My last post got me thinking about another tall tale of dodging bullets.
Becoming a geologist requires a lot of quality time camping. If you are lucky and you live in an arid region, you get to do this in the desert. Oddly enough, an academic discipline that requires going into nature, ya-hooing around in four wheel drive vehicles, hiking to some of the most beautiful places the mind can imagine, and sitting around a fire, drinking and telling lies can prove to be seductive. I totally fell for it being the easily seduced kind of lass and all.
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to go to Death Valley, you’ll know that it’s an amazing place. It’s admittedly challenging to stay for long in the searing heat of summer, but in the springtime, when the desert blooms… Amazing! There is really nothing like it.
On one of my many trips to the desert Mecca of Death Valley, I was camping with scads of people and a group of us built a fire and were drinking beer around said fire as is the tradition when sleeping under the stars in the desert. As the evening grew long, nature inevitably called. So into the desert I wandered to heed the call. I found a respectable shrub of chaparral and was in the process of squatting before said chaparral when from behind me, I heard the ominous rattling of a rattlesnake. This, for the record, did not scare the piss out of me. It scarred the piss right back from whence it came. So there I was duck walking away from my shrub grappling at my jeans to keep them from causing me to pitch onto my face and praying to anything that is holy that a) the rattlesnake wasn't a Mojave green, b) that it wasn't a baby, and c) that it didn't take that opportunity to pierce my butt.
All of which begs the question: Should my butt have been pierced by a rattlesnake, which of my friends would be drunk enough yet sober enough to suck the venom out of my rump? This can only be answered with another tall tale from the desert.
The previous autumn, I was in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, once again camping with scads of people and... you guessed it... drinking enthusiastically. My best friend, M, has a bad habit of getting drunk and forgetting that booze and pot don't mix. I've told her about this time and time again, but the girl won't listen and learns the lesson badly over and over again. This phenomenon has never really been a problem for me as I've been a pot-free-zone for most of my life. But it has given me the opportunity to point and laugh self-righteously. Anyhow, over the course of the evening, I lost track of dear M for a bit and when she showed up again, she was draped on Felix's shoulder. He promptly passed her off to me stating that he had to whiz (the slippery little bastard). As he walked away, I asked if he let her smoke pot and then damned him after he confirmed it. So poor M was in a state to be reckoned with and I said, "M, darlin', you have to execute the preemptive strike. It’s time to puke."
She slurred out, "I can't do that..."
"Of course you can!" said I.
"No, I can't." said she.
"You just shove your fingers down your throat until all lets fly."
"I can’t do that…" she insisted.
"M, come here. Hold back your hair, open your mouth and bend over."
To my surprise, she did. And my fingers went straight down her gullet and I tickled her tonsils until the heave ho was executed and she barfed her fool brains out. That's friendship. And you're darned skippy that she would suck the venom out of my ass!
For the record, the current first aid care standard for snake bites follows:
1) Call the Poison Control Center or EMS.
2) Do not attempt to suck the venom out of the victim.
3) Keep the affected limb below heart level.
4) Calm and reassure victim.
It’s not very proactive.
May 5, 2007
Happy Cinco De Mayo, Y'all
On this day, we take time to remember that a depleted ramshackle army of 4000 Mexicans can whip the ever loving shit out of the proud French army (8000 strong and well equiped, mind you). Viva la Raza, Y'all!
May 3, 2007
Bullet Dodged...
A few weeks ago, I was being courted by a fella, I'll go ahead and call him Frank. No... Francis... Because he was as lame as you would expect a fully grown man named Francis to be. So we met and were having a lively series of email exchanges leading up to what would be our first date. So in the process of all this, I managed to come down with a fierce head cold that was proving to be an impediment to our first date.
So I sent him this email:
Hey Francis,
Not a lot is new on my end except that I'm sick as a dog. Coughing, sneezing, snot everywhere. It's not so glamorous to be me right now. Feel free to call or email, but I'm afraid I'm not really up for fun and shenanigans.
To which he responded (and I've not edited his text) after several days:
H Fresh Hell
are you better, your last e-mail you didn't seem to horny, I expect you are feeling well now.?
What to talk/
Frank
Ok... so WTF?! Umm... I'm easy... but not that easy. So I told him as much because I'm like that. And I told him that if he wanted to talk or email me that would be fine and no hard feelings if he didn't. After a couple of weeks Francis sends me the following response:
Hi I was looking forward to talking with you again, or meeting for coffee. But I never agreed I would have sex with you, I think you presumed I would want to have sex with you, you really haven't shown me much, so no way was I thinking that. Perhaps if you impressed me, then maybe, I have 2 grad degrees, I know you have this intellectual superiority attitude, but believe me, it is not based in fact.
Ok, two graduate degrees and for the record, he claims to be a writer... of screenplays?!!! And an ability to occasionally complete a sentence renders me an intellectually superior sort? Since when?
I wonder if he seriously thinks that his charms will get him a visit to Happy Canyon. Yup... he's a champion. And here is a picture of the most recent bullet dodged:
So I sent him this email:
Hey Francis,
Not a lot is new on my end except that I'm sick as a dog. Coughing, sneezing, snot everywhere. It's not so glamorous to be me right now. Feel free to call or email, but I'm afraid I'm not really up for fun and shenanigans.
To which he responded (and I've not edited his text) after several days:
H Fresh Hell
are you better, your last e-mail you didn't seem to horny, I expect you are feeling well now.?
What to talk/
Frank
Ok... so WTF?! Umm... I'm easy... but not that easy. So I told him as much because I'm like that. And I told him that if he wanted to talk or email me that would be fine and no hard feelings if he didn't. After a couple of weeks Francis sends me the following response:
Hi I was looking forward to talking with you again, or meeting for coffee. But I never agreed I would have sex with you, I think you presumed I would want to have sex with you, you really haven't shown me much, so no way was I thinking that. Perhaps if you impressed me, then maybe, I have 2 grad degrees, I know you have this intellectual superiority attitude, but believe me, it is not based in fact.
Ok, two graduate degrees and for the record, he claims to be a writer... of screenplays?!!! And an ability to occasionally complete a sentence renders me an intellectually superior sort? Since when?
I wonder if he seriously thinks that his charms will get him a visit to Happy Canyon. Yup... he's a champion. And here is a picture of the most recent bullet dodged:
Fuck him... He's a loser and a tool.
April 19, 2007
April 17, 2007
Going to the Ci-Tay
In a couple of weeks, I'm having a long weekend in The City. I live near Boston, and when going there, it's generally understood that "I'm going to Town" means Boston. Likewise, when you tell anyone here you are going to "The City" they usually assume that you will be heading to New York City. However, if you say you are going to "Beantown" for Boston or "The Big Apple" for New York, natives to those areas will cringe.
As a native daughter of California, when I go back home, I go to "California". Here in New England, most people will greet this news with, "Oh, so you're going back to 'Cali'?" as I swallow back the bile that has surged up my gullet. Like two more syllables would kill you...Fuck! I assume that is the feeling that New Yorkers and Bostonians get when faced with "The Big Apple" and "Beantown", or how San Franciscans feel when their town is referred to as "Frisco" (which for the record, among Californians is "The City" while Los Angeles is far, wide, and no matter how you slice it, "LA"). It seems silly that these things should matter, but they all create a visceral response in natives. Curious. It seems that we all have insignificant things we need to cling to.
I'm also planning a trip to California this summer. I spoke with a friend of mine from "back home" who is a linguist and she says my accent is changing. It's clear that I need to recharge my Californian tongue. Not that there is anything wrong with the Boston accent, but on a lady, it just sounds low-brow and trashy. I am many things, but low-brow and trashy I ain't. So off I will travel to the Golden State where the letter "R" is a reality of language, intensifiers include "killer", "ripping", and "rad" not "wicked" and anyone can be called "dude" with a straight face (which for the record, makes me giggle on the inside). And so you don't misinterpret what I mean by a "California accent", I'm not talking about speaking Vally Girl. I don't speak in "likes" and "oh-my-gawd-Becky's". Anyhow, it will be nice to hear people speaking proper English not this railer colloquial New England spewing, but some fully kind local jargon from the west coast. (I'm bracing for the barrage from the Brits)
And speaking of "killer", the collective media is cumming all over themselves more than they have since September 11, 2001. Payday has arrived thanks to the unstable tendencies of an Oriental gunman in Virgina. The moral of the story, perhaps higher education is not always the best call. For that matter, perhaps leaving the house is ill advised. How long do you reckon we will have to hear interviews with people who are neighbors of someone who's child attended Virginia Tech and is alive and well, but we still have to see their hyperbolic emoting over people they don't actually know? Then there are all the other higher learning institutions across the country on high alert and camera crews ready in wait for the media glee of a chain reaction of catastrophic killings to unfold. Cynical? Perhaps.
Gads! Don't ever let me near a computer before I get coffee down the pipe.
As a native daughter of California, when I go back home, I go to "California". Here in New England, most people will greet this news with, "Oh, so you're going back to 'Cali'?" as I swallow back the bile that has surged up my gullet. Like two more syllables would kill you...Fuck! I assume that is the feeling that New Yorkers and Bostonians get when faced with "The Big Apple" and "Beantown", or how San Franciscans feel when their town is referred to as "Frisco" (which for the record, among Californians is "The City" while Los Angeles is far, wide, and no matter how you slice it, "LA"). It seems silly that these things should matter, but they all create a visceral response in natives. Curious. It seems that we all have insignificant things we need to cling to.
I'm also planning a trip to California this summer. I spoke with a friend of mine from "back home" who is a linguist and she says my accent is changing. It's clear that I need to recharge my Californian tongue. Not that there is anything wrong with the Boston accent, but on a lady, it just sounds low-brow and trashy. I am many things, but low-brow and trashy I ain't. So off I will travel to the Golden State where the letter "R" is a reality of language, intensifiers include "killer", "ripping", and "rad" not "wicked" and anyone can be called "dude" with a straight face (which for the record, makes me giggle on the inside). And so you don't misinterpret what I mean by a "California accent", I'm not talking about speaking Vally Girl. I don't speak in "likes" and "oh-my-gawd-Becky's". Anyhow, it will be nice to hear people speaking proper English not this railer colloquial New England spewing, but some fully kind local jargon from the west coast. (I'm bracing for the barrage from the Brits)
And speaking of "killer", the collective media is cumming all over themselves more than they have since September 11, 2001. Payday has arrived thanks to the unstable tendencies of an Oriental gunman in Virgina. The moral of the story, perhaps higher education is not always the best call. For that matter, perhaps leaving the house is ill advised. How long do you reckon we will have to hear interviews with people who are neighbors of someone who's child attended Virginia Tech and is alive and well, but we still have to see their hyperbolic emoting over people they don't actually know? Then there are all the other higher learning institutions across the country on high alert and camera crews ready in wait for the media glee of a chain reaction of catastrophic killings to unfold. Cynical? Perhaps.
Gads! Don't ever let me near a computer before I get coffee down the pipe.
April 14, 2007
Inspiration... Point, that is.
Forgive the videographer for the blustering microphone noises. At least he had the good sense to record the beauty of Inspiration Point.
I'm homesick. This is where I grew up and learned to appreciate the natural world. Santa Barbara is a coastal desert. It tends to be warm and dry and the breeze picks up in the evening which doesn't suck. When the sun sets into the ocean, its light gets reflected off buff sandstone outcrops on the foothills and fills the hillsides with a warm glow. For the record, for all the cool things it has, the east coast doesn't have that.
April 1, 2007
Guitar Porn - Part I
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA
Ok, so this is for all the guitar fans out there. This is what happens when Mexi-metal heads go "folk".
Guitar Porn - Part II
I saw these two with my sister last year and they flipped my skirt. After the concert, my sister said that she wanted to live a life for which their music would be the soundtrack. They played Stairway to Heaven and it was the first time since about the 10th time I heard that song when I didn't want to gouge out my ears.
RODRIGO Y GABRIELA... run don't walk, and go buy their album, download thier music, go see them in concert and throw money at them. Who says that guitar solos are trite!
March 26, 2007
Confession: I'm Out of Shape
On days like today, it's hard to believe that I've run a marathon. Which I have. Freaking slowly, but I've done it. Granted it's been four years since said marathon, but still...
Part of the efforts to beat back the blues has included joining the sad little drones who go to the gym to condition their bodies. On principal, I'm conflicted by this because you shouldn't have to do that if you live well and use your body. Walk instead of using the car where you can. Find opportunities to help someone dig a ditch, go out dancing, washing your own damned car, normal stuff like that. These things don't really happen because we spend our time on our rumps driving computers and hire illegal immigrants to handle the heavy lifting. Real world physical effort makes for better looking and better conditioned bodies than the freakish bulging of a gym rat's body with particular emphasis on their obsession spots. Pectoral muscles that can break open walnuts being paraded around on spindly little sticks of legs. It's disgusting. But until I manage to get off my ever inflating booty and applying myself to doing some heavy lifting in the real world, I'm counting myself in with the drones running in place at the gym.
As a side note in defense of the gym, in my early 20's I worked out there a lot and as I was maxing out on a pec-deck machine, an orgasm slipped out. Right there in the middle of a crowded gym. I was sweaty and flushed from exercise anyhow, so it was easy to play off, but how cool is that!
The point of all this blathering on about working out is that I met with my personal trainer this weekend. He's a strapping young ex-Marine and he worked me over hard, so much so that I'm having a difficult time walking straight. Out of context, being worked over hard by a strapping young ex-Marine leaving me walking funny would be a gleaming badge of honor. But alas, in this case, it's just a mark of my shame. Tonight after work, the ex-Marine will have another go at me and on shaky legs I'll amble to my car and wait for the inevitable pain to take me once again. Sometimes pain is good for you. So I'm told. I'm inflicting pain upon my body in an effort to keep it out of my mind. The irony hasn't escaped me.
Part of the efforts to beat back the blues has included joining the sad little drones who go to the gym to condition their bodies. On principal, I'm conflicted by this because you shouldn't have to do that if you live well and use your body. Walk instead of using the car where you can. Find opportunities to help someone dig a ditch, go out dancing, washing your own damned car, normal stuff like that. These things don't really happen because we spend our time on our rumps driving computers and hire illegal immigrants to handle the heavy lifting. Real world physical effort makes for better looking and better conditioned bodies than the freakish bulging of a gym rat's body with particular emphasis on their obsession spots. Pectoral muscles that can break open walnuts being paraded around on spindly little sticks of legs. It's disgusting. But until I manage to get off my ever inflating booty and applying myself to doing some heavy lifting in the real world, I'm counting myself in with the drones running in place at the gym.
As a side note in defense of the gym, in my early 20's I worked out there a lot and as I was maxing out on a pec-deck machine, an orgasm slipped out. Right there in the middle of a crowded gym. I was sweaty and flushed from exercise anyhow, so it was easy to play off, but how cool is that!
The point of all this blathering on about working out is that I met with my personal trainer this weekend. He's a strapping young ex-Marine and he worked me over hard, so much so that I'm having a difficult time walking straight. Out of context, being worked over hard by a strapping young ex-Marine leaving me walking funny would be a gleaming badge of honor. But alas, in this case, it's just a mark of my shame. Tonight after work, the ex-Marine will have another go at me and on shaky legs I'll amble to my car and wait for the inevitable pain to take me once again. Sometimes pain is good for you. So I'm told. I'm inflicting pain upon my body in an effort to keep it out of my mind. The irony hasn't escaped me.
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