I work hard for the $$, so you better treat me right.

First, the scariest thing in my office:

Seriously, what the fuck is this thing? My best guess is some sort of "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly"-related game.
Perhaps I'll die; yeah when this thing comes to life and EATS ME.

Second, another tale of the out-of-touch high school librarian I'm forced to work with.
He's doing his freshmen school library orientations this week, and, like last year, I'm going and doing my little song and dance. I was early today (got confused, times-wise) and had to sit through an extremely boring, poorly executed tutorial on using the library.
Here are some highlights:

• a discussion of the internet and search tools that did not mention Google
  
• a namedrop of Coldplay, followed by an admission to a room of 14yrolds that he didn't know who Coldplay was, followed by calling them a rap group, followed by me calling out, "They're terrible!"

When I first got there, one of the reader's club kids (and a somewhat regular of mine) walked up, chatted with me a little, leaned back in her chair, and proceeded to fall back, scattering her crutches, etc. Poor girl is pretty embarrassed at this point, so I just let her be as she fixes the ace bandage on her previously injured foot.
However! Librarian and teacher rush over, making girl even more of a focal point for entire room of 9th graders than she already is. At which point, after ascertaining that girl isn't seriously hurt and doesn't think she needs to go to the nurse's office, librarian says to teacher, perfectly audibly yet over girl's head, "Do you think we should send her anyway, for liability?"
Yeesh.

Happy Banned Books Week!

heart

took him to my party as the games were starting

I've had that song stuck in my head all week. Billboard, Sept 24.

• I'm really not caring about this issue, which will either make this very blah or very bitchy.
• I already spent most of today with the new issue of VOYA, and the latest Booklist--with the cover art for Julie Anne Peters' Far From Xanadu as a cover!--is staring at me.
• Far From Xanadu = a really good book, by the way.
• Depeche Mode is using iTunes to sell tickets for their tour.
• Also, Marissa tells me the new DM song does, in fact, kick ass.
• Um, I know I'm a librarian and supposed to know all kinds of shit, but what's Jack FM? This article is acting like I'm a big stupid head for not knowing.
• Aw, Jools Holland.
• Can anyone think of a good song with the word "bird" in the title? All I'm coming up with right now is "I'm Like a Bird" and, well, ew.
• While it makes me angry when Gwen Stefani shows up in her crazy "style icon!" outfits, it makes me even angrier when she looks cute.
• Reminds me of what could be, perhaps?
• She's looking adorable and pin-up girly in a leopard with white trim halter dress, black heels, and her hair all slicked back, probably chignoned, very Dior New Look makeup.
• boring issue
• Plus, I'm talking about boys and moms with Melissa and girls and Earth Wind and Fire-playing marching bands with Brian, and it's hard to compete with all that, yes?
• Oh, Tom Petty's looking BEAT.
• Ah, there's Gwen in an ill-thought-through ensemble again. That's my girl.
• OK, I get the layout trick of having people pictures look like backstage passes, but I'm wondering at the attention paid to the placement. Too many rockstars and big time music execs with holes in their forheads, magazine.
• Hey, Earth Wind and Fire! Weird.
• Looking even assier than Petty, I might add.
• Almost as assy as Assy the Ass Dog, in fact.
• Assy the Ass Dog was a little toy dog Greg, Jim, Alison, and I found outside Jason Kirker's house on the SouthSide one day. Its ass is in the air, and its head is turned in the scariest little plastic come-hither look since Barbie started opening her eyes all the damn way.
• Gretchen Wilson, your shirt is way too small. And as someone who frequently wears children's clothing, I should know.
• Look, Bon Jovi: just stop. Stop. Please. For me?
• I'll be your best friend?
• Well, that's not true.
• How 'bout this, Jon?
• I'll Twister ya for your career.
• If you win, you can do whatever the fuck you want, make battery commercials, whatever. I'll make a serious attempt not to mock, even.
• If I win, you go back to Jersey and shut your pie hole.
• Agreed?
• Have your people call my people...uh, cats, and we'll set up a meeting.
• You have to bring the Twister board, though.
• And the snacks.
• Do they make truck falafel where you are? Bring that. And some Jones Vanilla Cola.
• Or you could stop in Pittsburgh, and bring me some Hong Kong rice bowl from Lulu's.
• With pork.
• Destiny's Child members are finally letting themselves be referred to as "former Destiny's Child members"--it's about time.
• Um, Tyra, what does "embrace the mystery" mean?
• Does it involve your giant-ass forehead in some way?
• And yes, I can mock the text of a shirt whose proceeds went to Katrina victims. I'm mocking the phrase, not the profits.
• Aw, Queen Latifah. She's so pretty. And she always looks glowy, you know?

met him in a bar/said I know who you are

I have a few executive items to clear up.
***
Somehow, my car payment never made it to the bank this month. I had to put a stop payment on a check, which I'm PRAYING is the right one, since there's a bit of confusion in my register. Otherwise, Sprint and the car people are going to be mad at me. I hate it when I'm responsible and things fuck up anyway. I also hate it when the bank charges me $10 for shit that isn't my fault (for once). So, if you are reading this and I owe you a present, it may be a bit late. But you were expecting that, anyway, weren't you?
(That's for Tiff. As far as I know--and believe me, I would know--Lara is not a Perks reader. She's also more demanding about gifts.)
Speaking of presents, I'm going to be attempting to make things this year. If you're the sort of person I give things to, and have something that I might be able to make in mind, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Some of you it may be too late for, and you'll just have to like what you get, you ungrateful jerks.
***
Tree is too big for international travel, it was decided. Instead, my small plush triceratops (I named him Fisher the other day) is making the journey. I realized what a good thing this was last night, when I decided to read under the covers. What would I have done without Tree's neck-pillowy goodness?
***
There's been talk floating around the internet lately about my craptacular Friday night. (I love how I can take MySpace, a few Philadelphia-directed emails, some New England IMing, and Melissa's blog and turn them into "The Internet".) I had this whole thing set up, we came up with a fitting insult (Log Cabin Republican, if you're interested), but I just can't carry a grudge all like that.
Unless you're this girl Meisha I went to elementary and high school with. I still hate that bitch. And you really, really don't want to know what set it off. I have few enough friends as is.
Suffice to say, should have been hanging out with one boy. Didn't. Met an asshole.

Cara sez: "I hate when guys who are stupider/less attractive think I should still talk to them as if I were some sort of polite human being. If you aren't good to look at OR good to talk to, please stand somewhere far away and don't bother me."

I say, your problem with my intelligence, appearance, or attitude is not my problem.
The thing that really kills me about this guy, so much so that I'm still going on about it almost a week later when I could be composing my literary crush list or thinking about my actual crush or something, is that, before he turned into Asshole (TM), I was making a concerted effort to not be JessyJudgemental (as he was wearing a sweater and shorts and exhibiting a Mustang logo lookin tattoo, this was HARD) and to be JessyCharming ("Look, they have little stars on the corners!").
Just one quote, then I'll go onto the next item: "Why would anyone go to the library on the weekend?" followed by surprise and disbelief at the idea of people who don't have home computers or internet access.
Ass. Hole.
Who then (sorry, I'm on a roll now and there's still about half an hour til the RunescapeRush), at a different bar, after I was all snug in my bed, visions of kids without internet access dancing in my head, proceeds to bitch about me. To Melissa. And ask for my number.
***
Saturday was a good day, despite working, overanalyzing and jumping to (incorrect) boy conclusions, and falling into bed before 11:30. 18 kids at the anime program! And I learned how to knit in the dark.
Well, reasonably well.
Now I can't decide: do I buy more of the blue cotton yarn to finish the scarf I was working on in the dark, which I think I would wear quite a bit, or do I get completely new stuff, to expand my skill set a bit? And start on seasonably to-be-given-away stuff?
***
I've got 3 days off this weekend, and if I'm not done with that purse at the end of it, someone's gonna pay.
***
I've got these anecdotes that I forget who I've told, so I'm just going to put them on the internet and be done with it. For example, expect to see the Story of the Movie I Helped Twin Peaks Adam Make at some point.
But this is a different tale. And a shorter one.
Last year, when I was looking for library jobs, I used to check out the Special Library Assocation's job listings. (In MLS-land, we call any libraries that aren't academic, public, or school "special". They're not retarded; they're just weird.) This includes jobs like Lexmark's corporate librarian or you know how at the end of Weekend Edition they thank the librarians? Stuff like that.
Fox News listed jobs there, too. There was one that was quite tempting.
For a "Fact Writer".
When I read that listing, I got the greatest envisioning, of a bleak, former supply room somewhere, with all these posters of, like Clinton's face with a slash through it or lists of what constituted Facts.
Actually, in my head, Fox News HQ looked a lot like the workplace in Brazil. The movie, not the country.

I went to Aaaaaaaaarby's yesterday.

It was National Talk Like a Pirate Day, after all.
This is my new crappy Arby’s toy. It magnifies pictures of weather, about 5x. I should also add that these are color copy-ish pictures, so really what’s being magnified is all the little circles, giving it a bit of a rasterbation effect.
Which is kinda cool, now that I think about it. At least for a weirdo, popart obsessed girlie like myself. Not so much for the intended age group, I’m guessing.
And I’m really impressed with how the “camera’s”-eye view picture turned out. Who knew that placing my shitty digital camera up against the eyepiece would actually sort of work?

just a steeltown girl on a Saturday morning

I hate working weekends. I just thought I'd get that out there. I had Friday off, and I planned on doing all sorts of things, like a library visit, getting Junior's oil changed, changing kitty litter, etc. Then I got way-laid by The Purse and Passions.
Which, first of all, can anyone tell me exactly what Liz framed Eve for? And I love love love that Whitney is a nun now. How do you solve a problem like having a child with the man who you later realized is your half brother? How do you hold a sunbeam in your hand? I also like that whatsherface, Ethan's wife, is becoming more bitchy and soap opera badgirl, as opposed to just the whiny little bitch who feels threatened by Theresa.
Passions remains a great show, because I could work on an increasingly complicated knitting project (that was kind of a pun, b/c it was complicated b/c I was decreasing--don't kill yourselves laughing, people) and still figure out the major plot points, at least about the characters I want to know about. I don't give a shit about the "sexy" new bartender and Ivy's family.
Also Friday there was supposed to be Boy Hanging Out, which didn't happen, and I'm hoping was some sort of misunderstanding. I had my fill of stupid boy notcalling with the last one.
Instead, I went out with Melissa's Potential Boy of Interest and his friends. I'll let her tell this story, but, suffice to say, whomever's responsible for me conversing with certain members of this crew, you and perhaps your Grandma Eva owe me a drink.
I'm thinking I may leave this window open most of the day, at least until my anime program at 3, and add to it as things occur to me. It's just not a PoBaL (ooo, acronym! I'm such a damn librarian...) post unless it's 3 years long, right?
***
Also, Legs fucked up my knee last night. Seriously, it hurt for awhile after I disengaged his claws from my flesh and confiscated the ball of yarn. I wasn't just continuously bringing it up to not go off on the guy who was unaware that there are people out there without home internet access, I swear.
***
Anyway, The Purse is mostly done. The knitting part is over, with mixed results. That means that, while it doesn't look quite like I intended and I need more practice decreasing things and keeping my stitches uniform across all the rows, it still looks good. Now I just need to futz with the lining, sew up the sides, and figure out what kind of closure I want. I'm thinking magnetic snap thing. Can you just buy those?
I can't wait until I can actually use this thing!
***
More crafty nerdiness!
Over on Craftster, I'm participating in what's called the "Little Visitor" swap. At first, I thought this was an Aunt Flo reference, but it's actually much better/twee-er. In short, the idea is that you send a stuffed thing to your partner, who gives it a tour of their town, makes it an outfit, and sends it back with a photo album of their trip.
What does this mean for you? Local friends who have always thought that Tree was kinda weird won't have to worry about seeing him for a few weeks, since he'll be on vacation in New York City.
You will, however, have to put up with me showing Humor the Speech Team Whale all around our fair city.
And yes, he's coming out dancing with us, unless I find out he's allergic to cigarette smoke. I'll also be putting pictures on the internet, where all my other pics live.
***
OK, it's after lunch now. So some of you guys have spent the last week or so listening to my steady bitching about
--Ooo, fall Houghton Mifflin preview!--
this group of kids that have been using the library as their playground, despite the perfectly serviceable playground right outside the library. I even have a speech: "Don't run, don't jump down the stairs. You don't climb on the furniture; you don't throw the blocks, nor do you hit each other with the blocks."
Of course they don't listen. Damn 4th graders think they're grown. But then, inevitable, one of them gets wronged by
--Crap, the kid that is kind of consistently trouble just wandered out with a group of friends. I'm really hoping nothing happened.--
the rest of their irritating pack, and comes to tell on them to the librarian.
Which, first of all, I'm not a teacher, bitch. And, second of all, I don't care. Maybe, if she's so mean to you, you shouldn't hang out with her. Maybe none of you should come into the library AT ALL.
At least for the next 2 years, until you're 6th graders and officially mine.
Anyway, the point to all this is that one of them has taken our newfangled IM reference availability to mean that they can tell on some kid apparently harrassing them over the internet.
"He's at the library. Can you get him to leave me alone?"
Except a lot more typo-ridden than that.
***

I'm not as clever as Mark Twain.

September 17, 2005

• The skin on my right hand is all flaky and weird—heh, I’ve got a red right hand. And now it smells like weird lotion. I just noticed this this morning, and I have no idea where it came from. Going to make knitting even more of an adventure…
  
• Old news, I know, but c’mon: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” I love a cute, blunt as hell, talented famous boy.
  
• Apparently, elementary school kids are being taught about copyright and to add the circle C to their essays, according to some letter-writing chick from Philadelphia.
  
• And then they’ll all want a Funzo for Christmas.
  
• And, anyway, any Pgh Filmmakers alum has been told that just adding that symbol only goes so far. (thanks, Juan Cantino!)
  
• R.Kelly is BMI’s songwriter of the year. I never cease to be amused by this man, from his alleged secret marriage to Aliyah (that no one talks about anymore), to his newest shit, which I admittedly have neither heard nor seen, but that sounds a lot like an R&B version of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle: overblown and using imagery someone else used to make one point to make the complete opposite point.
  
• Anyone willing to hear my entire diatribe on Matthew Barney need only to ask.
  
• Damn, that super skinny iPod is sexy.
  
• Aw, Matador records. You just don’t hear enough about them anymore.
  
• Unless you run with people like me ‘n’ Tiff, of course. We’re still too firmly based in the 1990s, musically, to not still heart Matador.
  
• This list item was going to be a 1990s-related Belle & Sebastian quote, but I’m drawing a blank right now, which is kinda crazy for me.
  
• I’ve been all about the ampersand lately.
  
• ”Target is…implementing a bidding system for album cuts in its advertising circulars.”
  
• Target, baby, how can you do this to me? I thought we were tight, what with the $1 skeleton gloves, girl-sized cord blazers, that Hello Kitty dress Shane is wearing for Halloween (yeah, you thought I had forgotten about that, didn’t you?), and the hipster commercials.
  
• Aw, I still love you, sweetie. It’s like the folktale about the woman who lets a snake into her house and then gets surprised when it bites her: no matter how cool Target seems, they are a big multinational box store.
  
• Interestingly enough, Walmart’s still willing to go into a deal with BET that involves Kanye West. Isn’t their target audience the same group of people that suddenly started hating the Dixie Chicks?
  
• Louis XIV + Old Spice = funny as shit. I want a deodorant that smells like greasy hipster.
  
• Shit, that was a joke, but, let’s face it, we all know I’d be down.
  
• Louis XIV are looking quite pretty in this photo. Too bad they kinda suck.
  
• Also, does anyone want to talk about the fact that their single is really only good for dancing to, in a hot smoky alcohol-scented divey space, right before you go home with (most likely) a stranger? Does this say deodorant to ANYONE?
  
• Bueller?
  
• I guess my problem with all this is that I really don’t buy Louis XIV smelling all that fresh and Old Spice-ish, you know?
  
• Perks Of Being a Librarian: your home for discussions of how faux new wave bands smell!
  
• I don’t know who Bebe is, but I need someone to cause a distraction so I can steal her coat. It’s pictured on page 35, and it matches the purse I’m knitting PERFECTLY.
  
• New Echo & the Bunnymen—hee. And a tour!
  
• Anyone heard the new Depeche Mode single yet? I’m curious. As long as it doesn’t sound like “People are People”. I fucking hate that song.
  
• OK, I’ve finally found it: an unflattering photo of Kanye West. They do, in fact, exist, and where else but in the Billboard charts would I find it? That is, after all, wear they stick all those fake boobalicious pictures of Ms Carey.
  
• For just $3,375,000, me and James could live on Mulholland Drive! “Just you, and I, forever…” um, I forget the rest. Cara? Tiff? Little help?
  
• Oh my god, Shirley Manson has the same horrible fake smile in pictures I have! Scary.

my new platonic internet crush

She writes Victorian girl's school/gothic horror novels.
A Great and Terrible Beauty has one of the hottest scenes I've read in a long time--and in a YA novel, no less. (I've also been entertaining myself by using the word "steamy" to describe it.)
And, she's got one of the funniest, silliest, best blogs I've come across in awhile.
I heart Libba Bray.
---
Also, I need a Canadian to tape Alice, I Think for me, and you should all go read Susan Juby's blog, too, because I heart her as well. Hell, I almost went out in public in the world's most defective scarf, with "ART KNITTER" appliqued on it, simply because of Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last. That's the kind of love we're talking, people.
---
Speaking of love, I'm feeling a list of literary crushes post coming on. So stay tuned for that. Or something. Because who doesn't want to read about 26yrolds who are in love with Peter Pevensie, and I apologize now to whomever I wind up seeing the movie with.
Aw, who are we kidding? Melissa, I'm sorry.

I'm rapidly becoming the Blog of Listy Goodness (depending on your opinion of goodness, of course).

I like music.
I like lists.
I like public transportation.
Seems like it's about damn time to combine these loves, no?

1. Belle and Sebastian "The State That I Am In": "Riding city buses for a hobby is sad." I did a hankie of this one, but mispelled buses, which always looks to me like a plural for Gary Busey.
2. And, in "The Boy With the Arab Strap", Stuart sings a line about missing the bus. He is my soul mate, after all.
3. Wilco "Far Far Away": "Kiss and ride on the CTA." One of my favorite public transportation lines. Tiff and I are such nerds that, on the magestic Spring Break Road Trip, we both made sure to get pictures of CTA buses.
4. Kris Kross missed the bus, and that is something that they'll never do again. This one might be a school bus, though.
5. Replacements "Kiss Me On the Bus". 'Nother hankie: "your tongue your transfer your hand your answer"
6. Violent Femmes "Waiting for the Bus". This used to be my goto I'm Running Late song.
7. The Bangles "Manic Monday". I liked this one better when I thought the line was "blame it on the train but the bus is already there," probably because I used to try and rationalize lateness by blaming a particular route, when another got there ages ago. Example: I missed the 61A by 30 seconds. The 71D takes 10 minutes longer to get to the same place. Can I blame the 71D for being 10 minutes and 30 seconds late to work?
8. The Who "Magic Bus"
9. Screeching Weasel "Totally": "The Belmont bus takes me right by your house"

More to be added as I think of them/people bring them to my attention.

Am I allowed to be annoyed by this?

In the staff-side catalog at work, title searching Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan also gets you Meg Cabot's Boy Meets Girl.
However, the opposite isn't true. A title search for "boy meets girl" only gets the Cabot.
So, opinions? Can I get mildly riled up?
Oh, and more My So-Called Lifeness.

maybe she's in the Bahamas underneath the tropical sun

The would-be-fetus-lining is making this Billboard, for September 10, 2005, extra cranky.

• As a companion piece to my VMA ranting, might I direct your attention to Pamie, Stee, and Dan’s recap of the event? They’re much funnier than I could ever be, especially since we didn’t even watch the VMAs, instead going to Old Chicago for accidental ham.
  
• After spending all afternoon eating hummus and deviled eggs.
  
• ”Katrina’s devestation hits home for music biz.”
  
• Why? Because the people no one thought to help out are the same people that mainstream rap has spent the last few years convincing that the most important thing in the world is to look rich? No one’s gonna buy your clothes if they have no house, Diddy.
  
• Although, knowing this magazine, it’s probably that Napster is HQed in New Orleans or something.
  
• I’m sorry, I just don’t care that the music biz has been hit by this, in the same way that I don’t care whether or not McDonalds has taken a hit. It’s the people they’re constantly trying to sell their shitty merchandise to that are hardest hit, and that will continue to be hardest hit.
  
• Look, I haven’t even opened the damn magazine, and I’m already pissed. Can’t we go back to last week, when I just mocked Paul McCartney? Or am I supposed to be worried by the Paris hotel fires hitting home for him, or something?
  
• Oh, Elton John’s on the cover, with his songwriter guy. What’s his name, again?
  
• I’m actually pretty blasé about Elton John. It’s all one big MEH.
  
• OK, Kelly? Kelly Clarkson? Your dress is really pretty, that you wore to the VMAs, but, sweetie, do you not own a 3way mirror?
  
• Because your ass looks HUGE in it.
  
• Or does Kelly Clarkson just have old world bootie (I love you, Cara), and she’s the newest girl we’re all supposed to act like means that no tween and/or teen girls have body worries, b/c here’s one pop star who’s a bit curvy?
  
• I’m so out of touch.
  
• I could go on and on about the Katrina-ness, but I’m just going to say that, to me, it seems a bit callous to print things like, “Katrina disrupts all sectors of entertainment,” when its disrupted all sectors of everything.
  
• MySpace is launching a music label? See, Jackie, I was always like, no, MySpace is weird and corporate, but then you got me hooked and now I check all the time and my stupid clothing blog and I’M NOT MOVING TO A NEW NERDY CONNECTION WEBSITE.
  
• Because this is, after all, the Year I Don’t Move.
  
• or Pack.
  
• Kinda scary, and anyone want some corrugated cardboard/know of any good crafty things to do with it?
  
• iPod phone, eh?
  
• scratch, eh?
  
• It’s so easy to start doing that, and so hard to stop.
  
• Stupid sexy Flanders.
  
• Aw, Folkways is using Dylan’s book to advertise its back catalog. I heart cross-material advisory. Every so often you run across someone who’s made the mixtape Charlie talks about in Perks Of Being a Wallflower, and as soon as I get the capabilities, I want to make soundtracks for books like Brave New Girl, Fat Kid Rules the World, and…well, I was trying to think of a non-YA book, but let’s be honest here: how many of those do I actually read?
  
• I am listening to Citizen Girl, though, and it is really great. I keep laughing out loud in the car.
  
• I’m not crazy, fellow commuters. Really. I swear.
  
• Ten years of Ozzfest? Really? Wow.
  
• Some Christian band…Les Paul…reggaeton…meh.
  
• Well, not Les Paul. He’s cool. I just don’t feel like reading about him today.
  
• See the opening note about uterine lining.
  
• What the hell’s that stuff called again? Something with “endo”? I forget.
  
• ”Inte…integral…no…”
  
• Integrious!
  
• Man, that’s digging out some old injokes. Like I don’t have enough unfunny jokes in my recent past, I gotta go back to 2000 and shit.
  
• Was that 2000? When the hell did Brian leave Pittsburgh!?
  
• Oh, the arms are flapping! I’m excited! Bauhaus tour!
  
• Aw, I love when Li’l Goth Jessy makes an appearance. Hee.
  
• A Trip Down Memory Lane: My first bonding experience with Cara (when she stopped being The New ILL Girl and became My Friend Cara) was when she mentioned that she had made her boy drive from Fredonia to Pgh and then to NYC so she could see Bauhaus.
  
• I believe I called her a bitch, actually.
  
• ”New round of acts with teen appeal play their own instruments, write their own songs.”
  
• Being a Billboard writer must be so easy, since it clearly involves taking old articles and replacing Lennon or LeBon with the Click Five or Hanson.
  
• Yup, they just mentioned Hanson in this one. Very cutting edge of you, magazine.
  
• Didn’t one of them get married?
  
• 6 questions with Gavin Rossdale
  
• Man, is there a new t.a.T.u. single? I loved them! They were so blatant, and so calculated, and yet catchy as all get-out.
  
• I love videos that are like checklists:
  
• girl on girl: check
  
• school girl uniforms: check
  
• girls in the rain: check
  
• OK, we got us a video!
  
• Now if only pretty boys making out would be as universally recognized and sought after. Video directors could work from that list me ‘n’ Tiff made around the same time as the integrious joke.
  
• and the Ghostwriter drinking game
  
• and Richard’s stupid glam mullet
  
• My mother sent me an email today that included the idea that we should set Madonna on fire, somehow related to her picture book enterprises.
  
• See, once you meet my parents, I think I make a lot more sense.
  
• Anyone want to weigh in on that topic?

all my black mollies are dying off

August Wilson's got liver cancer.
Sad news.
If you don't know who August Wilson is, he's a Pittsburgh native playwright. His plays document, decade by decade, Pittsburgh, specifically the Hill District which, in its heyday, was up there with Harlem and the African American neighborhoods in towns like Chicago. Everybody stopped by.
Then Pittsburgh went eminent domain on its ass, built the Civic Arena (now the Mellon Arena--where the Penguins play and where I graduated and saw Tori Amos, but not at the same time), and things got slummy.
At least one of his plays (The Piano Lesson, and I also could have sword Fences) was turned into a TV movie.
Here's some more August Wilson info, from a more reliable source than my blog: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

a small way to help

This was embedded in the last post, but I figure it deserves its own entry.
There's a shop over at Etsy.com (where I sell my hankies) where all proceeds go to Katrina victims. If you make stuff, you donate it for selling. Or, you can buy stuff and help out that way.
Also, I guess Coinstars are accepting donations, too. Which appeals to the bored kindergartener and the bleeding heart in me.
Here's where you go for the craftiness.

2, 2, 2 posts in one!

I need to find a new Laundromat.
Microsoft Word just auto-capped “Laundromat” for me—twice! Weird. I wonder…launderette. Nope.
Anyway, so here’s the deal. Let’s set the Flux Capacitor back to Sunday afternoon…
Sunday afternoon I had a picnic. Most of you jerks didn’t come (don’t worry, I still love you), but two people did (I love you guys more). So it’s me, Melissa, Justin, munching on hummus, crackers, pasta salad, and deviled eggs. There’s some small talk: tits ‘n’ barges, I trotted out the temping trading cards tale, the usual Melissa/Jessy Running of the Unfunny Jokes into the Ground, that kind of thing.
And I won a free Coke, but the assholes at Walgreen’s don’t take bottle caps anymore. Don’t tell a sick girl this, by the way; she’ll just stare at you uncomprehendingly.
We’re there, minding our own business, really, being quite the modern-day Seurat subjects (that was Seurat, right?), when Guy comes up to us. He asks, de you folks want to hear a song? Melissa says yes. In my head, I start crying. I know where this is going. No one comes up to you, on a Sunday afternoon in a relatively urban area, to just sing because it’s a nice day.
Or maybe I’m a cynical bitch that just needs a hug, because I immediately go into “I have no money” mode. True to form, we get hit up. And then I get hit on.
I just want to know, you tell someone you need to sing to get together money for toilet paper. Then you make some comment about how great the boy present is b/c there are 2 girls also present. Then you specifically ask each person for money, and, after you ask me, you tell me I’m beautiful.
Here’s the thing, because I know I’m about to get some comment about how I can’t take a compliment. This isn’t a compliment. It’s a reminder that, as girls and women, We are constantly on display. Any moron, from any walk of life, thinks it’s perfectly okay to comment on my appearance. And I’m sick of it.
There’s a character in an August Wilson play, the 1960s one I believe, who is a gorgeous girl with scars all up and down her legs. Towards the end of the play, it’s revealed that she scarred herself to deflect some of that attention.
Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, the display is fun. There’s nothing quite like noticing a girl with kickass shoes, and then realizing she’s fixated on your coat. We do that for each other. And boy display isn’t always a bad thing, either. I just wish it worked like a library catalog search, and I could put limiters on. Or turn it off sometimes.
So, guess who uses my Laundromat? Thankfully, he didn’t remember/recognize me. Although this just proves my point more: these random comments are acceptable. Grr
Oh, and I taught myself how to knit while sick. Yay me!

Yeah. Here’s the 2nd part: Billboard Magazine 9-3-05

• Paul McCartney is an insufferable ass. And you just know Ringo’s gonna die first, leaving Paul the only Beatle left, and in a position to rewrite all sorts of history. And that shirt Stella wore? I hate them all, and I hate the cute clothes that Stella designs even more.
  
• aw, Kanye West.
  
• If there’s anything I truly love, it’s little pixely things. The Yahoo music ad has little pixely punks, and little pixely boy band, and a little pixely man with what looks like a little pixely sitar. Adorable!
  
• Ricky Martin’s working some serious George Michael scruff on the table of contents page.
  
• I’m so sad that Bob Moog is dead.
  
• And I totally love that Nick Rhodes is quoted in the article about him.
  
• Oh, random and off-topic, but remember those Etsy people I told you about, where you can buy my hankies? A group has set up a shop where you can buy stuff and proceeds go to Katrina victims. If you make stuff, you can donate to be sold. There’s info at the Craftster blog, as well.
  
• Slipknot thinks that the band in the Burger King chicken fries (which? Ew.) commercial looks too much like them, and sent a cease-and-desist letter.
  
• I just blew my nose, and now my ears are all stopped up and ringy.
  
• The dress Eva Longoria is wearing on page 25 looks like something that would have been my Barbie’s favorite outfit. But can she do the Barbie and the Rockers dance?
  
• New Nada Surf album on September 20.
  
• Melissa and I, it must be said, make an excellent getting-to-know-you tag team. She asks the basics I always forget about/don’t care about, and I find out the important shit, like if he hates Coldplay.
  
• Apple.
  
• My Chemical Romance have terrible hair.
  
• What song did Was (Not Was) do again? Was that the “everybody do the dinosaur” song?
  
• I heart Don Was: “Greed is the biggest problem facing the music business. People are tending to make shitty records and charging way too much for them and are not running the business in accordance with established principles of good management. We should take our energies a little bit away from chasing down teenagers who are file-sharing and go after the real problem and deal with those issues: Make better records and run the business better.”
  
• Man, I totally wish I hadn’t made all the Simpsons Wings references awhile back, ‘cause they would really come in handy right about now.
  
• Instead, I can just complain about how, when I opened up my vegetarian frozen dinner, there was a big chunk of pork in it.
  
• Yup, that’s definitely ham.
  
• What’s the song that, if you play it backwards, there’s a cracking lentil soup recipe? Or smashing? I’m sickly and not remembering things.
  
• And here’s a full-page ad that’s nothing more than a hand-written note from Phil Collins to Paul.
  
• Do I need to even go into how annoying Phil Collins is?
  
• Of course McCartney says he listens to Coldplay. Ass.
  
• And here’s the fucking PETA ad. There’s reason enough to hate anyone: an association with PETA.
  
• Oh, and he’s got a goddam picture book, too. Christ.
  
• To the Sendakmobile!
  
• Wow, could you imagine if there really was a Sendakmobile? That’d be AWESOME! Max would sit shotgun and ask if you were there yet, and you know Rosie is quite the backseat driver.
  
• Michel Gondry plays drums on Kanye West’s new album.
  
• Stupid fucking Billboard just told me about the final fucking end to “Six Feet Under”. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
  
• Assholes.
  
• Like everyone who reads their stupid magazine has HBO or something.
  
• Fuck.