Channeling Alfalfa

Dear Assholes, Haters, and Miscellaneous Stains on Humanity,

I hate your stinkin' guts. You make me vomit. You're scum between my toes!

Love, El Guero

I...Survived Thanksgiving? What the Hell?

Thanksgiving, the national holiday that honors the autumnal harvest and feast of religious extremists illegal immigrants our Pilgrim forebears, came and passed without great incident. I was in shock and frankly a little disappointed. Nobody even tried to stab anybody this year. Oh well. Here are highlight from my life in the past 24 hours:

* A family member who will remain anonymous casually dropped the phrase "because you know how the Jews control the world" at the Thanksgiving table.

* Turned away passive-aggressive jokes with funnier passive-aggressive jokes.

* Used my grandmother's cane to sing her an overdramatic, improvised Spanish love song as though I was drunk

* Decided that many people in my life are wastes of time (not in my family, just in general)

In other news, I found out that my aunt got her condo cheap because a woman supposedly got raped there. Don't know if I believe it, but apparently, if you're willing to clean up months-old blood spatter, it really brings the price down. Huh. That almost makes spending summers at her place for Sea World camp as a child terrifying, but we're not a superstitious family, and I'm pretty jaded. My cousin moved into a house where a teenage girl committed suicide and it was pretty much no biggie. Also found out that *our* house apparently used to be a distribution center for underground pornography ring, which explains SO MUCH about who I am...

The potential for girl-drama on multiple fronts seems unusually high right now. Part of it is just my generalized narcissism, but part of it is taking/has taken/could possibly take place in reality. I don't know if I'm inadvertently sending out signals or if my pheremones carry for miles, but something is up. There's something ovulating in Denmark...

I came up with a working definition of a date that I think pretty much sums things up for me. "Dancing is just dancing. A date for me is like a sit down and talk kind of thing...where I have to pick up another person's tab and it amounts to more than $5 in non-alcohol-related activity." Obviously there are flaws -- there is the Starbucks exemption and the obvious "man-date" exemption if McDonald's is on me -- but it's a good jumping off point.

Next post: life as a "freelance journalist".

Random Thoughts Before Sunday Ends

Caffeine, fast food – I wish I knew how to quit you.

I’m starting a weeklong moratorium on fast food and caffeine, aka the only two things that keep me alive. I hope and pray that I survive this detox. Thank God I don’t have friends who smoke, otherwise I’d probably be bumming cigarettes and claiming that I can’t get cancer because I’m only “socially” ingesting fiery nicotine into my supple pink lungs.

Hating on haters

You’re a skeeze. I hate you. It would give me no greater pleasure than to yell "SKEEZE!" to your face, but I doubt you'd care. Which would take away from the pleasure of calling you a skeeze. It's a Catch-22.

And finally, on a strangely toned religious note…

My taste in songs for Mass is subversively Protestant. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that the Catholic Church has things like structure, dignity, and tradition, and knowing that from East to West, perfect offerings are being made using the same words in different languages is great. When I was in Tunis I went to Mass held in Italian and I was able to follow because the ritual was the same.

But come ON, let’s live a little! What happened to the Vatican that brought down the Soviet Union or the Vatican that has a bunch of bishops running around in Dan Brown novels? I know I’m not *supposed* to like “worship” music because it comes from those pesky schismatics, but we’re losing people because they feel alienated by codgery old prudes and their codgery young children who cast disapproving looks over EVERYTHING. One way we can reach out is with good music. We are NOT fundamentalist Bible-thumpers who forbid singing because it might lead to dancing and God forbid talking. The Catholic Church is the foundation of Western music. If there's anything we know, it's that music can bring people into an experience on a whole other level. So why are we so lame when it comes to reaching out?

Churches used to be places where people came together to celebrate. When did we go from rejoicing in being alive to “Thou shalt not dance in the House of God. Thou shalt not have guitars or percussive instruments, nor shall thine musicians induce excitement about what is going on in front of everyone”? Sure, there should be restraint. I've seen horrible circus clowns who make themselves the center of attention at services with antics and overstated sound systems. Verily, they will get their reward. But Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says there’s a time for everything, right? “A time to mourn and a time to dance”? So why are we always so dour?

Whatever. I’m not a cardinal and I’m going to Hell anyways, it’s not like my opinion matters. Black Baptists and Zoroastrians, you’re on notice. I need music and/or fire in my worship services.

Groans, Koans, and Vulpine Conceits

There are two simple joys in life.

The first is showing up people who radically underestimate your abilities.

The second is telling haters that you're considering turning down something they can't possibly get when it's been basically thrown into your lap. It messes with their head. Their incredulity at your Zen-like apathy will drive them nuts. All of a sudden, every word you say becomes enigmatic and your nonchalance morphs into ethereal mystique as they try to figure out if you're crazy.

Yeah. Crazy like a FOX.

May God forgive me for taking pleasure in these simple things. But justice is sweeeeet...