I call it “riding in the fuck-you-position.” Also, “cockblocking.”
As in, “that meatus in the Lexus who acted he like was going to run me over in the intersection was pretty pissed when I pulled into the ‘fuck you position’ and cock-blocked him for about a quarter of a mile.”
Most of the time, I gutterbunny it. I hardly ever “take the lane,” ‘cept when it’s clearly and egregiously unsafe if someone tries to squeak past me…or if I really need to piss somebody off. I hardly EVER have people fuck with me, no matter where I ride. I can go weeks and weeks and weeks without even a “stay on the sidewalk” or a too-close pass. I get a little more hassle on Friday nights, especially in the summer, but on the whole, I have a hard time really buying all of the supposed hate that these guys seem to experience. Maybe all that hi-viz yellow is to motorists what red is to bulls.
I generally try not to gratuitously be a dick when I’m out and about on the road anyway. I don’t want to be remembered as that asshole on the bike. Kansas City is a pretty small world and I’d hate like hell to have one act of petty passive aggression (cockblock) be my undoing!
I decided to not do the Dirty Kanza 200 this year. As it turns out, I really didn’t have that much fun the last two times I did it, and for pity’s sake, riding 200 miles alone on the dusty dirt roads of the Ass-Back of Kansas is optional.
So, I’ve decided that I’m going to devote some of the swaths of time I would otherwise have spent having a panic attack about DK200 to making this year’s Trashboat Regatta bigger, better, and trashier than last year.
To that end, I’m working out plans for a good after-party location, designing and constructing “prizes” and making a guest list of people I think might be interested and could really rock the boat good and hard!
I love joke religions. I’ve vaguely tried on a few for size…Pastafarianism has its attractions, especially the celebration of Talk Like A Pirate Day as a high holy day. Discordianism in theory has a certain elegant absurdity about it, but in practice seems to generally dissolve into a smarmy in-joke.
Being as I don’t officially belong to any religion whatsoever, I can basically celebrate what ever the hell I want to. I’m thinking of throwing a St. Stupid’s Day Parade…obviously not this year since it’s already practically April First, but maybe next year. Basically celebrating and embracing the foolishness of humanity is something I can get behind…and how!
Inasmuch as my newfound religious zeal goes, it’s entirely an excuse for throwing more idiotic parties. It’s amply been proven than I am a catalyst for extremely dumb festivities, so I figure I should use my powers for good. I’m happy to celebrate just about anything up to and including Ugly Pickup Truck Day. I really can’t see why more people don’t.
Sometimes when I cook dinner and I’m really hungry, I get into a Sveeedish Scheff-like herndy-herndy-bork-bork-borkfrenzy and just start bunging things into a pot and eating the resultant mess.
Sometimes, the result is actually way more delicious than it has any good reason to be, and last night’s pot-of-random-hot-food was one of those serendipitous meals.
Last night I got home RAVENOUS. My lunch at work was a failure. Somebody snaked my last veggie burger pattie out of the freezer, so all I had was an 8-oz lemon yogurt and a grapefruit. On my ride back home, I completely lost the bunny right where Central Avenue and James Street intersect. For the last half mile or so back up to the house I was running on empty, and all up-hill! So of course by the time I got home, I was completely ravenous.
We had a couple of cans of garbanzo beans in the cupboard and frankly, I was considering just eating plain beans, but I realized that was kind of a dumb (also selfish) idea, since Joel would be coming home in time for dinner. So I decided to make a sort of garbanzo-based goulash to serve over rice.
It wasn’t a beautiful dish, but it was very tasty and it totally hit the spot. Plus, since I made such a vat of it, Joel and I were able to take the leftovers for lunch today. With all the protein and fiber in this kind of meal, it really sticks with you. Instead of getting snacky at 3:00 p.m., I was still going strong when I clocked out at 5:00!
I’m thinking of other beans-sauce-and-grain dishes that I will concoct soon. I want to make more lentils, since they cook quickly and also I really like them. I’m thinking of serving things on quinoa or bulgar sometimes, too. Might as well experiment since this kind of cooking is so easy.
I don’t write for ages, don’t do anything of any discernable value, and then come in here and do this:
Apparently, this guy is the guy we can blame for Hooked On A Feeling. It’s way different with an electric sitar instead of ooga-chackas.
Then, in 1971 this enormous dork improved it immeasurably with a bunch of oooga-chackas.
And of course, in 1974, these Swedish dorks make it REALLY famous.
And somehow, David Hasselhoff managed to make it even weirder. He was probably drunk.
Sorority Girl version.
If there was any symmetry in this world, the Demon Divas would date A Whole Step Up.
I’ll probably write something a little more…less-made-of-idiotic-music-videos soonishly. My brains haven’t been worth much just lately. But I’m doing a bunch of sewing, so at least there will be something to take pictures of in the near future.
I’ve been slightly obsessed with pigeons today and spent more time than I should admit reading Wikipedia entries about Feral Pigeons, (basically no-longer-domesticated Rock Doves), Wood Pigeons, which have a really cute voice, and the master list of types of doves and pigeons.
I reckon a couple of events brought on my miniature fascination with all things Columbidae today. First, there’s the fact that Joel boxed in the soffits of the front porch, effectively blocking off an ad-hoc pigeon coop. When the soffits were still accessible, a couple of pigeons set up housekeeping in there and were industriously making more pigeons and crapping all over the front porch. Joel has since removed the birds and blocked their access to the soffit, so now they’re hanging around in the neighbor’s gutters and grumbling.
Pigeons are horny little fuckers. They’ll basically keep on reproducing as long as there is sufficient food around, and considering that they’ll eat damn near anything, there’s pretty much never a shortage of food, so there’s never a shortage of pigeons either.
Because pigeons are horny, they’re always running around trying to get laid and I’m here to tell you there’s not a whole lot that’s funnier than a pigeon trying to pull.
On my way to work on this beautiful spring morning, I rode through the bottoms and saw pigeons spinning around and chasing each other with their necks all puffed out. It made my day by making me laugh first thing in the morning.
There are a few rather pretty pinkish buff pigeons I see scattered amongst the normal grey/blue/black ones, and I wondered if they were just mutants, or if there was a specific breed of pigeon that was meant to be brown. Apparently, they’re just a color variant with in the Rock Dove type, so they’re little feathery brown mutants.
And speaking of mutants, here are some of the more interesting (and by interesting I mean completely weird) breeds of domesticated pigeons:
Roller Pigeons. They’re specifically bred for their stuntman flight patterns which may be the result of a bit of neurological mis-wiring.
But even more defective is the variant they call a Parlor Roller:
Fan-Tail pigeons
I’d like to state right now that the only thing funnier than regular pigeons trying to get lucky is a couple of fan-tail pigeons getting their flirt on:
Pouter Pigeon
Laughing Dove – not strictly a fancy pigeon, but I couldn’t pass up this little critter’s crazy voice.
But really I’m saving the best for last. This is the kind of oxymoron that I couldn’t make up if I tried. There’s a breed of “utility pigeon,” which is an euphemism for “pigeon meant to be eaten” called an American Giant Runt. Could anything possibly surpass the name American Giant Runt? I’m sure it could, but you’d go a long way to find that sort of a capper.
And it’s just enough to make either of these dresses:
Sundress
OR
late-1960s A-line
I think this fabric would be just about equally fabulous with either pattern, but I’m not sure which to go with. Opinions would totally not hurt my feelings right now!
I’ve been fooling around with mixing my own perfume lately – I guess it’s more like cologne or something.
Anyway, I procured three tiny atomizer bottles and some cheap vodka. Using various essential oils and extracts already in my possession, I’ve been mixing up my own blends of olfactory wizardry.
So far I’ve done one that’s a blend of rosewood oil, bergamot oil, and sandalwood (fave!). Another is Jasmine (in jojoba oil), Ylang-Ylang, and rosewater. The third is my most complicated one.
I started out by steeping four coffee beans and a half of a cinnamon stick in about half an ounce of el-cheaparooni vodka for about a week. Then, I measured 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 1/4 tsp. orange extract, three drops of patchouli oil, and six drops of bergamot oil into an atomizer and topped it off with the coffee/cinnamon-infused vodka. It’s a really, really sexy scent that kind of evolves as you wear it.
These perfumes separate out of course, so you have to shake ’em up really well before applying, but the scent carries well yet it is subtle and very easy to wear.
I guess if you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror in the work restroom and think, “who the fuck is that douchebag?” you’ve probably pretty much failed your fashion check for the day.
I realized about midway through the day today that I dressed like a complete asshole and felt sheepish for the rest of the day. I’ve been doing pretty well with the whole not-dressing-like-a-dipshit thing for quite a few years now and so I was totally chagrined to catch myself slipping so badly.
I’m not sure that any one element of my outfit really sank the failboat…it was just an un-fortuitous combination of garments that taken separately and mixed with other things are all innocuous enough, but brought together, really made me look like a twee, aging hipster who really ought to know better.
It wasn’t just the black American Apparel skinny tee with the Victorian cyclist lady screen printed on the front. It wasn’t the hot-pink flowered a-line skirt with the gros-grain ribbon belt. It wasn’t the quasi-fishnet stockings, or the mary-jane shoes. It wasn’t my semi-librarian-ish glasses, nor the pigtails, nor indeed the silver nail polish. It was all of that brought together that basically said, “old, out-of-it dweeb tryin’ to rock it at an all-ages show” which isn’t really appropriate for work…or anywhere else I might ever find myself.
I don’t have any explanation or excuses. For reasons I cannot adequately articulate, I thought last night that the above would be a really great outfit. It wasn’t. I felt like a jackass for about 60% of the day, and I am going to be making a note to NEVER WEAR THAT SHIT ALL TOGETHER EVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN, EVER!
And really bad at coming up with titles for blog entries.
But there it is…my mundane superpower is probably being able to sleep in really odd places.
Age 15 – took a 2 hour nap on the basement staircase at my grandparents’ house after enduring a 22-hour ride all hunkered up in the backseat of a Volkswagen
Age 18 – slept through the night in the backseat of a Volkswagen after getting locked out of the dorm due to missing curfew and fearing getting in trouble with the security guard if I came back after-hours.
Age 23-26 sleeping on the bus on my way home pretty much every day throughout the winter months. It’s amazing the way people will leave you the fuck alone when you sleep on the bus. And I only slept past my stop twice in all the times I slept on the bus.
Age 25 – for one golden year there was this unused conference room at my work where I could go in and nap my lunch hour away. This was an optimal situation. Then one of the managers took it over as an office.
Age 28 – during my short-lived participation in WAKA, I would get to the playing field about an hour before everyone else, as I rode there after work. It didn’t make sense to ride home only to turn around and ride back, so I’d get to the park early and totally sleep on a picnic bench. Nobody ever ran me out of the park, although it’s almost certain I looked like a vagrant at least 50% of the time.
Age 31 – on our cross-country tour, Joel and I slept in all sorts of unaccountable places including:
behind a McDonald’s in broad daylight, we took about a 2 hour siesta because it was hot as hell and the Sierra Nevadas were kicking our ass.
beneath a bay tree on the road in to Yosemite – we were all of about 10′ off the road…we lunched and siestaed there ’cause I wasn’t feeling well. Turns out I was coming down with a cold!
behind more gravel piles in Nevada than you’d want to count
behind practically every small-town firehall in Tennessee.
In the underbrush of somebody’s driveway in Arizona when we’d failed to find any other, better accommodations – we were never found out, either!
Age 32 – have discovered the copier room at my new work makes a fine lunch-break napping spot during the weekends. I’m still looking for the optimal regular-week snooze spot, though. I really like to get in a half-hour-ish nap on my lunch break whenever I can manage it.
I’m sure I will sleep in many other odd places before I go down for the big Dirt Nap. It seems to be a talent of mine.
Right now, I am in possession of some seriously ratty underwear.
The problem is not that I am in some way incapable of procuring new underwear; I am not in need of any underpants-based charity. The problem stems principally from my accursed absent-mindedness. (Also my twisted sense of logic and detest for wastefulness)
Where to start?
Abent-mindedness seems to be a decent jumping off point. So. I’m a space-cadet.
It’s not just that I forget to buy underwear when I am at some emporium where underpants may be had (although that is a factor in my ratty-assed equation). It is mainly that I will pull a pair of drawers out of the drawer in the morning and note that they’re in appalling condition and that I should throw them away when I take them off that night. However, come evening bathtime, I take off the underpants (along with whatever else I was wearing) and bung them into the laundry hamper. Unless a pair of underwear is egregiously awful (mostly, when the elastic is shot and they become “creepers”) I almost invariably forget my intention of throwing them away.
So what happens is that they get washed. And here comes the explanation of my curious logic and abhorrence of waste. So, I wash the underwear. I put the underwear away. As I’m putting away the underwear, I note that they’re awfully ratty and that I should throw ’em away after the next wearing. I do not, however, throw them away RIGHT THEN AND THERE because it seems like a shame to waste the energy of having washed and sorted and put them away. What a waste of detergent, water, and time! So of course, I’ll just wear them and throw them away after wearing them. In my logic, if I wear them, I will not have wasted the time, water, and detergent; I’ll have gotten one more washing’s worth out of them.
So of course, what happens is that I wear them again, forget to throw them out again, wash them again, put them away again, and wear them again. And again. And again. And again.
The only thing that will break this idiotic cycle is if I go to Target, buy as many underpants as my budget will stand, and come home and throw out everything that looks in the slightest bit dubious and start all over again. This has to happen and this has to happen soon, ’cause the state of my knickers really doesn’t bear any further debate!
