kills bugs dead

well, the foreign occupation of my car has been reduced to a thin film of raid, 3 very clogged packages of ant food, and an unidentifiable number of carcasses. i really do feel remorse... until i imagine reaching for the gas pedal and having my foot encased in a throng of hungry feelers.

this would of course never happen.

but it could.

if i lived in australia.

it should be a busy weekend. the parental units are coming to town and we're headed to a braves game tomorrow afternoon. i'll see if i can snag a few pictures of some good clean redneck fun (not baseball in general, just baseball in the deep south). we're going to bring healthy popcorn and see if we can get kicked out of the ballpark.

anybody know how to find a good writing group?

run for your lives!

my car has been invaded by ants. we're talking thousands of them. they're out there right now, cloaked by the black interior, but if you look closer you can catch signs of movement from every direction.

i have certain feelings towards ants.

certain strong feelings.

feelings that make me want to sell my car and never step foot in it again.

feelings that made me scream when i unknowingly sat down in the sea of ants, thinking about my impending meeting and NOT about being eaten alive by segmented beasts.

sadly, my situation is not unique. dave is also experiencing the mysterious ant invasion, but he's using a different mode of transportation for his daily circuit to Athens, GA, so i have only moderate feelings of sympathy for him with regard to ants. thinking about his soul sucking commute is a different story.

the upside to this morning's siege is that i officially rode my bike to work today. or rather, i borrowed coffeeshopgirl's road bike because it's like a gazelle compared to my sluggish mountain bike. i'm feeling greener already. Emory would be proud.

maybe i can turn my car into an ant farm and charge admission.

birthday bashing

yesterday was my birthday. i spent most of the day in existential crisis mode, but here's a more objective version of the day:

it started with an early breakfast at Thumbs Up (thanks again to everyone who dragged themselves out of bed on a sunday morning to gorge on whole grain biscuits). the middle of the day was dedicated to a Superbad movie outing at Atlantic Station, your run of the mill creepy pre-fab shopping centre, complete with overpriced condos and a fishbowl gym. in retrospect, i think the Simpson's movie would have been a wiser choice. Superbad was one long dick sucking joke that came off as a geekier version of american pie with vintage clothing. Admittedly, there were some great scenes, but overall it was a movie going experience i would NOT like to repeat. watch the trailers. check out the website. whatever you do, don't go see it unless you want to feel like you're stranded on a desert island with a band of 17 year old masturbating pipsqueaks.

the Superbad experience was capped off with a trip to Old Navy. there was a time when i would have relished such an opportunity, but that phase has apparently passed. so many boatnecks. so many empire waists. can you imagine me in either? the words "cross-dressing" come to mind. after a cursory and uncomfortable sweep of the store, i spent the remainder of the shopping trip outside waiting for the others to emerge.

and then the deluge hit. major thunderstorms and heavy rain for the rest of the afternoon. i couldn't help but be amused at how well the weather matched my mood. there's only one thing to do when you're feeling that stale: stand in the rain. the idea was catching and before i knew it, the 4 of us were outside splashing around in the curbside river.

after a trip to the Dekalb County Farmer's Market and the nearby asian market, we had yet another amazing dinner of thai style peanut noodles that was followed by zucchini cake with dark chocolate icing (care of our temporary roommates).

the day was sprinkled with phone calls from relatives, the best of which was the traditional call from my mother (pictured here from the mid 70s)where she recounts the joys of popping me out. this year she got the most amusement out of how i was basically mute for the first year of my life. i guess some things don't change.

alphabet soup

if you have a weakness for addictive games, especially ones that involve spelling or anything resembling Boggle, DON'T look at this when you need to function in the outside world.

i geeked out on it too much yesterday and went to bed with letters floating around in my head.

gorble

it's hard to blog when you're in a bad place. all i want to do is whine and lament over my unique situation, which is of course not unique at all. it seems like the theme of late is to be confused and unhappy about life direction. if i knew an exotic language it would be tempting to run away to a far off land and participate in a translation program (something one of my fellow doubters is considering). sadly the only exotic language i know is the ever changing system of grunts and hand waving that comes from coffeeshopgirl.

maybe i'll become a coffee model. i mean, who could resist this level of poise and passion?

going canuck

i'm thinking about running away to canada and becoming the official massage therapist for the royal canadian mounty division. i can picture it now -- outcalls will be on horseback and i can have an office in the woods where i use sticks and berries as tools for a new version of shiatsu that i'm only moments away from perfecting.

or i can just drive back and forth to sandy springs every day and watch my soul steam up the back windshield.

tantrum by the sea

beach withdrawal set in approximately 3 feet beyond the driveway of the incredible house we stayed in all weekend.

more to come after i've recovered from the 8 hour drive...

trigger happy

jo has to catch her excrement

in plastic cups that trap the scent

she duct taped her cleft

to leave the worms bereft

but they wiggle with no relent

(slight descrepancy -- the picture is a bot fly and not a worm. i hope to never (ever) become personally acquainted with a bot fly)

not exactly butterbeer

coffeeshopgirl has an... interesting taste in beverages. this post is an ode to her experiments. the first version seemed to fall flat at the end so i wrote a second version. still not quite putrid enough, but it's a start. this may look like iced coffee but i'm here to tell you it was nothing of the sort.

she brews base concoctions by day

with sour cream and bits of clay

people pay to drink

what makes their vessels shrink

and she pockets their tips to play

OR

she once devised a rancid brew

that smelled of moldy cheese and glue,

the color of juice

tasting oddly of spruce,

it made for an unsightly spew

have you hugged a polar bear today?

my brain has begun the process of liquidation. i'm not sure if it's because of the temperatures in the apartment or the massive amount of sweating that occurred at my new massage job this past weekend. either way, i'm tired, sore, and worried about everything that can possibly be worried about.

on the apartment front, we now have a window unit in the bedroom that seems to do a better job cooling the entire apartment than the central air EVER managed. the fate of the electric bill remains to be seen. do we attempt to get reimbursed for the past 2 months when the management insists, after multiple visits, that our lack of air flow and cooling power is simply due to the apartment location? somehow the words "this could just be one of those apartments" aren't going to make me feel any better when we get the next electric bill. and what about next summer? should we start saving pennies now so we can afford to keep the ice cream in the freezer from melting?

maybe if i get a barbie cake for my birthday i'll feel better about life.

moto foto

the wedding extravaganza included a videographer and at least 2 professional photographers (that i could count), so i figured i should assume part of the responsibility to take a few mediocre pictures for the masses. trying to remain unobtrusive apparently means i capture the back of people's heads. in my haste to snap and scramble, i tested the limits of my 4 year old camera, which means there are more blurry pictures than i'd hoped for.

and now, after all the compensatory remarks, see for yourself

flickr's new uploading feature mangled the order of the pictures, but i rearranged them so you can get the general idea.

hot now

did you know that $227 is good for 83 degrees of heat in a 700 square foot apartment?

i've got the paperwork to prove it!

anybody want to come over? c'mon. if you believe in hell, it'll be like a warm up.

come over and we can all stand in front of the pantry, which is the only square foot of cool air in the apartment.

boiled nuts

there are rabid squirrels siphoning our air conditioning from the duct work in the ceiling. i can hear them pawing around, celebrating the arctic spoils of their victory.

meanwhile, i sit here bathed in a swirl of recirculated steam, continuing my attempt at online practice tests and dreaming about what it would be like to crawl into the freezer and go to sleep.

hora hora

having just experienced my first jewish wedding, here's the short version of what i have to say:

jewish people know how to throw a party.

(maybe what i should be saying is the Blooms know how to throw a party)

the longer version goes something like this:

there's no way to capture the essence of the entire weekend so i'll just fire at will and chalk this post up to sheer wedding over stimulation. i know exactly this "--" much about jewish traditions. i know holidays mean eating (except for that one where they fast -- yom kippa? yom kippotamus?) and i know that major events mean more eating. So basically i was looking forward to a full stomach and a beautiful dress (having already previewed the goods).

What i wasn't expecting was the overwhelming sense of participation that came from the wedding attendees. There was so much dancing and mirth that i couldn't walk 2 feet without bumping into someone cutting a rug. And the dancing of the hora. where do i start? bride and groom bobbing around the room in chairs raised above shoulders. the old and young alike zipping by in their circles with such zeal that i felt like i was in a ring around the rosy mosh pit. every so often a less coordinated person (i.e. me) would fall out of formation and stumble to a nearby wall.

But i'm getting ahead of myself.

The afternoon of the wedding (held at Woodend Mansion) was spent trying to stay out of the way. I figured my best course of action would be to camp out on a bench overlooking the grounds and wait for the wedding party to emerge from the house. Little did i know that my prime seating was also prime real estate for the pre-wedding video shoot. I apologize now to the bride and groom if you have a confused looking individual wearing a khaki suit sitting on a bench next to the best man in the background of your pre-wedding bliss.

After the photographers herded the wedding party from one pose to the next, the excitement died down a bit (at least for me). There was much milling about, meeting various sig figs and waiting for the rabbi to show (and waiting and waiting). Eventually I walked down to the wedding square with one of the other non party members. And that's when the rain started. Luckily it was the light rain you might relish on a long summer walk and not the heavy downpour that keeps you stranded inside for hours. I'd even go so far as to say that it added to the romanticism of it all... sitting in white folding chairs, surrounded by a sentinel of trees in the midst of greenery, the soft pattering of rain drops, the sound of jewish curls frizzling in the humidity...

the post-ceremony hours can be summed up with my first paragraph. the people were all incredibly nice, the food was amazing, the centerpieces were unreal. Basically there are not enough superlatives to go around.

you know it's a good time when even I get out on the dance floor. sadly, it may cease to be a good time for everyone else.

prelude to a jew

(courtesy of Gellatinous Laser)

a whirlwind weekend to say the least... but i need to get some studying done before i spend time musing over wedding affairs.

for now, i'll leave you with this:

Edgar was a fretful miser
who removed his own incisor
by taking a leap
from a fast moving jeep
with his tooth strung to the visor.

brain implosion

i have an interview in t minus 2 hours. i've tried reading over the typical massage interview questions, but the words keep jumping around like frogs on speed and i can't concentrate. how am i supposed to think about what my strengths and weaknesses are when all i can imagine is flubbing the practical? i'm having visions of accidentally shooting lotion into my interviewer's ears or being overzealous with the sheets and somehow exposing her, which would most likely traumatize me the most.

thoughts that comfort me:

- it's not the ideal job (spa franchise, bad location, cheap massages -- which probably translates to mediocre compensation and oddball clientele)

- there's no underground network of blacklisted applicants so if i screw it up, no one will know

- in 12 hours i will be in DC for a weekend of wedding fun (that's right, i said fun)

- there's always chocolate (and beer)