Where the fuck are my chips and dip?

So you know that weird, hallucinogenic pre-dream phase-- when you're just on the verge of sleep, slipping  into a hazy, distant slumber? You experience those semi-dreams where you're balancing somewhat precariously on the tip of consciousness. Well, recently mine have been lasting longer and longer. I think it's mostly because I've learned how to determine that what I think is true and am experiencing, ie the semi-dream, is actually not reality and *poof* I'm awake. Like for instance, I find myself hanging out with the guy from Cake Boss smoking a jay in my high school cafeteria. It's over when I reflect for a second and think, hey this is odd...   Shit.

A dead give away is when your friends or family are your friends or family, but not really. You know? Or when it's your house, but it's a different house. Same old shit, Dreams. You know I'm onto you.

That must be why last night, as I was falling asleep, Dreams thought it could trick me by making me think I was eating chips and dip. It didn't work, did it Dreams? I actually woke up, chewing. Chewing nothing. Chewing air! Do you know how disappointing that was for me, Dreams? To think that I was eating chips and dip but then to be slapped by cold hard hand of reality... not cool.

You need to try harder, Dreams. I am obviously too smart to fall for your little pre-sleep trickery. I don't know what to tell you, but I'm tired of waking up five times before I fall fully asleep. Maybe I could dream that I'm dreaming? I can't tell you how to do your job though. Just get your shit together!

My face is frozen

Lately I've found myself wishing ski masks were acceptable cold weather wear.

When I take my dog on a walk, I'm completely bundled up: coat, scarf, hat, gloves. Everything is warm except for my face, one of the most sensitive and important parts of the human body. The treasure of the temple, if you will....you will, won't you?

The problem is this: ski masks are terrifying. Anybody who wears one is automatically either a rapist or a scoundrel. Sometimes both.

In college, I  worked at a video rental/music/book store, and once someone came in wearing a ski mask. My coworkers and I watched, mouths agape, hearts racing. Yes, mouths were agape, my friends.The masked man wandered into the cd section and browsed for about ten or twenty minutes. This is about the time when my life flashed before my eyes: Sunday dinners at my grandma's, summertime barbeques, me peeing my pants in second grade, the time I played Amped so long, my thumbs bled, etc. This lasted about a minute, as my life had been pretty uneventful.

 

When my life flash ended, I realized my coworkers had mysteriously vanished to the back of the store. I was working the register and was under no circumstance to abandon my post. If the store sinks to an apocalyptic watery depth, I would go down too. I would make sure you were able to rent the 5th season of Grey's Anatomy one last time before Jesus sends you to hell.

So I was alone, waiting for the murderer to work up enough guts to come and blow my precious face skin to smithereens. Like any good minimum wage worker, I kept working: organizing returned movies into different stacks of Norbit. (Norbit was very popular at the time.) I figured this would be the last thing I ever did on earth. I was resigned to my fate.

After a couple minutes of absorbed Norbit organizing, I looked up to see the masked man looking at me. There were several other people in line behind him--like it was completely normal for a ski masked man to be in a public retail setting with cash registers. He placed like five used cds on the counter. I rang them up without saying anything. My hands were shaking. He pulled out a crumpled wad of cash and when I handed him back his change, he said thank you. How polite of him.

I, and the line of customers watched him leave, after which they started observing how odd it was that a man dressed in a ski mask came into a store.

Yes, how odd. Because, usually when a man in ski mask comes into a store, it's not to purchase a pre-owned Pixies album. It's to steal all the money in the register and sometimes it's to kill you.

So even though I do wish ski masks would come back in style, I really don't, because like I said, they are terrifying.

So I have some propositions. What about a clear ski mask?

It's still creepy, but maybe a little less. No?

What about ski masks that look like your face?

The hair would be a wig attached to the rubbery face mask. Or cloth. I haven't decided yet. But there is a problem with this. If someone were to get a hold of your face mask, (which was custom -made to resemble the specific arrangement of molecules that form your special, special face) they could put it on and people would think it was you! They could go around doing a bunch of horrible things in your face mask, like walking around with no pants or offering to squeegee strangers' windshields.


So really, I don't know if there are any viable options at this point. Are we are destined to a lifetime of frozen cheeks and stiff, runny noses? It's 2011, people, let's get this figured out.

Why the gym makes me cry

I went to the gym yesterday in high spirits. I hadn't gone for a couple weeks, but I was gonna make up for that with single heart-bursting cardio blowout. I was gonna do more than burn calories, I was gonna do degrading things to them in front of their children. My blood was swirling with caffeine and blood-lust. I was on top of the world.

Oh, the foolhardy ego of youth...

It wasn't until I was leaving the ladies locker room that I  noticed the sweat pants I was wearing were the ones that were covered in oil paints from the "brown period" of my artistic phase. My pants were adorned with careless fecal-colored smudges, namely around the thigh and ass region.

But that was okay. Surely everyone would assume it was paint and not poop. I hopped on a treadmill to kick start my caloric genocide. Nearly a minute in, red-faced and wheezing, I shifted my gaze to my feet and noticed an inordinately long string hanging from my pants. It dangled freely below my knee, taunting me, daring me to trip over it. I tried to stuff it back in, even though I was acting directly against the law of physics that says a drawstring (x), pulled past a certain point (y), cannot return to any previous position.

I glanced  around the room to make sure no one was watching. I pulled the string.

I heard the mumblings of a conversation behind me.
I pulled the string more
And more. And more. And more.

AND MORE. 

The voices grew louder, and the string grew longer.

Just as I was about to surrender to an eternity of frantic string pulling, it came out.

The string had an end after all!

Next up were the weight machines.

This was the first time I had actually ventured toward the weight machines by myself. I really had no idea what to do. At first it went well. I  successfully tried two leg machines and a shoulder machine. I was getting pretty good at this. So naturally I thought, hmm...why not try the scariest one of all?

It was a back machine.  I had no idea how it worked. I don't want to talk about it.



Oh yeah, and when I was leaving to get my sweatshirt and keys, I walked into the men's lockeroom.

Change your "down-there-do"

Ladies,

Sick of the Mike Brady look?

Why not go with "The Carol?"

(Sorry about the weird one arm thing going on there)

Chicago Trip Part 2: The Field Museum

We went to the Field Museum for the first time, which is Chicago's history museum. It costs several million dollars to get in, and that's just for the basic package. Yes, there are packages. Luckily, I saved two cents with  my expired college ID.


In order to save you the expense, I'm taking you on a virtual tour. Lucky you!

When you walk in, the first thing you see is Sue, a giant T-rex skeleton. I'm not going to post a picture of Sue because I'm in the picture and my face looks fat. But I do have a picture of Sue's skull, which was kept separate from her body because the dumb scientists couldn't figure out a way to stick it on the body without it falling off. I'm in this one also but it's blurry so I feel ok posting it.

What I really wanted to do was touch some dino bones. But the museum people are like nooo don't touch. blahhh! I did touch a sarcophagus though, so I should be getting my ancient Egyptian superpowers any day now.

Learning about the ancient Egyptians was my favorite part. Apparently they were all gay (and seemed pretty fun to hang out with)
Here, I'll show you.

I have no idea what's going on here, but it seems pretty gay.

"Oils were an extremely important product." Make what you will out of that.

He'll give you some, all right.

This cloth is divine? He's one cubit away from having his own show on Bravo.

They design their own clothes.

See below.

Also, there was this. 

Here are some mummies:

Cat mummy!

Goose mummy!

Lizard mummy!

Seriously, did you ever think you'd see a lizard mummy?


They also had this fucking adorable cat prayer in case your cat is sick. It's supposed to cover every possible thing that could've happened to your cat. It was quite long. There were even separate sections for your cat getting bit by a male or a female snake. Here was my favorite part:

"You cat here- your buttocks are the buttocks of the Great Swimming One

                                                                                      










 Here are some other things.

 Here's the proof apparently:

                                               AND....

*shudder*

I'm eternally grateful that this thing is extinct.

Your great great grandma

Earliest form of sunglasses: horsehair googles!

 A dinosaur with a shockingly small head

I saved the best for last

UPDATE: Completely forgot to post this:

"Deadhead culture, Chicago, 1990's"

Snow Monster Survival Guide

We here in St. Louis are supposed to get roughly 45 feet of snow. What's worse is that it will be one giant snowflake. It will just fall out of the sky anytime between now and midnight. Just, you know plop on down. People have naturally been peeing their pants in terror, running around Walgreens in a blind panic, buying everything they can get their sweaty pee hands on. I blame the weathermen. They called this storm system "a monster headed our way.". A monster of snow! What are we to do? Well, you don't need to stock up on pedeggs and erasers or whatever people are going crazy for in Walgreens. You only need a few things:


1. D batteries. Get as many as you can. In case your roof caves in and you're stuck frozen under an avalanche of snow monster and roof, you can lick the tip of the battery to jolt you awake. You never want to fall asleep under a snow monster. Also don't tell the snow monster you need to "lick the tip," he might get ideas.

2. Bread, milk, and eggs. Everyone agrees these are the essentials for human survival.You can make egg sandwiches, or bread milkshakes, you can make bread sandwiches too, which consists of a piece of bread between two pieces of bread. I wouldn't recommend the milk sandwich.

3. Bags of salt. You'll be snowed in for three or four days, so it's likely you will exhaust your bread, milk, and egg supply. Now you will have to open up that giant cabinet thing in your kitchen and do some rummaging. You will be surprised by what you find in there. A can of Aldi's asparagus. Something which is either a dog bone or a fossilized cracker. A box of wild rice and bugs. A mouse which may or may not be dead. This is where salt comes in handy- a little seasoning goes a long way.

4.A shovel. This is pretty self-explanatory. You're going to need a weapon in case the snow monster somehow gets into your house. They are notoriously afraid of shovels. Make sure it's metal.

Most importantly, don't watch the local news! The weathermen seem like they are on your side, but they're working for the snow monster.  They want us to panic. The snow monster eats panic. You don't want him to get bigger, do you?