Daily Archives: October 24, 2007

You are browsing the site archives by date.

The miracle of makeup

These pictures make it painfully obvious what a little foundation can do, but I have “straight from the shower into the underpants into the car” genes. I can’t help the way I was born. I also missed the shopping and shoes DNA. I am going to go ahead and start the rumor that my exquisite-looking sister Margaret probably has a different father.

Irena Sendler

I wish there was an appropriate segue here between my post about the vagina clown car and this post about a 97-year-old Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children from the concentration camps during World War II. But there’s not and there never will be, and that’s just how life is.

Mrs. Sendler, code name “Jolanta,” smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the last three months before its liquidation. She found a home for each child. Each was given a new name and a new identity as a Christian. Others were saving Jewish children, too, but many of those children were saved only in body; tragically, they disappeared from the Jewish people. Irena did all she could to ensure that “her children” would have a future as part of their own people.

Incidentally, Mrs. Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, but lost out to Al Gore. I would hate to be on the prize selection committee and have to make those tough choices, but it would probably make me feel a lot better about humanity to read all those outstanding CVs.

The best of this series I’ve seen lately

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

You suck, Hollywood Video guy

Did you really think that you could get away with leaving a sign on the door saying “Back in 15 minutes” when it is pouring down rain and I want to rent a movie WITHOUT ME CALLING YOU OUT ON MY BLOG?

An incident in the women’s bathroom

Tonight I had my fiction class at UVA. It was great, as usual, but I was drinking a forty of Hurricane during workshop and consequently had to take frequent trips to the restroom. It was actually a twenty of Diet Doctor Pepper. I was alone in the restroom when I heard a very loud pair of shoes barge in and loiter in front of my stall door, where I was actively urinating. The hinges on the door allowed for a lot of peeping space, and I nervously ducked down because the intruder was obviously checking me out through the cracks. Then the person went into the stall next to mine. I saw white tennis shoes and socks facing the toilet under the division. I heard a male voice murmuring to the bowl, but no liquid or flush, and then suddenly the person stomped out without washing his hands. The whole incident took less than half a minute. I tried to finish up quickly so I could catch the culprit, but DDP creates a long stream. A female classmate entered the bathroom as I was exiting the stall, feeling very violated.

“Did you see someone leaving?” I said. “I think a man was just in here.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I think it was___(another classmate). He was in here last week too.”

I furiously washed my hands and returned to the classroom, where __’s complacent white tennis shoes confirmed my suspicions. Not wanting to embarrass the guy, but also really wanting to embarrass him, I said, “Hey __. Were you just in the women’s bathroom?”

“Oh, was I?” he said, unapologetically. “Yeah maybe. I get them mixed up all the time.” Evidently the little skirt on the bathroom door says nothing to this guy except “Lift me up.”

My triumphant Halloween costume

Yes, I have a Halloween costume this year. And yes, it’s a miracle of being clever without being pretentious. And yes, you will probably need a visual aide to understand what I am, but I will have this visual aide on hand for when you compliment my outfit. I remember a Halloween party I attended once where a graduate student wore a noose around his neck and a name-tag that said “Chad.” He was a “hanging chad.” I was like “Gimme a break, asshole.” Anyway my costume is awesome this year and I’m not even showing skin. Please invite me to your party so I can gloat about how adorable I look.

Head count of naked children

I’m very grateful to Little Babushka for chronicling Sunday’s epic birthday party so I wouldn’t have to. For me, leaving the party was like waking up from a wonderful, but equally intricate and exhausting dream. I could have written down the dream, but I was still in a fugue state and didn’t think I could make any literary sense out of it. So thank you, LB, for putting words to the madcap house of mirrors that was the Insolent Child’s third birthday party.