Evaluate this, you miserable busy-bodies from hell

Gott im himmel, is there anything worse?

How do I think I'm doing my job? Fucking great, when I'm left alone to do it, and not interrupted with useless shite like this, which takes up time and energy and doesn't...repeat...DOESN'T affect my pay in the least. When you work in a non-profit, no matter how wonderful your supervisors, co-workers, customers - in my case, students - think you are, there is no remuneration for stellar work, just the usual yearly, puny, cost-of-living increase. No bonuses, no 'merit-raises.' Just a lot of information that no one reads, but some little mouseketeer in HR thinks helps make this a better workplace. HOW is that?

I love my job and do it well. Can't I just fucking DO IT?

Employee self-evaluations. Fuck...OFF.

It's Memorial Day

Today, I honor this fine country's war dead by getting pished on cheap beer, charring the hell out of the dead flesh of some formerly cute chickens and piggies, and watching baseball.

Let it not be said that I'm not patriotic. Barbecues, baseball, and piss-ups are my GOD-given-right, as an 'MERican.

What will happen later on, is that some couple who's been drinking all weekend long because of the holiday, will come spilling out of the bar up the street, pissed out of their heads and having a row. They'll bring their special brand of solemn holiday remembrance down our street at about...oh, 11pm or so, waking me out of my own beer-soaked stupor.

Maybe I'll get treated a good brawl, the likes of which Fatmammycat witnessed last night. Only with Mass-hole accents, and to be followed by screeching tires.

God Bless America.

Oh well, shake it off, it's Friday.

This morning's special fuck-you-up-just-before-the-alarm-goes-off dream concerned a 'death court' where people had to go to convince the 'death judges' that they should not die at that time. You had to go and convince these guys in orange and green gowns that you still had pressing and important work to do, or someone needed you, or that you were just too young.

Supplicants had to show up in white face paint, and present their evidence, and if lucky, have a few supporters with them, to testify on their behalf. The last person I watched go through the process was some Chinese woman with six children. The court was not being very kind to her, in fact they were downright jeering, so even though I didn't even know her (what the hell I was doing there is a mystery - I didn't know ANY of the 'supplicants') I decided to testify on her behalf.

Gah. That's some sick shit right there. Haven't been able to shake it all day. Can't even seem to really wake up.

So, the next time I think it's a good idea to drink cheap vodka on a work-night, somebody stop me. Goddamn Gordon's paint thinner.

Anyhooo...Happy weekend, all.

Sounds like I don't mean it, I know. But I DO. I DO want everyone to have a nice weekend.

Now, off with you, and don't do anything I wouldn't enjoy.

REALLY into shipwrecks now.

(Photo stolen from Amazon.com)

I just finished reading this fascinating account of the discovery of a mysterious U-Boat wreck off the coast of New Jersey in the late 1980s. Took the divers years of research, countless dives, the ruination of their marriages and the deaths of three fellow divers to finally figure out which U-Boat it was, so they could straighten out the history books and inform the families of the lost men why they disappeared in the final days of World War II.

Like "The Perfect Storm," "Dead Men Tapping," and "The Hungry Ocean," I was consumed completely with this one from start to finish. Now I'm looking for more books of its type, documentaries to rent, and museums to visit. Can't get enough of it.

This 'mystery U-Boat,' finally revealed to be U-869, it is believed, was destroyed by one of its own torpedoes. I learned this: A torpedo whose navigation system goes haywire, eventually turning upon the sub that fired it, is known as a 'circle-runner.' I guess they happened pretty frequently on U-Boats, necessitating an immediate dive after firing, and there are countless stories of a boat's torpedoes whizzing by a mere few feet above or below. Can you imagine how the crew felt, firing, going into that dive, and the 30 seconds of absolute TERROR as they waited to know whether the little fucker would come home to blow them all to pieces?

Anyway, the whole point of this post: Isn't Circle-Runners the best band name you've ever heard? I call dibs! If I ever get my shit together to form a band, that's what I'm calling it.

The Circle-runners. Kickass.

Do NOT disturb the sleeping rodent.

Without going into too much detail or revealing any names, because privacy and confidentiality are key, I have to say that in this job? I have met some fucking INSANE people. And not in a fun way.

People who frighten the crap out of me, and I do NOT want to meet on the street.

People who need to be on some seriously potent meds...but clearly have not found the right 'dosage' or 'combination.'

People who, should they get their wish and go into the field of education, I would not let within 100 miles of any kids I may eventually have.

People who, at this moment, are probably up on a watertower someplace, reloading.

If this blog goes blank, and no one hears from me ever again, let it be known that I saw some shit getting ready to hit the fan, and got the fuck outta town.

It's Friday.

Now shut off the computer, and go have some fun.

PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a whim, I googled 'pitiful pearl.' I found a few different versions on ebay, but here's the one that most closely resembles the doll I remember.

See? I'm not crazy! The thing exists.

No wonder I'm twisted.

Who buys toys like this for a child???

Massachusetts just got better

Did you guys know that Dedham Massachusetts is the home of the MUSEUM OF BAD ART?

I just spent 20 minutes on their web site, marveling.

What is left?....Tears.

I remember, when I was a small child, my mother had this friend called Lelo. (Pronouned Leelow) I don't even know if that's the correct spelling, I was very small the last time I saw this woman. I thought she was very exotic, because she was German, still had the accent, and had a St. Bernard and a pool. Wow, I thought, she's cultured and RICH!!

Brief aside: I don't understand these people who have children and suddenly can't go anywhere. Or they can't leave the house without a collapsible playpen, two dozen diaper bags, a few hundred toys, and a fucking DVD player in the SUV or mini-van. Jesus Christ. Why? As a child, I sat in more people's kitchens, while my parents had afternoon drinks with their pals, and I'm no worse for it. If we left for an afternoon, I didn't have a choice of forty million toys to take with me and if I forgot my Pitiful Pearl doll* or some other favorite, too fucking bad. And I looked out the car window at the scenery or chatted with my parents. Watching movies in a moving vehicle. I ask you.

Anyway, as I said, I sat in a lot of people's homes while my parents (well, mother mostly, as she had afternoons off and worked nights, while dad was working days) while the scotch flowed and cocktail hour was going on. So at Lelo's house, I would wander into the living room, to see if I could pet the dog. (HUGE St. Bernard called Heidi. Amazing.) And this woman, who I thought - simply because she was European - would have been fairly sophisticated compared to most of the folks in my hometown, had some of the most frightening art imaginable.

It wasn't scary, dark Expressionist charcoals or "Sturm and Drang" German woodcuts or anything cool like that.

No, far from it. Lelo, this exotic, intelligent, sophisticated European lady had a wall full of SAD CLOWN PAINTINGS. Black backgrounds...possibly velvet, my memory is hazy.

I was PETRIFIED of those things. Though I weighed 30 pounds and could be blown away by a stiff breeze, I was less afraid of the 125 pound DOG than I was of those fucking things.



* It's true. Once on the market for children was a doll called "Pitiful Pearl." She had ratty hair, was dressed in rags and had a teardrop...a TEARDROP in the middle of her cheek. Nobody believes me but THIS WAS ONE OF MY TOYS as a child. I also lived next to a cemetery. I just realized why the other kids were scared of me.

What is it with men and barbecue?

The advertisement for this high-tech grill says "cook like a caveman." Fucking hell...cavemen had gas grills??

Anyhoo...Being an "eat to live" person, as opposed to a "live to eat" person, it doesn't much matter to me what I eat, or where/how it was cooked, so long as it never clucked, mooed, or oinked. (My reasons for this are varied, and unwavering, so don't fucking get all uppity in the comments about being 'top of the food chain,' or any other arguments for why I SHOULD eat landwalkers. I'm not preaching to you, you don't preach to me, you eat what you want, I don't give a rat's arse. Okay? Okay.) I can cook, I'm getting good at it...and getting creative about feeding a carnivore husband well enough that he doesn't complain about lack of flesh in my culinary creations.

But when it's his turn to cook, he will invariably regress a few thousand generations and ugg out a war cry of "OUTSIDE!!!! GRILL!!!! MEEEEAAAAAATTTTT!!!!"

Why is that? I've never met an owner of the Y chromosome who didn't absolutely LOVE barbecuing, the whole thing: the placement of charcoals, the lighting of the fire, the watching of the fire for a half hour or more until it's "ready," and the sizzle of steak-sauce- or barbecue-sauce-marinated flesh, the turning of the meat, the game of putting cooked items to the side whilst charring the shit out of whatever is in the middle. And in our case, that last few minutes while my boca burger (the breaded "chick'n patties" are very good too) and veggie packet gets a last blast of heat while the meat 'rests.'

Sure, it's great. Gets me out of cooking, tastes good, all that.

But...why the thrill? Why so excited to cook outside, as opposed to a big vat of pasta with a rocking sauce? Makes no diference at all to me. Food is food.

Fellas?

RAIN - Day 9

Everybody has begun to smell like wet dog.

Pah.

Think I'll throw a line out my office window, do some fishing.

Fook'n pishin' again.

Rain - Day 8.

No baseball all weekend. (I don't count Friday's loss, my memory is selective, and besides, I was drunk.)

There's that old adage about New England weather: If you don't like it, wait a minute.

That's actually what I LIKE about NE weather. I NEED it to change every third day or so. I like sunny days, I like rainy days, I like snowy days, I like cold days, I like warm days. (not hot & humid days, though, they can fuck right off) I like weird weather, I like calm weather, I love New England's variable weather. More than three days in a row of ANYTHING, and I get antsy.

I love a good rainy day, even a good rainy weekend is nice on occasion.

But this...this is stupid.

I'm writing a letter.

Dear Sirs,

FUCKING STOP RAINING ALREADY.

Thank you,

Andraste, the damp.

Chaucer!!!

You guys! Geoffrey Chaucer has a blog!

Ich finde thys moste funye.

Take a gander.


That's all I got. There's a bottle of Ca del Sol down the hall with my name on it. Muste drinke of the wyne. For thys maketh the dayes woes gaw dahn the bogge.

health, health, health, dahling.

Disgustingly healthy these days. No beer for 5 days now, and vastly reduced amounts for the last three weeks. Daily workouts and lots of water have me slimming down, braining up, kicking ass and taking names. But the cost, people, the cost.

Don't even feel like I'm denying myself much, since I feel like shit every time I drink beer now anyway. Two days of gut rot, abdominal pain, and metaphysical angst for every beer I drink.

I know what my doctor will say, "Well, just don't drink beer."

Noooooooooo! I don't want to hear that.

I want to hear "here's a prescription pill for your new beer allergy, just take one of these caramel tasting thingies every day with your morning coffee" or "switch to vodka."


Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

For Fuck's Sake...

Evidently AIR ISN'T FREE!!!

How could I have MISSED this?

What a tit.

Blatantly stolen from Needs to be Glassed...here's what happens when you play practical jokes on stupid twats with no sense of humor.

Plumbers by day...

(The big bald one is kind of sexy, don't you think?)

Had a lovely weekend, thanks for asking. Got many, many things done on Saturday before going to the ballgame, and put a nice hurting on my liver at said game and with my new margarita mixer at home afterwards. (Fantastic - you can dispense the frozen adult-flavored beverage from a spigot AS IT MIXES, and crushes ice like no ordinary blender can manage. LOVELY)

So on Sunday, I was pretty much luggage. Aside from a good workout in the morning, utter uselessness was the order of the day.

So...I watched a Ghost Hunters marathon on the sci-fi network. I just love this shit. They're plumbers by day, and by night and on weekends, they take all this insane high-tech equipment into the homes of people who think they've got ghosts, and into old prisons, mental homes, libraries, and gather 'evidence' of a haunting or to de-bunk the phenomena. Mostly they find things like sump-pumps that are the causes of the rappings, and reflected car headlights as the 'orbs' that people think they see. Once in a while they find something they can't explain, or get a voice or a human outline on a thermal scanner, but mostly they turn up nothing out of the ordinary.

Anyway, I watched EIGHT FREAKING HOURS of this stuff.

And it was great, mindless entertainment for a hungover Sunday, but I have to say...some of them are right pussies. Hear me out. They go into these incredibly creepy places, old mental hospitals, sanitoriums, prisons...creepy ENOUGH without the idea of spooks running around, let alone with this possibility. So they go into these supposedly "haunted" places, in the middle of the night, in the dark, expecting...no, BEGGING to see some supernatural phenomena or concrete evidence of the paranormal, right? EXPECTING to experience some pretty scary shite, disappointed if they don't. And yet...and YET...they'll screach in terror and refuse to go any further when they see a mouse or a spider. A fucking itty bitty rodent or bug, and they wet themselves.

I think that's hilarious.

Really...RAWTHER Busy.

Rilly...I've been EVER SO BUSY this week, I simply have not had a MOMENT to blog.

It is my job to see that 60 doctoral students get all their dissertation approvals, final copies, copyright paperwork, all other niggling little details out of the way by 4:30 today, so that they graduate this June.

They're calling, panicking, e-mailing, panicking...really absolutely terrified that I'll turn them away and say they can't graduate because their page numbers don't line up or I Don't Like Their Font. At 4:30, I'll get at the very least, 3 tearful phone calls, from students who ignored my advice to do all this a day or two early, who are desperate for an extension of the deadline because "the copy place lost my dissertation..." It would be funny, if it weren't just a little sad, in a way.

So you see...I'm an absolutely important person.




Look for me this evening, drinking in Harvard Square with my office mates. I'll be the tired-looking one... with the twitch.

Awwww...CHYEAHHHHHHH!

(photo courtesy of boston.com)

What a game. Did a little dance while watching Mirabelli jump out of the state police SUV in full uniform and run into the park. Did another little dance when the crowd greeted him so warmly. Did ANOTHER little dance when the Sox scored a run in the first inning. Did THE DANCE NO WHITE WOMAN SHOULD EVER DO when big Papi hit the game-winning three run 'tater in the 8th.

It was nice, I must say, that Dougie's return from exile somewhat overshadowed Johnny Damon's return to Fenway in pinstripes. Me likes the positives, you know?

Happy as a pig in shit.

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!

A few random thoughts for a busy Monday.

* The Red Sox need to stop stranding men on base. I think we're leading the league in squandered opportunities here. Hear me fellas? You want to get on that? Okeeeeee dokeee. Thanks.

* My new elliptical machine is up and running. Thank Salma, I can exercise again. I was beginning to feel fat and stupid. (No smartass remarks in the comments section calling me fat and stupid, okay. I'll just delete them. Plus, see next bullet point.)

* I'm now wearing men's 33 waist jeans, down from 34 a month or two ago. These 33's are now feeling loose. I will soon be investing in a few pairs of 32 waist. HOOFUCKINGRAY FOR ME.

* My friends and family need to remember that the summer only has 12 weekends in it. If you take out the weekends that we have Red Sox tickets for, and various special "events" that come up every summer, that doesn't leave a lot of time for travel. Heaven forbid we should want to stay home and have a quiet weekend here and there in the summer, too. Therefore, if, by Labor Day, we haven't had a chance to visit you, it's not that we haven't wanted to, we just ran out of time. And for Chrissakes...people who NEVER come to Boston to visit US have no business bitching about that anyway. So suck it. Gas ain't cheap, either.