Famous among dozens
It’s time for my very own personalized action figure. For $250 I could have a mini Mighty Girl with a tiny little cape and tiny white go-go boots. That’s some serious first-world livin’.
3:51 p.m.
As I was rummaging for breakfast this morning, the cupcakes on my counter started to look suspiciously muffinlike. I had an internal debate: Muffin? Oatmeal? Muffin? Oatmeal? Then the inevitable self-reprimand: “MAGGIE. Muffins do not have sprinkles.”
9:52 a.m.
I took an Italian art history course in college. The whole class could be described by something the professor said absently one day, “Today we’re going to talk about another… big church.”
My second favorite art-history moment was when my modern art professor spent half an hour talking about a Mondrian painting before realizing that the slide was in upside down.
6:15 p.m.
EMAIL MOMENT!
Subject: A reporter’s post-holiday laments.
Excerpt:
I am sick at work and awaiting an excruciating article
assignment, which will probably be a New Year’s
resolution, man-on-the-street story. I will have
to go to gyms and ask people why they decided to get
slim for the New Year or track down smokers who may
be willing to quit for the New Year. This is akin to
the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping
stories I’ve had to do the last two years.
If we still used pencils or pens, I would commit
Hari-Kari with one as we speak…maybe this keyboard is
sharp enough. Nope.11:29 a.m.
Going through old magazines, I came across the stupidest headline of 1999: Are Your Nails Ready for Y2K?
“Yeah Bob, I’m out on that Y2K nail compliancy call, and we’ve got a few problems over here. Looks like she’s got on a little Revlon Wine With Everything, but she used an incompatible top coat so it’s chipping. Yeah, and her cuticles are all messed up…”
10:25 a.m.
Found a post on, Small Japanese Notebook that struck me as a concise description of being 16:
“i suddenly don’t like my friends. or a good majority of them.”
5:14 p.m.
I was on the Haight awhile back and overheard a conversation between three men. Two of them had been fighting and one asked the third man his opinion:
“I don’t know Jim, you were servin Tommy with some pretty aggressive tones.”3:34 p.m.
EMAIL MOMENT!
Subject: Friend from college writes, filling me in on the friends he saw over Christmas break.
Excerpt:
…And I swear my friend Mike
smoked about fourteen acres of hash down in Brazil.
Like I don’t know if he’s got a complete sentence in
him anymore. But 99 percent of my friends are tops. Including
Mike, who may well be able to read without moving
his lips by April.10:40 a.m.
My friend Katy is 5’2″, beautiful, and blessed with a tangle of curly black hair. I spent New Year’s Eve with her, and every ten minutes or so a new guy noticed her:
“Awwww, I like ’em petite!”
“Ooo. I’ve had wet dreams about that hair.”
“Hello there, little girl. Wanna sit on my lap?”
Like she was going to saunter up, plop down on his lap, and wrap her legs around him. “Oh, Romeo. Don’t be so coy. (Insert bubbling laughter.)” Glah! By the end of the night I felt like my brain needed a shower, and none of it was even directed at me.
2:32 p.m.
My friend Sam is leaving San Francisco, and he made some good points in his farewell note. Another one bites the dust:
WHEREAS, despite the greatly-exaggerated demise of the New Economy,
housing prices in San Francisco are still the second-highest in the world,
andWHEREAS the Bay Area is swimming in cultural events which are all
within driving distance, but which lack parking anywhere within the same zip
code, andWHEREAS we spend over two hours commuting each day, and
WHEREAS we and two cats would like to move in together and have a
front porch for something under $1000 a month, andWHEREAS it might be nice to purchase a house within the next five
years without a Tokyo-style mortgage, andWE THE UNDERSIGNED (to wit, my girlfriend and I) do hereby declare:
YEA, VERILY, we are getting the Duck out of fodge.
12:07 a.m.
Oooh Virtual Bubble Wrap. Such satisfying pop-like sounds. Must move hand away from mouse to wipe moronic drool from chin.
10:27 a.m.
Jesus Dress Up is an online paper-doll of Jesus on the cross. Ever so tasteful. (Thank you Mr. Justin.)
1:25 p.m.
EMAIL MOMENT!
Characters: Me and a friend-of-a-friend, who I’d never met outside of email.
Subject: I had just figured out that our common friend was trying to set us up.
Excerpt:
Me: Amy is, of course, trying to set us up. I didn’t
realize that until now, but it’s become apparent. To make this more comfortable all
around, let’s mutually agree that it would never work
between us. We’re just different people. Besides, with
my hideous deformity and your overbearing mother, we’d
only be punishing ourselves.Him: Wow, a pre-meeting rejection! How progressive and efficient of you. You’re
really going to be kicking yourself when you find out I’m the sole heir to
the substantial Huggies fortune. Not that you’re a shallow gold-digger, of
course, I just find that everyone can always use more diapers.Me: I try to be cutting edge when it comes to rejection.
Can’t get behind the technology, or suddenly your
apartment is filled with belching morons, grabbing at
their crotches and eating all your Klondike Bars.10:49 a.m.
Nearly all of Jeff Druzba’s posts are interesting. Then again, he hasn’t been at this too long:
“Morning radio DJ’s are the processed cheese of people. Every Monday it’s the same, “Oh ya hate
to get outta bed this mornin’ but ya grab yer cup-a-joe and start the week off right.” Then, every
Wednesday they’re out there with “It’s hump day” and “Here’s hoping the week is almost over.” And,
every Friday, you’ve got your “TGIF baby, let’s part-ay!”When I was at a younger awkward age, I used to hear them say “hump day” on the radio and I thought
it was some kind of adult joke I didn’t get. I knew that humping was what the big dog up the street did
to your leg if you dared enter his tethered neck radius and it seemed odd to me that they would talk
about something like that on the radio. The usage of “hump” meaning “middle” is not so obvious.”9:27 a.m.
I’ve become so accustomed to sardonic blog titles that I cheerfully clicked on Not So Manic Now expecting some witty little coed and a few snippets of his favorite Eminem lyrics. After reading a few posts, including one mention of a suicide attempt, I realized it was a “support blog” of sorts for people with bipolar disorders. Right. Not. So. Manic. Now. Have I mentioned I’m a bad person?
3:17 p.m.
The best headlines from this month’s Martha Stewart Living:
- The Proper Way to Load Your Dishwasher
- Folding Fitted Sheets and Bath Towels (complete with photo diagrams)
- Smoothing a Table Cloth
- Pistachio Valentine
- Gourd Bird House
- Drying Decanters
That said, I’m off to carve some “natural sake cups” out of cucumbers.
2:30 p.m.
EMAIL MOMENT!
Character: Friend who’s spending the holidays with family in Virginia.
Subject: What’d you get for Christmas?
Excerpt:
My parents bought me a leather jacket last night, and, despite the obvious
conservation of animals issue, I look pretty hot in it. I will probably be
wearing said jacket on my return flight as my mother thinks the airline people
know which bags have the expensive coats in them.12:54 p.m.
A friend and I were driving through the city when I spotted a spray-painted wall. GAP IS KILLING REDWOODS!
Me: Gap is killing redwoods? I suspect Gap is doing worse things to humanity than that.
Him: Yeah. Like popularizing the color orange.
4:31 p.m.
Thomas Lynch is a poet and an undertaker. I’m reading his prose autobiography The Undertaking and he wrote something I liked:
“The meaning of life is connected, inextricably, to the meaning of death; mourning is a romance in reverse, and if you love, you grieve and there are no exceptions-only those who do it well and those who don’t.”
2:42 p.m.
“Alex, I’ll take Needs a New Hobby, for $500.” Someone collected all the phone numbers from movies and TV shows and put them at the 555-xxxx site.
One redeeming point, as The Ultimate Insult noted, they do have The Simpsons’ phone number.1:25 p.m.
Catscan is a site that posts scans of cats. The instructions on how to scan your cat are almost as good as the JPEGs.
11:42 a.m.
I’ve never asked my roommate about his living room bookshelf. It’s pretty small, so there aren’t too many books on it, but what’s there is pretty interesting. (As my friend Sam would say, “Interesting defined as something I wouldn’t necessarily want to put in my mouth.”)
- Sex for One: The joy of self loving
- Hitler’s Willing Executioners
- A History of Torture
- Plasirs D’Amour: An erotic guide to the senses
- The Holy Bible (sandwiched between)
- The Satanic Bible (and)
- True Crime Vol. 2: Serial Killers and Mass Murderers
- Fractals Everywhere
5:10 p.m.
I really like this guy. Not only did we go to the same college (yeah, Aggies), but he’s also named Ernie. Anyone who’s gone through life with a Muppet name deserves some support. He posted a great white-girl description a few days ago, racist pig:
“Okay, I try not to play into the stereotypes, swear to god. But after listening to them on the radio, I look up Dream on the internet, expecting them to look like Destiny’s Child, and I come across the four whitest girls on the face of this earth. Not even like typical white girls – they’re like, Sarah Michelle Gellar, let’s go to the mall, swing by Hot Topic and eat a Hot-Dog-on-a-Stick white girls.”
4:04 p.m.
My sister is a full-time parent. Spending all day with little kids has its effects, and one of them is an inability to recognize sexual double meanings anymore. My nephew opened a Christmas gift that contained a soccer ball, a basketball, and a football. My sister promptly exclaimed, “Look at that! You’ve got some big balls, Trevor! You’ve sure got some balls!” When I burst out laughing, she just blinked at me. “What?”
2:19 p.m.
CalFed ad on BART:
“YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE BANKS.”
Why do I suddenly feel like I should be wearing a shiny gold leotard and a cape?
11:01 a.m.
A quality rant from that other girl:
“I know this is going to sound really un-PC, but damn
woman, get a life, get laid, get something cuz’ this is just
so stupid to me – ‘Snowmen on Christmas cards reinforce
traditional gender stereotypes by reflecting men in
prominent, public roles and women in private, domestic
situations…’ I always just thought they didn’t look like women because
it is so hard to get the snow-boobies to stay on.”9:46 a.m.
This magazine ad for Christina Aguilera’s new album reads like a blurb for a porn video:
“Like her other hits from RCA’s Christina Aguilera, “Come On Over (All I Want is You)” finds the perky popster piping her tales of teen appetite.”
2:46 p.m.
11:29 a.m.
A woman and man walking up the subway stairs behind me:
She: …all relationships could use a little more communication. All of them. For me, what I need is to know what’s going on with the other person.
He: Did you sleep with him?
She: What? I’m talking about us, not him.
He: Mmm.
She: I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking about communication.
He: Mmm.
9:40 a.m.
Mighty Girl 
