John McCain's Favorite Joke

Circa 2003, as told to us by Zug.

"I feel terrible for all the mothers in the state of Arizona. Because, as you know, Barry Goldwater from Arizona ran for President of the United States, Morris Udall from Arizona ran for President of the United States, Bruce Babbitt from Arizona ran for President of the United States, and I, John McCain from Arizona ran for President of the United States... Arizona may be the only state in the nation where mothers no longer tell their chilren that some day they can grow up and be the President of the United States."

WTF

One of my neighbors is doing some karaoke, and is either drunk, or just super, super bad at karaoke.

The other neighbor is just randomly shouting every few minutes. I am blaming the football game, because that is more comforting to me than the thought of an old guy randomly shouting every few minutes for now reason.

It's times like these when I'm glad I have a vacuum.

Fair warning: this is both unnecessary and moderately gross.

A week ago, I opened my freezer to get some ice. Apparently at some point in the past couple of months, I had put a bottle on top of my fridge just a smidge too close to the front, and every time I opened the freezer door, that bottle of creme de menthe was slowly, slowly coming closer to toppling. And this time, it finally came down.

As I watched this bottle fall, in stupidly slow motion, I realized that I had no shoes on, and being barefoot in a room full of broken glass would be a terrible way to spend my Sunday. So I reached out a foot and tried to slow it down.

This is what I tell myself now, at least, because it's a better reason for me to leave a foot in the way, or something. I caught the bottle with the big toe on my left foot.

No lie, it hurt a lot. I used roughly three languages worth of swears, then put a bag of ice on it and whined occasionally over the next week. The nail turned an unpleasant purple color, and I figured that would be that.

This evening I noticed that the front of the nail was leaking. Curious, I put my foot in my lap to take a look at it, craned my head down, and gingerly touched the top of the nail.

It... squirted at me. The top of my toenail turned into a squirt gun of week old blood and clear sticky shit. It squirted me IN MY FACE.

After I had washed four times and finished going "BLAAAAARG," I reflected that this must be what it's like to be a French woman in a horror film.

Now that the nailbed is empty, when I push down on the top of my toenail it makes a rodent-like squeaking noise. It's adorable smallness does not make up for the earlier disgust, but it's a step in the right direction.

Just so you know

Things that are good

Things that are bad

A change in fortunes

The last time I went on my usual trip to New York (New Year's, 2006/07), I had a wonderful time. I was in a cheerful mood when I drove back home, though exhausted when I finally stepped out of the car. Things didn't go well from the moment I stepped through the door; by the end of the night, I had dumped my boyfriend, driven to a friend's house and cried on her couch through three hours of Home and Garden Television. I spent a lot of the next week sniffly, but other than that one thing (snort), the rest of the week was weepy but otherwise uneventful.

This time, I was reasonably confident that nothing worse could happen, aside from an eye-rolling, "Well, I have to pay rent the first day I get back."

And I walked into my leasing office, and there was my ex-boyfriend, sitting at the table, signing his lease.

Blarg.

Rationally, I know this is a meaningless development. One of my friends lives in this complex. I like him a lot. It would make me smile to see him. We work at the same place, so it would make sense for us to cross paths, either coming or going, at some point. And yet, in the two months I've lived here, I've never spotted him biking past or walking past or hitching a ride with his girlfriend past. This is what my rational mind is telling me.

My irrational mind was telling me it was a bad sign. Bad juju. A bad omen. It was, unfortunately, spot on for the week.

Other highlights of the week:

• I lost power for 25 hours! Fuck you, recently restocked fridge full of groceries!
  
• My oven set on fire! Piss off, half-made Strawberry Panzanella!
  
• A 55 gallon fishtank a quarter filled with water was dropped on my hand. All bones intact, some bruising remains, but should be gone in a day or two. I think I did all the swearing that was called for in that situation already.
  
• A tree bough missed crashing into the hood of my car by a foot or so!
  
• A crazy lady nearly drove head-first into my car because the three no-left-turn signs mean nothing to self-assured Ann Arborites!
  
• I finished watching Twin Peaks and I will never be complete, ever, ever again!
  

Now, I read a whole mess of blogs on skepticism and critical thinking. I recognize this for what it is: Superstitious thinking. It's just an unpleasant coincidence that all of this nonsense should fall so closely together with the contrasting pleasantry of my vacation. It is a touch of the much-loathed woo.

This is one of those tricky times to be an atheist. Sometimes, shit happens. As Penn Jillete puts it, "We live in a random universe filled with pain."

Every now and then, though, it would be wicked nice to have someone to blame.

[Edit: Which is not to say that the whole week has been utterly terrible. A gentleman I went to college with popped up from out of the blue, and it was good to hear from him. Thus far, he has not accidentally been killed in a freak explosion, which is promising.]

Unusual hygiene question

I went out with some friends last night to a nightclub in Detroit. Good times were had by all, and eventually after a fair amount of revelry and dancing, it was time to leave.

Now mind you, I was not inebriated, as it was my duty to get people home in one piece via the Brandtmobile. However, I had had enough to drink that my ability to make higher-function decisions about fashion-worthiness (which are fairly limited to begin with) was a bit slow. So when I found a pair of sunglasses on the crosswalk back to my car, I snatched them up and took them with me. I figured I was safe to pick up sunglasses that had been abandoned in the middle of a Detroit street at three in the morning.

The glasses themselves are pretty terrible to behold

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Sitting here now, muchless sleep-deprived than I was last night, they make me think of the sort of thing that people in the 80s thought that we would be wearing today, that kind of bizarre future aesthetic that was only ever big in movies. However, they offer full-coverage, which is something I look for in sunglasses while I'm driving, and my last part of enormous ugly sunglasses just bit the dust recently.

So the question is: How does one go about cleaning sunglasses? Are there any strange diseases you can get from sunglasses? Should I just pop over to my nearest tattoo parlor and ask if I can just pop them in the autoclave, or will letting them soak in a bowl of vinegar be adequate?

Any thoughts? Hopes? Dreams?

I am the master of cable-age

I wrote a while back about how this thing was stinkin' up my apartment while I blocked it. It occured to me I should like, put a picture up of it or something.I cannot express how many terrible films went into the making of this scarf. It is filled with the cries of a thousand murdered harlots, I tellsya.

I did a swatch of this in a different yarn, and it's probably six inches square if I put a finishing border on it. I'm thinking of finishing it off and turning it into the fanciest dishcloth that I own.