Give me strength

I've mentioned that my office is a bit like a Lifetime movie. Except that my workday lasts for several hours longer than a Lifetime movie. My coworkers are not merely content to forward the latest treacle, but insist on printing it out and READING IT ALOUD. Oh, the horror. Not only do I loathe being read aloud to (I'm an amazingly fast reader, being read to fatigues me), but I loathe mooshy sentimental pap that patronizes anyone (in this case, aging women) under the guise of humor.

The aforementioned "poem" attributed to Maya Angelou (which I highly doubt, but never mind) was capped by an excruciating discussion about the "good old days", which viewed through their perspective are the unholy spawn of the Waltons and Leave it to Beaver. Nothing bad ever happened, everyone was happy, people looked out for each other and they all shat roses.

I can't really participate meaningfully in these discussions other than to say,

"Hi, I'm Marina. My childhood memories include fond memories of living in the commune and generally being a feral hippie child. My teen memories include discovering Suzanne Vega/Michael Moorcock/Harlan Ellision, hating Reagan, the start of MTV, being sexually active, perusing my boyfriend's dirty mags and taking a frightening number of drugs.

My college memories include my first ever apartment and living with a friend who ordered so many adult novelties that her regular company sent her all kinds of free samples. I think I regularly viewed more porn and saw more vibrators than many people see in their entire lives. Oh, and I shaved off part of my head and worked as an exotic dancer. And flunked my Women's Studies classes."

"But enough about me. Let's talk about your perception of the good old days. I've spoken to my older relatives and THEY remember getting busted by the cops in disreputable afterhours clubs, working in factories during WWII, fighting in WWII, working in factories, learning a new language in a new country, gray-marketing cars to build a nest egg, and having Dad's gay lover step up as the family breadwinner after Dad suddenly died. They knew ether huffers and tough business women and migrant workers and they lived life large.

Someone change the channel before I run amuck.

Unintentional humor from the Cape Cod Times.

Just thought I'd share the latest fashion article from the Cape Cod Times, so you could get some insight into the hopping fashion mecca I live in. This is an article about...CAPRI PANTS! Well, about pants in general, but mostly about capri pants.

The long and short of it (July 28, 2003)
No matter how much leg you want to show, there's a pant to fit

Mention Capri pants and many baby boomers will see actress Audrey Hepburn curled catlike in tight black knee-length pants of the type made popular on the island of Capri, off Italy's Almafi coast.

I'm not a boomer, so I can't comment on whether many baby boomers really do think this way. I do know that capri pants always make ME think of "fast" gals from the early 1960s. Or vaguely trashy housewives from the same era.

Cropped pants bring to mind first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in slim-fitting pants ending just above the ankle.

Got to get those Kennedy reference in for the benefit of the Camelot obsessed tourists.

Think trousers and there is actress Katharine Hepburn, one of the first to popularize a full-legged style normally seen on men because, she once said, she didn't like the feeling of stockings on her legs.

Gratuitious Kate Hepburn reference. Of course.

Ellen Handel of South Chatham says her 4-year-old daughter, Lauren, and her 11-year-old daughter, Alicia, have matching flowered Capris from Old Navy. Handel, who says she's in her mid-40s, was unsure about buying herself midcalf pants with a flare, but purchased a pair of tan, drawstring khakis after Alicia reassured her.

The idea of a woman in her forties passively taking fashion advice from her tween daughter gives me the willies. I hope to God I never get stuck behind her in traffic. Considering her timidity at the prospect of purchasing a pair of tan khakis, (tan khakis? bit of repetition there) I'm sure I'd die in the time it would take her to make a left onto Route 28.

Cape Cod Mall marketing director Courtney Cappallo says although she walks past stores showing Capris every day, she didn't really consider trying a pair until her sister, who has a similar build, showed up for a visit with nothing but Capri pants.

Doesn't it sound like her sister showed up on her doorstep wearing nothing but a pair of Capri pants? That would make quite an impression. Wonder what the neighbors thought?

(Well, I know what they thought. And what they did. They poked their heads out the door, said, "Aw, crazy summah people! and promptly called up their best friends to say, "Would you BELIEVE...?")

She looked great, says Cappallo, who was heading out buy a tan pair.

Heading out? I thought Cappallo worked at the Mall. She can't just stop by on her lunch hour?

The idea that most any length is acceptable produces a "I'll-never-have-to-hem-again!" euphoria.

What other sorts of emotional flutter does one get besides "I'll-never-have-to-hem-again!" euphoria?

I'm partial to "I'll never have to defrost the icebox again!" giddiness myself.

Oh, wait, that should be "I'll-never-have-to-defrost-the-icebox-again!" giddiness. Because Mr. Hyphen is your friend.

You can get away with it in the sporty, knit styles but if you want to look good in a more tailored and dressy-for-evening shiny Capri, you have to resort to needle and thread.

I refuse to think about "dressy-for-evening shiny Capris".

"I don't see cropped or Capris in my older clientele, except for the golfers," Sanders says. "They'll go for the Capris because they want to stay young and look in style."

"In style" and "older golfer". I know when I think of one I always think of the other.

Actresses like Cameron Diaz and singer J.Lo...don't need to worry much about camouflaging figure flaws. Nevertheless, they've been seen on the red carpet wearing silky parachute pants, cinched at the knee with a button or bow. You won't find the highly dramatic, flamboyant style in stores like Talbots. But, you will see the knickers-style pants in paintings, because the military leader Napoleon favored them.

Right.

So tired...

Busy weekend. Saturday I worked the Mass NARAL table at the Barnstable County Fair. We were in the progressive ghetto along with Independence House. Our fellow tablers included Mass Citzens for Life, Cape Cod Pro-Life something or other, and (annoyingly) Victory Chapel and their affiliated Vacation Bible School.

I think some of the attendees were hoping for a Jerry Springer style confrontation between us and the pro-lifers. It may sound odd to folks in other parts of the country that we could all have an amiable afternoon together, but in Massachusetts, most hardcore pro-lifers are Catholic ladies of a certain age who pray the Rosary. Despite the dead fetus pictures everywhere, they tend to be low key.

Victory Chapel on the other hand, are a bunch of scary fundie cultish thugs.

This is the church that first made a splash on Cape Cod a few years back by running a "Hell House" during Halloween. The Bible School people were prostelytizing all the little kids stopping by to get stickers. "ARE YOU 100% SURE YOU'RE GOING TO HEAVEN?"

You have no idea how strong the temptation was for me to say, "I'm 100% sure I'm NOT. I remember past lives and I fully expect to reincarnate again." Or possibly join the company of a particular God or Goddess. But, I was there in an official capacity so I just smiled and read my magazine.

Fundie freaks. I hate fundie freaks. They're everything wrong with America, ignorance coupled with the absolute certainty that they're right. Assholes.

Sunday I did family stuff that I could write in lengthy detail about, but I simply don't have time or inclination. And, I have an incredibly long day today, work, office event after hours, and then I need to catch the second half of my accounting class. I'm sleeping well tonight!

I want...

I really want a CD player where you could hit a button and reverse the song order, so that you'd start with the last track, then the next to last and so on.

I've never seen such an item for sale, but would love it.

Is this really so weird? The spousal unit thinks it's incredibly weird.

Your medieval name is: Lisolette. Quiet and artsy,
you're different from the crowd. You have a
taste in music or art and are sometimes
depressed and private. You're naturally lovely.

What is your Medieval name?
brought to you by Quizilla

Friday Night at the Fights

I enjoy watching boxing on tv, and Friday night, the spousal unit, my father and myself went to attend a local boxing event at the Melody Tent. It was a blast!

There was a little ceremony right at the start of the night to honor a local former boxer named Kippy Diggs. I know nothing about Diggs, but during the ceremony a half-naked man with a shaved head and many, many tattooes was trying to heckle him. Well, maybe heckling is the wrong way to put it. More like, "jumping up and down and waving a sign with some vague reference to Diggs' cowardice". Weird, weird, weird. If anyone could tell me what that was all about, I'd love to know.

The highlight of the evening was a pair of very evenly matched welterweights, billed as the "co-feature", a Canadian named Mackie and a semi-local made good named Oliveira. It was one of the better fights I've ever seen. They went ten rounds, and were both skilled and energetic fighters with a lot of crowd support.

Their spirits and the crowd's spirits were incredibly high by the end of the fight, and you could tell that they were both just completely into it, respected each other and were loving what they were doing. Their hug at the end during the judging was clearly very emotional and heartfelt.

The featured fight lasted only two rounds, a full first round and only a few second into the second round. (Feh.) So it was a good thing that the co-feature was so good.

Some of the undercard fights were pretty good too.

There was one woman's fight featuring another Canadian, and I didn't catch her opponent's background. Women's boxing is interesting because you never know quite how it's going to turn out. Women don't show muscle tone the same way men do, so a very "soft" looking women may turn out to be really tough and quick. Also, no woman fights unless she's REALLY into it, so women's fights tend to be intense just because of the spirit being displayed.

There was a pair of heavyweights that did pretty well, and the last fight of the night was between an Irish-by-way-of-Southie kid, and an opponent with an Arab name.

I thought things were going to turn ugly for a moment, because the Southie clearly was picking up some support among certain elements just for being white and Irish, and Rasheed was clearly picking up hostility just for having an Arab name. My father and I like to root for the underdog, so we started cheering and clapping for Rasheed because we thought he needed our support. Rasheed won, and people seemed to more or less deal, which is cool.

For Do-It-Yourselfers

I'm twisted and this is going to be a rude post. A friend (divinity student if you must know) sent me a link for the BoneClone. (This site is not work safe.)

According to the site,

"The BoneClone™ is personal pleasure kit that reproduces a man’s penis (up to nine inches) in 100% silicone rubber, one of the safest and most non-reactive of materials used in adult toys. Included in each kit are easy to follow instructions, skin tone matching colors, and with additional options available, the BoneClone™ offers a unique sex toy for different tastes and desires."

Only nine inches? I have no idea what the people on the page of their site are doing, it looks like the Safety Dance to me. The spousal unit piped up with, "They're practicing Safe Sex so they're doing the Safety Dance!" The testimonials are a hoot. My favorite is, "I date a lot and have a clone of every man willing. When I'm bored but want some pleasure, I visit the vault for my date." All righty, you go baby!

I'm deviant so I immediately thought of the following uses,

For men who think highly of themselves and want to give a gift to their partner. Question, if they later break up, who gets custody of the Clone?

For men who think highly of themselves and think displaying one of these in their living room will clue the chicks in as to their "natural assets". Sadly, I know men who really think this way.

For gay men who think highly of themselves and want to be on the receiving end of their own penis.

For straight men who want to experiment with prostate stimulation, but are a little freaked by what they perceive as a gay only activity. As long as its only their own penis they're receiving pleasure from, it's okay.

For transexuals who need to dilate. That old thing? Oh, I just had it hanging around.

Morons

I'm still sick which made the following exchange so much more pleasant.

ring-ring

Me: "Hello, , this is Marina".
Moron: "My card didn't go through and I want to pay for your service!"
Me. "Okay, let me see if I can look up your..."
Moron: "I'm calling from VeryFarOverseasCountry! This call is costing me a fortune!"
Me. "All righty then. Name, so I can look up your account? "
Moron: "I don't know why it didn't go through, there's plenty of money on it."
Me: "Sometimes that happens. Can I get your name?"
Moron: "It's LaughablyCommonLastName. Let me spell it for you..."
Me: "Okay, got it. Do you have another address, say a US address? Because if there's a different address on file, that could cause the card to be rejected."
Moron: Of course I do. You can't get mail at all around here."
Me: "Right. Could I have that address?"
Moron: "I'm calling from VeryFarOverseasCountry! This call is costing me a fortune!"
Me: "Would you prefer to email me the information?"
Moron: "Well I typed it in already."
Me: "I don't have it. Can I have your address and the card number?"
Moron: "What do you mean you don't have it? I typed it in. I typed in the card number too."

After much backing and forthing, we finally establish that he does not have his card on him. After all, what could make more sense than to make a transatlantic phone call in reference to an attempted credit card transaction without actually having said credit card on you.

After FINALLY getting his States address and FINALLY getting another card number out of him and FINALLY determining what level of service he wants, we're almost ready to conclude. At this point I'm downright ecsatic to be getting to the end of this call.

Moron: "I still don't know why it didn't go through. It has plenty of money on it."
Me: "Sometimes it just happens with overseas transactions. I'll email you if I have any further difficulty."
Moron: "But why? It's all online. I don't underst..."
Me: "Bye!"

Lord, how do these people manage to get out in the world? I can't wait to move to a job that doesn't involve dealing with the public. They're all idiots.

Excitement in the Classroom

I'm still sick, but I wanted to share this. It was the revenge of the nerds in my last class session, or more accurately, the revenge of the lesbians.

The woman I sit next to in class is a serious dyke. She's gruff and big and looks like she could nudge tractor-trailors out of her way for fun, and wears women's symbol earrings. She's not conventionally attractive, but has a certain arresting quality that you get with anyone who knows who they are, and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about it.

In another part of the classroom is the girl (not a woman, a girl) I think of as BitchyGirl. She's quite attractive (looks like Discord from Xena actually), and scowls at everyone that catches her eye. I'm sure that not so long ago, she was one of those vicious girls that delighted in tormenting the unpopular. She's Heather Duke, Nellie Oleson, and Sandi from Daria. With a good shot of the Wicked Witch of the West thrown in.

For some reason, BitchyGirl had decided to sit in the spot usually taken by SeriousDyke. BitchyGirl had left her books to stake out a spot and then gone elsewhere. SeriousDyke arrives.

SeriousDyke: "Whose books are those?"
Me: "The girl with the long hair who usually sits next to the guy in the red shirt."

This clearly puts SeriousDyke out. I mentioned that she's a large woman? She's a very large woman. It's a crowded classroom, with desks and chairs a little too close together. An aisle seat is clearly the best option for someone of her size, and this is the only aisle seat available in the entire room.

BitchyGirl arrives.

SeriousDyke: (gruffly) Hey, can we switch places? I really need to sit here.

BitchyGirl strikes a pose and glares at SeriousDyke.

It's clearly a glare perfected through long years of glaring at the first kid to get glasses, the first kid to get braces, the kid who was overweight, the first girl to get a bra, the girl who didn't get a bra long after she should've, the kid who didn't wear the right sneakers and the kid who was always picked last for everyone from sports to sleepovers.

Even as an observer, the glare has the power to make my heart beat a little faster, and the adrenalin start pumping.

The only visible effect on SeriousDyke is a mildly impatient expression on her face. The sort you get when asking a direct question of someone you now suspect of being a great deal stupider than yourself.

SeriousDyke: So? Can we change places?

BitchyGirl suddenly seems to realize that the rules have changed and not in her favor. I can see her face sort of flatten and her body shrink. I've heard that when a curse is repelled by the intended target, it then rebounds to torment the originator. Faced by someone impervious to her might, BitchyGirl's power has evaporated.

She still hasn't said a word and doesn't seem capable of doing so. Her only response is to grab her books and slink off down the aisle, looking like a cat that's had a bucket of water thrown over it, all wounded dignity and flattened fur, and not nearly as big as you thought when it was dry and fluffy.

Heather, my dear, there's a new sheriff in town.

I'm sick

I'm not quite sure when the spider disappeared from my desk, because I'm not noticing much. I have a summer cold, and my days revolve around sleeping, popping ibuprofen and running for tissues.

The spousal unit made me good kale soup yesterday. It's a traditional Portuguese-American dish, and you can get it all over Cape Cod. It's usually a mixture of kale, chourisco, beans and potatoes and is absolutely fantastic.

And, when it's made with this much garlic, it not only works on colds, it may also revive the dead.

Creepy realization

I am not positive, but looking at the photo, I'm relatively sure that I've met Paul DuBois, probably in the course of my previous job. Here's another link without the photo, since the Cape Cod Times links aren't stable.

As I understand the timeline, that would have been after he had killed the social worker, but before being charged with the crime.

Brrrr.

Still there

Just an FYI, the spider I mentioned from yesterday is still there. I'd wondered if it was the type of spider that spins a new web every night. Guess not.

Good thing spiders don't bother me

I came into work today to find that small spider with amazingly long and spindly legs had built a web between my letter opener and a stack of files on my desk. I can easily see it as I type.

Spiders disturb me not one whit. A friend of my parents' was a naturalist, and when we were all living in the commune together (yes, I lived in a commune) he explained spiders to me, and we used to leave flies for the spider that built a tunnel shaped web. Ah, childhood memories.

Second, I find it entirely plausible that half of America's population of spiders reside on one side of the mainland while the other half reside on Cape Cod. The place is thick with spiders. I grew up encountering spiders in my kitchen, bathroom, porch, garden, and even my mail box.

In the same way that "seedless" watermelon may have a handful of seeds, any spot where you only need to dislodge a couple of spiders is effectively "spider free" on Cape.

In the interest of science, I'm leaving the spider and the web and see how long it stays. I'll keep you posted.

Lightning Hits As Preacher Asks For Sign From God

A guest evangelist was preaching at the First Baptist Church in a small Hardin County town Tuesday night, emphasizing penance and asking for a sign from God.

At that moment, the church's steeple was hit by lightning, setting the church on fire and blowing out the sound system."

Guess he should have specified a good sign.

Well, I guess it is a good sign, if you're calling upon Thor.

My Office is a Lifetime Movie and then some

I swear I'm not really a callous bitch, except that I kind of am. At any rate, all my callous bitch tendencies are roused when faced with enforced chattering intimacy from people with whom I have nothing in common.

My supervisor is really a lovely woman. Really. But she loves to talk about her family and how she feels about her family and what they did yesterday and what they did thirty years ago and all the years in-between. Lord, it's not my family. I don't care.

One of my coworkers loves this. Eats it up. She chimes in with her own family tales and health issues. The conversation between the two sounds like a daytime soap opera written by Hallmark.

During these frequent dialogues, I hope I haven't looked too much like someone who was contemplating gnawing off their arm in boredom.

But, I make no guarantees.

I hate the constraint imposed on me by these situations. Either I conjure a sympathetic face during the hour or so where someone talks about their family, or I look like a callous bitch. Oy.

R.I.P. Robert McCloskey

I hadn't even known he was still alive, but the writer and illustrator of Make Way for Ducklings just died.

I think that this book may be mandatory reading for kids that grew up in Eastern Massachusetts. The spousal unit grew up in Central MA and didn't get it in school, but you couldn't outrun this book at my elementary school. Plus, Cape Cod is very Boston oriented, I'll bet money we wouldn't have had this book taught to us if it took place in Providence, Rhode Island.

It's a nice book. If you're not familiar with it, and you have kids the right age (or an appreciation of kid books) go check it out.

Calling Art Bell

I'm doing much better, thanks. I had my class again last night. The instructor is growing on me, he sort of reminds me of Jimmy Buffet, if Jimmy Buffet was an accounting instructor and respectable family man. Must be the Hawaiian shirts and the mellow attitude.

For some reason, my accounting class is full of people that you know call late-night talk radio. A lot. The class is filled with small business owners, and that squirrely vaguely paranoid attitude seems very common among a certain type of small business owner.

This is what you get with people that are just self-sufficient enough to want to strike out on their own and seek their own sources of information, but can't tell the difference between the Wall Street Journal and Art Bell.

I just want to learn to how to do a statement of cash flows, and not hear about their theories about the government. Simple enough, don't you think? But my simple desires are not to be fulfilled.

One of my classmates was in fine form. If memory serves me correctly, he shared with the class his theories on General Motors, gas prices, and finally got stuck on the Consumer Price Index. I understand the Consumer Price Index does have some problems, but I doubt that there's a sinister conspiracy to keep it articially low--"TO KEEP WAGES LOW!"-- which is what my classmate seems to believe.

The instructor let the guy talk himself out, or tried to. But Mr. Conspiracy Theorist kept talking.

Finally the instructor just said, "So, do you have any ideas on who killed Jack Kennedy?"

Hee! Good one! Harsh, but nothing the guy didn't deserve.

And, it shut him up. (yay)

For fifteen minutes. (boo)