June 2005 Archives

I've got big tits. So big in fact, that as I walked home recently from the new Batman movie (I recommend it, btw) a passing bicyclist on the wild and wooly streets of St. Johns was unable to resist taking a passing grope at my left one. When I told one person this story he was like, "maybe it was an accident?" and I was like, "what, my tits are so big that you can't pass me on the sidewalk without running into them?" I can't help wonder if the same logic could be applied to rape: "her pussy was so big, officer, I just fell in!" (not that I think of this as equivalant to rape or anything).

I reported the incident to the police today for statistical purposes, but since I was trying to avoid eye (if not hand-to-tit) contact, I wasn't able to tell them much except that, in addition to being a two-wheeled molester, the guy was NOT wearing a helmet. Tch tch tch. The cop who took my report made me feel like a good citizen just for getting groped. Who says they have no bedside manner? But he also kept talking about how he'd like to shoot the guy who did it and -- call me a liberal softee -- but I just don't feel like someone deserves to die for coping a feel, no matter how agressive and weird. Maybe pushed off his bicycle into a passing bus or something, but not shot or to have his legs broken (also suggested by the officer).

ANYWAY -- I've got me a rack, and said rack tends to accumulate stains and flotsom at meals. To save myself dry cleaning bills I've taken to making myself a bib at meals with whatever I can find at hand. At home, old rags, underwear, what have you; in a restaurant, napkins, the table cloth, etc. So this week I'm working on this workshop with a bunch of people and we went out to lunch today and as I was suiting up to eat my hamburger I was talking to one of them about the whole problem (being the professional that I am) and she said she'd had this idea for awhile: there should be classy, professional-appropriate bibs you can carry around in your purse and whip out on business lunches and put on without looking like an asshole. And I thought: That is a GREAT idea.

Ironically enough, when I google "professional bib" the second hit (and several thereafter) is for some kind of bicycle shorts -- damn those cyclists and their bibs. Looks like I'm not the only one needing a bib. There is at least one attempt to market adult bibs, but gold lame isn't exactly what I had in mind.

I could add a bunch of links to groping and bibs, but I've got too much to do this week (including a literature search tonight ... ugh). So that's all for now.

Remember my idea for Nostalgia Subscriptions?" That was sure a great idea. Anyway, I'd settle for this set of every New Yorker ever published. Did you know that my birthday is coming? In case someone else already got me the New Yorker set I'd also like one of those USB drives that looks like a beetle. Those things are adorable.

The comment approval process has definitely slowed the comment spam down, thank goodness, but I still get some interesting remarks from strangers on occasion and I thought I'd bring a couple recent ones to your attention.

First, someone (I wonder who it could be? who could it be that has such knowledge? such interest? such love?) corrects my characterization of the Gottman Institute. Well, I stand corrected and let the dead blog record show it.

Second, someone doesn't like what I have to say about Pestducken very much. I held off on approving this comment for awhile because I didn't want to encourage more death threats, but I think even someone who wants to "stuff [me] then eat [me]" deserves a little freedom of speech on my blog. Some of you will remember that I decided to start using the word "cunt" more often in everyday speech, so I can hardly be offended if the world starts in with me. The sad thing about this one is the whole ratducken story is about what a hard time I had killing a rat in the first place, but great artists are always misunderstood.

I just got back from Andy and Erin's wedding which was fully satisfying. More adorable couples and babies than a barren divorcee could shake a fat bitter finger at. And all those towns that start with "M" (Minneapolis, Morris, Madison) were charming, and I wasn't frisked on either flight.

Here are two things I learned to love on this tour of Midwester M Towns:

The Current a groovy public radio music station in Minneapolis/St. Paul and some other town south of there. They play stuff kinda like what Pete puts on his CDs and I steal from Higgins -- at least, a lot of the same bands to my ears. If you hear sucky stuff it's probably a local band because they play quite a bit of that, too, but you have to love them for it.

Why can't we have something like that in Portland? I mean, I love and I mean LOVE KBOO (I gave them $100 this year and got an awesome baseball cap) -- but there's a lot of times when I just want to listen to actual semi-normal music, and I'm too lazy and brain dead to pick it out myself, so thank you, The Current, and your webcast. Maybe if you give me a baseball cap I'll give you money.

Speaking of radio, if not the midwest, have I already plugged Shane and Arne's DocTalk radio show on this blog? If not, here it goes: DocTalk is a radio program in which they interview all kinds of interesting documentarians. It's genuinely interesting, and I'm not just saying that because they're my cousin/friends and I like documentaries. You can listen through Pirate Cat radio if you're in some tiny obscure geographical area called the Bay Area on Tuesday nights -- like, hey, that's TONIGHT! (although I'm not sure what's up with that since I thought they were in Portland this week), or you can listen to the webcast or, like I do, the Podcast. The sound quality isn't always totally awesome, but it's not totally annoying, either.

I'm kind of curious: are my friends listening to webcast radio shows, and if so, which ones? I feel like it's something I only just kind of discovered, although I used to listen to something called Hober a few years ago. Let me know ...

OK -- back on topic: So, the other thing both Kathy and I grew to appreciate, if not actually want to marry: Quiznos especially, for me, their Black and Blue salad or, as Kathy called it, my beef and beef blood salad. Yum! Actually, I think I may have had one too many beef blood salads too many on the way back. The Denver airport Quiznos is a little suspect and the salad I got was just ... I donno. Kinda icky. Even for a salad with hunks of beef on it. So I don't know if I'll be eating there again any time soon. But for road food, it was just fine. Delicious, even. OK -- Kathy and I spent 45 minutes on our road trip trying to find one in some godforsaken hell hole of a strip mall along I-94 on our way from Madison to Minneapolis and finally located one between the Walmart and the HomeDepot -- and we didn't regret it!!!

So that's my report from the three Ms. I'm sure people gave me some great ideas to blog about (as well as this cold -- coff, coff), but I've got some work to do so I'll have to come back to them.

Spine and I went canoeing in the slough last weekend, and he blogs about it here. One thing I forgot to reference in my comment there was this fine history of the slough.

Find out what's a slough and how is it pronounced.

On a darker note, Spine mentions bodies partly in jest, but seriously -- just a couple years ago they found this woman's body cut up and put in a suitcase into the slough. Her boyfriend did it, of course. When I told Betsy I was going on the slough with someone and used a masculine pronoun she got all worried it was someone I'd met on the internet or something and was like, "be careful!"

I tried to find a reference to that slough cut up body story in the internet, but get nada with searches like "columbia slough" + "cut up body" "suitcase" "murder" etc.

OK -- this might work.

If not, I'll give you the highlights:

"Divers began searching the Columbia Slough at Kelley Point Park for Brown's body and evidence in the murder and soon recovered human remains from the slough."

and

"Police stopped searching and asked the public to watch area waters for a green, Army-style duffel bag that possibly held clues to the murder and more remains."

Sure enough, someone found it at the beach, but not the slough beach.

Anyway -- yay! The slough is fun!!!