112 posts from 2005

Posting has been sparse here lately, and the bit you're reading right now isn't much better.  Despite the fact that I am supposed to be an Official Grown Up by now, I still keep a college student's schedule, which gives me just oodles of holiday time to lounge around my parents' house, watching their cable and using their washer and dryer. It's easy to get lost in that sort of thing.

Most of my days have been divided among the following activities: baking, eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, eating, drinking, smoking, and reading.  I can't even be bothered to look at the internets, for the most part.  I have been inextricably immersed in the old C.S. Lewis, even though I have read The Chronicles probably fifteen or twenty times.  They were the first novels I read on my own, hidden under my covers with a flashlight well past bedtime--by then, though, my dad had probably read them to me twice, so I had them pretty well memorized. 

If anyone cares, the third book (if you go by publication order, which I and all right-minded others do) is my favorite: the bit at the end of the earth in the Silver Sea is so pretty it sort of hurts. 

By now, you may be wondering whether I am a christian, what I think of the whole "religious propaganda" issue, and whether I have yet seen the new Disney film.  Well, that is a post (and lots of sarcastic snorting and eye rolling) for a later date.

One more thing:  The S stands for Staples.  STAPLES, I tell you!

I hope all of you have a stellar festivus.  Please enjoy the celebratory airing of grievances and the feats of strength. 

In other news:  I really fucking hate shopping!

Cascadia: salmon, halibut, dungeness
Appalachia: catfish, crawfish, alligator

Cascadia: Starbucks, Bohemian Burnt Coffee Place, 87 other places
Appalachia: Waffle House

Cascadia:  dude
Appalachia: y'all

Cascadia:  recumbent bicycles
Appalachia: Harley Davidsons

Cascadia:  hybrid cars
Appalachia: monster trucks

Cascadia:  smoking ban
Appalachia: tobacco fields

Cascadia:  microbrews
Appalachia: The Beast, Nasty Light

Cascadia:  text messaging
Appalachia: monogrammed stationery

Cascadia:  tofu, tempeh
Appalachia: pork chops, pork ribs, pork rinds, bacon, ham

Cascadia:  dread wax
Appalachia: Aquanet

Cascadia:  green tea
Appalachia: sweet tea (iced tea, a.k.a. "tea")

Cascadia:  Raven, Sattiva, Sierra, Sequoia, Guru Deva
Appalachia: Darryl, Larry, Dwayne, Krystal, Scooter, Cody, Dixie

Cascadia:  fog, clouds
Appalachia: stars, more stars

I'm off on a red eye later tonight to begin my winter vacation. I may not be around as much for the next couple of weeks, but rest assured: I shall pop in every now and then to let you know what things are like in that part of the country where there are no gourmet coffee shops, bicycles, or fresh seafood, but there are Waffle Houses, pick-up trucks, and barbeque a-plenty. 

I am so bad with calendars.  I never know the date, especially if classes aren't in session.  Hence, today I am completely freaking out because I just realized that i am leaving for vacation on Sunday.  THIS SUNDAY.  As in, a few days from now.  Crap. 

So I am running all around figuring out how I am going to get a spare key for my new apartment for my cat sitter to use, because the apartment office only gives you one key and it is all "PROPERTY OF THE STATE OF OREGON DO NOT DUPLICATE," and I have to convince them to give me another key without letting them know why I need it, because cats are not at all allowed in this place and I will get in trouble if they find out about the cat, and I desperately need to get ahold of the cat sitter, because last year she did not call me back in time and I relied on a posse of various friends to do the cat sitting which led to the whole bag-of-poop incident and lord knows we do not need one of THOSE again and, additionally, is this all really one long sentence, because I think it is, and you can see that I'm feeling a tad FRANTIC over here.

I am so frantic, in fact, that I went out in the car without my magical iPod FM transmitter, which meant I had to listen to the RADIO (perish the thought!), and I heard some song advising me to "shake my laffy taffy."  What the hell?  Laffy Taffy is one of the nastiest candies of all time, ever, and I simply can not brook a song that attempts to create some parallel between that wretched substance and my lady parts. So I switch the station and land on "Mony Mony," yesteryear's equivalent of the damned Laffy Taffy song.  At least it wasn't Christmas music.

Normally I like nothing better in the evening than to lounge around and chat with people and watch terrible television and slurp away at a couple a few several glasses of wine.  Lately, however, I am having some serious motivational problems. Glass one  is wonderful! Glass two, however, gets poured down the sink, signifying the end of the evening.  It's so sad to see it swirling down the drain, but  I can not drink glass two. I always pour glass two, but I never drink it.  I am a wine waster! 

Of course, this does not apply to restaurant dining, where I happily order and drink glass two, loudly proclaiming "I am in love with this wine!" for all to hear.  Then I get giggly and start talking to my plate.

At home, though, I have become the lightest of lightweights.  I don't even smoke at home anymore.  What is up with that, people? It is not as if I am suddenly making an attempt at healthy living in my old age--au contraire!--drinking and smoking are two of my favorite leisure activities.  Unfortunately, though, I have become such a wimp that on those rare nights of indulgence (which, contrary to what I might lead you to believe, do not occur all that often) I feel the pain.  I have a sore throat from smoking the other night.  Yuck!  Lung cancer, you are so not invited to my cigarette party!

There is a huge-ass flock of honking geese flying over my backyard, and Flannery is FREAKING THE HELL OUT.  That cat is making some of the oddest noises I have ever heard. It's like a bizarre feline robot language of squeaks and clicks and hacks. 

That is all.

Other birthdays today include:

Ashley, of Absolutely Yay

Kate, of Pandora's Blog

Jennifer Connelly, of that super-unpleasant movie.  Oh, what's the one?  Where, at the end, it's so disgusting that you can't even bear to open your eyes all the way?  Oh, right.  Labyrinth.

Mayim Bialik, of Blossom (WOAH! I had one of those hats!)

Frank Sinatra, of Organized Crime.

**********

UPDATE!  I am going to go have coffee.  Here's a song for you:

**********

UPDATE TWO: THE RE-UPPING!  Crap, y'all, the song is not working.  Maybe I can fix it later?  This stinks, because it is a really freakin' awesome song.  About such things I do not jest!

Just in case y'all were wondering how I felt about Tyra Banks. And I'm sure you were, weren't you?  That's what I thought.  So, what is my opinion of the busty entertainment mogul?  Not surprisingly, I can't stand her.  Her horrible, horrible talk show is apparently aired no fewer than eighty-seven different times a day. She did a show without her make-up, and later, in a still more obnoxious attempt to show how she is like, so totally keeping it real, she had a sonogram on air just to prove that her huge, perky, orbicular milkbags weren't fake. Yawn.

But then, of course, she had to jump on the latest bandwagon in American journalism.  I use the term journalism loosely, here, people.  Tyra is now the latest in a line of pretty, skinny girls to don a fatsuit in the interest of finding out how it feels to be fat.  Yes, you read that right:  a FATSUIT.  She put on a suit to make herself fat.  That is what she did.  And then, when it turned out that Tyra didn't like being fat, she cried about it.  She cried, people.  On her show, in front of her two fat guests, whose eyes were shooting out daggers of hate in her general direction as she continued her display of faux empathy. 

So, Mel and I were chatting about this today.  Read on if you want to know how a couple of educated adults managed to go from dissing Tyra to use of the word "poopy" in conversation.

Mel:  I mean, everyone knows that fat people get treated like shit, and there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about skinny reporters, models, or actresses in fatsuits.

Katra:  It is so, so wrong. But crying about it is maybe worse.

Mel:  Yeah, I think that's the thing that really gets me, is that they're so upset afterward.

Katra:  I want to slap them upside their skinny heads.

Mel:  Like, "I was FAT for TWO WHOLE HOURS and now I'm REALLY SAD."

Katra:  Gaaaaahhhh I know.

Mel:   "Nobody looked at me like they always do, and I couldn't fit on a seat and WAHHHHHH...good thing I'm skinny in real life, and now I'll stay skinny FOREVER cause I know people are mean to FAT PEOPLE."

Katra:  I was going to write a blog post about it, but I didn't want the internets to start thinking I was fat, or something.

Mel:  Everybody is skinny on the internets.

Katra:  Thank god, because if people I don't even know thought I was fat, I would so totally CRY.

Mel:  I would go binge and purge.

Katra:   I would go on an all-laxative diet.  Sooooo skinny.  So skinny, and so POOPY.

I am lucky to live in a town where I can hear things like Tori Amos on the radio--for a long time, I didn't think there were radio stations like that.  So I was happy to hear Tori on my drive home earlier, but I wasn't expecting it.  In fact, before I realized that what I was hearing was a Tori Amos song, I thought it was a Cat Stevens song.  Why?  Because it's the EXACT SAME MELODY as "Father and Son."

That's not all, though.  Last year, when I was listening to that new Flaming Lips album in the shower, I found myself singing along.  Singing the lyrics to "Father and Son," by Cat Stevens, which fit perfectly, BECAUSE IT WAS THE EXACT SAME MELODY.  In fact, listening to the lyrics of the Flaming Lips' version later, it became clear to me that this must have been some sort of homage to the Cat Stevens version.  Even thematically, it's a direct echo. (Not that they say that in the liner notes, so maybe they didn't even notice that they did it?).   What the hell, people?

I realize this sort of thing happens all the time.  Once, an ex-boyfriend illustrated his opinion on the derivative nature of Elvis Costello by singing a different Beatles song along with every track on an Elvis Costello and the Attractions greatest hits album I had.  And, yeah, anyone with two ears can tell you that "Beverly Hills" and "The Sweater Song" are pretty much EXACTLY THE SAME, too, but it's Weezer, so what are you going to expect?  But I digress.

See what you guys think:

"Father and Son," by Cat Stevens, from Tea for the Tillerman (1970).

"Fight Test," by the Flaming Lips, from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002).

"Cars and Guitars," by Tori Amos, from The Beekeeper (2005).