NO THUMB

I jammed my thumb this evening while playing Ultimate Frisbee. Now, instead of a thumb, I have a fat, purple stump. Even panda bears have thumbs more opposable than mine.

RELAY

This morning I swam a five mile relay across a city lake with three friends. It worked like this: one person swam a leg while the other two paddled a canoe. However fun, it completely sapped my energy for the rest of the day. Right now I feel about as industrious as a cooked noodle.

RAMONA

I recently completed Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. I think I enjoyed the metaphors more than the story itself. Anyways, treading water between books, I woke up preposterously early this morning with nothing to read. So I picked up a copy of Ramona the Brave that I had found it in a box of throw away books on someone's porch earlier this summer. You know what? It's good stuff. I must say Beverly Cleary really tapped the psychology of a six year old.

THE TICK

"You rest Arthur, and I...will monitor the culture."

FLYING IN A AIR PLANE

Somewhere around 1500 feet, the city she thought she knew so well suddenly resembled a busy circuit board.

SLEEPING GIANT #4

The abundance of organic fertilizer explains the many mushrooms we encountered on the trail.

SLEEPING GIANT #4

Sorry to have to post this one, but we saw heaps of bear poo on the trail. Um bears? What gives?

SLEEPING GIANT #3

On this day we hiked fifteen miles around The Giant. It was an amazing walk that took us almost eight hours.

SLEEPING GIANT #2

Here we hiked up the Giant's Chest and got a great view of Thunder Bay.
It's a long way up, eh?

SLEEPING GIANT #1

The first night we car camped, reserved this auspicious camp site, and drank Hamm's beer.

INTO THE WOODS

The Steady and I are driving up to Canada to visit Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.

I'll see you cats next Tuesday.

YELLOW FEVER

In preparation for my trip to Ecuador I went to a travel clinic to get my ass vaccinated. Again, I don't have health insurance so I'm a little more aware of the cost/value during my visit. I paid $125 to sit down with a very nice young man who printed about four or five pages off a World Health Organization website. He sat across from me and read through the pages and put little stars next to the word 'Imodium' and wrote the word 'no' next to schistosomiasis. Excellent. Real nice guy. Oh, he also told me not to drink green water. Okay, check.

Then I paid $250 so a plump nurse in kitten print scrubs could inject a live yellow fever virus into my upper left arm. I asked her if she had any Grover of Sesame Street Band-Aids or at least generic dinosaur Band-Aids. But alas, she had none. Of course, I was crushed.

TRUE ROMANCE

I was recently informed that love is expressed not through words or actions, but how we gaze at the objects of our affections. There is a couple on my Ultimate Frisbee team. I don't know them very well, but sometimes at the end of a game, she'll speak to him and he will look at her like he wants to chisel her likeness out of a marble block.

It’s really quite lovely.

KEEP REFRIGERATED

I tried to read in the park this afternoon but the humidity kept humping my neck like a lusty collie. I was flattered but I had to leave the park. It was breaking up my concentration.

MISTRANSLATIONS

In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleaseure is teh job of the chaimbermaid.

In an Austrian hotel caterin to skiers: Not to preambulate the corridors during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride your own ass?

In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children at the bar.

In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

MISTRANSLATIONS

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the fofce between the hours of 9 and 11 am daily.

In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In a Bangkok dry cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take y our bags and send them in all directions.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.

MY BIG BOX OF SOAP

I was recently talking to The Steady and his roommate about women who transform their boyfriends into partners-for-life by lying to them about birth control. While I think this kind of trick is extremely low and will probably result in an unhappy situation for everyone involved, I think some men make dangerous assumptions and when they get someone pregnant they walk away blameless. I think men have the responsibility to talk to their girlfriends about birth control methods and talk to them about what should be done if an unplanned pregnancy occurs. But that's one of those mature, grown-up conversations that even adult men have a hard time starting. All I'm saying is, I wouldn't have a ton of sympathy for a man, who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a new family because all he wanted to do was Stick It In and never bothered to have a conversation with his girlfriend about birth control.

ART SHOW

My friend Max has two pieces of art hung at a new gallery in town. I went to the opening this evening and I hate to sound like a mom, but his stuff was the best stuff there.

Yup. That's m'boy.

FAVORITES

A list of edibles/drinkables I like to have around:

1. Green onions
2. Garlic
3. Feta cheese
4. Avocado
5. Black tea
6. Beer
7. Jr. Mints
8. Popcorn
9. Sardines
10. Olives
11. Walnuts

My larder hardly ever contains pasta or ice cream or deli meats. Not that I don't like those foods, they just so rarely come to visit. When they do come over we always end up sitting around in awkward silence, staring at each other like we come from different countries. Or else we'll all turn and stare at the jar black peppercorns, as though it were some kind of international translator.

CROSS YOUR FINGERS

I was chatting with my boss yesterday and she said there's a chance (although small) that I might be offered full time work at this school. That means I would have health benefits again after five years. I might actually get to see a doctor. And do other crazy things like get my teeth cleaned. Just imagine, living in the richest country in the world and actually feeling like it!

THIS MORNING

I woke up bewitched by La vaise d’Amelie. I must find the sheet music for this piece. And also, steal a piano.

CHARACTER FOR A BOOK

She found his penury...something sexy.

DREAM FIFTEEN

Last night, while touring a wing of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History with my family, a Siberian tiger stalked the perimeter of the building like the Virginia Tech shooter.

THE WITCH IS DEAD

Late last night I finished Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I didn't love it, but I liked it well enough. For some reason I expected the characters to be more one dimensional, like fairytale characters should be. Not all messy and complicated like humans. Oh well. Ding Dong! We all know how it ends anyway.

BOAT CULTURE

Yesterday, I spent the day with my friend and his family on their very large boat. We hit so many waves I think my third and fourth lumbar vertebra permanently fused.

It was terrific fun and I was very happy to be included in the reindeer games but it felt a bit like I was participating in an interactive theater piece. Especially when the rather large, sun-freckled sister-in-law began barking at her children with her mouth crammed full of Cool Ranch Doritos chips. I was quite literally poised on the edge of my seat, eyes wide, mouth agape, on the verge of applause because it was such a perfectly executed scene!

Why do I always feel like an anthropologist in my own state?

RANKINGS

Out of 179 women I came in 13th.

Oh bully. I'm so sleepy.

TRY-ATHLON

I'm running a triathlon tomorrow morning (1/3 mile swim, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run). I'm trying not to get all serious about it, but I'm nervous. I am going to take a bath now and shave all my hair off. And probably drink a beer. There are a lot of carbohydrates in beer, right?

LOSE 10 LBS IN ONE WEEK!

Go on the $3/day food stamp diet! Do it now! See results immediately!

MY INNER GULO GULO

I'm something of a wolverine when it comes to relationships.