Kansas. Hey: doesn't this remind you of the opening sequence of Six Feet Under, but without the tree? My GOD is it flat out there.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Home is the sailor, again.
Man, I wish I was a sailor. Or better yet, a pirate. Then I could say things like "shiver me timbers" and it would always be in context. As it is now, it's kindof a mood-killer when you say that at a party. People can be so judgemental.
So yes, I arrived safely home in the Republic last night at about ten. On the drive home from Kansas I vowed two things:
1) That would endeavor, if I became President, to have St. Louis and Kansas City leveled for low-income prairie-dog housing. Prairie-dogs are falling on hard times, what with how they are poised on the brink of being irradicated by cattle farmers--broken cow ankles! Get over it!--and since St. Louis and Kansas City are vile, evil pits of inhuman despair that make me want to take my own life, or, more rightly, the lives of others, all the better. Well, OK, technically neither are in prairie-dog habitat, but I am guessing that once we get a few in, word-of-snout will fill 'em up right quick.
2) That I will never, ever even dream of driving that far without someone with me. When you are alone for that long--well, I was travelling as always with Bruce Hornsby--you start to fantasize about a two-sided conversation. When I stopped at Ozarkland, I nearly wet myself to hear human voices. Of course, those voices issued forth from mouths sadly bereft of teeth and filled with Skoal, but such as they were, they were human voices. I watched a man at Ozarkland try to use the automatic sink (which, in and of itself, was hysterical) for like ten minutes. He put his hands under the sink and just at the precise astral moment that moisture erupted from the spigot, he would withdraw his hands. This happened, like, uh, EIGHT TIMES. He began to get angry; this was the kind of anger that only comes from utter bewilderment. I could hear his inner monologue: "Shee-it! What the hell kinda witchcraf' is this?" So, since I am the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Krishnavigneshwarashrutiramalamadingdong, I decided I would do good and teach this poor soul by example. So I put my hands under the spigot and held them there, and sweet warm water issued forth. Then I slowly lathered. He looked at me like I had just tapped a wand on the spigot. He tried once more, and once again the water came on just as he moved his hands away. He left, his hands covered in Ozark intestinal bacteria, and continued his shopping.
So, Ozarkland. On the long drive across Missouri on I-70 East, I kept seeing signs at about five mile intervals. On trips like that, you read those signs: they, and they alone keep you from the brink of madness. One intrigued me. It said: "Ozarkland: Worth Stoppin' For." Later: "Ozarkland: Home of the $3.95 T-Shirt." Then: "Ozarkland: Cheapest Moccasins Around!" I was hooked. Then, the clincher: "Ozarkland: Check Yer Email For FREE!" I decided, then and there, that if I didn't get to go to Ozarkland that I would, indeed, perish. As the miles crept by, my excitement reached fever pitch. Full bladder? Need for sustenance? Cramped leg? Irrelevant. The signs kept getting closer and closer together, and more frantic. Finally, one said "Ozarkland: Next Exit for Fun!" I was in the left-hand lane of a four-lane highway. I started to cut across, and then I saw the exit, and then, Ozarkland itself.
Then, some ass in a Jetta cuts me off. I had to peel across three lanes of traffic at 75 mph to get to the exit. As I silently worked a Haitian infertility curse on my Jetta friend, I pulled into the lot of the two-storied barn. It was more magnificent than even I had dreamed. The letters of the exterior were sequined. Once inside, it was aisle after aisle of utterly useless, poorly-made shit that delighted me so much that I began to titter like a seven-year-old girl. Each aisle was worse than the last. Ozark joke gifts. Leather whips. Ponies and puppies made out of what appeared to be cat fur. Hokey "Native American" peace-pipes and dreamcatchers. Objects hewn entirely out of thousands of shells. Hundreds of windchimes. So I pressed on: I had to find the perfect Ozarkland souvenir. After all of the random shit, I thought: Domonic. Now: you must find something that should not be here in Ozarkland. Most of that stuff belonged in that there two-story barn.
Then, while in the polyresin statue section, I saw him. All alone amongst frolicking dolphins, clowns, and bears holding fishing poles, I saw my purchase:
A five-inch high polyresin statue of Saint Anthony of Padua.
I was momentarily speechless and was unable to move, as if I had been poleaxed. What the blue &%#@ was a polyresin statue of Saint Anthony of Padua doing in Ozarkland? Had it been ordered by mistake? And, most importantly: how quickly could I get to the checkout counter with it?
Saint Anthony and I had a good chortle at the whimsy of his existence. Finally! Someone to talk to in the car! Saint Anthony and I will now be roadtrip buddies; stay tuned for future installments of Dom and Saint Anthony Rove the Earth.
Kansas was a good time. I ate a lot. I slept a lot. I was drunk two out of the three nights I was there. Plus, I got to see the old man, and we bonded over alcohol and those weird bar video-screen games, all the way out there in the middle of this (freakishly enormous) country. I came home with a carload of clothes and food, and of course, most importantly, a five-inch high polyresin statue of an Italian saint.
Huh.
Well, have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
So yes, I arrived safely home in the Republic last night at about ten. On the drive home from Kansas I vowed two things:
1) That would endeavor, if I became President, to have St. Louis and Kansas City leveled for low-income prairie-dog housing. Prairie-dogs are falling on hard times, what with how they are poised on the brink of being irradicated by cattle farmers--broken cow ankles! Get over it!--and since St. Louis and Kansas City are vile, evil pits of inhuman despair that make me want to take my own life, or, more rightly, the lives of others, all the better. Well, OK, technically neither are in prairie-dog habitat, but I am guessing that once we get a few in, word-of-snout will fill 'em up right quick.
2) That I will never, ever even dream of driving that far without someone with me. When you are alone for that long--well, I was travelling as always with Bruce Hornsby--you start to fantasize about a two-sided conversation. When I stopped at Ozarkland, I nearly wet myself to hear human voices. Of course, those voices issued forth from mouths sadly bereft of teeth and filled with Skoal, but such as they were, they were human voices. I watched a man at Ozarkland try to use the automatic sink (which, in and of itself, was hysterical) for like ten minutes. He put his hands under the sink and just at the precise astral moment that moisture erupted from the spigot, he would withdraw his hands. This happened, like, uh, EIGHT TIMES. He began to get angry; this was the kind of anger that only comes from utter bewilderment. I could hear his inner monologue: "Shee-it! What the hell kinda witchcraf' is this?" So, since I am the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva Krishnavigneshwarashrutiramalamadingdong, I decided I would do good and teach this poor soul by example. So I put my hands under the spigot and held them there, and sweet warm water issued forth. Then I slowly lathered. He looked at me like I had just tapped a wand on the spigot. He tried once more, and once again the water came on just as he moved his hands away. He left, his hands covered in Ozark intestinal bacteria, and continued his shopping.
So, Ozarkland. On the long drive across Missouri on I-70 East, I kept seeing signs at about five mile intervals. On trips like that, you read those signs: they, and they alone keep you from the brink of madness. One intrigued me. It said: "Ozarkland: Worth Stoppin' For." Later: "Ozarkland: Home of the $3.95 T-Shirt." Then: "Ozarkland: Cheapest Moccasins Around!" I was hooked. Then, the clincher: "Ozarkland: Check Yer Email For FREE!" I decided, then and there, that if I didn't get to go to Ozarkland that I would, indeed, perish. As the miles crept by, my excitement reached fever pitch. Full bladder? Need for sustenance? Cramped leg? Irrelevant. The signs kept getting closer and closer together, and more frantic. Finally, one said "Ozarkland: Next Exit for Fun!" I was in the left-hand lane of a four-lane highway. I started to cut across, and then I saw the exit, and then, Ozarkland itself.
Then, some ass in a Jetta cuts me off. I had to peel across three lanes of traffic at 75 mph to get to the exit. As I silently worked a Haitian infertility curse on my Jetta friend, I pulled into the lot of the two-storied barn. It was more magnificent than even I had dreamed. The letters of the exterior were sequined. Once inside, it was aisle after aisle of utterly useless, poorly-made shit that delighted me so much that I began to titter like a seven-year-old girl. Each aisle was worse than the last. Ozark joke gifts. Leather whips. Ponies and puppies made out of what appeared to be cat fur. Hokey "Native American" peace-pipes and dreamcatchers. Objects hewn entirely out of thousands of shells. Hundreds of windchimes. So I pressed on: I had to find the perfect Ozarkland souvenir. After all of the random shit, I thought: Domonic. Now: you must find something that should not be here in Ozarkland. Most of that stuff belonged in that there two-story barn.
Then, while in the polyresin statue section, I saw him. All alone amongst frolicking dolphins, clowns, and bears holding fishing poles, I saw my purchase:
A five-inch high polyresin statue of Saint Anthony of Padua.
I was momentarily speechless and was unable to move, as if I had been poleaxed. What the blue &%#@ was a polyresin statue of Saint Anthony of Padua doing in Ozarkland? Had it been ordered by mistake? And, most importantly: how quickly could I get to the checkout counter with it?
Saint Anthony and I had a good chortle at the whimsy of his existence. Finally! Someone to talk to in the car! Saint Anthony and I will now be roadtrip buddies; stay tuned for future installments of Dom and Saint Anthony Rove the Earth.
Kansas was a good time. I ate a lot. I slept a lot. I was drunk two out of the three nights I was there. Plus, I got to see the old man, and we bonded over alcohol and those weird bar video-screen games, all the way out there in the middle of this (freakishly enormous) country. I came home with a carload of clothes and food, and of course, most importantly, a five-inch high polyresin statue of an Italian saint.
Huh.
Well, have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Ozarkland.
OK, get this: I am blogging from a two story barn in Missouri (about 75 miles outside St. Louis) called "Ozarkland." Filled it is with the tackiest, most vile souvenirs I have ever, ever seen, and I have been to Florida. I will include a picture of my unnecessary purchase.
God, I hate this damn state.
Later,
Dom
God, I hate this damn state.
Later,
Dom
Friday, November 26, 2004
The holiday noose.
This morning I woke up to sausage and eggs and biscuits and some fancy pumpkin-spice coffee, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, desperately wrong. A quick visit to the bathroom confirmed that it wasn't that, at least. (All that gravy? It's a miracle.) So, other than the fact that I am in Kansas (ahhhhhhh!) , I couldn't think of any reason that I should be in a mood. Then my father, Prince of Sadism, put on some music downstairs in the basement for me while I showered and dressed. Holiday music. Festive, old-time holiday music. Festive, old-time holiday music sung by various famous people and singers.
Kill, kill, kill.
This year I am going to try to get in the spirit. To that end, I will no longer:
Give the shiv to the Salvation Army bell-ringers. Usually I wait until they go back to their cars after the store closes and then I adminster the "justice", but too many times I found out that they were just sweet old retired people who actually wanted to make a difference for someone over the holidays. It's really really hard to stomp someone with a MedicAlert bracelet; those mothertouchers get there in like five minutes.
Trip small children in the mall. Oh, don't judge me; you all will burn in hell if you deny that you've always dreamt of doing the same thing. I just have no conscience, so I do what I wan'. There they all are: running about, shrieking, producing very large amounts of mucus, and how many of them run into your crotch at ten thousand miles an hour holding a shiny new action figure? A lot. I just trip them before they get to me and then all is well. That satisfying splat as they hit the linoleum...mmm, divine. Most get up and continue on with their evil; some begin to quietly weep. But I tell you what: they may be evil, but they aren't dumb. They've all heard told of the bearded guy who holds wee ones under the coin-fountain and none of them are willing to become his next victim. I have been officially banned from returning to no less than thirteen malls.
Use the Israel-issue flame-thrower on carolers. Too many lawsuits; that, and scorched flesh-smell never washes out of curtains.
Put grain alcohol in the eggnog. Nothing says "holiday fun" like being so drunk that you vomit down the front of your pajama bottoms. Sorry, Mom. Hope your liver grows back.
Shoot religious lawn statuary. All it takes is a shotgun and a fifth of Jim Beam and you are ready to take the heads off all of the obnoxious plaster/plastic/inflatable lawn nativities. Of course, that's a good way to punch a one-way ticket to Hell, but have YOU ever tried to blow the head off Balthazar the Wise Man from two hundred yards? It's good times. I'll miss that satisfying "pop".
So, maybe this year will be better than the last few. I've already bought my tickets to the mother-ship, I mean, motherland, and the end of the semester is in my grasp. Of course, between now and then, I have to go back to the mall. So, just in case I am too drunk to remember these promises, for the love of weeping Jesus on the true cross, bring your wee-ones to daycare. I may not be able to help myself.
Have a great one, Wichita.
Dom
Kill, kill, kill.
This year I am going to try to get in the spirit. To that end, I will no longer:
Give the shiv to the Salvation Army bell-ringers. Usually I wait until they go back to their cars after the store closes and then I adminster the "justice", but too many times I found out that they were just sweet old retired people who actually wanted to make a difference for someone over the holidays. It's really really hard to stomp someone with a MedicAlert bracelet; those mothertouchers get there in like five minutes.
Trip small children in the mall. Oh, don't judge me; you all will burn in hell if you deny that you've always dreamt of doing the same thing. I just have no conscience, so I do what I wan'. There they all are: running about, shrieking, producing very large amounts of mucus, and how many of them run into your crotch at ten thousand miles an hour holding a shiny new action figure? A lot. I just trip them before they get to me and then all is well. That satisfying splat as they hit the linoleum...mmm, divine. Most get up and continue on with their evil; some begin to quietly weep. But I tell you what: they may be evil, but they aren't dumb. They've all heard told of the bearded guy who holds wee ones under the coin-fountain and none of them are willing to become his next victim. I have been officially banned from returning to no less than thirteen malls.
Use the Israel-issue flame-thrower on carolers. Too many lawsuits; that, and scorched flesh-smell never washes out of curtains.
Put grain alcohol in the eggnog. Nothing says "holiday fun" like being so drunk that you vomit down the front of your pajama bottoms. Sorry, Mom. Hope your liver grows back.
Shoot religious lawn statuary. All it takes is a shotgun and a fifth of Jim Beam and you are ready to take the heads off all of the obnoxious plaster/plastic/inflatable lawn nativities. Of course, that's a good way to punch a one-way ticket to Hell, but have YOU ever tried to blow the head off Balthazar the Wise Man from two hundred yards? It's good times. I'll miss that satisfying "pop".
So, maybe this year will be better than the last few. I've already bought my tickets to the mother-ship, I mean, motherland, and the end of the semester is in my grasp. Of course, between now and then, I have to go back to the mall. So, just in case I am too drunk to remember these promises, for the love of weeping Jesus on the true cross, bring your wee-ones to daycare. I may not be able to help myself.
Have a great one, Wichita.
Dom
Thursday, November 25, 2004
The pub crawl.
This morning I woke up with a temporary tattoo extolling the virtues of some Italian liquer, really bad breath and barely functional kidneys.
I drank twelve beers last night; twelve beers and a Jack and Coke. Oh, and the weird Italian liquer. All of that with my father. Some people say that their parents don't understand them, and that they can't talk to them. I say: take your parents out to like ten different bars and drink yourselves silly! It's good old-fashioned holiday fun!
The turkey hormones are working quite well; that, and I have been watching Lord of the Rings all damn day.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, from Kansas (Motto: We're Flat, but We Have All of That There Wheat) .
Dom
I drank twelve beers last night; twelve beers and a Jack and Coke. Oh, and the weird Italian liquer. All of that with my father. Some people say that their parents don't understand them, and that they can't talk to them. I say: take your parents out to like ten different bars and drink yourselves silly! It's good old-fashioned holiday fun!
The turkey hormones are working quite well; that, and I have been watching Lord of the Rings all damn day.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, from Kansas (Motto: We're Flat, but We Have All of That There Wheat) .
Dom
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
The "Show-Me" State.
Ten and a half hours. Four corn-encrusted states. My spine has telescoped; my kidneys are now cold stones in my abdomen; I may never move my bowels again.
Yes, folks, I am in Kansas, a state that I have always secretly wanted to visit but have never had....well...uh, any need to be visiting. Though, to be sure, if I packed a bag and left one day for Kansas, I doubt any of my close friends or family would think too much of it: this is because I am effed-up.
So, Missouri. I spent the majority of my yesterday driving through it; I have to give Missouri her props on this one. The drivers in Saint Louis (well, the freakish beltline around Saint Louis) are all, every single one of them, heroin addicts. Do they hand it out on the street? Is there a comprehensive school lunch-type program? You know, burger, fries, needle? Missouri also takes the prize for the State Where Every Single Person Has At Least Four Slap-Ribbons on Their Car. One man had, and I am not even close to kidding, twelve. TWELVE! *Dom fixes himself a Jim and Coke.*
Also in Missouri, fun Jesus-y signs. For example:
Where do YOU want to spend Eternity? Lord Jesus is the ONLY ANSWER!
The Virgin of Guadalupe: Empress of the Americas.
The End of Times is Coming! Do You Want Smoking or Non-Smoking Eternity?
The best one, though:
The Baby Jesus Weeps if You Don't Buckle Up.
Kansas. It's 11 AM and last night, it snowed here. My dad's house is on this really nice little lake and I can hear ducks fighting for birdseed outside. I woke up this morning to Christmas carols. Last night I went to bed having seen Master and Commander and having drunken two Guinnesses. Thanksgiving: it's gonna be good times. It makes the fact that I can't feel my body below my waist worth it.
Have a great one, Wichita.
OOOH! There is an Oz Museum out here! Muahahahahah!
Dom
Yes, folks, I am in Kansas, a state that I have always secretly wanted to visit but have never had....well...uh, any need to be visiting. Though, to be sure, if I packed a bag and left one day for Kansas, I doubt any of my close friends or family would think too much of it: this is because I am effed-up.
So, Missouri. I spent the majority of my yesterday driving through it; I have to give Missouri her props on this one. The drivers in Saint Louis (well, the freakish beltline around Saint Louis) are all, every single one of them, heroin addicts. Do they hand it out on the street? Is there a comprehensive school lunch-type program? You know, burger, fries, needle? Missouri also takes the prize for the State Where Every Single Person Has At Least Four Slap-Ribbons on Their Car. One man had, and I am not even close to kidding, twelve. TWELVE! *Dom fixes himself a Jim and Coke.*
Also in Missouri, fun Jesus-y signs. For example:
Where do YOU want to spend Eternity? Lord Jesus is the ONLY ANSWER!
The Virgin of Guadalupe: Empress of the Americas.
The End of Times is Coming! Do You Want Smoking or Non-Smoking Eternity?
The best one, though:
The Baby Jesus Weeps if You Don't Buckle Up.
Kansas. It's 11 AM and last night, it snowed here. My dad's house is on this really nice little lake and I can hear ducks fighting for birdseed outside. I woke up this morning to Christmas carols. Last night I went to bed having seen Master and Commander and having drunken two Guinnesses. Thanksgiving: it's gonna be good times. It makes the fact that I can't feel my body below my waist worth it.
Have a great one, Wichita.
OOOH! There is an Oz Museum out here! Muahahahahah!
Dom
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Kill, kill, kill.
Today I woke up fairly late and laid in my bed, under the covers, listening to the rain. Pleasant enough, say you. I did this because when I woke up this morning, I felt dangerously close to murder. I thought: "Self, if you go outside feeling like you do right now, before the sun colors the sky pink tonight you will have taken yet another human life, and this time, you don't live anywhere near a deep enough lake to heave the weighted body into." Logistics; my steel-trap mind is always thinking about consequence. Plus: did I really want to spend my Monday evening removing someone's jaw and sawing off fingertips? I'd rather get snuggly with someone special and watch a crappy movie with bad food holding court in my gut. Tomorrow's Bloomington Times-Herald will be the clarion visage of what is actually going to happen tonight to me; stay tuned. Will it be "Fuzzy Grad Student Kept Body in Trunk" or will there be... nothing?
It's one of those days. I find myself thinking more and more about my ongoing series, "Things Dom Hates." When I get in this mood, it's all I can do to not think about them, and instead to nice, quiet things, like a gentle summer rainstorm over a vast lake whilst you sit in a rocking-chair on a porch listening to Enya. Or Yanni. Or that Irish chick with the harp... Loreena McKennit. Yeah.
But instead of that, which is nice and healthy, instead I think to:
Things I Hate II. (Sinister clap of thunder caroms across the limestone-encrusted campus)
That grilled cheese bitch. OK: today, word came that the woman who was selling the decade-old, apparently mold-less grilled cheese with the Virgin Mary's face on it got--hold your breath!--$28,000. Yes. $28,000. That's sadder than a bag full of drowned kittens. She's going to be able to pay bills, buy a car, put a down-payment on a house BECAUSE SHE GRILLED A SANDWICH TEN YEARS AGO THAT BEARS THE FACE OF THE VIRGIN MARY.
The mall. Already, the holiday blitz is underway. Each year, it gets slightly more officious; that cookie-baking smell, the sea of "festive" decorations, the fact that it's as hot as a crematorium, and, of course, the utter lack of "helpful" sales personnel. I would hide, too, if I knew people like me were roving about, trying to, oh, I dunno, buy things. This year, though, I am blissfully almost without anyone to buy anything for. *muffled weeping; weeping, then laughing*
Email forwards. So, you are alone, on the verge of tears, and you think: maybe someone loves me! You open up your email inbox and it says that you have several emails. You momentarily delude yourself into thinking "Wow! I am popular!" You open the inbox, and filling it are things like "FW:Fw:FwFw:FW: Don't Break the Chain!", and attached is a message that tells you the heart-wrenching story of a little girl from some gross village in Bangladesh who lives in a shanty made entirely out of water-buffalo "chips", has no arms or legs (tragic rice harvesting accident) and who was born with one eye, attractively placed on her cheek. Yet, despite this (and her raging case of syphilis), she still keeps the hope alive that she can become a pediatric neurosurgeon. If you forward the email to ten victims, I mean, friends, a Fun Charity will donate one ten-thousanth of a cent to her. If not, you can go to the grave knowing you might as well have put a bullet in her head. No pressure! Also, This is Real!!!! I Know People Who Broke the Chain and They Became Impotent and Had Raging Halitosis! That's linked in no way to the fact that the people you know are all heroin junkies who eat garbage out of the Chinese restaurant dumpster. Mmm. Cold putrescent lo mein. If you decide to send me one of these forwards I may just have to issue a fatwah against you; watch your back while shopping at the mall.
The crow and the bluejay. Living in my neighborhood is a crow and a bluejay. They delight in two things: eating the dead squirrels that get hit on Henderson, and waking me the hell up every damn morning shrieking. My Israeli-issued bazooka is in the mail.
Well, I am heading out to Kansas today. More corn! Whoo-hoo! I will 'blog from there, should I not be drunk the whole time. (My dad bought me tequila, whiskey, vodka and Guinness. Am I an alcoholic now?)
Be safe, Bloomington; the snow's on its way.
Dom
PS: Hey! That was a nice, charitable thing to say! What's wrong with me??!
It's one of those days. I find myself thinking more and more about my ongoing series, "Things Dom Hates." When I get in this mood, it's all I can do to not think about them, and instead to nice, quiet things, like a gentle summer rainstorm over a vast lake whilst you sit in a rocking-chair on a porch listening to Enya. Or Yanni. Or that Irish chick with the harp... Loreena McKennit. Yeah.
But instead of that, which is nice and healthy, instead I think to:
Things I Hate II. (Sinister clap of thunder caroms across the limestone-encrusted campus)
That grilled cheese bitch. OK: today, word came that the woman who was selling the decade-old, apparently mold-less grilled cheese with the Virgin Mary's face on it got--hold your breath!--$28,000. Yes. $28,000. That's sadder than a bag full of drowned kittens. She's going to be able to pay bills, buy a car, put a down-payment on a house BECAUSE SHE GRILLED A SANDWICH TEN YEARS AGO THAT BEARS THE FACE OF THE VIRGIN MARY.
The mall. Already, the holiday blitz is underway. Each year, it gets slightly more officious; that cookie-baking smell, the sea of "festive" decorations, the fact that it's as hot as a crematorium, and, of course, the utter lack of "helpful" sales personnel. I would hide, too, if I knew people like me were roving about, trying to, oh, I dunno, buy things. This year, though, I am blissfully almost without anyone to buy anything for. *muffled weeping; weeping, then laughing*
Email forwards. So, you are alone, on the verge of tears, and you think: maybe someone loves me! You open up your email inbox and it says that you have several emails. You momentarily delude yourself into thinking "Wow! I am popular!" You open the inbox, and filling it are things like "FW:Fw:FwFw:FW: Don't Break the Chain!", and attached is a message that tells you the heart-wrenching story of a little girl from some gross village in Bangladesh who lives in a shanty made entirely out of water-buffalo "chips", has no arms or legs (tragic rice harvesting accident) and who was born with one eye, attractively placed on her cheek. Yet, despite this (and her raging case of syphilis), she still keeps the hope alive that she can become a pediatric neurosurgeon. If you forward the email to ten victims, I mean, friends, a Fun Charity will donate one ten-thousanth of a cent to her. If not, you can go to the grave knowing you might as well have put a bullet in her head. No pressure! Also, This is Real!!!! I Know People Who Broke the Chain and They Became Impotent and Had Raging Halitosis! That's linked in no way to the fact that the people you know are all heroin junkies who eat garbage out of the Chinese restaurant dumpster. Mmm. Cold putrescent lo mein. If you decide to send me one of these forwards I may just have to issue a fatwah against you; watch your back while shopping at the mall.
The crow and the bluejay. Living in my neighborhood is a crow and a bluejay. They delight in two things: eating the dead squirrels that get hit on Henderson, and waking me the hell up every damn morning shrieking. My Israeli-issued bazooka is in the mail.
Well, I am heading out to Kansas today. More corn! Whoo-hoo! I will 'blog from there, should I not be drunk the whole time. (My dad bought me tequila, whiskey, vodka and Guinness. Am I an alcoholic now?)
Be safe, Bloomington; the snow's on its way.
Dom
PS: Hey! That was a nice, charitable thing to say! What's wrong with me??!
Sunday, November 21, 2004
And then, more corn.
Last night, for the first time since I moved from the pitch-fragrant forests of Northeastern Maine, I watched a movie that I never gave much thought to until now:
Signs.
I mean, for the love of God, what the hell? As if living in so much corn wasn't strange enough for me, now I have to be thinking about the likelihood that I will be savaged by greyish freaks from space. I thought I had to worry about that enough with the whole Allagash Five thing; those aliens, though, were just looking for a good piece of human ass, but these crop circle ones want to harvest us for God knows what. I, for one, don't relish the thought of being turned into man-jerky. Mmm...jerky. But I'm more careful with my jerky consumption now, as once when I bit into a Slim Jim, I encountered something that resembled a bone fragment covered in hair. That didn't stop me from finishing it, though: waste not, want not. I called it the "Jimmy Hoffa" Slim Jim, as there can be no other explanation than that it was a mafia informant I'd consumed. Strangely, that's a more comforting explanation than what it probably was: some unfortunate rodent who fell into the flesh-grinder. Mafia informants deserve to become low-quality meat snacks; how many of my relatives now languish in prison because of them?
Bloomington's a weird place. Today whilst driving to breakfast (Cracker Barrel), I saw a pickup truck that had a big bearded flannel-wearing guy smoking a Marlboro Red (as evidenced by the four empty packs on the dash); he had two bumper-stickers and two slap ribbons on said vehicle. The slap ribbons were "Don't Mess with the U.S." and one pink one for breast cancer awareness; the stickers were "Rednecks for Peace" and "Free Tibet." I saw another one today that looked like rolling plains; the rolling plains were the American flag, of course, and the little saying above said "Heartland at Heart." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Should I fashion one that has a lumberjack, a lobster, and a rusted-out pickup on cinder-blocks that says "North Woods at Heart"?
Thanksgiving quickly approaches. Of course, in the world of commercialism, it's already Def-Con Five for Christmas; Target already has dozens of pre-trimmed Christmas trees in a startling variety of colors on display, and at the mall, Santa now holds court in a cotton-batting Wonderland filled with animatronic deer and elves and squirrels and penguins. It can only mean one thing for me: it's time to start carrying my hip-flask full of whiskey again. Every year, I feel less and less festive when the holidays come around. In about five years, it's going to take me going on a Holiday Bender to even be able to stand a minute of it. Maybe I will just make good on my threat to move to Turkey, where the best holiday is Şeker Bayramı, or Eid, the day after Ramazan (Ramadan) gets over; you eat until you pass out, having fasted for a month. Plus, you give kids candy. So it's Thanksgiving AND Halloween, but I will be you dollars to donkeys that there isn't a media blitz lasting a month and a half extolling the virtues of battery-driven plastic delights and parades with giant fabric helium-filled cartoon characters. Maybe I am wrong: Turks, care to comment? Hmm. Do any of my Turks have the link to this thing?
Bok.
It's 6 PM on a lazy Sunday. Holding court in my belly is some chicken-fried chicken and grits; how does that happen? One of the high points of my day was chatting with my buddy Gai online for like three hours. We talked about many things; among them, how I am to be avoided at all costs. Behold.
Gai : yeah, I can see that... Yeah! stay away from that guy!
domtheturk: he's badass!
domtheturk: *snort*
Gai : don't mess with his fire
domtheturk: that's right bee-otch!
Gai : um hmmm snap snap snap
Fan-effing-tastic. Word to you, my Virginia-livin' mofo.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
Signs.
I mean, for the love of God, what the hell? As if living in so much corn wasn't strange enough for me, now I have to be thinking about the likelihood that I will be savaged by greyish freaks from space. I thought I had to worry about that enough with the whole Allagash Five thing; those aliens, though, were just looking for a good piece of human ass, but these crop circle ones want to harvest us for God knows what. I, for one, don't relish the thought of being turned into man-jerky. Mmm...jerky. But I'm more careful with my jerky consumption now, as once when I bit into a Slim Jim, I encountered something that resembled a bone fragment covered in hair. That didn't stop me from finishing it, though: waste not, want not. I called it the "Jimmy Hoffa" Slim Jim, as there can be no other explanation than that it was a mafia informant I'd consumed. Strangely, that's a more comforting explanation than what it probably was: some unfortunate rodent who fell into the flesh-grinder. Mafia informants deserve to become low-quality meat snacks; how many of my relatives now languish in prison because of them?
Bloomington's a weird place. Today whilst driving to breakfast (Cracker Barrel), I saw a pickup truck that had a big bearded flannel-wearing guy smoking a Marlboro Red (as evidenced by the four empty packs on the dash); he had two bumper-stickers and two slap ribbons on said vehicle. The slap ribbons were "Don't Mess with the U.S." and one pink one for breast cancer awareness; the stickers were "Rednecks for Peace" and "Free Tibet." I saw another one today that looked like rolling plains; the rolling plains were the American flag, of course, and the little saying above said "Heartland at Heart." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Should I fashion one that has a lumberjack, a lobster, and a rusted-out pickup on cinder-blocks that says "North Woods at Heart"?
Thanksgiving quickly approaches. Of course, in the world of commercialism, it's already Def-Con Five for Christmas; Target already has dozens of pre-trimmed Christmas trees in a startling variety of colors on display, and at the mall, Santa now holds court in a cotton-batting Wonderland filled with animatronic deer and elves and squirrels and penguins. It can only mean one thing for me: it's time to start carrying my hip-flask full of whiskey again. Every year, I feel less and less festive when the holidays come around. In about five years, it's going to take me going on a Holiday Bender to even be able to stand a minute of it. Maybe I will just make good on my threat to move to Turkey, where the best holiday is Şeker Bayramı, or Eid, the day after Ramazan (Ramadan) gets over; you eat until you pass out, having fasted for a month. Plus, you give kids candy. So it's Thanksgiving AND Halloween, but I will be you dollars to donkeys that there isn't a media blitz lasting a month and a half extolling the virtues of battery-driven plastic delights and parades with giant fabric helium-filled cartoon characters. Maybe I am wrong: Turks, care to comment? Hmm. Do any of my Turks have the link to this thing?
Bok.
It's 6 PM on a lazy Sunday. Holding court in my belly is some chicken-fried chicken and grits; how does that happen? One of the high points of my day was chatting with my buddy Gai online for like three hours. We talked about many things; among them, how I am to be avoided at all costs. Behold.
Gai : yeah, I can see that... Yeah! stay away from that guy!
domtheturk: he's badass!
domtheturk: *snort*
Gai : don't mess with his fire
domtheturk: that's right bee-otch!
Gai : um hmmm snap snap snap
Fan-effing-tastic. Word to you, my Virginia-livin' mofo.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Friday, November 19, 2004
The sighting.
Today, one of my coworkers and one of my most loyal "Life in the Corn" readers, Jody, had her birthday. So, of course, since our office is wont to do things like this, we all took her out to lunch. (Ne mutlu doğum günü, Jody!)
You can see where this is going.
Oh yes.
The Chow Bar.
You all may be wondering why I keep going back if I know that I can as easily be served street-grade cocaine-water as shrimp lo mein; the answer is simple. BECAUSE I WANT TO. Yes. You can't stop me! It's greasy! It's authentic! And as long as I stay away from the "hot" tea, all should be OK. Of course, the temptation is great. Other customers were brought those small, white teapots and tiny teacups and I wanted to shout to them that they were damaging any chance any of them had for making a child one day, or scoring well on a standardized, culturally-biased exam, or staying meaningfully employed, what with all the "public service" they would be doing under railroad trestles in the wee hours for some good smack. But I held back: humans need to learn lessons, and that was one that Brooke and I, God love us, learned the hard way. From the kitchen, the teapots sang to me in their stilted Engrish, but I had more than fifteen people who (I hope!) would have smacked the cup out of my trembling hands as I lifted it to my increasingly furry face.
Whilst cavorting in the merry gaity of Chinese buffet-ness, Brooke noticed something by the window. More like it, someone. Someone very... special. It was none other than the international student who had, at length, asked her to go out with him despite the fact that she is, oh, I dunno, BLISSFULLY MARRIED. Time and time again, Brooke dealt with the student with poise, grace and not a little bit of stern wording; time and time again, the inappropriateness continued.
"It's like you said in your 'blog about monkeys", Brooke told me as we walked back to the OIS; she was flanked, at the time, by both myself (hairy Mediterranean mofo) and my roommate, Tony (ex-Navy and ex-Memphis police officer). "You hate monkeys because you just can't reason with them, and that's why they are dangerous."
First: someone actually used a passage from my 'blog in a relevant and meaningful way! Now I can be assumed to heaven; my work is complete!
Second: True dat, sistah.
I think the people who are most dangerous in this world are the ones who just won't, for the love of the weeping baby Jesus in the manger, LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. "People hear what they want to hear", you all grumble, and yes, that's true. But when what someone wants to hear is something that someone else feels strongly against, bad things happen. How many women have been assaulted because their attacker wanted to hear "yes, yes" when they were saying "get the eff away from me, you creepy ass!"...?
But know this: if you eff with someone I care about, what will happen to you is what happened to Brooke's special friend. Namely, my roommate and I will wait for you in the parking lot and we will administer the shiv. You will spend the rest of your "days" decomposing in a shallow grave and a mushroom hunter will find your pathetic remains several years from now, and the only way you'll be identified is from your dental records.
Just food for thought.
Have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
You can see where this is going.
Oh yes.
The Chow Bar.
You all may be wondering why I keep going back if I know that I can as easily be served street-grade cocaine-water as shrimp lo mein; the answer is simple. BECAUSE I WANT TO. Yes. You can't stop me! It's greasy! It's authentic! And as long as I stay away from the "hot" tea, all should be OK. Of course, the temptation is great. Other customers were brought those small, white teapots and tiny teacups and I wanted to shout to them that they were damaging any chance any of them had for making a child one day, or scoring well on a standardized, culturally-biased exam, or staying meaningfully employed, what with all the "public service" they would be doing under railroad trestles in the wee hours for some good smack. But I held back: humans need to learn lessons, and that was one that Brooke and I, God love us, learned the hard way. From the kitchen, the teapots sang to me in their stilted Engrish, but I had more than fifteen people who (I hope!) would have smacked the cup out of my trembling hands as I lifted it to my increasingly furry face.
Whilst cavorting in the merry gaity of Chinese buffet-ness, Brooke noticed something by the window. More like it, someone. Someone very... special. It was none other than the international student who had, at length, asked her to go out with him despite the fact that she is, oh, I dunno, BLISSFULLY MARRIED. Time and time again, Brooke dealt with the student with poise, grace and not a little bit of stern wording; time and time again, the inappropriateness continued.
"It's like you said in your 'blog about monkeys", Brooke told me as we walked back to the OIS; she was flanked, at the time, by both myself (hairy Mediterranean mofo) and my roommate, Tony (ex-Navy and ex-Memphis police officer). "You hate monkeys because you just can't reason with them, and that's why they are dangerous."
First: someone actually used a passage from my 'blog in a relevant and meaningful way! Now I can be assumed to heaven; my work is complete!
Second: True dat, sistah.
I think the people who are most dangerous in this world are the ones who just won't, for the love of the weeping baby Jesus in the manger, LISTEN TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. "People hear what they want to hear", you all grumble, and yes, that's true. But when what someone wants to hear is something that someone else feels strongly against, bad things happen. How many women have been assaulted because their attacker wanted to hear "yes, yes" when they were saying "get the eff away from me, you creepy ass!"...?
But know this: if you eff with someone I care about, what will happen to you is what happened to Brooke's special friend. Namely, my roommate and I will wait for you in the parking lot and we will administer the shiv. You will spend the rest of your "days" decomposing in a shallow grave and a mushroom hunter will find your pathetic remains several years from now, and the only way you'll be identified is from your dental records.
Just food for thought.
Have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
A little goes a long way.
My body is humming like a tuning fork in anticipation for tomorrow. Of course, the crushed Ritalin that I just snorted may have something to do with that. Nonetheless, tomorrow I get to be:
Meeting-Chairperson-for-the-day.
Oh yes. Tomorrow, at work, I get to chair the meeting of the "Core Services Team", which is basically everyone in our office who can't sign a nonimmigrant travel document. This includes the two graduate assistants (Brooke and I) and our fearless assistant, Ahsan; Noemi, the fabulous Spaniard H1-B specialist; the sassy administrative assistant for the office (Bette); the insurance specialist and decoration coordinator extraordinaire, Sally; the two not-yet-insane receptionists (Megan and Laura); the file specialist, aka filing dervish (Josephine); the receptionist for the Dean (Judith); and poor Tim, who is one of the computer dudes.
Hahahaha! Power! They gave me power! It tastes like chicken!
Under a pile of soiled underwear in my closet, quietly reeking, my Ouija board laid sprawled where I flung it after my last encounter. As my room filled with the stench of the crypt and the ozone-smell of a summer thunderstorm, I summoned "Mitch", who initially demanded sacrifice. I opened a bag of chips (Krunchers) and tossed a few onto the board where they vaporized instantaneously. Turns out "Mitch" went to India for a week to see the Taj Mahal; thankfully, he had repatriation insurance. "Delhi belly" can kill you if you are already a heroin addict.
Me: So, "Mitch", ate some of that street food, huh? Or was it unwashed lettuce? Perchance some ice in a frothy mango lassi?
"Mitch": I...l...o...o...k...e...d...l...i...k...e...I...w...a...s...p...r...e...g...g...e...r...s.
Me: I hear that when your belly is distended because it's full of parasites, that happens. Bet that was a good time. So, "Mitch", I am chairing a meeting tomorrow. How can I be a good chairperson? What should I do? Also, how is it that people who aren't possessed of an extra chromosome can watch "The Biggest Loser?"
"Mitch": J...u...s...t...b...e...y...o...u...r...s...e...l...f.
Me: Now, "Mitch", you're pissing me off. Remember: I have the Krunchers. Don't make me summon someone cool, like Pol Pot.
"Mitch": W..h...a...t...g...o...o...d...w...o...u...l...d...t...h...a...t...d..o...?...
Y...o...u...d...o...n...t...s...p...e...a...k...K...h...m...e...r.
Me: Well, apparently I speak fluent "Dumbass", because I am in full franchise of this conversation.
"Mitch": Y...o...u...l...l...m...a...k...e...a...g...o...o...d...d...e...s...p...o...t.
Me: That's more like it, bitch. Here's another load of chips for your perpetually emptying belly.
"Mitch" later on told me (after half a bag of chips; honestly, I began to wonder if I really had Sally Struthers out there in Dead People Who Get Bored Land) that the reason people watch "The Biggest Loser" is because, quite simply, humanity is doomed, so incredibly doomed. Anthropologists are excavating mass graves in the forests of Europe that will be used as evidence for genocide; paramilitary death squads rove the equatorial rain-forests of Sub-Saharan Africa; Buddhist monks are dousing themselves in kerosene and setting themselves ablaze protesting China's continued rape of Tibet; somewhere in the West Bank, the power struggle for a country that doesn' t even exist yet rages; and people are out there trying to buy a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich that has the face of the Virgin Mary seared into it by a $3.99 Wal*Mart Special frying-pan.
It's a measure of comfort that I am not a drinking man. *Muffled chortle* OK, even I, master of deadpan, couldn't pull that one off. There's one hard cider left in repose in my fridge; with any luck, my latent telekinetic powers have already opened it and will soon drag it to my side.
Till tomorrow,
Dom
PS. No really! You don't have to post! I hate it when people post! Makes me gag! *tear*
Meeting-Chairperson-for-the-day.
Oh yes. Tomorrow, at work, I get to chair the meeting of the "Core Services Team", which is basically everyone in our office who can't sign a nonimmigrant travel document. This includes the two graduate assistants (Brooke and I) and our fearless assistant, Ahsan; Noemi, the fabulous Spaniard H1-B specialist; the sassy administrative assistant for the office (Bette); the insurance specialist and decoration coordinator extraordinaire, Sally; the two not-yet-insane receptionists (Megan and Laura); the file specialist, aka filing dervish (Josephine); the receptionist for the Dean (Judith); and poor Tim, who is one of the computer dudes.
Hahahaha! Power! They gave me power! It tastes like chicken!
Under a pile of soiled underwear in my closet, quietly reeking, my Ouija board laid sprawled where I flung it after my last encounter. As my room filled with the stench of the crypt and the ozone-smell of a summer thunderstorm, I summoned "Mitch", who initially demanded sacrifice. I opened a bag of chips (Krunchers) and tossed a few onto the board where they vaporized instantaneously. Turns out "Mitch" went to India for a week to see the Taj Mahal; thankfully, he had repatriation insurance. "Delhi belly" can kill you if you are already a heroin addict.
Me: So, "Mitch", ate some of that street food, huh? Or was it unwashed lettuce? Perchance some ice in a frothy mango lassi?
"Mitch": I...l...o...o...k...e...d...l...i...k...e...I...w...a...s...p...r...e...g...g...e...r...s.
Me: I hear that when your belly is distended because it's full of parasites, that happens. Bet that was a good time. So, "Mitch", I am chairing a meeting tomorrow. How can I be a good chairperson? What should I do? Also, how is it that people who aren't possessed of an extra chromosome can watch "The Biggest Loser?"
"Mitch": J...u...s...t...b...e...y...o...u...r...s...e...l...f.
Me: Now, "Mitch", you're pissing me off. Remember: I have the Krunchers. Don't make me summon someone cool, like Pol Pot.
"Mitch": W..h...a...t...g...o...o...d...w...o...u...l...d...t...h...a...t...d..o...?...
Y...o...u...d...o...n...t...s...p...e...a...k...K...h...m...e...r.
Me: Well, apparently I speak fluent "Dumbass", because I am in full franchise of this conversation.
"Mitch": Y...o...u...l...l...m...a...k...e...a...g...o...o...d...d...e...s...p...o...t.
Me: That's more like it, bitch. Here's another load of chips for your perpetually emptying belly.
"Mitch" later on told me (after half a bag of chips; honestly, I began to wonder if I really had Sally Struthers out there in Dead People Who Get Bored Land) that the reason people watch "The Biggest Loser" is because, quite simply, humanity is doomed, so incredibly doomed. Anthropologists are excavating mass graves in the forests of Europe that will be used as evidence for genocide; paramilitary death squads rove the equatorial rain-forests of Sub-Saharan Africa; Buddhist monks are dousing themselves in kerosene and setting themselves ablaze protesting China's continued rape of Tibet; somewhere in the West Bank, the power struggle for a country that doesn' t even exist yet rages; and people are out there trying to buy a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich that has the face of the Virgin Mary seared into it by a $3.99 Wal*Mart Special frying-pan.
It's a measure of comfort that I am not a drinking man. *Muffled chortle* OK, even I, master of deadpan, couldn't pull that one off. There's one hard cider left in repose in my fridge; with any luck, my latent telekinetic powers have already opened it and will soon drag it to my side.
Till tomorrow,
Dom
PS. No really! You don't have to post! I hate it when people post! Makes me gag! *tear*
The grilled cheese sandwich.
Today, whilst attempting to be an upstanding citizen of the world, I went to CNN online to find out what's happening outside the corn (what's happening in the corn, you ask? Not a whole lot, let me tell you). Apparently a woman has gone on EBay to sell a used grilled cheese sandwich that she alleges bears the face of the Virgin Mary. She made it, she says, without butter or oil, and when she went to bite it (succeeding in that endeavor only once), she found the face of the Virgin Mary staring back at her. So, she did what any of us would do:
She packed it in cotton balls and has kept it for a decade.
The bidding now is up to tens of thousands of dollars. It's all I can do not to curl into a ball and weep like a little Londonian during the Blitz.
How does this happen? I mean, you hear about this kind of thing all the time. Flash to:
San Salvador: A young woman peeling yams finds one that is shaped just like Saint Anthony of Padua. She immediately erects a shrine, and several miracles are attributed to the yam, such as her not burning her shanty down in an unfortunate grease fire whilst cooking the midday tortillas.
Some unpronounceable village in France: A young woman finds a sword in a field while laying in the tall grass. A voice tells her that she is to go forth and save France from godlessness, and that in doing so, she'd likely be turned into a smoldering pile of cremains. Oh wait, that's Joan d'Arc. No, some guy in a field finds a rock by a stream that resembles Saint Cecelia, patroness of church music and whose botched beheading is martyrdom lore. He is suddenly able to play the organ, where he was not able to do so before.
In the shadow of Popocatepetl: Several small girls in a small town notice that the statue of John the Baptist weeps when they have been bad. So they all shave their heads, don sackcloth and go to live in a nunnery.
The list goes on and on. I myself have a stain in my bathtub that I bleach every now and again (when I start getting a foot fungus) that resembles the profile of Mao Zedong. Lately I have been catching myself being nasty to Taiwanese people, and further, I have been using phrases like "Praise Domonic Thought" and carrying a little red, bound copy of this 'blog and holding it in people's faces. When they squirm, I say things like "Down with Cow Demons and Snake Spirits" and "women hold up half the sky" and "better red than dead."
As a kid, growing up surrounded by stories of the saints and their miracles, I found them to be far more intriguing than most people my age at the time. Mostly, I was interested (morbidly, of course) in how they died: the way early Christians were martyred is testament to the depravity of the culture that was performing the execution. Rolled down a hill on a spiked wheel, fed to ravenous savage cats, flayed alive, crucified upside-down, suffocated in ovens, dipped in tar and set on fire to light midnight dinner parties, you know, nice, simple stuff like that. The part of me that cherishes ritual delights in things like the clot of blood held in the Cathedral of San Gennaro in Naples, which liquifies each year at Easter if the city of Naples is going to be protected from Vesuvius by the Saint that year. In 1944, the clot did not liquify... and Vesuvius erupted during the Allied liberation of the city. Interesting.
But damn! A grilled cheese sandwich? That bitch is crazy.
I have to go now. The stain in my bathtub is calling out to the proletariat to come and bathe the stink of capitalism off and to embrace pure thought. Mao may be a mummified, waxy corpse propped up in the Great Hall of the People off Tiananmen, but he lives here, still, and asks that I not eat so much Mexican.
Off to go burn in Hell.
Have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
She packed it in cotton balls and has kept it for a decade.
The bidding now is up to tens of thousands of dollars. It's all I can do not to curl into a ball and weep like a little Londonian during the Blitz.
How does this happen? I mean, you hear about this kind of thing all the time. Flash to:
San Salvador: A young woman peeling yams finds one that is shaped just like Saint Anthony of Padua. She immediately erects a shrine, and several miracles are attributed to the yam, such as her not burning her shanty down in an unfortunate grease fire whilst cooking the midday tortillas.
Some unpronounceable village in France: A young woman finds a sword in a field while laying in the tall grass. A voice tells her that she is to go forth and save France from godlessness, and that in doing so, she'd likely be turned into a smoldering pile of cremains. Oh wait, that's Joan d'Arc. No, some guy in a field finds a rock by a stream that resembles Saint Cecelia, patroness of church music and whose botched beheading is martyrdom lore. He is suddenly able to play the organ, where he was not able to do so before.
In the shadow of Popocatepetl: Several small girls in a small town notice that the statue of John the Baptist weeps when they have been bad. So they all shave their heads, don sackcloth and go to live in a nunnery.
The list goes on and on. I myself have a stain in my bathtub that I bleach every now and again (when I start getting a foot fungus) that resembles the profile of Mao Zedong. Lately I have been catching myself being nasty to Taiwanese people, and further, I have been using phrases like "Praise Domonic Thought" and carrying a little red, bound copy of this 'blog and holding it in people's faces. When they squirm, I say things like "Down with Cow Demons and Snake Spirits" and "women hold up half the sky" and "better red than dead."
As a kid, growing up surrounded by stories of the saints and their miracles, I found them to be far more intriguing than most people my age at the time. Mostly, I was interested (morbidly, of course) in how they died: the way early Christians were martyred is testament to the depravity of the culture that was performing the execution. Rolled down a hill on a spiked wheel, fed to ravenous savage cats, flayed alive, crucified upside-down, suffocated in ovens, dipped in tar and set on fire to light midnight dinner parties, you know, nice, simple stuff like that. The part of me that cherishes ritual delights in things like the clot of blood held in the Cathedral of San Gennaro in Naples, which liquifies each year at Easter if the city of Naples is going to be protected from Vesuvius by the Saint that year. In 1944, the clot did not liquify... and Vesuvius erupted during the Allied liberation of the city. Interesting.
But damn! A grilled cheese sandwich? That bitch is crazy.
I have to go now. The stain in my bathtub is calling out to the proletariat to come and bathe the stink of capitalism off and to embrace pure thought. Mao may be a mummified, waxy corpse propped up in the Great Hall of the People off Tiananmen, but he lives here, still, and asks that I not eat so much Mexican.
Off to go burn in Hell.
Have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
Monday, November 15, 2004
The lost sound.
Sometimes you encounter people who make you think: Hmm.
Right now, in my computer's media player, is a CD produced by a group of Turks who got together and thought: I bet that the Ottomans played weird instruments that no longer exist. Instead of doing what most of us would do, which is then immediately turn on a rerun of Law and Order, these people got together, pored through five and six hundred year old manuscripts in the world's great Ottoman reliquaries, found blueprints on how to make the instruments, and then, uh, made them and taught themselves how to play them. The result: Ottoman divan music that hasn't been heard since the late 1600s. It's inspiring.
It's also depressing: tonight, as I write this here 'blog, I don't think I could muster enough gusto to do my French homework, let alone create a lost sound. What I have is this 'blog. I could cry.
Muahahahahahahahha.
Today I was reminded of how I used to work at the Holiday Inn in abject servitude for menial pay to fund my trip to Italy and Greece while I was in high school. While working there, Stephen King, the undisputed lord of NorthCentral Maine, invited his band (the Rockbottom Remainders) to come and stay with him in the Pine Tree State for a few days. Instead of putting these people up in his home, he inexplicably had them stay in the suites of the Holiday Inn. They were, and I am so not even close to kidding:
Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, among other novels about Chinese women in the U.S.
Warren Zevon, singer of the song Werewolves of London. Oh, come on, you know the one.
And the man for whom I owe my sense of humor:
Dave Barry.
Yes. Dave Barry. I had to have his autograph, but being seventeen and geeky looking, I just couldn't ask him. So, I had one of my coworkers, who has no qualms about these kinds of things, ask him for me. I stood there and waved like a retarded chimp when she pointed at me. She came back to me with a red Sharpie and his autograph, which read:
To Dom, my idol -- Dave Barry.
I have the pen still. I also have Warren Zevon's guitar pick. But best of all: when I performed the Haitian chicken sacrifice upon the pen, I was filled with Dave Barry's energy and his sense of humor. Just think: you all have a crushed monkey's paw, some cayenne pepper and a dead chicken to thank for this blog.
I have to go to bed before I pass the hell out.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
Right now, in my computer's media player, is a CD produced by a group of Turks who got together and thought: I bet that the Ottomans played weird instruments that no longer exist. Instead of doing what most of us would do, which is then immediately turn on a rerun of Law and Order, these people got together, pored through five and six hundred year old manuscripts in the world's great Ottoman reliquaries, found blueprints on how to make the instruments, and then, uh, made them and taught themselves how to play them. The result: Ottoman divan music that hasn't been heard since the late 1600s. It's inspiring.
It's also depressing: tonight, as I write this here 'blog, I don't think I could muster enough gusto to do my French homework, let alone create a lost sound. What I have is this 'blog. I could cry.
Muahahahahahahahha.
Today I was reminded of how I used to work at the Holiday Inn in abject servitude for menial pay to fund my trip to Italy and Greece while I was in high school. While working there, Stephen King, the undisputed lord of NorthCentral Maine, invited his band (the Rockbottom Remainders) to come and stay with him in the Pine Tree State for a few days. Instead of putting these people up in his home, he inexplicably had them stay in the suites of the Holiday Inn. They were, and I am so not even close to kidding:
Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, among other novels about Chinese women in the U.S.
Warren Zevon, singer of the song Werewolves of London. Oh, come on, you know the one.
And the man for whom I owe my sense of humor:
Dave Barry.
Yes. Dave Barry. I had to have his autograph, but being seventeen and geeky looking, I just couldn't ask him. So, I had one of my coworkers, who has no qualms about these kinds of things, ask him for me. I stood there and waved like a retarded chimp when she pointed at me. She came back to me with a red Sharpie and his autograph, which read:
To Dom, my idol -- Dave Barry.
I have the pen still. I also have Warren Zevon's guitar pick. But best of all: when I performed the Haitian chicken sacrifice upon the pen, I was filled with Dave Barry's energy and his sense of humor. Just think: you all have a crushed monkey's paw, some cayenne pepper and a dead chicken to thank for this blog.
I have to go to bed before I pass the hell out.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
Sunday, November 14, 2004
The scene of the crime.
Yesterday, I got a lunch invitation. Where do you wish to go, I pray? asked my invitor. Many places came to mind, but most were either expensive or, uh, weird. Whilst showering before said meeting, I could hear the faint whisper of that small white teapot. It was singing to me.
So wild, standing there, with her hands in her hair
I can’t help remember just where she touched me
There’s still no face here in her place
So cool, she was like jazz on a summer’s day
Music, high and sweet, then she just blew away
Now she can’t be that warm with the wind in her arms
Valerie, call on me-call on me, Valerie
Come and see me-I’m the same boy I used to be
Love songs fill the night, but they don’t tell it all
About how lovers cry out just like they’re dying
Her cries hang there in time somewhere
Someday, some good wind may blow her back to me
Some night I may hear her like she used to be
No it can’t be that warm with the wind in her arms
So cool, she was like jazz on a summer’s day
Music, high and sweet, then she just blew away
Don’t tell me you’re warm with the wind in your arms
Unlike Odysseus, who had (apparently) a ready supply of beeswax with which he could entomb his crew's ears, I got nuthin'. I called my friend and told him that we would be going to Chow Bar.
*audible gasp*
I had to know! I had to know if it really was the tea or not! Brooke HAD, I thought, tried a spoonful of my Indonesian fried rice, and since she is like a quarter of my weight, it would have gotten her all effed up first. So I went. I got the Indonesian fried rice. From the kitchen, the teapot crooned sweetly to me to suckle upon its evil teat of goodness. I thought to the delightful conversation I was having, and I realized suddenly: I bet he can't hear that teapot. If he did, he wasn't saying anything. So I ignored it, I didn't get incredibly, 1970s hash-bong-filled-with-rum high. As I walked out into a bright sunny Saturday, I thought I could hear a muffled weeping.
The highlight of my day today (Sunday) has been, so far, watching the Blair Witch Project in my darkened room under a flannel blankie with some pine-nut couscous. It was divine. Well, except for the part where I shriek, every time I watch the damn movie, at the end. You all know the part. If you don't, I'm not going to be the one to spoil THAT surprise. Once, when I took my lungfish Elizabeth to see the Sixth Sense in Bangor, these two very loud women sat behind us and commented quite extensively at every single goddamn thing that happened. About twenty minutes into it, one of the girls turned to the other and said:
G1: "Girl, ain't you be knowin' the secret yet?"
G2: "Bitch, tell me!"
G1: "Damn, ho, what? Choo been eatin' brain tumors for breakfast?"
G2: "I'm gonna cut'choo real bad it you don't front up."
G1: "Bitch, he dead!"
My proposal about this kind of thing is as follows. I believe that, when I become President (VOTE DOM 2016!), I will pass a law that allows people who spoil movie secrets in public to get toilet swirlies in truck-stop bathrooms that haven't been swabbed since Harry Truman's administration. There will be a special van parked outside every movie theater, you know, like one of those vans that animal control uses, with a sad-face with poo in his hair emblazoned on the side as a warning. My crack teams would scout out the foulest bathrooms and the guilty would be taken in twist-tie handcuffs for their sentencing. Same goes for people who talk the whole way through movies. They would be taken, instead, to "Etiquitte Farms", where they would sit in a mock-movie theater with electrodes attached to very private parts, and everytime they would even crunch their popcorn obnoxiously enough electricty to light a giant redneck Christmas tree for an hour would be passed through them.
I also have very...special...feelings about people who use "Old English" for their store/establishment names. Instances of the use of "ye" and "olde" and "shoppe" seem to be on the rise, much like rise in criminal activity (social degeneration at work? food for thought). My proposal is thus: for each use of an "Old English"-ism, I will tax the property owner $25,000 as a flat-tax: I'll call it the "Officious Use of Antiquated Spelling", or the OUAS, tax. (That's WASS prounounced, by the way.) So, in practice:
Ye Shop: $25,000
Ye Olde Shop: $50,000
Ye Olde Tyme Shop: $75,000
Ye Olde Tyme Barne Shoppe: The proprietor would be removed by force from the establishment and would be summarily executed in front of it. Four "Old English" words are quite enough, don't you think?
Oh, come now, you think me fascist, don't you? Repressive, Draconian? People, understand this:
You don't know the half of it.
Well, I am off. I promise you this, my devoted few, I shall endeavor to be more post-y this week; last week was quite a rank one. My bum is still tender.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
So wild, standing there, with her hands in her hair
I can’t help remember just where she touched me
There’s still no face here in her place
So cool, she was like jazz on a summer’s day
Music, high and sweet, then she just blew away
Now she can’t be that warm with the wind in her arms
Valerie, call on me-call on me, Valerie
Come and see me-I’m the same boy I used to be
Love songs fill the night, but they don’t tell it all
About how lovers cry out just like they’re dying
Her cries hang there in time somewhere
Someday, some good wind may blow her back to me
Some night I may hear her like she used to be
No it can’t be that warm with the wind in her arms
So cool, she was like jazz on a summer’s day
Music, high and sweet, then she just blew away
Don’t tell me you’re warm with the wind in your arms
Unlike Odysseus, who had (apparently) a ready supply of beeswax with which he could entomb his crew's ears, I got nuthin'. I called my friend and told him that we would be going to Chow Bar.
*audible gasp*
I had to know! I had to know if it really was the tea or not! Brooke HAD, I thought, tried a spoonful of my Indonesian fried rice, and since she is like a quarter of my weight, it would have gotten her all effed up first. So I went. I got the Indonesian fried rice. From the kitchen, the teapot crooned sweetly to me to suckle upon its evil teat of goodness. I thought to the delightful conversation I was having, and I realized suddenly: I bet he can't hear that teapot. If he did, he wasn't saying anything. So I ignored it, I didn't get incredibly, 1970s hash-bong-filled-with-rum high. As I walked out into a bright sunny Saturday, I thought I could hear a muffled weeping.
The highlight of my day today (Sunday) has been, so far, watching the Blair Witch Project in my darkened room under a flannel blankie with some pine-nut couscous. It was divine. Well, except for the part where I shriek, every time I watch the damn movie, at the end. You all know the part. If you don't, I'm not going to be the one to spoil THAT surprise. Once, when I took my lungfish Elizabeth to see the Sixth Sense in Bangor, these two very loud women sat behind us and commented quite extensively at every single goddamn thing that happened. About twenty minutes into it, one of the girls turned to the other and said:
G1: "Girl, ain't you be knowin' the secret yet?"
G2: "Bitch, tell me!"
G1: "Damn, ho, what? Choo been eatin' brain tumors for breakfast?"
G2: "I'm gonna cut'choo real bad it you don't front up."
G1: "Bitch, he dead!"
My proposal about this kind of thing is as follows. I believe that, when I become President (VOTE DOM 2016!), I will pass a law that allows people who spoil movie secrets in public to get toilet swirlies in truck-stop bathrooms that haven't been swabbed since Harry Truman's administration. There will be a special van parked outside every movie theater, you know, like one of those vans that animal control uses, with a sad-face with poo in his hair emblazoned on the side as a warning. My crack teams would scout out the foulest bathrooms and the guilty would be taken in twist-tie handcuffs for their sentencing. Same goes for people who talk the whole way through movies. They would be taken, instead, to "Etiquitte Farms", where they would sit in a mock-movie theater with electrodes attached to very private parts, and everytime they would even crunch their popcorn obnoxiously enough electricty to light a giant redneck Christmas tree for an hour would be passed through them.
I also have very...special...feelings about people who use "Old English" for their store/establishment names. Instances of the use of "ye" and "olde" and "shoppe" seem to be on the rise, much like rise in criminal activity (social degeneration at work? food for thought). My proposal is thus: for each use of an "Old English"-ism, I will tax the property owner $25,000 as a flat-tax: I'll call it the "Officious Use of Antiquated Spelling", or the OUAS, tax. (That's WASS prounounced, by the way.) So, in practice:
Ye Shop: $25,000
Ye Olde Shop: $50,000
Ye Olde Tyme Shop: $75,000
Ye Olde Tyme Barne Shoppe: The proprietor would be removed by force from the establishment and would be summarily executed in front of it. Four "Old English" words are quite enough, don't you think?
Oh, come now, you think me fascist, don't you? Repressive, Draconian? People, understand this:
You don't know the half of it.
Well, I am off. I promise you this, my devoted few, I shall endeavor to be more post-y this week; last week was quite a rank one. My bum is still tender.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
Friday, November 12, 2004
Yeşil çayı Cehennemden.
"The green tea from Hell."
So: yesterday, I and my partner-in-crime Brooke from the Front Desk (Go Phi Delta Gamma!) decided that, after our one shared shift a week, we would retire to the nearby Chow Bar for sustenance, as we are wont to do. Brooke got some pork noodle soup to soothe her scratchy throat, and I got the Indonesian fried rice, which I got apparently because I had a need to immediately clear my sinuses. To further her campaign to keep from becoming ill, Brooke also ordered a pot of "hot" tea as opposed to the "green" tea. When it came, the tea was, indeed, green: sticks and leaves and grass-clippings and weeds and marine algae held court in the six-thousand-degree water. We looked at it with apprehension, but they were busy, and the tea had already come much later than the food, so Brooke poured herself a cup. She remarked that it tasted like the nori seaweed wrappers that come with sushi, but kept drinking. I got a cup and began to drink as well.
After two cups to my one, Brooke started to act funny. She began to stare into space and her jaw slackened a little. Her eyes began to lose focus. I continued to eat my rice, laden as it was with death-fire-pepper, and then, just as I was about to finish, I thought: why can't I grip my spoon?
Also: do I still have legs? Am I saying either of these things out loud?
I alerted Brooke to the fact that I was not doing so well. We described our symptoms to each other and quickly determined that the only explanation possible was that the tea, which was the "hot" as opposed to the "green" despite the color was nothing more than opium bong-water.
We left hastily before we could drink anymore of the tea, yet I will be the first to admit it: I looked at that little white teapot longingly as I left. In Mandarin-accented English, it sang to me:
Hear the night music playing? don’t you know what it’s saying?
We should feel it together forever
Feel the beat and just hold on to the sweet midnight flowing
Feel the music inside you, I’ll be there too
Now’s the time that our dreams are finally coming true
Feels so good we’re crying
Now’s the time when it’s down to me and you
Spread these wings - we’ll be flying
Don’t you know what the night can do?
Don’t you know when it’s touching you?
Don’t you know what the night can do?
The damn evil teapot knew it: it knew of my weakness for Steve Winwood. Like sirens luring Odysseus to his death on the rocks, the teapot knew I could scarcely resist his song. The cold rain outside, though, brought me forth from my trance and we began to walk, and then I saw it:
It was a ten pound squirrel.
So, since I didn't have the mental capacity to say, "Furry gray mammal, member of the rodentia phylum, clearly engorged before his winter's hibernation period", I shouted "Oh my GOD look at that fat squirrel!" About that simple comment, we laughed for about ten minutes until I felt the gorge come to the top of my throat. I was pretty much baked until I showered when I got home. That was a good thing: I later on that evening went to meet a new buddy for dinner, and it just doesn't do to make THAT kind of impression.
So, if you are reading this and are thinking about getting the "hot" tea at Chow Bar, think carefully.
Are you, or might you become, heavy with child?
Are you currently on another controlled substance that might, in tandem, make you think you are the rightful incarnation of the Dalai Lama?
Do you have a job that requires urine samples?
Are you Asian?
Do you have megalomaniac thoughts that preoccupy your mind?
But hey, if it's your bag, God speed. I am sure someone's ready and willing to scoop heroin into opium-water for ya when you get there.
Those Jesus-freaks are protesting outside the Sample Gates again, and thankfully my bladder's full. Let's see if the God's Golden Children will take heartily to a "golden shower."
Have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
So: yesterday, I and my partner-in-crime Brooke from the Front Desk (Go Phi Delta Gamma!) decided that, after our one shared shift a week, we would retire to the nearby Chow Bar for sustenance, as we are wont to do. Brooke got some pork noodle soup to soothe her scratchy throat, and I got the Indonesian fried rice, which I got apparently because I had a need to immediately clear my sinuses. To further her campaign to keep from becoming ill, Brooke also ordered a pot of "hot" tea as opposed to the "green" tea. When it came, the tea was, indeed, green: sticks and leaves and grass-clippings and weeds and marine algae held court in the six-thousand-degree water. We looked at it with apprehension, but they were busy, and the tea had already come much later than the food, so Brooke poured herself a cup. She remarked that it tasted like the nori seaweed wrappers that come with sushi, but kept drinking. I got a cup and began to drink as well.
After two cups to my one, Brooke started to act funny. She began to stare into space and her jaw slackened a little. Her eyes began to lose focus. I continued to eat my rice, laden as it was with death-fire-pepper, and then, just as I was about to finish, I thought: why can't I grip my spoon?
Also: do I still have legs? Am I saying either of these things out loud?
I alerted Brooke to the fact that I was not doing so well. We described our symptoms to each other and quickly determined that the only explanation possible was that the tea, which was the "hot" as opposed to the "green" despite the color was nothing more than opium bong-water.
We left hastily before we could drink anymore of the tea, yet I will be the first to admit it: I looked at that little white teapot longingly as I left. In Mandarin-accented English, it sang to me:
Hear the night music playing? don’t you know what it’s saying?
We should feel it together forever
Feel the beat and just hold on to the sweet midnight flowing
Feel the music inside you, I’ll be there too
Now’s the time that our dreams are finally coming true
Feels so good we’re crying
Now’s the time when it’s down to me and you
Spread these wings - we’ll be flying
Don’t you know what the night can do?
Don’t you know when it’s touching you?
Don’t you know what the night can do?
The damn evil teapot knew it: it knew of my weakness for Steve Winwood. Like sirens luring Odysseus to his death on the rocks, the teapot knew I could scarcely resist his song. The cold rain outside, though, brought me forth from my trance and we began to walk, and then I saw it:
It was a ten pound squirrel.
So, since I didn't have the mental capacity to say, "Furry gray mammal, member of the rodentia phylum, clearly engorged before his winter's hibernation period", I shouted "Oh my GOD look at that fat squirrel!" About that simple comment, we laughed for about ten minutes until I felt the gorge come to the top of my throat. I was pretty much baked until I showered when I got home. That was a good thing: I later on that evening went to meet a new buddy for dinner, and it just doesn't do to make THAT kind of impression.
So, if you are reading this and are thinking about getting the "hot" tea at Chow Bar, think carefully.
Are you, or might you become, heavy with child?
Are you currently on another controlled substance that might, in tandem, make you think you are the rightful incarnation of the Dalai Lama?
Do you have a job that requires urine samples?
Are you Asian?
Do you have megalomaniac thoughts that preoccupy your mind?
But hey, if it's your bag, God speed. I am sure someone's ready and willing to scoop heroin into opium-water for ya when you get there.
Those Jesus-freaks are protesting outside the Sample Gates again, and thankfully my bladder's full. Let's see if the God's Golden Children will take heartily to a "golden shower."
Have a great one, Bloomington.
Dom
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
The protest.
Today as I was walking past the wee observatory that holds court in the forest in the middle of the Old Crescent, watching squirrels the size of hale kittens lumber about in their desperate search for winter nutrition, I heard a strange sound. It was a shrill voice crying out on a megaphone. The only word I could catch consistently was "God", and curiostity got the best of me. As I approached I saw some crudely painted signs being held up by white trash townies; surely this was going to be a protest against abortion or something, replete as it would be with pictures of mutilated fetuses and likenings to the Holocaust. Instead, as I got nearer I saw the signs:
No fags in heaven.
Homos, leave Bloomington.
God hates queers.
It was, of course, a protest about the sizeable gay and lesbian population in Bloomington. The ringleader, a man clad in what can only be called a frock, held a Bible high and screamed at passers-by and cars. People were throwing half-full cans of Coke out their windows at the protestors and giving them the finger. Bloomington may be a lot of things, and people may believe what they want, but one thing Bloomington is not is intolerant. The sheer number of people who were retaliating led me to believe that it couldn't only have been gays and lesbians; people who just weren't keen on being intolerant were reacting, and doing so with vigor. I thought to a story I heard about how, in the aftermath of September 11th, a Malaysian woman who wore the headscarf was attacked in Bloomington, and how the people ran out of restaurants and stores to beat the perpetrator to the ground. One man sat on the guy until the police came.
I left before the protest ended, and it is my fervent hope that it ended with rubber bullets and teargas and, perhaps, the liberal use of some unlubricated nightsticks. It was a heartening lesson: outside Bloomington it may be still Indiana, but here in the Republic, people don't put up with shit at all. Martintucky may be only a half-hour's drive away, but it is leagues away when it comes to the quality of people.
I could sure use some Chinese food right about now. Tonight I had a French exam, and it was tragic, oh so tragic, like finding your beloved pet's ear in your yard at the height of pine marten season. (Pine martens: arboreal weasels, endemic to Maine and Eastern Canada).
I need some sleep. I need a hug. And today, I really needed one of them there half-full cans of Coke. One out of three isn't bad.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
No fags in heaven.
Homos, leave Bloomington.
God hates queers.
It was, of course, a protest about the sizeable gay and lesbian population in Bloomington. The ringleader, a man clad in what can only be called a frock, held a Bible high and screamed at passers-by and cars. People were throwing half-full cans of Coke out their windows at the protestors and giving them the finger. Bloomington may be a lot of things, and people may believe what they want, but one thing Bloomington is not is intolerant. The sheer number of people who were retaliating led me to believe that it couldn't only have been gays and lesbians; people who just weren't keen on being intolerant were reacting, and doing so with vigor. I thought to a story I heard about how, in the aftermath of September 11th, a Malaysian woman who wore the headscarf was attacked in Bloomington, and how the people ran out of restaurants and stores to beat the perpetrator to the ground. One man sat on the guy until the police came.
I left before the protest ended, and it is my fervent hope that it ended with rubber bullets and teargas and, perhaps, the liberal use of some unlubricated nightsticks. It was a heartening lesson: outside Bloomington it may be still Indiana, but here in the Republic, people don't put up with shit at all. Martintucky may be only a half-hour's drive away, but it is leagues away when it comes to the quality of people.
I could sure use some Chinese food right about now. Tonight I had a French exam, and it was tragic, oh so tragic, like finding your beloved pet's ear in your yard at the height of pine marten season. (Pine martens: arboreal weasels, endemic to Maine and Eastern Canada).
I need some sleep. I need a hug. And today, I really needed one of them there half-full cans of Coke. One out of three isn't bad.
Good night, Bloomington.
Dom
Monday, November 08, 2004
Song of the seven-year-olds.
In homage to Edward Gorey, I present to you the Perils of Being a Seven-Year Old. Like the Gashlycrumb Tinies, each of these seven-year-olds will be savaged by inappropriate beasts.
B is for Betsy, devoured by boobys.
S is for Sammy, consumed by a squirrel.
Please don't send them there Nice Men with Labcoats after me.
Good night, Indiana.
B is for Betsy, devoured by boobys.
S is for Sammy, consumed by a squirrel.
Please don't send them there Nice Men with Labcoats after me.
Good night, Indiana.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Pirates.
Two years ago I spent an entire year of my life in Piedmont North Carolina, in the capital city of Raleigh (motto: Hey y'all, tobacco shur is one of them there vegetables, ain't it?). One of the more interesting aspects of North Carolina is the legacy of the pirates who prowled the Outer Banks, doing their fun pirate things: raping, pillaging, looting, smelling really really bad, etc. One of the things I genuinely regret in my life was when I saw a shirt in Nag's Head, Outer Banks, that had a wee skull and crossbones and said "Hey, wanna swab my poop deck?" and I didn't buy it immediately. There are tears in the land on that one, my devoted readers. If any of you see that shirt, and if you send it to me, I will send you a good old-fashioned Catholic indulgence, sortof our "Go to Heaven free, do not pass Go." I have that power, oh yes: unbeknownst to all y'all, I am only one step away from being a bona-fide monk. The life of a grad student is a lonely one. There's chanting, lit candles, bad, saltless food and drafty living quarters. All I need is a cruciform and one of them fancy sackcloth robes and I will be all set.
But yes, pirates. They were fun. They got lots of booty.Interestingly, piracy in the modern world is on the rise, especially in East and Southeast Asia, as well as in the Eastern Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. These pirates are far less interesting: their booty is usually Japanese-made televisions and cargoes of foodstuffs. Blackbeard would not have deigned to steal a Sony flat-screen television and a bag of flour, let me tell you. Not very romantic.
Today I thought of a fun game that my friend Jane made up. It's called "Which would you rather have happen to you?" Originally a drinking game, it can also alleviate boredom on car trips so that you don't have to do License-Place Monopoly or "Guess which communicable disease I just contracted at that last truck stop?" The following are actual questions I posed to Jane on our last "Which would you rather have happen to you?" outing.
Would you rather be run through by a pirate or fall from a twelve story building onto steel posts?
Would you rather drink a gallon of warm human urine or eat a bite of a rancid raccoon carcass you happened upon in the forest?
It's a fun game. More sophisticated and far more intriguing is "The Game", which was invented by myself and Elizabeth as a way to torture each other over what we had purchased for each other for the holidays. In "The Game", you must ask questions so oblique as to be utterly irrelevant to the nature of the gift. For example, you could ask "If my gift were a 19th century world leader, who would it be?" but not "what color is it?" One Christmas, Elizabeth told me that my gift would be "ivory" if it were a precious stone/metal/substance. My gift was a dolphin puppet. Why "ivory?" Because the dolphin had teeth. Yes. Nobody but us likes "The Game." That's OK: it's because I believe everyone is jealous of how well Elizabeth and I play it. Nobody can be quite as oblique as we.
Today I turned on the television and there, on the screen, was a creature that made me shriek like a seven-year-old girl who was being pecked to death by blue-footed boobies. It was Charro, whom I had thought had retired to the swamp from which she was spawned. What the hell is she? Why is she so goony looking? Will she come to me in the dark of some night and point a finger of dread reckoning that will shudder me with her be-webbed scaly reptilian hand? Will she gnaw my face off my skull as a snack? It's true, and you heard it here first, since nobody else seems to want to say it: Charro is some sort of upright-walking lizard, and not the cute ones, either. No gecko for Charro. She's like a monitor lizard; you know, one of those ones that can bring down a goat.
Well, I have Turkish to do, and then the bliss of slumber. In my belly is the product of today's soiree that Tony and I put on for a few of his coworkers. It was Loinfest 2004. Tony grilled two giant pork loins on his flame machine and we feasted. Hahahaha, Loinfest. That sounds way dirty.
Goodnight, Indiana.
Dom
But yes, pirates. They were fun. They got lots of booty.
Today I thought of a fun game that my friend Jane made up. It's called "Which would you rather have happen to you?" Originally a drinking game, it can also alleviate boredom on car trips so that you don't have to do License-Place Monopoly or "Guess which communicable disease I just contracted at that last truck stop?" The following are actual questions I posed to Jane on our last "Which would you rather have happen to you?" outing.
Would you rather be run through by a pirate or fall from a twelve story building onto steel posts?
Would you rather drink a gallon of warm human urine or eat a bite of a rancid raccoon carcass you happened upon in the forest?
It's a fun game. More sophisticated and far more intriguing is "The Game", which was invented by myself and Elizabeth as a way to torture each other over what we had purchased for each other for the holidays. In "The Game", you must ask questions so oblique as to be utterly irrelevant to the nature of the gift. For example, you could ask "If my gift were a 19th century world leader, who would it be?" but not "what color is it?" One Christmas, Elizabeth told me that my gift would be "ivory" if it were a precious stone/metal/substance. My gift was a dolphin puppet. Why "ivory?" Because the dolphin had teeth. Yes. Nobody but us likes "The Game." That's OK: it's because I believe everyone is jealous of how well Elizabeth and I play it. Nobody can be quite as oblique as we.
Today I turned on the television and there, on the screen, was a creature that made me shriek like a seven-year-old girl who was being pecked to death by blue-footed boobies. It was Charro, whom I had thought had retired to the swamp from which she was spawned. What the hell is she? Why is she so goony looking? Will she come to me in the dark of some night and point a finger of dread reckoning that will shudder me with her be-webbed scaly reptilian hand? Will she gnaw my face off my skull as a snack? It's true, and you heard it here first, since nobody else seems to want to say it: Charro is some sort of upright-walking lizard, and not the cute ones, either. No gecko for Charro. She's like a monitor lizard; you know, one of those ones that can bring down a goat.
Well, I have Turkish to do, and then the bliss of slumber. In my belly is the product of today's soiree that Tony and I put on for a few of his coworkers. It was Loinfest 2004. Tony grilled two giant pork loins on his flame machine and we feasted. Hahahaha, Loinfest. That sounds way dirty.
Goodnight, Indiana.
Dom
Friday, November 05, 2004
The unicorn.
When I was a little kid, my favorite movie in the whole world was the movie "Legend", which stars Tom Cruise more than a decade before he met Nicole Kidman and more than five years before he had his teeth fixed. Man, that mofo could have eaten an apple through a chain-link fence. Anyway, it's a fun story: Two naive youths nearly manage to eff-up the entire world in their youthful, innocent naivite. There are goblins. There is a Dark Lord, played brilliantly by Tim Curry wearing about three metric tons of makeup and prosthetics. And: there are unicorns. The plot of the movie revolves around how Lily, who is a brainless insolent hussy, decides that she wants to touch a unicorn, and in doing so she manages to lure the beast to his doom, while his mate survives and to keep the sun coming up. I used to think that it was the coolest thing ever that they had real, live unicorns on this movie. How fantastic! Where did they come from? How does one catch one, I mean, besides using a spoiled virgin twit? Now, when I watch the movie, I think: my GOD, how quickly would PETA be on those producer's asses for GLUING HORNS on white horses? Bet that it wasn't that fun water-soluable stuff back in the day.
Yeah. Anyway, today the CEUS Department's students hosted the weekly International Coffee Hour at the Leo Dowling International Center. (CEUS, by the way, is the acronym for "C"entral "EU"rasian "S"tudies, pronounced SOOS.) I got a call and an email earlier this week asking if I would be interested in providing some fun materials about Turkey, which, as a few of you may know, is what I study. I came to the Center with my rug, toys, books, magazines, and photos. As I looked around, I saw that most of the contingencies had at least two people: the Mongolia people, the Uzbekistan people, the Tibet people...and then, me. Oh sure, there are Turks in the department, and people who study Turkish language, but, uh, I am the only Turkish Studies major in this entire institution who was not born and raised in Turkey. The other TWO majors in Turkish Studies are my former and current Turkish language instructors, Züleyha hanım and Abbas bey.
Much like the unicorns of my bad B movie, I've been alone here since I arrived in Bloomington. Oh, I don't mean friend-wise; good Lord, that would be ridiculous for me to say. The friends I have here are one of a few reasons why I haven't left yet. No, I mean another American student who would share in my Turkish-learning woes. Someone who would be up with me all night as we worked through papers, impossible translations and endless cups of coffee and Turkish crack-tea. But ah, well. It warrants a certain amount of celebrity, to be sure. Who, at a school that has a student body measured in the tens of thousands, can say that they, and they alone, are the non-native representation of an area study? Now THAT'S a party conversation-starter.
Off to the bliss of Turkish language slumber.
Good night, Indiana.
Dom
Yeah. Anyway, today the CEUS Department's students hosted the weekly International Coffee Hour at the Leo Dowling International Center. (CEUS, by the way, is the acronym for "C"entral "EU"rasian "S"tudies, pronounced SOOS.) I got a call and an email earlier this week asking if I would be interested in providing some fun materials about Turkey, which, as a few of you may know, is what I study. I came to the Center with my rug, toys, books, magazines, and photos. As I looked around, I saw that most of the contingencies had at least two people: the Mongolia people, the Uzbekistan people, the Tibet people...and then, me. Oh sure, there are Turks in the department, and people who study Turkish language, but, uh, I am the only Turkish Studies major in this entire institution who was not born and raised in Turkey. The other TWO majors in Turkish Studies are my former and current Turkish language instructors, Züleyha hanım and Abbas bey.
Much like the unicorns of my bad B movie, I've been alone here since I arrived in Bloomington. Oh, I don't mean friend-wise; good Lord, that would be ridiculous for me to say. The friends I have here are one of a few reasons why I haven't left yet. No, I mean another American student who would share in my Turkish-learning woes. Someone who would be up with me all night as we worked through papers, impossible translations and endless cups of coffee and Turkish crack-tea. But ah, well. It warrants a certain amount of celebrity, to be sure. Who, at a school that has a student body measured in the tens of thousands, can say that they, and they alone, are the non-native representation of an area study? Now THAT'S a party conversation-starter.
Off to the bliss of Turkish language slumber.
Good night, Indiana.
Dom
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Reasons you should post to my 'blog.
1) I hear that posting prevents you from contracting venereal diseases. How?, you ask in awe. Well, if you are posting to my 'blog, you can't possibly be doing the things that one needs to do to contract said plague unless you've been reading the Kama Sutra too much.
2) Posting makes you lose weight. By moving your fingers, you burn calories, and tons of them. Watch out: you'll be one of those calendar-model-people in days. I myself now have a six-pack and rippling objects in my body, all of which end in -ceps.
3) Posting makes you more attractive. Feeling blue about that boil that has erupted, Mt. Vesuvius-like on your face? Posting will make that seem irrelevant, as the whole world, THE WHOLE WORLD, will know how clever and caring and delightful you are. You'll get marriage proposals from perfect strangers, who are as attractive, if not more, than you. After all, they don't have that boil.
4) Posting is good karma. Want to not have to worry about being reborn as a liver fluke in the next life? Post to my 'blog. So you beat the elderly with sticks and extinguish cigarettes on puppies, but if you post, you'll be A-OK in the next world!
5) The Baby Jesus wants you to. He told me so.
6) Posting will stop global suffering. Really.
7) Domonic will feel loved. Do you really want me to weep enveloped in a small pile of tissues on my cold, cold bed?
Sigh.
Dom
2) Posting makes you lose weight. By moving your fingers, you burn calories, and tons of them. Watch out: you'll be one of those calendar-model-people in days. I myself now have a six-pack and rippling objects in my body, all of which end in -ceps.
3) Posting makes you more attractive. Feeling blue about that boil that has erupted, Mt. Vesuvius-like on your face? Posting will make that seem irrelevant, as the whole world, THE WHOLE WORLD, will know how clever and caring and delightful you are. You'll get marriage proposals from perfect strangers, who are as attractive, if not more, than you. After all, they don't have that boil.
4) Posting is good karma. Want to not have to worry about being reborn as a liver fluke in the next life? Post to my 'blog. So you beat the elderly with sticks and extinguish cigarettes on puppies, but if you post, you'll be A-OK in the next world!
5) The Baby Jesus wants you to. He told me so.
6) Posting will stop global suffering. Really.
7) Domonic will feel loved. Do you really want me to weep enveloped in a small pile of tissues on my cold, cold bed?
Sigh.
Dom
Things I hate.
What a long, wretched, miserable day. I woke up in darkness and went home in it, freshly sodomized by yet another insufferable French lesson and a lengthy, albeit fairly uneventful day in the office, not in that order. I'd like to think that, you know, since I am studying something I am passionate about (the Turkish stuff, if you were high on 'ludes and couldn't guess), that I wouldn't get the sophomore slump. Or would it be senioritis with only two years of grad school? Whatever. Anyway, I thank weeping Jesus on the cross that I have beer in my fridge and Bruce Hornsby to talk me down out of this tree. The election doesn't help, as things aren't looking so swell so far.
As I was walking to the Law School parking lot through the dark Rape Woods in the Old Crescent after French, I thought to things that I hate. Oh, don't get me wrong: most days I am just a fuzzy, happy guy who sees the world with rosy optimism. My bed rests against a wall; there is no wrong side from which to get up. The clowns would have it no other way. Yet:
1) Catfish, eels, hagfish, sucker-fish and sea-lampreys. If I had the money, the time and the lack of conscience necessary to bring about the extinction, nay, the aquatic genocide, of these creatures, I would have them all turned into fertilizer for vast pumpkin patches. When I saw a picture of a sea-lamprey that had nudged it's head into a giant seabass's gill, I thought: how much does a flame-thrower cost? When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream that I was sitting on the commode and a nasty catfish was in there, trying to savage me. And those long summers wading in the Greenbrier River with a miniature trident (a "gig") in the fear that I would encounter a suckerfish weigh heavily on my decision to have them all vaporized with subatomic weaponry.
2) Irish setters. I was savaged by a rabid Irish setter as a wee one. Apparently I had sat upon the beast's favorite chair and in reprisal it tried to snuff me. Even as a child, though, my ninja powers were strong, and the local Chinese restaurant had "pork" for their Moo Shu for a week. I sold that bitch for fi' dolla'. Speaking of...
3) Bad Chinese food. I am a Chinese food buff. I can tell immediately when I go to a Chinese place what the regional specialization is, even if it doesn't say; I think I can safely say that I have eaten in nearly every Chinese place in Eastern Maine. The advent of the Chinese buffet has turned Chinese restauranteurs into whores of Satan. For the almighty dollar they try to pass spaghetti noodles, canned vegetables and soy sauce as "lo mein." I wouldn't feed most of that swill to Ethiopian children for fear that they would sue my ass. Here in Bloomington, the undisputed cultural capital of this, the Crossroads State, there are places that merit my attention, but mostly I eat in some of these places because they are cheap and my friends think it's tasty. Of course, they are all high on glue.
4) Monkeys. I really, really hate monkeys. From the rabid gibbon that shat on its hand and flung it at me in the National Zoo to the capuchin monkey who masturbated for a solid ten minutes in front of a group of inner-city kids (who no doubt then began their own regimen) in the Baltimore Aquarium's "rainforest", monkeys are just plain disgusting. They are also evil. What's more terrifying: serial killer with a scalpel waiting in your darkened backseat to eviscerate you like a trout or a monkey, looking at you with it's beady, Satanic eyes plotting to ravage you with it's cleverly hidden incisors and give you some sort of hantavirus? Give me the psycho anyday; with some reasoning, perhaps some ice-cream and a few reruns of The Golden Girls and a good cry about how his daddy never held him, you can get enough leverage and time to blow his skull off with the bazooka you've hidden in your bathroom. With a monkey, there is no time. It's the monkey or you. I've taken to carrying a baling hook in my sachel just in case.
5) Connecticut. Boy, I am gonna get mail on this one. Pressing on, though, I've lived in Maine for the past...uh...decade now, and let me tell you something: nobody, not anyone, makes people feel like they are barely able to walk erect like the tourists who "rusticate" in Maine every year. OK, granted, all of the New England states have very strong opinions of the others. The breakdown:
Massachusetts: Drivers from this state are affectionately called "Massholes" for a reason. They don't just defy laws of the road; nay, they defy laws of physics. I firmly believe that every person who drives in Mass believes that they alone have any right to be on the road, and consequently, they project that onto how they drive. When I approach Boston from 95 North, as soon as I see the sky lightening (at night) or the skyline (at day), I park my car and refuse to touch it until I go home.
Rhode Island: Rich. White. Yuppie. People. With. Big. Boats.
New Hampshire: Live Free or Die. Well, I choose the sweet Dirt Nap rather than live in Hampy. Sure, there is no tax on anything, but at what cost? Quaint "villages" or cesspools of evil? You be the judge.
Vermont: Tree-hugging hippie freaks who live in a state so sparsely populated that the state capital, Montpelier, has no McDonalds. There are coral atolls in the Pacific that have no permanent human presence that have the Golden Arches.
Maine: Mainers are seen by the other states to be aloof, arrogant, stubborn, and standoffish. These are all true. This is because our state is overrun like a biblical plague with people "from away" the moment the temperature breaks 60 until the frost comes. Go home. Well, give us your money, you flatlanders, THEN go home.
So, Connecticut. I know several people from Connecticut who are lovely people, but wow, they are the exception. I had a man once correct how I said Connecticut. "Conn-ect-ih-cut." I opened the corner of my mouth and let a ribbon of drool snake out to show him that I was only barely educable and he left me alone; he, in his Birkenstocks and those ridiculous golf shorts. My only hope is that he ate a bad lobster (overpriced, too, with all luck) and spent the rest of his vacation hunched, ashen, over a hotel toilet. I also overheard a man ask if they had wine in one of those roadside sea-shanties that cook lobsters by the trap. Come on. They were serving the beasts on paper. No chianti for you, tool. Finally, when I was working at the Holiday Inn once, a woman called me into her room to bitch about its condition. She talked to me like I had an extra chromosome.
"I....want...to....draw....your....attention...to...the....fact....that....we....have....
four....people....and...only....three....towels....See?.....One....two....three!! That....makes....three!!
If I wasn't afraid at the time that I would lose that crappy-ass job I would have given her the finger and sworn at her in six languages.
Sigh.
Well, I just read this over, and before I start sounding like the Unibomber, I will go, get fairly tipsy and do some Turkish homework and pray that tomorrow when I wake up this country has done the right thing.
Good night, Indiana.
Dom
As I was walking to the Law School parking lot through the dark Rape Woods in the Old Crescent after French, I thought to things that I hate. Oh, don't get me wrong: most days I am just a fuzzy, happy guy who sees the world with rosy optimism. My bed rests against a wall; there is no wrong side from which to get up. The clowns would have it no other way. Yet:
1) Catfish, eels, hagfish, sucker-fish and sea-lampreys. If I had the money, the time and the lack of conscience necessary to bring about the extinction, nay, the aquatic genocide, of these creatures, I would have them all turned into fertilizer for vast pumpkin patches. When I saw a picture of a sea-lamprey that had nudged it's head into a giant seabass's gill, I thought: how much does a flame-thrower cost? When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream that I was sitting on the commode and a nasty catfish was in there, trying to savage me. And those long summers wading in the Greenbrier River with a miniature trident (a "gig") in the fear that I would encounter a suckerfish weigh heavily on my decision to have them all vaporized with subatomic weaponry.
2) Irish setters. I was savaged by a rabid Irish setter as a wee one. Apparently I had sat upon the beast's favorite chair and in reprisal it tried to snuff me. Even as a child, though, my ninja powers were strong, and the local Chinese restaurant had "pork" for their Moo Shu for a week. I sold that bitch for fi' dolla'. Speaking of...
3) Bad Chinese food. I am a Chinese food buff. I can tell immediately when I go to a Chinese place what the regional specialization is, even if it doesn't say; I think I can safely say that I have eaten in nearly every Chinese place in Eastern Maine. The advent of the Chinese buffet has turned Chinese restauranteurs into whores of Satan. For the almighty dollar they try to pass spaghetti noodles, canned vegetables and soy sauce as "lo mein." I wouldn't feed most of that swill to Ethiopian children for fear that they would sue my ass. Here in Bloomington, the undisputed cultural capital of this, the Crossroads State, there are places that merit my attention, but mostly I eat in some of these places because they are cheap and my friends think it's tasty. Of course, they are all high on glue.
4) Monkeys. I really, really hate monkeys. From the rabid gibbon that shat on its hand and flung it at me in the National Zoo to the capuchin monkey who masturbated for a solid ten minutes in front of a group of inner-city kids (who no doubt then began their own regimen) in the Baltimore Aquarium's "rainforest", monkeys are just plain disgusting. They are also evil. What's more terrifying: serial killer with a scalpel waiting in your darkened backseat to eviscerate you like a trout or a monkey, looking at you with it's beady, Satanic eyes plotting to ravage you with it's cleverly hidden incisors and give you some sort of hantavirus? Give me the psycho anyday; with some reasoning, perhaps some ice-cream and a few reruns of The Golden Girls and a good cry about how his daddy never held him, you can get enough leverage and time to blow his skull off with the bazooka you've hidden in your bathroom. With a monkey, there is no time. It's the monkey or you. I've taken to carrying a baling hook in my sachel just in case.
5) Connecticut. Boy, I am gonna get mail on this one. Pressing on, though, I've lived in Maine for the past...uh...decade now, and let me tell you something: nobody, not anyone, makes people feel like they are barely able to walk erect like the tourists who "rusticate" in Maine every year. OK, granted, all of the New England states have very strong opinions of the others. The breakdown:
Massachusetts: Drivers from this state are affectionately called "Massholes" for a reason. They don't just defy laws of the road; nay, they defy laws of physics. I firmly believe that every person who drives in Mass believes that they alone have any right to be on the road, and consequently, they project that onto how they drive. When I approach Boston from 95 North, as soon as I see the sky lightening (at night) or the skyline (at day), I park my car and refuse to touch it until I go home.
Rhode Island: Rich. White. Yuppie. People. With. Big. Boats.
New Hampshire: Live Free or Die. Well, I choose the sweet Dirt Nap rather than live in Hampy. Sure, there is no tax on anything, but at what cost? Quaint "villages" or cesspools of evil? You be the judge.
Vermont: Tree-hugging hippie freaks who live in a state so sparsely populated that the state capital, Montpelier, has no McDonalds. There are coral atolls in the Pacific that have no permanent human presence that have the Golden Arches.
Maine: Mainers are seen by the other states to be aloof, arrogant, stubborn, and standoffish. These are all true. This is because our state is overrun like a biblical plague with people "from away" the moment the temperature breaks 60 until the frost comes. Go home. Well, give us your money, you flatlanders, THEN go home.
So, Connecticut. I know several people from Connecticut who are lovely people, but wow, they are the exception. I had a man once correct how I said Connecticut. "Conn-ect-ih-cut." I opened the corner of my mouth and let a ribbon of drool snake out to show him that I was only barely educable and he left me alone; he, in his Birkenstocks and those ridiculous golf shorts. My only hope is that he ate a bad lobster (overpriced, too, with all luck) and spent the rest of his vacation hunched, ashen, over a hotel toilet. I also overheard a man ask if they had wine in one of those roadside sea-shanties that cook lobsters by the trap. Come on. They were serving the beasts on paper. No chianti for you, tool. Finally, when I was working at the Holiday Inn once, a woman called me into her room to bitch about its condition. She talked to me like I had an extra chromosome.
"I....want...to....draw....your....attention...to...the....fact....that....we....have....
four....people....and...only....three....towels....See?.....One....two....three!! That....makes....three!!
If I wasn't afraid at the time that I would lose that crappy-ass job I would have given her the finger and sworn at her in six languages.
Sigh.
Well, I just read this over, and before I start sounding like the Unibomber, I will go, get fairly tipsy and do some Turkish homework and pray that tomorrow when I wake up this country has done the right thing.
Good night, Indiana.
Dom
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Profundity.
Eğer sen bir şey seversen, serbest bırakmalısın. Eğer bu şey dönüyor, bu şey senindir. Eğer bu şey dönmüyor, bu şey hiç senindir.
*dumb American proverb*
*dumb American proverb*
Monday, November 01, 2004
The idea.
Today I was asked how I could make it so that people were "members" of my 'blog. Blogger doesn't have that capability without you being able to make and edit posts, which, uh, is a no-go.
*sound of 'blog being urinated upon territorially*
So, what I propose is this: as a reward for reading, and with the holidays approaching, I thought that I might make something fun for my devoted readers. One, a 'blog that mentions your name and something I make up about you so that your cyber immortality would be assured, and two, a fun shirt I will have screenprinted for you that shamelessly advertises my 'blog, personalized with your fun Dom nickname on the back. Of course, your nickname will be in Turkish, but whatever. It'll be a real English word translated into Turkish for your delight.
Any takers?
Dom
*sound of 'blog being urinated upon territorially*
So, what I propose is this: as a reward for reading, and with the holidays approaching, I thought that I might make something fun for my devoted readers. One, a 'blog that mentions your name and something I make up about you so that your cyber immortality would be assured, and two, a fun shirt I will have screenprinted for you that shamelessly advertises my 'blog, personalized with your fun Dom nickname on the back. Of course, your nickname will be in Turkish, but whatever. It'll be a real English word translated into Turkish for your delight.
Any takers?
Dom
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