here comes the nutbag

well, i found a wedding dress this weekend. because i have a very small supply of females in my life, i haven't had anybody else look at it yet. they're holding it for me until the end of today. my sister's not available, my cousin's not available, chris' sisters are working, and my mother- well, it was never really an option to ask my mother. she's got problems even bigger than mine.

it's been a low key weekend. they usually are, these days. we watched both "sideways" and "finding neverland," played the closest game of scrabble yet in the 2005 tournament of "gallbladder boy v. jackietown," ate at bahama breeze, and pontificated on some of the bigger mysteries of life. i helped chris' sister paint her kitchen on saturday; we went from green number 243 to green number 244. the next room that i paint, i want it to be red. i've always wanted a red room.

chris' sister took me wedding dress shopping on sunday, which was perhaps the single most horrifying day of the entire year. we went to all these boutiques were the dresses were big and floofy and went for over $1000 a pop. i hate those fucking stores, the ones where they make you "register" and then have some lady following you around commenting on your boob size and all the different shades of white. monday, i went on my own to a place in woodfield called "total wedding." here, nobody followed me around, i didn't have to fill out paperwork, and, immediately, i found a beautiful dress for under $200. but do i go back today and buy it without getting the approval of another girl? do i say "fuck it" and just make the decision on my own? and why doesn't chris just want to elope????? party, shmarty. i'd rather have some dude marry us in vegas and then spend the rest of the evening having margaritas and watching some fifteen dollar show starring transvestites.

also, i wouldn't mind hanging out at a wax museum or playing some roulette.

the other end (of the telescope)

ticket's for amiee mann's show in july have been purchased and are in the mail. marcia and i are going together with our respective boyfriends, who will surely be banging their heads against walls by the end of the concert. i know chris doesn't *hate* aimee mann, but he sure doesn't like her. this is because aimee sings of emotional truths that chris- and most men- just can't handle.

ah, i kid. how could i make such a generalization? i know the real reason chris doesn't like ms. mann- it's because her first name is the same as an ex-girlfriend's. if her name was jackie mann, then, by my logic, he'd absolutely love her music.

either way, i am very excited. "bachelor number two" and "lost in space" got me through some tough times, not to mention "i'm with stupid," "whatever," and certain 'til tuesday songs. also, the songs make me think fondly of carole, which is always a good thing, and of other friends and companions who- like the song so beautifully, wistfully states- are currently at the other end of telescope.

and now i'm sharing her with my sister. which is just wonderful.

eat sith

we went to a matinee of "star wars" yesterday, thus saving a whole three dollars off regular admission. as we had arrived obscenely early for the showing, the cheese decided to order a medium popcorn and soda to kill some time. this small snack was over eight dollars; our profit margin at this point went straight out the window.

the deciding point of whether or not to order the concessions came when we spied the "butter flavored chemical" dispenser off to the side. "we can put as much butter on our popcorn as we want," the cheese proclaimed, drool forming at the corners of his lips. "what i've overspent, i'll quickly make back in butter." by the time he was finished, every individual popcorn was encased its own thick coat of butter topping and our hands were appropriately goopy.

i enjoyed "episode 3." i didn't love it. i never love these kind of movies, no matter how epic or how big a following (complete with costumes) it may draw. it's the long fighting scenes that make me zone out, the violence, the drawn out battles between good and not-so-good. i try to pay attention and get into it; instead, i find myself watching the clash of swords or other weapons and trying to calculate how much longer, exactly, the whole thing will go on for.

but, i did enjoy watching "sith" more than i thought i would. i found myself drawing parallels between the film and the bush administration. "it can't just be me," i thought to myself, and so today i found this article. imagine my surprise that i had actually picked up on something.

oh, you poor thing

i am interested in starting my own clothing company. this is not because i am feeling creative or entrepreneurial; this is because i need new clothes, and nothing fits me. well, that's not true- lots of stuff fit me. little t-shirts that say "i kissed your boyfriend" fit me just fine, along with trendy jeans meant for fourteen year old girls and tiny pink hoodies and scores and scores of hideous baby blue capris. my problem is that i need new "career" clothes- and it's impossible to find a nice suit when you're a tall size one. im-freaking-possible.

so the questions: do i gain weight as to give myself more wardrobe choices? do i learn to sew and make my own pants out of spare felt? do i write nasty letters to the clothing companies? do i keep wearing the few suits i managed to find from the juniors section? i want NICE suits, dammit. and i want them now. it's a proven fact that the nicer you dress, the nicer you feel. just ask sitcom stars.

what's in the bucket, david?

david lynch does a daily weather report from his website. he sits at a table with his morning coffee and proclaims in a monotone voice what the weather is like outside his window. the window is never pictured. i was taken with this concept from the very start, and, if i had a camera, i would probably perform traffic reports for the nearest suburban intersection as a sort of homage.

david states the date, the approximate temperature outside, and whether or not there are clouds in the sky. i've been tuning in for about a month now with no expectations but to hear if the clouds in l.a. are "wispy" or not. but this past week, things started to get interesting. first some crumbs appeared on his table next to the coffee. "probably from his morning muffin," i figured. then, an upside down bucket with a question mark on it appeared to the left of the crumbs. i was completely intrigued. what was under the bucket? the muffin? another cup of coffee? a live animal? a dead animal?

i logged on today, and the bucket with the question mark... has been replaced by a bigger bucket with an even bigger question mark. and i can't stop thinking about it.

only david lynch could take a simple weather report- compiled without any scientific data or charts or even a thermometer or window- and turn it into the mystery of the year.

innovative technology

i have a new idea for a search engine. all too often, i find myself staring at an object wondering exactly what it is called. it's hard to look up an item online without knowing its name, and it's even harder to put the description into google in order to find it. for example, the search "flat, green, probably not edible" does not yield any useful info. so, why not create a search engine where you can upload a picture of something in order to find out what it's called, how it works, and where it comes from?

it would be an even better idea to be able to put your picture into the search engine and then be able to add a question in order to narrow the result. for example, say you're taking apart a car, just for the hell of it, and when you put the car back together, you're left with a very odd, unidentifiable piece. you have no idea what it's called or where it goes. without my innovative technology, you'd probably throw it away, figure you don't need it, and then proceed to drive down the road until you get to an intersection where your car promptly blows up and injures nine. if you were able to do a picture search for that item, you could upload your pic of this strange item and also add the question, "without this in my car, will nine innocent bystanders with third degree burns sue my estate in order to pay for their skin grafts?" the computer will then direct you to an article explaining that, yes, without this item, there's going to be a whole lot of trouble, so you'd better put it back near the transmission where it belongs.

brilliant.

after i purchase www. what-the-hell-is-this. com, i will look for computer science type guys to help me make this dream a reality.

i know what i'm doing all weekend...

Free Frostys at Wendy’s

RedEye

Published May 11, 2005

Wendy's restaurants plan to give away free Frostys nationwide Friday through Sunday to thank customers for supporting them during the embarrassing incident in California where a women allegedly planted a finger in a bowl of chili, cnn.com reports. "Our customers stood by us while we defended our good name ... so now we're showing our appreciation with free Frostys," Tom Mueller, Wendy's chief executive, said in a press release. "We're moving on."

i'm mapping out every wendy's in a thirty mile radius and then going to town. and then i'm going to put on a fake mustache and hit them all again.

jackie homemaker

tonight i thought that i would iron a shirt. this decision was made after consuming one bottle of wine. i dragged the ironing board out from the closet. the cheese had purchased this ironing board one day when i told him he could buy anything he wanted as long as it was supported by two thin, criss-crossing bars with a precariously high center of gravity. i got out the board and then i asked, "where do i plug this in?" having consumed a bottle of wine, i didn't realize that you needed an iron to iron; i thought the board would be sufficient. and we all had a good laugh over that.

this is what i ironed:

one sleeve of a suit jacket

collar of a "blouse"

three socks

slice of poundcake

and everything turned out beautifully.

don't panic

we ventured out into the world of the living to see "hitchhiker's guide" with our friends john and kirsten. many books strongly define periods of my life; this collection of books is one of them. i read this during a period of great depression, and it lifted me from the depths of my sadness and plopped me squarely onto a sense of elevated satisfaction. i remember cj reading aloud a section detailing marvin the paranoid android and his million years parking cars while we were still dating; we were laying in bed, and he was reading as if i were a child, complete with funny voices and silly faces. in retrospect, that's the perfect illustration of how he thought of me- as a child needing to be amused- but, nonetheless, it introduced me to the books, and after we broke up, i think i started reading the books as a way to remind myself of him. once i got into the story, though, the whole venture was no longer about cj at all, but about bistromathics and the importance of towels and the effects of drinking pan galactic gargle blasters.

i tried to get everybody to read this books- friends, coworkers, dudes on the bus. when i met the cheese, our love of the "guide" was one of the first things we had in common, two dorks that we are. last night, we both agreed that the movie was good, but that no film could ever live up to the books. when i got home, i tucked myself into bed with not my own copy of "the guide," since my friend john still has it, but the cheese's copy of "the guide," and read myself into a beautiful slumber.

it's heartwrenching to see chris in the hospital. it's day two, and he's staying another night. he'll be okay, but i just want him home with me. we took little walks around the nurse's station today, as is recommended for recovery. he's in so much pain that he walks like an old man, shuffling his feet, slouching over, and clutching tightly to his iv drip with one hand and my arm with the other. every time we took one of these walks, i had to bite my lip to keep from crying. it's the look on his sweet face- a boyish mix of anguish and determination- that made me want nothing but to hug him and hold him as tightly as possible. i love him so much, and i just want him to come home, to be back to normal and no longer in a backless hospital gown with his bare butt hanging out for all the world to adore.

jesus comes quickly ...

... reads the sign in front of the church. i drive past wondering, "how do they know this??" is this in the part of the new testament that is rarely discussed, somewhere between the gospels and revelation, perhaps buried deep in one of the corinthians? i see the scene unfolding, jesus and mary magdalene in the dim afterglow, mary trying to hide her disappointment as jesus leers proudly at her. "how was it?" he asks, winking lecherously while wiping the sweat from his face. mary fumbles for words, hesitating before mumbling, "it was... fast. awfully fast."

jesus. our lord and savior, master carpenter, horrible in bed. churches should really hire copy-editors.