treats for the tricksters

(I'm not sure what I'm saying about you by calling you "tricksters" but I think you can handle it.)

First: Did you know you can turn your favorite youtube videos into ringtones? I know! Quickly, before they get shut down, go here! I'm currently rocking "Cat, I'm a kitty cat" as my ringer and "it's just like a mini... mall!" as my text notification.

Second: From Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a Martini,
two at the very most;
three, I'm under the table,
four I'm under my host!

Third: Apparently it's going to snow again AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Actually, we're supposedly getting a snow hurricane, a truly odd natural phenomenon my friend Lisa has re-dubbed a "SNURRICANE!"

Fourth: Little Miss Monkey Mind (that's me) has signed up for a six week mantra and meditation class. In truth, I'm terribly afraid it will turn me into someone mellow and weird, and that I'll completely lose my sense of humor in a great upswelling of peace and understanding. In the meantime, I'm hoping that it will teach me how to not feel so panicky when I sit still with my thoughts. But all of this thinking about meditation... well, it's kind of ironic, isn't it?

Fifth: I think Aksel Lund Svindahl is ADORABLE. And he totally should marry me so I could be Katherine Lindahl-Svindahl. That would be super-adorable.

(Actually, there's also a Catherine Lindahl on the Swedish curling team. Here I thought I had such a unique name...)

my thoughts on men's figure skating

I know I'm not a sportscaster. In fact, I'm barely even sporty. But I do have some opinions.

Like this one: I don't think "he rocked that tassle" should be a legitimate thing to say as a response to someone's short program. But then again, these comentators say a lot of stupid stuff (and I don't know ANYONE who says stupid stuff).

Also, this guy is the cutest skater around. However, how is it that the photo taken of him looks so much like it's from a sci-fi movie? (Extra points if you can name the movie the guy on the right looks like he's from!)

And who dressed this guy? I feel like straw should be falling out of his pockets:

And last, but not least... I have nightmares that this is what I look like stretching at the gym:

Somewhat relatedly, does anybody know why this year every program is full of people holding onto their skates? I'm guessing that was a newly imposed rule, but man, it's annoying to see the same grab-my-skate-over-my-head move being done by everyone. (I mean, seriously, that one's reserved for me to use... as I flail to my death.)

from the department of what you don't need to know

From the department of WTF, Yahoo:

Really? You think I'm a codgy old guy who looks like he's faced with a choice between a poke in the eye and a poke in the fannyhole? And what, exactly, does this have to do with my going back to school? You need better ad servers.

From the department of good quotes:

"In the end, I'm only really looking for a one life stand." -- Hot Chip

From the department of fictional characters that should exist:

Fernando wants to create a Roman epic based on everyone's favorite hero, Neosporin! He could slay lions and infidels, and then come home and make everything heal without scarring!

From the department of online dating:

I've noticed that the quality of a guy's profile and looks are inversely proportional to his height. Guys over five eleven have profiles that say things like "I want to meet you if your smart," and "And Jay Kay from Jamiroqaui...I would definitely do him. But I'm not gay, or anything." Guys under five seven want to discuss fine literature while giving me backrubs and flashing their adorable smiles at me.

Tall guys send me emails that say "OMG!! u r so CUTE. I want to take u fold u up and put u in my back pocket and take u home to my mom," while short guys say "Every few years I'll add a new word to my repertoire of 'how I want to live my life.' In the past I chose Taoist influences like 'simplicity,' 'compassion,' and 'patience.' My newest contribution is 'authenticity,' which is a way for me to live honestly through my core beliefs..."

It is just painfully too bad that I would TOWER over these sweet, thoughtful, authentic guys, making me feel awkward and doofy, likely leading me to write in text speak and say stupid things.

ah, delight!

A collection of wonderful things I've read recently:

1. It's not how you look, it's how you look at the world. (This was an online dater's headline, which I found absolutely charming.)

2. From the NY Times (in a great article on aphrodisiacs):
"[C]hocolate’s reputation as an aphrodisiac is highly exaggerated, food researchers say. Romantic and deeply pleasurable, yes, especially because of its tendency to melt in the mouth at body temperature. And yes, it does contain some chemicals like phenylethylamine, which produce feelings of euphoria. Yet one widely cited study showed that a 130-pound person would have to eat 25 pounds of chocolate in one sitting to significantly alter the mood. But who would be in the mood after eating 19.2 percent of her weight in chocolate?"

and later, it says:

"In one small experiment on sexual response to food scents, vaginal and penile blood flow was measured in 31 men and women who wore masks emitting various food aromas. This was the study that found men susceptible to the scent of doughnuts mingled with licorice. For women, first place for most arousing was a tie between baby powder and the combination of Good & Plenty candy with cucumber. Coming in second was a combination of Good & Plenty and banana nut bread."

[First off, who but destitute college students would volunteer for these kinds of measurements? And second, wouldn't it be embarrassing if you had an abnormal response to something like the smell of, say, egg salad?]

3. From Amy Bloom's book, Where the God of Love Hangs Out,
"[S]he told him that she'd heard that young men shaved their balls now. Ray lifted his head and asked her if she would like that. I guess I would, she said. Is it unpleasant otherwise? Ray said. Oh, I don't know, Ellie said. It's like a mouthful of wet mitten -- what do you think?"

on snow

OH MY GOD! THERE'S A BLIZZARD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

So far, the only remotely dramatic thing to happen because of the snow is that I actually got a seat on the express train. When I got to the office, all twelve of us (out of 250) looked a little soggy, but cute, in our bundledupedness.

In honor of the PENDING HORROR THAT CAN ONLY BE AROUND THE CORNER, I offer you my thoughts on snow.

Stay warm!

language goodies

Fernando and I were discussing "the bees knees*" the other day, and discovered that there is a lack of consensus about why that phrase even exists. One argument is that bees carry pollen in sacks in their legs (the next thing to be outlawed by the TSA, no doubt) and so if something's really sweet, it's the bee's knees. My favorite, though, is the argument that a bee's knees must be so small, and in a world where small = good, the bee's knees are the bees knees!

However, I was discussing this online with a potential internet date, and he argued that a flea is just as small as a bee, and that he was going to start saying "the flea's knees" just to see if people noticed. He then went on to point out that a flea doesn't quite have the coolness factor of a bee, what with the honey-bees-defy-physics-by-flying thing. I cyber-swooned. (Anyone want to take bets on whether I meet this guy or not?)

*is it one bee, with multiple knees? Many bees and many knees? Tricky, this language of ours.

Later, we were discussing tertiary and quaternary, and wondered if there was anything higher than that. Turns out, there is! After quaternary, there's quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary. There's also duodenary (12th) and vigenary (20th), but, if you ask me, those sound like things a maiden aunt would bring up at the Thanksgiving table, much to the chagrin of the rest of the family.

And here's something else you probably haven't stopped to actually think about: lay and lie. Lots of people get them confused, but there's a really good reason why. The past tense of lay is laid. The past tense of lie? LAY. (Thanks, English.) Laying is something that gets done to an object (like laying a book on the desk, or laying a blanket on the bed) and lying is something one does to oneself (she lies down on the couch, or, if she did it earlier this evening, she LAY on the couch. Then, there's the other lie, like the way she lied to herself about how much of that chocolate she ate).

But wait! There's more!

The best new word I've learned this year turned up when I was discussing some friends the severe manscaping one of my friend's date had shown. (He was totally nut-bald!) The polar opposite of that, though, is when a woman's nether regions get quite unruly; then she's sporting a vajungle.

Class dismissed!