Also the movie Broadcast News, which I thought of, randomly, today for the first time in like eight years. It's good stuff.

Some Things I Am Grateful for, Right This Minute: A Partial List

Lizards. I love lizards, and they're all over my back deck. Sprawling posture, FTW!

Tank tops. It's 91 degrees. I can't wear t-shirts when it's more than 72 degrees out; my armpits make like volcanoes and start pouring superheated toxic steam.

Sunless tanner. It's not like that orange shit we used to use in the 80s; it dries fast, shows color quickly, and is natural-looking if you apply it carefully.

TV. Orphan Black is back, The Americans is back and in TOP FUCKING FORM y'all, VEEP is coming back, I'm going to mainline Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt when Mr. Gleemonex is in Vegas (have so far experienced it only in gif form) -- and so much more. Yay TV!

My sister had the WORST crush on Bruce Willis because of this. And also his wine coolers commercial. Oh, 80s, never stop doing you.

Random Lines I Remember From Moonlighting, Which Ran From 1985 - 1989 (When I Was 11-15 Years Old), By Which I Mean I Remember These From the Original Run, Not From a Re-Watch: A Partial List

"Where are the pieces of guy?"
"The what?"
"The pieces of guy!"
[There had been an explosion, presumably killing a guy, but BW points out there were no "pieces of guy" to be found]

"Her name's Freddy, short for [can't remember].  ... Her favorite color is rug burn."
[BW on a suspect]

"You know my usual jelly? Make it a cruller!"
[Agnes di Pesto, living life out loud]

"David, may I please have some answers?"
"Delaware, all of the above, 90 degrees ..."
[fucking SLAYED ME -- actual weeping with laughter]

No dorm, no roommates -- my own place.

So I'm talking on the phone with my younger sister (which we both have to schedule, because I HATE THE PHONE and it's really hard to make myself call someone), and she's telling me about the new place she lives, which is sort of a dorm-like building for grown-ups, subsidized by her job teaching a foreign language at a small private high school -- it's a great setup for her because although there are no private bathrooms or kitchens (all facilities are shared), she's single and doesn't need much space, plus it's waaaaaay below market rent in NYC, and an easy commute to her job, and her BFF lives in the same complex.

And then she tells me that one thing she loves about it is that "you never get lonely -- there are always people around, you can always find someone to hang out with any time of day or night."

The hem on my brain fell out, y'all. "There are always people around" is one of the pillars of the room in hell in which I will end up spending eternity. It's why I hated dorm life by the end (as exciting as I found it in the beginning), and why if I were a single person, there is almost literally nothing I wouldn't do to have MY. OWN. PLACE. all to myself. I believe Mr. Gleemonex feels the same way, which is one of the many reasons we are sofa king awesome together.

But like I remember that my sister used to dread summers and look forward to going back to school in the fall -- she wanted her friends around her! Every day! On the regular! Me, I was so glad to be alone (in between shrieking excursions to the mall or the movies or swimming with mine). I love my extended family, I love my friends -- I just ... I can't have them in my LIVING SPACE, you dig?

"Oh, the Danburrys! Big alums!"

In my current lifestyle, I not infrequently come into contact with people who are at that next level of wealth and connection -- the one where it goes beyond just having a comfortable income and having what you need in terms of consumer goods and the like: the level where they're not the ones going to the gala charity functions, and not organizing them, but being the whales that support them or the name that gets it done in the first place. But I think this is maybe where I, personally, top out -- me with my small-town Methodist pridefully-poor background, my scholarship-supported Ivy League education, etc.; I get glimpses of what happens behind those doors, and occasionally get vaguely invited into the lobby ... but I don't know how to walk through, nor, honestly, what I would want that for. Case in point: a family party Mr. Gleemonex and the kids and I went to on Saturday night. Fun party, love the hostess, but the place was chock full of the kind of people who are on the boards of stuff (i.e., a person more adept at and desirous of making that type of connection could've had a very productive evening), and I spent fully half of my time talking to two 20-something German au pairs. Oh well! They were funny and interesting -- who cares if they can't get me on some bullshit board.

And a third unrelated thing: It seems like I should be able to sing "Lyin' Eyes," but it's actually at some really strange pitch range for me and the breath control required is beyond my skill as a vocalist, even alone in the car. Weird.

Two Things, Unrelated to Each Other and Both Entirely Apropos of Nothing

1) I remember when I finally saw a twinset in real life. It was during college, early on, like probably freshman year. Some girl was wearing it/them in one of my Core classes. This girl looked like she would've been more at home at, like, SMU or Duke than at Columbia. And as my eye fell upon her, and stayed there -- skirt, sensible low heels, hair neatly arranged in a crisp smooth style, light makeup, subtle jewelry, at nine in the goddamn morning at college -- I realized that on her top half, she was wearing a thing I'd only ever read about: a twinset. It was a ... a sweater, over ... a sweater? It was a lovely blue, very fine gauge, beautiful material -- I have more or less stopped wearing sweaters myself because of the Mamie Van Doren effect and the fact that even the thin ones add about 23 pounds, visually, to my own top half, and for these reasons plus my entire lack of style I would never, ever, layer a sweater upon another sweater, no matter how fine the gauge. So I was impressed, and fascinated, and but almost laughed inappropriately-loudly from the unexpected revelation I had had right there in Lit Hum: THAT'S a twinset! Hot damn! 

2) Mr. Gleemonex and I had a date night a couple of weeks ago (we HAD to go see Dumb and Dumber To, the original is a thing with us), and on the way through the parking garage to the mall where the theater was, I was striding along with my Fast, Purposeful, 360-Degree Visual Awareness Radar, Don't-Rape-Me walk. Which is the way I walk in all such spaces -- parking garages/lots, city streets, endless Las Vegas hotel corridors, etc. This is the way I've done since at least my teenage years, as I suspect most women do, and I never even think about what I'm doing -- if I'm in a space I perceive as any more threatening or dangerous than a Barnes & Noble kids' section, that's how I'm ambulatin', son. And but so Mr. Gleemonex was like dragging on my arm, all "Slow down there, Run Lola Run, we're actually on time for once -- why you gotta be walking so fast?" (not his actual words). I slowed down, suddenly aware of my FP360DVARDRMW, and it was only later that I thought back on it and realized that he, Shatner bless 'im, doesn't walk like I do, because he is a man -- now, he's a GenX lefty feminist man, to be sure, and his walking behavior was as unconscious on his part as my walking behavior is on mine, but if the difference between the two styles doesn't illustrate what rape culture is, then I don't know what would: I perceive the potential for bodily personal threat everywhere (which is unfortunately not unreasonable), and he does not.

Also I almost never pass a day without at least one Mitch Hedberg assay flickering across the old brain pan.

Two Unrelated Things

1) It is a rare day that I do not think to myself, "Settle down, Beavis!" Some days I say it out loud, but about 93 percent of the time it stays in my head.

2) When *I* go to BevMo, I come back with the thing or things which I intended to buy there (e.g. a handle of Stolichnaya, an xmas-gift-level bottle of sipping tequila, a sixer of wine for a party, what have you). But when *Mr. Gleemonex* goes there to pick up some Glenlivet, which for some reason has turned both rare and expensive around here (?huh?), he comes back with three bottles of Glenlivet, a twelver of Spaten, a bottle of sake (Wandering Poet label -- which of course, dear Twelve, made me think of the Troubador -- wonder how many times he's been nut-punched over these many years?), some Knob Creek, and a plastic "travel flask." He ... already has a very nice leather-bound flask. So ... I don't know. I like all this stuff, but -- for why is it here?

Pinacoladaberg

Of all of the things you can find on a beach, why is a used Band-Aid the most loathsome?

This is what a feminist looks like

So the kids're into a new-to-them show, a bland and ultra-formulaic computer-animated thing apparently written by Google scriptbots, called Paw Patrol. It stars six "pups" -- as in, puppies -- and one teenage (?) boy who is their ... idk, their minder? Scout leader? Whatever, he's the one who receives the incoming distress calls of various types at HQ, comes up with a plan, and gives the pups their orders, after which the day is, inevitably, saved (often, this involves apps, like on an iPad -- it's kind of confusing). There's a Moustache Pete type character (who does not have an Italian accent), and the town's mayor is a black woman, so -- I guess there's diversity kind of? Anyway, all the pups have cute short sassy names (e.g. Rocky -- I'm pretty sure Rocky is one of them) and some type of special skill with equipment to match, all of which are called into action -- COLLABORATIVE action -- with each mission. Aside from its general kiddie-show banality, my main beef with it was that there's just one female pup. Really, Paw Patrol? Grrrr.

But so then one night at dinner, Kid Gleemonex, age six, randomly muses, "I love Paw Patrol. But only one of the pups is a girl."

I say, "Yeah -- you noticed that too, huh?"

"Uh-huh," she says, with champion-level eyebrow. Then, sunnily and with an air of utter conviction: "But it's OK. She can fly."

You can always tell who was in an HBO early-adopter household as a kid.

Sniglets from Not Necessarily the News That Have Stuck With Me for Lo, These Thirty Bygone Years: A Partial List

furbling: the act of shuffling through the maze of all the line dividers in an airport or wherever, when you are the only one there

backsplatch: the mud/water/whatever that splashes up your back when you ride your bike through a puddle

meganegabar: the big line you write all the way to the end of the written dollar amount area on a check, to keep someone from writing "and one million dollars" to the end of it

cinemuck: the crud that covers the floor of a movie theater (combination of spilled soda, popcorn, candy, etc.)

The room fairly bristled with beards, mustaches and super-Mod dress.

A Short List of Truths Which Are Self-Evident

--The best Rolling Stones are the 70s heroin Rolling Stones. 

--Paul O'Neill is the best baseball commentator. 

--If somebody starts an Internets comment with "Um," then they're about to be a smug dick about something. 

--Farmer Boy and The Long Winter are the best Little House books (although it's a really crowded, top-heavy field so the margins aren't big)

--There is no kind of competition or sport that money and television cannot ruin. 

--Carrie Fisher had the world's best hair and sweetest smile, back in the day. 

"But Darling, if you HAVE a baby, you can't BE the baby anymore."

Things That Are Awesome Today

--This gallery of album covers done up like old paperbacks. I cannot stop with the love for these. I must have them all.

--The NCAA Men's basketball tournament. I mean, fuck Harvard, for reals (I almost picked them because Ivy League yo, but then I was like, nahh, fuck 'em, and damn if they didn't spoil a bunch of shit for a bunch of people. Gah!). But I love watching these games -- the whole thing is fun as hell, even in years like this one in which I didn't watch a single bball game before the tournament.

--Some kid's bday party on Saturday, which the invitation specifically says we can drop off our kids. This is BIG -- because for the first couple of years of kiddie parties, you have to go, and stand there the whole time making awk conversations with the other parents (whichever one lost rock-paper-scissors, like you did). There's usually cake, which is good, but still. So I'm excited and hopeful that this is the start of a new era of happy, brief independence for Kid Gleemonex and her peers.

She's a looker, yeah, she's got it made

AMAZING BODIES IN GLEEMONEX HISTORY: PART I

Not my body, I mean -- I just randomly thought of this person the other day (maybe inspired by the tights on one of Me At 13's dance outfits? who knows what pulls these thoughts out of the murk in the tarn of my brain ...). And I thought I'd share. 

When I was in high school, I went to aerobics class three or four times a week at a gym just off the courthouse square (so like 6 blocks from my house -- I drove there, of course, because what kind of a no-car-having LOSER walks anywhere, GOD!!!). There were a couple of different teachers, but the one with the most amaaaazing body was Frieda H., my cool cousin's friend, who at that time was in her ... mid-to-late twenties, maybe 26 or 27?, and the mother of two young children.

Frieda had awesome Warrant-video-girlfriend blonde hair, big and teased and best suited for lolling about on the hoods of cars in front of cameras. And trust me, in the late 80s, that hair was HOTTT. It was what we were all trying to do, and failing to various degrees. She was no taller than me -- so 5'5" or thereabouts -- but she seemed downright Venusian, six-two at least. She showed up to class in full makeup, always, and it never ran or streaked. She wore immaculate hi-top Ryka sneakers, the shoe of choice for aerobic instructors, with socks of a perfect scrunchiness and hue peeking out the tops. But as bawss as the upper and lower extremities of Frieda were, it was the middle part that was the most amazing.

Slim, powerful, compact, not an ounce of fat on her, unless you count her perfect, perfect boobs (adorable round 100% factory original B-cups with no post-market adjustments). There wasn't even any line across her shimmery shiny paint-splash-printed thong leotard where her shimmery shiny fuchsia tights ended. O wait did I just mention the thong leotards? Because holy shit yeah, THONG LEOTARDS. Astonishingly high v-cuts in the front, well past the hipbones and up to about the third rib, that made her legs look like metal alloy Space Age sculptures, reaching for the sky. In the back, the thong revealed the most eye-popping pair of buns in all of humanity -- smooth, curved, free of any pock, ripple or mushiness, powerful (christ she did an hour's worth of 180bpm maniac shit on a TWELVE-INCH STEP BENCH, three times a week) but not showing any obvious muscle. It was ... a thing of beauty.

You'd watch those buns, pistoning away up at the front of the room, as you shuffled along trying to keep up on your lame 6-inch step (or an 8 if you were showing off or old ladies grabbed all the sixes cause they got there first), and think to yourself "ehhhhgaaaaaaah I'm dying." I mean, you don't have a lot of deep thoughts during step aerobics. But then twenty-five years later you're like -- goddamn, Frieda, that was a world-class set of buns. I salute you, and your whole thing you had going there, and I do hope you enjoyed living in that body as much as we all enjoyed a-lookin' at it. Mahalo!

"Finish the fucking STORY!" I snarled. "What HAPPENED? What about the GLANDS?"

In re: my birfday, which was Sunday: I find it endlessly amusing how wired Mr. Gleemonex gets on the eensiest amounts of caffeine and/or sugar. I'll be on my third double espresso (several sugars per -- and I won't tell you exactly how many so you can't yell at me when I finally get the diabeetus), just barely swimming my way out of brain fog, and he'll have eaten, like, three M&Ms and be bouncing his knee under the table, blinking rapidly, getting the shakes, all "Sowhat'rewegonnadonextwhat'shappeningareyoufeelingthisIgottagoforarunorsomethingWHOA."

And I laaaaaugh and laugh. Hee. Such a caffeine lightweight, Shatner love 'im.

Tomorrow I'm gonna write about the little neigborhood meetup I was a part of on Monday, because that there is some prime suburbia nonsense and hilarity, but right now I gotta go tend to Danger Baby before he figures out how to hotwire his crib, fly it out the window, and take a few laps around the valley before spilling out on our lawn and getting up all Pee-Wee Herman style "I meant to do that."

"You were born in Hawaii? You got a birth certificate? Heh."

So just back from the Big Island, still resenting the fuck out of having to wear pants and shoes -- here's a couple of things that were awesome while I was so far off of US Mainland time that I had a hard time connecting news events to reality.

1) Sarah Brown is EN FUEGO. Muy muy incendio. I have been repeating this particular post to myself in my head, verbatim, several times a day since I read it a week ago. (Hey Sarah Brown, btw: I confess I'm bummed about Amy Poehler getting divorced -- not like, freaking out crying, but sort of arm's-length, friend-of-a-friend, but-I-really-LIKE-her! bummed. I want the people I like and admire to be happy. But then, maybe this makes her happy, so ... um. Anyway.)

2) Holy taintballs do I love me some Bill Clinton! That's the only DNC speech we saw a big chunk of (I've seen the rest via tumblr gifs mainly ... remember back when I used to be a poli sci enthusiast, reader of dense books, consumer of news media, writer of lengthy analyses for grades? Yeah ...), and it was sofa king awesome. I would elect him President again and again. The Big Dog, y'all.

3) ICP MST3Ks the "Call Me Maybe" video. Stupidly hard laughter from this girl here, y'all -- and I'm still repeating lines from it ten or twelve days later.

4) This fun little jaunt in the 1992 wayback machine. Awwww, y'all ... how'd I get this old?

Things I thought about at 3:45 a.m. while Mr. Gleemonex snored like a stableful of cartoon horses

IOW, Potpourri Thursday

--The extremely sexually-excited way Megyn Kelly presented during her interview with "the Romney boys," aka the five asshole sons of Willard Romney. Seen (thankfully not heard) on the TV that's always tuned to Fox "News" at the gym. The girl's eyes were huge and flashing wanty looks, her nips practically sproinged little smoking holes through the front of her blouse, and she sort of squirmed in her seat the whole time -- christ that was disgusting.

--Wonder Woman's backstory is total bunkum. All that insanity about "Amazons" and invisible jets (does it also have invisible fuel? wouldn't you run into it on the tarmac? wtf) and talking to animals and Greek gods ... srsly what is the deal.

--I have a desperate desire to punch Paul Ryan in his stupid punchable face. It's a face that BEGS for punching. Hard punching and lots of it. Those stupid limpid eyes, that goddamn Munsters cowlick, that earnest idiot expression -- christ do I want to punch him so bad.

--It's possible our new dentist is a crazy person. She's great, don't get me wrong, but there's something a little nutburgery about her. Nobody but a crazy person wears pants like that. And what's with all the Barbies all over her office? Actual Barbie dolls. Krickety-krackety kray.

Leonard Edward Funt

I'm pretty sure there's nobody -- not even Anthony Edwards's mom -- who has seen How I Got Into College more times than I have. It's one of Savage Steve Holland's unsung masterpieces, and endlessly, stupidly quotable in that sort of Tourettey fashion my brain kicks into automatically all the damn time. (Like f'rinstance, I see the word Yale, and I think "One girl took up wrestling, and she got into Yale!" "No, Harvard!" And sometimes I say this out loud, and people around me are like " ... the fuhh?") It's crammed full of awesome actors (but as is often the case with this type of movie, it has a lead who is nobody and went nowhere after). It's ridonculous, but has sudden stabs of truth (remember that girl calling her mom at home to see if she got any college letters, and she's yelling into the phone, "Is it fat or skinny? Fat or skinny! FAT OR SKINNY!!!"). Fun as hell, y'all.

--------------------------
This post brought to you by the fourth waking of one of my vampire children (TM Berwie), in which I got back into bed at 4:04 in the a.m., that's ante meridian, but couldn't go to sleep until I typed "DK post: How I got into college" into the Notes app on my iPhone. 

Three Things (Out of Many) on the Internets Which Upset Me, for Vastly Different Reasons

#1. Destiny in Bloom, which bills itself as "A Women's Online Magazine." I was going to link to it, but I got paranoid that a trail could somehow lead back here to good old foulmouthed godless commie homo Damn Kids, and the person who inadvertently caused me to know of this site's existence might come to know of Damn Kids' existence, which would not be good for anybody. So just google it. And when you do, you'll know why it is one thousand pukes into a dirty bucket. These people refer to the deity as "Father God," they reiterate and reinforce again and again their take on the proper state of male/female relations (he's the Head of Household, the leader in matters spiritual and otherwise; she's "submitted" and "receptive" and such, and neither are they equal nor shall they ever really understand one another because Father God made them different according to His Divine and Mysterious and Perfect Plan, yada yada yada), etc. Plus I'm pretty sure they didn't pay for any of that stupid stock photography that's all over the place.

#2.  A website selling junkola, with the tagline Boomers and Beyond.  A special computer that "you don't have to ask your children or grandchildren to set up." A cornucopia of personal magnifying and amplifying devices. Guardrails, hand rails, a dozen different kinds of foam wedges to make your bed more comfortable. Watches with gigantic faces. Products addressing foot care, incontinence and "weather" needs. Oh, Internets ... don't go there unless you want to ruin a perfectly fine day by confronting the reality of all of humanity's inevitable decline into senescence and death. I'm not kidding.

#3. This insane Teddy Ruxpin art installation. Less "upsetting," and more "bug-eyed goosebumped creeped-out-beyond-reach-of-Ativan." This is truly wild stuff. Guy wires 80 Teddy Ruxpins to a wall and has them set to speak (at random apparently for all time) -- in their creeptacular Fitter/Happier Ruxpin voices -- things people have typed on blogs & websites ("emotional messages gathered live from the Internet," if that helps to clarify). This one, you gotta go see. You will trip balls. TRIP BALLS.

I mean, minus the hookers and assholery.

If House had existed back in the day when I was in jr. high and high school, my crush would've been on this one: 

The soft, pretty one with the floppy blond hair and the ozzie accent. Nonthreatening, vaguely exotic, very Elwes. 

But it wouldn't have taken me long to get to this one: 

Because Dead Poets Society. And but then, I'd've ended up here: 

As you do. As one does. Sorta like how your Beatle crushes start with Paul, take a little jaunt over to Ringo, and then eventually fix permanently upon John or George. 

Now she's a swinger, dating a singer / I can't decide which is worse

So I woke up this morning with the letters K C written on my hand. I remember doing this at 3:12 a.m., just before falling back asleep after changing & feeding the baby, thinking I'd definitely remember what it was about.

Of course, no fucking clue. All day I've been trying to figure it out: Kansas City? KC Royals? ... and the Sunshine Band? Keith Carradine? Kid Cudi? Killer Clowns? KC Armstrong? Kilocalorie? Krazy Cuntz?

Goddammit this is driving me bugfuck.

What nice underclothes you both have.

I need to axe you guys a very serious question: What do you do with the clothes that aren't dirty and aren't exactly clean? Like you wore them once, maybe twice, briefly & didn't sweat in them?

I mean -- you can't re-hang/re-drawer them. They're not -- freshly clean. You don't want to deceive yourself that they're ready for prime time.

But you can't toss them in the laundry. PROFLIGACY!

And they look fucking awful in a pile at the foot of the bed (not to mention that this is apparently an arachnid re-spawn point or something, or IT COULD BE), or on that chair over in the corner -- it's the kind of clutter that makes my face hurt to look at. So slovenly. But those clothes are (mostly, kind of) clean, dammit!

Help. Please.