Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp

Fan of "Freaks & Geeks" or "That 70's Show" much? Looks like their creators had a major flame war.

If you're not familiar with the Trailer Park contest, it involves cutting new, cross-genre trailers for popular movies. The results are usually pretty brilliant -- check out The Shining as the feel-good movie of the summer, and Se7en as a gay love story. IMHO, scary movies turned happy & shiny work better than the other way around, but there are some exceptions -- Big as a child molestation thriller and West Side Story as a zombie flick.

This one kills me -- impeccable delivery. A comedian's 'signed' version of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn."

That's it for me whoring other people's links for now. Oh and if you're wondering where the title of this post came from...

Dork Chic (or Nice Guys Scream Like Girls)

What is it about dorks that appeal to us girls? I'm sure someone somewhere has quantified it. My last post was in part about machismo -- is it as simple as a lack thereof? My MBA-student client thinks the world owes him a living and I'm just here to serve -- being in a Client Services -type position, I can only bitch about this so much. But the Better-Than attitude is unnecessary, and actually counterproductive to getting what you want from a service worker.

Dorks do not pull the Better-Than -- at least not in this way. There's the competitiveness of a I-Can-Remember-Encounter-At-Farpoint-Better-Than-You initiation, but not a I-Have-More-Worth-Than-You thing. Something about Growing Up Geek that makes them humble.

This is all of course a broad generalization, but there you go. I know lots of IT guys that would normally fall under 'Dork' but are assholes with definite superiority complexes. Of course in my F'ed up head, it just makes them more irresistable. The Moderate Asshole Guy is always more desireable than the Super Nice and Treats You Well All The Time Guy.

And what's THAT about? I remember dating this guy when I was 16-17 -- my mom called him Ol' Black Joe, no matter that he was neither Old or Black. He was Joe, however, and he was the nicest guy ever.

Too nice, in fact. WAY too nice. Like put-you-on-a-pedestal nice. Yucky. Gave me the wiggins. But he was soooo nice, and liked me so much, I could only politely decline the date so many times before I figured "WTF. Maybe I'll see something in him on a date that I'm not seeing at work."

We went to a ChiChi's or some such crap for dinner -- it was not a love connection, at least not for me. That became apparent at dinner, but we were scheduled to see a movie after dinner, and rather than feign a headache or cramps or diptheria, I accompanied him to our intended movie nonetheless. The movie? Nightmare On Elm Street III.

If you're a Nightmare On Elm Street afficionado, you know that III is the Dream Warriors, where the kids of all the Elm Street residents are all nutballs and living in a locked facility. Craig Wasson, king of the sleazy horror flick (rent Body Double if you doubt me), is the protagonist-doctor, and Heather Langencamp is back as Nancy Thompson -- all growed up, with a psych degree, and a fakey silver streak in her hair to indicate age and wisdom. Her specialty? Sleep disorders. Duh. It writes itself.

So, if you *really* know these movies, you know there's a scene in III where our lead troubled-teen (portrayed by Patricia Arquette) dreams she is walking into Nancy's old house on Elm Street. It's all dusty and cobwebby and whatnot, and in the formal dining room is a full formal set up, including a dusty roast suckling pig with an apple in its mouth.

So, seen any horror films EVER? Seen any Nightmare films? You see a roast suckling pig on a table, in a Dream where Anything Can Happen -- what do you think happens? Of course. The pig comes to life. I saw it a mile away, you saw it a mile away, people a mile away saw it, um... a mile away. Joe? Joe did not see it.

Pig comes to life. Joe SCREAMS. Not jumps, not gasps -- SCREAMS. And not a big girly shriek, but a Big Deep Manly Bellow, leaving no doubt in the minds of anyone else in the audience that he was a big Horror Movie Puss. The rest of the audience gasped a bit, and a couple of girls shrieked, but Joe was the loudest and most protracted, and the rest of the moviegoers looked over and laughed. I, meanwhile, tried to disappear.

We walked around for a while after and talked, and he drove me home, but that was it. I did not go out with him again. We could have been friends, but he wanted more, and I did not... and I wanted to see horror movies sans mortification. So I blew him off. I suck.

Lest you write me off as a complete bitch, cut to a few months later, and the Let's Be Friends part of me thought of him fondly and wondered what he was up to. So I called him.

MISTAKE!!!

He immediately asked me out. "Want to go out this Friday?" Busy (legitimately). "Saturday?" Also busy (legitimately). "Sunday?" No, I'm sooo busy (not quite as legitimately). "Monday?" Nooooo!

So annoyed that my gesture of kindness and good will was immediately translated into an overture of Date Me, and that he began giving me the full court press to set a date.

I never called him again. Dork.

The Gender Card

I am not one to play the Gender Card very often, but there are times that I get the distinct feeling that a man would not be getting the same push-back that I am. Usually it's when I interact with people from specific cultures, like... MBA students. And ethnicities with more than a dollop of machismo/misogyny. And it pisses me off more than usual, specifically because I am *not* someone that looks for sexual discrimination in every nook and cranny. If I were, it would probably be status quo -- "See what I mean?" But I tend to work under the dreamy and/or naive liberal fantasy that most people don't discriminate against ANYONE, so I figure that when it's bad enough to set of my WTF bell, it's gotta be pretty bad.

So I punch them. Is that wrong?

Word To Your Mother

So I find that the words 'bowel movement' bug me lately.

Yeah, okay, sure -- "Fun, but where's she going with this?" right? But lately friends and cohorts of mine have been discussing words they hate. My co-workers hate the words 'orientated' and 'moist' -- me, I've always found the word 'panties' to be obnoxious. But lately I find people using the words 'bowel movement' in such a way as to creep me out. Just gave myself the shivers thinking about it.

Now I *get* that it's proper terminology. I *get* that we're not 12, so poo-poo doo-doo caca does not cut it any longer. Fine. What's so wrong with 'poop' these days??? C'mon, America! "We put some castor oil in with the milk in her bottle, because it helps her with her bowel movements" was the sentence that prompted this post. WTF?!? Are you Dian Fossey? It's your CHILD. She poops. I poop. Hell, they wrote a book about it: Everybody Poops.

[Sidebar: "Everybody Poops" always makes me think of the REM song "Everybody Hurts" and leaves me desirous of singing "Everybody poops... sometimes..."]

So here's a compromise: "it helps keep her regular." Voila. After all, you're never too young to be worried about regularity, right?

I realize I am being unfair to my friend here. It's not her, it's not that sentence per se -- that's just the 'bowel movement' that broke the camel's back. It's the combo platter of several people before her using that phrase when something less clinical would be more user-friendly, and the sad fact that I am now 36 years old, and I do things like stand in my childhood friend's big-girl grown-up married-person kitchen and discuss things like her child's bowel movements. None of those benchmarks freak me out in and of themselves, but linked together, they make a charm bracelet of "Holy shit -- this is my life."

Kiss the baby!

Catbox

Weird as it may be, I work in a condo in a high-rise. Literally, my 'office' is the living room, with a southern view and a cut-out in the wall that goes into the kitchen. It's weird. I mean it's a home, but it's work. Like I could get naked, but not.

The unit above 'mine' is undergoing some sort of renovation today -- I'm guessing the walls are being plastered? All I know is it sounds like a very-amplified version of the scratching my cats do on the side of the catbox, after they're 'done' but before they exit. You know, that 'oh, fuck -- I have litter stuck in between my paw pads' noise? It sounds exactly like that... only much, MUCH louder. Like their whole living room is a giant catbox for... well, let's just say that we let *that* fucker loose in the streets, and Daley's dumpster issues are a thing of the past. That and the homelessness. And babies. Delicious, plump little babies....

Too Much Cologne-Wearing Landlord of Co-Worker

It's called restraint -- look into it.

Tulips

I never was much for tulips, but I'm warming to them. In part because I have a vase of them on my desk at work -- makes me feel less like it's gloomy as shit outside. In part because they're so commonplace in Chicago this time of year. I have to therefore consider them for the wedding.

It's amazing to me that I'm planning this wedding. I've always hoped to marry, but never went out of my way to make it happen. And now I'm on that path. I'm happy about it all, and I know we'll have the perfect wedding for us, but I do have to say I wish that money were not an object. I don't want some enorm-o, elaborate wedding with doves and filet and Barenaked Ladies as my wedding band (damn you, Jason Priestley!!!), but I wish I did not have to watch *quite* every penny. Waah waah waah... my golden shoes are too tight and my magical pony doesn't fly high enough.

Sassy Is As Sassy Does

This is my sassy-face picture... Maia took my headshots almost a year ago, and I'm just getting around to turning them into, well, headshots. There are several less sassy ones, but my favorite pix are the sass-face ones... makes me happy.

LMAO... World's Suckiest Blogger

So it's cracking my ass up that I've been a 'blogger' since Aug 2004 and only have one post, chock full o' ennui-y goodness. But now I'm rejoining the blog community, exploring my blog-uality, feeling my blog-ness.

I feel like I've been on this journey for a while now, and can't quite figure out what it is I'm not getting. I'm beginning to suspect that "what I'm not getting" is that I need to not give a shit about getting it. To, as my subheadline states, learn to stop worrying and love the blog. Substitute 'life' or 'neuroses' or 'what I am' or 'what I got right now' for 'blog' -- it's all the same noise.

I was a suck-ass improviser. I mean I was good enough to get myself laid, but that's not saying much. I sucked. Too much in my head. Left my studies because it was upsetting me how bad I was. Which is fucking lame. When we're kids, we suck and it's cool, or at least it's immaterial. When do we learn to put so much pressure on ourselves?

I need to be more like my cat. He's all id. In fact, his id is driving his claws into my leg right now, demanding attention. He could give a shit if I'm a blogger. He wants love. He demands love. We could all learn something from that.