A Momentary Revoking of the Blogbargo

Or: The Blogbargobargo


I would like to take this moment to remind you of the two of us, mid-morning, puttering around the living room, trying not to spill the coffee in our mugs, while we look for a mouse we are positive has invaded the apartment. You poke though the boxes by the entertainment center, I peer behind the couch and say, "I know I saw it, I just know." We move in circles around the furniture, scrutinizing the baseboards, and we find many things: flecks of paint, the carapace of bugs, a lonesome Cheerio, long, tangled strands of our hair.

But there is no mouse, no sign of any mouse.

Our eyes meet to commiserate over this baffling turn of events, and surveying each other's stooped shoulders and sloshing coffee, we realize it: what graduate school and unemployment have reduced us to, what, at twenty-four, we've become.

Middle-aged men.

We are middle-aged men, stranded at home by a knee surgery when we ought to be at work. We don't know what to do with ourselves and we're always getting on the wife's last nerve. We stay in our pajamas all day long. One side of our face is permanently creased with the pattern of our couch cushions. We are deeply concerned with the fate of Erica Kane's kidnapped lover (who is really her twin brother, Dmitri, stolen at birth and raised by Russian art thieves).

We feel restless, obsolete, a little gassy. If you swing the imaginary webcam down the hall of our apartment, you’ll find that in your room, a job application flickers, unfinished, on your computer screen. In mine, the walls are plastered with the pages of a story I have no clue how to revise.

What we are doing is chasing after a mouse we'll never catch.

It suddenly makes sense that TS Eliot conjured up Prufrock when he was only twenty-three.

"Weekdays," you say, breaking our stalemate.

"Yeah," I sigh. "Weekdays."

And then, inexplicably, we crack up. Like that: the imaginary blog is born!


And therein lies what I came to realize, in writing this blog post, about my joke--it is surprisingly accurate to compare us to injured middle-aged men. Because injured middle-aged men are campy. They are nosy and meddlesome, doggedly so. They have too much time on their hands but they use wisely and come up with some crazy shit. Remember “The Puppy Channel” idea? Invented by a middle-aged man recovering from back surgery, who spent his sick leave watching the televised OJ Simpson trial and wishing he had something else he could flick to during the commercial breaks. In other words: injured middle-aged men are geniuses and we should be glad to feel like them!

So in conclusion, this blog post is intended to celebrate that moment in the living room and our restless pursuit of phantom mice.

Also, the post is intended to shame you into updating, you foolio! Remember your origins! Post in the blog! And save us from wandering into the mushy terrain of Hallmark cards, because I'm going to get sappier and sappier if you don't inject this thing with your trademark and much-loved humor and badassedness.

Weekdaring to eat a peach,
Ash

Kevin Bacon Wrap (Up)

My car still smells like bacon. In other new, the triple bypass was successful.

So your party has reached legend status! I was hanging out with some creative writers last night, including D.O., his girlfriend Ellen, and Ellen's old high school chum, Chuck. This chum is a first year in the daytime program at Davis. He overheard Maria asking how your party went, and he cried, "Oh my God, is that the bacon party? I heard about that!" You are, apparently, the talk of the town.

Well, it's that--but also--Chuck knows your friend Sunny, who told him about it. Still, I think the story accurately reflects how epic the party was, and you should tell the story as if Chuck and Sunny are complete strangers and word about the party traveled that far due only to its sheer awesomeness.

Now let's move on to how I spent the rest of my weekend: contemplating why we haven't done a lipdub yet. You seem ideally suited for this endeavor. The whimsical costumes, intensive organization and choreography, and preference for 1980s pop hits all scream Sara. There's also that technology-friendly aspect to the project: the lipdub only exists because digital cameras and editing software are readily available and relatively easy to use, and because websites like YouTube are around to serve as a venue. I mean, you should totally do one.

And you should ask me to be in it.

Now when you do this, be persistent. I might feign disinterest at first, but I will secretly be delighted to be included. A little prodding is all it will take for my inner diva to take over: she will need to figure prominently in the video, wear a lot of glitter, and hey, let's just play it safe--go ahead and rent the double-wide trailer for her dressing room. Snoop and his crew will need a place to crash.

Did you notice my excellent use of adverbs in that previous paragraph? Last week, I gave my class a lecture on why they shouldn't write "creep slowly" and other such redundancies, and they of course challenged me, as you did. I then related the story of you scuttling across the room, in an effort to demonstrate how one might "creep quickly," and they thought it was quite hilarious. I can't wait to share your apostrophe comic with them. Boy, do they need it.

Tomorrow, I'm teaching an essay about 30 Rock. It's from a feminist magazine and it talks about how Tina Fey is pushing boundaries and redefining how women are portrayed on television. It explains that in most sitcoms, women with high-power jobs tend to be really demure and eager to please--for example, Mary Tyler Moore and Ally McBeal were successful career women, but they were always kind or kittenish, thus reinforcing the feminine ideal. Liz Lemon, meanwhile, is successful and brainy, but can also be mean, childish, petty, even ugly--in other words, she can be the butt of joke. The article argues this makes her more realistic, and that's part of why we love her. Yay! I'm trying to find a YouTube clip of Lemon buying all the hot dogs from the stand because someone cuts her in line. I wonder if I can get away with us just watching an entire episode on Hulu? Yeah?

Lastly, I have discovered a theme song for your business school self. Put on your business socks and gets down to biz-niz.

Okay, I had to share gossip and what I was doing when I was supposed to be writing, but seriously, I'm imposing a blogbargo until you update! Good luck as you gear up for finals and then: blog it, biatch!

Week-dallying,
Ash

Last night on Otis Avenue

The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking road which seemed to be cut through bushes and low-growing things which ended in the great expanse of dark apparently spread out before and around them. A wind was rising and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.

“It’s—it’s not the sea, is it?” said Mary, looking round at her companion.

“No, not it,” answered Mrs. Medlock. “Nor it isn't fields nor mountains, it's just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep.”

“I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it,” said Mary. “It sounds like the sea just now.”

“That’s the wind blowing through the bushes,” Mrs. Medlock said. “It’s a wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there’s plenty that likes it—particularly when the heather’s in bloom.”

On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped, the wind rushed by and whistled and made strange sounds. The road went up and down, and several times the carriage passed over a little bridge beneath which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise. Mary felt as if the drive would never come to an end and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.

“I don’t like it,” she said to herself. “I don’t like it,” and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together.

Moors are wasted on the fictional!

The Tell-Tale Carburetor

The ghost of the Volvo is haunting me. It seems like every time I get on the road, I see her drab, boxy body idling at a stoplight, chugging slowly but steadily—so steadily!—through an intersection. She is driven by old ladies and boys in thin, pilled t-shirts. She fills me with a mix of affection and betrayal.

Even on my way to Salsa Tacos—even then!

I pulled onto the freeway behind one, totally ancient and gross, and there was a gray and white cat curled up in the rear window. Not even in a carrying case! This is the thing I meant to tell you yesterday, when I said there was a thing I meant to tell you, but couldn’t remember. I remembered! The cat was big and sleek with gray paws, chilling on the ledge where the speakers go. When the Volvo rounded the curve of the on-ramp, the cat pitched forward and dug its claws into the back seat to keep from flying through the air. And I mean, honestly, there is no need for such gymnastics: the Volvo, when properly cared for, ought to turn on a dime.

The driver was a Mexican woman who was so small she had to crane her neck to see over the steering wheel. There was a pile of stuff, something like old stereo equipment, in the passenger’s seat.

I’m not sure what any of this means, but I think it has something to do with me not being crazed enough to own that kind of car. Thoughts?

I anxiously await a picture of you dressed as a nerd, and am curious to hear how the rubber chicken was received. In light of my not having a Facebook, post soon!

Weekdazed,

Ash

Smoke Alarm Cartels

The smoke alarm's battery is low and I do not have a ladder.  I have pretty much tuned it out at this point. It is my theory that the smoke alarm companies and the battery companies collaborate to beep earlier than necessary so to stimulate battery sales.  I refuse to buy in to their scheme.

I met another person that tucks their socks into their pants.

Please get back on Facebook.  Ignoring the social media movement is ill advised, according to Ryan Howard.

Warm regards,
Sara