Vegetables are people too

My friend D sent me a good Halloween joke:

“I like my women like my coffee: ground and in the freezer”

You can share this with your friends if you wish.

I went to a fun costume party on Saturday. The hosts dressed up as "Pootie Tang" and "Bootylicious" warriors. They didn't really, but that's what the names sounded like to me. I don’t even remember the last time I was at a costume party. I went as Mary Tyler Moore, but in reality it turned into Slutty Tyler Moore. I just couldn’t quite get the Office Mary look down. That backcombing of the hair is quite a bitch, and I think this is where the downfall started. Here’s another little tip: costume parties are great for people who can’t remember names. You can honestly look at a dressed up person and say, “So, who’s behind that mask?” This was also my first party where there was a keg. I’m just as surprised as you are by this news. You’d think in my forty plus years that some keg would have come my way.

My poor friend A (who is having her book published in spring and I’m way excited) told me she got her photos back for the book cover and was horrified at how ugly she is. Here’s a little sample of her feelings:

- “my skin looks like the underneath side of carpeting”
- “Why is everything, ultimately, a humiliation?”
- “I am dying, dying of shame and disgust”

So, I thought I would cheer her up with one of my favorite Woody Allen quotes:

“We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.”

This works like a charm for those suffering from the darkest moments of depression.

Here’s a site you should check out for cool t-shirts with goofy sayings:
http://www.cottonfactory.com

I particularly like the one that says “Vegetables are people too” and “You can’t hug kids with nuclear arms.” Enjoy!

Come walk with me pretty unicorn

I just read some of the worst poetry ever from my eighth grade yearbook called the "Haven Scroll" (hence the above title).

I’ve had some tough(er) questions this week at reference:

- The history of good luck charms
- Historical ranges of mammals (specifically black bears and gray wolves)
- What tax concessions (if any) do Fortune 500 companies get for charity donations
- Correlation between diet and gestational diabetes
- Identifying one of the plaintiffs from the Denny’s discrimination case in 1993

Certainly more fun than the typical printer, stapler or computer problem, or the irritating questions from the perv that occasionally asks if we have any books on “men who love women too much.” Whatever!

Buttcracks and oozing bellies are still the fashion rage on campus.

The word on the street is that “metrosexual” is no longer the buzz. The new term is “ubersexual.” I’m not quite sure what’s behind this meaning. I actually think “uber” has become passe. However, I may just plug it in front of everything so I can be ubercool and uberhip, too.

A former colleague of mine in Chicago is opening up a lifestyle store for men. Yes, I asked myself the same thing. Uberwhat? Sounds like “ubersexual” would probably work well in this case for some direct marketing kits. Supposedly it’s the retail version of Cargo magazine. The plan is to sell stuff like portable bar sets in tiny attaché cases and motorized nose hair trimmers.

The German just emailed to tell me he leafed through some 1,500 pages of a bound German weekly newspaper (the entire first half of 1900) without finding a single reference to an artist he’s been researching. He said it was loads of fun. He’s uberloco (that’s a catchy term. I'll probably use this again. I recently invented another catchy term - bummerlicious).

Everything sold in hardware stores

Today, I wore a tanish corduroy skirt with brown tights, rusty colored riding boots, a black t-shirt and a green sweater. Too many colors. I was teaching and I thought I should look more “presentable” than my usual schleppy self. The problem with this skirt is that it’s too comfortable. I find myself touching my legs constantly to see if it’s still there. The other problem with the skirt is that it’s sort of “tulip” shaped at the bottom, so I look like a Victorian lampshade with these sticky legs coming out. It’s pretty gross. I have big honkin’ hips – not made for tulip skirts. I’m having second thoughts about my comfortable skirt.

There are a number of people I know coming up for tenure next week. Most people outside of the academic community don’t really know what tenure is. They typically think it’s something like joining a union, and that the “tenured” people can demand wages that are out of sync with the economy while simultaneously working less and making it impossible to be fired. I think in some circles they call this communism.

According to US Weekly, Jessica and Nick have officially SPLIT! - and Paris has stolen Mary-Kate’s boyfriend (yet another Greek shipping heir). Where do these young Greek shipping heirs hang out? Maybe they hang out with the “Spanish Explorers” I occasionally read about in the royal wedding section of W. ‘Tis a strange world those rich people live in. I wish I had taken “Spanish Exploring” classes in college.