Oh, my stars and garters!

xoxoxoxoxo

I have fallen in love with French bread Vietnamese sandwiches at Tam Deli on North Lamar. Love, I said. I ate half of one and almost swooned.

I have fallen back in love with my Canon Rebel 2000. Eric, Dan, and I walked along the railroad tracks in my neighborhood and took pictures this evening, and it felt really good, plus I'd forgotten how nice it is to have a kickass zoom lens.  I tend to get delighted with new things to the complete exclusion of the old--film! digital! iron-ons! linoleum block prints! buttons! sitting on the couch and farting a lot!--and as a result, I never really master any of these things. (Except the couch farting; I'm a wizard at that.) So it's nice to come back to something and find it so satisfying. We'll see how the actual pictures turned out.

Speaking of film, Eric, Dan, Wain, Katherine, and I are having a group photo show at End of an Ear at the end of the month. We'll be enlarging a few photos, but the main attraction is going to be the solid wall of everyone's very best 4x6 prints. We met today to discuss logistics: posters, framing, booze. I think it's going to be good.

Oh, and I continue to be in love with swimming.  I'm going to have to join the stupid gym by my house just so I can use their lap pool when it gets colder. There are year-round pools here, but I know myself, and myself just isn't going to make time to drive all the way across town every day to swim laps, no matter how fun it is.

Ok, I have to go do my chores. Pictures tomorrow if I like them.

I got your carnage

We watched a TV Carnage tape at a going-away party tonight.

TV Carnage is a series of reliably funny and very cleverly edited compilations of incredibly bad television, but still, I've decided I'm against it in principle. It takes all the sport out of bad TV.

Ideally, bad TV is best when stumbled upon, when you have nothing else going on and you're flipping through your 9,000 (although even two is enough) channels and you come across some hideously grinning couple touting hair remover, or the Des Moines episode of COPS, or some insipid anchor awkwardly seguing from Israeli bombings to the annual local wiener dog races.

Bad TV is best when it's serendipitous and fleeting and you have to yell at your roommates to hurry up and come into the living room right this second so they won't miss some particularly appalling segment. Or when it's so bad you look at the person next to you in slack-jawed horror and murmur Good lord, why are we watching this shit, yet changing the channel is unthinkable. When bad TV is prepackaged, however ingeniously, to become the main event, it loses its thrill for me.

That said, in all my years of channel surfing, I've never just happened upon scenes of coprophagia (link is work safe but, like, icky) porn spliced in with 70s sitcom credits. So I have to give the TV Carnage people credit for that much.

Anyway. I spent last night at a going-away party too. My parents are in town and we all had lunch today, and tomorrow is going to be all about taking care of business, both of which are pretty remarkable, but the overriding theme of the weekend has been saying good-bye to brilliant girls who are leaving town to go to grad school.

You know, it's hard to be sad when people are going out and doing what they want, but I still get a little pouty when people leave: You mean you'd rather go off and learn about the mysteries and documentation of human existence than sit around drinking beer and making fun of shit with me? Really? You do?

Oh, sure, whatever. Yeah, I guess I can see that. Good luck, ladies.

Siren throng

The mermaid was back at the pool today, holding court amidst a group of admiring young girls. She stayed in mermaid character the entire time, smiling broadly and telling them she had a tank she lived in at home, and the reason they never see or hear of any other mermaids is because some humans were mean to them once, so except for her they all moved to the bottom of the sea where no technology can withstand the pressure.

I can't really decide how I feel about the mermaid. Delightful? Bizarre? Bizarrely delightful? I guess it doesn't matter; she's having a good time, the kids are having a good time, and the pool is definitely a lot more interesting when she shows up.

The only real problem is that now Eric wants to rig up a merman outfit for himself. He's envisioning a glittering monofin secured to his thighs with chaps, and a pair of white Speedos as the centerpiece. We'd have the pool to ourselves for sure if he did that.

Have some decency:

I got up early today, drank three cups of coffee, read the news, and went swimming. The day camp that uses the pool has ended for the summer, so there's hardly anyone there these days. It's been great to have a whole pool pretty much to myself, but my enjoyment is tempered by a twinge of dread; the dearth of screeching kids reminds me that the pool will close for the season when school starts in a few weeks. I don't know what I'm going to do then.

After swimming I got home, changed, and met Margaret at Flatbed to check out the Julie Speed etchings exhibit. I really like Julie Speed. Her paintings are technically very pretty but also whimsical and a little disturbing, and some are even laugh-out-loud funny. There's a pretty good interview with her here.

After that, Margaret followed me to my house. I made coffee and she kicked my ass at air hockey. I should have given her decaf.

Then I came to work, of course, but that hasn't been too bad. I went out around sunset to get some snacks and took the long way back to work. This part of town is so empty after five.

I took a few pictures while I was out and watched a storm for a while. I passed Clay Pit on the way back, and it smelled so good I almost died right there on the sidewalk. There's nothing to ruin a state of contentment quite like walking past a fragrant Indian restaurant while carrying your sad dinner--Gummi Bears and a convenience-store chicken salad sandwich--in a plastic bag. Then the storm came, and it's been hot and rainy and thundering for hours.

Now it seems we're working kind of late tonight. It's been a pretty decent day so far, so I can live with that.

Pok pok pok pok POK

The air hockey table is by far the most impractical purchase I've ever made.

It's big, ugly, and unwieldy.  There isn't any good place to put it. It's loud. The pucks keep flying off the table and behind the bookshelf. I suck at it, bad.

But I can't stop laughing. It's really fun.

I need an air-hockey table.

Don't you think? They have slightly shitty ones for $99.99 at Sears. I'm going to sleep on this for five more nights, and if I still want one by this weekend, I'm getting it.

Other things I need:

A massage (scheduled)

A dresser (pending a trip to the Houston IKEA; I want one of the ones you can paint up all cute)

A haircut (postponed for at least a few more weeks; it's never going to grow out if I keep freaking out every month and getting it trimmed)

A plan (Jesus Christ, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? I mean besides play air hockey in my living room.)

Cooking corner update

The tequila-avocado pie turned out horribly, in case you were wondering. Dan brought the pies I'd made for the Fourth of July, which had been taking up space his freezer for nearly three weeks, over to John and Tina's house last night.

We almost forgot about them again last night, but right as we were about to leave, hungry from swimming and sobering up, Dan suggested that we break them out.

The cherry pie Colleen had made was delicious. The lemonade pie was pretty good.

The avocado pie, however, was unacceptable. It tasted like Vaseline, sugar, and paint thinner, with just a hint of avocado. Next time I stick a little booze in a pie, I need to remember to measure, because I think glugging is not the way to go. Bad things tend to happen when you glug, just as a general rule.

When we finally left John and Tina's, we took the offensive pie with us so as to not make it their problem. We'd intended to toss it in a trash can on the way out of their complex, but couldn't find one. Eric sat in the car with this pan of dense green shit in his lap for several miles on the way home, an oozing, stinking indictment of my improvisational cooking skills.

Well, shoot me in the spine and call me Myrtle...

...but I think I have the whole weekend off.

Of course, my job being my job, that's not guaranteed, conditions may change at any moment, I may be receiving a call from my manager pertaining to Sunday work, blah blah blah, WHAAAT? WHAT WAS THAT? I DIDN'T CATCH THAT; YOU'RE BREAKING UP. YOU NEED ME TO WHAAAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I'M HANGING UP NOW AND I'LL TALK TO YOU MONDAY, OKAY?

But yes, I'm pretty sure I have the weekend off.

Which is good, because one of my favorite people is getting married tomorrow, and I'm surely going to be a witness to that, and then some more of my favorite people are having a party tomorrow night. And then on Sunday, Eric's younger sister, yet another one of my favorite people, is arriving for a short visit. (I guess I have a lot of favorite people. It's nice that way.)

So this is good news indeed. It'll be fun, but it won't be particularly relaxing, which is why I'm sitting on my ass alone on a Friday night, luxurating in my slugdom. Squish. Squish.

I'm calling bullshit.

There are no 24-hour fried chicken establishments in this city.

I strongly feel that this is wrong.

Sad grapefruit

Happy grapefruit

Kitten v. Sombrero

Place your bets, then see who wins.

That sombrero is the best purchase I've made all month. Actually, aside from food, beer, and cigarettes, it's the only purchase I've made all month.

(Seriously, it is. I just checked my bank statement to see if I could back that up. I've got charges for rent, utilities, several HEB trips, a few restaurants around town, and the Monarch Mart. That's it for July. I haven't even been to Target. Working a lot sucks, but if this keeps up, I'm going to be rich.)

I just don't know what to do.

Do I watch the Daily Show or Six Feet Under at midnight? Then, when those are over, should I break up the Arrested Development DVD Eric rented into scattered viewings over the next few days, or sit on the couch tonight and inhale the whole thing in a multi-hour marathon?

The larger questions are bothering me tonight, so this is what I'm focusing on.

A happy tragedy

Once upon a time there was a girl who got called into work on her one day off. The next day she had to work very late into the night.

This made her sad, so she began to cry. She cried and cried and cried and cried, until her face was puffy and red and strange looking. She cried until the streets flowed with her tears and houses were torn loose from their foundations. She cried until the rivers swelled and the oceans rose and everyone drowned.

Soon the sun came up and dried all her salty, salty tears. A while after that, everyone was converted back into carbon. Planets were born and died; suns exploded; and matter expanded, contracted, and turned itself inside out.

All the while, over many, many years, a new, more advanced species was able to evolve from the ruins of the girl's planet. This species formed a society that was compassionate, wise, and competent. And so it came to pass that no one had to work on the weekends, ever again.

The end.

Out of whack

Oh, my goodness, I'm cranky. Even my dreams last night were cranky.

Usually when I'm in a funk for no good reason, I get one day to indulge myself and fully embrace the crabbiness. Then I tell myself I have to at least try to snap out of it. Since I started being crabby yesterday afternoon, I should be bouncing back any minute now. Then we're going to start having some real fun, oh, yes, we are.

Okay, here's something fun: According to the indoor/outdoor thermometer that's mounted next to the computer, it's the exact same temperature inside as out: 80.1 degrees. Equilibrium!

Oh, wait, the sun just poked out and the outdoor temperature immediately shot up to 80.6. Ooh, now it's 80.2 in here. Now it's 80.8 outside! Wait, it's 80.1 inside again. But all of a sudden it's 81.3 outside. Do you believe this? It's all falling apart, it's happening too fast; I can't take it!

Wow. I love my indoor/outdoor thermometer, but I think I better back away slowly from the computer and do something a little more productive/less idiotic with my few precious hours before work.

The mystery of the disappointing wardrobe

I've been going through my closet in anticipation of a clothing swap/bachelorette party this weekend, but I'm having trouble finding much that I'd want to pass on on someone else.  I'm not really crazy about the clothes I do wear, so you can imagine how much I dislike the clothes I don't. There's a lot of garbage in my closet.

There are some real puzzles in there, too. Like, why do I have a Dokken T-shirt in my closet? I don't like Dokken. I never liked Dokken. Gun to my head, knife to my throat, I couldn't name a single song by Dokken. I must have borrowed it from Roone, but why would I do that? I'm so at a loss that I can't even think of a ridiculous fake reason for hyperbolic effect.

Other, lesser questions: why do I still have Gap shirts from my sophomore year of high school? Do I honestly believe that two-sizes-too-big western shirts are flattering? Did the cat piss all over these Doc Martens, or was that the pair I threw out the last time I excavated this far back?

These are the mysteries of my closet, and they will never be solved because I'm going to take a small pile of the best stuff, neatly folded, to the swap meet. Then I'm going to give Roone his shirt back and shove all the rest of that shit in a trashbag to take it to the Salvation Army, where people will be free to either buy and enjoy it or mock it ruthlessly.

On a related note, Eric deep-cleaned his room this week, and in the process found a T-shirt I haven't seen in probably three years.

My first thought was, Wow! My Charles Whitman shirt!

My second thought was, Wow! I'll never wear that again! Except maybe for sleeping or doing really filthy work like trimming hedges or cleaning out my closet.

Sadly, I realized this week that the time when I thought it was hilarious to wear T-shirts with just-too-easy mass murderer gags on them has passed, especially if those shirts have Coke stains on them and nearly come down to my knees.

Still, I'm keeping it. I bought it at Sound Exchange (where I later met a surly yet tender young record store clerk named Eric) as a present to myself the day I dropped out of UT. I remember feeling very alone, scared, and defiant, and thinking myself very clever, when I walked out of the store with it. Yeah, this'll show 'em! Fuck the system! Snipe the system from the tower! Heh. Oh, shit, that was my last $20. I wonder if Randall's is hiring?  Yep, pretty clever. But it's got sentimental value, and I still think it's pretty funny, so the Whitman shirt stays. Everything else has got to go.

Oh, if you're into that sort of thing, the Austin History Museum is supposed to have a great Charles Whitman collection. I've only seen it online via the Statesman. You'll have to register to read it if you don't want to drive downtown and check it out.

At the pool today

We saw a mermaid. At least, we saw a woman in a sparkly mermaid suit. She pulled it on, flopped across the deck and into the water, and swam around smiling while all the little kids stopped taunting each other ("I have LICE and I'm going to give it to YOU!" "NOOOO! You do not!") long enough to ooh and ahh at her.

Also, we saw the Chupacabra Police car. I did not know this, but apparently the Chupacabra Police ride around in an old Ford Astro with "POLICIA CHUPACABRA" printed backwards on the hood, comically fearsome chupacabras stenciled onto the side panel, and plastic pink flamingos wired to the side mirrors.

I need to remember to buy a disposable waterproof camera and keep it with me at all times.

Hockey!

There will be some! This is great.

Unfortunately, the only pro sport I really like to watch is also the one that not many people give a shit about. Not that I blame anyone for not giving a shit about a sport that forfeits an entire season due to labor negotiations, but come on! Hockey!

I've got to get to the bottom of this boring day: An interview with myself

Me: So, what did I do today?

Me: Nothing much.

Me: Nothing?

Me: Mmmm....Yeah. Nothing.

Me: Did anything interesting happen today? At work, or--

Me: No, not really.

(long silence)

Me: Okayyy, then.  Any plans for tomorrow?

Me: Nope.

Me: Well, all right, I think I've got everything I need here. Thanks for my time.

Me: Whatever, nosy-ass.

Things I have had in my eye in the past four days, listed according to amount of pain experienced:

Peppermint soap

Sunscreen

Cat hair

An eyelash

A saucy gleam, whatever the fuck that is

Identity crisis

Forget all that Awesome Joolie business. Now that I have my tacky sombrero, I would prefer to be called ¡J'Olé!

The correct pronunciation of ¡J'Olé! demands that you snap your fingers with a little flamenco flourish when you say it, preferably while stamping your feet. I'll give everyone a transition period of a week or so to practice, but be warned, soon I will answer only to ¡J'Olé!

Ok, thanks, everyone!

Grocery store impulse buy

I don't know, I just sort of needed it.

This, that, other

Not much new on the me front. Working nights, some longer than others. Trying to do lino cuts again, although I've gotten amazingly rusty and keep botching print after print. That's okay. It beats watching daytime television. Still swimming every day, laps mostly.

There's a middle-aged Russian dude who shows up at the pool nearly every day too. He wears an American flag do-rag and hangs out in the deep end, giving people an emphatic thumbs-up and saying "Goot! Goot!" whenever they finish a lap. Today he high-fived Eric and told him he liked his tattoo, "even though most are ugly." He's a little strange, I guess, but any encouragement is welcome. So rock on, Russian dude.

My one sad lightning photo

It finally rained tonight, for a good long time. It was hot and sullen and totally still all evening, and finally the storm blew in, with slanty rain and lots of lightning. Three hours later it's breezy and fragrant outside, with crazy sky-splitting lightning off to the east. Fantastic. It's been over 100 for about a week, and we haven't had rain since June 1, so people kept coming out of the building to marvel and whoop during the storm. Except one woman, who was leaving for the day. When she saw the extent of the downpour, she sighed disgustedly, screwed up her mouth and made a huffy little poo-face, and said, "Well, I guess we need the rain."

Oh, I suppose so. Hundreds of thousands of people get a little break from the heat and their lawns and gardens will get some water. Farmers might be able to salvage what's left of their crops. The rivers and lakes will fill back up a little. Plus, who knows when it might rain again? But, jeez, your commute is going to be a little tricky, so all the rest is meaningless, princess.

Well, she's entitled to her opinion, and I'm entitled to mine, which is that she is a bozo.

Pastel portrait

Stinky, Domo-kun, and friend with travel books and Merck Manual!

I'm almost done with it, which is good because I've been working on it intermittently since March. That means I'll probably put in the finishing touches and fix it sometime in October.

Why I love summer

I made icebox pies for Dan's Fourth of July cookout. Receptionista asked for pictures, and because I do everything she tells me to, here they are:

This is the red layer of the red-white-and-blue pink lemonade pie I make every year. It's sort of a joke pie, hideously colored and too sweet and tart to really be any good, but it's kind of tasty and I think it's funny.

This is the avocado pie, which is usually delicious but may have been ruined this year. I stirred in 12 ounces of Cool Whip before I actually bothered to look at the recipe and realized it called for zero ounces. Oops. Then I ran out of lemons, at which point the pie became sort of a free-association exercise. Okay, no more lemons; what can I substitute that's similar to lemons? Limes! Damn, that's not going to be enough. What's similar to limes? More limes! It still needs something. What goes well with limes? Tequila! Liquor, splendid, I'm a genius! What other kind of liquor had I been drinking all evening before I started dumping a bunch of random shit into the pie filling? Vodka!

Ugh. I still don't know how my method worked out; we were too busy with meat, beer, and yapping to get to the pies. I think I'll host a pie party next weekend so everyone can finally have dessert.

Lousy bunting

Blame the camera angle, but it looks to me like our president has donned a giant skirt in preparation for a Fourth of July square dance.

(AP)

Do-si-do, swing round and round.
Run your country into the ground.
Promenade....

Fourth of Joolie

That's me in the cow suit, at a Fourth of July parade in 1991. I waved the sign and got most of the neighborhood to scream "MOOOO!" from their front yards. It was great. Plus, if I remember correctly, my friend and I won second prize. We probably got a $10 gift certificate to Hasting's Records, or something like that.

This year I won't be doing anything nearly as ambitious (or profitable). I'll probably get up late, make a couple of icebox pies, grill with friends, and watch some fireworks. I hope you have fun too.

I hear it's good luck.

What is it with me almost losing sushi lunches to bad smells? Today when Roo, Eric, and I were our way back from Ichiban, a pigeon crapped copiously all over the windshield. The result was huge, sloppy, and hideous, and the sound, ta-SPLAT, ta-SPLAT! was positively chilling. Worst, a few seconds later this horrible, sour, rotting odor shot in through the vents, which were on full blast because it's 9,000 degrees outside.

So all of a sudden I've got pigeon-shit stench being blown in my face at Mach 5 and a bellyful of sushi to hold on to. Ridiculous. I pinched my nose shut and started violently gagging and giggling until tears were running down my face and I wasn't sure if I was going to retch, choke, or retch and then choke.

Fortunately, I did none of those things, and thank god I wasn't driving. In my diminished state, I probably would have run the car into a guardrail, killing us all. (Oh, how awful, how did they die? Pigeon shit. Losers.)

Eric calmly pulled into a gas station to wipe the windshield down and air out the car, and the excitement was over. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the monstrous poop, for it was truly impressive. But I'm not going to kick myself in the ass over it; see, at the time I was a little too busy trying to keep air going in and out of my lungs to be worrying about things like photo illustrations.