Merry ho ho

There is now enough chocolate at the office to paper my wall with.  Mmm… edible walls.

I am so looking forward to five days off I can’t tell you.  Except that I’m getting all scratchy and coughy and thinking I’m about to get sick.

Goldman Sachs shorted their bad mortgage loan paper.  I love how that works.  Let’s take a debt instrument that nobody understands and make book on how far it can fall? The whole house of cards is about to come riffling down at high speed… just like I’ve been warning about for years; it’s just that it’s closer than it was in 2004.

I can’t talk about work.  I’ll talk about underwear instead….. my daughter gave me really cute underwear for Christmas.  Or if I talk about work, how about peripherally?

Dave DeR gave me the Onion Atlas for Xmas.  It’s very funny.  Yes, I opened it early! I open every Christmas present I get when I get it.  This crap about waiting just means that the garbage gets loaded into one week, I prefer to spread the Christmas debris over a couple of garbage cycles.

Bitter?  Not at all.  I’ve just gone back to my normal state, which is grumpy.

Fight fair and come out swinging

Man sells 15 year old boy’s Christmas present – A Guitar Hero – on Ebay – to make a point about his pot smoking.

First, let me be the blue sky girl and say that in a perfect world, parents would own their f*cking children, and there’d be none of this goddamned tripe about how kids have rights, except the right to have such comforts as their parents can afford, like a sumptuously appointed privy, 7 hours of meaningful work a day to do, and more after you graduate from public school, and as many character building beatings as any adult within earshot with both energy and inclination may feel like doling out.  What the hell was this kid thinking?  That his wretched habit would not have consequences?  That his taste in friends would win him his father’s praise and a buss on both cheeks?  The son we may dismiss for the bone deep stupidity of youth which is his daily portion, hardly enhanced by a good lacing of BC Bud.
As for the dad, what a simp!  Advertising that he’d parked his cojones squarely over Satan’s beartrap of commercialism and me-too-ism?   No; he should have put the Guitar Hero quietly in the Christmas family hamper at work so they could fence the horrid piece of earsplitting devilishness for crack, and beaten the shit out of his kid.  Why make a public spectacle of himself in this shameful and moronic fashion?  This is not a day in which I am proud to be a Canuckistani parent, I’m telling you.

I think the dad should go RIGHT OUT and buy that kid a Bible, and clean out his room except for a night table and a drawer to put the Bible in.  I think the dad should ground that 15 year old parasite until he leaves home, which given the storm of freakish publicity (the father is not named, but you can bet your ass 10 minutes on myspace would turn the cowardly, short sighted bastard up) should be long about spring thaw.

In short, these two have broken the two cardinal rules of the Canadian father-son dyad!  The son GOT CAUGHT.  The father ADVERTISED IT.  May they both find a Chick-pamphlet corner of hell to scream at each other in for the rest of eternity.

Allegra has spoken.

Cross post from LJ

Spent the evening with Kopper and was in such an exalted state upon my return to my apartment that I couldn’t sleep.  Do you suppose the exercise helped?  Maybe it was the second dinner?

I composed a six minute comedy routine, recited it thrice through and spoke it into my digital recorder. All hail Lady Miss Banjola for reminding me I had one.  Then I woke up with two bizarre things going on simultaneously in my cranium; I woke up dreaming that Mike was crossing from dream life into real life with me as I awoke (I was in full combat gear, and he was in civvies, carrying a package). I was point and as I came around I was going to let him have it with this extremely fine weapon I was carrying and he just grinned and said, “You won’t need that.”

At the same time a really pretty chorus was ringing in my head.  In four part harmony.  I mean ringing.  I couldn’t get out of bed until I’d memorized it, and now I’m going to sing it into Garage Band, much to the disgust of my neighbours as I imagine.

That was a hell of a talk, girl.

Later…. This helped too.

I had no idea

… that Lady Miss Banjola took this picture. There are two awesome things and two awful things about the pic. The first two are that I am very happy I followed Janice’s example and quit dying my hair. I’m even happier I’ve let it grow out. The first awful thing is I LEFT THOSE JARS OF BLACKBERRY JELLY on the table. They were for me (the ones for Loki being already here) and they did not make it home with me. Arg of Argness! The second awful thing is that this picture makes my nose, already a decent size, look ENORMOUS. But at least I’m pictured working on the second verse of the song, which is now entitled “YOU try being Buffy’s Mom.” Considering I haven’t done anything creative in what feels like eons, that’s something.

Foodicles and Canticles

Dinner at Tom and Peggy’s.  I am in a state of repletion to which I may apply words like total, explosive and entire.  Bacon strips over chicken breasts.  Zow.
The second part of my “three songs by January 25th challenge” is now complete.  I have written a Buffy filk about Joyce.  Ahoy, nautilus3, I am now recycling meh-ish songs into Buffy filks.  Ramen! Joss Whedon and Fox own all the characters.
TTTO If I could write a song for you (by moi, couple of years back)

You think I haven’t got a clue –

I’m telling you it’s no small task

To be the Slayer’s single mom

Well how hard can it be?  I’m glad you asked!

She’s constantly in trouble

And spoiling for a fight

But if my girl’s out kicking demon ass I know the world will be all right

Chorus.

I tell her “Get your homework in on time”

“Try hard to be home by nine”

“When I ask how you are, say, “Fine! I just saved the world… again!””

Every season brings a change, the Scoobies fight a new “Big Bad”

And rabid fans don’t think you’re strange if you won’t watch ‘the Body’ ’cause it’s sad!

You must admit I’m special – Buffy could have done much worse

And that I really am the bestest mother in the whole damned Whedonverse!

Chorus

Bridge

Sometimes I reminisce and sift through memories I like

I get all misty-eyed about the time I clobbered Spike

I’ve been assaulted and enchanted, I take Hellmouth stuff in stride

I’m telling you it’s parenthood that’s oftentimes a much more scary ride

It’s all about the teamwork – it’s all about fair play

But I’d appreciate if you don’t ask about my fling with Giles today

Chorus

Repeat “I just saved the world… again!”

Spoken: “That’s my girl!

Note to Lady Miss Banjola… big time lyric changes from tonight’s recording but the shape of the song has not changed.  Suggestions for additional lyrics/verses gratefully accepted!

Anniversary

Today’s the anniversary of the day I told Paul I was calling it quits.  I phoned Tammy a year ago today and told her I wanted to kill myself.  (I did, too, despite being told that I was being manipulative.) Instead of freaking out, she listened; at the end of about half an hour, she said, in a tone of voice that I recollect when I think I’m friendless (her tone being solemn, helpful and engaged) “You don’t want to kill yourself.  You want a divorce.”

Now I am sure that there a couple of people out there who wish I had offed myself, but frankly I’m glad I didn’t, as a couple of things have happened since that I am glad I lived through.

So today, I’d just like to say a couple of things.  The person sitting next to you may look fine and want to die.  Go easy on people; you don’t know what griefs they are carrying that you really wish you’d known about in advance.  In the rush to judgment do not trample compassion.
The other thing I want to say is that over the span of the last year, a lot of people I thought I knew have revealed their true colours to me.  A lot of people I respect have earned more of my respect.  A lot of people I like have become more likeable.  And a number of people I thought I hated have turned out to be poor, suffering bastards deserving of love and compassion and kindness.  I can’t make them like me – such is not within my power – but I have stopped hating, and that’s a really good place to find myself a year onwards.

Oh, and I think I’ve found somebody to date.  He’s very private and a bit of a Luddite, so I am mentioning his existence only as passing news, as he will not otherwise be turning up in my blog. But anybody who’s into contradancing can’t be all bad, right Chipper?