Thanksgiving and junk

So I haven't been very good at posting lately, mostly because I haven't been around a computer and because I've been sick, like yak up my food sick. Anyhoo as you know last week was Thanksgiving or the day my family teases me incessantly about being a vegetarian. I find the best part of Thanksgiving is when my sister tries to get Hoshie to actually sit in a chair and eat something made up of solid matter. I'm convinced the kid survives on anger and the occasional block of cheese. I never saw Hoshie put any food in his mouth, but I did hear the screams of rage he emitted throughout the afternoon as a result of having to play with actual human beings as opposed to something manufactured by Nintendo. My family was able to enjoy the meal, content in the knowledge that while he may not be getting his daily intake of protein, he has more than enough rage to sustain him through Independence Day.

Chilly

"So Hoshie, I heard that you ate lunch with the Principle because you're such a good student."

"Yeah"

"What did you have?"

"Chili, in a bowl, it was plastic."

Nature Crouching

My sister and I like to go to the Art Stroll our community has the first Friday of every month. Our stroll always involves me drinking one glass of wine and for the rest of the evening having no volume control (total lightweight). It makes for a fun time when you are looking at abstract art, "OH, IT LOOKS LIKE GRANDMA'S FAKE NAILS, YOU KNOW AFTER SHE HAS MADE STUFFING AND BREAD CRUMBS ARE STUCK ALL UP IN HER NAIL BEDS!!!!!" That Friday one gallery we stopped at was featuring photography from various artists. My sister and I started at one end of the room and at about the third wall, we came across of photo of feet, but they were not just feet, they were feet at the beach. It took me a minute before the whole context of the picture came to me and when it did, "IT'S SOMEONE PEEING, THEY ARE CROUCHING ON THE BEACH - PEEING!" Normally peeing on the beach would not elicit such a strong reaction from me unless said urination was occurring on my Spongebob towel. However, I was giddy from my glass of wine and I still laugh at what my mom refers to as bathroom jokes, i.e. any joke involving things that take place in a bathroom. The photo was one of many in what I am referring to as the artist's "urination" series. All featured women in various locations answering the call of nature. By the time I reached the last picture I felt bad for my initial reaction because I believe in the artist's right of expression. This artist was trying to say something and I was too focused on remembering that time when I crouched the wrong way on a hill. As a show of penance I offered to purchase "Crouching in the forest" for my sister, but she declined. I think she preferred "Crouching in a field."

My persona makes most men run away

Read My Result
Take the Test

The SonnetDeliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLDf)

Romantic, hopeful, and composed. You are the Sonnet. Get it? Composed?

Sonnets want Love and have high ideals about it. They're conscientious people, caring & careful. You yourself have deep convictions, and you devote a lot of thought to romance and what it should be. This will frighten away most potential mates, but that's okay, because you're very choosy with your affections anyway. You'd absolutely refuse to date someone dumber than you, for instance.

Lovers who share your idealized perspective, or who are at least willing to totally throw themselves into a relationship, will be very, very happy with you. And you with them. You're already selfless and compassionate, and with the right partner, there's no doubt you can be sensual, even adventurously so.

You probably have lots of female friends, and they have a special soft spot for you. Babies do, too, at the tippy-top of their baby skulls.

ALWAYS AVOID: The 5-Night Stand, The False Messiah, The Hornivore, The Last Man on Earth

CONSIDER: The Loverboy

I tried to get him to meow like that Grudge kid, but he would only scream

So Halloween fell on a Tuesday, holidays are never as fun when they fall on weekdays. How can you truly party if you know that you have to appear at your respective job, competent and fully-clothed, in eight hours? Not that I had anywhere to party, I spent the night hanging with Shakespeare and Hoshie and trying to be in the same room with those two is hard. Shakespeare feels that Hoshie doesn’t “get him.” I don’t really “get him” either, but I am good at faking like I do. I was also bummed because my costume didn’t work. I was planning on dressing up as Stuart from Mad TV, but I bought my costume at the last minute and I ended up looking like Bill Gates would if he had just lost a lot of weight. I had pictured in my mind, looking almost exactly like Stuart, except without the crossed eyes, because my eyes don’t do that (the only trick they perform is focusing exactly one foot in front of them and no more). Hoshie’s costume however, turned out fantastic. He was a ghost and you would have thought that my sister would have laid off the face paint because the kid already glows in the dark, but she didn’t and the result was half ghost, half kid from The Grudge. I immediately asked him, “What does a cat say?” hoping to get that creepy cat sound from him. Instead I received a little non-menacing, “meow.” I said, “no, you have to think feral cat with rabies and a severe case of mange – rrrrrrmeoowwwwwrrrrrrrr.” He refused to say it and I told him that Hollywood would never take him with an attitude like that and as his agent I was entitled to 20% of his candy.

Typical Halloween Talk

“I love The Lost Boys. Any movie that features vampires with mullets is automatically the best.”

“And earrings”

“Yes, man jewelry does add to the appeal. I also enjoy the movie with the cat people.”

“Cat People?”

“No, the other cat people. The mother and son cat people.”

“The one where they can be defeated by actual cats and slutty people.”

“Yes, that one.”

I would have pressed the issue but his scream makes my ears bleed

This weekend I spent some quality time with Hoshie. I went to my sister’s house to pick her up for our weekly walk (I have to try and fight my butt from taking over the entire southern portion of my body) and when I walked in the door I came upon Hoshie. For a moment I thought I was in the wrong house and then I thought someone had replaced my Hoshie with one that did not have game paddles surgically attached to his hands. Upon further examination I realized that it was indeed my Hoshie. Translucent skin: check; Permanent scowl: check; Smells of cheese and anger: check. What threw me off was the fact that he held in his hands a piece of paper, plain, simple, non-electronic paper. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was doing his homework. He was answering questions to a story he had just finished reading, The Little Red Hen. I remembered that story well as it taught me the valuable lesson that all lazy asses would starve unless they had money to eat out. Thank god I have money to eat out. Hoshie had to fill in a multiple choice test using the information he gathered from the story, i.e.

The Little Red Hen was:
A. Underpaid because she worked in Walmart’s bakery
B. Extremely happy that the no-carbs diet disappeared
C. Stressing over outsourcing to country where the dog, cat and pig would not only work, but would do it for a fraction of the cost

One of the questions asked how the dog, cat and pig felt at the end of the story. The answer choices ranged from happy to various states of misery. Hoshie chose happy. I went through the end of the story with him and asked him if he thought that the dog, cat and pig were really happy given that they were going to starve. Hoshie said yes they were happy. When I asked him why, he said that they wanted to help. Yes Hoshie, but they only wanted to help after warm, yeasty goodness was denied them. I felt very strongly that said animals would be somewhat saddened at the prospect of having to resort to eating manure yet again. Hoshie however was convinced that they all were extremely happy at the end and I have to give the kid credit for having such a positive attitude. Me I picture the dog, cat and pig plotting some horrific revenge on the condescending hen, one involving bees, a viola and some Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.

Same old Same old

So I have nothing really to talk about this week because my life is THAT BORING. The most I can say that I accomplished was I informed some people that the building they work in smells like feet (I just love verbal diarrhea) and then I hounded my friend for details on my secret crush. "What does his hair look like today and how does he smell?" Both very important questions. My friend, apparently felt differently as he informed me that he is not that comfortable sniffing another man. I would sniff random strangers for him, but he can't do me a solid by leaning in close to the man that I think about WAY too much. Where is the love?

Weekly Recap

So here is a rundown of my week since I am too lazy to actually post something daily and only one day contained anything remotely interesting. Unless you find talk of shopping for a minestrone soup that doesn’t make me yak interesting. That interesting day was today and the thing that made today interesting was a visit from my sweet nephew Hoshie. I had been telling my co-workers Hoshie stories for months. I would tell them how he wouldn’t eat unless you shut off all power within a two block radius in order to pry him away from his Game Cube. I told them how when he did eat, he would only eat things that were made of cheese or entirely hidden by cheese. I told them how, when I asked him to shut off his electronic crack, he would write scathing notes about how he “hats” me and then would proceed to scream when I asked him to elaborate as to whether he Bowler or Fedora “hats” me. Needless to say, the kid has become something of a legend in my office. So today when he came with his mom to visit me, I was worried that he would be extremely angry because he was forced to do something that didn’t involve a game paddle. However he was actually quite sweet and proceeded to leave three sticky notes on my desk. One said, “I love you.” One said, “Your the best.” And the last one had a portrait of me that I have entitled “Via of the Giant Hands”. It was really quite sweet. My coworkers all remarked that Joshua was very cute, very pale and only smelled a little of cheese and anger.

Red Bull gives me stomach cramps

So I tried my first Red Bull today, not because I was curious, but because I give in very easily to peer pressure. Oh my God! My hands are shaking as I type. My head feels funny and I’m sure it is my stomach that they are hearing in the House of Leaves. I’ve realized that I should not drink Red Bull for two reasons. Reason 1: I consume way too much caffeine during the day and the addition of a Red Bull sends me into some sort of caffeinated psychosis. Reason 2: Aspartame makes me violently ill. Why I didn’t read the ingredients before I chugged, we’ll just chalk it up to my unbridled enthusiasm at trying something that tastes like liquid Spree. I have learned my lesson and will steer clear of Red Bull, until I forget said lesson as I do with all lessons I learn (see hair cut incident).

Nerd, Geek or Dork

So I took this online quiz (THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST) and here are my results -

Outcast Genius - 60 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 82% Dork
For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius. Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occasion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject). Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius. Congratulations! - I could have guessed on the outcast thing, but the genius part was a pleasant surprise.

My fantastic, social butterfly of a sister took it as well and here are her results -

Joe Normal - 34 % Nerd, 26% Geek, 17% Dork
For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal. This is not to say that you don't have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you--we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again, and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip. But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren't much of an outcast. I'd say there's a fair chance someone asked you to take this test (her outcast genius sister did). In any event, fairly normal. Congratulations!

I should have known that all those years of watching Doctor Who would stunt my social growth.

So Miller has decided to join me in the quest for additional knowledge. Actually my quest is to become a dilettante. If Miller joins me in this quest, then perhaps if you put us together in the same room, between the two of us, we would have enough knowledge on one particular subject to actually call ourselves proficient. Another plus would be that he could take a seat between me and the boy who giggles every time Shakespeare uses “know” in the biblical sense.

I am really bummed out. My first choice for a band name - Goatwhore - is taken. I will now have to go with my second choice -

Hair - Part Deux

"Have you seen the hair cutting scissors? Did you hide them?"

My mom cut it

I have this issue with my hair. It is unruly and I’m pretty sure that it is planning a coup to take over my entire head so that I will look like Cousin It or that freaky chick from The Grudge. This week I was so fed up with it that I was almost tempted to cut it myself. Fortunately I remembered the follicular disaster of 2001 and I resisted the impulse to make myself look like Jeff Bridges from Dumb and Dumber. I was stressing because I my hair was driving me insane and I kept referring to myself as “Scraggly Ann.” Unfortunately, money is a tight right now and will be for a while so a salon visit was out of the question and I only trust my hair with people I know - people who will flatter it and get its cooperation long enough for them to cut it and run away before it turns them to stone. However, desperate times call for desperate measures so I asked my mom to cut my hair for me. This is a HUGE leap of faith on my part. My mom has not been allowed to touch my hair since she gave me a mullet in the sixth grade.
The haircut started out fine, a harmless snip here a harmless snip there. Next thing I know she has this intense look on her face, the kind of look my nephew gets when you feed him too much cheese. She was upset because she couldn’t get the sides even. She kept cutting and cutting until the topmost layer looked like Moe from the Three Stooges and the bottommost looked like Jane Fonda’s hair from Klute with the middle layers striking out in all directions as a form of protest. In order to cease the hair slaughter, I convinced her it looked fine and ran and hid the scissors. The next day I stopped by my mom’s office so she could see how my hair looked after I applied every hair product known to man to my scalp. Her entire office laughed, including my mother and offered suggestions on how to fix it. At one point my mother grabbed the scissors from her desk and I ran out of that office faster then Hoshie from toys that don’t plug into the wall. I’m hoping that I learned my lesson, but knowing me and my inability to remember what happened five minutes ago, my hair will probably be subject to her scissors as soon as the memory of “Moute” has faded.

Can’t keep my big yap shut

So I have this problem with telling EVERYONE about my secret crushes. “Hey everyone who works in his office – I have a crush on your coworker – be sure to gossip about this around the water cooler in front of him.” “Hey random person on the street – I have a crush on this guy – let me describe him to you in precise detail and tell you exactly where you can find him.” You’d think that given my HUGE mouth he would have found out about my crushing on him. Fortunately, I don’t think he has because he doesn’t avoid me yet. I do suffer from constant teasing, thanks to my friends who frequently compare him to some type of hotdog that I should smother in relish. I am now unable to look at him without picturing him drenched in mustard. Curse you Chapstick!

He keeps coming back for more

I really need to stop with the eulogies for Miller cuz he keeps coming back and that is a good thing. He is far more eloquent than I and he has more chest hair. Anyhoo, while he was off communing with nature, I was left here wondering who would eat all the crap on the floor of my car. I also spent that time distracting myself in class with thoughts of men I have seen in very loosely based Shakespeare movies. This week the professor informed us that we are going to read Taming of the Shrew, beyond that I have no idea what happened in class - Heath Ledger is super fine!

MY ADVENCHURE THRU DA NORTH

So I just got back from the final and last great North American Fronteir--no im not talking about Alaska...im all about....YUKON!! Out of the blue a few weeks ago, my friend called me up and asked me to accompany him on his move to Valdez Alaska. It took 4 days to get there (annonomys location to Alaska). I had some really good experiences and some that were not so good--like the night I camped on the side of the road in Alberta and I woke up to the sound of a massive rainstorm at 4 in the morning!! My bag was ******* wet! Anywho...we finally made it to my most favorites of locations...YUKON. The mountains there are so damn big there, the rivers are so rapid, the trees are so thick, the sky so wild, and the animals so gargantuan that it makes man feel as small as a mere gust of breeze in a wild, wild country!! I loved it. The faces of the people there held stories of hardship...an arduous existance to be sure. Alaska pales in comparison...

I highly recommend a trip to Yukon..be prepared to pay 9 dollars for a gallon of milk, and 5 bucks for a loaf of bread...but its worth it!

Alaska was nice. I miss it already. While gazing at her many incredible glaciers, I wonder how many men served her appetite by falling in the numerous crevasses! Alas, I love Alaska. You will have to ask me one day about how I woke up next to an Equadoriana one morning in the outskirts of Valdez! Thats a whole notha story /....mutha truckas!

I miss Via a lot. I havent abandoned this project. Im still here, Via. Via is one of my good buddies...shes way cool...if anyone wants her number just leave a comment and Ill give it to you.
Dating a girl who likes to suck blogs is a good thing..trust me!

Miller Machiavelli

Shakespeare in Lust

I started my first class this week – Graduate Seminar in Shakespeare. I was nervous because I am entering this program with no real background in English other than I do a good job of hacking the language to pieces whenever I open my mouth. So I’m sitting in class the first day, very excited, pen in hand, ready to furiously copy down every word out of the professor’s mouth. She starts to give a little background on dear Will and she happens to mention the movie Shakespeare in Love. Next thing I know 10 minutes have gone by and I have no idea what occurred in class during that space of time. I did not black out, nor was I taken up in an alien spaceship for a quick bit of probing - I was deep in thought. Deep in thought on Shakespeare - Joseph Fiennes’ Shakespeare, the one with the fantastic brown eyes and extremely kissable lips, not the dude who looks somewhat constipated on the cover of my textbook. I recovered from my daydream in time to catch the beginning of the discussion on Hamlet – Kenneth Branagh looks REALLY good tormented.

Further proof of freakdom

So I have problems relating to people. If I said it before, it bears reiteration - weird is an adjective that is used frequently to describe me. It used to bother me and I tried to tone the weirdness down, but it didn’t work. Weird is an integral part of who I am. I have found that weird and socially awkward tend to go hand in hand. Case in point – what happened today. I have these “secret crushes” which are crushes that basically everyone I know knows about, except the crushee. I like to keep it that way and hope that they are never the wiser. Those in the know say “oh don’t worry, they’ll be flattered” if the worst case scenario of crushee enlightenment occurs. It actually ends up as “Oh My God! That strange girl who seems to be constantly dressing as Napoleon Dynamite likes me - Must disappear NOW!” As a result I have learned to be so low key that people can never tell who I like unless I tell them and I tell a lot of people – I will never be recruited for covert operations. This works for me - has for years despite most of the planet knowing their identity.

Today I happened to run into one of my secret crushes who informs me that he has run into my mother, my lovely mother who says to him, “So you’re *****, I’m Via’s mom.” With NO OTHER explanation as to why she knows who he is, she left it at that and he relayed it like that and I turned the brightest shade of red (Al Gore could put me in his slide show with the caption – “Global warming leads to world’s worst sunburn”). He said, “Your mom is really nice.” I reply, “mkoajeyeahmfaoeij dajodjbrainnotworkingdakdja daoidjfakjbyekjaojkk” (statements in red actually intelligible words). I could have come up with some fantastic excuse for why my mother knew about him, but NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO, I was blind-sided and all I could do was stand there and mumble. The freak strikes again! AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!