Allison Unfiltered

My birthday's in a few months, people.

If you've been paying attention to my twitter feed you know I'm in Denver, the beautiful state of Colorado.

(And if you're thinking of referring me to that old site pleaserobme.com, don't forget I've got this nasty, mean dog holding down the fort at home.) 

Saw this box of tea at my hotel gift shop this morning.  Thought it was perfect.  Turns out it's sold by this company, blueq, which happens to have a whole bunch of other stuff that might come in handy should I ever need it...

My new friend/found object

This little guy apparated onto my desk amidst a pile of my notes and files at some point while I was in Vermont.  I've named him Mattie the Elephant.

No idea why he came to visit.  He's cute, though, so I've decided he's welcome to stay.

 

Even if I did nearly break my nose the first time I braked in my rental car...

When this week is over, I think the thing I may miss most is driving these long, winding roads through the emerald hills of Vermont.

Goodbye, Goddard.  You were good to me this week.

Friday Foo

Guess someone was concerned I wouldn't know which lunch was mine.

The talent for non sequiturs is genetic, apparently.

The scene at 5:30 this morning -- two bleary-eyed girls in the kitchen pouring bowls of some oaty cereal thingy with strawberries (and no coffee, dammit):

L'il Red: Did you know that long, long time ago, every one was poor?

QA: [grunt]

LR: They had no computers, no VPs, no TV, no internet, no cars.  They even had to use horses instead of cars.

QA: [slightly more articulate grunt]

LR: So, wow.  Everyone was poor.

QA: Not everyone.  Some people were rich.  The technology just didn't exist yet.

LR: But they didn't even have Nintendo DS to play with!

QA: It wasn't invented yet, honey.  The internet wasn't really around yet when I was born.

LR: [GASP]

QA: Yeah.  And you know my mom?  When she was a kid, TVs were still new and not everyone had one yet.  They were black and white, hadn't figured out how to make color available to everyone.

LR: [GAAAAASSSP]

QA: So, yeah.  There's a difference between how poor or rich you are and what's available to buy. 

[We pause, crunching our cereal in the kitchen as the sun rises.]

LR: Back then, like, y'know, long, long time ago...

QA: Yeah?

LR: Was everyone hearing or deaf?

QA: Pretty much the same as now.

LR: Oh.   [Face looks like she's smelling her own fart.]  I wish more people were deaf.

QA: Uhhumm.

[Crunching resumes]

LR: Who invented electricity?

QA: Uhhh, nature.

LR: NO!  You're WRONG!!!

QA: Ok, if you yell that loud, then yes, I must be wrong. *rolling eyes*

LR: [mumblemumble] Mommy?  Electricity's weird.

QA: You're weird, hon.

LR: *giggle* I love you, mom.

 

A January Wish

After cleaning off the coffee table except for the dried scrap of paper stuck there with spilt coffee and cream this gray morning, I sat on the balcony in the damp air with a book I didn't read and watched a squirrel dart over a fence with a bright orange cheeto poking from its little head and for a moment I wished that

instead of this girl grown up too fast and saddled with childrearing and perpetual waiting on paperwork and answers too hard to ask for and yearning for easier days, I could be that squirrel,

unbound by laws of my fellow creatures, fearful of only the peripheral twitch, armed with a bushy tail and the faint instinct of a packed dirt hole somewhere into which I could burrow down and close my bright eyes and keep my stolen cheeto company.

Girls gone mild.

  The weather's cooling.  I'm finding myself struggling not to slip on a carpet of wet leaves in heels.  I love fall, but it does make me miss those hot summer nights:

Sweat-drenched Coronas.  Fajita-infused conversation.  Caring more about how good a futon feels under my ass after a long day at work than wrinkling my slacks.  Yelling at girlfriends to stop watching that damn Bachellor--stupid show-- and actually do something interesting.  And when all else fails, knowing you can count on having a beautiful lady hose you down.

*Photo taken by miss-finger-by-eye on her iphone.

Not quite being flip.

I saw a guy today at an intersection holding a sign. 

I didn't read the sign, didn't have to. His layers of jackets and grimy face told me what he was using it for.  The light turned green and as the line of cars he was walking alongside began inching past him, he turned around and I saw the back of his sign: "Single?  Meet someone today! mdsingles.org"

It's not the first time I've seen these signs appropriated for more wanting means.  But the poetry of the juxtaposition touched me.

Maybe it's because it's been a rainy Monday.  Maybe it's because for the last month I haven't seemed to have any energy, and all I can do is sit and hope my body's cruise control doesn't conk out on me.  Maybe it's because I'm well past the one-year anniversary of singlehood now and the nuances of life on my own are staring me in the face in high relief.

How evocative is the image of that sign?

Two kinds of loneliness: hopeless romantics throwing a try at love out there into cyberspace, flipped and hidden behind desperate optimism and blind faith in the ability of human kindness to sustain one more day.

Sexual innuendo meets broadway critic

In the eleventh hour, they rollick around the stage.  It's tougher to translate what works brilliantly in morbidly hilarious cartoons, however, to live theater.  The view is devilishly subversive as they reach their huge finish, boiling and slapping and tap-dancing.

Shelley Jackson, experimental writer extraordinaire (or, even better, conceptual artist of text) is one of this week's featured writers at school, and today I attended her workshop "Recycled Words."

Among other things, one of the things we dabbled in was taking the language from one source and re-purposing it.  And that's how I came to write the above -- I was given a review of a musical based on The Addams Family from the New York Times. 

It will never be published and verges on the unreadable, but who the hell cares?  It brought me back in touch with all the reasons language and writing and finding that odd but logical mix of words will forever drown me in ecstasy.

Too bad it involves pink.

This is what happens when people find cool ways to raise awareness.  Love it. Now if only we could do an "educating stupid people dance."

Via feministing.  Over 200 employees at a Portland hospital got together to promote breast cancer awareness.