Office Clowns

Office/work life is a delicate balance. You are forced to inhabit a space with your co-workers for a big chunk of the day, and if they start doing stuff that drives you crazy it can feel like some sort of slow torture. Torture you can't avoid, unless you want to be unemployed.



Are you guys done poking my vital organs? We're going to be late for the staff meeting.

 When my frustration about a co-worker sharing my work space is about to boil over, I usually just to imagine what I would say if I knew there would be no repercussions. For example, about 30 seconds ago I imagined yelling the following at a co-worker: "Please stop screaming at your speaker phone! Just pick up the damn receiver and talk like a normal person, you nerd-peddler! You are so loud that they can hear you in space, and the astronauts just made the executive decision to crash into the sun to avoid having to listen to the grating sound of your voice!”



Well, then fucking play the keyboard louder, Kevin!
We need to find a way to drown out his screaming voice, or I'm going to lose it!

Now, I can't actually yell that at someone, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to (because while I am a grump, I am not a bitch...it's a narrow distinction). Usually it's enough to just think to myself that I would prefer that one co-worker stop sending me email forwards of kids saying the "darndest" things, or that another co-worker change out of his bike shorts before getting to the office. 

 

Just threw up in my mouth a little.



In reality, it is rare that I actually get to the point where I envision telling co-workers that they annoy me. I don't just sit at my desk all day stewing about how much I hate everybody. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I'm a fairly oblivious person in general, and I have developed the ability to tune out most of what is going on around me.




I'm basically just the lady reading the book in situations like this.

However, in my current temp job, neither my obliviousness nor my internal venting has allowed me to get a handle on the abrasiveness of one of my co-workers. I have never experienced anything quite like this before in my life, but this particular person is very fond of listening to one song over and over again for the entire work day. The song can vary from The Godfather theme song to Amy Winehouse’s Rehab. Sometimes he plays the same song two days in a row, and sometimes he will suddenly switch to another song in the middle of everything. But pretty much if he decides to play Diana Ross singing Baby Love from her album Live from Las Vegas first thing when he comes in, then you are going to hear that song for the next 8 hours.



It's like she's mocking my pain.

But really, so far, this doesn’t sound so bad. Like any normal person, I pop up my Pandora window and get on with my life, right? WRONG! This co-worker has a habit of singing the song he is playing on repeat at the same time. And he has excellent projection, if you catch my drift.



Let's just say he's cranked way past 11.

Even with the constant singing, I can normally get past his mayhem. But over the past few weeks, this co-worker has developed a new quirk and he's quickly introduced it in the workplace thunder-dome.

In addition to playing one song on repeat, and then singing along to it, he has started singing three or four note snippets of other songs. Basically, whenever he has to stop his regular music for any reason (like to make a phone call, or to walk down the hall), he sings a quick ditty to get him through the down time. First he sang a bit of the song Tammy, April Love over and over again for a couple of weeks. Literally, he just kept repeating the words “Tammy’s in love” again and again and again.  

I feel happy for you, Tammy, I really do. Now can we stop talking about it for five seconds?

Today he started singing the phrase “grandma the clown.”

I am not exactly positive where this ditty comes from. The only reference I can find is this. But let me tell you, hearing him repeat the words “grandma the clown” for the past 4 hours has not made today easy. Based on what I have heard so far, the song of origin for the snippet is probably a song called Grandma the Clown. It appears that Grandma the Clown is a simply short three note progression in a major key. After his beautiful staccato emphasis on “grandma” he pauses before saying “the clown. And then lovingly adds a little slide back down to the first note once he hits the word “clown”.


 

Why there is a song about a clown grandmother at all is still up for debate.

I’m having a little problem with this, to say the least. I found myself actually saying “stop, stop, stop.” out loud this morning at my desk by the time he had reached his 50^th repetition of the jingle. Since I don’t normally talk to myself out loud, I am a little concerned about whether or not I am psychologically capable of making it through the rest of the day. But I’m going to give it a shot.



Come in, Kevin....Kevin? Can you guys even hear me?
The only thing I'm picking up out here is some guy scream-singing about a clown!



xoxo

zuzu

Our Mom is Cuter than Your Mom

So, Zuzu, Dodo, and I (and our bro) still get holiday cards from our mom:
And, this is how she signs them:
[It says: "Dear Kleine Some bunny loves you Happy Easter From E. Bunny]
So, since we were kids, all mythical figures had terrible handwriting. My mom disguises her own handwriting, by writing out the messages with her left hand. I love so much that she still does this today. It's basically the cutest thing ever and you should be jealous.

The Crazy Chicken

Conversation I just had with myself in my head regarding a co-worker's lunch:

Me: What is that smell?? It smells really good...
me: i don't know what that is, but it smells like meat.
Me: Is that El Pollo Loco?
me: i don't think they have el pollo loco on the east coast.
Me: Except I swear I saw one in New Hampshire once.
me: quit making stuff up, self.
Me: Oh my god, that smells so good. That is definitely some sort flamed grilled chicken dish in there.
me: i am such a bad vegetarian.
Me: It's okay that I am liking the smell...it's not like I am eating it.
me: it's the same thing! it is the same! stop smelling it!
Me: I can't, it's everywhere!


xoxo
zuzu

Cable Has Ruined My Life

Dodo and Kleine can back me up on what I am about to share regarding my childhood: The limitations on media in our home growing up make the Chinese censors look like amateurs. We were never allowed to have video games, or cable tv, and by the time my mom allowed us to get the internet in the house, I was already in college.

On my way to Philosophy 101.

The tv shows we did watch had to be pre-approved (basically just the stuff on p.b.s.), or were snuck in during the golden hours while my mom was still at work. I'm positive this screwed me up, somehow. For example, while other people watched characters facing similar life choices and learned to identify with them, I had to learn to identify with some pretty weird things.

You guys got Joey Potter, and I got to project all my teen angst onto this guy.

Although I have been able to adapt to some media and technology quickly, I am sometimes reminded that I am incredibly stunted. For example, Bubble Bobble is the only video game I ever played prior to my senior year in college, and I only ever played it once or twice at my friend's house in 4th grade.

However, because it was the only video game I had ever played, Bubble Bobble became what I picture whenever other people talk about video games.

I'm pretty sure this is what Call of Duty looks like.

My foray into video games post-Bubble Bobble has not been very successful, and the only game I seem to have any ability at is "Erotic Photo Hunt" (aka Nudey Touch), which is basically just Bubble Bobble with naked ladies instead of dinosaurs.

Not that I'm complaining.

Unlike my strained relationship with video games, my relationship with tv is probably the other extreme end of the spectrum. I got cable for the first time in college. At the time I had mono and was basically too sick to leave my dorm room for about two months. Having cable was awesome. It was like magic... there were so many channels and stuff I wanted to watch was on all the time! Since then I have developed what I have to admit is a freakish devotion to television. I will watch almost anything at least once.

Seriously. Anything.

I am kind of like a goldfish, who will just eat and eat and eat whatever you put in its bowl until it gorges itself to death...except in my case, my bowl is my living room and I am eating repeat episodes of Cake Boss, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I don't know if that metaphor works, but I am still recovering from the following:  I came home on Tuesday to find that our cable had been shut off because of some finagling with a previous roommate (A situation I will address only with the following NKOTB quote by Jordan Knight from the song The Right Stuff: "You know what you did.").

Friends, when I found this out, I lost it a little bit.


"I swear if Santana and Brittany kiss and I miss it, I will hold my breath until I pass out!" - Me, Tuesday.

 Anyway, the cable company (I won't say their name, but it rhymes with Bombast), said they couldn't reconnect it until SUNDAY!!! Luckily, when I called the next day to harrass them a little bit and see if they could come any earlier, they found a way to get someone to our apartment on Thursday morning. After 36 hours, our cable was reconnected. The whole ordeal made me wonder how I had become someone who would make more than one call to a cable company in order to get my service restored. My guess is that years of not getting to watch episodes of South Park along with everyone else in High School is somehow at fault. But somewhere between trying to figure out how to work a dvr for the first time, and watching the American Idol results show, I pretty much went back to not caring.

xoxo
zuzu

Song of the Week

Every year I scan the interwebs for articles about SXSW. I have never been to SXSW, I just kind of watch it from afar during math class, and stick love notes in its locker between class periods when no one is looking.

Even though I have never been to SXSW, I read about it a lot because with over 2,000 bands performing there each year, I am always bound to find something new to love. I gleaned several things from the articles I read this year:

1) I am old
2) I will never be cool enough to own a pair of skinny jeans
3) This band is great


Sample of a youtube comment for Typhoon: "I fell asleep with this song on and woke up with a beard." I feel that is pretty much spot on. I know it's long, but it is also worth it!

xoxo
zuzu

That smell be pheromone

Ok so there are a million cats that live around the neighborhood who fight constantly. There are also other critters like possums and raccoons around. This totally freaks my cat out -- now and then she smells/hears/sees something weird outside and freaks.

I found out about this cat pheromone thing you can stick in your wall and apparently make cats relax. It was moderately expensive, but we'll see if it has a profound effect on the cat or not. So far so good.

Here's hopin'.

Sigh

Ok I really suck at blogging, clearly. I'm finishing a book of poems for my MFA program. The final draft is due next week. I vacillate between thinking I have to do a lot to accomplish this, and thinking I have to do little. Everyone tells me that I'll be working on this book for two years or something after I graduate. This is the last thing you want to hear when you have been living and breathing a project for almost 10 months. This is why I'm not a novelist (because they live and breathe projects for 10 YEARS). So it has been consuming my life, and will continue to consume my life until the end of the year, probably.

Anyway, so because I can't actually post something interesting, this just made me super happy today.

How To Hate An American Quilt

So I know I just did a post about my highly scientific method for making a quilt, but I needed to share the following pictures. I don't know if it was the fact that I was giving a lot of attention to the quilt or what, but my cat, Kipling, basically hates the quilt now. Literally, the second I put it down he tried to body block me from picking it back up. This resulted in some interesting pictures. Again, this post is mostly for Dodo and Kleine...


Kipling had only been living with us one week at this point.

I should have seen the signs. 

Subtly telling me to go screw myself.

 



Skidding to a halt on top of the quilt.

 



Sparks trying to help me get a Kipling free picture.

Pretty much he owns this quilt through squatters' rights or something.



You will have nightmares.

And I don't think it's just Kipling who has a problem with the quilt. Our family's dog, Heidi, didn't seem to happy about me working on it either...

Heidi hating on the quilt.



The quilt seemed to depress her more than Kipling, though.

Okay, I am now officially done talking about myself for a while. Also I apologize if any part of these two last posts sounded anything like this, because I do not want to go to there.

xoxo
zuzu

Quilted Northern

So I mentioned in passing a few posts ago that I have been working on a quilt, and I actually wasn't kidding. Basically, I have no idea how to make a traditional quilt, I don't own a sewing machine, I don't have any special tools, and I've never even googled "quilting". I just kind of made it up as I went along. So this post is not meant to be instructive, it's just that Dodo and Kleine saw me working on this thing over Christmas, so I thought they might be interested even if no one else was.

I first tried to make a quilt in 2006 out of clothing that my friend and I were planning to throw out/donate. I don't have photographic evidence of the first quilt I made, because I gave it to my friend, but as far as I know it is still in existence and has not completely fallen apart.

So when Sparks decided to donate a bunch of clothing last summer, I decided to try to see if I could make another quilt. I then proceeded to pull out about half of her donation pile, which is kind of evil, but I was very unemployed and bored. My first quilt was inspired by a mural of a tree in Northampton, but it took a while  to find something that inspired me for this quilt. Even though I pulled out the clothing I wanted to use last summer, I didn't have any good ideas about what I wanted the quilt to look like until we went to the Head of the Charles last October.

 


Hello, inspiration.

 
I sketched a couple of things out and went from there. I hand stitched everything with an average needle and thread, and I used an old duvet cover as the backing. I bought some quilt "batting" and a some yarn (about $40 total). I started actually sewing the front image last November, and just finished everything last night (I think that comes out to about six months of work).

I didn't really think of trying to document making the quilt until about January when Sparks wanted me to send her some pictures, but I am going to post what I've got. I apologize for the pictures in this post, they were all taken on my camera phone...so they are less than epic.

I used a needle, thread, old clothing, scissors, and safety pins to make the front image:



About half the way done piecing together the front image.
Safety pins where I need to attach new pieces of fabric.

 

Still not quite done with the front image.

You can see the duvet backing up at the top and near the house.



Then I sewed the front image onto the old duvet cover, and safety pinned some quilt batting between the front image and the back.





Done with the front image, and it has been attached to the duvet.
To find out why there is a cat in this picture see this post.


I used green, blue, and white yarn and a yarn needle to tuft. I stitched the yarn through the quilt about every inch.
 

About halfway done "tufting" with yarn.

 

Done sewing the yarn through

Boat detail.

After I sewed the yarn through the quilt, I needed to tie each stitch into a knot.



This is the back with the knots tied, but not trimmed.



Then I washed the quilt and trimmed the yarn stiches.



The back after the quilt had been washed and the stiches trimmed.



And, voila! Finished product.



All the tufting complete





Quilt in its natural habitat.


I know this is a long post, but it took me a long time to make this quilt. I promise I will stop tooting my own horn soon. Also, I know that this thing probably looks a little wonky to anyone who actually quilts, but it seems to be working out okay, in spite of its quirks...



Sparks approves!


xoxo
zuzu

Song Of The Week

The City of Subdued Excitement gave us a gift that keeps on giving: Death Cab for Cutie. Death Cab is awesome. After years of loving them from afar, I finally saw them in concert when they were promoting Narrow Stairs in 2008, and they were incredible.  

 

They have a new album coming out at the end of May, and they just released their video for their single You Are A Tourist. The video is full of Busby Berkeley-esque goodness. Me likey.

 

 

xoxo
zuzu

What I Have Been Doing

Excerpts from my thesis

"To watch a woman eat becomes salacious, and women are therefore meant to control their appetites, especially in public. A lovely piece of advice given in my family cautions against taking too large bites while on a date, because to display appetite is unladylike. What I believe is meant here is to display appetite is to attempt to verge into the masculine, to not be concerned with appearing unchaste.
The appetite for food and the sexual appetite are encoded within each other; sex is often represented on the page or the screen by eating, and the two are closely related, each a different kind of consuming. Thus the sight of a woman eating takes on a lascivious tone that in a society that restricts and seeks to control sexuality can become threatening and terrifying. Not only that, but a lot of the courting or dating process revolves around the shared meal, food becoming foreplay. Representations of women eating, particularly in ads geared at women, show female appetite as something indulged furtively, as if eating were a dirty act, whereas men are allowed to eat and are encouraged or shown as having appetite, to the point where masculinity and appetite are conflated—see the “manwich.” The caveat to this being that men do not allow themselves to become fat, because fleshiness is “gross” regardless of gender, and also to become fat moves man closer to woman—the development of “moobs.” Fleshy protuberances of the bodies are strictly encoded as being feminine; there is no ungendered term in common usage for the breasts. Fleshiness is very much femaleness.
Women are meant to be the preparers of food, not the consumers. There is an ongoing myth of the maternal that maintains that women are somehow nourished by nourishing others. Personal appetite is supposedly sublimated into the satisfaction of seeing others eat, and even now it is common practice in advertising to show women cheerfully cooking in the kitchen, only to place the food out in front of her family. Very rarely does this smiling maternal avatar eat. This ads become especially prevalent around Thanksgiving and Christmas, when meals are at their most grand and indulgent. The denial of personal appetite is insinuated into the fabric of the mythic domestic space, the home of the “home cooked meal.” This is the special site of femininity, and in the same way that the female is associated with the body, the female body is associated with food. It is something that again harkens back to the biology of childhood, when the nursing mother is literally the source of food for the child, to the image of the mother in Western culture, which is nearly always in the kitchen, cooking for the family. The connection between female body and food becomes even closer when food is sublimated for sex, as it commonly is. “Peaches and cream complexion” to song lyrics like “she’s my cherry pie” to the recent email disseminated from Kappa Sig, which compared different races of women to types of pie. The female body is both intended for consumption—sexually and aesthetically, for to be female is often to be looked at, or looked at ness—and paradoxically the thing that cannot draw attention to itself, or its functions. Female appetites sit in the cultural imagination as monstrous—sometimes literally as monster.
In a recent advertisement for the Weight Watcher’s Program a short, orange furred monster terrorizes an office of women. It chases after them with various junk foods and snacks, leaping out of such unlikely places as the photocopier. The women, of course, all slim and coiffed, are cool in the face of temptation because they use Weight Watchers online for tips on how to beat “Hungry.” Hungry—and notice it is specifically female hunger—is a furry orange monster. De-fanged, because it is shown without a mouth, and more like a muppet than a horror movie nightmare, but it is a monster nonetheless. Keep this image in mind; this is the image of monstrous female desire, made benign and controllable."

tl;dr
GORGE YOURSELF LADIES. EAT TO TAKE DOWN PATRIARCHY.

Peeps Are Evil

If you read my previous post, you may remember that I have some strong ideas about the candy and confections I choose to have in my life. I make no apologies for this. What you may not know is that I have equally strong ideas about candies I would wish out of existence if possible.

Number Two reason why houses get egged on Halloween
(right behind handing out toothbrushes).

But Easter is the worst time for me in relation to candy, because each year I am faced with the possibility that I will be confronted by the wall-eyed gaze of the yellow monster they call a "Peep."

dun-dun-duuuhn!

This candy frightens the bejeezus out of me. First of all, I have been told by multiple people that this candy is supposed to resemble a baby chicken or "chick." Friends, this is what a chick looks like:

that's adorable.

This is what a peep looks like:

Ahhhhh! Kill it! Kill it!

In no way do these two things look alike. The only explanation I have is that the guy who invented Peeps decided he wanted to create something that looked like a little baby chick which had been involved in some sort of  HORRIBLE CHEMICAL ACCIDENT...and the chemicals melted its body into something vaguely resembling a turd dusted in yellow glitter.


Run, little guy! He's totally going to melt the shit out of you!

And, second of all, if it was the creator's goal to present horribly disfigured chicks as a festive holiday candy, then he should have named it something more appropriate than "Peeps." Something like "Ouches" or "Make It Stops." Anyway, every year, people send me links to the some sort of Peeps Contest or another. And yesterday a dear friend sent me a link to a Peeps cake:


I'm pretty sure this is the exact cake they serve for birthdays in Hades.

 This friend (who has a love for Peeps that is the exact inverse of my revulsion) also pointed out to me that Peeps have a very positive message. I'm willing to concede this point, but I ask you all to consider the following facts. Fact the first: Peeps are made of only four ingredients, and yet they do not dissolve in water, acetone, or basically anything except concentrated sulfuric acid. Seriously! This person tested it!

And, fact the second: Even when they used sulfuric freaking acid, the eyes of this hellbeast remained!


So the devil can watch you.

It's as if the chemical accident (mentioned above) created an indestructible evil super-villian filled with mallow. Apparently they are so mysterious that there is a scientific study dedicated to trying to figure them out. Anyway, do what you need to do this Easter season, but don't try to get me involved with this madness.

Peeps in their natural state.

xoxo
zuzu

Check It

First of all, Dodo, now people know we have a brother! Oh no! What should we call him when we talk about him so we don't sound like Buster from Arrested Development? I vote for "Vidi."

Second of all, this is totally random, but it is cheering me up this morning. I knew Kleine would like it, and she's close to her thesis rough draft deadline (and if she's anything like me is looking for ways to procrastinate)....so I'm going to post it. I have no idea if this is some sort of internet meme that I'm not cool enough to know about. But in my mind this is just an 11 year old kid at the Apple store in his local mall somewhere in Indiana, who is completely awesome and totally unique. I love the reactions of the little ladies behind him, too. They go from totally skeptical to almost joining in. And the break down about a minute and a half in is perfect.

 

 

 

Kleine, he has like 5 other videos if you need a break.

 

xoxo

zuzu