scenes from capitol hill

In the last 10 minutes, I had the pleasure of overhearing two separate altercations on the street right outside my apartment.

Scenario 1 involved a (clearly mentally unstable) man who felt that the car backing out of the driveway next door to my building came a little too close to him for his liking.  He challenged the driver to a  fight.  When the driver refused to throw down the gauntlet, the aggrieved party attempted to explain why he was upset by yelling various combinations of the words "fuck" "pussy" "twat" "bitch" and "motherfucker" before spitting onto the windshield.  Eventually, he meandered on and the car, wipers blazing, was able to fully depart the driveway.

Scenario 2 I sadly don't really know the background of, but what I saw was a burly man leaning over the balcony of his apartment (across the street from mine)  using impressive voice projection methods to tell another man, leaning out of a window a few buildings down, that he was going to fuck his ass up.  Man #2 loudly expressed his doubts that Man #1 was capable of this, and went so far as to offer the counterpoint that he, in fact, would be the one to fuck Man #1 up.  Big time.  Both men soon retreated into their respective domains, and from my observation, no further action has been taken. 

 All in all very exciting,  like what I imagine the mean streets of Brooklyn may have had to offer back in the 1930s, if there had been meth back then.

The Company I Keep

These are all actual contacts in my phone, noted while culling my address book.

(Alphabetical)

A (Likes Bacon)
Also Don't Answer
B Mom
Bum Phone
Bum Phone 2
Catalin Looks Like Gargamel
Don't Answer
Don't pick up
Ds WW
Hot Ira Glass
Jamer in us
Mane n Tail
New BFF (girl)
Probably don't answer

De Rien

My creativity has been at about the caliber of driftwood/a j. coug meinkampf album this week, so enjoy some xmas phots of tin tin and flossie instead:



They are both dead.

Excerpts from The Office Debate On "Blade Runner" I Have Had The Pleasure Of Listening To For The Last 20 Minutes

" So, the replicants were humans, they were just changed."

"No, they were androids"

"They were genetically produced"

"No, they were produced from organic and metallic materials"

"You have to understand, you're entering into one of the great debates of all time."

"the director has come forward to say he's a replicant"

(angry silence)

something that is dumb

Not to be all stand-up comedian "what's the deal with something mundane"-ish but you know what is really stupid? When you have to make a password to use a website that like, tracks your daily calorie consumption, or informs you about your vision insurance benefits, or basically like serves any other function dealing with non-sensitive information that noone in the entire world would care about besides you and they make you choose a password adhering to like 2983748932 different specifications... like you MUST have at least one uppercase letter, at least one number, and that number cannot be in your birthdate, etc etc

Which then totally fucks up everything because I have like one generic password I use for everything, and my bank seems to think it's fine, but apparently it's not safe enough for my online food diary, god forbid someone should hack it and find out how many grams of almonds I eat in a day.

AND I just registered to pay my J Crew credit card online, and I had to choose FIVE different security questions that I will have to answer the next time I log in because I've already forgotten my alphanumberic-special symbol-weirdly capitalized password I just made up and the options they give are all really hard because they like somehow make me feel bad about my nomadic childhood/ I'm convinced I will forget the answers and be forced to call a customer service person on the phone, my worst nightmare.

Stuff like:

• what is the street you grew up on?
• what was the name of your first grade teacher?
• what was the name of your first pet?
• what city was your mother born in?

I lived on about 15 different streets before I turned 18 so clearly don't remember any of their names, and I attended two different first grades in different states, and do my sea monkeys count as my first pet, or is it my guinea pig? My mom was born in new york city, do I put that or just "new york" or Manhattan? I just know I'm going to forget all of these things and then the credit card will go unpaid and both my bridesmaids dresses are going to be repossessed before the weddings.

so that's why online passwords are stupid... this reads like a sample routine I might perform during the daytime for an assistant manager at "Giggles" who, after I leave, turns to his colleague and says, "Bro, when will women learn that they just aren't funny?"

The Pony Car

This morning I was driving to work all bleary eyed and disoriented because i had my phone on silent so, obviously, didn't hear my alarm and I couldn't sleep all night and then when I did manage to drift off my cat would try to fall asleep directly on my neck which she can't do without first forcefully kneading her giant paws into my trachea which causes me to choke/stop breathing and, luckily, wake up. So I wake up and check my phone praying it's like, 5 AM but it is, in fact 8:50... so I get up and get ready in 3 seconds and run out the door only to get stuck in horrible I-5 traffic, but this is where it all gets note-worthy...

So I look to my left and there's a scratched up blue Ford tempo and the back window is totally crowded with toy ponies. Plush toys, plastic replicas, even models made of aged tin. seriously like, 10-14 toy ponies crowded together, staring out the back window with blind painted eyes. An assortment of overflow ponies lay limp in the backseat, which looked a lot like my backseat, in that the floor was covered with wrappers and bottles.

And then I see that there are ponies on the dashboard too! And we're like, stopping and starting so obviously someone has gone through the effort of styling/posing them and gluing them down. There were only like 3 on the dash, all medium sized and plastic.

In the passenger seat was a large stuffed horse.

The driver was an obese, grizzled man.

There was a rusty hitch on the back of the car which I guess you could use to drag a horse trailer or a body.

One thing I have always been interested in, is how many times in life I've actually been in real danger... or even, how many times in life have you been in close proximity with someone who is capable of committing a crime of unspeakable nature. Like, what if when you die you go through all your close calls... if you had taken a left turn here, you would have gotten T-boned and died. If you had gone home with that guy that night, he would have eaten your eyes. The guy you sat next to on the bus when you were 15 was totally a serial killer.

I am confident that this would be one of those times. This man was not just a pony fan. This man was evil. He took the 45th Street exit.

Beware the pony car.

please welcome to the family

My new baby ocelot.

We will be spending the rest of our days together until the time comes that I have to bite its face off because it's too cute to live.

"Hello!" says the baby ocelot.  

The Seattle PI Isn't The Only Thing I Mourn Today

RIP: Dreams of glamorous adulthood in an urban setting

I woke up this morning, makeup on and teeth unbrushed, feeling the effects of a pitcher and a half deep within my body. I felt like such a champ for representing my trashy Irish heritage on St Patty's day, until I realized I totally came home at like, 11 because I am old and can no longer stay up.

On the floor next to my bed, myriad ants swarmed a crumpled Jumbo Jack wrapper, slipping and sliding as they navigated the paper's greasy peaks. A group came together long enough to lift a piece of curly fry, but the directionless team quickly imploded and the fry toppled to the ground. Maxi cowered.

I checked my email to find a FWD: from my mom touting the benefits of eHarmony, and a "thanks but no thanks" response letting me know I am apparently not cute enough to stand around at Sounders games and try to get people to sample a product. Not even Mariners or Seahawks games, SOUNDERS games. Clearly, am hideous.

Killed all the ants with one fell swoop.

RIP: Last shred of hope for the existence of any indication of male decency in the world

"Pretty much every guy knows that big girls are the best to sleep with, because they know they have to work hard to keep you."

-young, Hobbitish man at bar last night.

Names That I Misinterpreted Over the Phone While Both Partially Deaf and Trying To Be Culturally Competent

Salisia!* (Alicia)
Ramon (John)
Rojille** (Willy)

* A genus of ornamental shrubbery.
** Declension of the Czech verb "to swarm."

confessions

Maria: do you use toilet seat covers?
Ingrid: hell no
Maria: me neither, but i hate it when i go in the bathroom at the same time as someone else and i just sit down and start peeing and they like rustle around setting one up, i always feel like they're judging me and thinking i'm dirty
i just never think to take one
Ingrid: i'm not interested in those bourgeois trappings
Maria: how else will we build up antibodies??
Ingrid: /will take any excuse not to be hygenic
Maria: me too
that makes me feel better
i picked up cat poop with my hand yesterday
:(
it was really dry though
Ingrid: i like how we use gmail chat as a de facto confessional
Maria: hahaha i know
omg also
so get this
Ingrid: god, the way that frowney face turns itself over
Maria: maxi like kicked some poop out of her litterbox
it should have audio
waaaamp waaaamp
Ingrid: hahaha sorry continue
Maria: so the poop is just out there
and it's a good amount
which makes me wonder if it was intentional
so i don't see it bc i'm negligent
and so she kept trying to cover it up as is a cat's nature
using like my clothes that were around
like my underwear and sweaters
so i'm cleaning yesterday and pick up a sweater and there is all this poop stuck to it
and then like poop eeeverywhere
it was sick
then i was like, oh god i wonder if that's how i got my kidney infection
Ingrid: hahahahahaha
ohhh shit.
Maria: LITERALLY
Ingrid: flossie pooped in my pocket before school picture day when i was in second grade.
still not sure how she managed to do it.
Maria: whoa yeah
that's amazing
you can't even be mad about that
Ingrid: nope.
Maria: did you find it before you were in line for pictures?
Ingrid: while.
Maria: eeeeeeeeeeeew
one time in australia a dog peed in my purse
and i was walking down the street dripping urine
and then realized what had happened and started crying on the street

Regression Analysis

(Click!)

I would like to be a writer, but my mind has been too consistently unfocused to formulate an entire plot since the day I completed my 15 (single spaced, illustrated) page opus, "Pepperoni the Alley Cat" in 5th grade.  I'm wondering if it would be possible to start a career that is centered around setting up a basic situation analysis that leads to inspiration for the creation of stories that are of the quality that might allow them to someday be adapted into critically acclaimed HBO or Showtime dramedies.   So I provide the bones, another provides the prose

This is the first:

The protagonist works at a dog kennel, where he/she/you is the overnight supervisor, which means he/she/you stay awake all night watching dogs sleep.  After finding a cell phone on the street, he/she/you begins to wile away the hours by texting anonymous unsolicited advice to the contacts in your his/her/your personal life. 

this story is not allowed to be called: Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie.   Too easy.

And you shall know him by his brand new sublime tshirt

No need to hang out at the Tacoma Mall waiting for your mom to pick you up any more: I found Spencer Gifts online for you. There are about 1023984029384 things I've had my sights on, so here are a few highlights:

Irony is dead. Long live irony.

Falling Down: A Rap

Hyundai parked on a hill that just felt the rain beat

Cheap shoes are no match for soaking concrete

HYPE MAN: SHE FALLING DOWN!

Cut my leg on the pavement when I eat shit 

Scabbing all up on my knee like a bacon bit

HYPE MAN: BACON BITS! NINETY PERCENT LESS FAT THAN PAN FRIED! 

Fucked up the knee 0f my new jeans but it won't get me beat

now i'll  cuff em and pair with flipflops in the heat

HYPE MAN: FUCK THE HATERS! A CASUAL LOOK FOR SUMMER!

Girl who live in my building, don't laugh-- I hear the sound. 

Unless you got a bandaid,  leave me on the ground 

HYPE MAN: BITCH IN APARTMENT 103! YOUR BOSTON TERRIER'S TAIL IS TOO LONG! IT LOOKS WEIRD!

How I Will Steal Your Friends Away

Hey, how are you. Good to see you again. Yes, we've met before. Oh yes, I'm sure. Many times.

Remember, you were wearing that shirt and I said I liked it and asked where it was from and what size it was? I liked that shirt. I thought about getting it. Maybe I can just borrow it from you sometime. I'll wash it and stuff. Unless you think that's weird.

I hear you do something in your life that I vaguely relate to. Let me tell you an anecdote that I just made up that briefly touches on that subject, and also frames me as an enjoyable, worthwhile person worthy of your time and friendship.

I think I could add something to your life.

Hey, I heard you went to college. I know of someone who I think went to that school at some point in the last 5 years. Maybe you know them? No? Well if nothing else I hope that my knowledge of your alma mater convinced you I am in your target demographic, friend wise.

So, I have this problem. I can't really tell our mutual aquaintance, but I just feel really comfortable around you. It's also about something really personal. Do you want to hear about it? I have a feeling you'll have some good advice.

Oops, hope that wasn't too intense. I cry like all the time anyway so don't feel uncomfortable. I saw that dog commercial with Sarah McLaughlin and cried for like an hour. Have you seen that? I can send you the YouTube link if you give me your email. In fact, why don't you give me your email right now before we forget. There are many funny things on YouTube I could share with you. Also, I have cable, so if you don't and there's ever anything you want to watch on TV, you can come to my place. I don't even have to be there, I can just leave a key. I like it when people are around to socialize my cat, because I'm gone a lot. Well, not that much.

Listen, I'm going to add you on facebook tonight when I get home. I think once we look at each other's profiles we'll realize how much we have in common and then our interactions are only going to get better and better. I'll comment on your pictures and tell you you look pretty. Also if you break up with your boyfriend and then meet someone else and have a date that you tell me about, I'll make sure to write "Have a GREAT TIME on your date!" on your wall so that your ex boyfriend knows you're going out with another guy. Then he'll be jealous. See, I got your back. You should do the same for me, maybe.

Well it was SO GOOD to see you again. I really had a good time. Let's make sure we all get together for a girl's night soon. Seriously, I don't know why we don't hang out more. You make me feel really good about myself and I like how your do your eye makeup. Maybe you can teach me sometime.

Remember, check your facebook. You text, right? I'll talk to you REALLY soon.