Tossing salad...with LETTUCE, people!

I am very food oriented. I love to cook it, eat it, read about it, daydream about it. When I get particularly stressed out or anxious, I often have fantasies about carrying one of those boxes of tiny oranges around (satsumas, cuties, mandarins--whatever) and just beaning people in the head with one when they piss me off. That, or carrying around a bag of fresh cherries and spitting the pits at people when they get on my nerves. Sometimes, when I am bored, I imagine getting a garbage bag and filling it with shredded lettuce, then going up to people in the air so it falls on them like confetti and shouting, "Lettuce have a party!" Because I'm bad at puns. (You're just going to have to cope.) The fun thing with the lettuce is that they wouldn't really have grounds to get all that mad. It doesn't hurt, it isn't THAT much of a mess. It's just fucking confusing. Especially if you are at work. Or the proctologist's. Whatever. Maybe you work in a proctologist's office, I don't know and it's not my business. What I do know, is that you're not expecting to have lettuce thrown on you. And that is what makes it fun.

My vivid food imagination plays out in other ways as well--some good, some gag-inducing. When I am at Costco or one of those bulk stores and I walk by the vats of "Extra Heavy Mayonnaise" (who in the name of crack-loving-kittens tasted mayo and was like, "This is good--but not heavy enough! Could we possibly add some more fat to this whipped vegetable oil? Because it just isn't leaving a slimy enough coating on my mouth and throat."? If you find out, let me know. I'd like to smack them with a knee sock full of cat-pee jello.) I cannot help but imagine sticking my arm in the monstrous jar up to the elbow and swirling it around. (Have you gathered that I don't care for mayo? Because you're wrong. That is a serious understatement. I detest mayo, and so of course can smell it from 10 feet away.) This grosses me out to no end (which amuses Jsun to no end), so all it takes is Jsun tickling the back of my neck and I involuntarily shriek from the sheer ickiness. Which, I am sure, makes everyone around think I am a freak--but they probably already thought that if they watched me while away 5 minutes determining which economy size bottle of pills makes the best maraca, or if they noticed that I periodically punch or kick random grocery items in the store, or if they saw me try and start a marshmallow bag pillow fight, or...

Occasionally my food visualization is more ambivalent. At same said bulk-stores, I often find myself standing in front of the ginormo cans of nacho cheese, pondering. I know I am game to sit in a bathtub of nacho cheese. And I strongly suspect warm would be the nicest, but I think cool/room temperature would be nice too. I'd like to get other people's opinions on the matter, but no one else seems to think about this shit.

Most of the time my tactile food proclivity just leads to disappointment. I desperately want to swim in a pool (full size, in-ground type pool) filled with whole milk, but that will never happen. Aside from the wastefulness, where would I get that much milk? And who is going to let me ruin their swimming pool? I would also very much like to sit in a claw footed bathtub filled with either creme anglaise or warm melted chocolate. All of this had led me to believe that I should try to attain a pornstar-type body and start a sploshing website and find people to pay for me to do these things. Because, really, I can't figure out where to fit a bathtub full of chocolate into my grocery budget.

There is one long time food fantasy that I did live out. Since I was in high school (maybe even before then) I have wanted to do pudding wrestling. Not in a sexual way, I just wanted to play in a wading pool full of pudding. Finally, in my mid-20's I decided that I had better get off my ass and get it done. So I did. I got a big ole inflatable wading pool. I took measurements and did the math to figure out how much pudding was needed for the desired depth (gleefulest math ever). I bought 66 gallons of tapioca pudding (the kind that comes pre-made in cans). Some people did not understand the choice of tapioca over chocolate. I do not understand some people. Tapioca has a bajillion little fish eyes in it! It was the ideal tactile choice. Ultimately, a great time was had by all. After everyone else got tired of playing in the pudding, I spent about an hour lying in the pool making pudding angels. Despite repeated showerings, I smelled like pudding for 3 days. There are not words for how much that delighted me. (I was like one of those Strawberry Shortcake smelly-dolls!)

There is a whole world of tactile food experiences most people never even think about, example: cornstarch massages. (These are spiffy, but messy. Maybe that makes them miffsy.) The fact that I frequently involuntarily think about coating myself in whatever food substance I happen to be looking at (or thinking about) means I may be disappointed a lot (like how I can't imagine how to set myself into a jello mold without getting hypothermia), but it also means that if I ever find myself with a tanker truck full of milk, I will have some very good ideas what to do with it.

I get the impression my blog is inappropriate...

I realize I am a dork, but I can't help it--it's too much fun. So this is the latest list of searches that have led to my blog. Awesome. It's all naked sexpots and asshole tattoos here, all the time. Though I don't think I am going to be much help teaching people not to touch where the bathing suit covers, because bathing suits cover some of my favorite parts to have touched.


Anycow, I just thought I'd share--because it seems that if you are here, you sure as hell didn't mean to be.

Shit I might be making up: Dinner table edition!‏

I'm actually at the table with Chaseycakes, Jsun, and others, so I'll be brief (though this post is actually relevant to the point of this blog, as improbable as that may be). 

Scientific Fact: Gin must have juniper in it. In order to be a premium gin, it must have at least 12 aromatics.

Hot damn! Actually blogging on topic. Don't let it go to your head, though.

Naked Scarlett Johansson in a bathtub full of bourbon

"He is more awesome that a bathtub filled with bourbon and Scarlett Johansson." I am pretty sure that was the sentence that did it. I was trying to explain how awesome Jsun is, and that was the first good metaphor that popped into my mind. Because bathtubs are the best place in the world, bourbon is the sweet southern nectar of the gods, and Scarlett Johansson is achingly beautiful (but also seems like the sort of person you'd like to get a beer and shoot the shit with...or sit in a bathtub full of bourbon with while you both drink manhattans and tell stories about the most embarrassing place/time you ever farted/dropped the f-bomb...you know, whatever).


A bathtub, sans bourbon and Scarlett Johansson source

(Though, and this just adds to my amusement, in my mind I thought I had written "a bathtub filled with bourbon and a naked Scarlett Johansson." I later tried to explain this to Jsun, so he would know just how much of a BAMF I find him to be, and he said the nudity was implied by the bathtub. I don't know about you but I have had clothes on in the tub--not to mention having been naked just about everywhere else--so I am not as confident that bathtub implies naked. It could just be that he spends more time inferring people are naked than me, I don't know. And this has gotten wildly off topic.)

Bourbon, sans bathtub and naked Scarlett Johansson source

Anycow, I was looking at my blog analytics a day or two later and discovered that someone had found my blog by googling "Scarlett Johansson naked." It just freaking made my day. Then Jsun had to actually google it to see where my blog came up, but after 4 pages he got bored. But I am going to assume google analytics wasn't lying. It just makes me wonder how many pages of results they combed through before finding my blog. They must have really wanted to see Scarlett Johansson naked. Though, I can't say that I blame them. I suspect my blog was a disappointment. (I didn't even SAY naked Scarlett Johansson. Before.) And now with this post, I will likely disappoint more people. So I should probably just stop...but it amuses me too much so I won't. But I also won't show you Scarlett Johansson naked. I respect her too much for that.

Scarlett Johansson, sans bathtub, bourbon, and naked source

P.S. Though using a popular search or celebrity is a pretty common SEO tactic, I totally wasn't going to do it until I read about it from my Aunt Becky--and while she may not have invented it, it is always more fun to give credit to people who tickle your imagination than to be a leper's dildo and pretend you live in a vacuum and never get inspiration from anywhere. But really what made me do it? I read that post and later that day found the search for naked Scarlett Johansson that found my blog. So, really? Not even my fault. It was fate. Or coincidence. Or whatever you want to call it. But it isn't my fault. And I call it Science.

P.P.S. What is the point of all of this? A) it is entertaining as shit how people find your blog sometimes, and B) I am tired because I am moving and packing and house repairing, but wanted to post something. I have some story ideas percolating, though.

P.P.P.S. C) A point? Really? From me? I think you are confused. I just say stuff.

Harvey Milk Day, in a rare burst of seriousness

This is Harvey Milk. If you don't know, he was the first openly gay elected official in the U.S. He was also assassinated--shot 5 times while sitting at his desk. May 22 (his birthday) is Harvey Milk Day. A day for us all to try and figure out why in the hell we allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation to continue, and to do what we can to bring about the demise of this absurd bigotry. You can clicky-pants here to learn more about Harvey Milk, his day, and some other LGBT (or LGBTQQ, or whatever the acronym is these days) equality and support resources.

Heterosexism is bullshit, people. That's fucking Science.

The Enemy Within

Apparently my brain is both bored and intent on torturing me. Do you ever find yourself thinking about something, but you don't know how or why, and all you want to do is make it stop but it's really hard to NOT think about something? Yeah, me too. Which is why I just found myself pondering what spots a person would troll if they had a fetish for listening to other people in public restrooms take a loud, sloppy shit.* Of course I immediately wanted that train wreck of a thought to stop, so I decided blogging about it was clearly the best solution. I'm still thinking about it, but now so are you. You're welcome.

P.S. Turning on email and mobile blogging may have been a bad plan. Facilitating my impulsivity rarely yields anything but shenanigary and mayhem.

*This relates to the FACT that if you can imagine it, it is somebody's fetish. And it is true. The most bizarre one I have heard that was substantiated and documented was a guy who liked to masturbate by rubbing up against road kill he had dressed in lingerie. This blog is terribly educational, in that it educates you about terrible things you didn't want to know. Welcome to my brain.

P.S. THAT's why you have to be careful in negotiations. With crazy people.

Okay, some background. I work a bajillion light years away from where I live. It sucks. I have to find a wormhole to get to work every morning, and I think worms are gross. I also have a job with rules that were crafted by sadists, and apparently some people think there is no such thing as too damn early in the monkey-trucking morning. Net result? I get up really early. Too early. Painfully early. It would be painful if I didn't stay up too late and drink too much. Both of which I do, so my drive to work is a time of contemplating the destruction of all mankind. (Okay, it actually isn't that bad. I kind of enjoy driving, and the drive is pretty, and it gives me time to think. And I don't really stay up THAT late or drink THAT much...at least not on school nights...but bitching and moaning is funnier that being happy-clam, especially with the judicious use of hyperbole. So go with it. Plus, it does actually suck.) I am just not a morning person.

Jsun, on the other hand, is a morning person. He, however, works within crawling distance of the house. He, also, can show up pretty much any damn time he pleases. Bastard. (I mean, I love him and all. He is more awesome that a bathtub filled with bourbon and Scarlett Johansson. But still.)

So this is the IM conversation we had this morning:

 JSun:  k, I'm at work..
 me:  Damnit. Why can't I work 15 minutes from the house and have a job I
        can roll into at 9:30?
 JSun:  Well, hopefully sometime soonish you can.
 me:  Someday, I'm gonna make my own job--and then? Some days I am
        gonna schedule SPECIFICALLY so I can get out of bed later than you.
        It'll be like a game of chicken, only with not getting out of bed.
        I'll probably be late. But that's to be expected. It is me, afterall.
 JSun:  don't you do that on the weekends?  except i want to get up?
 me:  Not the same.
        But yeah, that is kinda how it works. Which is why there is a
        negotiated "get up and do everything time."
 JSun:  I think we negotiated it for one day.
           I didn't realize I was negotiating forever and ever.
 me:  We can totally negotiate to move it later, if you want.
        P.S. THAT's why you have to be careful in negotiations. With crazy
        people.

So why am I tell you about the IM conversation we had this morning? Mostly because I suck at blogging and am kind of rambly and way too amused by myself. My EXCUSE however, is so that I can brag about the most awesome negotiation in the world. (Wow. I think my excuse is even worse than the reason. I am so winning this morning. Fo realzies.*)

On the weekends, JSun wants to get up--and by "get up" I mean get out of bed, go on a bike ride to Egypt, rewrite the tax code, build a pony, take a picture of the boson higgs, and then break for brunch while we decide what to do with the afternoon. And he usually starts wanting to do this around 7:30 or 8 in the morning. No shit. I, on the other hand, want to sleep until 10 or 11, then lounge in bed till 11 or 12, then leisurely mosey towards brunch, then maybe lay in the hammock while I figure out what cooking project I want to do that day, then stroll through the store, maybe have a cocktail (or 4), and make some tamales (or dumplings, or pie, or meatballs, or arroz con pollo, or whatever). By then it is booze o'clock and I have dinner and commence with evening debauchery. Clearly, there was going to have to be some compromise.

One way or another it was decided that 9:30 is a reasonable time for Jsun to wait until to get up, and in exchange I will go do a bajillion things all day. This is known as "get up and do everything time." Despite his claims it was CLEARLY negotiated for all time and intended to be observed throughout the universe. That part is good--but the by-product is even better. If he wants me to get up earlier, he has to use sex to try and wake me up. (Okay, he doesn't HAVE to, but it really is the only most effective means.) The net result is that I either get to sleep in, or I get laid. And sometimes both! (He gets kinda cranky if he lays me really well and then I try and roll back over and go to sleep, though. Who knew? Stand-up comedians had led me to believe that men find this to be ideal. What else might they have led me astray on...Maybe I'm not a freak because I hate shopping and don't give a leper's dildo** about shoes!)

Hmmm. You know, that wasn't as entertaining as it was in my head. To make it up to you I will show you a video that is so fan-freaking-taboulously cool it makes my mind hurt and share another stupid hilarious IM conversation I had with Jsun while writing this:

[talking about someone being "LESS GEEKY" on OKC]
 me:  That's unfortunate...I like me some geeky.
        Unless you are talking about the original meaning--then less geeky is
        good. I bet biting the heads off live chickens gives you bad breath.
 JSun:  Depends on if they are mint chickens.
 me:  That might be better. But I bet chicken mints make your breath worse.
 JSun:  BAGAWK!
 me:  Step away from the chicken!
 JSun:  I can't, the cock is attached.
 me:  Your cock is attached to a chicken? That must be really
        awkard for Q [his officemate]
        ...(you know, if he's in the office with you)
 JSun:  He's the chicken.
 me:  Wow. Now it's kind of awkward for me.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I cannot help but love him. (Must...resist...urge to make stupid jokes...about nuts...and shells...) Also, we usually don't talk about chicken so much. Except when we do, I guess.

*Yes. I know. It is a horrible, horrible saying. But it keeps popping out lately. I think it's like the hiccups. You just have to keep apologizing and excusing yourself and hope it ends soon. Maybe if someone startles me or I drink a glass of water while holding my breath it will stop.

**This saying just occurred to me...but I like it instantly. Because, really, who wants a leper's dildo?

Damnit. Now I feel all guilty for harshing on the lepers.

Naked Insecurity. Well, at Least It's Naked...Everybody Likes Naked. Everybody.

This post is about revealing a list of my secrets as a blogger, and was inspired by Lauren from Filing Jointly...finally and is an attempt to address #B1 (or B#1? #1B? Or should it be HL#1? Whatever...I think I am stalling...hey, did I ever tell you about the time I broke my foot playing frisbee?)

Okay. I am going to do an easy list first, and then try and work up to a list of more challenging secrets. Deep breath. Here we go...

First the super easy list:

1. Methodique Boisson is not my real name. She is a persona (both in the virtual world and the real world) that I adopt to express a part of myself that cannot be associated with my professional life. (Though I would add the caveat that this is really me—the me I am with friends and family and even complete strangers—just not a me that I can have a google-able record of floating around for professional adversaries to have. I feel slightly embarrassed about the use of a pseudonym, because I am a pretty open person—but pragmatism dictates I pretend to be more inhibited than I am. But I suppose that is more affecting a level of inhibition that is more stringent than I am comfortable with, rather than pretending. Hmmmm. This wasn’t as easy as I thought.)

2. Redacted. In it's place I will confess this: I ruin stuff all the time. It isn't "intentional," exactly, but in hind sight it sure looks like I did it on purpose. I am not sure if this is the clarity of hindsight, denial about my culpability, or a combination of the two.

3. I am simultaneously convinced that I am “too much” and “not enough.” I am too loud, too smart, too needy, too distant, too independent, too intense, too emotional, too vibrant, too complicated, and too strange. (Holy shit the word “too” looks dumb after you use it that many times.) I am not smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, strong enough, fun enough, kind enough, friendly enough, a good enough daughter, a good enough friend, a good enough employee, a good enough professional, or a good enough partner. And the fact of the matter is, I have a lot of objective data to dispute all of that. But sometimes, I believe it anyway. I used to believe them all at once (as amazing and contradictory as that is—the brain can pull off some amazing contortions), and I have gotten to the place where that only happens once in a very great while. But they are sneaky, these thoughts, and they have split up so as to better infiltrate my defenses. They pop up just one or a few at a time now. But I am calling that progress.

4. I have really horrible nightmares. Some of them are just scary in the normal sort of way. Some of them are really gruesome. Really. The other night I spent the entire night sinking in and out of sleep, and every time I fell asleep I was in the middle of being stabbed and tortured. Sometimes I just have to watch the gruesome stuff happen to others. My brain has come up with some bizarre terrible things. How terrible you ask? Meat hook roller coaster. That is all I have to say about that. As a result, I do not like horror movies or really gory films (unless it is intentionally campy—then I sort of like those). I see enough of that crap in my nightmares. Plus, I think I am afraid of making it worse. I have had these nightmares in some form or another since I was a kid. When I was in high school, I had dreams about any person I was dating killing me. Fortunately, those have stopped. Other than me, (nearly) everyone in these dreams is a stranger now. I have started writing some of them down with the notion of trying to flesh them out into short stories or a horror novel. Maybe putting that shit on paper will get it out of my brain.

5. Related to #4 (as well as some stuff from my past), I suspect, I hate going to bed. When I was a baby, I apparently slept 8-12 hours a night and napped as well. When I was a kid I was a serious insomniac, I remember not sleeping at night as far back as about 5 or 6. Sometimes I just couldn’t sleep, the rest of the nights it was really difficult. In my teens, 4 hours of sleep was a good night. This came in handy in college, as a 20 hour day was old news to me.

Then, in my mid-20’s, I got really sick. I actually got a couple of kinds of really sick at once. As in, aside from doctor’s visits I didn’t get out of bed for 3 months (except to use the bathroom) or leave the house for 6 months. As in, my family started taking pictures of me in my sleep because they thought I might be dying. As in, doctors sent me to the ER several times a week, and no one knew what was wrong for months but everyone agreed it was serious. It sucked. I slept 20+ hours a day and was in constant pain. Even my dreams were about how tired I was and how much pain I was in. Dreaming of being gruelingly exhausted is one of the cruelest experiences I have had. Eventually I got better. I had to sleep more for a long time, but I learned to respect my body better. I slept better. Then I went to grad school, and apparently forgot every last damn thing I had learned about my body. I worked as many as 12-16 hours in a day and then read/studied at night. Sleep has been a problem again ever since. I can’t fall asleep. I can’t stay asleep. A few years ago I went 2 ½ months without sleeping more than 2 hours in a night, and most nights I got no sleep. I was hallucinating and had trouble functioning. I was barely able to scrape by at work.*

So all of this background is to say, between the nightmares and the insomnia, laying down to go to sleep is a daunting task. As a result it is difficult to get me to go to bed. (This in turn likely contributes to why I so enjoy sex that is anywhere but bed.) There is an extent to which the more tired I am, the more I need to go to bed, the harder it is to get me to go. Any number of friends and relatives can attest to this. It is not conscious avoidance, though. In the moment it just feels like I am having too much fun or I am too busy to be bothered with sleep. I just keep going…and then I collapse. I wake up on the sofa sometimes because I refuse to go to bed, but then just pass out.

I think it is getting better, though. I have a great DRP (pronounced “derp,” and standing for domestic romantic partner**), and he actually holds me all night long. That all but eliminates the nightmares, and the few I have are milder and I don’t feel scared when I wake up. It is also a really great time when we talk and connect, so I love going to bed with him. It is far from resolved, though. I am still working. Writing about it has given me some new ideas…so, I guess, thank you.

Well fuck. That was supposed to be the easy list. That was not easy. And I had a hard list and everything! How about this: Because that wasn’t easy, I’ll only post the hard list, but not explain. Deal? Deal. (Is this emotional exhibitionism? Is emotional exhibitionism a thing? I think I just like to really tackle a challenge if I am going to take it.)

The hard list:
1. I really want to be a writer and want people to read this blog, but also am embarrassed to share it with anyone.
2. I sometimes throw temper tantrums. Not as many as I used to, but I do.
3. I reflexively eavesdrop.
4. I used to use a lot of drugs.
5. I have been assaulted multiple times and by multiple people, and secretly (irrationally) worry it is something about me that caused this.

Just like ripping off a band-aid.

*Interestingly, this episode was resolved by my first visit to an acupuncturist. She said it was no wonder I could not sleep, I had flaming bucket loads too much yang (as in the component of yin and yang associated with speed, fire, masculinity, and aggression). I don’t know if it was the acupuncture or not. That night I had a huge bonfire (not recommended—seemingly coincidental), and it was just so appealing. I stood so close my face was stinging from the heat. That night I fell straight to sleep and woke 9 hours later. The streak was broken.

**There is no good word for this. We settled on derp because it is short and easy to say…and just god awful. If it can’t be good, embrace the crapiness.

Some things just need to be said out loud, like "dick-nickle"

So I actually have two Sciencey thoughts I came up with recently.

1) I bet that crap about needing to brush your hair 100 strokes a day goes back to when everyone had those natural/boar bristle hair brushes. They are kind of awesome (my hair is super fragile and easily breaks with other kinds of brushes), but you have to give yourself a repetitive stress injury in order to accomplish the task of actually getting all the hair brushed and detangled. I bet back then, if you didn’t brush your hair 100 strokes a day you looked like a matted yeti. If you were lucky. That is totally Science. Yetis = Science. Yetis iff Science. I can go all day people. I don’t know why I would, but I totally could. Merry Christmas, I’m a freak.

2) Shit. I forgot. THIS is why it is useful to have an attention span. Thanks a lot TV. You’re a dick-nickle*. (I don’t know haven’t made up yet will explain later what that means. Suffice it to say, I don’t want to be called a dick-nickle, so I suspect it works as an insult. It kind of reminds me of ass-pennies. If you don’t know what ass-pennies are, you might want to spend some time pondering why you are so sheltered. I suspect that if you don’t know The Upright Citizens Brigade, unlike me you probably have the attention span to spend time doing things that would qualify as pondering, because you haven’t eroded what tiny bit of focus you were born with by watching exorbitant*** amounts of ridiculous—if awesome—sketch comedy. I can help you with that. And help you get the edge that ass pennies provide.****)

Upright Citizens Brigade
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

*YES! That is how it is spelled. SCIENCE SAYS SO!**

**It is possible that I misspelled that on accident but took the attitude, “Fuckit. I’ll leave it, and then maybe it will add to the entertainment when I get around to making up explaining the meaning of it.” And it could have transpired that I then looked up “nickle” and discovered that it is an alternate name for the European woodpecker and thought, “Fuck yeah! A dick-woodpecker. That shit makes itself up!” Plus, I like saying “dick-nickle.” But I’ll only admit to that last thing.

***Holy crapknuckles. I have been saying “exorbinant” my whole life, but there is no such word. It is exorbitant. I feel like a bit of a dick-nickle now. But you know what is a word? Shitsome. I know because I just made it up. It is when something is kind of awesome and kind of shitty. Here, I’ll demonstrate its use in a sentence:
Writing this post was shitsome: on one hand I learned something new, but on the other hand I made myself look like a total dick-nickel.
This shit is educational. You should be paying me tuition right now. By the by, where is my cut of the pee-ramid profits? I’ll assume the check is in the mail. Thank you.

****By educating you about ass-pennies. I’m not gonna shove pennies in your ass for you. That would be weird. Plus it probably diminishes the edge provided by ass pennies. See educational again. You’re welcome, from Science.*****

*****This asterisk thing has seriously gotten out of hand. I think I got them all, though. There are few things that churn my butter (in a bad way) more than an asterisk in text without the accompanying explanation. I suppose I could write normally (as in, without all the asterisks), but I’m not sure I know how to do that—SO STOP BEING ALL JUDGEY AT ME! +

+I’m sorry I yelled. To make it up to you, here’s another video. This one is from Viva Variety, with my Cool-Ass Pal Johnny Blue Jeans!




P.S. Thanks to this comic I sometimes think of Johnny Blue Jeans as my Cool Ass-Pal. Which is just different.