I Can't

What is even happening here?

I feel so violated.

xoxo

zuzu

Limited Vegetarian Options

Last Thursday, on my first night in California, my mom took Kleine, Dodo, me, Sparks, and Dodi's boyfriend out to dinner. My mom's good friend also joined us. The restaurant did not have a lot of vegetarian options, but they did have a vegetarian platter on the menu. I asked what was in the vegetarian platter, and it was basically just some chickpeas and feta. It sounded good to me. However, when the waitress came to take our order, the following occurred:

Me: I will have the vagetarian pletter... I mean, the vagetar...the vah- no, ehgetarian platter.
Waitress: The vegetarian platter?
Me: Yes, the vag...the, uh...the va...the...yes, I will have that.
Waitress: Okay.
Me: And another beer.

I don't know what kind of weird mental/freudian thing was going on at that particular moment in time, but I literally could not say "vegetarian platter." I think I was reversing the vowels from vegetarian and platter, but I basically just order a vag platter about five times.

Luckily this was California, so the waitress was very sweet and mellow about the whole thing. But it took me all of the strength that I possess not to leave that restaurant and wait for everyone in the car.

xoxo
zuzu

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

February is going to ROCK

Hey guys, guess what month it is!
WOMEN IN HORROR
(Insert sweet wailing guitars here)

This is actually kind of a big deal for me. As a super nerd lady I love to hear about these other ladies working in genres that I love, where, for whatever reason, “people” like to pretend we are not. Or that ladies are there as corollaries to men folk, semi fetish objects (I am looking at you, mainstream comics. I am looking right at you). So while I would like to say it is a given that women are a presence in genre and fringe cultures of all colors, stripes and patterns of plaid, there seems to be this ongoing attitude that we are not.

Especially after the SFX COLLECTION: HORROR shitshow. For those who are not me and therefore didn’t have to get up from his/her desk at work to go scream in the bathroom upon reading about this, what happened was a very respected SF/Fantasy glossy hailing from the UK put out a giant, special edition spotlight on horror. It was purportedly meant to show the wide variety within the genre, all the interesting, edgy, classic, different stuff happening. The whole spectrum of horror, if you will. Except, funny story, there were no women.

None.

Really guys? Because here’s the thing with genre—actually there are a lot of ladies living there. TRUFAX. But horror, horror especially owes so, so much to the brilliant women working in it. And not just right now. I mean, pretty much from go horror has been a genre in which the ladies were keeping it real, if you can excuse the academic parlance. I don’t just mean Mary Shelley (although she was a genius, and for sure one of the architects of horror) but all of the ladies who were first exploring the suffocating horror encroaching on their lives every day—the Gothic as a literary form is based a great deal on the stifling domestic space, on being locked away in houses or estates, isolation, child birth horror, poisons and consumption, ghosts lurking just behind lovely facades. And the ladies kept working in the genre long after the days of Ann Radcliffe. It’s exciting that Shirley Jackson seems to be finally getting her day, and folks seem to have remembered Patricia Highsmith. And now we have this fabulous month for fêting all the other ladies you never get to hear about (pause to plug Grace Krilanovich, Poppy Z. Brite, Ellen Datlow, Elizabeth Hand, Kathe Koja, Joyce Carol Oates [obvi], Mary Gaitskill [I count her as a horror writer, I can get why some people wouldn’t]) because no one wants to talk about them, or even admit that they’re refusing to talk about them. Ladies be here, and not just for getting ganked by some sexually repressed psycho. S’all I’m saying.

More of this: http://womeninhorrormonth.com/

Also, this (NSFW):
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdlz81_i-spit-on-eli-roth-dir-devi-snively_shortfilms