Where Am I Going, And Why Am I In This Handbasket?
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Dork in DC
I was in DC last week for a Border Issues conference (snoozy), a Border Infrastructure breakfast at the Capital (shmoozy), some meetings with McCain's & Kyl's staff to complain about the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (learn about it - because soon you'll have to get a passport just to cross back & forth into Mexico, Canada & the Caribbean - no more day trips to getcher drugs and shop in Nogales or get sloshed in Rocky Point without one!), and then I had a meeting with National Geographic concerning that neato mapping project we're doing (woowee Marci Geeks out). My eyes were bugged out the whole damn time, obviously.
Imagine me walking around trying to contain my political/dweeby/touristy glee while pretending to maintain somewhat of a professional facade. Not easy. Can't be totally sure if I even pulled it off. Plus it was my first time in Washington - and I must say the city sure kicks some ass.
A bit of a perverted town, though. I saw:
the Big Wang and the Huge Boobie
But I also saw some art:

Hahaha.
So the mapping project I'm working on with National Geographic involves the Center for Sustainable Destinations (a really neat dept) and several very cool people in other departments (their Maps Dept is soooo awesome). My primary contact there is a very nice fellow named James and we're pals by now. He called me last week a few days before we were scheduled to meet, to invite me last-minute to a reception at the Sackler gallery at the Smithsonian - his director, Jonathan, had just come accross the invitation on his desk and panicked - the reception was that very night and he was already committed elsewhere. So James was to attend, and was nice enough to invite me along.
I was again pretending to be only midly excited, and I calmly responded Sure Thang. Then I immediately ran out the door and proudly took the metro all by myself, but ended up walking around for half an hour because I could not find an entrance to the damn gallery. I could SEE it, but the whole mall of galleries was gated off (it was after closing time) and there was no percievable entrance. Hmm. It was frickin' cold out. BRRRR. When I finally ran into James he was just as confused, and the damn gallery looked dark from where we were. Eventually we found a guard but he was totally clueless. Stupid guard. What the hell?
James then pulled out the invitation and it read "Wednesday March 23rd". Welllll, that explained it, Wed was the 22nd! A typo! Maybe it was for the next day. DARN. By now we were frozen in the cold night and James felt terribly. I was disappointed but of course it wasn't his fault. Oh well. Life goes on.
The next day I get an email from James: "Guess What. Amazing. My Boss had the WRONG YEAR. What a joke. My sincere apologies to dragging you out for a chilly wild goose chase." Hahahaha. Shit.
When I had my meeting with them a couple of days later, I passed Jonathan's office, and suddenly I understood how it was possible that such a thing could have happened. Hahaha.

Okay.
So my cousin Alejandro works in DC and lives in a lovely neighborhood near Embassy Row (he's the Mexican ambassador to the OAS - I'm proud to brag about it, but I mention it because it matters to this thread). My last night in town I stayed with him in his purdy house. Accross the street lives the French ambassador, in a huge manor much bigger than any other home in the whole area. Damn french bastard. Two doors down from my cousin, however, lives - GET THIS - Donald fucking Rumsfeld. I nearly shat myself with the giggles when he told me. I didn't believe him. When he pointed out the black SUV permaparked in front I accepted it, especially since it remained there the whole time I stayed with him, with some poor hemorrhoidal SS dudes sitting in it. I took a walk around the block that day and went clickclickclick, hoping I wouldn't get tackled for doing so. I am a brave photojournalist, I am. Hardeeharhar. Alejandro then told me how he had set off his home alarm accidentally one night after he'd first moved in, and immediately heard a loud boom over an intercom from outside asking if he needed help. Oddly comforting, I guess.
Anyhoo. When I called my dad to howl about Alejandro's neighbor, he informed me that his nephew's house was technically Mescin Soil. Sweeeeet. So I asked Alejandro: if I stood on the porch and waited for Rummy to come home from a long hard day engineering lies and death, then flipped him the finger and flapped my arms like a bird and hollered CHICKENHAWK CHICKENHAWK CHICKENHAWK and then ran back inside and slammed the door shut - I was safe, right? They couldn't do anything, right? He uneasily responded to the affirmative. COOL! I said. But then he offered that I would probably not be able to re-emerge from the house again.
Oh. Right.

Casa de Rummy
Posted by Marci Twitches ::
8:55 AM ::
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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
"Successful" Relationships. Or: Gag Me With a Spoon
Our 3rd Anniversary is coming up. Is it lame that I'm totally proud? It's my longest relationship ever. Hahahaha. When I bragged about that to my old man the other day, he looked scared. And not entirely impressed. Since we're engaged to be married. Like, someday. And especially about the bragging part.
I'm discussing "Successful Relationships" with a friend. She often says that the One Thing her love life has taught her is that she knows Nothing. I can appreciate that feeling, fer sher, even if I don't think she needs to disqualify herself as a relationship-saavy person because she's never had a "successful" one. Or that she knows nothing. She knows plenty.
Not just because I'm partial to her and I feel that because she's so fucking great it HAS to be His Idiocy that fucks up the relationship (it is, though), or because I'm partial to Womankind and I can confidently say that We Suck Less at this stuff (I'm talking about the Non Crazies, okay - I know there are crazy bitches out there - but they're not me, and they're not my closest, greatest girlfriends - I can vouch for their sanity and Great Catchness) - but because I don't know what determines a Successful Relationship. I know I know, healthiness, communicativeness, respect - I know there's a LIST of desirible features. But entertain me for a sec.
When she disqualified herself to me with a What The Hell Do I Know, I've Never Had A Successful Relationship statement, I felt as if I had to beg to differ.
None of us have had successful relationships, I could argue. Or we'd all be IN them still. In the orginal one. So the only successful ones are the ones we're currently in, by virture of them not being Kaputted yet, which means SHIT. What the fuck is a Successful Relationship? There's no such thing.
And the next person that smugly claims they're in one will get socked in the mouth my me. Take THAT. In the kisser! HA.
Then she shot back that she could name a few - 2 couples that are friends of ours, Goldie & Kurt (ha), and kindly, she mentioned my folks. And they're great, they are. I'm lucky to have them. BUT - my folks almost split up when I was in high school. AND my dad fucked it up when they were teens and lost my mom. AND they're each other's 2nd marriages. Ha. But yeah, I can admit that there are more HEALTHY relationships out there than Cynical Marci can admit.
Ppppllllppphhhhtt. Whatever.
Posted by Marci Twitches ::
8:53 AM ::
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Friday, March 10, 2006
Bush at low point. Huh? How can that BE?
Poll: "Bush at low point, GOP support weakens"
Concerns by some party loyalists could impact congressional elections

So his approval rating is at an all-time low of 37 percent. That's not SO bad. It's still higher, than say, Richard Nixon's approval ratings during the Watergate incident. And still 8 points higher than Cheney. I heard on NPR over the weekend that 65 percent of surveyed people would rather hunt with Cheney than eat a rat on live television. That sounds hopeful! Cheer up, old feller.
Bush is also chalk-full of some innovative proposals. When he was in India recently he came up with a great idea to improve our trade deficit, which would surely also impress his fellow Texans. His idea? To export MORE BEEF TO INDIA. His idea came to him, he said, as he was walking around India and saw all these cows wandering around, not being eaten. Must be bad cows.

Posted by Marci Twitches ::
8:46 AM ::
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Thursday, March 09, 2006
Sacrificing My Body
So I've been training every weekend for my Grand Canyon hike in May - and this past Saturday we hiked down & up a mini-canyon at South Mountain. It was pretty cool.

However, during a greuling section of the hike I was attacked by a treacherous beast that was hiding in the bushes, waiting to pounce on me:

I had no idea he was there, since he kept himself hidden soooo well. He attacked me savagely as I hiked:

And some other alien animal jumped outta nowhere and spooked me with his nuclear-infected eyebeams, shooting harmful rays that threw me off balance:

So I fell. I rolled down the canyon. OUCH. See how I am SACRIFICING MY BODY for this fundraiser?

For those of you that have been kind and generous enough to donate to my Hike For Discovery for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, thanks SO very much! Woohoo! For those who haven't: Yes, this is The Guilt. Ahem.

Keep in mind that it's been over TWO MONTHS without a drink. I didn't even have booze to ease my pain with. I poured alcohol over my bleeding festering oozing wounds, but that's not quite the same thing.
Tee hee.
Posted by Marci Twitches ::
9:38 AM ::
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Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Working Downtown. And getting TP outta my Downtown
I work in downtown Phoenix. Which is bustling during the day, but if there's no sporting event going on at night, it's a scary nasty place to be.
There's a park bench right outside my office window. Most of the time it's occupied by smokers on their breaks. Sometimes a homeless fella is taking a nap on the bench, sometimes a couple of homeless fellers are engaged in deep conversation. Every once in a while there's a hooker getting harassed by the cops. One in particular, I'll call her Greta, always stands out. She's at least 6-feet tall, quite skinny (aren't they all?), with dirty raggedy short blond hair (almost Twiggyish and stylish), and somehow looks like she's Eastern European. I don't know how I know, but I feel I'm right. And she never seems pissed off by the cops. While I can't hear the verbal exchange, they seem familiar with each other. She smiles and shakes her head as if she expects the harassment. Who knows, maybe she's saying Curly Poodle Eat Cantaloupe And Spread Your One Webbed Foot, but it looks conversational from my vantage point. I like her. I feel bad when she gets busted.
There's also this tall black dude who wanders around the block sometimes, and he's always wearing a Darth Vader helmet. I wonder if it's blocking out the magnetic waves well enough.
Ooooh right now Yaya's Lookalike is sitting on the bench with her rendezvous! YL looks like my old man's ex mother-in-law. This comparison to the baglady isn't meant to be bitchy, because Yaya is a very cool grandma. And how do I know that Yaya is so cool? Because I have stayed at her HOME in Oregon before. I have slept with her daughter's ex-husband, in the same bed, under her roof. The mother of my fiance's batty ex-wife. Yup. My life is strange.
So YL looks like Yaya, she's pudgy and wears baggy capris and flip flops (kinda like Yaya) and she wears her hair in long braids, lika Yaya. I've had the chance to notice this repeatedly because she appears on the bench once a week or so. Yaya's Lookalike sits alone for a few minutes and looks around. Then a rattier skinny lady in a baseball cap and shades appears and they talk for a long time. Sometimes the skinny lady looks like she's crying. YL gives her an envelope. I think they're pals. Sarah, my cube neighbor, thinks it's a drug deal.
We are a downton full of menacing taggers, too.

We are badasses.
And because you're dying for a Mojo update:
I thought I'd tell you that I am spending way too much damn money on toilet paper these days. Chris is being a bigger baby about the frayed rolls Mojo attempts to destroy, and he's throwing them away when I'm not home. He doesn't even have a hoohoo to get all the TP bits stuck in, what's HE bitching about?
Oh, wait. I've been hearing the toilet seat slam down a lot lately. He's sitting. HA. Okay, so perhaps TP in the bunghole is no fun either.
ANWAY, so I've been forced to buy oodles of toilet paper, like every other day. I came home last night with a new 12-pack. BRING IT ON, Mojo, you fucker.
I took several rolls and put them under our bathroom sink, and protected them by surrounding the TP with a fort of shampoo bottles and detergents and a stack of towels. There. The rest were going to go downstairs in the boys' bathroom. In the meantime I hung the Walgreen's bag on the doorknob, and left for work. Perhaps Chris would take a momentary break from his 8 hours of playing Fight Night 3 on his Homewrecking Bitch (the Xbox 360, that whore), and put them away. A slim chance, but I like to hope.
So.
Chris just called to tell me that he hates Mojo and that he wants to throw him away (he doesn't, Mojo is his bitch and he kisses him when I'm not looking). WHY? I ask. Mojo just ate a whole bag of toilet paper, he tells me.
WHAT? How?
Apparently the little bastard somehow knocked the bag off the doorknob and picked the rolls out. Or he ate through the hanging bag and grabbed the rolls. I don't know. Because Chris was still sitting on the fucking couch and couldn't really see. (I could hear the Xbox control, and his voice had that distant I'm-watching-Clint/Rambo/McQueen/Porn-but-pretending-to-listen-to-you, honey voice).
There were just a chewed-up roll suddenly laying at his feet to alert him.

Bring it ON? "It's already been BROUGHTed"
And not that I spend a lot of time at the local Big Lots (okay, I do), but this is the next big purchase I'm gonna make. Quite the beauty supply investment. OOOH. Maybe I'll buy some Fabio stock.

Posted by Marci Twitches ::
9:49 AM ::
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