All posts by Licketysplit

Farm Fresh

August 10, 2007Uncategorizedconsumerism, liquor, low concernsLicketysplit

On my last smash n’ grab at the grocery store, I ended up with a bag of chips with some sort of winsome farm scene and a proclamation about vegetables on the bag. They were in the organic section, so I didn’t even read the label. I am a trusting consumer. And my version of Supermarket Sweep includes crying if not completed fast enough, so there you go.

Last night, Mr. H read the bag. There is nothing organic in the bag. The chips have never been to a farm. In fact, the brand is a sham brand belonging to Frito-Lay. On second tasting, the chips taste exactly like Doritos.

“These are naturally baked,” said Mr. H.

“Naturally baked?”

“What does that even mean?”

“Left to harden in the sun?”

“I guess Twinkies aren’t naturally baked,” he said thoughtfully. “They just set up, like…ceviche.”

Which brings me to my next point: every time someone on Top Chef makes ceviche, I have to finish the box of wine. You’d think people on a cooking show would be more inclined to apply actual fire to food, but their loss is my liver’s gain.

We Take Mystery (to Bed)

August 7, 2007Uncategorizeddecline of Western culture, WTFLicketysplit

What if they replicated?
(from left: Pete Doherty’s makeup artist + Scott Stapp’s beautimous woman hair + Valentino’s haunted turban = Mystery, master of the Venusian Arts)

I missed the first fifteen minutes of the first episode of VH1’s execrable new reality series “The Pick Up Artist.” I can only imagine that this means I missed fifteen more minutes of a be-hatted Svengali named Mystery unfurling his ponytail.

The show’s premise is that Mystery, a former Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast (NO, REALLY, I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED) and self-made seduction expert, will teach seven or eight awkward but probably fairly decent human beings to pick up women with a variety of canned strategies. Fair enough. Pop behavioral science is way fun. As much as we try to pretend we aren’t apes, there are ingrained social routines to which we all no doubt respond. Perhaps it is possible to analytically fake personal magnetism if your target is drunk enough or dumb enough. Woman don’t usually have to put forth that kind of effort. Having boobs is generally enough.

I expected to laugh myself silly watching the rest of the episode, but my jaw quickly slackened as I slipped into the existential tar pits. The contestant with the Larry Birkhead hair claims he’s frequently mistaken for a gay man, and then the producers try to tastefully underscore this with a shot of him bending over at the edge of the pool, waggling his chubby bottom in a baboon-red Speedo. They wedged the overweight “teddy bear” contestant into a black number, and posed him on exercise equipment. There’s a sprinkling of garden variety nerds, the awkward Asian kid, the undeservedly narcissistic Pradeep, and Alvaro, who rocks a New Kids on the Block fro and actually almost made me weep openly for him. During the scene where the contestants must demonstrate their “skills” via hidden camera at a nightclub, Alvaro just about cracks from the pressure of having to cold approach a victim. He says in a voiceover “I felt like crying, I felt like breaking a bottle over my head.” Oh, poor baby. In a teaser for future episodes, we see that he is made over with highlights and football eye black under one eye.

After the contestants have miserably failed to make reasonable human conversation, Mystery and his two sidekicks swoop in and show them how it’s done, preening and showing off his “avatar” and pre-emptively rejecting women to ostensibly create more interest (the “neg”). If any Mystery-seducee is willing to come forward, I’d love to ask what the hell you were thinking? Perhaps he and his flocked velvet maxi coat and aviator goggles are in a band? Why, this reminds me of the time I saw Marilyn Manson shopping at Barnes and Noble in Florida Before They Were Famous. It was surely all I could do to not jump on him and buy him Starbucks.

Mystery is living proof that his advice to “just be your self,” your awful, awful self is actually pretty good. Unbridled confidence will get you reasonably far, at least to cable television. Now I can’t unsee all that man hair flipping, and it’s my own damn fault for watching.

(with apologies to Gary Numan)

Poo corner

August 6, 2007Uncategorizedack, decline of Western culture, shenanigans, townieLicketysplit

Yesterday, we foolishly tired of our air conditioned home and ventured out for a walk. You know, after a long drive. We had heard that a certain New England town, which I’ll call Concord since that’s what everyone else calls it, was quaint. But apparently there is a town ordinance there that requires everyone to bike in the damn road while swaddled tightly in Spandex. Lance Armstrong may have a vested interest in protecting his remaining testicle, but you’d think all those virile square-bottomed investment bankers could play a little fast and loose.

When we were nearly run off the road by yet another SUV (in this case, an H2) passing cyclists who insist on riding side by side (because CARS DO THAT ALL THE TIME WHEN THEY ARE FRIENDS, it’s true), we decided we’d had enough. Concord is now on the list of places to which I’m never going back, including Rockville and home again. Instead, we went to a farm, where a sheep did something offensive to my hand.

Who’s Counting: In the can

July 31, 2007Uncategorizedfrom the desk of coot, Indian Burial Ground, LambchopLicketysplit

Point of clarification: I did not invent a new character. Lambchop is a real person, with a favorite color, day of the week underwear, and a snazzy hair-do. This is more than many of you can say! She has left us for New York, however. Watch the news.

Whoa, busy week. I had to rub rump steak all over the railings in the park by my house to draw the nesting yellow jackets over to meet the skateboarders. That went very well, I must say. Get offa my (public) lawn! I don’t want to be one of those people that lives life as a series of “If I could just… things would be better” moments. If I have to potentially kill annoying teenagers, by gum, I’m going to do it, not just whine about it. I have a plummeting property value to consider. Action, always.

No but seeeeriously. We live in a bee beard. There are wasp nests all over the outside of the house. The little buggers burrowed into one of the window frames, so I can hear them in the wall. A man came with some leftover Agent Orange, and now I don’t hear them. I also can’t breathe or move my left arm. If I could just move my left arm….

926: Don’t you wish you had brand recognition like me?

July 19, 2007Uncategorizedlow concerns, shenanigans, stupid, townie, ybabLicketysplit

Yesterday I was working at a coffee shop like an asshole does, and I messaged Mr. H to say “Guess what, I’m at a coffee shop without a ybab.” And he freaked out, assuming I had gone into some sort of fugue state and left her chained to the fridge at home while I decided to have a mocha. What a vote of confidence in my maternal skills! Then a friend came in with her daughter and looked similarly alarmed. Sheesh. Don’t you let your kids play in abandoned appliances while you’re at the loser fake office? No no no. Other wife or the chupacabra had her. I think. I don’t know. I pay someone, and I pretend I don’t count the pain pills in the medicine cabinet.

I am not as much of an asshole as the women sitting next to me, though. One of them had a daughter named Linda Pam. I clutched at the air upon eavesdropping this, thinking I had just accidentally fallen a dozen states into Alabama. Linda Pam is the proud recipient of a bag of her mother’s used sandals. Linda Pam’s mother is not really a size 6; I found out when she went to the counter to get something. The others in her coven see right through her assertions.

There is no real point to this post, but I wanted to work in how two birds collided in mid-air and died before they hit the ground my window. It was a thing to see. Ybab wanted to pet the birds. No no no no! No dead birds! What does the live bird say? Cheep? Who are you calling cheap? What does the Tiger say? Meow. Sure it does, Linda Pam. Your face is your fortune.

925: Product Review: The Blendtec Total Blender/That Baby From the Grocery Store

July 14, 2007Uncategorizedcelebrity!, consumerism, existential crisis, home doctorin', ybabLicketysplit

Recently, my attention was directed to a blender by an alert husband. Because he’s pretty much the only person I’ve talked to this week, except for yelling at the receptionist at my doctor’s office.

Her: “Do you have insurance?”
Me: “DYING! DYING! DYING!” (slumps against wall to make this clear)
Her: “Well, it’s just that what we have on file has expired. Do you want to self-pay?”
Me: (inner monologue) I actually have very fancy insurance. However, husband or husband’s work colluded in such a way that the cards for new job’s insurance have not yet arrived prior to my throat rotting from within. Insurance rep was most unhelpful on the phone, as nature intended. Can I wheedle this frowsy wench into calling them to verify it for me, since I can barely talk?)
Me: “DYING!” (throws checkbook at her head).

This blender, the Blendtec Total Blender, can blend an iPhone. I give them credit for ripping off “Will it float?” from Letterman as “Will it blend?” I also give them credit for blending up a variety of dangerous objects into pure shrapnel pÃ¢tÃ©. I would buy this product if I ever did anything in the kitchen save rearrange the take out menus. I may buy this product anyway just to blend things. I have a shoe rack I don’t need anymore, but I don’t want to throw it out or summon the mouthbreathers from FreeCycle to my house.

Speaking of mouthbreathers, at the grocery store, I sometimes see really ugly babies. My ybab tends to get many approving looks and comments, for her beauty as well as her poise and charm. “Reeesh?” she might exclaim, magnanimously including the deli counter in a sweeping hand gesture. The market employees know her and come out to see her, summoning others from the back. “SHE’S here!”

Another baby might be waiting in line too, but that other baby is so ugly that he is not even offered free stuff. I look at the other mother, and I think “Wow, that’s what you go home to, lady?” I would pity her, except that emotion demeans us all. Clearly, that other baby is an inferior specimen in many ways even apart from its decided unattractiveness: lolling, drooling, not even making an attempt to communicate or observe its environment. I think of the clever lies we must all tell ourselves, convincing ourselves to get out of bed each morning, no matter how lackluster our lives may be. “But tonight, I will watch that show I like! I may even fast forward the commercials. Except I like that one with the guy who does that thing.” Or perhaps we look forward to using a certain glitter bodywash. I can’t really say. I don’t have these problems. Aside from a little hoof and mouth disease, my life is a dream, something so marvelous it used to be reserved only for people like Pat Sajak.

924: I’ll give you something to cry about

July 13, 2007Uncategorizedack, home doctorin', sexy sex, shenanigans, ybabLicketysplit

Dearest innernet, I realized that I have been remiss in apprising you of my widdle doings. It’s not on purpose. I just get caught up in other things. You know, day trading, taste testing yogurts, macrame. I have two eyebrows, and they BOTH need my attention. So get in line.

Last week, I threw my back out by, er, well, never mind. Did I mention Mr. H has lost four pounds? Just as this was mended thanks to tough love from my chiropractor, I was felled by strep throat. I have spent countless minutes trying to take a picture of the back of my throat, for it is truly a remarkable vista. Think the surface of the moon, white and pocked, a fragile crust wrapped around a molten core of pure agony. This is by far the most disgusting thing that has ever happened in my mouth. And that’s saying a lot, given “the nineties” and that time I had oral surgery and found a spare sixteen yards of gauze crammed somewhere back there.

So who knows what the next week will bring? Right now, it’s all over but the whining and a few more days of antibiotics. I am going to unionize for more sick days. Ybab still had the nerve to expect to be fed and entertained while I was feeling poorly! As I sprawled on the ground, drifting in and out consciousness, shirt off to allow her to eat once in a while with no actual effort from me, I wondered if my soon-to-be dead corpse would continue to produce milk to at least tide her over until Mr. H got home from saving orphans with Angelina Jolie or whatever it is that he does these days. Can you believe ybab doesn’t know how to make an omelette yet? I have to go look that up, post-mortem lactation. Google, get ready for me! I want to be number 1 for “post-mortem lactation” now. Get to linking.

922: Out of order

July 6, 2007Uncategorizeddecline of Western culture, existential crisis, low concernsLicketysplit

You may have noticed 923 came before 922. I don’t think that’s a problem. Keep it to yourself if you do.

A cartoon of great worth.

I have got the flattening of affect that normally comes with the first pissant course of SSRIs doctors like to prescribe before they realize I need something fancier and more liver damaging, something that really tickles that hard to reach spot. However, I am not taking any medication. Maybe some Emergen-C here and there. To what do I attribute this fly trapped in amber deal? I had a recent phase of being overly affected by the various cruelties in the world and mourning my own memories, and instead of flipping the hell out, I managed to form my own protective coating. I am part oyster, although others will eternally maintain I am more of a clam. Forgetting is our best skill as humans. Darfur? Newark? Iraq? What? Those are funny noises. Do you have any meaning for me? I would like to borrow a cup of purpose. Or I could work on an icing recipe instead. The sun still comes up, and dogs still have to pee, and the sprinklers will turn on until there isn’t any water left.

921: Fine, the official word of defensiveness

June 23, 2007Uncategorizedtravel, ybabLicketysplit

Internet, I was going to write you a postcard, but I was all oh hey is that a rash, what is that, poison ivy? No, it’s got to be chiggers. They have those up here, right? OK, well, let’s get an ice cream. And then we rubbed two twigs together to fashion a rough internet connection, but it only worked when all the barnacles lined up to face the setting sun just right. I read some books and fondly remembered what it was like having a vacation without a ybab.

Please choose your own highlights from our vacation trip. We took (a boat, a Ferrari, a large winged medieval bird). We ate (mediocre lobster rolls, cupcakes, sand). Ybab became afflicted by (a rash, walking, multiple heads). I offset my (carbon, rear end size, existentialism). Our rental house was (sort of haunted, moderately haunted, hell of haunted).

OK, that last one was not really where we stayed, but surely you can hear the scraping of ghostly chains. Stephen King appeared to warn us of the future. And that photo brings me to another problem: I suggested that Mr. H get a new tripod and shoot some HDRs, and I suppose I should have thought of this years ago, because I did not see him for the rest of the trip. I think he might have caught the same ferry back as relddot (ybab no more!) and I did, as someone is leaving socks around the house. Ghostly socks.

Vomitola

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