i read this article and thought, yeah, little valerie just happened to find a joint in her parfait.  did anyone bother to ask if that was really oregano in valerie's bag?  and why she devoured three bags of cheeto's all on her own?

that's what's wrong with american journalism; nobody thinks to ask the obvious questions, to probe a little further into the matter, or to outright point the finger.  well, at least not when it comes to articles involving matters that i'm actually interested in, such as non-edible objects being found buried in food, or at least what they try to pass off as food.  what the hell is a parfait anyhow?

ah, screw it.  let's allow valerie "i have to many v's in my name" valle to get some minimum wage earning, greasy polo wearing kids in trouble just because she needed a hit to get through her family vacation.  as a wise man, or was it a monkey, once said, "that's what you get for falling in love."

christopher j. koch's "the year of living dangerously" wins the jackie award for "coolest book title, ever."  i wish i had come up with that title; as it is, i suppose i can only parody it now.  the year of living cheesily?  the year of pooping dangerously?  i'll have to work on it, but the potential's there.

either way, this book has me obsessed with midgets.  sorry, i mean dwarves.  midget is a term that the little people don't take kindly to.   what i don't get is that "midget" is bad, but "little people" is okay.  to me, "little people" sounds condescending.  and dwarf sounds just as bad, due of course to snow white and her seven dwarves, who had only one personality trait each.  if i were a little person, i'd be severely pissed at disney and the grimm brothers.  "why can't i be both sleepy and sneezy?" i'd ask, enraged.  "is it not possible for me to be both hungry and dopey?"

i'd better stop before i get myself in trouble.

i've been listening to a lot of johnny cash lately.  if any of my good friends, and you know who you are, has a johnny cash cd containing "i've been everywhere," i'd appreciate a copy.  thanks in advance.  your loyal servant, ferclyn.

and now the question that has plagued man for ages: did tennessee what arkansas?

it took ten hours to get there and ten hours to get back.  we were there for a day and a half.  a highlight of that day and a half is when chris and i decided to go canoeing.  we should have known it was doomed from the start; we managed to get out to the middle of the lake, and then we just floated around in a circle for a bit, unable to paddle our way back due to a strong current and also the fact that i have twig-like arms that aren't used to any brand of physical exertion- be it paddling or tennis or having to hold the remote control for an extended period of time.  round and round we went; i imagined that the rest of our lives would have to unfold on this canoe.  one end of the canoe would be for us, the other end for our children.  it wouldn't be the biggest home, but it would be our home, minus walls and a door.

and a ceiling.

and electricity.

oh, and a mailbox. 

fuck, it would be the crappiest home ever.  i'd rather live locked under the kitchen sink with whoopi goldberg.  and you know how i feel about whoopi goldberg.

we managed to row our way back after some time; his family had gathered on the beach and were yelling for us to hurry up.  pictures were about to be taken, and it was of the utmost importance that chris' italian fiancee be caught on film standing amongst all the pale germans.  our canoe picked up speed, rocketed ahead, and, with a crowd of people standing on the beach watching, the damn boat slammed right into the dock.  calmly, chris called back to me, "paddle backwards," and suddenly i was reminded of my first time parrallel parking in the city, which is also the same story that leads to my first nervous breakdown.  i'll tell that on another day.

anyhow, it was fun.  a lowlight of the trip was having to share a room with chris' aunt, who is a wonderfully nice lady with a horribly awful snoring problem.  i was tempted to suffocate her on saturday night, and i might have, too, if i didn't think i'd be prosecuted in a court of law.  also, the whole weekend was about me trying to get in good with chris' family; killing his father's only sister probably wouldn't be the best way to go about that.

i did not return with any form of chiggers, for which i am happy.

 

i had a request for pictures.

here i am sitting on a couch.  i look kind of drugged up here.  my hair isn't always this big.



here i am standing by a door.  casually.

today is interview number three.  i've never had a third interview before.  i wonder if this is like the critical third date in which you either have sex and continue the relationship or admit that it's not going to work out right after you have the guy pay the dinner bill.  only time will tell.

in the next few weeks, i'm going to be meeting so many internet friends.  i'll probably hang out with janice next week, and then when i'm in l.a., i'm going to meet dax and jessica and andrew.  i've never met anyone off the internet before without the goal of procreation somewhere in the back of my mind.  what an odd month i shall have.

i'm so nervous.  i just downed my breakfast red bull and now i'm shaking like a seizure victim.  i hope that doesn't ruin my chances, all the trembling and stuttering and the foaming at the mouth.  i really want this job.  manager of a bank.  who would have thought that the girl who recently lost close to three hundred dollars at her current place of work would be considered to oversee... a lot more than three hundred.

wish me luck.  don't forget to write.

 

 

i must say that i feel very alone here in the blogosphere.  most of my links are defunct, as about 92% of my friends no longer post, and  i feel like the mayor of last-one-standingsville.  population, three.
 
main exports include inane banter, occasional spelling errors, and observations on how you can observe a lot just by watching.
 
i hate my job and hope i am truly in transit to salarysville, which also goes by the names of suitsville, ninetofivesville, and gold-plated-name-on-my-desk junction.  i especially hate my job because of a new sales leadership program, which includes asking if your patient needs a pair of "weekend glasses."  what the fuck are "weekend glasses?"  next month, they're going to have me inquiring about "sunday morning glasses."  when will they understand that not every different activity or time of day requires a whole new eyewear purchase?  i also hate that i have to say, "let's go shopping" to my customers, as shopping implies buying more than one item.  shopping also implies checking out the competition.  finally, i hate that we are in the middle of a remodel.  everything is in total disarray.  even though i suggested we use "bless this mess," our new sign states, "open during remodel!"  silently, i also suggested that the sign read, "closed for store improvements," with a footnote reading "associates still getting paychecks," but i didn't even bother to open my mouth with that one.  some people just don't get it.
 
anyhow, this weekend we go to chris' family reunion.  it's in tennessee, making that the second time in under three months that i've been to there.  it's a shame, really, that it couldn't have been held in maui.  then, two weeks after that, we jet off to los angeles.  i will bring my screenplay with and finagle my way into the offices of various agents.  then they will say to me, "this isn't a screenplay, it's just a berenstein bears coloring book.  and you got their fur color completely wrong."  to which i'll respond, "or did i get it more right than it's ever been before, and therefore just blow your mind?"
 
we'll see.

so, get this.  i had two interviews at the bank to be a banking associate.  then they call me and want me to interview a third time- TO BE THE MANAGER OF THE BANKING ASSOCIATES.  talk about skipping to the front of the line.
 
so, we'll see.
 
last night, we went to the bamboo room, where they were supposedly filming "elimidate."  i pulled my shirt a little lower hoping they'd recruit me to be a last minute cast member, but, no dice.  this was a shame, because i had so many witty remarks i could have made on camera.  instead, the world of shameless game-dating will have to live without my charm and .... never mind.

things to do by end of summer
 
pay off gambling debts; wait for broken thumbs to heal.
 
return "heart of the ocean" diamond to rightful owner.
 
set up correspondence with jerry stiller.
 
gain sixty pounds just for fun.
 
teach self basic surgical techniques; attain litter of kittens.
 
complete robot army and invade wyoming.
 
get remaining amounts of sugar out of my gas tank.
 
finish naming socks.
 
even out tan on left and right ass cheeks.
 
help chris present idea of "prescription windshield" to various optical retailers.
 
get copies of photos from private investigator; confront parents about animal trafficking.
 
 
 

i think everyone should watch "monk" on usa. i would never have bothered watching "monk" if a certain janice, who used to glorify the horrifying, hadn't mentioned it once. now, i can't get enough.

i think i want to be a mystery shopper. i'd be good at it because i know what good customer service does and does not look like.

good customer service: explaining that, even if i do mail in my rebate on time, there's a fairly high chance that i'll never see my $25.98 again.

bad customer service: vomiting into my open purse and then sneezing on my hot dog.

i haven't written anything, besides blog entries, for a very long time. now my fingers are starting to itch, and my brain is whirring with all of the fictional possibilities that are begging to be released. i blame several things for this lack of activity. one, the press. two, the high sodium content of canned soups. three, the fact that the people on "what not to wear" say things like "a pink shoe would complete this outfit" as opposed to "A PAIR OF PINK SHOES would complete this outfit." i mean, who's going to go out and buy just one pink shoe? how big would this one shoe have to be? it would have to fit both feet- but would it also be big enough to fit a small child? if so, we should put some wheels on this thing and call it a stroller. who's with me?

now i'm upset. if only "monk" were on.

those wacky republicans and the things they come up with....

check out the comments page. it seems a fair and balanced look at... a condiment.

i thought i would check out heinz's page for a rebuttal. instead, i found a quiz that promised to analyze my personality based on how, exactly, i use my heinz ketchup. i'm sure it was written by a crack team of social scientists. nonetheless, my result was:

You are a radical experimentalist, always looking for the “new” and the “better”. Willing to try anything once you find joy in ideas.
Never stop re-inventing yourself, therein lies your route to happiness

wow, isn't that right on the money. it encouraged me to send my result to my life partner, as "ketchup couples" are proven to stay together. this is based on totally inconclusive surveys done in grocery stores and one planned parenting joint.

after a while, when i kept seeing "mum" and "flavour," i knew i was (a) either on a british web site or (b) heinz had just been taken over by a bunch of pretensious floof-heads. i'm sorry, but nothing gets me angrier than americans adding extraneous "u's" all over the fucking place. the brits, however, are totally exempt from this rule of mine. how i adore the brits.

anyhoo, i found the american website, which was considerably less colorful. i quickly grew tired of reading about lycopene, and forgot where i was going with this whole thing.

today my parents are meeting chris' parents. for those of you who know my parents, this is a potentially disasterous situation. my mother is, to put it nicely, a total and complete nut-job. she has far too many mental problems to begin to list, and, while mental problems like mine are kind of cute and endearing, her mental problems have created a sort of super-villain-like persona. she's mean and rude and she has the look of somebody about to snap and take out a few innocent victims in the process. the sneer on her face is permanent and deadly, and the inane questions that she'll bludgeon complete strangers with border on the frighteningly retarded. i am scared. be scared for me, too.

i'll try to laugh them off. who will follow suit?

the other day i signed my name at work on all of the closing papers. then it struck me: after i get married, i'll be signing a different name. who is this jaclyn berger girl, and what will her signature look like? i tried scrawling out the new name, but the "b" felt so unnatural. cursive b's are a bit of a bitch. it's going to take me upwards of two hours to sign my new name on credit card slips, police reports, admittane papers into local sanitariums, etc, etc. i can't wrap my head, or signing hand, around it.

i guess i've got some time to get used to it. or i could keep my name. then the kids at my high school reunion will assume that, true to my word, i never did marry and just spent my life in solitude with an apartment's worth of cats.

i got this cookbook entitled "have a ball making entire meals out of only four ingredients, you lazy fuck" (or something to that extent). this in my possession, i took that first important step towards housewifedom and made a complete meal out of only four ingredients. four ingredients! how could anyone mess that up? and could life possibly get any more simplified? i submit that it cannot!

then, today, i'm at the local book selling place when i see a cookbook with the approximate title of "make all these crazy dinners out of only THREE ingredients, sucka!" had i been duped? here i was using four whole ingredients when, maybe, i'd only needed three. i felt like i belonged in "there's something about mary," in the scene where ben stiller and the insane hitchhiker are talking about seven minute abs.

you heard of this thing, the 8-minute abs? yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. listen to this- 7 minute abs!

of course, they can't possibly do a two-ingredient cookbook. who cooks with only two ingredients? who works out in only six minutes?!?

unless- and now my mind is really racing- one of those two ingredients is a fully prepared lasagna made by, maybe, some homeless guy with an oven who's willing to exchange pasta for booze money. and, no, i don't know where he'd plug in the oven. it would have to be solar powered, or dirt powered. if you do the math, that would leave you with only one more ingredient to add for that "two ingredient meal, fuckface" cookbook. this second ingredient would have to be parsley. you're supposed to add parsley to everything. don't you look at the pictures?

we arrived home at about 12:52 a.m. early sunday morning. pulling into our complex, we were a bit alarmed to see the nine firetrucks and seven police cars that were littering the parking lot, along with the throng of residents. some of them were only in bath robes or pajamas. one woman was holding her cat. i asked somebody, "what's going on?" all the while i was thinking, god, i must have left my blowdryer on. it wasn't my building, though. the building next to ours had caught fire, and that's all that anyone knew.

we hung outside for just a few seconds longer before heading inside to our safe, fire-free apartment. from our windows, we could see the firemen running around and the glare of the emergency lights. chris played a computer game. i watched television. we didn't get to bed until close to three. the firemen were still outside; i had to turn the fan on to drown out their voices so i could get some ever important beauty rest.

the next morning, i labeled myself a jackass for being so able to effectively ignore a tragedy that had occured about three feet away. people had lost their apartments, their clothes, their photographs, their cherished letters, their recently purchased copies of "my cousin vinnie." everything, gone, every tangible evidence of personal histories. i was upset at myself for, once realizing that it wasn't my building, not being all that concerned. where's my sense of caring for humanity? my empathy and kind, loving heart?

at last watch: jacksonville, florida.

here's the news story about it.

like two peas in some kind of pea holding device...

so, i'm engaged. my ring is too big, and now it's all scratched due to this ridiculous, semi-medieval ring guard doohickey. it was a brilliant idea- don't get it properly resized because it's too hard to part with, simply use a painful sliver of metal to hold it in place. stupid half assed idea. i'll be going to the jeweler's on monday.

because we are poor, the wedding is not until march 2006. chris has a family that roughly amounts to the population of idaho. not that idaho is extremely populated, but you try buying dinners, drinks, invitations, and the extras for all those potato lovers. it will not only break the bank, it will decimate it. it will blow it to fiery bits and leave behind not enough for dental records to allow proper identification of the bodies. those poor, poor tellers.

speaking of bankis, i had a situation at work. long story short, three hundred bucks went stolen/ missing under my watch. three hundred dollars, or approximately three hundred items from the dollar menu at burger king. that's a lot of french fries. it was a big issue that caused ulcers in places i don't care to mention, and then, two days later, i had an interview at a bank. if you follow me, a bank is where they keep large amounts of money. some banks keep large amounts of blood or sperm. other banks just keep large amounts of free, souviner pens and old pieces of suck candies. those are the kind of banks that my grandmother likes to frequent.

anyhow, i like to think of myself as a responsible person. events such as the one that occurred last monday prove otherwise.

i just read an awesome book. it's called "bringing down the house," and it's the story of card counters and how they took vegas for millions. i am now concocting a scheme to take, say, fon du lac, wisconsin for millions. this will require finding out if fon du lac has casionos. or at least a grocery store, because i'm out of juice.