Burles-que'st que c'est?
or
My Big Debut

Great news, gentle readers! I will be starring in a burlesque show on August 12 at Daddy Mac's! Look, I'm even on the flier! (Albeit, with my old platinum hair. But never mind that.)



I'm soooooo excited. I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get my acts ready. I'm going to fill two numbers. The first will be a classic burlesque dance to "Stray Cat Strut" by the Stray Cats. Bet you can't guess what I'll be dressed as. Meow.

The second act is a bit more modern. I'm going to turn myself into a human ice cream sundae. It's going to be super sexy, and a hell of a mess. I need to buy a tarp for the stage . . . As for music, I shall dance to "Ice Cream" by New Young Pony Club.

What a wonderful opportunity this is! I've wanted to do burlesque for ages, and now I finally have my chance! It's so classic. So retrosexual.

No, it's not nude. It's pasties and full back underwear. Don't look at me like that.

Wish me luck! Anyone with burlesque experience is more than welcome to add some tips in the comments. I would appreciate it.

Deadly Little Lady
or
"HOLY SHIT, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"

I stepped into death's parlor for tea today. Luckily, I didn't stay for dinner. Phew.

Otherwise, this blog wouldn't exist any more. Whatever would my gentle readers do to waste time after they had finished with the news?

At any rate, I survived. The poisonous spiders, that is. I feel like a J. R. R. Tolkein character even saying that, but it's absolutely true. Tonight, at my domicile, I encountered two black widows. One of them was absurdly large. The other was somewhat more like what one might find in a zoo or entomological collection - that is to say, of average size.

I have photographic evidence.

Bella Morte of the back porch

I found the first specimen on our back patio while accompanying my friend, Becca, outside while she smoked a cigarette. Thank goodness I had turned on the patio light, because I almost stepped into the little lady's web, while barefoot no less.

Little. BAH! She had to be at least 2.5 inches in diameter. Never in my life have I ever seen or heard of a black widow so large. I spied her twitching amid her chaotic, glistening strands, surrounded by the corpses of her prey:

The Lady at home.



Those are full-sized cockroaches suspended below the spider. Ya know. For scale.

I had to kill her. I had no choice. The apartment is riddled with cracks and seams that lead to the outdoors. What if the little lady bred? We'd be overrun within days. I mean, I might survive if I were bitten, but what about my cats?

What am I saying . . . I didn't kill her. I'm too chickenshit for spiders, thank you very much. I did what comes naturally to every woman: I sent the menfolk after her.

First, Greg went outside with the camera to capture the spider's good side. He took probably 8 or 9 shots at close proximity, trying to get the perfect view of her hourglass. Then we sent out Arturo to get her with the Raid. I'm pleased to note that "Ant and Roach Formula" is equally effective on spiders, at least when it comes to a direct hit.

Everyone celebrated the death of Bella Morte - particularly myself, who had come so close to walking straight into fang-range.

Becca and I decided that she should take her cigarette in the front yard, instead. We'd had enough deadly arachnids for one night. Greg performed the role of chaperon. I'm glad he did. It was his sharp eyes that caught the second Black Widow.

They seem to like hanging upside down in their webs, don't they?

This new spider was about a third of the size of the original find. She much more resembled the black widows I've seen before in captivity. Certainly still deadly.

By some stroke of adrenalin-induced madness, we decided to capture it in a plastic container. Don't ask me how, but Greg did the honors in one fell swoop. No feinting, no whimpering, just POP goes the Tupperwear around our little horror and it was done.

Macro shot through the plastic. Look at those forelegs!

And now what to do with her?

That is the question, isn't it?

Becca wants to take her home. Fine. I told her she can have the damned thing, just don't let it go within a mile radius of me.

Ugh. Greg said her web felt like cloth gauze, it was so strong. It gives me shivers to even think about it. Especially since I imagine these won't be the last black widows we find around this place . . .

Back To My Roots
or
A Sugar By Any Other Name

I had a root beer float today. (Well, not a whole one. I took a few bites of the one Greg made for himself. Bless his heart for always letting Miss Diet Conscious taste his sweets. But that's beside the point.) The point is that it was simply incredible. I'd never had one like it before.

See, I've never been a huge root beer fan. Back when I used to drink a lot of soda, diet cola was my beverage of choice. Yes, diet. Right from Kindergarten. My mother is addicted (in the literal sense of the word) to Diet Pepsi. She drinks about 4 cans per diem. Sometimes more. As a child, I simply got used to what was always around. To this day, normal Pepsi or Coke tastes filthy and cloying to me. I can feel the syrup swimming on my teeth. *shudder*

I loved diet soda for years, until aspartame started giving me mouth sores. It's not the kindest chemical to one's system, I'll tell you that.

And diet root beer tastes like Pepto Bismol.

Nowadays, I have another reason to avoid soda altogether, particularly the sweetened kind. It contains about 10 tsps of the goddamned High Fructose Corn Syrup.

High Fructose corn syrup is just not cool in my book. First off, it'll probably make you fat, even more so than table sugar, which I absolutely cannot forgive. Also, in my opinion, it tastes like crap. I avoid it every chance I get. You can never eat too little refined sugar.

Back to the root beer float.

While we were at Trader Joe's today, Greg snagged something that gave me pause: a can of Hansen's All Natural root beer made with cane sugar. We bought it, took it home, opened it up, and each took a tiny sip of it.


Wow. I couldn't believe what I had been missing.

Sweet, creamy, herbal flavors filled my mouth. It was nothing at all like the insipid, syrupy national brands or sickening, musky generics. I sipped it drop by drop, letting the soda's multitude components spread across my tongue. Vanilla and anise I could make out distinctly. The can also lists wintergreen, birch, and sassafras extracts as flavoring. I never knew those things went into root beer. Usually the ingredient lists for soft drinks state the catch-all NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORINGS, and leave it at that.

Greg decided that the best way to enjoy this root beer was to make a float out of it. I do believe he was right.

Imagine Hansen's cane-sweetened root beer and Breyer's vanilla bean ice cream (also natural with no HFCS), frosting up the sides of a white porcelain bowl. Think about that. Little specks of vanilla pod riding on the bubbles. Root beer freezing on the scoop of ice cream, giving it a glossy tan shell. And fragrant! The smell of the root beer, spicy-sweet and complex, wafted to my on its effervescence. Wow.

Like I said at the start of the post, I only had a few spoonfuls of the float. A few spoonfuls was all I needed. The flavor was so rich and powerful that eating more than a little at a time was a waste of tastebuds. The sweetness was perfect. It was delicious. After about 8 small tastes of ice cream and root beer, I was completely satisfied. I actually felt full.

The whole experience made me wonder if the obesity epidemic isn't due in large part to artificial sweeteners and flavorings. About 1/3 cup of natural ice cream and root beer made a luscious, satisfying desert. I couldn't have eaten more if I wanted to. Yet, I see people downing 32oz portions of the artificial stuff all the time, chasing an experience they can never truly have and a craving they can never truly fulfill.

At any rate, Hansen's All Nature Cane Sugar Root Beer is wonderful. I highly suggest you try it.

Divine Bovine
or
Udder Madness

Surreality brightens up my day. Every once in a while, I stumble upon something that makes me blink a few times and wonder if I've triggered another acid flashback. It's nice to question my perceptions. Might be too much for some, but I've come to enjoy it. You only get so many forays into madness before you get too old or two legitimately crazy to enjoy them. Gather ye rosebuds!

Without further ado, I will show you, gentle readers, what I am rambling about: a most demented animation featuring the humble dairy cow as we have never seen her before:







While creating this post, I've just watched the video for the seventh time today, and I'm still in awe of how very like a hallucinogen it is. The cows seem at one moment, familiar, the next, comical, and then suddenly, ominous. They churn and mutate into forms almost unrecognizable as the original with sinister determination. Blink again, and they've returned to normal. It's almost chilling.

If you ask me, someone started eating the mushrooms before they even finished picking. Am I right, kids?

When the long-legged cows come out, I can't help but be reminded of Salvador Dali's elephants:



I would wager Cyriak (the animator) is a much of a fan of Dali as I am.

Go take a look at his website if you have some time to kill. It's high caliber stuff.

I'd love to hire him to do animated wedding invitations. I wonder what that would run . . .

I'm still sick. And today, the three of us are moving out of our old apartment into a new smaller one, so I have to do hard labor and inhale dust. If you need me, I'll be at my pity party.

Head Like A Hole
or
"I'll Take 'Things That Fall Out of Your Face,' For $175"

Ah, that good ol' fashioned tonsillitis, such a beloved melody from my childhood. If memory serves me right, it goes a lil' something like this:


I woke up on Friday with a twinge of pain in the right side of my neck. A quick palpation revealed an enlarged lymph node. Well, that could be anything. Maybe the air-conditioner was on too high. Maybe I slept with my mouth open. No time to deal with it anyway. Off to work with me!

By Saturday morning, I knew I was in for some real fun. My right tonsil had begun to swell, making swallowing painful. I didn't need to feel my nodes - I could see them bulging through my skin just fine. It's a cold. I'll feel crappy for 2 days, and get over it. I don't need to spend $150 for a doctor's visit. I'll cope just fine. Oh well, no time to deal with it anyway. Take a few asprin, gargle with Listerine, and off to work with me!

On Sunday afternoon, I woke up shivering like a heroin addict. The ghastly fingers of fever ran up and down my limbs. My muscles ached. And my throat! Even my own saliva proved too difficult to swallow. I designated an empty water bottle as my spittoon. Robbed of my speech, I whimpered piteously until my roommates understood my fate. Greg looked down my throat and told me that my tonsils were so swollen, he was concerned for my airway. Indeed, I felt as if my throat might close up at any moment.

I bit the bullet, and went to urgent care.

If I had more political fire in me, this is where I'd rant about how much a capitalist health care system sucks for a commoner like myself. There's no reason why a throat infection should cost $175 dollars to treat, in an otherwise healthy person. I even skipped getting a throat culture to save money.

If only I could figure out how to buy black market antibiotics from Mexico . . . but I digress.

The real reason I wrote this post is to show you some amazing photos of what came out of my tonsils today!

I've been on antibiotics for about 24 hours now. That's long enough to feel some improvement, though I'm still sick as a dog. I managed to get myself in a hot shower. All that steam felt mighty nice, and really helped my throat relax. In fact, it relaxed so much, the pus pockets fell off of my tonsils. (See the diagram at the start of the article, if you don't know what pus pockets I'm talking about.)

Of course I took pictures. I couldn't deny my gentle readers such a spectacle!

First a picture for scale . . .




Here's a macro glamour shot of the one that came off my right tonsil:

Look, you can see the little ridge where it was attached to my headmeats.

And one of the left:

Say "pus sacs!"

Did I mention that both these nuggets of joy smelled like a cadaver? The human body is so charming.


I sorely (HAH!) envy you adults who had your tonsils removed during childhood, under the auspices of your parents' health insurance plan. Please wish me a speedy recovery.



******UPDATE*******

Two more pus sacs fell off a few hours later, only they were half the size of the first set. And then a single long stringy one uncoiled from the right tonsil. And blood. Lots of blood. Just thought you'd all like to know. No, I didn't take a picture.

Yes it does hurt. Thanks for asking. *hack*

Lexamateur
or
The Zombification of Ms D.

I began taking Lexapro on June 12th, 2010.

How is it? Well, it's ok, I guess. It's not going to massively alter the course of my life, make me get down on my knees, and praise the pharmaceutical industry, but it's an interesting buzz, to say the least.

I won't go into the reasons why I need an antidepressant in the first place. That's the boring part. Suffice it to say that the last 15 years of my life have been steeped in the noxious brew of morbid depression. I can't remember a day - however pleasant - that wasn't tinged with internal suffering. Not one.

Drugs make sense to me. Happy pills. I don't recoil from the idea of taking a drug every day for the rest of my life, if it relieves my pain. Don't assume that I hadn't tried antidepressants before.

Paxil: I took it for about 8 days. It gave me outrageous mood swings. I would feel NOTHING - NOTHING - for 2 days, and wail like a tempest on the third. No thank you.

Celexa: The stuff is inert.

Prozac: No improvement. Headaches.

Zoloft: Felt like I'd been eating cotton wool. Headaches. I had an episode of suicidal ideation, but I don't imagine that's the drug's fault, as I have those once a year or so.

Lamictal: By this point, I was beginning to think that SSRI's weren't for me. Lamictal is a mood stabilizer and anticonvulsant with an off-label use for depression. Despite all the hype, it never did a thing for me. I took it for 10 months, hoping for a breakthrough that never came. No side effects, though.

Wellbutrin: Not a bad drug, overall. It worked for about two years, until it started provoking my anxiety to the point that I couldn't even go grocery shopping without freaking out. Also, it made my hands shake so badly that I couldn't properly use a soup spoon.


It's people like me who keep big pharma in business. *sigh*

Anyway, on to Lexapro.

I tried it at the behest of my beloved boyfriend. He takes the stuff himself, and appears to benefit from it. The poor man can't stand to watch me suffer. Seeing as it's one of the few antidepressants I hadn't tried yet, I decided to give it a whirl, with a 10mg starting dose.

It was WAAAAAAAAAY too much. I've never felt so awful in my life. I felt like I'd taken an experimental party drug instead of a pharmaceutical. It came on with a rush, like ecstasy. About an hour after I took it, I began to peak. My pupils were the size of saucers. My jaw clenched, and my body shivered as if I couldn't get warm. I began to panic as I felt myself unable to swallow, due to a lump rising in my throat. I felt nauseated and restless, yet I couldn't stop yawning. As for my mood, I was too frightened to notice any improvement. I spent the day in the bathroom while my GI tract purged its entire contents and spasmed abortively for hours afterward.

About 10 hours into that ordeal, I took a Xanax so I could sleep it off.

I almost didn't take Lexapro the next day. It took some pretty dedicated begging on Greg's part to get me to stay on the bandwagon. I agreed to half the dose - 5mg of Lexapro instead of 10mg. Again the symptoms returned, albeit somewhat lighter than the night before. I also felt incredibly spacey. I asked Greg the same question a few times in a row. I went between the living room and the bedroom a few times, forgetting each time why I had visited that part of the apartment. Pepto bismol took care of the GI symptoms. I was apparently very chatty.

Now, almost 3 weeks later, I'm still taking 5mg a day. Most of the physical symptoms have subsided, thank god. As for my mood, I am definitely seeing a change.

Like many people with long-term depression, I'm not the first to notice positive change. Greg assures me that despite a rough start, I seem a lot more tranquil all of a sudden. Less prone to "freak out" at the drop of a hat.

I'll agree with that. There's been a few instances in the past week where a certain chain of events (or "trigger," if you will) should have sent me into a wretched frenzy, but just . . . didn't. In short, my emotions feel shallow. I can see them playing across the surface of my mind, but I can't dive in. That goes for the positive ones as well. My affect has been flattened.

I'm not sure how I like that. I've always identified as an "intense" person, capable of exalted emotional highs, as well as marrow-sucking lows. We'll have to see how the next few weeks play out. Perhaps, after the drug stabilizes, the peaks will come back. Or, perhaps, the drug will teach me subtlety, and reset my emotional zenith and nadir somewhere closer to planet earth.

We'll just have to see. But for now, it's working.

Meathead
or
A Few of My Favorite Things

Shut up, raw vegan foodies. Just shut the fuck up. I am so sick of your religious fervor for the meatless "lifestyle."

Look at my incisors. They were made for ripping flesh off the bone. I am an omnivore by design, and a carnivore in my heart of hearts. Therefore, meat is my divine right.

Vegetarianism is stupid. Veganism is even worse. Plants have their place, but nothing beats the taste of blood. Give me a steak, lightly seared, so the inside is still cool and purple. I want to feel the texture of the muscle. That's food for life, right there, protein and vitamins and the unmatched satiety that comes from knowing: "Yes, I am at the top of the food chain! I am Human, destroyer of cows!"

Give me the roasted femur of some flightless fowl, and I'll gnaw it like a starved cavewoman. Look at that, the bone fits right in my sticky little hand. Fuck tofu, this shit is portable.

Hey PETA, you see a "sea kitten," and I sea food. Gut that gorgeous little bastard! Filet 'im while he's still gasping for air. Don't bother with the pots and pans. Just give him to me sushi style so I can rub wasabi into his squirming flesh and pick at him sliver by sliver like a finicky cat.

It is my goal in life to eat as many different kinds of animal as I possibly can before I die. I want to eat a fucking zoo. Hell, if it weren't illegal, and I weren't afraid of prion disease, I'd probably eat a human, too.

Is it wrong that I get a little turned on by the taste of blood?

They Don't Really Have 100 Legs
or
Scheiße!

I'm a huge fan of horror films - especially foreign ones. Sure, we Americans have a dozen splatter and "torture porn" flicks to choose from in any given year. You can't beat the USA for volume. (How many Saw sequels have they made now?) However, when it comes to films so abhorrent and deranged, they induce a sensation of mindrape that leaves the viewer trembling for hours, I can think of a few cultures that churn out better material than we do. Anyone who has seen Audition or Oldboy will agree with me.

We can add the Dutch to that list now. They've officially earned a permanent place in the Fucked-Up Hall of Fame.

The Human Centipede is written and directed by Dutch filmmaker Tom Six. It is easily the most repulsive piece of cinema I've ever encountered. For that, I respect and congratulate the man.

Critics, of course, don't know what to make of the film. Roger Ebert even went so far as to give it ZERO STARS. Not because he hated it, but because its excruciating depiction of Sadism and suffering transcended his rating system: "I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine."

Mr. Ebert does a far better job reviewing the film than I can. This post is merely to express my approval, and increase awareness that such a movie exists.

I highly recommend this film to any horror fan for whom the old tropes have worn thin and copious blood 'n guts fails to impress. Do not venture into this film lightly. The Human Centipede is serious shock cinema. It's not "so bad, it's good" or "so over the top, it's funny." You've been warned.

I will only add that Dieter Laser is now one of my top five favorite actors of all time. I've never seen a malevolent pervert played so pitch perfectly. Mr. Laser commits to the role, and doesn't let up for a second. To remember his performance, 24 hours later, still makes the hackles raise on the back of my neck. It's seriously scary stuff, kids!

Oh, and despite the nauseating surgical/scatological premise, a surprising amount of grue is left to the viewer's imagination. That's mighty clever filming. I would not, however, call it an act of mercy towards the audience. Tom Six knows that you and I will fill in the visual blanks FAR more distastefully than he, the director, ever could.

I, for one, love this film. It is the ONLY film to date to make me lose my appetite while watching
it. I'm serious, guys. I couldn't eat my dinner. And it wasn't even something like chunky beef stew, or pasta marinara! It was a green salad, for christsake.

If you think you can handle it, watch it.

Catsup
or
A Mell of a Hess

Very well, gentle readers. I see that you want an explanation of where I've been, and who I've been doing. Very well. For now, I shall give you the facts.

- Yes, the rumors are true. I was married to this guy Zack for a year or so.

- Zack and I divorced. He has a new life now, as well as a kid. Amazing, considering how he always told me how much he hated children. I don't have to rag on my ex husband. I'm sure his daily life is hell enough.

- I dropped out of Wash U. I wasn't enjoying my time there. Wasn't good for me. I think the stress shaved about half a decade off my life expectancy.

- I've been living by my wits and wiles ever since.

- I'll be going to mortuary college in about a year. I want to become a Mortician. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

- Las Vegas is my current base of operations.

- I'll be moving back to Saint Louis for a few months in August . . . so my friend can finish his degree.

- I feel like such a tool for facebook linking my ex husband. I want you all to know that.

- I am now an F cup. Haters can suck it. I love my big fake tits, and no one can spoil that for me. You will worship them, or get the fuck out. Ridiculous rack FOR THE WIN.

- My breasts weigh 2lbs each now. I subtract that when i weigh myself.

- My cat died. I'll do a memorial post when I can look at his pics and not cry.

- I got a new cat to fill the void. He's probably the messiest animal I've ever cared for. We nicknamed him "Puppy Cat" because he eats like a Labrador, wags his tail when pleased, and is easily 16lbs. Bigass tom cat. His name is Forest. I named him after Forest Whittaker, because he's big, black, cuddly, and has a messed-up eye. YA RLY

- Brazil nuts are loaded with selenium.

- I recently went to disneyland and rode all the thrill rides at least twice. I also proposed to Greg. Like I said, more on this later, with video.

Comments/questions are highly encouraged. I miss my old readership.