I could go for a pina colada

Has Earth shifted closer toward the sun? Are scientists just not telling us? Because it is insanely hot out there. It's been up in the 90's for the past week or so, but what kills you here is the humidity. It's still not as bad as I remember one Columbia, South Carolina being, but it's still oppressive. The temperatures have been so high so consistently that our house is getting a lot hotter even with the air conditioning on. Our second floor is like a rice cooker right now. Wubby comes upstairs when we're up there, but you can see in his eyes that the thought of moving from room to room is exhausting. He just lies on the cooler hardwood floors in the hallway and looks depressed. Poor furry guy. I would not want to be wearing a fur coat in August, that's for sure.

We escaped to the cool confines of the movies the other day and saw Mission Impossible: 3. It was actually really good! I thought it was better than the first two. If you can get past Tom Cruise's kookiness in real life, it's worth watching. Hey, speaking of which, have you read the reports about Mel Gibon's DUI arrest this weekend? There's another crackpot. Can somebody please explain to me what Mel Gibson has against the Jews and what Tom Cruise has against psychologists? It just goes to show you don't really have to be smart to be a movie star. Heather Graham, I'm looking in your direction....

Geri Halliwell had a point

My older sister sent out the invitation for our family's annual Fantasy Football league. Yes! Last year, I named my team the "Shrieking Eels." This year, I went with "Explosive Diarrhea." I crack myself up.

J and I were having an interesting conversation yesterday about young girls and why they're so stupid about boys. Honestly, why is it that 80% of girls date losers, idiots and creeps in their teens and 20's before they figure out the advantages of decent men? And I'm including myself in this, don't get me wrong. It seems to be some natural rite of passage. But what disturbs me is when I see a lovely, smart young girl who (for whatever reason) actually seems to be afraid of being without a boyfriend. I fear very much for any girl who believes she is incapable of being by herself, because that seems to be the dividing line between learning a valuable lesson and getting caught up in a destructive pattern in your life. And all I can figure is that these girls don't feel smart enough, strong enough or independent enough to know that if a guy cheats on you or abuses you at that young age, you leave him. I don't want to name names, but I've been seeing this in a young girl I know, and it worries me a lot. Anyway, I'll just keep hoping that one day she'll see her potential, finish college and whack this guy in the nuts with her diploma as she leaves the graduation stage. And I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course.

Honeydew smack

Apparently a lot of people in our neighborhood went out drinking last night because there were two car accidents on the way to work that caused us to take a lovely, scenic drive through the city's south side to get here. And, as J says, "the reason Columbus has a south side is to make the people on the west side [our neighborhood] feel better about themselves."

J was telling me about a local news story he saw yesterday where three people were pulled over for driving a suspicious vehicle, and when the police officer inspected the car, he found a watermelon in the back seat with tape on it. So he grabs the watermelon, gives it a few good shakes, and all sorts of drugs fall out. You know, it just makes me wonder what these drug addicts could do if they applied that some sort of creativity to legitimate pursuits. Cause watermelon-flavored stuff is usually quite delicious. I don't know about watermelon-flavored crack, but I do love me some watermelon gum.

I like my Clooneys funny

Here's a piece of advice from me to you: if you're ever in the mood to watch an incredibly complicated, well-acted but excruciatingly boring movie, go rent Syriana. Ugh. I really tried my best to hang in there for the whole thing and stick with the plot, but, man, what a snooze. You know it's a bad movie when George Clooney gets hit by a missile and I'm like "Meh." I got the general drift of it that American oil tycoons are the devil, but, dude, I already KNEW that. I've seen Dick Cheney...and I'm not ever turning my back on that guy. My favorite Clooney performance is still O Brother, Where Art Thou? followed by his brief stint on The Facts of Life. Now THAT was entertainment. The bristling tension of the Blair/Jo interactions, the boisterous joie de vivre of Natalie, such things are beyond compare. Seriously, though, does anybody else remember the Halloween episode where Blair got "dippity-dooed" and killed everybody? Good times.

They're very refreshing!

Ooof, you know you have a serious sleeping problem when you have insomnia AFTER you've taken a sleeping pill. It is going to be another long day. I think what killed my chances of a good night's sleep was the fact that I went home yesterday after work and took an hour-long nap. I felt so much better after the nap that it's hard to regret it though. The funny thing was that I woke up at 6:30 thinking J was probably passed out on the floor, twitching because he hadn't had dinner yet, but when I walked downstairs, there he was, sitting on the couch, happily playing with his new Nintendo DS. Men really are fascinating, aren't they? Whereas I turn into a screaming banshee if I haven't eaten in 3 hours or found the right shoes to wear, J can go weeks without food, water and oxygen as long as he's got a video game to play. And he'll be cheerful about it. Sometimes I truly envy his temperament. Even Junior Mints don't provide me with that level of contentment.

Charlie Murphy!

All right, I'm going to try this again. I wrote a post earlier but it wouldn't publish. I'm starting to take it personally when that happens...as if the server somehow knows I'm talking nonsense.

It's about 2 in the afternoon and my insomnia-based fatigue is getting pretty acute. I was up a lot last night from the sunburn I got at the Reds game, the police helicopter that kept buzzing our house and shining its spotlight in our windows, and these weird dreams I was having. In one, Kathy Griffin sacrificed herself to save me from a runaway hotel elevator as I stood by nonchalantly eating jelly beans. But I seriously feel like at any moment my head will just clunk down on my desk in exhaustion. I did have a little fun a couple minutes ago when a beetle-type insect was flying around my office. I waited until it landed on the floor and then dropped a very-thick art history textbook on it three times. And then just to seal the deal, I smushed it with my sandal, too. I figure when it comes to bugs, they can never be too dead.

Abe Froman

We're going to a Reds game today! Awesome. I haven't been to a Reds game in years. And that's just a damn shame. One of J's friends called yesterday and said he had some tickets, so we're heading down there this afternoon. We used to go to Reds games all the time when I was a kid. Our school district would offer discounted tickets to students who got good grades, so being the geniuses that we were, we'd get to go to lots of Reds games as a family. And I think every penny we saved on tickets we ended up spending on food. Hot dogs, pretzels, peanuts, frosty malts...ahhh, good stuff. I remember very well how one time we were all sitting, watching the game and the Reds weren't doing so well, so this group of men behind us kept yelling "Paul O'Neil, you worthless pud!" So, not knowing what that meant, me and my sisters went around for months calling people "worthless puds" until I finally found out what we were saying. We were pottymouths and we didn't even realize it.

I'm a mog

It's Friday! Whee! In the spirit of good tidings, I present to you a very startled-looking Wubby J.:

I don't know what spooked him when I took this. It was probably the coffee maker...or a broom. He's not too keen on either of those.

I'm just so happy that the work week is almost over. Yesterday, my boss got into a car accident. She was apparently driving the school van, the brakes went out and she t-boned another van in an intersection. Everybody's fine, but that must have been scary. I had my brakes go out on me once but not completely. I just had to really slam them down to the floor to get the car to stop, but it was still frightening. I have a very clear memory of my high school driver's ed. teacher telling us to drive into a shrubbery if our brakes ever went out. Which is a good idea, I suppose, but that would have to be one tough bush to stop an out-of-control van. You just have to hope that if the shrubbery gives out, there's not a steep cliff behind it. My other vivid memory of high school driver's ed.: HIGHWAY OF BLOOD, that film about what can happen to idiot drivers. Did you guys have to watch that? With the guy who fell off the motorcycle without a helmet and split his head in two? Charming.

16 tons and what do you get

Look out, world, because I am feeling cranky today. I think I'm doing a fairly good job of suppressing it when I'm interacting with other people, but I still feel this overwhelming urge to punch a pigeon or kick a chipmunk. Why my rage always get focused on small woodland creatures, I don't know, but there you go. I also don't know why I'm in such a mood. I have some ideas but they're really too stupid to even post. Like, is it reasonable to be in a bad mood because I don't like what I'm wearing today and then Willard Scott got on my nerves on the Today show? I have a feeling there's a deeper cause for my ire, but I haven't figured it out yet. Perhaps my time would be better spent just eating chocolate and shopping to make me feel better. Yes, Oprah, I know you think that's a bad idea, but you also don't have to work in a library with ceiling grates falling on your head either, so you just shut it.

I am happy to say that I saw the first episode of Project Runway last night and loved it. I dug the coffee filter dress and the fur-collar coat, but what the heck is the deal with that guy who looks like a wax version of Alan Cumming but with a really poor attitude? He's even surlier than the guy with the painful-looking neck tattoos.

Buncha perverts

You know how part of my job is to scan images for teachers to use in classroom presentations, right? Well, I've been doing a lot of that the last couple weeks for teachers who are putting together new classes for this coming academic year. And I can say with 100% certainty that I am sick and tired of looking at paintings of naked women. For crying out loud! You'd think that over the thousands of years men have been creating art, they'd think of something else to paint besides nude women bent backwards. And, of course, they always try to class it up by naming the painting something like Amor or Melancholy, but I'll tell you right now that when most women are feeling melancholy, the last thing they do is take off all their clothes, put on a sparkly headband and lie in a meadow somewhere. I mean, really.

In an interresting coincidence, my coworker friend and I were just discussing those Girls Gone Wild commercials on tv at night and how disgusting they are. Seriously, who are these girls and why are they letting men record their bare chests? Who does that? Anyway, the more I think about this, maybe Girls Gone Wild is simply an expression of 21st century man's love of the female form...Snoop Dogg as a modern-day Titian...? Yeah, I don't think so either.

I love poetry, a nice glass of scotch and my good friend, Baxter

I don't care how many more times people tell me I look like a corpse in this lipstick, I still like how I look in "iced mauve." Maybe there's a small part of me that's a little bit goth and likes the undead look. But I refuse to go all out with that image and prance around town looking like I think vampires are real. Cause they're not. It's all made up, kids. Dracula is just like Santa Claus in the reality department. Accept it and move on.

Update on the blood type situation: my Mom tells me that she looked at my original hospital paperwork from when I was born, and it says I was AB positive. This just gets curiouser and curiouser. Either I've suddenly lost my rh or one of these labs made a mistake. My first impulse is to blame the lab that did the bloodwork in the 70's because I always tend to blame filthy hippies for all my problems. That's how I roll.

It's peanut butter jelly time!

J and I went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 yesterday. That was a good movie. Like the first one, I thought the best parts were the scenery and Johnny Depp. In fact, Orlando and Keira were getting on my nerves so much that I almost started cheering when their characters started fighting at the end. At last, drama! Did anybody else see this preview they were showing of the Transformers movie? They're making a Transformers movie? I thought that was a joke. It looked like it's going to be live-action, although I'm assuming all the Transformers will be computer-generated. Sigh. Why can't they ever just leave well enough alone? Next thing you know, you'll start hearing rumors about a Thundercats movie starring Charlize Theron and Chad Michael Murray. Yech.

Small hands...smell like cabbage

I made my semi-weekly pilgrimage to Target last night and discovered that all the sandals are on clearance, and they're actually stocking boots now. Boots. In mid-July. You'd think after 31 years of shopping, I'd have gotten used to the bizarre early stocking they do every season, but it still always strikes me as weird when I see floral minis in February. But, hey, if this is some higher power telling me it's time to buy more sweatpants, who am I to argue?

Speaking of clothes, I'm noticing an odd preponderance of tapered/skinny jeans in the stores now. So we're done with flares and bootcuts? Frankly, I'm not sad to see flared jeans go, but bootcut and straight leg actually do look better on most people and are easier to wear with different shoes. I fear the re-emergence of the tapered jean...I fear it worse than tornadoes and carnies.

War! Hunh! Good God, what is it good for?

Ummm, is anybody else getting a little nervous about what's going on with Israel in the Middle East? How they're now bombing Lebanon because they say the Palestinians are attacking them from there? And the Palestinians in Gaza have no water or power and are running out of food because their militants are kidnapping Israeli soldiers? I hate to overreact, but I'm starting to wonder if now would be the time to pack up my sparklies and head to my compound in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Cause this whole Middle East area is sounding like there's a whole lot of war going on even though nobody wants to actually call it that. You can call it "unrest" all you want, but that's a war, people. "Unrest" is what you feel when you're stuck inside on a rainy day with a cat that has explosive diarrhea...that's not exactly the same as getting hit in the head with a ballistic missile when you're on your balcony drinking your morning coffee. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that diplomacy and reason prevail, but if you don't hear from me for a couple days, I'm in a tent in northern Ohio with a month's worth of Sudoku puzzles, is all I'm saying.

Somewhere, right now, a tree is crying

A truly dire situation is threatening my household: we are almost out of paper towels. Sure, sure, scoff all you like at what you think is an exaggeration, but things get pretty hairy when we have no paper towels. We use them for everything: as napkins, as kleenex, to clean the house, pick up hairballs, dry our hands, and (from time to time) to stop the bleeding. I have actually stopped buying the expensive Bounty paper towels because we were going through them so fast and it was starting to add up. Plus, with the thinner ones, I can tell myself fewer trees are dying because I've always suspected generic paper towels are actually made from recycled crackers. You know, this reminds me of a news story I saw one time about those ridiculously cheap people who actually reuse things like paper towels, paper plates, stuff like that. I vividly remember a woman hanging up rinsed off paper towels to dry so she could use them again. See, I'm cheap, but I'm not gross. Ewww.

Gene Hackman

A doctor told me the other day that my blood type is AB negative. I always thought I was AB positive, but it turns out that was just another LIE my parents told me (I am still in denial that the tooth fairy isn't real...sniff). So I looked it up on wikipedia, and did you know that only 1% of the population is AB negative? Sure, in America that's still about 3 million people, but compared to A positive, I'm pretty rare. It got me thinking about how I inherited a lot of recessive genes from my parents: my Mom and siblings all have brown eyes, whereas my Dad and I got green eyes, I got blonde hair even though both my parents were brunette, and I have the very bizarre attached earlobes. The most bizarre thing is my brother. He has one eye that is blue on one side and brown on the other. When we were kids I used to call him "a genetic experiment gone horribly awry." And now he's an accomplished geneticist researching cancer. I like to think my teasing has made him the man he is today...a genetic experiment gone horribly awry using his powers for good.

White on white crime

So Sunday morning saw another round of sectarian violence on my street. It wasn't actually sectarian...I've just gotten used to hearing that in the news reports on Iraq. Picture it: about 5 a.m. yesterday, we wake up to the sound of our neighbor across the street's son bashing in a car's windows. He was actually out there with a baseball bat knocking out the windows. But he was doing it because he'd gotten up to go to the bathroom and found two guys robbing his dad's garage behind their house. He had tried to chase them down, but they got away, and on his way back to the house, he saw their car parked on the street, and it was full of all their stuff from the garage. So he was understandably mad and, of course, reached for the nearest blunt object. Well, our neighbors got their stuff out of the car, but then half an hour later or so, apparently the thieves came back, saw what happened to the car, got into a van and drove up to our neighbor's house and STARTED SHOOTING!! They actually shot at our neighbor standing in his driveway!! Nobody was hurt, but a maple tree suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The police came and found more stolen goods in the car along with two rocks of crack and a bag full of bullets. Nice, huh? I'm so glad our neighbor wasn't hurt. And I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that these thieves were offended that someone had busted open their car to retrieve what these jackholes had stolen from them. But, as J tells me, this is how crackheads think. Buncha animals.

Gopher, Everett?

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just can't get real excited about North Korea's missile testing. Sure, it worries me a little because people shooting nuclear weapons around is never a good idea...especially when your missiles don't work that well. Can you imagine some poor North Korean farmer in his fields, minding his own business, when next thing he knows, a chunk of defective missile falls out of the sky and bonks him on the head? That ain't cool. But I think the real reason I can't take North Korea seriously is because of how goofy their dictator looks. That Kim Jong-Il looks like a human bobblehead. And, believe me, I know it's not a good idea to underestimate a despot because of his looks, but I just can't help it. I'm thinking about calling up the CIA and suggesting we take out Kim there and install George Clooney in his place as President of North Korea. George wouldn't want to missile anybody...he's too happy just being him.

Man, I come up with the best ideas when I've actually slept. Where's my Nobel Peace Prize?

We're in a tight spot!

I got to work this morning and our security guard reminded me it's time for us to do our yearly employee evaluations. And that means I need to do some yearly statistics, too, so I can brag on my evaluation about how much I did last year and what a good worker I am. All in all, this is a lot of busy work. And I'm just not in the mood. I stayed up too late watching celebrity poker then listening to the neighbors setting off fireworks, so I'm just not too hepped up about computing slide scans. Blech. I'm not kidding, when are the people on my street going to stop celebrating the 4th of July? And, if they must, why can't they choose a quiet activity like hanging bunting instead of setting off M80's until 1 a.m. on a weeknight? Some day I'm going to take a survey and find out if there's anybody else in a five block radius from our house who has to be at work at 8 a.m. like we do, because I'm starting to think we're the only ones. It just occurred to me that what I really need to do is move into a nursing home. I bet that place gets real quiet by 9 at night. Brilliant!

Are you two brothers?

Hypothetically speaking, let's say you're married to someone who was married once before and has been divorced for over five years, and you walk into the home of one of your inlaws and see a picture of your spouse and their first spouse hanging on the wall. For whatever reason, there's no picture of you and your spouse hanging anywhere, but there are multiple pictures of this first spouse. And let's just say for the sake of argument that your spouse's first marriage ended badly because of the way this person treated them, but you've heard through the grapevine that your inlaw was once very close to this person. Question: is it wrong to want the inlaw to put the picture away (not destroy it, just take it down) or is that overreacting? Purely hypothetical.

I hope everyone is having a great 4th of July! It's been raining a lot here this weekend, which is making me think we won't be able to do the cookout and fireworks today. But that's ok because I can still make s'mores on our gas stove. Whoo! It's that kind of resourcefulness that made America great.