Friday, April 15

Don't Talk Back

One of the two yakky women (yakky like talky, not yakky like shaggy-with-horns, though boy-howdy would I not hesitate to mention it here if I met a shaggy woman with horns, assuming I lived to write about it) sitting behind me on the bus had one of those initial purses - a little black clutch one with a giant pink "C" on it.

Two years ago, my mother bought my sister the same purse for Christmas.

Like, the exact same purse:

Mom: "And, last but not least.."

Dad: "We shopped for HOURS. Until we DROPPED. Your mother made us stop in store, after store, after store.."

Mom: "Oh, you didn't do anything, you just stood there and complained."

Dad: "It's a difficult job."

Jennifer: (opening the gift) "Oooooh! It's just what I.. uh, wait, who's "C"?"

Mom: "Wait, what?"

Jennifer: (pulls out a purse with a big pink "C" on it) "Mom, these are initial purses. This says "C." My name is "Jennifer." You bought me a purse with somebody else's initial on it."

Dad: "C's our OTHER daughter! Yay yay yay!"

Mom: "What? No, I thought that was the brand name!"

Jennifer: "Yeah, Mom, "C" stands for "Nine West."

Mom: "Oh, no, I'm so embarrassed, I thought you would like it, it was just a last-minute purchase.."

Jennifer: "No, no! I DO like it! It's just what I wanted! I would just like it even MORE if it.. said.. "J." That's all."

Also, because he thinks I will have forgotten again:

To the infrequently-mentioned, strikingly handsome, painfully charismatic ex-boyfriend (we'll call him "Pat") whose inexplicable (yet entertaining!) fits of rage kept me enthralled for the better part of two years (two months if you count the amount of time actually spent in each other's presence):

Happy birthday.

Hopefully I caught all the pronoun-changes when I cut and pasted that last paragraph from his most recent email. So thoughtful: me.

     

Thursday, April 14

Buy Our CD-ROMs or The Mother Of The Winds Will Break Your Kneecaps

Has anyone else started getting these spam messages that have what seems to be novel excerpts at the end of them? I got one for discounted computer software yesterday, and this creepy little gem was printed at the bottom:

id kissed his hand, and felt as if h might reach home in a corpse. The
"So you have done mischief," said the mother of the Winds."I shall leave
y did not scream, as if they kn ewthat at a burial silence should be observed. So soon as she lay in theearth, the bi graves. 8 the rds disappeared; but on the same evening in Jutland, atthe old manor house, an enormous num 0 corner, gaze about an hour. So near they were to home and all its joys

...Jutland? Discounted software comes from Jutland? Where the fuck is Jutland? Does this mean I'll reach home in a corpse if I don't buy his Jutland Discount Software? Fucking hell. I guess a hundred and eighty dollars IS pretty good for Macromedia Studio MX, now that you put it that way. Thanks, Creepy Jutland Discount Software Goons!

     

Wednesday, April 13

The Moon is In the Seventh House

Readers beware: six days of meditation on Kenny Werner’s Zen-for-musicians book, Effortless Mastery, plus an especially transcendental concert by the amazing Momenta Quartet, have melted your once-angstalicious author into a puddle of daily affirmations and warm fuzzies. Yea, verily, to those who would read mine website in hope of hearing more tales of self-inflicted woe and despair: get thee behind me, for real, cause this post is going to be ALL ABOUT THE LOVE.

Goddammit.

LOVE: for you, Rice Krispie treats, which I made last night with stale generic Krispies and watery tub-o-lite-margarine-substitute and not enough marshmallows, and which I accidentally cooked in a pan I had not entirely finished cleaning so that you turned out a terrifying orange color and had little flecks of cooked spinach in you, and then the only pan I could find to put you in was much too large, so you ended up sitting in a weird gimpy little pile in the middle of the pan. I love you, Rice Krispie treats, even though I ended up throwing you away because you looked and tasted like buttered orange kitty litter. Sometimes if you love something, you have to set it free.

LOVE: for you, metal gate on my front door, with which I once again accidentally imprisoned my boyfriend this morning as I went to work, such that he was very nearly forced to call and cancel his classes, and through the bars of which he barely managed to squeeze the pizza and Coke he ordered for lunch, life-giving foods which he later said were the only reason he did not immediately strangle me when I finally remembered to come home and unlock him five and a half hours later. I love you, metal gate, even though this is the second time I have done this in a week and I am afraid if it ever happens again it will be the end of my sex life. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the one you love.

LOVE: for you, creepy old stray cat who died in my backyard, and you, house mice who built a nest out of my favorite sleeping bag.

LOVE: For you, sir, who shouted, “Damn, is that a girl or a boy?” at me from your car yesterday, and for you, madam, who body-checked me without slowing down as I was trying to hail a cab this afternoon.

For you, IRS, and you, SEPTA, and you, PGW, I now have only LOVE.

You see? I’m achieving ENLIGHTENMENT.

SEE?

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.

ZEN PEACE.

TRANQUILITY. LIKE A BOAT ON A CALM OCEAN.

INNER LIGHT.

SO FUCK OFF, ALREADY, ALL OF YOU.

SERIOUSLY.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

I mean, love.

Love, love.

Love.

     

Monday, April 11

Number Munchers

Not to play the "I'm boring" card twice in one week, because nobody likes a quitter, but the last five or ten conversations I've had in the past few days have definitely revolved around the finer points of tax law, and it's got me feeling a little personality-deprived. When you find yourself strolling through a sunlit park, linked arm in arm with your sweetheart  paramour  snoogly-moogy-pookie-woogums  throbbing hunk of man-meat  baby mama  mascot  significant other and toting a backpack full of picnic supplies, and the two of you are deeply engrossed in a conversation about 1099-MISC forms and itemized deductions, you can rest assured that your social skills are pretty much totally fucked forever.

Personally, I believe the government should be funded exclusively with high property, sales, and estate taxes, while for income tax we revert to serf-style agricultural taxation: the IRS knocks on your door and then you have to fill their little tax-bags with vegetables or sheep or something. Think of how much fun tax day would be! Lines of government agents in dark suits carry leaking valises of tomatoes and cabbage into City Hall, while frantic upperclass housewives brave the lines at Whole Foods to bring home an extra few pounds of organic okra. Huzzah!

"According to our records, Ma'am, you owe us a hundred and forty-six chickens this year. Would you like to pay that in fresh or individually quick frozen?"

"Well, I've got two hundred bags of Tyson Popcorn Chicken Bites and forty-two coupons for hot wings from Manny's, will that do?"

"Sorry, Ma'am, we've stopped accepting coupons for tax purposes. We could come back at four-thirty while you run down to Manny's and cash these in? Remember to get both the blue cheese and the celery sticks for the appropriate tax credits, and for now just put the Chicken Bites here in the back seat."

"Okay, thanks! See you in an hour!"

Then instead of spending our money on bombs and corporate bailouts and all that shit the White House could just have a bigass barbecue for the whole country and send everyone home with enough freezable leftovers to last them the rest of the year. Excess government spending: solved! Complicated tax code: solved! Obesity problem: solved! No more sending hundreds of dollars of my hard-earned beer-and-nachos money to a government so they can use it to execute someone or take art supplies away from little kids or tear-gas hippie protestors or something - this way I get nachos, and so does the government! Nachos for all! Capitalism and nachos: together at last! Ai ai!

Now I'm all hungry for nachos and I can't afford any. Goddamn IRS.

     

Sunday, April 10

Heloise for Sleeping Disorders

Surefire method of endearing yourself to your significant other's roommate:

Wake up at three-thirty in the morning in the significant other's bed with no idea who you are or how you ended up in this strange bed.

Claw your way out of the covers, leap out of bed, and fumble around the room in a blind panic before frantically throwing open the bedroom door and leaping into the hall.

When the roommate turns to look at you from the living room couch, stare at him in a terrified stupor for upwards of a minute as you mumble to yourself about WHO THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE STRANGE PEOPLE. It helps if you are actually hallucinating many, many other people in the room. Ignore everything he says ("Uh. What's.. up? Hello?"). Just keep staring.

Decide to pretend you're just casually wandering by to use the toilet so that you can hide and formulate an escape plan. Knock over as many things in his bathroom as you can possibly manage in the thirty seconds before you wake up enough to realize where you are and whose toothpaste you are mysteriously holding.

Go straight back to bed without looking at him. In the morning you will find that you and he have reached a new level of understanding and trust.

In other news, Essay House is the first hit on the page when you Google "dumb musician." I R SO L33T.