"Great Lagomorph Lingams! That Rabbit's Got a Brand New Penis!":
If my e-mail spam folder is any indication, humans are obsessed with the length, girth, and efficacy (see also: the ability to "subdue se7ven w0men w 1 blow") of the male penis. Medications, manual pumps, visual stimuli, and animals driven to endangerment in the name of longer, harder, faster can try as they might, but all the tadalafil in the world can't fix what's truly broke, which is why science has taken it one step further and created artificial rabbit penises.

Labels: the metablogging

I haven't made too much of this here, but I'm working on NaNoWriMo (aka National Novel Writing Month) throughout November. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, which means that my original goal was to write 1,667 words every day this month, which means that by the end of today I wanted to have written 18,337 words.

How many words have I written up until this point? 6,776.

Multiply that by 2.7, and I would be where I wanted to be, but I am not. If I continue at this rate, I will only reach 40% of my goal, and this can't happen, because, you see, I was interviewed by CBC Radio on November 2nd about this whole NaNoWriMo business. I thought that was going to be it, but no. They asked if I would also be willing to be interviewed on the 16th and then on December 1st, as well, in order to keep track of my progress. Until then, I had been planning on giving it a half-hearted go and then abandoning it without much fanfare, but now that I have to report on my progress on national radio, my plans have had to change.

So, CBC RADIO IS MAKING ME WRITE A NOVEL IN 30 DAYS.

AND IT'S MAKING ME TYPE IN ALL-CAPS A LOT.

OKAY, I'M TAKING A BREATH.

I MEAN: Okay, I'm taking a breath.

I can do this, and I want to do this, but writing a novel is a tall order under normal circumstances let alone doing it in 30 days when I've started a new part-time job, I am working my usual round of Schmutzie.com/Grace in Small Things/Five Star Friday/MamaPop/etc., and I am also taking part in NaBloPoMo, because I am a lunatic who thinks it's great to do more writing every day for pretty much everything I write for than I ever have in my entire life up until this point oh my god mental hospital.

Basically, I want you to hold me and kiss my forehead and tell me that I can do this because I can and I'm awesome.

Will you forgive me if I start supplementing my diet with shots of cheap vodka?

Labels: the creativity, the here and now

"Céline Dion's In Vitro Second Pregnancy Did Not Take":

Being one of the Canadian minority here on MamaPop, I feel that I am uniquely suited to talk about Céline Dion and how deeply apologetic a good number of us northerners feel that we allowed her and her saccharine brand of wailing celebrity to grow to prominence. Her fertility woes leave me feeling conflicted, though, because now I feel like I have to be nicer about her talent, which is really hard, because we Canadians have had to hear a lot more of her than anyone else, and my ears, they have suffered TWENTY YEARS of violation.

Personal conflict aside, though, it is sad to hear that Céline Dion's in vitro pregnancy has failed after she, 41, and her husband René Angélil, 67, made an excited announcement in August that she was pregnant with their second child.

Labels: the metablogging

1. Sicilian cannoli

2. The feel of writing with a grease pencil on meatpacking paper

3. When the Palinode surprises me by coming home early from work

4. The Tilt-A-Whirl

5. The girl with the funky hair who stopped us in the street to ask for directions

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

Labels: the grace in small things

1. Butterscotch ripple ice cream with chocolate sauce

2. That Chibi helped me find my iPhone by calling it for me

3. That Chibi also tweeted that I have a lovely voice

4. Marching bands

5. Ellen DeGeneres

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

Labels: the grace in small things

I woke up with the worst hangover I have had in ages (okay, since Halloween, then) due to hanging out for the first time with Mrs. Wilson last night, so I popped two ibuprofen (which I love to spell, because it all looks like some over-simplified new-speak), and set myself up for a day of catching up on my NaNoWriMo word count, but then I decided it would be more fun to google pictures of fat chihuahuas, which was an excellent if complete waste of time, and then I noticed that the apartment was getting awfully humid because I had lost track of the fact that I was boiling water for my hangover remedy of macaroni and white cheddar, so I tossed some more water in the now nearly empty pot, laughed until I snorted over Miss Doxie's entry about getting a feral kitten, and forgot once again that I was boiling water, so I got up, added more water to the pot, and checked out the photos I took last night while I was still coherent enough to use my camera,


Mrs. Wilson with Jay being a total creepster outside

and then I FORGOT AGAIN THAT I WAS BOILING WATER (I am a terribly ridiculous excuse for a person sometimes), and added more water to the pot while hoping that all this artificial humidity would be good for my mid-30s acne, and then I added more water to the pot 20 minutes later, because I have faith that my stomach will eventually remind me that I must eat to stay alive.

The End.

Labels: the here and now, the miscellany

1. Meeting Mrs. Wilson in the flesh!

2. Sweet potato fries with mustard mayonnaise

3. Motrin, which makes all things possible some days

4. St. John's wort

5. Bermuda

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

Labels: the grace in small things

I have taken a job as a part-time salesperson in a mall for Christmas money, which means that one of my jobs has me out on the retail floor for the first time since 2004. Enough time has passed that I had nearly forgotten the strange intimacy that occurs between salesperson and customer.

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Yesterday, I met a man who had just had his colon removed due to his fight with colitis. He walked with the careful tension of a person whose body could not yet be trusted. He allowed me to bend down to the floor and help him slip his shoes on and off. His socks were clean and soft, and I wondered who had helped him with such great care that morning.

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A woman was hoping that she would be able to buy her husband another pair of his favourite slippers before Christmas, but he was suffering from The Gout and couldn't fit a shoe on his left foot. He was at the doctor's about The Gout right at that moment. She hoped that the doctor could do something about The Gout, but The Gout kept returning. Good men like him shouldn't have The Gout, she said, especially when they have such a mean neighbour who is in good health. I'm thinking that she would like to give her neighbour a good case of The Gout for Christmas.

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"What's with these mittens?" another woman asked, wriggling her hand into a mitten with separate finger compartments inside.

"It's sort of a hybrid between a mitten and a glove," I said.

"Well, I don't like it. Things should be what they are."

"Think of them as glittens," I said.

"No," she said. "Things should be one thing or the other. They should be what they are." She appeared to be offended by them and frowned while she put them down gingerly.

Poor glittens, I thought, as I hung them back on the rack. Who will speak for them?

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Customers drift in for minutes, sometimes for only seconds, and while they are explaining what they are looking for, they are also explaining themselves. They tell story after story about their families, their desires, the things they believe in, and they follow me home to people my dreams, their tales knocking around together in my brain like a makeshift village of strangers looking for love.

Labels: the here and now

1. Spicy chili sauce

2. A waiter honest enough to tell us that his boss doesn't respect his customers so that I no longer have to unwittingly support his business

3. Playing around with Typekit

4. Walking to work

5. Short tables set deep into the floor in Japanese restaurants

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

Labels: the grace in small things

1. Ciabatta loaf

2. Spewing out a couple thousand words for NaNoWriMo and liking it

3. Singing 1980s tv show theme songs in the car, which devolved into a limping rendition of "Ebony and Ivory"

4. Power tools

5. Husbands what can do the tech stuff to make the computers do stuff when stuff doesn't seem to want to happen

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

Labels: the grace in small things