The bald facts ...

Is there anything worse than premature balding? God, I have the worst hair in the world. It is so thin that it barely covers my entire head, leaving a gaping hole at the crown. And if I've learned anything about aging, it's that this will not magically correct itself. It's unlikely that I will wake up when I'm 40, blessed to see that I finally look like Cousin Itt.

This is most noticeable in the summer when I've retired the stocking cap. While in line at the Ghetto Spur I will catch a glimpse of myself on the screen of the surveillance camera. That lens completely zeroes in on the spot like it's being held by a proud mom, and my naked skull is going to play a clarinet solo during the fifth-grade band concert.

Let's just say that if I ever decide to lift a cheddar-wurst from the Ghetto Spur, I'll be in the clear. Those blue shirts will be combing the hillside looking for a perp with scraggly hair cinched like a hula skirt around a globe of blueish-white skin. (Consider this your warning, Ron Jeremy).

Cutting it short doesn't give it volume, it just makes me look more like my mom. (Not a bad thing, per se, but you show me someone who wants to look like their mom, and I'll show you a guy who just wants to cram his fat feet into a pair of size 6 Jimmy Choos). I can't grow it long, because it hangs in stringy wisps. Like, if you parted this fringe, you would find a handful of 20-year-olds lounging on a velvet couch, sharing a hooka and performing spoken word poetry.

I talked about this with the guy who cuts my hair. He told me to try Rogaine. In my mind, I cannot separate Rogaine from those infomercials for a product that is essentially spray paint. (Which also brings to mind the vintage Ken doll I had growing up. The old-school Lothario had a short velvety down pasted to his soft head. As he aged, spots were rubbed smooth, but eventually filled in with a few strokes from a black Sharpie).

One of my friends told me that if I used Rogaine, I'd maybe have a heart attack and die. She told me to try Nioxin, which I got today. It is supposed to keep you from losing hair, and make it more healthy. It smells like breath freshener for the head, so even if it doesn't work, the tingling will make me think it is. The girl who sold it to me had a thick mass of hair, and she gave it glowing reviews.

"Do you use it?" I asked her. Admittedly, hopeful she would show me a "before" photo where her head looked like a scorched and vacant lot.
"Pssshhh, no," she said. "I don't really have to."
Thank God, I thought. She looked like Ms. Texas.

So now I've got that going on. Just me, sitting around, watching my hair not fall out.

If you think I'm not going to put this in my arm pits, you aren't paying attention. By the Fourth of July, I hope to look like I have Crystal Gayle in a headlock.

Pickles ...

Am trapped in home without Internet or eggs. Lunch was a pickle and water sandwich (without bread). Am forced to tell the world about it through a series of Morse Code like characters typed into a communication devise the size of my cheek bone. Am trying to recreate Facebook with the spring from a ballpoint pen and Quilted Northern.

Please send help.

Deepest, darkest secrets ...

Recently Chuck was going through my books, trying to find a novel that isn't set in New York. The deeper he dug, the more he found novels set in New York, that typically featured a writer as the protagonist.

I stood there a little embarrassed as he told me about this. It was like he had opened my notebook to find "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" scrawled in cursive on every page.

souvenirs ...

My second favorite thing that happened on Sunday night: Dude walks into the bar, and FScotty gives him a hug and says: "You smell good! What is that? Allure Sport?"

My first favorite thing that happened on Sunday night: Someone barfed over the railing of Grandma's patio. If I know that bar, I'm guessing that happens nightly.

Also: My unemployed friend made a surprise visit, perhaps stealing a bit of the attention of the birthday boy, who later referred to himself as the "warm-up band."

I woke with two cans of Natty Light crammed into my purse with an unopened hunk of Sharp Cheddar Cheese. My favorite part about after bars at my former landlord's: Souvenirs from his fridge.

chick peas and chick lit ...

I have spent the week among people and sunlight, meaning that I have also spent an equal part of the week recuperating with books and movies in a dark room.

Here are the deets:

FEEDING MY FACE HOLE

plantains and spicy black beans: My cooking has added new level of difficulty. now it needs to also be in the less-than-30 minutes prep time catagory.

This is just black beans, veggie broth, onions, garlic, cumin and coriander served over plantains [i used banana.] Sour cream, salsa and cilantro on the side. I liked this. Ocassional spicy bites. Totally easy. I believe this is our Cuban period.

Dumplings with Chickpea Gravy: I got this one from Elizabeth at CentrePullBall and liked it a lot. It feels like something that should be a staple. Easy, inexpensive, good. Just make dough balls, and then a gravy out of chickpeas and some spices. Add a mix of frozen veggies.

BOOK 'EM
Saturday by Ian McEwan: Henry Perowne, neurologist, father, husband, squash player on the brink of retiring and a man whose interest in cooking exceeds his talents, wakes up early on a Saturday morning and stands at the window and thinks and watches and thinks some more.

He thinks about his day and his wife. He sees a fiery plane zip across the sky, quiet witness to something that will play out in the news. He goes downstairs and talks to his blues-guitar playing son, who is on the tail end of Friday. He goes back to bed. He does it with his wife. He wakes again and prepares for a game of squash against his colleague and friend.

In the end it’s all worth it. I promise. This should be a secondary title or something. “Saturday,” by Ian McEwan written in large font. “Stick with it, it’s worth it” in parenthesis beneath it.

Full review here.

Secrets to Happiness: A Novel by Sarah Dunn: I’m not sure why I thought a book about a single woman writer living in Manhattan wouldn’t be chick lit, since most chick lit begins with those very same ingredients. It’s kind of like taking ground beef, adding orange powder, serving it in a hard shell and saying “But it’s not a taco.”

But in Jincy Willett’s review of Secrets to Happiness in the NYT’s Book Review, she says point blank: ” [Secrets to Happiness] was definitely not written just for women, no matter how it’s packaged. True, the protagonist is female, the setting is Manhattan, and the focus is on relationships — and there’s a big shopping scene. True, mostly women will read it. But then women are the ones mostly reading every­thing. Besides, it’s not about shoes. And the shopping is for books, at the Strand. Also, unlike chick lit, chick TV and chick movies, Secrets to Happiness is actually funny.

Full review here.

Ghosts (New Directions Paperbook) by Cesar Aira: I struggled getting into this one. It's very short and prosey and has some naked ghosts. But it also has crazy-long digressions and little action. That said, it is packaged beautifully.

TV
"The Hills": Spencer to Heidi's dad: "I'm going to move out west!" [This show is set in LA.]

MOVIES
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button : I'm pretty sure that if you watch this backward, you get satanic messages from Forrest Gump.

The Devil's Backbone : Moving from my Stephen King movie phase to my Spanish movie phase.

The Wrestler: "Beaches" for men who remember the 80s. This is actually super good, but I prefer my depressants in liquid form. Really, it's fantastic.

IN THE THEATER
Star Trek: For some reason, my four seasons-worth of knowledge of Battlestar Galactica did nothing to help me get this movie. The best part of the movie was finding out that Captain Kirk is dating Audrina from "The Hills."

Max and Jinx ... Friends forever ...

Chuck has a bit of a vacation this week, so Wednesday night we went with Chuck's Fannie to the Gopher, where an odd array of people were slow dancing to men singing country songs by women.

It kind of looked like someone shook loose a basket of socks without mates on the dance floor.

I was standing outside and a threesome joined me: two girls and a guy. One of the girls was slack and tottering. It was like she had signed over control of her limbs in exchange for a shot of jag. She was cuteish, with straight dirty blonde hair, and dressed for a casual night out. I noticed that she looked a lot like the other girl, who was rocking a pony tail, sweatshirt and jeans.

"Are you guys twins?" I asked.
The drunk girl got right up in my face. Two inches away. A snuggle she'd been doing just two seconds earlier with her boyfriend, and two minutes earlier with the other girl.
"Yes," she said. "And thanks for noticing that I look exactly like my dyke-ass sister. She doesn't do her hair or wear any makeup, and you notice that we look exactly alike. THANKS!"

I laughed nervously.

"Actually, I'm married with two kids," the ponytail said. "And I have paint on my jeans."

Meanwhile, Chuck sang "Dirty Love" by Frank Zappa, but used Barry White's voice.
First I sang "Kiss Me Deadly," which included a frenzied air guitar.
Then I sang "Irreplaceable," by Beyonce, which I've been preparing to sing for years. I failed miserably. It didn't help that the drunk girl jumped on stage and hugged me so hard that I couldn't breath. Her forearm pressed against my windpipe as she tried to share the microphone.

Today we took the bus back to the scene of the crime to get our cars.
Then we went to Hugo's for pizza.
Then we went to Star Trek, which reminded me a lot of the movie "Space Camp."

Swelling may ensue ...

Running outside is a lot like the chemical reaction that husky boys with hockey hair and helmet acne had on me in high school:

Do I hate it? Or do I love it?

SOME FACTS ABOUT RUNNING OUTSIDE

1. I run faster, but ...
2. I can't run as far.
3. One time a little girl looked at me and said to her parents "He's sweaty."Now I have to wear my sports bra on the outside of my long-sleeved T's.
4. One time I passed a group of three college-aged boys walking with a basketball. Then, at my turnaround, I passed them again. Then, when I got to my quitting point, they caught me. This makes me think I could have just walked.
5. Today Chuck said that I smelled like Lake Superior. He assured me that this was a good thing. [But what does the largest freshwater urinal smell like anyway? Don't answer that.]
6. I have yet to hit runner's zen while running outside. That part where Girl Talk moves my legs for me like I'm Girl Talk's marionette.
7. My arms swelled up so much that I couldn't remove my watch afterward.

THINGS I WISH ABOUT RUNNING
1. That I was a chipper morning runner, hurdling recycling bins and sneaking sips of coffee from the travel mugs of businessmen waiting for the bus. [While the Laverne and Shirley Theme Song played, if I'm allowed to be picky.]
2. That, only when running, I lived in a neighborhood as flat as the aforementioned high school girl of yore.

Accordion to me ...

In the early morning hours of Sunday, fueled by plenty of drinks and a hot swell of karaoke singing, I picked up an accordion and magically knew not only 1) how to play it; but 2) I wrote a fantastic 15-minute long song that even rhymed.

Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of it, so I probably won't recognize it when some Swedish pop duo adopts it as their own.

As for the rest of last week:



THE FOODS



Arugula and Prosciutto Pizza: I got this one from Eating Well magazine. Sauteed onions and prosciutto, topped with part skim mozzarella, baked for like 10 minutes. Then topped with arugula and tomatoes. It was amazing.



Huevos Rancheros Verdes: Also from this month's Eating Well magazine. This one is pinto beans, green salsa and cheddar baked for 10 minutes on top of tortillas, topped with an egg, and a mix of greens including romaine lettuce, cilantro, lime juice and scallions. This tasted like it should be so evil, but really it's not. [Excuse my crappy eggs. Not my strength.]


NO BOOKITY
Talk Talk By TC Boyle: he “chase-scene-as-plot-structure” can be an exhausting thing. The chaos, the misunderstandings, the almosts, and coincidences. It can all decompose into a sloppy, cartoonish stink, racing to finish the book instead of reading and enjoying the tension and feeling the characters’ burdens.

Typically, I consider this the lazy writing of an author with a to-do list — a wacky hijinks quota.

Talk Talk by TC Boyle is a welcomed exception.

It opens with Dana Hartley, a deaf woman who is late for a dentist appointment. She gets pulled over by a cop after a tap-n-go at a stop sign, and is arrested for a litany of crimes: bad checks, auto theft, assault with a deadly weapon. After a weekend in county jail that forever changes her opinion of the common drunk, she learns that her identity has been stolen. The police have no plans to help her. It’s not a bloody crime, but it is a waste of resources. Dana and her boyfriend, a slightly-younger computer graphics guy, try to hunt down the thief.

Full review here.


MOVIES
Shiver 2008: This Spanish horror film was terrifying. A kid with a sunlight allergy moves to a small, dark town and people begin dying in excellent ways that usually start with severing the Achilles tendon.

Screams are the universal language.

Blackout 2007: This, on the other hand, does nothing to dispel the reputation of horror fans as hokey. Starring the mayor from The Wire, and two other lesser-known actors, as people stuck in an elevator in an empty building. One has asthma and the water bottle; one has a broken leg and a bad attitude. One has a dead body in his apartment.

Seriously gross. Seriously bad. Pretty entertaining.

red, red whine ...

probably the weirdest part of my day was when i told the man who cuts my hair that i am in the midst of an elaborate, sometimes tricky, sometimes simple, sometimes poke your eyeballs out, sometimes poke someone else's eyeballs out, sometimes clean out the closet like i'm a bulemic mistaking it for a refrigerator, process of weening myself off of cigarettes by first cutting my intake to 35 percent and never doing it in the car.

"i didn't know you smoke," he said, then invited me to go with him on a smoke break while we waited for my hair to absorb shades of red not nearly close enough to molly ringwald red for my taste, but as close to it as he was comfortable going and still attaching his name to the project.

"why not?" i said. we had nothing else to do for the next 12 minutes. and he was in the middle of a story ...

so he opened the back door and ushered me through the lower level of the mall complex, where i shuffled through the people wearing a black drape, squares of tinfoil jutting out of my brain like something you'd set on top of your tv.

i thought: "if i saw me now, i'd laugh."

other topics we discussed:
* whether i should consider getting some sort of hair extensions to give myself volumn in this ever-thinning mess. no, he said. my hair is so thin that the glue or braids would be obvious. try rogain, he suggested.

rogain. huh. that's creepy.

* if it's possible to just give in and get grey highlights. could look cool, right? not possible, said he.

but it wasn't all take-take. i had the opportunity to say to him, when told about various issues he is facing that could be solved via the world wide web:

BUY THE INTERNET FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!


i told him i wanted to look more irish.

he sneers through smeared lipstick ...

my family's home wasn't much of a slumber party draw. it wasn't located in elton hills, where all the boys lived. it didn't have a freezer filled with snack food, and a video camera for recording re imagined miss america pagents. it didn't have fannie's dad's secret recipe for popcorn, a pizza parlor at the end of the block, or a magic bathroom mirror that hid even the most splotchy teenager's acne, and made the most limp-banged broad in the bunch's tresses blossom and bounce.

my house had two small things: 1) a ready supply of pillsbury glazed orange rolls for breakfast; 2) a vhs tape of four episodes of "alfred hitchcock presents" that were recreated in 1985 based on original episodes. my friends and i watched this over. and over. and over.

right now i can only think of three of the episodes on that scraggly old tape:

THE ONE ABOUT THE GUN
a kid stumbles upon a gun -- which he/she thinks is fake -- and runs around the neighborhood pointing it at people. in the final scene, there is a gunshot and a young girl slash almost victim stammers: "it b-b-b-buzzed. r-r-r-rright by my. ear."

THE ONE ABOUT THE FINGER CUTTER
a man ends up in some sort of bet against a rich woman. she wants him to wager his digits. in the final scene, she takes off her long, silky glove to reveal that she only has a thumb.

THE ONE ABOUT THE NURSE*
a nurse is taking care of an invalid in an old creepy house. incidentally, the town is in the middle of a dead-nurse crime spree that happens to be most feverish within a two-mile radius of this mansion. when sam, the gardner? butler? chauffeur? goes to the hospital to pick up extra oxygen tank, two nurses and a drunk housekeeper are left alone in the house.

AND it's storming.
AND another nurse has recently died.
AND when that forgetful nurse stella was locking the basement windows, she missed a latch.

this one ends with the phrase "yes stella. you forgot about sam." oh, snap! one of the nurses was really the killer in drag! his wig falls off as he stranglers her. he sneers comically through smeared lipstick.

*i watched the 1965 version of the nurse one tonight. through hulu, it is possible for me to trigger all sorts of repressed pop culture memories. which one of you assholes wants to play totally 80s trivia against me?

old mcpista had a cow ...

this is my final harvest at farm town. chuck stopped by to lend a hand.

dear neighbors,

thank you so much for your gifts of mango trees, donkeys, and rabbits. especially thanks for watering my farm when i was not available. unfortunately, i have decided to leave farm town.

farm town, for the uninitiated, is a facebook game. it is an extra layer of social networking within social networking. it is the bib overalls layer. farm town is a bit like "oregon trail 2: after the fords and dysentary." a farmer is given a plot of land and 500 coins and access to various seedlings. the farmer plows, plants, waits a few days, harvests, sells the harvest, replows, replants, waits a few days and harvests again. all the while, farm town neighbors are diligently bestowing gifts of trees and animals.

"redneck princess has sent a request using farm town," reads the stilted and elementary gift tag, which shows up in my facebook notifications. "here is a peach tree for your farm in farm town. could you help me by sending a gift back?"

and in return, i send 8-12 chickens, one by one, to various farm town friends. the cycle continues, cash flows, and the available loot increases. then at level 15, the farmer can finally buy a house, a path and a barbed wire fence. a few more levels and the farmer can increase his/her plot of land. until that farmer is living on something that looks like a scene from "gone with the wind."

and if all that waiting is too exhausting, farm town accepts credit cards. for just $39.99 in real money, a farmer in need of instant gratification (read: farm town swag) can purchase 80,000 in fake money. just enough for a small house and a field of sunflowers.

***

it was the young rockstar amy abts who introduced me to this plot of facebook realty.

"ugh. farmtown is slow loading today," she sighed into the phone.
"what's farmtown?" i asked, naive to the ways of coins and the marketplace and work gloves. "WHAT'S FARMTOWN?!" she said, incredulously.

like it was a great band, or a fancy cheese, or a TV show starring dylan moran. within minutes, the rock star had invited me to be her neighbor and had sent me my first farm town gift -- a cow or a plum tree or whatever. just a little something to get me growing. (in turn, i accepted her neighbor request, and responded with an orange tree).

***

soon chuck was playing, too. but he was playing differently. he read the rules, the charts and the message boards. when i went to bed, he was a novice farmer. when i woke up, he was damn near picking up day laborers in a rusty old pickup.

chuck quickly ascended the ranks. he learned that helping strangers harvest resulted in fast-cash. and that if he hired workers, he ultimately made more money on his coffee fields. he bought a house, a path, more land. his gifts grew more extravagant (horses! coconut trees!)

one night we laid in bed watching a rabbit run around chuck's fields. hopping, ears flapping, stopping, twitching. we laughed and laughed and laughed.

"farm town," i said. "it's my favorite show."

***

we were sharing a table with friends at luce, and spent much of brunch talking about farm town. "have you seen carrott dick's place," we asked our friend richnam. "he has so many chickens that it takes, like, 10 minutes to load!"

and we all laughed.
chuck described his ultimate blue print. "an orchard!" he said.
richnam talked about harvesting.
farm town, farm town, farm town -- half hour, at least, and it was a pretty good conversation. funny and engaging.
hours later em, the only one at the table who hadn't yet moved to farm town, sent me a lemon tree.

***

so why am i quitting farm town. why now, with trees ready for harvest and 30,000 coins in the bank?

i think it's because, as far as i can tell, you cannot lose at farm town. it's not like the sims, where your happiness depletes, and you end up soiling yourself in a self-made door-less den of death and despair.

with farm town, you can just keep on landscaping. keep on adding fences and selling cows and watching those hilarious rabbits bop through the fields. picking apples. selling apples. collecting chickens and building orchards and sending donkeys to friends.

it could go on forever.

and that's the problem. that's why i'm leaving farm town.

thrilled to be in the same post code as you ...

this week i'm implementing the early steps in all sorts of outrageous life goals. but here is what i did last week:

HOW IT ALL STARTED IN THE KITCHEN


herb basted salmon: as i've said before, i rarely make meat. this is not some sort of grand statement, where i pull a covert ketchup maneuver all over your leather kicks. this is just one girl who doesn't trust herself to properly refrigerate, handwash, and read a meat thermometer.

[however, the oscar meyer cheesy turkey hot dogs i got this week certainly kicked ass and i totally touched those.]

so this was good, healthy, out of character, delicious.



asparagus soup: while good, this took a lot of doctoring to make it taste like anything: a lot of parmesean cheese, an entire salt lick. [silly vegetarians and their acceptance of bland]. but it was good. i did use a lighter milk than the cream it suggested. this is just blended asparagus stems, milk, onion, dried thyme, lemon juice and lemon rind.


BOOKS!
Pygmy by chuck palahniuk: Do I dare say that Chuck Palahniuk is back? I mean, not quite Fight Club back, or Choke back. But at least Diary back, and that was the novel that got me to join Team Palahniuk in the first place, so it’s a start. Especially after the grueling, repetitious, obsessive-compulsive, list-of-porn-movie-titles disaster that was Snuff [which I ranked among the Top 3 worst novels I read in 2008].

Pygmy is fantastic social satire: Portrait of suburban Americana, through the lens of a foreign exchange student, sent here with a teen-aged posse of other foreign exchange students to perform the opaque “Operation Havoc.” Pygmy settles in with a typical American family: chicken-faced mom, Viagra-breath dad, pig-dog brother and cat-like sister. They welcome his visit with the gift of a too-large Jesus T-shirt, a promise to fatten him up, and a grand claim:

“We’ll make an American out of you, or swear to our Lord almighty God, we’re gonna die trying.”

full review here.
A Good and Happy Child: A Novel by justin evans: A Good and Happy Child is the story of George Davies. A 30-something man who goes to his therapist because he is concerned about his inability to hold his newborn son. It’s causing a strain in his relationship with his wife. In his first session, George confesses that he was in therapy as a tween, and the doctor suggests he fill notebooks with the story of what happened 20 years ago — an era he has buried in his mind.

full review here.

MOVIES!
My Girl it had been a few decades since i had seen this movie, but i had to watch it again after i thought i got stung by a bee. oye. by the time it ended, my face looked like it had been mangled in a vicious incident involving a garbage disposal.


ON TV
"the hills": fannie has sworn off the show because the audrina and brody business makes her feel dirty. my threshold for crap > fannie's threshold for crap.

"90210" it has been awhile since i was a teenager, but this show leads me to believe that the current crop of teens:

*have pregnancy/marriage fantasies;
*have large barrel curling irons;
*have never been introduced to a wheel of gouda, which fits perfectly into most purses.

these theories are compounded by watching "one tree hill."

the cruelest hour ...

in the time i've been gone, a gelatinous mess has taken my bar stool. she spilled herself over the bar top, a blonde mess covering the place where the temporary amnesia was housed.

"she looked like she needed it more than you," chuck says of the stool. he'd moved my mug to the other side of him.

when she lifts her noodle-arm to her mouth -- her mouth either making the O of a yawn or an opening for a geyser -- i tug chuck's stool closer to mine.

"she's gonna blow," i say.

the bartender looks at her, looks at us, looks at her: "i didn't do that," he says. "she came in like that."

the girl looks at chuck, eyes unfocued, and asks for his cell phone.
she asks the bartender to use the phone. he ignores her request and goes back to studying the surveillance camera, trained now on the back hallway.
finally the bartender says to the girl "listen. you have to leave. can i call you a cab?"

she rolls off the stool, sobbing. she hugs strangers. a woman pushes the girl's hair out of her eyes.

when i look again, she is gone.

***

for awhile we watch the 50 biggest sports bloopers on FSN. here "sports" is a broad term. a top five blooper features a kid fainting during a spelling bee. first his eyes get wide, like a giant fist is squeezing his entrails, then he sways a bit. this goes on for awhile until he finally totters. just one other entrant stoops over him to help.

he stands up and attempts the word, again. but without sound, i'm not sure if he got it right.

we've seen this show at least a dozen times. enough to know that when that gymnast is running toward the vault, he is going to take a misstep and get socked in the gut by the pommel horse. and before we got there, countless players of countless sports were socked in the nuts. that dog is going to emit an ass flood right in the middle of the dog show.

"how many times have you seen this show?" i ask the bartender.
"a zillion," he says without bothering to look at the screen.
he sets the remote control in front of us.

"we can watch whatever we want," chuck says, picking it up.
"yeah! just like at home!" i say.

***

we take a cab home, and have a dance party in the living room, listening to records: the pixies, the cars, jesus & mary chain. i love nights like this. [the next day, chuck points to a crudely drawn demon on the inside cover of the book i'm reading and says "that was what you looked like dancing last night." all hunched over, talons at the ready.]

he finds a single pbr in the door of the refrigerator for me, mixes himself a drink of blue sky root beer and whiskey. something that has always surprised me about chuck is that he carefully measures one shot, with an actual shot glass, per drink. more careful with quantity than a bartender from grandma's saloon.

then there is a little bit of whiskey left, but no mixer.

"let's order a pizza, and have the delivery guy bring us coke for mixers!" i say.
"it's 4 a.m.," chuck points out. "there is no pizza delivery."
the cruelest hour.

instead, we empty have a bag of frozen strawberries into the blender. add some chunks of ice. we squeeze two oranges, and a lemon into it. chuck points to a mango. "i kind of want that, too." we slice it open and drop mango cubes into the mix.

he empties the whiskey bottle into it, and blends it.

"this is what is going to keep us from being hungover," i tell him.

it's delicious. i drink mine from an old jar of curry simmer sauce. [today the floor is sticky, and the fruit rinds were scattered across the table.]

***

we collapse into bed and crank up the movie "my girl" and are asleep before vada gets her period.

a day in photos gone wrong ...

this is all i've got. that's bananas!

that's bananas! ...

this week's resolution is to work the exclamation "that's bananas!" into more conversations. at first it will sound forced. eventually it will come more naturally. soon you won't notice at all.

that's a lot of pizza ...

so last week was insane.
0 miles run at 0.00 minute mile pace;
1 pizza ordered;
2 slices eaten while standing in a bar;
1 night at home with pbr and farmtown;
0 meals made in our home, not including veggie chick'n patties;
2 veggie chick'n patties;
2 tv shows watched that i wonder why i'm still watching;
2 books in the mail;

but! i finished a book that took me far too long to read:

SKIMMING, ER ... READING
The Garden of Last Days: A Novel by andre dubus III: After awhile, I became convinced that Andre Dubus III was doing this on purpose: Oprah-endorsed writer pens insanely long and boring novel filled with the minutia of 5-7 strangers whose path's intersect one dramatic night at a titty bar in Florida.

This novel, "The Garden of Last Days," is senselessly slow and senselessly long. A wise man once said that no song should be longer than 4 minutes, unless there is a really good reason. I believe that a book should be no longer than 300 pages, unless there is a really good reason.

full review will be posted here.

that's special, too ...

i'm as stunned as you: i did not go out tonite. during homegrown. the greatest duluth holiday in all the world over.

i had the best intentions. totally wanted to see decellerati, and the tisdales. everthing else would just be fun filler. but when i got home at 8 p.m., i involuntarily put on my pajama pants, removed my contact lenses, and cozied into the couch next to a fellar who said a sentence with " ... order pizza ..." as it's action verb.

sold.

i still thought i'd go out. it's homegrown! chaos! sweat! people! music! single servings of gyro pizza! pbr!

i knew i'd have to go out alone and latch on to friends. all of my friends were working or boring or had uncontrollable diarrhea [true story] . but homegrown is probably like movies in theaters: just fine viewed alone.

when chuck left for work, i was still thinking about it. although, it was going to take the jaws of life to get me out of these sweatpants.

i cracked a beer.
i decided that if i went out i'd wear sweatpants.
i started following the twitter feed of events.
sounded fun.
fun enough to get the gist of by reading it in the comfort of the red room, in sweatpants, with a beer.

so i totally skipped homegrown friday. but i read about it, refreshing every half hour. it's not exactly the same experience, but i bet i'll make up for it on homegrown saturday.

chuck sent me a text that said "someday homegrown will be like the superbowl. we'll be proud not to know who's playing."

next september, when i complain about being bored, please remind me that i made this decision to stay home on a night when fun was free for the taking. then punch me in the teeth.

but seriously: there is something to be said for listening to the replacements and playing farmtown on facebook. that's special, too.

the rub ...

last night's homegrown adventure led us to the main club in superior to see fred tyson, a little man who sings hits such as "freddie gonna do what he wanna do" and what i believe was a new song about a ninja.

before his show, he wore a pink robe and a crown. during his show, he stripped out of the robe, and down to silkish short-shorts, white socks black shoes. he was shirtless, but had on a black studded harness.

i decided to save up my fun pellets for the weekend, so i was the driver. i still need my brain today, whereas this weekend i can let it marinate in a gourmet stew of pbr, and the sweat of strangers dripping from the ceiling pipes at RT quinlan's. i may have caught a buzz from chuck's fannie and geo grrl, however. when they got into the car, it smelled like a cautionary tale about hiding the mouthwash and vanilla extract. hot damn, those kids know how to have a good time.

i've never felt like i was in a 1970s b-movie more than when chuck's fannie hopped into the backseat and growled "you guys are cool, right?"

so superior, wisconsin, was a damn-good time even without sauce. crazy dancing and smoke machines. i got front-row seats to the smooth and persistent seduction stylings of a man named hotrod, who in all the world over, lives the closest thing to rock star lifestyle that i've ever seen.

"you're the hottest librarian in the bar," he told jcrew. "let me take you to dinner tonight. we'll go to who's bar."

back in duluth, we made a stop to visit some friends who were camped out for tickets to see "ghost of girlfriends past." what the wha? exactly.

we hit the taco john's drive through for sport. came home. when all was said and done, lights out at a whoppin' 3:30 a.m.

oof. this morning i feel like i was the one wearing a leather studded harness. on my brain. i'm fried. if i'd known i'd feel like this, i would have just drank instead of pissing off the bartenders at the main club with requests for water.

brains. they regenerate.