you've gotta have at least one

what are beautiful yet bad places to go on vacation? you know...like the scenery's pretty, but it's in the middle of hickville? like something that a really bad travel agent would keep trying and utterly failing to sell?

i am the fifth fantastic

today i was le idiot and poured half a pot of boiling water on my arm while i was trying to drain the potatoes. a doctor's trip and four hours later, it looks absolutely sickening. there's the slick red skin, the melted smears, the little bubbling blisters...it looks like wet, wadded up tissue. only it is my skin. but i think the worst part is that i still have not discovered any newfound superpowers.

EUREKA!

it's done! my story has a beginning, middle, and at long last, an END!

this doesn't mean that i have no more work to do. now i'll go back to the beginning and comb it through very carefully, for grammar mistakes, bad wording, little inconsistencies and stuff like that. but who cares? the plot part of it is over! the hardest part is over! now it stands a decent chance of actually being read some day!

now i won't have that hanging over my head when i'm in college.

imy"H, i hope i hope. i guess it's still too early to tell.

of course it does raise the question of what on earth i'm going to do with myself from now on. i suppose i could clean my room.

yeah.

hok.

the epidemic with which we're dealing with

listen, rock stars. paul mccartney, coldplay- this includes you. i know you want to communicate powerful messages and ideas with your lyrics. i know you want to create perfect rythyms, certain moods- and as such, you have to let certain grammar rules fall by the wayside. that's fine. nobody wants to sing along to "you are the one whom i love" or other such atrocities.

but when you use the phrase "in which we...in", you sound ridiculous.

i'm sorry. i am just sick and tired of lyrics like 'the space in which we travel in' and 'this world in which we're living in.' you're artists, for pete's sake! is there not a single english major among you? does it even TAKE an english major to realize that logically, 'the space in which we travel in' doesn't make SENSE?

and these are grammy winners!

don't even get me started on u2.

'where there's trees, we teared them down and used them on our enemies.'

my four year old sister teared stuff. you preach world peace. sound educated.

some of us are just destined to be librarians.

the most extreme lambastions

well, all the editorials are lambastin' away at the prez again for his 'passivity in regards to darfur.' well, not all of them. one was bemoaning the awareness-bracelet fad, noting that people seem to feel if they've bought the bracelet, they've won the war.

but anyway, reading these columns, i begin to wonder: what is bush supposed to do?

decry the slaughter? certainly. i'm sure the un's done that too. but if the un proves anything, it's that talk is cheap. the massacrists (that's too good to be a word) of darfur are not going to turn around and go, 'by golly, we've upset old W. perhaps we should call it quits, in the name of humanity.'

is he supposed to deploy forces? we're already spread so thin that on most days, the editorial pages are lambasting our increasing number of casualties. (or maybe not lambasting...lamenting.) of course, during the holocaust, force was one of the best things america could contribute...but is this the same kind of situation?

please enlighten me. i'm a simple youth.

what should g.w. do?

maybe he should buy the bracelet.

(ps. i fear that i have used the word 'lambast' incorrectly this whole post. i now have some vague memory floating around in my brain that 'lambast' is some kind of sewing operation.)

fish are friends!

we went to the mpm today

(quick! does it stand for

-maury's pasta motel

-milwaukee public museum)

yup, the museum, but i like to keep people on their toes.

anyway, they had this really...blue exhibit about whales and aquamarine life. you know that thing museums always do when they want to promote oceannity, where they project these flickering blue lights over you, and then in the background they have this loop of waves crashing and bird or whale songs? and then sometimes they have this blown up balloon of said marine life, like a giant, friendly looking whale? it was like that. maybe it is kind of cheap, but it got me thinking.

you know i must have done like 60,000,000 reports about the humpback whale in grade school...it is practically a part of me. (like the sioux native americans). i'm not sure exactly how this happened, but i do know that the humpback whale is like the length of ten school buses or something. and that its gestation period is eleven months. also it eats krill and migrates from arctic waters to florida in the winter. (don't say it, richard).

do all kids find themselves writing the same reports over and over? other recurring topics:

-eleanor roosevelt/ betsy ross/ clara barton

-native americans

-ponce de leon/ ferdinand magellan/ cristopher columbus

-elizabeth cady stanton/ carrie nation/ susan b. anthony

(this got so bad the other day that i was playing jeapordy with my friends, and when asked the question 'she used to smash in bars during the early prohibition', the clear answer in my head was, 'the one that's not elizabeth cady stanton'.)

ugh.

i keep trying to write a song for a friend of mine, whose mother passed away recently in a car accident...but i can't work on it for more than forty-five minutes at a time without bottoming out. i'm beginning to wonder if it's even worth the attempt...i want to write something comforting, that will help her, not depress her even more. but i don't know how.

why driving sucks. a detailed analysis in seven or thirty-five parts.

1) no one, but no one, can explain how they're doing what they're doing. 'how do you have enough time to check all the mirrors and your shoulder before switching lanes, especially when there's a stoplight every two blocks?' 'you have to do it quickly!' 'no kidding. so how do you do it?' 'you can't drive if you can't look quickly! quick reactions are key to driving! why, when I was a boy...'

2) it is riddled with bad cliches.

'if you can learn to ride a bike, you can learn to drive a car!'

'Aim High, Get the Big Picture, Leave Yourself An Out...'

hmm. why didn't i think of that? i should really be getting the big picture. and i should definitely consider leaving myself an out! dad, there's all these cars speeding on all sides of me and one of them looks like she is about to hit me! what do you recommend?

hmm. i believe leaving yourself an out would be the proper response.

of course! i think i'll just leave myself an out now.

3) the people who DO try to explain things to you show no signs of actually executing any of the actions they're describing.

'ok, so here we are at an intersection. now which way do you check, left, right...'

'um, mom. you're not checking this intersection. you're filing your nails.'

'that's right, because you're the driving student, not me.'


4) Driving Tips From Bubbe.

'now it's all about judgement, perel. judgement judgement judgement. what does this moron think he's doing?' BEEP BEEP BEEP 'would you take this diet coke from me for a minute?' ::mops forehead with towel held in other hand:: 'oh is it hot out today!'

'bubbe, isn't that car going to hit us--'

'oh no, he'll figure it out. you see? he's stopping.' BEEP BEEP BEEP 'she didn't even see me. what was i saying? oh yes. judgement judgement judgement. and never slam on the accelerator, like this.'

5) Driver's Ed.

'today we are going to take two hours of your time to see how many different levels of patronization we can reach as we go over still more drunk driving statistics. you probably didn't know that there are several different ways to become legally drunk, so let's explain them to you in excruciating detail. let us then show you a video of drunk drivers in action. finally, let us learn about hardcore drugs and their effects on the wheel, before we sweep gaily into what kind of car you should buy for your sixteenth birthday!!'

::a passed note::

i think that smashed fly on the corner of your notebook kind of resembles a unicorn.

6) Behind the Wheel With Spoiled Suburban Teenagers Who Have Their Own Cars and Could Probably Pilot A Jet Plane Successfully.

'ah zak my man, where do you think we should go today? the expressway? the interstate? perhaps just a quick spin down blue mound road?'

'dude, are you sure i need these hours? cause, like, i have sixty.'

'well you know what, why don't we just let perel drive then.'

::twenty five minutes later::

'heh heh heh. generally, you want to avoid turning into the left lane on a two way street.'

'um, yeah. so...you see how you're stopping in the middle of the intersection there? and missing the stop sign? and swarming over the curve? and narrowly avoiding those poor children? and making wide right turns that severely piss off the other drivers? and turning left way too late?

you're gonna want to stop that.

zak, you can read any of my magazines, dude. i think there's um...some more relaxing ones...over...oh dear mother of G-d please stop.'

7) Having Annoying Nine Year Old Siblings.

'oh my G-d. perel is NOT. driving. us home. she is? i'm gonna walk. Perel! you're going to crash! we're all doomed. i haven't even written my will yet. i'm too young to die!'

8) Having Annoying Fifteen Year Old Siblings.

'well, if you would have played more need for speed...'

9) Being 16.

'oh, let's all laugh at the ignorant teenage driver...let's scare the living daylight out of the terrified teenage driver...let's all beep our horns and flash our lights and shout rude things out the window and snicker about them over coffee...oh yeah, everybody has a good laugh...'

yeah, well guess what, adult population. i've got your nursing home payments right here.

bring it on.

ok i take that back

i know why i like the breakfast club. it's a really good movie.

duh.

it was on tonight, and my plans with a friend got cancelled, so i let myself watch it as a consolation prize. trouble is, i never feel right watching movies...to me, just sitting there, staring at the screen for two hours, feels like two hours of your life that you will never get back. you can argue the merits and demerits of movies till the cows come home, but whatever. i can't watch a movie if i'm not doing something else at the same time. so i ransacked the basement and found some poster paints, then ransacked some more and found a watercolor brush, and then i, whose greatest artistic achievement is in the area of margin doodles, proceeded to paint.

a commercial.

damn andy warhol! two days ago all i knew was the campbell soup thing and now slowly he has infiltrated my pathetic painting attempts.

well that's how the stolen night went down. see you tomorrow, if i manage to wake up at a decent hour.

blueberries, pop art, the 80s etc

a couple of thoughts i had in the last hour:

-blue berries are the best snack food. they are bite-sized, juicy, blue, low-calories, and they come in that cool carton thing. everyone should eat them.

-i don't think art should be about complicated concepts no one is supposed to understand. i think everything should be art...andy warhol was onto something. art should be: 'hey, look at this aspect of life. isn't it great to be alive?'
like putting your hair up with a headband because you can't find a rubber band, and knotting it wrong. it doesn't have to achieve some aesthetic beauty. but it should be art anyway because sometimes life's funny like that and now you've got a picture of one of those times.

-why do i have such a crush on the 80s? i find myself listening to all these 80s bands and watching the breakfast club and really loving it...why? is it because the 80s were such a pop culture bonanza and i'm such a pop culture addict? that could be. i guess a lot of the authors and musicians i identify with the most grew up in the 80s, so i'm trying to relive their childhood somehow...comparing theirs to mine. i don't know. either way it's interesting.