just another ink-stained wretch

How to foil terrorists: Make airplanes out of Charlie Sheen

2009-12-26T14:28:00.000-08:00

Gawker is right, the dude is indestructable:

"Charlie Sheen could burn down the Chateau Marmont with His Holiness the Dali Lama in it after getting too crazy with his homemade meth lab, and Hollywood wouldn't hesitate to give him the leading role in a six-picture feature adaptation of Redwall as the lead mouse. And he'd win an Oscar for it."

Why? Why do we put up with his wife-beating, crude, conspiracy-loving ways? Is it all just because his red-rimmed eyes and wry smile somehow imprinted on us in a moment when we went all vuleranble and believed we, too, were friends of Bueller?

Oh, come now

2009-12-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

While some might disagree with the Pope, I'd like to think that, upon hearing of his smackdown, no one actually popped a cork.

Can't talk now - too busy cleaning for holiday guests!

2009-12-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

If I am not mistaken, this year has (mostly) blown goats.

2009-12-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

Today is the shortest, darkest day.

In my heart, this year has been just brutal. People have died, people have acted badly, children have been frighteningly ill. I am over it. I hope, as 2009 leaves, that the door hits it on the ass on the way out.

In my heart, the year is starting fresh tomorrow morning.

In last-minute shopping panic, my true love bought for me . .

2009-12-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

Catholic Doctrine Playing Cards.

Meet me in the third row center and bring extra tabs of acid!

2009-12-17T05:11:00.000-08:00

But why is Depp playing the Mad Hatter as channeled by Elijah Wood?

On the somethingsomething day of shopping, my true love bought for me . . .

2009-12-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

"Pull My Finger" Santa*

*7" Seated Plush Character that shakes and makes a farting sound with 7 hilarious random remarks.

Truly the perfect way to celebrate the birth of Our Lord. Thanks, Baby Jesus!

Toy-A-Day

2009-12-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

Because December is really damn long.

Inner me.

2009-12-14T21:48:00.000-08:00

Not to be creepy, but I am totally marrying this kid.

2009-12-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

Mabel, One And Only

2009-12-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned Mabel?

When we moved to our new house, the landlord said we could have a dog. I announced to my household, while breathing far too excitedly into a paper bag, that I would be methodical, damn it, and not make us all victim to my latest whim and not - not - jump the dog gun and insist we grab the first pooch we saw.

Of course I did.

And so I started looking at shelter web sites and rescue web sites and I stumbled about a bit on Craigslist. On Craigslist, I found an ad about how this gal had scooped up a black lab/Shepard puppy, that she had taken her from a yes-kill shelter, where the puppy was next in line for a'killin'. I dutifully announced that, oh my children, we will go and squint suspiciously at this puppy, yes, but we were not - not - going to grab her and run with all the love we had to offer. No. I had done that before and ended up with more than one slavering, insane mammal. I had Learned. I would be Circumspect.

And then we saw this:

then

Reader, I married him.

And of course from the time I knew we could start looking (cautiuously, cautiously) to the time she came home with us was under 48 hours. Seriously. At least I am consistently ridiculous.

Jaysus, but puppies are hard. I knew it and I dreaded it, and still, we have a Christmas tree jacked up on the coffee table, and bitter spray for the now-ripped carpet corners, and a hacked-and-torn garden sprinkler system and manymany dollars handed over to the dog trainer and chewy things underfoot that reek of dead goat feet, because they are dead goat feet.

now

I'm thinking she needs a sidekick so she can go on adventures, someone small, like a terrier or corgi, who wears a monocle and makes her explain her deductive reasoning.

No.

2009-12-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

When I moved to sunny, warm, sexy California,* I expected warmth and sun. And sexy. So, why is the birdbath frozen solid?

*Dramatic foreshadowing. They use it in drama. Or maybe I am being sarcastic. I can't tell.

Sketchy Santas

2009-12-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

If this site doesn't put you right in the ding dang holiday spirit, you are utterly lost to me. Lost, I say!

The perfect gift for that guy you are stalking in the corner cubicle

2009-12-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

"Vomit Station" desk accessories.

So that's what it's all about?

2009-12-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

The creator of the Hokey Pokey just died.

No wonder today feels so empty.

On the fourth day of shopping . . .

2009-12-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

I went out, looking for a gift for grandma. And I found it.

A fetus pin.

On the third day of shopping, my true love gave to me . . .

2009-12-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

Rings that look like fossils . . .

because nothing is more evocative than jewelry embedded with some stranger's toenail clippings

this helpful gadget,

because nothing says "happy holidays!" like oral floss from a dog's ass

and this upsetting thing!

when you are so anal that you must cover your dog's butt with a decorative sticker?

We call that a "serial killer red flag."

On the second day of shopping, my true love gave to me . . .

2009-11-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

a clearly articulated cow accupuncture model,

one

medium size pair of wig panties,

and

this Frida Kahlo Uterus plushie!

(I damn well hope you're singing along)

On the first day of shopping, my true love gave to me . . .

2009-11-27T12:10:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's underpants-as-a-hat. Thing.

The seven deadly sins.

"Your foreskin offends my Jewish father."

Happy Day One of Christukahzah purchasing. Now, get your shopping on!

I'm Sean Connery. I'm damned sexy. Now, stop looking at my braid.

2009-11-24T20:03:00.003-08:00

You know how sometimes you see a thing and you simply go competely insane? Shut up, you do so. This is a still from "Zardoz," a Sean Connery film d'art, and see, he has a need for all those extra straps in order to have close many, many bullets, and also in order to keep up quite the blouson of a bikini. Also please to note the Puss In Boots, er, boots. And the receding hairline and yet all! the! hair!

Actually, I think the hair is the key to my fascination, or at least part of my fascination. The image is undeniably campy, but it also seems just a little bit naughty to me. It makes me uncomfortable. And why is that? I'm not certain, but I think it's the obvious, untamed body hair. He's not waxed or shaved and his skin hasn't been bronzed or buffed to a sheen. Body hair is no longer an acceptable image -- when was the last time you saw a bare-chested actor with an unsculpted treasure line and wild hairs on his upper thighs? There's nary a shiny skin stretch on him, like a real person. He doesn't have pectoral implants or bicep enhancements, either. It's like something out of a '70s porno, for Pete's sake!

It is to swoon. Awkwardly.

And then there is this, the action figure:

and this:

In case you wondered how he looked from behind as he protected you from hallucinatory snow bears.

Working

2009-11-20T11:54:00.000-08:00

The commute to my job is gorgeous and rustic and follows along the cliffs and beaches and tree-filled bits of the central coast. It's really quite stunning. Unfortunately, it also feels like I am placing my life on the line every time I drive it, which is twice each weekday. I was run off the road last night, in the dark, by a drunk driver (I assume the driver was drunk, although some cowboy could have been texting while driving at least 80). So, I am beginning to have concerns, although the work and the people are all terrific. It's wearing to drive a certain stretch every night in a low-grade, white-knuckled terror.

I work better at home than I ever do in an office, and that's the truth, because I am so worried that someone will suspect that I am watching TV or napping and just plain old not sitting upright that I work four times harder.

I wish they'd finish designing those jet packs I keep hearing about. I would ride mine a mere eight feet above the ground the whole way, trailing scarves like a sleeping Isadora Duncan while making slow, underwater bicycle motions with my legs. I would arrive with matted hair and bugs in my teeth, satisfied to have met my daily requirements for both cardio exercise and performance art.

2009-11-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

One week from today, you will be loathing at least one family member, but there will also be leftover pie.

Thanks, Daniel Maurer!

2009-11-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

What is wrong with this sentence?

2009-11-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

I should have placed a comma before "but."
I should have used longer pieces of bacon.

The "F" word

2009-11-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

I am writing for a funkalicious site, Cool Mom Picks. I like many things about CMP, but what I like most is that it works this way: I am asked if I want to review something, and then I do, and then they run it. There's no pressure to like anything, which is good because I, good sir, am not that kind of blogger.

Don't get me wrong -- I do have my price. If, say, the Bureau of Please Like Hawaii wanted to give me a trip for four to Hawaii as long as I promised to say I did, indeed, like Hawaii, I would. I'd lie by omission about the bad parts, such as the fact that apparently dolphins don't actually serve you frozen drinks on their heads like swimming waiters and the gravitational pull of Hawaii doesn't make you skinnier and I would just be like, "Wow! Hawaii! You gotta try it!" But for anything less than a trip for four to Hawaii with or without the dolphin waiters? I am pulling no punches.

When I wrote for Hooters (ahem) magazine, I was also the media editor, which meant reviewing buttloads of music. But not my kind of music, of course, music for a dorky suburban mom writing secretly under a number of male pen names and also working full-time as the managing editor of an educational magazine (I was, for a span of time there, not unlike "Victor/Victoria," in a "Reading is Fundamental" tee-shirt). No, the kind of music I was sent to review was crunk and heavy country and whatever else PR folk thought the Hooters crowd would like. I dutifully listened to each frickin' CD on my way to work and on my way home from work and tried to find good and helpful things to say, looking at the music from the view of a twenty-something guy who would buy a Hooters magazine and flip to the music section. And if I didn't like something, I did not write about it. I knew well that I knew little and was not about to adversely affect someone's burgeoning crunk career with my stoopid.

In other words, it's nice to be working within my demographic. Although I assume my writing is suffering now that I don't have to find fourteen coy euphemisms for "boobs."