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.