So on Nov. 16th or so there's gonna be a sing-along version of the movie Hair playing in town (at the Academy). I am all over this, but I need to go with someone who won't make fun of me as I inevitably cry at the end of the film.

This is how the NYT explains scratching to its more "genteel" readership: "When a drumbeat on a vinyl record is scratched back and forth under a needle, it makes a sort of percussive swishing sound."

D.J. for Run-DMC Is Shot to Death in Queens What the fuck? Run-DMC are all old-school "with-a zip, zop, zippity-zip-zop, a bing-bang-zippity-do!" They weren't ganster rappers, yo. What the fuck happened?

I was inspired my Kitty Bukkake, and the fact that the pen on this 10-year-old scrap of paper is fading, to type in this recipe for y'all.

Butterscotch Brownies
1/4 cup shortening (butter, always butter)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt shortening in saucepan (pick a pan big enough to hold and stir all ingredients). Remove from heat and stir in sugar, egg, and vanilla. Add rest of ingredients. Spread in greased 8-inch square pan. Bake 25 minutes. Cut brownies while still warm.

Last night I helped A with her homework; refining an essay that compares issues raised in the Scarlet Letter to a current event. She chose an op/ed article about women getting the death penalty. She's in 10th grade, and the teacher had written a critique that said things like "You might want to talk about the paradox inherent in privilege, how it both provides and excludes" that A needed help understanding. No kidding. I didn't get comments like that until college. She only needed help with her closing paragraph, as she had already made her argument: that the punishment for Hester might have been death had she been a man, though it's because she was a woman that she was punished at all; and the public still sees women as incapable of true evil, and is uncomfortable putting them to death, yet the public also doesn't want to be sexist, so they do want to put women to death. Complicated stuff. I had to explain to her what a paradox was, and I got so into it I ended up just flat out writing a key sentence; something about how Chivalry both helps women and confines them. "See? That's a paradox! Doors being held open for you can be nice, but it also means that you're seen as too gentle to handle powerful jobs and shit like that! It's both good and bad combined in one thing! A paradox!"

Hmm. That's sort of how I felt about the season premiere of 24 last night. [warning: spoilers ahead.] On the one hand, I liked it being commercial-free, and on the other I had to sit through a minutes-long mega commercials for a car manufacturer I refuse to name, an ad so obnoxious that muting the sound wasn't enough to protect me from the crap, before the show began. On the one hand, I'm happy 24 is back on the air, and the first episode was exciting and intriguing, on the other... well I have some problems with it. The first series took a few episodes to build up to the truly unbelievable, far-fetched turn-of-events, and this time we get several of these in the first ep. (What are the chances Kim would end up nannying for a crazy gun-toting wife-beater? Why did Jack kill the witness? And how in the hell did Palmer get back to his office from his Oregon fishing trip in five minutes?) I didn't like the clumsy exposition but I understand why it's necessary and hope it's all done now. I'll definitely keep watching, mainly because I have a case of Keifer-love (and man did he look fine after shaving off that beard) and I like Palmer (yet another TV president who I wish was the real president). I just hope the show doesn't make a fool of me.

P and I came up with a good bumper sticker last night: "We lefties may be flakes, but at least we're not fucking evil like the Republicans." Yeah, that pretty much sums up my current political philosophy.

The second season of 24 starts tonight! I am looking forward to eating some Jell-O (which grosses out everyone else in the house, but it's a key comfort food for me) while watching Buffy and 24 tonight in my cozy living room.

My old childhood friend Fiamma has recently moved back east after studying chinese medicine in San Diego and I am happy about it. She had some interesting stuff to say about my strange illness:

In Chinese Medicine, simultaneous vomiting & diarrhea is called "sudden turmoil disorder." Seems appropriate. Without knowing more about the "event" and your medical history etc, it seems like the 2 main possibilities are some a)sort of buggish culprit (the source of which can be difficult to determine, being that there are so many things we put in our mouths over the course of an "incubation period," which can be 2-3 days); and b) an irritable bowel type condition. Although a) can't really be ruled out, the fact that this has happened before suggests b). I don't know how much you know about IBS (s=syndrome), but the good thing is that there's no really horrible things going physically wrong with your parts, because it's a "functional" problem rather than "organic." Although the causes are speculative, it seems to me that it indicates a more sensitive nervous system, and various triggers can overstimulate it & cause it to go haywire. Hormones are directly involved in stumulating the nervous system (which controls your bowels & everything else), stress hormones in particular. That is why stress can be a trigger for an IBS "event." It doesn't mean that the condition is psychological, by
the way. The hormones & chemical changes are very real. So is the shit & vomit! (Other triggers include certain foods that are too difficult to digest & irritate the bowels). But Irritable Bowel Disease involves intestinal pathological changes that are more of a concern than IBS b/c the degenerative changes can oviously get worse. You do have the option of getting yourself checked out again to rule out those pathological changes (especially if your last test was inconclusive). At that point, assuming they don't find anything, IBS would be a likely diagnosis. Especially if you tend to have minor GI unpleasantness semi-regularly (tummy aches or something of that nature). These things tend to be congenital.

me again: I've thought for a long time that I have a mild case of IBS, and from what I've read online I don't have IBD (which is much nastier). I'd much rather have something cureable so I can be rid of it. Sigh. I did call my doc finally; I'm waiting for him to call me back, if he ever does.

I had a horrible GI "event" yesterday afternoon. I'll spare you the play-by-play but it involved intestinal cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting, simultaneously at a few moments. This was not brought on by anything I can figure; all the food I ate yesterday was normal stuff I've eaten many times before. The episode was almost exactly the same as the infamous Thanksgiving 2001 pass-out, which kicked off months of mysterious stomach pains culminating in an MRI of my intestines, a test that I hadn't prepared for properly (I would've skipped the apple juice I drank pre-test if the nurse had warned me about having to choke down a couple of liters of barium) so the results were a bit inconclusive. They did tell me I didn't seem to have any massive tumors, which was nice. My personal-care doctor was very sympathetic and gave me multiple options but he never figured out exactly what caused it.

Whatever happened yesterday and last Thanksgiving was so violent, painful, and horrible that I will do whatever it takes for it to never happen again. I am supposed to call my doctor and let him know "it's happened again" but I feel dumb about doing it. "Hi, I'm just calling to leave a message for my doctor: it's happened again. What? No, I feel okay now. Just wanted to let him know." Any words of comfort or advice is very welcome.

Black People Love Us! This cracks me up. (My favorite part is the One Love pictures.)

A related note: my college had a group called "White Students Against Racism." I was always sort of conflicted about it; on one hand, I guess it was good to have a place where you could talk about facing your internalized racism, but on the other hand, um ... your group about fighting racism excludes minorities! I think most of the people in the group grew up in very white, homogenous places and they just wanted to learn how to be comfortable around black people. I always felt a little sad (and, to be honest, superior to) the group members.

my old site o' fun Holy crap, my old abandoned website is still up! I haven't updated this in at least 3 ior 4 years. Take a look if you'd like. The Runt story is the best part. I dropped my javanet/RCN account over a year ago so RCN must just be very lazy.

I'm all edgy and shit, bouncing up and down in my chair. I just want to leave the office. It's a combo of boredom and caffeine and sugar. I had a plan for a few hours earlier to drive to NJ after work tonight and catch a friend's car to the demonstration down in D.C., departure time from NJ: 6:30 a.m. But now I think I don't have it in me. I have many projects I need to begin, such as altering an old bridesmaid's dress to make it useable (huge puffy sleeves will be removed) and starting an art project (secret!) for my friends' wedding gift (very soon!). Plus I'm fuckin' tired. Plus the house will be overrun with teen girls this weekend, with T having two friends over for the whole weekend and A having another two over tonight, and I kind of want to observe them. They fascinate me. I was so much more insecure and bitchy than these kids when I was their age. I also never cared about my appearance much, because, you know, you can't shine shit. I didn't feel like I looked SO terrible but I also never wore makeup or any uncomfortable clothes for the sake of fashion, either (I also had an idea that baggy clothes would disguise the fact that I had tiny breasts, which just doesn't work). The few times I tried to wear something trendy I'd inevitably get it wrong in some way and would be ridiculed for it. Eventually in high school I embraced my lack-of-hipness and wore terrific, awful, punk-esque combos such as a vintage green cocktail dress with an enormous orange sweater. I was very "artistic." Now I have a mix of unique and conventional clothes and even when I wear something semi-outrageous I always make sure it makes me look good. I must be doing something right because the teen girls borrow my clothes all the time.

The Living Rockumentary Clearly Max needs to start writing his own songs because his poem about his swollen cheek is excellent.

20 Questions with Drums & Tuba and Spaceheads By Jennifer O'Connor It breaks my heart that the Knitting Factory is only showing "Heat Vision and Jack" on Monday night, ensuring there's no way I can go see it without missing two days of work. That show it my holy grail, people. It's a parody of Knight-Rider- and Six-Million-Dollar-Man-type shows, starring Jack Black and Owen Wilson as the voice of his motorcycle. Come on! This is Saturday night entertainment, not Monday! Damn.

Ew. EW! I checked the search queries list that people used to get to my site, and one fo the new ones is:

crispy used panties

EW! Men are gross. Though a few years ago I considered trying to sell my panties on eBay, just because it seemed like a ridiculously easy way to make a buck. (Now they don't allow unwashed underwear to be auctioned off - how lame is that?) Also, Howard Stern is doing "It's Just Wrong" with twin sisters next week. Whaddaya say, sis? We could win 10 grand! And all we'd have to do is answer trivia questions and undress each other. I'd actually do it but I know a few people at work who listen to his show, and I'd be afraid he'd ask me if I did anal, or something else really embarrassing. Though the fact that I listen to the show at all (only during my 15-minute ride to work) is embarrassing enough.

Ugh. For lunch I had two "sushi balls" from the veggie place in town and now I feel bloated and sleepy. The sushi balls are like sushi sans the protein or nutrition: basically, they're balls of sticky white rice that you dip in soy sauce. No wonder I'm fuzzy-headed. It doesn't help that I've done only about 10 minutes of actual work today, and I've been here for six and a half hours.

I'm waiting for some kind of response on my last post, either from my sister saying "Wow, I forgot all about that! That was so weird!" or a friend saying "oh my god, you grew up in a really fucked-up place!" or "Wow, almost the same exact thing happened to me once!" or "I used to masturbate by humping my stuffed animals all the time, and what of it? Get off your high horse, missy!"

I think I shall add kitty bukake to my list of links, since she was so nice to email me about a comment I left in her blog's comments section. She has a book out now about the Furries, a group of people who like to dress up as stuffed animals (as opposed to actually dressing as animals, which would be less creepy for me - plain old beastiality without the animal torture, you know?) and have sex. There are also Plushies, who like to fuck stuffed animals. Hey, who among us hasn't spent a bored-to-tears suburban afternoon watching a 12-year-old friend hump her teddy bear in the middle of her all-pink-decorated bedroom floor while you and your sister watch in discomfort? Who indeed?

Achewood Sunday Edition (Tuesdays)

i dig boners

Here's an image to cheer me/you up.

It's very very fall today. Louise and I played ball this morning on the frost-covered grass, and everything was vibrant and colorful. In a week or two the trees will be more bare and it will get depressing, but right now it's very fine.

I'm sad. I just read about the decline and death of an acquaintance of mine, a very good Quaker (who was coincidentally born in the town I'm typing from right now) who really, really didn't deserve to die so early and in such a nasty way. He found he had sudden onset leukemia, quickly developed serious encephailitis and organ failure, and died within a month. His family kept a kind of news diary about it and it's incredibly tragic. It reminded me so much of living through the death of P's dad two years ago. He had six months from diagnosis to death, and only had a few days when he was in the hospital and/or too out of it to talk to us. Different experiences, but in both cases an incredibly peaceful, smart, loving man died too soon. If you want to read his obit and the story of his death, go to bluebloggy thru my links at left and click on her link to John Bishop.