Wednesday, October 29, 2008

What's your name, little girl?

What happens when you think too hard

I have been giving people nicknames for as long as I can remember - at least since the day I realized that my given name is un-nickname-able. Oh to have been Elizabeth or Margaret - to invent a new nickname every time I changed my wardrobe! But I have one name and I always will, despite real efforts by charitable friends to come up with something interesting.

But that doesn't mean my friends are stuck with their names, and I habitually lengthen, shorten, translate, or completely ignore their first gift from their parents. For example, I am the only person (besides some homeless people in Seattle) who has ever called my husband 'Bobby' instead of Bob. Charlotte, Peter, Jerry and various Rachels have been called Carlotta, Pedro, Gerhard, Raquel. I staked my claim on a friend in college by shortening his already one-syllable name to, basically, just a vowel sound and a fricative.

And my kids - don't get me started on my kids. They've learned to respond to just about anything that comes out of my mouth in a certain tone of voice. Especially since I mix them up pretty frequently. What? They're 20 months apart - pretty much if I need the attention of one of them, I probably need the other one too, or at least he can tell his brother, "O HAI WHATSHERNAME SEZ DON'T DO THAT."

But there's worse. I have kind of a very bad genius for mean nicknames. I'm ashamed. But a little proud. And ashamed. In my defense, I never fire the first shot. It's always someone who has been either mean to me first or is a jerk in general.

My dear friend Bill once had boyfriend who was not nice - to him, to me, to anyone. That guy liked his cat and the Pope, and the rest of us be damned. Which, I suppose, he had a line on, because he was in fact a Catholic priest. On their first sleepover date he took Bill back to the rectory. So come on, he was basically begging to be named... Father Fellatio.

When I was a camp counselor in Maine, one of the girls in my cabin gave me fits. She teased one of the other girls whenever my back was turned, and would openly break the rules, and defy me when I called her on it. She had a habit of sneaking out after lights-out, forcing me to creep around in the dark, skunk-infested Maine wilderness (Stephen King country, full of psychotic rednecks and sentient, evil-minded... whatevers) with only a flashlight and a headfull of expletives for protection. I always found her with one of the boys from Cabin Josh (9 boys were in that cabin, 7 of them named Josh), and as I marched her back to Cabin 10, I would mentally compose the letter to her parents apologizing for sending her back to Fort Lee pregnant. I can't remember her real name. Lisa. But to me she will always be... Titsy.

Linda the Schizoid Drunk. Meatlips. The Scary White. Mistletits. Larry "I Speak French" Jenkins and Heather "Not Her Real Name" Hartman. (Not their real names). Barfy.

Oh god, I am going to get in so much trouble one of these days. No, but I'm not - I'm off it. Nowadays I have a blog, and I can satisfy my eponymical cravings with the nicknames I make up in captions or blog posts to protec
t the privacy of the people I like and love. They ain't ever mean. And when that fails, I can make up names for the 'regulars' at work, although truth be told, most of them name themselves by virtue of their... habits. Ick.

Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
Two days til Halloween! Hey, if you have a particularly nice costume - nice enough that it ought to have a name? you call on me.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

We dress like students, we dress like housewives

We went to our first Halloween party of the season last night. Zhou was Frankenstein, and Mao was an alien who called himself "Captain Smekday," inspired, no doubt, by a most spectacular book that I read to them six months ago.

I was very impressed by some of the costumes at the party. There was a corpse bride, and a corpse cyclist, pirates and witches and The Color Purple. I went as a 40-year-old punk rock girl, which, er, wasn't much of a stretch, although I did fish out an extremely aged Dead Kennedys t-shirt from the bin under the bed for the occasion.

The best costumes by far though were the two in the picture above, who did not come together and had not arranged it beforehand (as far as I know).

What's really messed-up - in a HILARIOUS way - is the fact that the grownup is dressed as Bristol, and the preteen (Leslie's daughter) is impersonating the mother! As bizarre as that family is (I mean the Palins, not Kim's or Rockerena's families), I wouldn't be surprised if Bristol's baby emerges a. older than Bristol is and b. already pregnant.

A Flickr commenter added, " I wonder what would happen if it came out black?" This, in addition to making beer come out of my nose, and if that's never happened to you, let me be your helpful informant - it's painful - made me think for a second.

After all, Bristol's baby COULD be black, although given Alaska's demographics that's almost pathetically unlikely... but hell, it could be all kinds of things. What WOULD happen? (Besides a whole bunch of us laughing until we burst a blood vessel and had to be given oxygen.)

I'll tell you what would happen. Given the reek of unreality coming from the Palin camp nowadays? They'd switch the baby at the hospital. Oh, in a heartbeat they would, you know it. It's all 9 to 5 kidnap-the-boss desperate hijinks around there anyway, I bet they totally found a pregnant staffer with the same due date who they're keeping close to Bristol - just in case they have to think fast.

Monday, October 20, 2008

I've got blisters on my fingers

Just a few things.

1. We're gonna WIN.
I think.

2. I took 500 photos yesterday.


Our friend Stacy asked me to take pictures of the merch for her business, Great Soul Wellness Studio, and the new coffee joint in the neighborhood, Grind On. We had, let's see... about 11 kids and babies changing in and out of t-shirts, grownups doing the same, and, memorably, my Bob modelling proper use of the Great Soul water bottle. We were lucky to have beautiful weather, and craft service from Grind On, and cooperative, funny kids.

3. I'm going to be 43 three weeks from today and that is ok by me.
See above picture. Can't get my glasses straight but that's ok too.

4. I found the perfect meme. Actually, Wendy did.

5. I have 50 books to read and review for the Cybils Awards.
I'm a panelist in the graphic novels category, and it has been a real treat so far. Some standouts: Rapunzel's Revenge; Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School; Holly Black's The Good Neighbors
; and Life Sucks. But it's a lot, so if you don't see me for a while, that's why.

6. I'm freezing my butt off.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

All of my filth is arranged in alphabetical order. This, for instance, is under 'H' for "toy."

Couple things:



1) MY NEW LAPTOP CAME! That's it right there. It's a Dell something or other with Ubuntu, and it has a NIIICE silvery keyboard with a real nice texture, and I turned it on out of the box and I was online on the front porch in less than three minutes. I am back among my family.

2) I got some new pink. That's it on my head. This time my friend Lisa Hawks did it. Lisa has her own beauty parlor, it's called The Chop Shop, very much like a sort of icky old-people restaurant in Cobble Hill called The Chop House, except not icky and if there are old people at Lisa's shop, they have tattoos and know all about music. And it is a nice place to hang out, in addition to Lisa being really good and very experienced at hair.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Adventure's waiting just ahead!


My men, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

I swear, I could stare at this picture all day.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

By acclaim

And why not?
  • I wouldn't have to move far
  • I wouldn't spend my entire first term campaigning for the second, because I'm smart enough to know that this next one is a one-term presidency if ever there was one
  • I would take a page from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's book and promote the American fashion industry while in office, because GOD knows I don't have the clothes for it, and I'll need Todd Oldham to step in and dress me up
  • I would apply basic parenting rules when making governance decisions: i.e. clean it up yourself, tell a grownup when you've fucked up, no hitting, etc.
  • Truly arbitrary decisions would be made via rock-paper-scissors. And the FIRST round would decide it - none of this best-two-out-of-three BS
  • Any combat would be modelled on Jedi fighting - slow motion, with sound effects, winner to be determined via style points
  • I would restore the country's reputation abroad, mainly by having bitchin' parties and inviting everyone
No, no, I'm kidding. Vote for Obama.