING TO VALLEYFAIR AGAIN TODAY!"

So Thursday was the big day. It's been years. I had a little flexibility in my schedule, there was no chance of rain, I had recently reevaluated some personal rules on tank tops, and I have a friend who has shown previous experience with thrill seeking.

"Did I ever tell you that I've jumped out of an airplane?" Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack says all the time every day.
"Nope."

I probably made almost-yearly trips to Valleyfair in my teens. I always imagined something very romantic would happen there. Probably under the influence of the scene from Golf N' Stuff in "Karate Kid." I'd meet a boy from Mounds View and we would fall in love on the Flume. Gasping and wet. Kiss upside down on the Viking Ship. Hold hands on the High Roller. Close out the night on the Enterprise, leaned back against him and tucked between his knees.

"His boner poking you in the back," Razdo would add later, when we walked past the ride.
"Right," I said. "He's wearing sweatpants."

OH
It occurred to me before I left Duluth that maybe Radzo didn't believe I was actually going to make the trip. We are relatively new friends and she's a bit of a bullshitter. One time she told me she was on her way to pick me up to go to a carnival in Duluth. This ruse went on long enough for me to get excited about riding the Zipper. Then she told me she was kidding. She wasn't coming to get me. We weren't going to the carnival.

When I asked her on Wednesday she seemed stoked. Sent me a text message that said: "This time tomorrow we'll be feeding each other cotton candy."

She said she was taking half the day off.
But she also said she was going to come get me and we were going to go to that carnival.
She is pretty deadpan. Does she really want to bang Emma Stone, or is that all smoke and mirrors?

I was right. When I got to her house in Minneapolis she said she hadn't believed I was coming until I texted her from the mid-point of Hinckley.

FYI, world: I NEVER LIE WHEN IT COMES TO GOING ON RIDES.
I also never cheat at pool or Words With Friends or any other game of skill or luck.

STEEL VENOM
We started with Steel Venom, a U-shaped ride that rips out of the loading zone at highway speeds then flanks up 90 degrees twisting until you are 180-plus feet in the air, your feet dangling. Then it drops down, backward to the other lift where the ride hitches to a halt so you're hanging face to asphalt ... then it runs through this choreography again.

This. Is. Terrifying. I found myself mumbling incoherently from blast off to finish. Just a harness away, I could hear her doing the same. We stumbled off the ride spent. While Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack imagined Pollack-ing some teenager's bikini top with Diet Coke, I casually made sure I hadn't left a colon-shaped stamp on the seat.

Steel Venom is truly the jewel of the park.

MAD MOUSE
One of the park's lesser-star almost-thrill rides is Mad Mouse, which travels at a speed similar to your car past an elementary school. It is an elaborate mix of dips and sharp turns in a four-person vehicle, like a life-sized marble run.

It looks like a breeze, rolling calmly through the Tunnel of Love. Holding hands and cooing over the moon. But it's one of those rides where it is easy to imagine the car tipping off the track. At least I think that is what Radzo was thinking when she screamed:

"I don't trust this! I don't trust this!" the whole ride.

WILD THING
Wild Thing is probably considered the premier roller coaster. Toward the end of the ride, while whipping at 74 miles per hour through a tunnel, your friends at Valleyfair take a photograph of you that can be purchased.

I knew the flash was coming and I posed, arms in the air with a fright face.

I have quite a few unflattering angles (the whole right side of my body, for instance) but this one has proven to be the worst. The price of admission was worth it for that lesson. I will never again be caught in public wearing a tank top with my hands raised in the air. No way no how.

POWER TOWER
When you opt to be quickly shot nearly 300 feet in the air and then slowly eased back to earth, it can be just kind of meh and a waste of sweaty palms. On the other hand, when you are slowly raised to about 300 feet in the air, so high that you are closer to the moon than the trashy water park, so high you can see people in Rad-Attack-Ack-Ack's basement, with the intent of being dropped in a free fall situation. Well. That can be terrible.

"I'm over this," I said in the pause while we waited to drop.
"I don't like this," a little girl next to me said.
"This is not cool," I said.
"I want to get off of this thing," the girl said.

Then -- drop. No problem. These rides? All anticipation.

STEEL VENOM II
We decided to double back to Steel Venom. See if now that we'd built up a tolerance for the wickedness of amusement the ride would be more tolerable then when we'd prepared by being in a car.

It was even more terrifying. What the.

HIGH ROLLER
We ended up being repeat offenders on High Roller, the park's original roller coaster. A relaxing classic. A no frills oldie but a goodie. The moon was out. The weather was nice. There is a series of small hills that will wing you out of your seat, hang time on the homestretch.

We rode it three times.

"It's a nice night for the fair," we said 85 times in a row. Just four more times than Radzo tried to wrap a teenaged girl in a burka.

Confession soup ...

2011-08-11T03:10:00.000-05:00

I'm of a certain mentality wherein if you make your confessions to the internet, you can be absolved. Or else you can publicly air your weak character traits so no one expects better behavior next time. It's slightly religious and very cutting edge.

Here are some dead spots I'm feeling a little guilty about:

DOES NOT RSVP
My friend D-Rock is getting married in a week and a half and I didn't RSVP until I received three personal emails from him, one in which he bestowed the honor of me being the last person to RSVP. Then I ordered steak, which felt even more dick-headed because I'm not even a steak person. It just sounded like an interesting gastrointestinal experiment for a hot August night. Then he emailed me again to find out whether Chuck is going to be there.

I've followed enough brides on Twitter to know that this is grounds for stabbing. To make it worse, I didn't even have to mail the RSVP. I just had to go onto the internet -- like I am right now -- and make a few clicks -- like I am now. In the time it took me to write that paragraph, I could have RSVP'ed 19 times over.

In my defense, Chas and I have some vacation time coming up and I didn't know if we would be in town on that day until like two weeks ago. Beyond that, it is 100 percent factory defect. There is a gummy spot in my brain where I slouch down in my seat past "laid back" and "casual" and use "comatose" for a foot rest.

I can't think of a single wedding I've RSVP'ed to in a timely fashion. I'm not bragging. I get it. I'm a nightmare.

MAKE MESS, WALK AWAY
For as much as I complain about my Former Landlord, I am not without my own bad behavior in this decade-long friendship cum most-hated sibling-style relationship. When I moved out of the upstairs of that duplex what-say four, five years ago I left half of a storage area filled with cast off odds and ends: Books, clothes, old photos, notebooks, a desktop computer, a futon cushion, etc.

I had grown tired of moving, knew Chuck's place didn't have a ton of space for things I was luke warm about, so I left them. My Former Landlord always has a vehicle capable of carrying or towing, whereas my own car is the size of something that came free with the Barbie Doll Dream House. I figured when he wanted it gone, he would slip into his rankest tank top and heave the stuff into a hole somewhere.

Then the basement flooded when Former Landlord's sewer backed up because I flushed tampons down the toilet in 2004. Flaunted flushing them, actually, to hear him tell the story. "Hey you guys, look!" (A Tampax helicopter move, round the back and over my head, holy shit let's dip these in kerosene, affix them to my nipples and start 'em on fire! Twirl harder, fiery nipple tampons! My god! Is this the mother loving circus?! Flush).

Ahem.

Everything in my storage unit was part of a flood of shit water. No big. I'd already divorced myself from the whole shebang. But guess which loud mouth ended up cleaning it up? My Former Landlord.

I caught up with him last Friday at the Pioneer Bar. His Jeep Cherokee was parked out front with a UHaul trailer filled with junk. Some of it recognizable, like someone you used to know who suddenly has bangs. There were also the saturated personal effects of other tenants of yesteryear. The smell of this trailer ... oye. Like when you forget clothes in the washing machine for too long. Except your washing machine had a Fiber One fest for lunch.

So disgusting was the project that he and his brother wore masks and gloves. They, too, were saturated in the stink and a bit giddy from the labor. I bought them a pitcher and slipped them some hush money to now drop the topic.

"Never say the word 'Tampon' to me ever again," I said.
"I threw away pictures of (an ex-boyfriend)," he said.
"I don't care," I said.
"And books. One looked like it was about D.B. Cooper," he said.
"I have lots of books," I said.
"Some gold cowboy boots ..." he added.
"They were like $4," I said.
"What kind of fashion is gold cowboy boots?" he asked.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I saved you a plate that I got for you in the Dominican Republic," he said.
"Throw it," I said.
"But --" he said.
"Throw."

So there is that. Does not tend to stuff. I've done this in a load of incarnations. It always reminds me of the time Chuck and I left this shitty bar on First Street, reeking of Appletini and whatever middle-aged men squirt on themselves that makes them think people can't see the slug trail of drool they emit when 21-year-old girls dance to pop music.

"If this place exploded behind us, I wouldn't even turn around," he said.

And with that: iAbsolved.

Mr. No Pants ...

2011-08-09T00:33:00.000-05:00

Today's self revelation:
Chuck and I were playing "What if (certain caliber of celebrity) walked in here right now without pants on."

When Jason Bateman, who I always think is the closest thing I have to a celebrity crush, was mentioned I realized that I don't really like-like Jason Bateman. I have a lot of thoughts about Jason Bateman but the gist is that many, many years ago his picture was hanging in my fort. And since that day, he has never done anything to skeeve me out like some of his fellow wall decorations -- a list that includes Kirk Cameron and Corey Haim.

Still a pantless Jason Bateman isn't what I'm looking for.

"You just want to walk down the street with him holding cups from Starbucks," Chuck said.
Which is close.

What I really want is for Jason Bateman to laugh at one of my jokes, put his arm around me and tell me I'm funny.

But I digress. Here is what I made, watched and ate this past week. The making was better than the watching or reading.

FOODS

Spicy Creole Cauliflower Salad: This was so super good. Cauliflower, onion, faro, black eye peas, soy sausages and a bunch of spices all mixed up together to make this so flavor-filled salad.

Meanwhile, on the same website there was a trick where you take frozen bananas, almond milk and powdered chocolate, run it through the food processor for something a bit like soft serve. Ours was more like chocolate gruel, but chocolate gruel is better than no gruel. I'd make it again.

Hot Tamale Burgers: These kind of fake burgers were a mix of rice, onions, peppers, corn and cornmeal and we put the little buggers on the George Foreman grill and then ate them in corn tortillas with avocado and it was good.

Soyrizo Stuffed Peppers: This is soy chorizo, onions, rice, garlic, and sprinkled with a vegan cheese mix. Then they are baked. They are really good. They do not a meal make. This would be a delicious hangover blend.

MOVIES
Battle: Los Angeles: This movie was so dumb, so predictable and so Armageddon that I didn't even care that the Netflix disc was damaged and I couldn't finish watching it. And I certainly didn't even think about licking the disc to fix it.

Cedar Rapids: Also dumb. My body has an adverse response to Ed Helms' face for some reason.

BOOKS
The Astral: A Novel by Kate Christensen: Aside from that, The Astrallives up to its billing as a summer read. Harry Quirk is an old-school poet who hasn’t done much in recent years. His fiery wife Luz kicks him out of their home because she suspects he has been diddling his longtime best friend, who is recently widowed. He actually hasn’t been, but since he has had an indiscretion in his past there is no way to convince Luz otherwise.

Full review is here.

Ruby reds ...

2011-08-07T16:15:00.000-05:00

Scene: Saturday's Willie Nelson concert at Bayfront Festival Park.
Costume: Low oxygenated blood colored ankle-high shoes with laces and small heel that cannot be trotted out in public without commentary. They are Fluevogs that Chuck got me a few years ago and fall somewhere between gothic pioneer woman, eccentric roller skater and retired witch, god love 'em.

Woman in her cups: Ohhh. I like your shoes!
Me: Thanks! My boyfriend got them for me.
Woman in her cups: She has good taste.

Me in my head: Did she say "She"?
Overheard as I walked away: Did she say boyfriend or girlfriend?

How refreshing. It's been years since I've been mistaken for a lesbian.