things that go bump

update: still effing hot.

here's a scene from last night, around 12:14-

It is 93 degrees in this house. Probably hotter upstairs, here in my room. I read for a bit and turn out the light. The fan is whirring loudly at the window, but is largely ineffectual. I twist, and one leg is under the sheet while the rest of my body waits, uncovered, for cool relief.

I force my eyes to adjust to the new world of my pitch dark bedroom. Then, the thought:

With the fan so loud, I won't be able to hear them.

Only I could scare myself so thoroughly and for no apparent reason. Who's "them?" Aliens? Robbers? The family of Cat People who moved into my closet while we were gone? Who knows.

I hesitantly pull my exposed leg under the sheet, for safety.

This is gonna be a hot one.

heat wave

I'm back!

I have many stories, observations, and new loves to share (spoiler alert: involves Hawaii, short-shorts, and a shamelessly full mustache) but unfortunately I just don't have time to start now.

Reason one: I am exhausted from road travel.
Reason two: It is currently 93 degrees in my house. My wrists are sweating on the keyboard and I have a beaded-sweat-mustache in my own house. My mother just called in from the other room "The cat is panting!"

So, after work tomorrow, and hopefully after this is fixed (if not, I am moving to Starbucks till it is. Or the ice rink. Or I'll carve a space for myself in the garage freezer), I will wow you with anecdotes from the coast of Alabama. Until then, I will try to sleep through the night to be energized for going back to work in the morning.

EDIT: In all the sweltering, I forgot I was going to share something my roommate passed on to me:
Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Author

mine include JK Rowling (smart geeks. thanks!) and Shakespeare (people who like bondage. um, what?). One of my favorites has to be Cormac McCarthy- men who don't eat cream cheese.

bye bye, to beach

Tomorrow we are off to Gulf Shores, AL, for some vacation time. Time most likely spent at the condo pool hopefully fixing my weird tan lines, and if last time was any indication, watching a lot of Unbeatable Banzuke on G4.
The beach itself is most likely off-limits and covered in tar balls and the water is probably not fit for swimming. There is also a tropical storm (Bonnie!) coming through just in time for our stay.

So what I'm saying is: please call me. About anything. Anytime. If I'm sleeping, believe me it won't bother me, because I won't answer it.

See you next week!

Unless I find internet access, in which case, I'll see you sooner than you'd think.

hm hmh hmmh hm du duh DHUH DHUH DUH

So admittedly I don't spend my time on the internet well. Most of the time I'm watching How I Met Your Mother or definitely NOT iCarly online, checking my email, and facebooking. Which is totally a verb, no matter what spellcheck says.

But last night, I watched the sequel to Very Potter Musical (which you NEED TO SEE if you haven't already) and that took about 3ish hours of my life. But they were hours I don't want back. The sequel was a bit more adult than the last; something I don't mind, but I am definitely glad I didn't let Daniel watch it with me.

Here's a bit of it-



other favorites: no one can pronounce Hermione's name, Crookshanks, Lupin, and well, Umbridge's backstory:

that damn dog

For a while I have been my dog's only champion. He's pretty dumb considering his name is Einstein (which was not our choice, but I have accepted it as an homage to Back to the Future) and he isn't an inbred pure breed puppy mill product. He usually eats everything he can reach, which is a lot. Now he's been known to trot upstairs and crap in people's bedrooms. But still I loved him, defended him, and derailed my family's plans to send him to a farm.

And then today I went upstairs and I found something.

Next to my bed on the floor in the corner of my room, (placed there out of shame, I'd like to imagine) was a tattered piece of trash. A shredded bag, evidence betraying his actions in my room that day. Maybe it happened while I was at work. Or even while I sat downstairs watching Harvard Sailing Team videos on YouTube. All I know is that sometime today, he finished my bag of Peanut butter M&Ms. MY PEANUT BUTTER M&Ms. Arguably the best kind of M&Ms ever invented and a luxury I was looking forward to enjoying later that day.

I don't know if we can move past this.

It's hard to stay mad at a dog. Hm. I'd better go make sure he didn't eat my frozen pizza, the scoundrel.

RLS: "Friend of Hookface" pt 2

So I gave my number to Hookface's friend, because Hookface was busy shoving bikes in his trunk. I didn't have the foresight or quick thinking to give him a fake number, and I thought What harm could it do?

Marca and I escaped down King St, not even venturing to glance behind us as we walked/ran away. We were starving, and as we walked we debated places to eat. An adventure of this quality could not be followed by campus food! We needed something special and delicious. We needed Hobbit's Foot Pizza (Mellow Mushroom's Magical Mystery Tour pizza has feta, spinach, button mushrooms- basically it looks like you scraped it off the bottom of Samwise's furry feet. And it's delicious, I promise). So we called a couple friends of ours because we needed an audience.

To remember who/what he was, he appeared in my phone as "Justin Seaman" because that was his name, and he was, well, in the Navy.

During dinner, the guy (henceforth known as Justin Seaman) texted me things like "In the ER!" or "This is taking forever!" I noticed he was a lot more excited and friendly-sounding via text and neglected to throw in his favorite four letter word. I responded when the text necessitated a response, hoping he would realize I wasn't really interested and just fade away.

The next morning, I went with a group of friends to the Farmer's Market in Marion Square to get brunch. As I sat eating my red beans and Abita root beer from the New Orleans tent, I get a notification: a text from Justin Seaman! "What's up?"

I ignored it for a few hours, pretending I was asleep. After a while I felt guilty and said something boring and noncommittal like "not much."

Over the next two weeks (the last week of classes and exams) he would pop into my phone every few days, usually asking what's up or informing me that he doesn't have a curfew next weekend (wink). Awesome. I changed his name to "Friend of Hookface" so I would really remember who he was. I told him I was moving back to Atlanta for the summer, and he finally left me alone and stopped asking to meet up.

I was finally rid of him!

Or so I thought.


Yesterday, YESTERDAY, I got a text while I was in the concession stand at work. I'm going to put the whole conversation here, because there is no chance of him finding this blog and it's a really funny story.

Friend of Hookface 7/18 4:28- Hey!

WHAT? I hadn't talked to this guy in months and only for a few hours on that pier. Either I left quite an impression or he is lonely and desperate. From what I know about some of the Navy guys and MOST of the Citadel guys, the latter is more likely.

I didn't know if I should say anything, and I sent texts to a few friends that knew the story and asked "what should I do?" My favorite was my friend brad who responded "Play dead?"

Me 6:03- Hey (notice I have no inflection at all and I responded almost two hours later)
FoHf 6:08- What have you been up to? (of course)
Me 6:09- Working a lot. (I started responding more frequently because it was raining yesterday and the splashground was dead. I was really bored)
FoHf 6:11- Bummer, where at?
Me 6:12- A park. Selling ice cream right now. You? (I thought at this point, it was only polite to include a question mark on my end)
FoHf 6:13- Waiting for school to start up, where is the park at? (now that's a creepy question. I'm sure if the park were in the Charleston area, he would have come to find me)
Me 6:14- Roswell GA (emphasis on the GEORGIA)
FoHf 6:16- When you coming back to SC? (of course)
Me 6:59- (fourty minutes later) In a few weeks (vague). Can't wait to get outta here! (meaning work, Mom, not your lovely house)
FoHf 7:00- Sweet! Did I meet you at the pier?

what? clearly my name in his phone is not "girl at pier" or "Fish hook chick" which I guess is good?

Me 7:00- (laughing, deciding to "play it cool") I think so
FoHf 7:01- yeah fishhook? (that's not a question)
Me 7:04- haha yeah
FoHf 7:05- Cool! Sorry I didn't keep in touch!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


HAHAHAHAHA

I was so busy laughing I didn't respond. For a while.

FoHf 7:25- You workin now? (get outta my business, bro!)
Me 8:08- Just got out. At grandma's house.
FoHf 8:10- Sounds fun, ya just visiting or what? (this guy must be really bored.)

At this point, I had told the story to Mumma and she was helping me with evasive maneuvers. "You should have said that you were going to move back the 15th, but your boyfriend can't move back till the 30th," she said. I looked at his last message and got an idea.

Me 8:16- I'm introducing my boyfriend to the family.
FoHf 8:19- sweet sounds fun.

Conversation OVER.

RLS: "Friend of Hookface"

Disclaimer: I want to make sure you know that I do, in fact, want a boyfriend. It may seem from this story and the hipster trilogy that I enjoy having boys chase me and then ruthlessly denying their attempts to date me. It just happens that the funniest stories I have to tell involve boys I have no interest in, for some reason or another. You could take from this that I am too picky. Or you could just sit back, read, and enjoy.

Before I can tell you what happened today, I have to take a trip back to a few months ago.

Setting: Mid-April, 2010. My roommate and I find ourselves alone; our friends have gone to the CofC baseball game and left us behind (no hard feelings- this story never would have happened). We decide to go for a walk and end up sitting on the pier at Waterfront Park.


As Marca and I are talking, I notice next to us two guys with BMX bikes. They look about our age, with tattoos and helmets and a general air about them that suggests they hurt themselves a lot doing stupid things (most 13-year-olds are like this- also, Jackass). Eventually, one of them leaves to get some water or to flip his bike into a public fountain. Marca and I sit silent for a bit during a lull in our conversation. The remaining BMX guy takes this as his cue to lean over and ask "So, do you go to school around here?" which means one of two things when you live in Charleston:

1. He's a tourist.
2. He's in the Navy.

It turns out it's the latter- he's in the nuclear power school in Goose Creek. He talks to us for a while and Marca and I are flattered at being "chatted up" even though it is soon obvious he is not extremely smart and he uses the F word way too much. I have no problem with swearing at all. Shit no. Except if the person in question doesn't know how. This guy used the F word like a 10-year-old who got it for Christmas.

After a while his friend comes back, and after a few minutes of talking we learn that they aren't actually friends, per se. They just found each other in town and some exchange like this happened:

Guy 1: Hey, I see you have a BMX bike! So do I!
Guy 2: We should totally ride together!
Guy 1: I'm in the Navy!
Guy 2: F***in' no way, me too. That's f***in crazy! F*** yeah we should ride together. F***IN' A!
-Three minutes later, they sat next to us on the pier.

So they start talking to each other about Navy stuff, every so often talking at us to say something about bad food or curfews. It's around this time I start thinking How am I gonna get us out of this? I'm starving! But if I say that, they'll invite themselves to dinner. Marca must be uncomfortable (I'm just projecting). I check my phone, but I can tell by the color of the sky that it's getting into later eating hours. When I look up, I see something miraculous flying through the sky to save us.

A woman at the end of the pier has been fishing with her two sons, in the background of this story. She caught a stingray early into our conversation with the first guy and we watched her husband nudge it off the pier with his boot.

Just as I'm thinking How are we going to get out of this? she casts her line parallel to the water instead of out into it and her bait and tackle comes flying through the air towards the second guy's HEAD. The triangle weight lands on top of his head and the hook grabs his left temple a bit above the hair line. A second or two of silence elapses. I don't know this man. I have no idea if he has anger issues or a rare, extra-squirty-blood disease. Finally, he says (quite gifted, this guy) "There is a hook. In my head." That seemed about the only thing he could say, and he said it several times.

Meanwhile, the woman responsible came running over, terrified, to survey the damage (it's barely in there- only a flesh wound). However, the guy (henceforth known as Hookface) insists we not take it out and instead "clip it and take the whole thing to the hospital." The woman's husband comes over to him. This man has already had to kick a stingray off a dock today, and who knows what else. He says "let me take a look" and midway through his last word, he plucks the offending hook out of Hookface's face, and all that is left is a tiny cut about the length of a pencil eraser.

Hookface still insists on the hospital, mumbling something about "paperwork." I gave him directions to the ER and helped them find Hookface's car because they had no clue where they were. On the way to finding his vehicle, the two boys unrelentingly invite us to the hospital with them. Um, no thanks. Not even if you were cute. OK, maybe if you were cute. And smarter. And stopped cursing like an old lady that's just remembered she knows how.

I saw that the only way we could leave without accompanying them to the hospital would be to jump on the phone grenade. I said "Here's my number- so you can let us know that everything's OK." And I wish I hadn't. I knew they were OK. I knew the ER doctors would give him a band-aid and some Midol and tell him to man up and get back to the Navy.

I knew he would text me that night, and maybe the next day (when I planned to have "dropped my phone in soup" so I couldn't read texts, darn). Just know that the story doesn't end here.

shhhh

This week's Post Secret secrets have some pretty creepy ones. About bodies and killing neighbor cats. But there are also some really cute ones. It makes me wonder: is this a proper cross section of the world? Some people rescuing kittens and others getting high to babysit? I guess so.

I really like the one about window mannequins.

postsecret.com

challenge!

See if you can name the movies from these quotes!

1. Who’s scruffy lookin’?

2. I’m not Josie Grossy anymore!

3. That Sergeant Angel's coming into your shop. Get a look at his arse.

4. How come when I wanted to ask Eunice out everyone made fun of me, but then Sebastian likes her and suddenly she's cool? Screw you guys. I hate high school.

5. Someone's ear is in danger of having hair brushed over it...

6. What a fitting end to your life's pursuits. You're about to become a permanent addition to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a thousand years, even you may be worth something.

7. We are men of action, lies do not become us.

8. It’s not slime! It’s mucus!

9. If the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists!

10. Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.

the lost boys

I finally saw Lost Boys.

There are a lot of things to be said.

1. the Coreys were ridiculous. And now one is dead. Which is pretty sad.
2. the fake blood was awful. It made me want cherry Kool-aid
3. Jason Patric is a dreamboat.
4. Jack Bauer officially scares the shit out of me.
5. what? Rory Gilmore's grandfather is a vampire? THE vampire??
6. the concert scene almost made me pee my pants. body oil + huge pony tail + SAXOPHONE = me laughing uncontrollably through a fairly important scene, it turns out.
7. Bill (of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, you know, the one who's NOT Keanu Reeves) must have famous parents. Seriously, how does someone with a face like that get into show business?

Overall, I really enjoyed it. Here is my favorite scene:




If I ever get a husky, I'm naming him Nanook.

what's with all the dystopia?

So I finally picked up my next book for book club, A Clockwork Orange.

When we were deciding on books in the spring, most of the suggestions were ones we never read in high school but felt like we should have. So far, East of Eden has been my favorite and is going on my list of Top Ten Books I Didn't Want to Read Originally, But Ended Up Enjoying. Included on the list are Name of the Wind and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? However, I don't think this new book is going to make that list (but then again, that's the nature of the list, isn't it?)

I'm getting a bit burnt out on dystopia. So many of the books we read in high school take place in a sad, grey future where problems during the date of publication are amplified to the nth degree. Books like Farenheit 451, Anthem, 1984, and Brave New World paint pictures of a dismal future where everyday man has accepted a life without books, or names, or become dependent on drugs like soma to endure the sad state of the world. Even my favorite book in elementary school, The Giver, depicts a future without color and without memory.

I fear for the future. I am sure that within 50 years, the oceans will be polluted or dried up, nuclear war will break out, robots will rebel, and aliens will plumb our green planet for needed resources. And I am "sure" of this because of the countless books I have read that tell me that our future is depressing and dark. That the sun will burn out and men and women will be used as batteries for large sentient machines.Look at the movie Wall-E! Earth is a dump, humans have fled the earth, and the only creature remaining in the rubble (that doesn't require solar charging) is a cockroach. No doubt the people that produce these movies and novels hope to influence people; to induce change and new thinking that could save us. But I don't feel empowered and capable of change. I feel crushed by the weight of outstanding evidence that tells me the future will suck. I feel powerless and scared.

The only solution to NOT feeling scared, I believe, is to stop reading these books. But it may be too late. Especially since I have to read this one for book club.

OR I can just concentrate on the movies and books with good futures. Like...

• Back to the Future II
• Star Trek
• ...that's all I can think of.

eye-popping

So I just watched 28 Days Later for the first time ever. I know.

I love movies. Especially thrillers. Especially thrillers with ambiguous names. Especially thrillers with ambiguous names about the zombie apocalypse. But NOT thrillers with ambiguous names about the zombie apocalypse starring Cillian Murphy, featuring him popping NON-INFECTED people's eyeballs just because he's feeling a bit overprotective.It's just a surprise that I've never seen this until tonight.

But not as big of a deal of never hearing the song American Pie, as my friend admitted to a shocked trivia team last week.

I still don't believe her.

RLS: I am being courted by a hipster, part 3

Yes, that's right. part 3. Because the story just wasn't. over. yet.

So a few things since last time:

You may recall that this boy sent me a text message asking if I received the mix tapes he left right under my face. I did not respond to him. And I feel pretty crummy about that. However, I did warn him that I rarely answer my phone and am very slow with text messages, so he was at least slightly prepared for it. I wanted to say something- something that might deter him- but couldn't think of the right response, so I just never did. And 8 days after he sent it, I deleted it from my inbox.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and checked my email for a response from my boss, hoping the message would just say: "Of course, Claire! We are hiring 4 more employees so the workload will be lighter and when you go on vacation no one will hate you!" And of course the next thing I did (after receiving a much less helpful reply) was check Facebook.

Most days there is nothing new to see in the morning because I was on the computer late the night before, but this morning I found a message in my inbox. It was not a book club reminder, or a request for prayers, or something from my roommate saying "I found a lamp! It's perfect; there are owls ALL OVER IT," but an invitation to dinner from him.

I've decided to share it with you. I wasn't sure if that would be a mean thing or not, but it helps the story to know exactly what was said. Subj:Hey Claire-

I've come to the park a couple times to tell you that I would like to take you out to dinner. but you look so busy, and I feel bad to pull you away from your job.

Would you like to go to dinner with me?

This short note reveals several things.

1. I was a lot better at hiding my uncomfortableness and get-me-outta-here face than I though I was
2. He restarted his Facebook.
3. He has been watching me at work without my knowledge.
   

Let me go back to #2 for a second. My freshman year at the College of Charleston, I went on a blind date with a Citadel cadet.

For those of you that don't know, the Citadel is a military college in Charleston with no affiliation to any branch of the military, where young men (and a handful of women) willingly attend four years of mandatory ROTC. The freshman are called "knobs" because their bald heads are so shiny and round, they look like they might open doors.

My friend at the time was asked on a date and refused to go alone (because honestly, they're a bit creepy- especially when they hang around outside the girls' dorm on a Saturday night like piranhas) so I went with her for moral support. After the "date"-which was mostly me listening to how great the Citadel is because the older kids beat you with sticks and freshman can't use condiments- we went home, impressed that we had had a truly collegiate experience.

Two days later, I decide on a whim to listen to a friend's band on Myspace (Absence of Ocean- check em out) and check my homepage which I haven't been to in ages. Because let's face it, Myspace is the creepy abandoned theme park of the internet. And I have a friend request. From the knob! The knob who never learned my last name. Creepy. I said yes anyway, went to his page and he has two friends: Me, and Tom the Myspace Guy. Which led me to the obvious conclusion that he created a Myspace just to friend me.

back to the hipster: So I saw his back-on-facebookness and I drew a similar conclusion. That may be a bit self-centered. I dunno. Either way, he's back on the internets.

Anyway, the bigger issue. #3- he has been watching me while I'm at work. Watching me. Enough to discern that I was too busy to talk to him. GAH.
So hopefully that is the end of the story. I let him down gently, via FB message, which I hate to do b/c that is a lame way to communicate about this sort of thing. And he ended it with "see you at Trivia" so I don't think there are any hard feelings. But it could mean a pretty awkward Friday at Starbucks.

pills

My mother is trying to force Daniel to swallow his antibiotics. This is the kid that throws up every time he goes to the dentist. And I mean every time. His gag reflex is more sensitive than a 13 year old, which should tell you something.

She tried hiding the pill in whipped cream (huge mess) and yogurt (nice try). And now it's causing a huge fight because Ryan has decided to chime in with parenting advice. Because who knows more about these things than a surly 13 year old who barely recognizes the world outside his Xbox360?

Some things are just skills you have to learn, and apparently swallowing tiny pills is one of them.

(I'm looking at you, MH)

pow!

Happy Independence Day!

ah, family.

Someone my mother knows on FB posted an article like this, claiming that Obama hates the British because his grandfather was tortured by British soldiers during a rebellion in Kenya. Honestly, if Obama is harboring any ill feeling toward Great Britain, it might be because of this:

Anyway, the article got me to thinking. I could never be president.

If they pull out Obama's grandfather and say that because his grandfather was tortured by the British he now hates GB, then I can only laugh at what the media could dig up about my family.

So I'm gonna come clean about it in public, right now. Just so the media won't make me look like I was hiding it later on my campaign trail.

MY great-grandfather was tortured by the British.As a member of the early IRA, he was interrogated and water-boarded (and a whole lot more unspeakable things), then kicked out of Ireland and sent to Australia. He stayed there for a few years, all the while writing letters to my great-grandmother pleading with her to come meet him in Australia. But she refused because the entire country was full of criminals. So they decided to meet in America. It's kind of a romantic story, actually.
She took a boat from Cork to New York, and he came through California. His brother was already in the states working as a policeman, and got him into the country in what my grandfather assures me was a completely legal and legitimate way. He traveled across the country to her and on his way discovered the opportunities available in the Midwest. The two married and settled in Detroit, where they raised my grandfather, and where he met my grandmother.

My dad's side of the family might be a bit more scandalous. I can't even imagine the number of things someone could dig up if they were to actually pay for the genealogy services online. Artists, architects, doctors and lawyers, sure. But also a distant relative that apparently tried to commit suicide by laying behind the wheels of the family car as his wife backed out of a parking space. Jokingly referred to as "Cousin Speedbump" by my Uncle Larry. And she was murdered by her husband with a hammer.
We are also tied to a haunted house in New Orleans (a city I recently discovered the DeBuys family has lived in since before the Louisiana Purchase) and a woman who cruelly mistreated her slaves named Madame LaLaurie. A woman my paternal grandmother told me I resemble very closely. Great.I don't see it. But what a legacy, eh? I think I'll name my first daughter Delphine in her honor. If you want to hear a disturbing story, just visit this website: www.prairieghosts.com/lalaurie.html

And those relatives are just the ones I know about. If years from now I ever decided to run for office (which I won't because let's face it, I could not handle the pressure), I shudder to think what else could be found out about my wonderful family.

Maybe next time I'll focus on the cool relatives, like a dueler way back when:

"The DeBuys-Alpuente duel was also fought with double-barreled shotguns with single balls. DeBuys was saved by a Hollywood ending in which the ball hit a twenty-dollar gold piece in his waistcoat. Feeling lucky, he crossed swords with Aristide Gerard later that afternoon and received fourteen wounds. A born duelist, DeBuys is known to have fought twenty-four duels."

awesome, right?

EDIT: If you tried to comment and it didn't show up, I did NOT delete it. I gotta fix some settings I guess.