To mediocrity and beyond!

Sometimes, even the most frugal of us don’t feel like making lunches to take to work, the most good-food-obsessed just want some curly fries, and the most responsible stay up way too late with a certain boy to give themselves enough time in the morning to make a tuna salad sandwich, put some pretzels in a bag, and grab an apple. And sometimes you just run out of mayo, world’s grossest condiment.
These are all very good reasons for buying one’s lunch. In earlier times, I had food trucks and Bruegers and plain slices and all sorts of things. But I work in small town Indiana now, so my I-didn’t-plan-ahead-for-lunch $$ wind up going to Arby’s.
Arby’s won out over Subway: the only thing I ever got there was tuna salad, and why am I spending 3x as much for Subway to make what I already decided I didn’t want today, just saltier? And seriously, Subway, if I say it’s too salty, it’s enough already. I eat those red paper package Indian pumpkin seeds. And Arby’s won out over McDonald’s because it’s McDonald’s and Chinese buffet because buffet and go back to work for several hours aren’t a good Jessy combo.
Plus, it’s relatively cheap. That’s because I get the kids’ meal, although they call it the Adventure Meal. I don’t need a lot of food; I’m a tiny girl. If I’m expected to be around library patrons all afternoon, I don’t want biggie size sluggishness. And they got Mr Pibb, or Extreme Pibb, or whatever they’re calling it now to bring in the kids, even though I’m the only person I’ve ever know who actually prefers the stuff. See, Pibb doesn’t need to throw his high-falutin’ degree around, unlike some other pops I could mention. And curly fries. Throw in 2 good-sized chicken fingers and a toy, and that’s about $3.50 for lunch.*
Wow, that’s a lot to go through just so I can make fun of some cheap crappy kids meal toys.
And of course I save the toys. They’re no pancakes-to-robots fake Transformers, but as desk decorations go, I could do a lot worse. Here’s some pictures I took with my new crappy camera. You should expect this camera to be making a lot of appearance here, by the way.
I should also mention that this is my first time using Hello, and that I had already edited these pictures thinking, I don't know, something else, so that's why there's white and they're so tiny.


This is a 2-piecer I got just the other day. As far as I can tell (based on careful study of the plastic bag it came in), the oven mitt is supposed to scoot away if it gets too close to the oven. But I think there’s a sweatshop worker somewhere in China who needs a refresher course in magnetic poles, because both parts kinda just sit there, unless you try to force the mitt onto one tiny part of the bottom of the oven. I like having a plastic oven, though. If only it opened. Ooo! Or maybe someone could get me some little pots and pans and I could make a stovetop, and make Stove Top. Birthday’s next Monday, people.


I think this is frog tiddliwinks. I find it hard to believe that it was easier and cheaper for Arby’s to give out this instead of those metal clicker things. Had they never given me a pint-sized, sample issue of National Geographic for Kids, this would easily win the worst Adventure Meal toy award.
Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the book on my desk, or can explain why I’ve never rescued my flashlight, or why I even have a flashlight there in the first place.


2 horses, kind of fighting? The director tried to play with this one day, kind of unsuccessfully. And if a library director can’t have fun with it, what’s the point? (UPenn library directors who had child porn on their work computers not included—I’m sure he could figure something out.)


This is the most design-flawed. The oven and mitt combo doesn’t count because the mitt would scoot away if the magnets were placed correctly. You’ll notice that Mr. Seal’s tail is different from the rest of him. Mr. Seal actually has about 20 tails, all printed with fun facts about seals, in a fun true/false format that’s fun. Except there isn’t enough room to read anything but the top of the first card and the bottom of the last, and even (as you can kind of tell from my blur-tastic photo) those words are somewhat covered. To play the game, you have to pull Mr. Seal apart. Or get bored and throw him at your sibling, which I’m betting would be a much more fun game. Lara? You out there?


This oven mitt scoots around and came with teeny cards with GirlTalk-esque actions on them. I’ve lost the cards, but I really don’t think an oven mitt should be telling me to dance, anyway.


This is a tiny dragon fighting a spider ring: the caliber of cheap plastic toy I much prefer.


*Crustacean from the Paleolithic, anyone?

looks like I'm not the only one

Another member of the Claudia fan club.
Where did this guy come from, anyway? Shouldn't I already know about a mid20s YA author who speaks gay so fluently?
Speaking of, I read something, maybe on afterelton.com (Brent Hartinger and his reminding-me-of-Eli-Cash-in-a-good-way man have a column), about Bring It On completely devoted to the gay male cheerleader and how amazing it is that everyone's so matter-of-fact.
Hello? The character's barely in the movie. Personally, I think of him more as "notJan" than as "the gay one".

"Lemmy is the Bruce Springsteen of metal."

Damn.
I'm having trouble getting over how great is, and not just because of how sleep-deprived I was this morning when I finished it (or when I read the Slate article whining about YA lit--and incidentally, has it occured to anyone else that I left behind my experimental, nonnarrative film expectations for the one fucking thing on the planet more people have less of a concept of? And these are intelligent, well-read people. Sorry. I'm just feeling Friday cranky about having to explain, again and again, exactly what YA lit is. Can I just punch the Slate hosebag and be done with it?), or that neither Montmorency: Thief, Something, Blah or The Book of Dead Days are as cool and creepy as I was led to believe. That'll learn me to believe the hype and/or bookjackets.
Eh, what was I saying? Headache. Sleepy. Furry. Tomorrow morning's present unwrapped and to-be-exposed body parts unshaven. Jesus, ALA's in a week. In less than 2 weeks, I belong to a different age demographic. 26-death box, here I come!
Oh yeah! I remember now. Aw, and you all thought I had absolutely no point to make.
Remember when I wrote this? If it helps, it was pink last time. I opened my email the other day to find a new comment, and could that "PJ" perhaps stand for what I think it does?
So, here's my beef with the end of Things Change. Although I should preface this by saying that I'm ambivalent about my beef, because on the one hand, learn-a-lesson-lit annoys me and far be it from me to say that YA lit should first be socially responsible. But then I read Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn, and felt better about things. I guess I just feel like Jones' book ends too up in the air. If you know anything about the cycles that domestic abuse takes, Girl's optimism is kind of scary. It also bothered me that she never thought about her relationship with her parents, and how a girl like that could very well keep choosing abusive asses as boyfriends to spite them. But hey, I could be totally talking out of my ass right now.
Also, I didn't like either main character from the get go. Perfectionist meets guy who "knows" he's funny? Sign me up for fucked-up girl who falls in with fairy junkies instead. Or, you know, a nap.

He likes Steely Dan, so I refuse to let this title be a song quote.

What I'm all riled up about, after running to CVS on my break (in addition to just realizing I forgot one of the things I went for, which would have upped my bill to enough to use my other coupson): finding a goddam Father's Day card. Like it's not hard enough finding a gift for my dad, I also have to do this every stinking year (at least, the ones when I'm not feeling collage-y). And every year it gets worse, because I refuse to repeat a card, even though I'm sure my dad wouldn't remember.
See, here's the thing: neither (niether? damn ie) of us are stereotypical, normal, traditional. Whatever you want to call it, we aren't. Hallmark, etc. have pretty clearly marked out what they think the typical father-daughter relationship is, and it isn't us.
The Hallmark dad likes watching sports all the time (mine will occasionally watch a Steelers or Pirates game, if it's a particularly important one--invariably, this leads to swearing as, let's face it, us yinzers don't have nonsucky teams. It's a thing we do.). He watches a lot of other TV (mine does that annoying intellectual "TV is crap" thing, while still watching said crap--annoying, but not really the basis of a good card). He golfs. He grills, and, while my dad does cook, I've never seen a card poking fun at a science dad's turkey-trussing methods. And, is it just me, or is Hallmark dad kind of a noninvolved asshole?
Some of the cards do make learning to drive jokes, and that used to be relevant, but I think referencing something that happened almost 10 years ago is a bit ridiculous, like we haven't done anything together since. We have, it's just that there's also no Father's Day card that says, "Thanks for going to see pretentious postmodern contemporary art installations with me when I know you prefer impressionism,"* or "Hey, did you see that thing on the New York Times website about those tiny chicken-looking dinosaurs they found in China?"
Hallmark daughter is a spoiled daddy's girl brat. She's still dependent on her father, and has him wrapped around her finger. Leaving aside how insulting I find the idea of a girl in her mid20s still calling her father "Daddy", I'm just not that girl. Will I ever open up a potential Father's Day card that says, "Thanks for picking out a drill for me, so I can put up shelves to display my collection of other people's prom glasses"?
Last year, I finally went with a card with a picture of a '77 punk guy on the front that made some crack about opening the door to your daughter's date to find said punk guy. I wrote, "He's a Republican," and left it at that.
With time running out on my break, I finally found a thank-you card with a picture of a donkey on it. My dad likes donkeys; he thinks they're cute. I crossed out the message with a big, ball-point X and wished him a happy Father's Day underneath.
[This doesn't seem too Sarah Vowell, does it? I'm listening to The Partly Cloudy Patriot, and I sometimes pick up author or narrator voices of things I like.]

*Should impressionism be capitalized?

if moon were cookie...

I open Publisher's Weekly, which always has 2 covers because the first one is an ad. Sometimes the second, actual PW cover features the same book, author, or issue as the ad. Why, I ask, are there two, then?
Today, however cover #2 has an attractive Asian woman looking to her right (conveniently enough, directly at the magazine's logo). There is an face down open book breaking its spine and a mug of coffee? tea? next to her. She is sitting on either a wooden slat bench or a hardwood floor. She is holding a large, yummy looking cookie, sugar or peanut butter, I think, in both hands, like a squirrel, mouse, or Meleah Himber. This woman has a look of apprehension on her face, as though someone big and scary has just threatened to steal her snack.
There are four headlines on the cover, and one diagonal item, which goes across cookie girl's green khaki covered legs.* My awesome powers of media analysis (fuck you, Intro to Women's Studies) have matched cookie lady with either "Reader Power: How America's book groups are changing publishing," or "The Practical Faithful: a Religion Update."
The other options are:
"'Star Wars' By the Numbers"
"Kirshbaum's Time"
"Legs McNeil on the Life of Russ Meyer"**

So, what does everyone think? Is cookie lady reacting with fear to the comments of her book group buddies? Has Jesus come to restore her practical faith (what the hell does that mean, anyway?) and yoink himself a tasty snack? I tried to find the cover online to link, but can't easily, and I'm feeling lazy. It's the May 23 PW if someone else wants a shot.

Actually, I opened up this window in the first place to share the stupid leaps my brain makes. I turned to an ad for this book:

and immediately got "Who's That Lady" stuck in my head.

*She's also wearing an oatmeal long sleeve shirt over a slightly darker and pinker oatmeal shirt--like the color oatmeal would be if you gave yourself a slice instead of the banana--and "natural" makeup. Why is it fall in cookie lady's world? Especially since it's already feeling like August in everyone else's. Aren't we getting a bit close to beach book time for pants and heavy-ish layers? How has she not gotten cookie crumbs under her perfect nails? And, most of all, how come there are no coffee stains on her light-colored outfit?
**Is it too much to ask that my cat's namesake be on the cover? There better be a picture inside. A big one.
Just finished the issue. Couldn't find any Legs. Grrr.

178th Street Y

This is just the most charming thing I've seen in a long time.

Think of it this way: you can either be successful, or be us.

That's right, more Billboard nonsense.

• page 6: "The suit alleges NBC canceled Motley Crue's appearance on 'Last Call With Carson Daly' and that the lack of media exposure from that cancellation hurt album sales." So swearing on Leno and NBC's retaliation is the only thing hurting the Crue's latest album?


• Can I mention how much Paul McCartney annoys me without getting my head bitten off? On a related note, have people seen George Harrison's son? I was watching this ET Star Wills thing last night on TV, and I had to call my mom, he's so hot.


• It's good living with you, awwwahhhh: "Better Than Ezra's new album..." Why, lord, why?


• also page 10: That new Better Than Ezra album? Released partially through Song, Delta's lowcost, boutique line. Whatever that means. But I think I would pay extra $$ to not have to listen to Better Than Ezra while in a machine that could plummet to the ground and kill me. The plummeting would be too tempting


• And before you guys (OK, "K") start accusing me of being too elitist, snobby, cranky, whatever, I fully admit to having had a Better Than Ezra tape. In middle school. In 1991.


• Hey, Richard, there's a picture on page 16 where Scott Weiland has your "glam" mullet. I think you should beat him up for stealing your hair. Also for making a band composed mostly of members of Guns'N'Roses sound so damn much like Stone Temple Pilots.


• Secretly Canadian is issuing The Shield Around the K: the K Records Story, which makes up for the ugly shirt the codirector of Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? is wearing in this photo. I'd like to see both of these, but no library around me will order either, I'm betting, and their not exactly suitable for my teenhole, either.


• Jack White looks a lot like Adam Duritz in the photo on page 22, and, as all MST3K fans know, Adam Duritz is the most repulsive thing in the universe. Tiff? Brian? What episode is that from? I can't remember.


• There's a girl on the roof and she thinks she's a cat.


• This What Teens Want marketing event is so creepy. I know full well that executives think like that, so cynically and Josie and the Pussycats movie-ish, but I hate when it's this obvious. Yuck. I think you really have to see the ad to get the full effect, so go here


• Huge, multi-page Maroon5 extravaganza. I think I feel a hairball coming up.


• Backstreet Boys also have a new album coming out. Joey, Jordan, Jon, and Danny need to sit these fellas down and have a little chat. Donnie can't come: he's doing that acting career thing. Or setting fire to a hotel room, I forget which.


• Are Seether named after the Veruca Salt song? I've been wondering for awhile...


• Mariah Carey's boobs are definitely bigger than they used to be. Poll: implants or secret kid?

I'm done now. I'll be a nice quiet good girl for the rest of the day.

I hate you, Found Magazine guy: I had that idea first.

Some index cards I found in a book (assume sic):

Slide 2
David Robert Jones was born January 8, 1947 In Brixton, London.

Slide 3
The instruments he played were saxophone, guitar, vocals, & keyboards.

Slide 4
He left Bromley Technical high school to work as a commercial artist for 3yrs. After that he started playing in bands such as: the Konrads, the King Bees, David Jones & the Buzz, the Manish Boys, & Davey Jones & the Lower 3rd
1966 he changed name to David Bowie so noone will get confused with him & the Monkee's Davey Jones.

Slide 5
Married Angela Barrett on March 20, 1970 & they had a son named Zowie now called Joey in June of 1971.

After they divorced he married somallian super model Iman & they are still married.

Slide 6
the albums that he made were Changes on bowie, Lust for life Tin machine, Tin Machine 2, & oy Vey, Baby.

Slide 7
Some of the movies he played in were the Labyrinth & the Man who Fell to Earth.

Slide 8
Pictures of Bowie.
Thanks for listening
***
This almost beats out that post-it drawing I found in a book in the teenhole at the Crescent Hill branch of the Louisville public library, with Trogdor and a girl Trogdor burninating peasants. That's on my fridge right now, next to Chynna Clugston-Major's Duran Duran story from Spin.