Yirmi beş yıl; iki yıl mısır tararlarında.

Twenny-fi' yea', two in t' cornfields.

Alert: this blog contains unfettered crudeness.

As birthdays go, this one was toe-curling, vestigial-tail-waggin', fan-fekkin'-tastic. This, in stark opposition to the birthday I spent in maximum security under the harsh tutelage of a 350 lb Hispanic gentleman named "Penny", whose cheek bore the fancy single tear tattoo I've always dreamed of. "Bitch", he said to me one fine spring day (and meant it!), "you ain't be gettin' this ki'na tattoo 'less you be cuttin' some bitch, a'ight?" As he was saying this, he was fashioning a crude ice-pick out of a humerus; it went without saying that it was human. "Penny" taught me many things, most of which involved the sounds people make when you "cut them" in certain places on their body. Ah, what a happy seventeenth birthday that was. Because I was a minor when the alleged incident took place, I was sprung in only six months. When I left, there was a real single tear on his cheek.

To show people just how bizarre everyone in my life knows me to be, I'm going to list the gifts I received. Randomness: the only way to my heart.

* A chain with a cartouche of my name in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

* A red hooded sweatshirt bearing a single word, COCKS, with a rooster-head below. (South Carolina Gamecocks, of course, you filthy savages.)

* A book of Turkish fairytales.

* A Wichita State University "Shocker" bobblehead; he's now partnered with my Jack Timber bobblehead. Their union is only recognized in my room, as I drafted their marriage license and officiated over their commitment ceremony.

{Aside: a word on "The Shocker." In American English, one can use the word "shocker" for three things: one, a shocker is a bundle of harvested wheat; two, a shocker is slang for something that surprises someone-- "They found three hundred human heads buried under his tulip-patch and it came as a real shocker to his elderly neighbors" --and finally, "the shocker" is a crude hand gesture used by infantile frat-imps and highschool jocks to denote a sexual maneuver. Email me if you want a more... clarion... explanation. }

* A Qu'ran in transliterated Ottoman Turkish.

* A kitchen apron with "You have to believe in something in life. I believe that I will knock back another shot of tequila" written in Spanish on it.

* A t-shirt with the Turkish flag and the American flag side-by-side on the front and the words "Incırlık Air Force Base, Adana, Turkey" on the front; on the back, a DC-10 flying over a map of Turkey and a huge "INCIRLIK" written on it.

* A Polish crossword-puzzle book.

* An oldey-timey cookie-cutter in the shape of Sinterclass (Santa), but he looks like a baleful Byzantine icon.

* A Turkish children's book called "Rat, Frog and the Wide World."

* A windup chicken that you fill with bubblegum eggs; as she walks, she craps eggs out from her bum.

* A clown balloon, an effing delicious clown cake, a clown card, and dozens of clown noses from my coworkers, who know that I fear those we do not speak of. You guys rule.

* A gift certificate to Amazon.com (Marleina! Why you do that, uh? Thank you!)

I also managed to have a beautiful Japanese dinner and Maggie Moo ice-cream. [sigh of besnuggled contentment] My birthday present to myself was skipping French class, of course.

25. A quarter of a century. (sound of hip disintegrating)

Thanks for making it a good one, my minions.

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3/31/05

This morning I woke up at four effing thirty to the sounds of the sky falling. At home in Maine, thunderstorms, rare as they are, are harmless enough; here, I've come to understand that thunderstorms can, uh, kill you. We may have a lot of things: nor'easters, more nor'easters, and vampires--but we don't have tornadoes. (Little known fact: Maine is the only state east of the Mississippi that does not have poisonous serpents.) Last summer, I was subletting a tiny loft apartment about a mile from where I live now. As I was making a miserable dinner (Chef Boyardee out of the can), I heard a strange sound. It got a little louder, and then it was joined by another sound. Then another. And another. Oh oh oh, they were tornado sirens. I looked outside and it was so dark (at 3 PM) that the street lights triggered and came on. As I huddled in a doorway (Boy Scout training!) listening to the unearthly moan and the caroming thunder of the worst thunderstorm I'd ever seen in my whole life, I thought: man, that Chef Boyardee sure is backing up on me. Mother Nature: insolent concubine of the Devil.

Anyway, so since I was up, I decided to do the rational thing: eat 492,000 pretzels. This past Thanksgiving, I went to the wheat (Kansas, as you surely recall) to see the paternal unit. While I was there, I was taken to Sam's Club for purchasing sustenance. One of the items was a barrel of pretzels large enough to embalm a toddler in. This morning, after struggling for so long, my dream was realized: I finished every damn crumb in that barrel, or my name isn't Balthazar.
The question remains, though: what shall I do with the barrel? I'm fresh out of toddlers (they're not in season yet). Should I use it as a planter? Should I fill it with sputum? Aw hell, I'm sure there's a wee one I've stashed SOMEWHERE in my room. Maybe Cuddles has one he can lend me.

Speaking of effed up, with my new stat-counter (see the very bottom of the blog) I can see how it is that people are accessing my blog. To my amazement, my blog is coming up in Google, Yahoo, and other search engines when people are looking for other things. They stumble on my blog and... well, are disappointed. So far, these are the things that people have been searching for upon finding my blog. Apparently, all of these things exist somewhere in here.

"Belorussian + whore"

"lesbian+gets+an+enema"

"Chow+Bar+bloomington" - of course, they got my "Green Tea from Hell" blog...

"anthro mare muscles grow"

"Confucius+once-a-day calendar"

"corn snake for seal in canada"

"i hate turks"

!!!!!! I hate Turks? How in the blue eff did THAT one come up?

Ugh. Well, back to the mines. {fetters!}

I remain, as ever,

Domonic