Thursday, August 31, 2006

These little town blues...are melting away...

I now have a sweet computer system at home; I'm just not "connected" yet. Whoo-hoo!! Haven't had a lot of time lately to do research on the cheapest high(ish)-speed internet connection...and believe me, it WILL be the cheapest. I don't want cable tv (hate tv), and I don't want a landline (no need for one), so I think I'm stuck. I have awful visions of myself rotting in my apartment in front of VH-1's "Celebreality" or Melrose Place reruns on E! (does E! still exist? an industry friend once told me that the worst, most dreaded job in all of television was to work in assistant production for E!... they have a saying that goes, "You can't spell "cheap" without an E!")
In high school and college, I was a tv junkie - I rearranged my entire schedule around the tv. It was sad, and I don't miss it (not that I didn't have fun in high school and college, but I think I would have gotten out and done more interesting things - especially in high school - if I hadn't been addicted to the tv). We pulled the plug on cable in 2002, and never looked back. I wish I could begin to explain how much better my life is since tv has been eliminated from it. I read more, I write more, I see people more, and inadvertently started a small side business making jewelry (I have since thought better of this, but only because I'm too busy with everything else).
I still watch shows on DVD (God bless you, Netflix!!), but I'm so much happier being in control of what I sit down and watch. And when it's over, I don't mindlessly channel-surf - THAT was my biggest mistake with cable.
My decision was validated earlier this year when I found myself at a friend's house watching My Super Sweet 16 on Mtv b/c there was nothing else on. This show made my brain want to implode on itself. It was a reality show about a wealthy suburban girl who'd been snatched from poverty by adoptive parents, throwing herself a massive 16th birthday party. There was much drama as she played her friends off each other, and ended up not inviting her best friend (who wasn't cool enough anymore - the cool girls wanted to hang with her when the Mtv cameras showed up, apparently). She failed her driving test, which meant she WASN'T going to get the brand-new BMW convertible her parents promised her!!!! The party starts, she and her new "friends" (who insulted her to the Mtv cameras after the party, and admitted that they weren't going to talk to her again once the cameras turned off) come out on litters Cleopatra-style wearing skimpy bikinis. They ground their asses into the crotches of what looked to be the football team for hours. At the end, she got her car. I couldn't help but notice the birthday girl's smushed-in face; she didn't sound entirely coherent when she spoke, as well - both unmistakable signs of the Fetal alcohol Syndrome baby all grown up.
It was like watching a nightmare.
Remember when the spoiled, rich mean kids were the VILLAINS in tv shows and movies? If Weird Science were made today, the jocks (Robert Downey Jr. and Other Guy) who make Gary and Wyatt's life miserable would be the protagonists. The evil brother, Chet, would be the hero.
I blame George W. Bush entirely. Yet another piece of the fallout of his disastrous reign of terror - replacing a healthy questioning of government and emphasis on study, science, and reading with a bullying frat-boy mentality of stamping out any spirit of intellectualism.
I will be accompanying a few pals to New York this weekend - it will be a much-needed break, and I'm pretty excited. I think it's supposed to rain, but I don't even care. It will be good to get the hell out of Alabama for a few days.
Listen to "Back in the New York Groove" by Ace Freehley this weekend and think of me...

Monday, August 28, 2006

Hello, it's Me (I've thought about us for a long, long time)

I know, ok? I know. It's been a while. So when did summer become the busiest time of year? Aren't you supposed to be sipping lemonade at Grandma's on the front porch, or having 2-week long whirlwind romances at summer camp, except you break up with him before time to go home so your real, long-term friends don't find out that you went out with a guy who wasn't that cute? And then he wants to stay together throughout the entire school year, too, and you know that's not possible b/c you're going back to school and you'll be seeing your REAL crush again, and you hope he notices your tan and new bang-less haircut?
Ahem. Sorry.
So what has Absinthe been doing? Boring stuff, mostly. A big jewelry sale that loomed over my existence for a few weeks is finally over, so that's great. I am not going to look at another bead or finding again for at least a month. I am way behind on my reading, and Netflix movies have been laying around for an awfully long time lately.
I took on a second (FUN) contracting job (not fulltime, thank goodness), and that's been taking up time as well, but in a good way. It's a project that deals with helping students and teachers find information on the web, so it's a neat thing to be involved in.
The douchebags at my 8-5 job are douchbaggier than ever, plus no one is sure how much longer my job is going to last, so I'm currently involved in a full-scale jobhunt. More information on that story as it unfolds...
It was one of those cleaning and laundry weekends, so nothing new to report there. I think I"m going to quit while I'm almost ahead and skip out of here...
Spanks for listening (reading?).

Friday, August 11, 2006

He came home from the war with a party in his head...

It just never gets old, people...
I'm sure you can overhear funny crap anywhere you go, but New York has so many more ppl than most places - you're bound to hear something pants-peeingly funny somewhere. Spellchecker is SO not going to like "pants-peeingly," btw.
More on Tom Waits:
The Atlanta show (first one of this mini-tour) was spectacular. He played 2 encores. He was a lot friendlier than I expected, but he still has that "edge."
The Nashville show was almost as good - he only played 1 encore there, though, and was a little grumpier (see previous post). He played the guitar, sat down at the piano for a while, sang into his usual 50's-looking mike... I believe his son was the drummer. That show was the first time I've ever thought to myself, "My, what a talented Xylophone player." He seemed really happy to be back onstage, and told a little pun/anecdote about meeting a guy named "Dolittle" at the unemployment office. I would have taken a pic, but a)I hadn't figured out my new phone's camera yet, and b)I saw a guy get screamed at by scary-looking Ryman Auditorium staff who took pics with his Sidekick.
Countdown to weekend is officially over - I'm leaving. I can't help these people anymore.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

My name is Friday. I wear a badge.

A few things...
  • I tried to wear eye makeup today for the first time in months (I'm a makeup junkie, so it's hard to go for a long time without it). And just like 3 months ago, my eyes watered it off in 1 1/2 hrs. I look like a battered wife who's been crying.
  • The company that makes my contact lens solution had a factory fire in Duluth, GA, and production of it has been indefinitely halted. I was threatened within an inch of my life to use this stuff (rather than the plebian no-rub solution Opti-Free) to clean my contacts, so we'll see what the eye doctor has to say when i go in for my check-up in 2 weeks, hee hee. Clear Care has always been a pain b/c you have to leave your lenses in it for at least 6 hrs at a time so the peroxide can dissipate, or whatever. I was much happier with Opti-Free back in the day...
  • Tom Waits was fantastic - both shows were. He's still funny and cantankerous and brilliant. I was not expecting to hear "What's He Building," "Shore Leave," or "Cemetery Polka" - all favorite Tom Waits songs of mine. At one point in Nashville at the Ryman, a dude yelled out "I love you, Tom!" He snarled back, "You're boring me." Awesome. He makes living on the fringe seem a lot less stressful, cold, and unsanitary than it probably is.
  • Jack Webb is my hero. In the past few days, I have moved from "Dragnet enthusiast" to "Dragnet obsessive." Dragnet 1967, to be specific. There would never have been a Law and Order franchise without Dragnet. My favorite episode right now is the one where they meet Blue Boy, the acid dealer. All in one episode, they find out what acid is (Jack Webb tells you in voice-over narration that it's called "the ticket" and dealers are called "travel agents" - it's hilarious), the drug becomes illegal, and they arrest a lot of teenagers at a party trying to climb the walls and eat paint. Their search for Blue Boy comes to an end when they find him dead in his apartment. His zoned-out friend goes, "He's been like that all day. He just wanted to get further out." Sgt. Friday gravely replies, "Well he got there, all right. He got there." Desperate Housewives is for assholes - this is truly classic television.
  • With a completely straight face, the weather man said last night that we're going to have a break from the heat wave. Instead of feeling like it's 105 every day, it will feel 99 or so. Thanks, guy. You're awesome. Now we can have picnics in the park. In the 99 DEGREE park.
  • I hope it's ok to remove a skintab yourself, b/c I did just that this morning. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, which, I think, is a good sign.
  • A recent ulcer diagnosis has forced me to reduce my caffeine intake, but I broke down and had a cup of coffee this morning. I'm weak - I know. It was SO worth it, though. It tasted delicious and sexy. The past few mornings have been rough without it - I'd reached the point at which I might French-kiss a stranger for the residual coffee taste on their breath. Maybe I shouldn't let that one get around...
  • Note to self: when trying on lowish-cut shirts from now on, sit down in the dressing room to see where it falls in terms of cleavage. What looked sassy and cute in the mirror this morning (from a standing position) now makes me look like Slutly McSlutsky sitting down.

That is all.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Is this the way love's supposed to be? It's like a heatwave...

Ok, fine. Uncle. It's hot everywhere. Every mofo in the U.S. is sweltering right now in the ridiculous, painful, scorching heat. People are DYING. I'm sitting at my desk drinking the largest Gatorade that my local Conoco sells. Expanding my collection of wifebeaters (or boybeaters, as American Apparel so reverse-sexistly calls them) turned out to be a good decision b/c that's all I've worn after work for the past month and a half.
I was not genetically engineered to handle this kind of heat. Conan O'Brien once said it best: "I was genetically predisposed to live in an Irish bog." The heat really does make people crazy. I might have killed a man myself (and mark my works: it would have been a man), but cold-blooded murder usually requires that you leave the AC and fan for more than 20 min. at a time. And that isn't going to happen. I witnessed a car wreck on my way back from lunch that I was less than 2 seconds away from being involved in.... I think I'll put Summer of Sam at the top of my Netflix queue. Bring on the paranoia... if everyone's going crazy, I think I'll ride it out, Zelda Fitzgerald-style.
In other news NOT pertaining to the fact that the US is officially hotter than the hinges of hell, my new cell phone is scheduled to arrive today. You may remember (actually, you won't - don't bother trying) that I posted about my poor, tired, old cell phone back in May. She is now even older and more tired (I fondly named her "Hillary" when I first got her after HRC, who kicks ass). She's also being held together by 2 small pieces of scotch tape, which is sad. Plus, people keep pointing it out. They'll go, "Hey, your phone is held together with Scotch tape." I've been trying really hard not to cheerfully reply, "Tape on my phone, you say? Thanks, Captain Obvious - I had no idea! Especially since it's MY PHONE."
Some people have sharp tempers, some are risk-takers and some are gullible. I'm convinced that my sarcasm will probably be the death of me one day. It wasn't my fault, though. I watched a lot of Jeanine Garafalo and Laura Kitlinger stand-up when I was in high school...
p.s. If it's too hot for you, maybe this will cool you down. Because daddy, it's very, very cool.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

It's Gettin' Hot in Herre

Ahem (sips sweet iced tea w/lemon).
Let me begin by saying that I love the South. I love the food, the people, the way you can get away with going out to a nice(ish) bar on Saturday night wearing jeans, flip-flops, and a wifebeater and completely get away with it as long as you're wearing a sweet necklace or big, flashy earrings... The South rocks. Every town has bizarre secrets involving people eating dirt, performing in a traveling carnival, and burying coworkers in piles of corn shucks ("cornshucks" may possibly be only one word - I'm too lazy to look it up, although my grandmother almost certainly could have told you). It seems slow-paced and bleary-eyed. It's not.
The South runs through my blood like sloe gin through the liver of a Baptist deacon's wife, still humming "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," hiding out on the back porch after a Sunday night sermon. I have by now come to the conclusion that I will never completely shake the South, no matter where I go, and have even realized that this is OK. I kind of embrace it now.
But people, it is HOT up in here. It's ridiculous. I understand that it's hot everywhere, but we are swimming from work to our cars here. Humidity is an evil bitch, and since August has officially hit, I don't feel like a lame-ass for whining about it. At this point, I'm like a Massachusetts resident in March - sick of the extreme weather and ready for some relief. Sadly, though, in Alabama, relief is not going to come for at least another month and a half (and in a month and a half, I'll probably be visiting Phoenix. I never claimed to be the smartest, ok?).
New Orleans residents (both currently in New Orleans and still evacuated all over the country) are some tough sons of bitches. God bless all of you. When I think of how hot and humid New Orleans gets, I want to cry. I could not hack it - I'm just too weak.
Speaking of Phoenix, lest I forget, those mofo's out West are troopers, too. When it's 120 every day with no end in sight, it doesn't matter how much humidity you have - you're living in an oven. The heat is bringing out the serial killers out there. Like my good friend from Phoenix said in a message a while back, "It's like Summer of Sam up in here! The heat is getting to people's BRAINS!!" Carry on, my wayward sons. There'll be peace when you are done. Or maybe a breeze or two, at the very least.
I can't tell you what, in this lifetime of ours, I'll definitely be doing in the next few weeks, but I can guaran-DAMN-tee you that there will be many many baths, showers, glasses of iced tea with lemon and mint, and ceiling fans blowing so hard that they come close to taking flight.
If anyone needs me tonight, I'll be on my terrace, angry about the heat, listening to Tom Waits bellow about whatever he's angry about (Bone Machine will be in the player), and praying for buckets and sheets of rain.