mr. stillman, i never knew you

i got an email this morning inviting me to a comedy show. it was from the performer. it tried to be witty and self-deprecating while still "selling" the show.

it said to Reply if i wanted to get off the mailing list, so i did. the performer emailed back immediately, "i'm sorry, you should have never been on the list, we've never even met, i talked with you a few months ago about land value taxation." (!!!)

i asked him if he was a reporter and told him mazel tov on his comedy show. he said he wasn't a reporter, just some guy who'd been referred to me because he has a recreational interest in tax policy. (!!!) apparently i'd spoken to him on the phone and referred him to the Independent Budget Office.

dude: i get paid for this. they HAVE TO pay me for this. and studying it sure won't make you any funnier.

let this be a warning to the 2 to 3 people who read this weblog - - a very boring person interested in tax policy is doing stand up comedy soon at Pax Romana. AVOID PAX ROMANA.

peace out.

new world, new rules

a whole new world gets created every day. it's easy to make one yourself. you just have to make up new rules. be flexible, but expect that others will act according to your rules. bingo: whole new plotline in your life. nothing is any more or less exciting than anything else.

space time continuum

NYers live in closets, paying top$ and when we fall in love we want our beloved to share half our closet space. Alexis works in a cubicle, I don't -I can understand wanting your own space to come home to at the end of the day. We pay for our own apartments, and have seperate spaces and it's nice to have alone time in your own space. The dilema occurs when we spend an extended time up in each other's grill, and space.
It's winter, we are nesting, more time on top of each other in our respecitve closets, but we have the luxury of a time out in our own corners of the world, not just a closet corner.

I'm going to b'kyln today and my friends are going to tell me I should move to b'klyn to have space, that's what people in b'klyn do, they also have kids which is why I feel like an alien in b'klyn.
After b'klyn I will come home to Alexis' closet and curl up with her and everything will be fine.

so pleased with myself

i just put up a sign in my cubicle that says, "My research Kung Fu is the strongest."

iduh

i walked around with an ipod on for the first time today. alanis morrisette was saying "fuck you" and i couldn't hear the traffic. everything was pretty alright until i took out my earphones and tried to order a sandwich. i'm all, "durbuh.. turkey no wait tuna durbha.. durb... yeah... tuna with, um, pickles." it's a reasonable time of day and i'm completely sober. the stupid was due to the ipod. saving that little guy for the gym.

What's rude?

I can't tell what's rude anymore. I say 'shit' all the time. I was just in someone's office talking to a speaker phone. My coworker was eating cheerios, loudly. The guy at the desk - a slightly older guy, and technically the boss of cheerio boy and me - complained. He said all the crunching made it hard to hear through the phone. But he also said it "grosses him out." By this time, i'd already grabbed a handful of cheerios. I tried to crunch more quietly. I thought about getting a haircut, cleaning up a bit. On a non-cheerio subject, the desk/boss guy used the word "sucks". Is anyone trying to be polite? It seems like people are less mannered and much less formal than ever, yet more easily offended.

Jac here

Turn ons- scrabble, curling and my girl's sexy eyes...but I digress.
Turn offs: Mass E-mails forwarded to me that do not take who I am into consideration!!!
What have we become? C'mon people it's 2006, SHRUB is driving this deathstar, and my inbox is recieving photos of people in Iraq holding signs stating: THANK-YOU Mr. Bush"
WAKE UP
I told my friend(?) who sent me this propaganda- I mean I actually spoke to her on the phone: "please do not send me this stuff, I find it disgusting and I am offended."
It felt good to express being offended by stupidity, it made me alive and desiring caffeine.

On a lighter note, I saw my nana who is very funny today. She lives in another reality, and was happy that I set her clock for her, it was blinking the wrong time. I think it was the blinking that still gave it away to nana. Once I set the clock she asked me about my girlfriend, I smiled and told her my girlfriend Alexis kicks ass--she is quite amazing (more than 18 points worth).
Later, Nana needed help with socks...it's the simple moments I love.

silvery bullet

No one should vote for a political candidate who spends too much on his campaign. It doesn't matter where the money comes from, it matters that there's too much of it. The richer guy always wins, but the richer guy is always going to have significantly different values than most people, so he shouldn't win.

Scrabble

Jac and I just spent the last two days playing scrabble. She usually wins. I celebrate my rare victories by dancing around and reminding her that I Am The Champion. In scrabble, though, it's not the final result but the small victories mid-game that are more memorable. I used "lakh" on a triple word score. Go me. Jac got 18 points just by putting "a" on "maze". There were internal debates on how to spell "docent," and the usual discussion of whether "jew" is always a proper noun (it's not). Scrabble is best played while listening to a new album on repeat obsessively. The mere fact that you are sitting with someone who ALSO wants to listen to it AGAIN is a wonderful thing.

Spawning Mat

This morning, i made a spawning mat. i cut holes in an old washcloth. jac put it in the fishtank. this is supposed to encourage one of the male fish to kind of hump Trixie. The humping should push out her eggs so the male fish can do his business all over them. very porn style, these goldfish.

The World Parliament of Religions in 1898

i've been obsessed with the world parliament of religions for a long time. it was an event in 1898 in Chicago that introduced eastern religions to the west. but that's putting it mildly. it was also, in some ways, the first world trade conference - but before there was even a league of nations. At the World Parliament, dignitaries, academics and religious leaders got together from American, Britain, a couple other places in Europe, and Asia. This is where Vivekananda first preached his passion-filled, materialistic Hinduism. The westerners loved it. According to this bright yellow book i'm reading, Indians loved it too. Indians wanted to step out of the victim shoes and get with the western progress. They thought if Hinduism can be saleable to the west, then they were going to be ok.

But the fact is that the World Parliament was more about the west trying to sell their ideas about progress and giant dams and military dominance to the east. And many of the speakers from the east were merely reacting to that sales job. They were on the defense. And, i learned from this book, that is where a very important muslim preacher first told the world how he was going to take the best of the west (military dominance, evangalism + colonialism) and combine it with the elements that he thought his culture shouldn't lose. He, and others there, saw clearly that the West had no use for history. The East personified history (some westerners still think this is cute). Many of the religious speakers there - from buddhists to jesuits to jains - agreed that it was time to leave the past behind but keep a bit of culture at the same time. The muslim leader went on to inspire Osama Bin Laden. Vivekenanda, better known for his impact on a generation of hippies, also inspired the Hindu fundamentlist party that took over India in the 1990s, the BJP. The buddhist preachers are still quoted by warring buddhist nationlists, striving to remake history just like the Brits did, in Sri Lanka. Isn't it a beautiful thing when the world comes together to share ideas? JFC.

Always and Forever

I have that song from the end of Napoleon Dynamite stuck in my head.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Jac and i watched the end of the Westminster dog show last night. We rooted for the Rottweiler. That was after reading aloud very serious lesbian poetry in bed with a Fargo accent. And that was after an extremely busy day at work. I got to use the words "killer robot" on a conference call.

Jac's fish, Trixie, is still pregnant, spewing out pheremones like toothpaste spit into a clean sink.

Love is grand.

Bitches

Prissy women in fancy shoes who slow everyone down as they try to maneuver through the slush piss me off. I hope their self love is worth it, because no one else seems to appreciate their efforts.

i got quoted by a newspaper in Atlantic City today. my quote was in poor grammar. the reporter made me sound like a hick. but whatever, he's the one in atlantic city.

it is my duty, as a woman in love and loved, to be happy today. unfortunately i am very rebellious. later i will have to accept a gift. i hope it's xanax.

I don't like knowing my neighbors

Walking in from the snow yesterday, i saw my neighbor and her boyfriend going into her apartment. She said, "happy blizzard!" and i said "we just went up to the roof and threw snowballs at people. well, we threw them at buildings, but only because we didn't see any people." she said she was glad she hadn't gotten hit. i told her she was lucky. as we unlocked my door and started dealing with our boots, i complimented jac loudly on her "strong arm" and "aim."

it was all very awkward. i hate having to talk to my neighbors when i see them. same thing with the bodega guys and laundy ladies. i'd rather be anonymous.

later on, we heard my neighbor and her boyfriend playing on the roof.

Also, Jac helped push a taxi out of the snow. she's so frickn strong.

The Blizzard of 1888

Jac and i discovered some interesting facts this morning. (1) you can tell the gender of a fish by looking at its tush. A concave shape in the rear end means it's a lady fish, convex is the male. (2) the cloudy condition of jac's fish tank is due to her pregnant fish excreting pheremones (sp?). this is supposed to drive the other fish crazy, but they always act crazy. (3) the blizzard of 1888 did not directly lead to the creation of the new york city subway system, as one foolish website asserted. i knew that. having been proven right, i am energized to go walk in the snow. we're going to see if the dumpling houses are open.

jac is now putting on her boots. whenever she does this, i comment that it looks like she is strapping animals to her feet. unfortunately, our overnight guest just went back to brooklyn, so this comment will go unappreciated.

The Rules of Paris

It's not too competitive, nice in a group, there's no gambling, and here are the rules.


The Rules of Paris

The lowest card is 3, the highest card is 2. The order of cards, from lowest to highest, is 3, 4, 5 … etc … King, Ace, 2.

Suits don’t matter. Colors don’t matter.

Play with 3 or more people.

Set Up
Shuffle two decks of cards together, no jokers.

Deal three cards face down to each person.

On top of those face-down cards, deal three cards face up to each person.

The players will completely ignore those 6 cards in front of them until much later.

Deal a five card hand to each person.

Play
Whoever has the lowest card starts the game. Usually it’s the player with a 3 or more than one 3. He puts down his 3s in the middle. Then he picks up from the deck enough cards so he has 5 in his hand.

The next person can put down the same card or higher than the one in the middle. You can put down as many of the same card as you want - - for example, if you have three 5s, you can put them all down at once. As soon as you are done putting down your cards, pick up from the deck enough so you have five cards in your hand.

If you don’t have the same card or higher then you can’t put anything down. Instead, you have to pick up all the cards in the middle. Then it’s the next person’s turn.

As soon as there are 4 of the same card in the middle, the pile gets cleared. For example, if there were three 6s in the middle pile, and the next guy added another 6, the middle pile would be cleared. The pile goes away. The player who clears gets to keep going. With an empty middle, he can put down whatever he wants.

Special Card: If someone puts down a 7, the next person has to put down a 7 or lower.

Special Card: A 10 always clears the pile. A 10 can be put on top of any other card.

The players go around taking their turns, each putting down higher cards than the last player, always keeping at least five cards in your hand.

Eventually the deck you’re drawing from will run out. When that happens, play the remaining cards in your hand. When your hand runs out, play the cards in front of you that are facing up (the order you play them in doesn’t matter). When the face up cards run out, play the face down cards - - without looking at them first.

The first person to run out of all cards “wins”. The remaining players keep playing until there’s only one person left. Paris is not about winning, it’s about not losing - - not being the last person left.

Additional
Before starting the game, players can trade out any of the 5 cards in their hand for the face-up cards. It’s best to put your best cards face up.

To play with only 2 people, deal 10 cards instead of 5.





This was the original first post: so Jac and i just started this blog. We think one of her fish might be pregnant. its belly is swollen. the swelling is egg shaped. this weekend, i can really relate to that.