further thoughts on chiropracty

I can't imagine that any of you are even remotely interested in my continuing chiropractic woes and jubliations (except maybe Lisa -- hi, Lisa!), but they're going to continue until my spine is shaped the way it's supposed to be. So take in a deep breath... now let it out... (CRUNCH!)

Today I got Activated! (I feel like a sleeper cell or something.) I went to the chiropractor with a painful muscle below my right shoulderblade. When I told the doctor about it, he poked it and said, "Oh, yeah, it feels like you twisted a rib."

I TWISTED A RIB? How does one even do that?? (Probably while gasping for breath near Patchouli Man -- who was back again today, Iamnotkidding.)

He poked it some more and then he left to go get his "Activator" from the other room.

In a mild panic, I considered bolting from the room. The Activator?? Visions of my sister danced through my head -- Polly in her flannel nightgown, shuffling her wool-sock-clad feet across the carpeting, hair sticking straight up and outstretched finger aimed right for my nose. That had to somehow be involved in "Activation," didn't it? That, or cattle prods. I wasn't sure I wanted to stick around to find out.

When he came back, I was still face down on the table (suffocating on my own bad breath) so I didn't see the activator until he told me to stick out my finger. (For a second, I swore I saw flannel pajamas sticking out of his pants.) He activated my finger and it felt like nothing. He activated my rib and it felt like a million bucks. I don't know how this little door-stopper-like device could fix my twisted rib, but I like it. Activate me all you want, My True Love Chiropractor!

Unrelatedly, while he was working on me, he apologized for having mints in his mouth.

"I went to the dentist today," he said, "and I got my teeth cleaned. But Dr. Chow said that my breath smelled like Dr. Golden's Fart, so I'm trying to fix that."

"That's ok, I can barely breathe in here, what with my face jammed into this table."
(pause)
"He said your breath smelled like fart?"

"Yeah."

"What'd they do to you at the dentist??"

The visit wrapped up with him telling me about how the other doctors in his practice will often sneak into a room when he's with a patient, fart, and then leave, ensuring that the patient thinks that he, Dr. Chiro, was the one who farted. I am secretly tempted now to fart, and blame it on the other doctors...

no title for old men (or blog posts)

Have I mentioned the chiropractor recently? No? Hmmm, that's odd. I should have. I love him. The first time I ever went to a chiropractor (two years ago) it was so much fun to go and get Did-It-Hair without actually doing it. Now? Well, it's getting to the point where it's only fair that we actually do it, Did-It-Hair or no. I mean, I see him three times a week. That's a lot of commitment for no sex and bad hair!
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The other night, on my way home, I was on a train with a slightly tired-looking woman. No problem, really, so I started reading my book. Her friend, though, engaged my Barf-dar by rapidly cleaning out a big, plastic shopping bag, passing it to Ms. Sleepy and saying, "here, you can use this."

I shot out of my seat so quickly it was like I had been stabbed in the bum. I ran towards the furthest end of the car, frantically jabbed my earplugs into my ears and PRAYED that I could leave that car before anything happened in that shopping bag.

Luckily, I escaped, but (like a car wreck you can't ignore) I looked back between the cars and until the next stop, she had her head in the bag.

I dreamt of barf all night. (Bleck.)
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He's baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Yes, that's right, Patchouli Man returned today. Thank God! I was just about to have an extra cup of coffee, but when I walked into the copier room/pantry, I was smacked in the face by a wall of Earthy Tree Smell! I retreated weakly to my office to nurse my wounds.

(I don't know which is worse -- the way he smells or how frequently our copier falls to bits.)
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Here's a cool link, courtesy of my friend Bill. (Thanks, Bill!)
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That's all.

watch out! I'm athletic!

Is there such a thing as beginner's luck?

A valid question, one that ranks in the upper eschelon of important questions, like "why do bad things happen to good people" and "since cats land on their feet and buttered toast lands buttered side down, what would happen if you tied buttered toast to a cat?"

Well, I'm here to tell you that this particular question has been definitively answered. To wit: I played touch football today and didn't suck too badly!

My friends Neil and Michelle, who have a swank-ass apartment near Prospect Park, put together a touch-football-and-pancakes affair this morning, which meant that I hauled my ass out of bed far earlier than I wanted to, and dragged it parkwards before ten. I coerced my dear, sweet (single) friend Jimmy (ladies?? he's lovely!) to go with me, and Neil's friends Matt and Deb rounded out our sextet.

Now, I'd like to point out one possible reason for my fantastic prowess at football: among those assembled to play were an actor, a director, a composer, a conductor, a singer and, well, me. We may not have been the studliest crowd in the park (there were some budding three-year-old soccer stars), but we were definitely the smartest, most creative and possibly least good smelling one!

We set up a field and started playing, with mismatched teams and a field strewn with leaves, poo and a stray pair of underwear. (We covered the poo with leaves, which, much to our chagrin, didn't really solve the problem.) I got a little confused and started playing a sort of basketball-like defense, with my arms all akimbo, waving wildly, hooting madly and generally looking like a spastic lunatic. That worked to freak out Neil more than once, so I kept it in my playbook. Another popular move of mine was kicking the leaves into the wind and shouting "LEAF DISPLAY! LEAF DISPLAY!"

Jimmy was the real athlete on the field (gals, I'm telling you, he's terrific!) designing plays like "you run down the field and I'll throw it to you" and "ok, just go and we'll see what happens." Matt was about nine feet tall, which often interfered with any intended plans (yeah, without Matt they'd have gone off without a hitch), and Michelle was all kinds of sassy, which made me fall on my ass laughing more than once.

Deb had a GREAT interception... and proceeded to run in the wrong direction with it.

The halftime show was provided by the cutest Australian sheepdog this side of fluffiness, and the eau de merde that followed us home was provided by Jimmy's Poo Shoes.

After a morning of sheer athleticism (and belly laughs that winded me more than the game ever could), we retired to the swanky apartment for pancakes. Jimmy told me that if I wasn't the MVP (I did score more than a couple of touchdowns, but that was really mostly luck), I was at least the most improved player.

My strategy? Suck so badly when you begin that there's nowhere to go but up.

thought fritters

For the deep fat fryer in your brain:

1. Do these come with real sauce, or some philosophical mix of ideas relating to the nature of sauce itself? And can I get a side of Maditation Tea?
2. There's this nice trap on the way into the Chrysler Building from the subway. All the really tall guys have to duck under a dropped ceiling, and it's interesting to watch them unconsciously decide which way to duck. Some tip their heads forward, some to the right, and some duck at the knees. And while I love tall men, that's one of the many times I'm glad I am not actually one myself.

3. I visited Lisa and her kids recently and there was a vague threat of getting pink eye. Three itchy-eyed days later, and I'm pretty sure I caught it in my nose, if that's even possible. Fun fact? If you put mentholated chap stick up your nose, it may make your symptoms feel better, but you may also sneeze no fewer than fourteen times in a row.

4. I've invented a new set of Not-So-Super Heroes. They truly mean to do good, but they end up ruining it for everybody else.

The newest member? Patchouli Man! His superpowers are fixing copy machines and stinking up an entire corner of the office. People call on him when they want to quit drinking coffee because he shows up, fixes your copier, funks up the coffee room and sucks anything resembling fresh air out of the office. Hard to drink coffee when you're gasping for air!

Thanks, Patchouli Man!

5. It's too late to be topical, but it's still funny nonetheless: My friend Noah's post Little Blue State Riding Hood.

6. Somehow I managed to return my library book with my American Express statement firmly lodged in the back pages. The best part? The book was The Secrets of Six Figure Women. It's open to debate whether I learned anything or not.

did you even notice there was an election?

In an effort to retain my originality, I have foregone writing about the election, because really, what can I say that anyone else hasn’t said?

Nothing.

Well, ok, nothing except this: Until a few days ago I was always flummoxed by the idea that my mom (or anyone, really) would have cried when Kennedy got shot. I get it now.

Oh, and this: I made red velvet cupcakes to commemorate the election. I sent an email around to my cake mailing list (the people at work I actually like) and that engendered the following email exchange between me and my former boss:

From: Kate Surgeon
Sent: Wednesday, November
05, 2008 9:40 AM
To: cake list
Subject: Patriotic Cupcakes

Celebration or consolation?

Either way, there are red
(velvet) white and blue cupcakes in my office, and they have your name on
them.

Come on by!
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From: E.P. Bossy
To: Kate
Surgeon
Subject: RE: Patriotic Cupcakes

i think "celebration" should be in blue (for the blue staters) and consolation in red (for the red faced crybaby losers who might as well move back to their real america because there's now a socialist,
antiamerican, black man in office).
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From: Kate Surgeon
To: E. P. Bossy
Subject: RE: Patriotic Cupcakes

I did that on purpose, just in case there were any red faced crybaby losers who still wanted a cupcake, but might be worried that I'd make them pray to Allah before eating one.
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From: E.P. Bossy
To: Kate Surgeon
Subject: RE: Patriotic Cupcakes

oh. that was nice of you.

How I miss working for him.

adventures in the salon

Because we get this extra hour for free tonight, I figured you'd want to know all about this:

I went back to Studio 97 to get my hair cut today. You may remember one of the previous times I'd been there, when I got potentially eastern European lesbian boob in my face. Today, to ratchet the service up a notch, I showed up for a 2:30 appointment and wasn't seen until 3. (Which would have been fine if I hadn't left a date to get there on time.) The coup de grace, piece de resistance or croissant du jour (whatever you prefer) was that this time, the receptionist washed my hair. She sat me in the broken chair, tipped my head into the coldest porcelain this side of a witch's tit and after freezing my scalp, accumulating half of it under her fingernails and then scorching the rest of it off, she told me all about my name.

"Katya is big name in Russia."

"Really? I think I've heard that somewhere."

After getting shampoo in my eye, water in both ears (followed by wet fingers trying to get said water out of my ears) and another round of freezing and flaying, she led me to the cutting floor... where I stood for a good five minutes without anyone telling me which chair to sit in.

Finally Ambiguously Gay Alex came in, plopped me down in a chair and then left for another five minutes to put coins in the meter. Now, the lighting in this salon is tinted with a fine layer of ugly so the extra five minutes of examining my pallid complexion was doing nothing for my self-esteem. I was toying with going short again, but then I remembered what Ambiguously Gay Alex did to it last time he got his shears near my head (mushroom head anyone?) So I opted for half long, half short. (His brother is the better stylist.)

Anyway, long story short, I got a nice haircut. See?

(I also thought that the flavor of the soap in the bathroom was Fresh Pickled Peach, but that's neither here nor there.)

Donut Girl does Halloween

I got off the train at Grand Central and wended my way out of the station, keeping my jacket more than slightly open, just in case anybody happened to notice my sexy fuscia apron. It was still early, and, granted, I was stuck in throngs of commuters, but I thought for sure someone would notice my gorgeous polyester uniform and get a chuckle.

But nothing. Not a peep. Maybe they thought I was just on my way to work, or recently finished with a shift.

(I, of course, knew better.)

I headed towards my friend's house for her non-costume birthday party, to which I was obviously* wearing a costume. I stopped at the bank and nobody blinked. Well, of course not, I thought, it's only an ATM. These people are busy making withdrawls. I knew, though, that the laugh of the evening was on its way.

Within mere blocks of the Dunkin Donuts, my pace quickened, my smile muscles were twitching and I was feeling the beginnings of giddiness in my tummy. How funny was this going to be? I was going to walk in there, and the retro uniform I was sporting would just jump off of me and head towards the shelves of donuts. The cashiers were going to laugh the most meta-laughs of their lives. They were going to make jokes about me "helping myself." We were going to emerge as best friends and all because of my costume, which was, in fact, an actual Dunkin Donuts uniform from the late 80s/early 90s (provided by my sister's brief stint in the donut-service industry.)

Ok, maybe my hopes were too high. But would cracking a smile have killed this guy? Possibly. I walked into the store and he didn't even bat an eyelash. And neither did the two Texan girls oohing and aahing over the calorie counts in chain restaurants. I almost shouted. I mean, HELLO, how often do you see this?

Look, if I saw someone dressed as a computer trainer** coming into my office on Halloween I would think that was the funniest thing since sliced donuts. I would take pictures of myself with that person and invite him or her over for a drink. We'd be BFF.

Not so at the chain stores, apparently.

I hung my head, brushed off my "Career Apparrel"*** and put my munchkins into the plastic-bag-that-I-usually-don't-take-because-it's-wasteful-unless-it's-a-prop. One wistful look over my shoulder later, I was headed away from the biggest Halloween let down since my sister swindled me out of everything good in my pumpkin.

Later revelers soothed my aching (and itching) ego by asking me for a series of lattes. ("Why is nobody asking me for donuts or if it's time to make them?" "Donuts? They have too many calories," said a pirate, popping a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup into his mouth...) One guy on the subway platform liked me so much he shouted with joy. (I gave him a hilarious meta-munchkin.****)

I will report, however, that despite being not even remotely sluttishly dressed, I was approached by a pimp and offered a job. (I gave him a munchkin, too.) I also won second place in a costume contest, and won myself a spooky Mr. Potato Head.

Aside from the Dumb old Dunkin Donuts Downer, it was a pretty terrific Halloween.

*obvious to me, of course.

** what exactly this would look like is a little beyond me, but let's pretend it's not.

*** the tag reads "Career Apparrel, 100% Polyester"

**** I'm not sure what this means.