My family can’t keep track of my friends.  They make fun of me that I have friends in every city. And a friend mentioned today that I travel a lot.  Except I was sad I was doing so little traveling this year.  Ha.  I take for granted never staying in one place, always having someone in the next port.

And I have been in a relative (to me) slump, and lots of people called, texted, emailed, or came by plane, train, or car to help me out.  Not because I asked, or not necessarily just to see me, but that’s how my friends are.  They’ll take a 4 hour bus trip to see me when I am in a town nearby.  And I will do the same.  And you might not think that’s weird, but I think most people do.  Because a lot of people won’t even pick you up at the airport 15 mins from their house.  And my friends will.  Because they are super, super awesome.

And I am not the easiest person to help.  As my friend Grace said, “You are the most independent person I know.”  I take that as an extreme compliment, but I am realizing it’s also a bad thing.  Or it can be.  My favorite movie is Showgirls, and though people ridicule it (as do I), there’s a scene where the main character (who runs out of every scene rather than deal with anything) is told:

“You got your arms straight out, saying, ‘Back off, motherfucker.’”
“Yeah, you got that down. BACK OFF, MOTHERFUCKER!”

It’s my nature to have my hands straight out yelling, “Back off, motherfucker.” (Hereafter referred to as BOMF). I don’t need your help, why won’t you just let me do it by myself?  It’s a hereditary stubbornness, combined with an upbringing where I could never do anything alone.  I am hardwired to do things for myself, by myself, and I am not comfortable with asking for help or even realizing when people are offering it.  Asking for help feels like conning a mark to me.  But my friends are awesome, because they help anyway.  They self-correct for my BOMFy tendencies.  And that’s good.  I know a few other BOMFy people and I think sometimes we just have to be sat down (literally or metaphorically) by our friends and told to accept help.

So, thanks everyone.  You rule.  Whether you force me to leave the house, listen to my late-night calls, take my ims, offer advice, realize when I am roundaboutly asking for help because you know it’s hard for me to ask directly, or get out of the way when I am yelling, “Back off, motherfucker!” you are helping.  And I am trying to put my hands down and shut up more often.

Everything you need to know you can learn from Showgirls, in my opinion.  In the future, all writing will prove that.

Hi! I have several times tried to use your services–maybe a book or internet access. But all of your books are from 1973 and your storefront library leaves little to be desired. But you are close to my dad’s house and I need the internet. I call to ask you if you have “wi-fi.” You say, “what?” After a while I clarify I would like wireless internet, and you say you have it but I need a library card. Really? Okay, I have the ID and 2 pieces of mail you require to get one. When I come in to do so, you say my Netflix envelopes are “junk mail” and do not count. When I explain I bank and bill online you make fun of me.

So no internet will be given to me today by you. I wonder why I am the only patron in your library. Oh wait, I don’t, customer serviceless library. I don’t at all. I will go to the library .5 miles away that also has the free wifi for everyone.

I see you sitting behind me on the plane in coach announcing to your friend on the phone that the 600K you make at work is “tight.”  Then why are you behind me in coach?

I understand you don’t have a lot of leg room, what with your huge, huge cock requiring you to spread your legs wide open.  It must be hard for you to corral them during takeoff while I have to LEGALLY put my laptop under the seat as asked by the stewardess.  You could suck it up for three minutes.  You could ask me to move it.  But I forgot rules do not apply to you.  What will you do instead?  Oh yes, kick my machine, repeatedly harder and harder until it dislodges onto the floor.

So will you be giving me the 2K for a replacement in cash?   Or will I just copiously fart on you the entire plane ride?

I think we both know the answer,

~J

R. Kelly on love: “You come to appreciate love more when you in love. Just as you like cereal until you come to your favorite kind of cereal and then you can appreciate cereal even more now, you know?”

If you were illiterate and came into a lot of money, wouldn’t you hire a tutor and learn how to read?  Or is that just me?

I love my Roomba–it was cheap and refurbished but it runs consistently and awesome.  I have never had a problem with it, even though the internet is filled with tons of people with 4 pets complaining it broke in their house.

So I bought the Scooba, even though there was some naysaying on the internet.  Oh boy has this been a nightmare.  I am on my THIRD ONE.  They keep replacing it, because not one of them have worked.  My last one was beyond the 90-day warranty period and they weren’t going to send me a new one because of this, until I pointed out much of those 90 days were taken up at their service facility.  I just tried out my third one to no avail and sent in a new complaint.  I bought this Scooba the day after Thanksgiving and have yet to see it work.  On top of that, each iteration I have received has worked LESS than its predecessor!

If you want a Roomba, run out and buy one.  If you’re thinking about a Scooba, maybe, think again.

My mom:

“You are not effing up your life, or I will kick your ass. I will. Do you feel guilty? You better not! Or I will kick your ass! I will!”

I think I need to sell merch with this new mom catchphrase, “I will kick your ass! I will!”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect man.  You should just stay single.  It’s very hard for two people to live together.  And then a baby comes and the men get crazy because they don’t get attention.”

These are contractions for interbreeding I find amusing:
female donkey + male horse = Hinny
female lion + male tiger = Tigon
female horse + male zebra = Zorse
female donkey + male zebra = Zonkey
female shetland pony + male zebra = Zetland
bison bull + female cow = Beefalo
female llama + male camel = Cama
swan + goose = Swoose
sheep + goat = Shoat (or Geep)

Geep!  But the thing I find disturbing is Beefalo.  Is that the only animal named specifically for the product it becomes?

I was obsessed with the show Today’s Special as a child. Every few years I would do some searching for it to no avail. Well the internet has caught up wih the late 80s!  YouTube has a bunch of great vids, including the intro.  It’s painfully musical (and the singing isn’t even very good) and Canadian, and the storyline revolves around a department store with a mannequin with a magical hat that turns him “real” or at least real in a gay high school musical sense of real.  The other characters are a dept. store window designer, a puppet security guard, and a talking puppet mouse.  I do not know for sure, but I think a talking puppet mouse would shock me more than a living mannequin with a magic hat.  In retrospect I have no idea why the mannequin didn’t leave the store when real a la Mannequin.  I haven’t been this excited since Danger Mouse came out.

Now to lose many hours to Zoobalie Zoo.

If you get a porno mag, it often comes wrapped in plastic.  I get that.  Guess what else does.  Out Magazine.  Wow, talk about living up to the title, huh?

I wish Andrew WK were my life coach.

I will be in Chicago May 21-27.  Sadly it is not for IML but for a parent health update.

So I will probably be doing little outside of the Belmont/Cumberland area, but I will be oppressively bored and unhappy!  So local bars are definitely a good option.  I will be back briefly in Sept. too.

Those of you in Central IL, and possibly KY and TN will get a jennyvisit in Sept.  Details to follow.

Is there a place I can move with less vegetation and fewer trees than NYC?  Because clearly there’s too many here, as I want to poke myself in the eye every 12 seconds.  Stupid trees.

Why is it cheaper to fly from NYC to Moline, IL than from NYC to CHICAGO, even when there is a layover IN Chicago.  You know, Chicago, busiest airport in the freaking country?

If I just buy the Moline ticket and get off in Chicago will people think I am a terrorist?

I assume this is impossible, but does anyone know any way to get internet access (dsl at least) without a contract?  I could supply the router and such, but I am hoping to work from home at my dad’s house and he doesn’t have a computer.  I don’t want to start a yearlong contract for him, obviously.  I am wondering if I could just move my plan over?  But I think that probably won’t work.  Anyone have any experience with this?

And he lives in a building of old people, so no one there has wireless I can steal.  And while I CAN work from Panera, I also have to be on hour plus conference calls so that won’t really work.

I love postcards.  I always write them when on vacation but I almost never send them.  I am thinking of working on that by sending someone a postcard once a week.  Would you like to get postcards?  If so, send me your address at snailmailpostcards at gmail.  Even if you know I know your address, send it there as a sign up.  Potentially I will be taking pics of the postcards I send.  It’s like the opposite of PostSecret!  PostNotSecret.

Dear Allergies,

Though I deeply respect your interest in the recreation of Classical Greek drama,  it is really unnecessary to use your powers to make me want to constantly claw out my own eyes.  Pick on some other schmo.  Maybe one who has slept with their mother.

Toodles,

~J

with gravy

via E

If only we could involve drawn butter….

From Genie, an interesting story, with a more amazing quotation:

“It’s unfortunate that anyone whose name ends in a vowel is connected with organized crime,” Onesto said at the court hearing.

By which I think he MEANS to say it’s unfortunate that people THINK that, not that people whose last name end in vowels actually ARE in the mob.  Or at least I hope.

Dear Germany, Finland, & Austria,

Thanks for taking the heat off of America.   You have been upping the crazy recently.  Sure, we have school shootings, but you have been kicking it old school.  Which suits you, since you are America Old School.  First you had your own school shooting, Finland.  Then you, Austria, had the second kids raised in an incest cellar episode.  The story doesn’t even make sense–there’s about eight parts of the story that seem impossible (who doesn’t go in their cellar for 22 years?).  And it’s the second time it happened there!  Is Flowers in the Attic available in German translation?  Because I bet it would be selling like hotcakes right now.

And then today, frozen babies found by their siblings in Germany.  What is going on Europe?   Is the crazy tied to the Euro to dollar ratio and it’s finally swung around to you in a big way?  Or are you just so bored with the American political news you had to step it up?  I mean the rest of the world is trying with volcano eruptions and Earthquakes in the Midwestern US, and the crazy fundie mormons, but kudos, Europe.  Way to school us.

All my love,

~J

heart.

on the way to my house, a much overdue new bed.

By popular demand, I will recount my awesome experience at the Dolly Parton show at Radio City Music Hall.  I went with my friend Jared who had recently gotten back from tour.  In Nashville, Jared graciously picked up some George Jones’ “Good on Everything Sauce.”  On the way to the show Jared picked up some yellow printing ink as well.

Why do you care about these facts?  Because Radio City does not like liquids in bottles.  The security man and I had a little discussion and he was going to take my George Jones sauce until I said, “OH man!  It’s for BBQ!”  The man totally respected this.  He was completely confused by the printing ink, and allowed it as well.

Our seats were technically “obscured view” which apparently means “awesome, balcony center behind the sound board.”  There was no opener.  Dolly was AMAZING.  She played seven instruments.  At one point, I turned to Jared and said, “What’s next, a harp?” only to have Dolly PULL OUT AN AUTOHARP.

Unlike most big stars she played all her big hits, and three songs off the new album (Backwoods Barbie, Better Get to Livin, and Jesus and Gravity).  I most wanted to hear “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” which was the second song she played.  Her voice was amazingly on point the whole night.  Her chattiness between songs was hilarious.  She thanked everyone for spending their hard earned dough on her.

She played “Jolene” and then mentioned that there were a lot of men dressed as Dolly in the audience.  She said she should have sung it as “Drag Queen.”  The audience was probably the most vociferous and excited I have ever seen, and Dolly seemed to agree.  She had a great band too, but sadly the only duet she did was “Islands in the Stream.”  She did “Brother Love’s Travelin’ Salvation Show” too, which I had never heard performed by anyone other than Neil Diamond.

Dolly did comment on how there’s not a whole lot of country music in nyc anymore which struck a chord in me.  From the reading/documentary watching I have been doing, it seems like there was a time when you had to make it in NYC to be a big country/folk singer, and that there was a huge country scene here.  There seems to be a country resurgence here at the moment, but I wonder why there was this big anti-NYC movement in the 70s/80s espoused by Buck Owens (I Wouldn’t Live in NYC (If They Gave Me the Whole Dang Town)) and Hank Jr. (Country Boy Can Survive and If Heaven Ain’t a Lot Like Dixie).  What changed?  Maybe it was Nashville sound or something, but I have to say I know a lot more rabid country music fans here than anywhere else I have lived.

Basically if you get the chance to see her, go do it.  And tell me if the audience is 100% gay men and their moms like it is here.

From my mom, on the phone this morning:

“Why do gay men like Dolly Parton? Well she’s nice.  Gay men are nice people.  The women are usually bitches though, I think.  You know <insert one gay man I know here> and he’s nice, right?”

I never thought I would see Spike Lee tell someone to stop talking about racial issues.  What would Mookie say?

So last night I was boiling some water on my gas stove and I spilled water into the burner. The burner went out ad would not reignite. The burners on the right side of the range are fine and work normally. The left side–not so much. When I turn them on, gas comes out but they do not light. I turned them all off and thought I would just wait until it dried itself off. Now I sort of smell gas once in a while. Is this paranoia, or is there any possible way a gas stove completely shut off would exhibit this behavior? It seems illogical to me. I called the gas company and they agreed with me, but I am freaked.

EDITED TO ADD

Let me rephrase. The nonlighting of half of my burners is not the concern. The fact that my house smells like gas a day after I spilled water inside is. I have aired it out. I have looked under the hood and nothing is lit, but it doesn’t appear anything should be–I am pretty sure this oven has an electric ignitor. I am not lighting anything until it doesn’t smell like gas anymore.  Also the oven and other burners are still lit, so I don’t think the pilot light would be out anyway.

I called and asked the gas man, but he said it would be fine after it dries out, though he didn’t address the fact that it smells like gas. If it still does so tonight I will call again. But I guess my direct question is, if I get water inside the range is there any reason it should smell like gas for a day later? It seems like there’s nothing that spilling water in should trigger to let gas leak.

Thanks for the help!