Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

Your bare ass is your canvas. Like a multimedia sculptor, you choose your favorite medium (or small or large) and bedeck yourself. You are a mobile objet d'art. Let it be noted for the record that I am a fan of the outlandish get-up. Teetering masterworks created from hair amaze me. I study any garment made of feathers. Occasionally, I inquire about structural underpinnings or cleaning considerations, but mostly I merely observe the artistry. Some art stays with you. It splashes you in the back of the eyeballs every now and then. You ponder the meaning, the intent of the artist. So true in this particular case. This certain person swathed herself entirely in red. Red shoes, puckering red pants, red shirt. Tightly curled red hair, red lipstick. A variety of reds, similar in shade but so much the same. It all made sense when I learned she was smarter than everyone else.

I have a black eye. Practically. It happened while I peacefully slept. Soundly. Tucked into my cozy little beezie dreaming of sugar plums. All of a sudden, Alex, the Dumb-Ass Cat, lowered his tiny brain and headbutted me with great force right in the eye socket. Fuzzy woodpecker freak. technorati tags: cat , sleeping , bed , black eye

A series of unfortunate events added up to the "oh shit" moment when a dog finds himself lost in the middle of the jungle, where a bloodthirsty leopard eyeballs him for a tasty scooby snack. Just then, the dog I-spies a pile of bones. He plops down for a chew and says, "Jesus that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?" The leopard stops in his tracks, spins around and tip-toes into the bushes. "Ratcrap that was a close one. That dog almost got me!" Meanwhile, a monkey has taken in the whole scene. The monkey knows how to work the system, so he trots off after the leopard. The monkey spills the beans and the leopard is pissed. The leopard says, "Monkey, hop on my back and check what's going to happen to that scheming dog." The dog saw the monkey slink off so he's wise to the trouble afoot. He frets, knowing his two attackers are approaching from behind. Just when they get close enough to hear, the dog says,...

We tipped a few back over Kerry's bar-b-que yesterday. Six-year-old Choo made party favors. Tom was perplexed by his: In theory, it appeared to be an orange piece of paper in the form of a ring. Tom tried to resist, but failed. He floated the question. "Pshht," answered Choo. Kind of disgusted. "It's a small hole." Of course.

Tom left for Amsterdam on Tuesday. He was back on Thursday. He rocked a new carry-on. "My carry-0n luggage fit in the overhead compartment. Everyone noticed. They were like, "Oh my God. The Travel-Pro." technorati tags: Travel Pro , Suitcase

The Energy Committee: Liquify coal? This is not perplexing, people. This is economic and environmental disaster. I ask you. Which brainless wonder got lobbied into such a crappy pancake of a brainstorm? It’s like a trip to idiot island. Every one of them, remarkably free from the ravages of intelligence. Zaynesville Pottery: $55 for a mixing bowl? I could not justify it. I bought a birdbath instead. technorati tags: The Energy Committee , Shit List ,

This yarn goes back awhile. How is it possible that tonight is the first I've heard of it? * * * My brother had been staying with my ninety-year-old grammy. He wakes her up at 3 am insisting he is having a heart attack. She needs to get snappy because this is a 911. Grammy is not amused. She kind of looks like she's about to punch him in the crotch. My brother clutches his chest and makes gurgling noises while Grammy collects her pocketbook and finds the key to her 1980 Honda Wagovan. They speed off into the night, arriving at the hospital just before dawn. Twenty minutes later, they sit side by side in the ER. No one else is in the waiting room. Grammy leans over and says, "Can we go home now?" My brother nods. They exit into the twilight. technorati tags: grandma , panic attack , heart attack

Lately, I drive my car with a vengeance for fuel economy. Every time I step on the brakes, gasoline fritters away. So I coast up to stoplights and roll down hills and careen around corners. I can green-power it the whole way from the court house in Morristown to my driveway, only braking three times. Why do I keep the pedal way above the metal? Because I want to be a patriot. I aim to squish my personal consumption of oil. Oil money, as we all know, leaks into the bank accounts of terrorists and I have a problem ponying up to keep terrorists in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. Turns out, other good citizens are down with my way of thinking. We call ourselves hypermilists and quite frankly, I'm not even in the club. Full on hypermilists squeeze 100+ miles out of a gallon of gas in a standard Honda Accord. At first, I was sporadic. I'm busy, you know. Places to go, people to see. I have a speedy lifestyle. But then I read jackrabbit starts and hard brake stop...

I found my childhood diaries in the basement. April 10, 1983 Dear Diary, My brother Seth does not know what a blow job is. I guess he wouldn't because he's only in fifth grade. I learned a new word: Fleeto.* It means blow job. * I wonder how many times I dropped my new naughty vocab before someone tipped me off on the correct pronunciation of "Fellatio."

Get ready to turn on your heart light. After one particularly fruitful expedition into the uncharted shithole we like to call "our basement," I unearthed a box full of my childhood diaries. They are largely excruciating accounts of the demented science experiment I like to call "junior high." ------- February 26, 1983 Dear Diary, I just got back from the school dance. It started out kind of sucky, but then it got better. Here is a play-by-play account: I walk up to the dance by myself (embarrassing.) Fast dance with Agnes. Jill, Suzie, Shiela (etc) snub me. Fast dance with Emily, Cindy, Agnes. No slow dances for a long time. Emily buys me a soda. Slow dance with ? . I think he's in 10th grade. Fast dance. Slow dance with Joe C. F.D. S.D. with Steve B, who is not popular but I felt sorry for him. F.D. S.D with Joe C. S.D with Joe C. Walk home with Jim P. who asks me out but I refuse and anyway my Dad was listening.

Ted Nugent has had a relatively inexplicable run of success. I personally cleared out of the Nuge camp in eighth grade. His sweaty with cat-scratch-fever self opened for Aerosmith at the Hershey Arena. Venue of Champions. He reminded me of Gilbert Godfrey, only more annoying and slightly louder. "Word up, Captian Obvious." (This is you talking, just to clarify in case your brain missed the turn.) "Everybody knows the Motor City Madman is a hairy, lewd fashion victim. And everybody knows he legally adopted his seventeen year old girlfriend to have sex with her in the 70's. The dude is cocked, locked and ready to rock, doc. Old news, all of it." So lemme just tell you this: The Nuge is also a sumbitch draft dodger. Tony told me all about it at my uncle Ron's 60th birthday party a couple weeks ago. Tony survived two tours of duty in Vietnam. And understandably, he's got a little problem with Ted. Here's the thing: The Nuge did not dodge the draft brave...

Despite a scratched cornea and all signs pointed to preemie grandbabies, Mom and Dad could not be deterred. They had tight up plans, yo. They squashed lots of gear in their surprisingly opulent new mini-van. They popped in on the optometrist on the way out of town. They were hellbent for Alaska. When they left, Tom said, "They'll probably make it to Winnipeg and turn around and come home. Everybody knows those babies are coming early." Tuesday, word came down the twin nuchies are poised for an entrance. Mom and Dad had been cavorting around in Winnipeg. They are turning around and coming home. In the meantime, I'm at the ready. My brother locked in some ground rules about carrying around a phone at all times. Which I have been doing despite the peculiar bulk. I woke up last night full on sprinting down the hall in the pitch dark. I thought the phone rang. Turns out, no. But I'm considering getting a pole because sliding is speediest. I bet.

Some girl clutching an electrical power strip stole my new t-shirt! Four important things happened this week: Andrew & Tracie rummaged the sublunary world and ferreted out some ace birthday gifts. I received a green t-shirt that even a 14th level Elven thief would eyeball for a snatch. Maybe even one with a six-prong power strip style cudgel. I wore said t-shirt all day on Sunday and all day on Monday. My Anti- Antiperspirant Campaign prevented me from sporting my new garment again today because I had to put it in the wash. Tracie also carried around a print by a Hong Kong artist all over Asia for me and the frame isn't even cracked. Proof-positive of exceptional packing talent. I think I chipped my tooth on an Atomic Fireball. This #2 incident sucks like the super sucker which is the Atomic Fireball. The Tinkerbell sticker Lea gave me for peeing in the potty is still stuck to the side of my sneaker. Good news except every time I inadvertently kick myself in the head (can you s...

I have a barrel full of unwritten posts. What is the solution to my delinquency? Probably Jamiroquai's "Canned Heat." Six minutes of turbocharged fruitfulness. To keep you (and me) in the know, here's what's up and coming: Tony v Ted Nugent, that Pussy Poser Fucktard Sleeping Under the Car in Michigan Tina Turner: Girl from Nutbush Deadly Ladies in Undies

The second I spied the Flower House online, I heard a faint whispering. It was calling my name. The voice said to immediately buck up for the purchase. It said I desperately needed a little Bedouin know-how rigged out in plastic. It said I could thwart ruthless deer gang rule and provide a safe haven for victimized plantlife . Tom, I feared, might be overcome with gleeful pride over my exceptional problem-solving skills. So, I didn't tell him about the Flower House until it arrived in an enormous cardboard box. As predicted, he was beside himself. Especially when I told him about my plan to erect the Flower House in the front yard, which faces south. Word up. So far, it's all going according to plan. Just like my pop, I employ a square-foot gardening approach. Meaning it's a jungle in there and old pantyhose are an important structural element. Our neighbor Subhash drifted over yesterday. He inspected the Flower House and said my tomatos were twice as tall as his....

Tom gave the 10K course an old fashioned whooping. He shaved 2:49 off his PR to finish in 43:40. Battling sleep deprivation and depravity in general, Sethie cruised in at 44:18. I posted a tidy 57:56, mostly due to the new green running skirt my mom picked up for my birthday. It is light-weight, frisky and has a good pocket. Our results are more impressive when you factor in our deficiency. Seth, Tom and I are inept arborists. This became clear early on. When the race director informed the runners the start line was "by the Pin Oak," we peered down the tree-lined street in bulging dumbfoundment. Smartypants Princeton people. Pah. Besides the cotton-topped senior citizen bloodthirsty pirates in the parking lot squeezing 10 bucks out of us, the fete peeps pulled off a bang up event. Lots of diligent (as well as cerebral) volunteers, well-marked turns, and spirited spectators. Technorati"> technorati tags: Running , Road Race , Princeton Fete , 10K

Deep inside the Earth lies a fairy realm where no one knows pain and no one knows suffering. The walls are golden and the floors are red as blood. But the king's daughter has dreamt of a sky as big as the night and it beckons her. She abandons the underworld to die in the sunlight amongst the mortal humans. The king is inconsolable. He proclaims his daughter will live again in the form of another girl. He awaits her return. Set in Fascist Spain, Pan's Labyrinth is lush and evil. It is a poem your eyes drink from a mossy chalice. The film wraps inevitable doom inside a velvet fairytale. SRanking : Highly recommended. And don't even think of whining about the subtitles. The Spanish language drips cabalistic eldrich like English never could.

"It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards, the Queen remarked." - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There , 1872 My Grammy is 92. She's got a 9th degree black belt in working a room. A warm trail of breezy calm spritzes out the backs of her shoes. Let's just say you plan to have a party. You plan to invite some passive-aggressive masterminds and the evening promises a real shitshow of conflicting plot lines. You plan to invite estranged relatives and their ex's and their stepmothers. You plan to invite people who get mad when someone eats the cranberry Danish another one had his eye on. This is when you need my Grammy. You call her up on her large analog telephone and implore her to hurry up and get somebody to drive her over before violence erupts. I attempted to uncover my grammy's secrets in an exclusive interview granted only after some serious cajoling. Although I'm not as fluent in Grammy as others...

In New Jersey, the benchmark calculation for alimony is: 0.3 x (highest wage earner's salary less lower wage earner's salary/ possible salary). I know a guy who's a divorce lawyer. He shows up at cocktail parties and always introduces himself by saying, "I hope you stay happily married but all your friends get divorced. Here's my card." A heartwarming sentiment proving capitalism and compassion both start with the same letter. technorati tags: divorce , alimony , lawyer

I am a dispicable couch potato. My efforts in Lying Around are fraught with missteps and feckless dysfunction. So on Memorial Day I had better things to do then phlegmatically picnic. I hauled my Mom to the National History Museum. I was all about the frogs. © Joe McDonald, Clyde Peeling's Reptiland Frogs have been around for 200 million years, meaning dinosaurs probably squashed a few unfortunate greenies. Today, the frogs are falling prey to a virus called Narcisstic Humans Who Will Continue to Eat Our Host Until She Dies and We're All Fucked. At first, I thought the frogs in the glass cases were shockingly lifelike kodachromatic replica frogs. The rubber kind I used to get in my Easter Basket since the beginning of time because my father is vehement about the cursed toxicity of refined sugar. They had about twenty kinds of frogs shacked up at the Museum. The blue Poison Dart Frogs intrigued me most. These little pippers are more poisonous than the most poisionous snakes. T...

The white suit changed him into a stiff-legged marmish. He kept patting his newly lengthy tresses. Emergency! Conor Oberst has been sandwiched inside ill-fitting Wonderbread. But I still have a thing for my little pig in a blanket. Scalping : Requires Practice We are the Scalpers of Suck. We even suck in the hobbyist category. We should have just locked up some Karma points by giving away our extra ticket. This did not occur to us. Opening Act Gillian Welsh feat. David Rawlings Good. If you're into full-on folk music sung by a skinny chick in mid-calf cowboy boots and a prairie skirt. Shout out to her superlative olfactory receptors. She sniffed out someone chewing bubble gum in the front row. Totally scored herself a piece for the afterparty. David Rawlings had it going on. Man-Purse Prevalence Manpurses in the house! For Fans ONLY Bright Eyes kicked off the evening with tunes from Cassadanga. He played maybe one old fave from Fevers & Mirrors and then brought out his "fr...