12.4.01 – the turkey has landed

the apartment is small but lovely and i think i’ll like the theatre. so much for everything i’ve heard about buffalo winters – it’s 60 degrees out there today. still no internet access – hopefully soon.

11.27.01 – hit the road, jack

well, it’s NY or bust. zeke handles the driving, i read the maps and make witty comments along the way. those of you who live along I-80 – I am coming for you.

11.23.01 – 00110101011

corrupted disk ate all my weekend entries. packing for buffalo. more soon.

ps – it snowed!

11.21.01 – the life and times of a nerd

watched the new episode of buffy last night. woo, buffy and spike finally got it on. i figured it had to happen eventually. it’s a dramatic standard: build sexual tension between lead characters for approximately 2 seasons (2 hours if we’re talking stage), and then either you gotta kill one of them off or let them go at it. yes, this is what my life consists of these days: inspecting the soles of my feet and watching buffy reruns (with my parent’s cable tv package, buffy is on 13 times a week. how am i supposed to be a productive member of society with that sort of temptation? the cute thing is that my parents have become buffy junkies as well.)

it’s not so bad, i’m only unemployed until dec. 4, at which time i’ll be living in buffalo sans tv, and working crazy overtime hours again. those of you who know me personally know that this is the most down-time i’ve had since i was about 8 – i think i’m handling it fairly well, being the type-A over-achiever that i am. i suspect (at least in my case) that over-achieverness is actually a mask for general insecurity. if i’m hard on myself, then i achieve more, and then i have a reason to feel like i have self-worth.

i was going to write a treatise on the idea of self-worth here, but the more i think about it the less i understand it. what makes someone value themselves? is it an innate belief, like religion: “i know i am valuable because i know.” is it a goal that one can reach: “i know i have self-worth because i did all these good things.” is it like the carrot on a stick in front of the donkey: “i know i will have self-worth if i go a little bit farther, do a bit more.” is it something that has to be constantly maintained: “i know i have self-worth, but if i stop achieving i will lose it.”

the never-ending circle of over-achiever-ness is something that gets developed early on in school, i think. i get good grades, my parents are proud of me, which makes me feel good, ergo, good grades = self-worth. the cycle continues as long as the education system lasts. by the time i got to college, i met a whole lot of people like myself who use achievement like a drug: it’s the only way to feel good. sort of masochistic, yes. sad, probably. i finished my degree a year and half ago, and i’m slowly figuring out how one lives a positive, happy life without depending on constant academic approval. maybe i just substitute other forms of approval now. there’s a simpsons episode in which school gets canceled, and lisa freaks out and begs her mother for validation – marge scribbles an A on a blank piece of paper, hands it to lisa, and lisa heaves a sigh of relief and sticks the paper to the fridge door. god, that’s a great show.

it’s 2 am on thanksgiving eve. i have to sleep in order to face the family tomorrow, so these musings will have to remain in the unformed infantile phase that they’re now in. see? i’m apologizing for my own blog. guilt and over-achieverness are a wicked combination. i blame the catholic church.

11.20.01 – things you didn’t need to know

just noticed that the soles of my feet are peeling. eww, gross. i knew i should have worn flip flops in the hostel showers. now i probably have weird european foot fungus. didn’t need to know that, did you? ah well, it’s cyberspace. you don’t have to actually look at my feet.

have been elected to go to the grocery store and purchase thanksgiving dinner; this is what happens when you are the only unemployed member of the household. i spent all morning at the gym, bagels for lunch, shower, email, and am now thinking about getting dressed. being the only one home all day long does afford me plenty of opportunity to wander around the house in various states of undressedness. i figure if the UPS delivery man peers in the windows that’s his problem, not mine.

11.19.01- 48 hours in sf

2 delayed planes, 3 caltrain rides, 4 muni rides, had my neck cracked by the chiro, shopping spree downtown, yummy sushi takeout from hanabi’s, big game tailgate (stanford kicked some cal weenie on the football field), skipped the actual game in favor of a trip to pescadero beach to climb around the tidal pools and look at the seals, dinner out with the gang, watched the meteor shower from the stanford golf course until the police came and made us leave, and finished A.S. Byatt’s Angels and Insects which was frightfully dull. now i am back in boise, broke, but i have new clothes and a neck that turns all the way to the right again.

say, a couple of days ago, i was listening to the radio and heard a news flash saying that investigators had stormed the homes of two city officials somewhere in pennsylvania looking for evidence that these two men might have masterminded the anthrax attacks. “wow,” i thought, “i’ll be sure to look for that in the newspaper tomorrow.” curiously, the next day there was nothing in the paper. nothing on cnn.com. in fact there’s been zero mention of anything related to that. so what i’m wondering is, did i hear a bogus news report, or is there some reason its being hushed up in the media? it seems like finding possible US culprits of the anthrax attacks might be news that americans would want to read about, doesn’t it? weird. if anyone else knows anything about this, i’d be curious to hear it…

11.18.01

more mail FROM me. (post cards are still trickling in.)

11.15.01

more mail for me!

X-From_: XXXXX@aol.com Thu Nov 15 01:45:19 2001

From: XXXXXX@aol.com

Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 04:45:10 EST

Subject: Re: Tiny Tove

To: slithy@slithy-tove.net

X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Mac sub 40

Slithy,

FYI, Tiny Tove is not a “child porn thing.” She was a

Danish porn star back in the ’70s who _looked_ fresh

and young, but was of legal age (so I’m told) when

she made her movies. If you’re interested you can

check her out at www.colorclimax.com.

Ron S.

New York

well, now you know. three guesses how Ron S. found slithy tove…

11.14.01

er, yeah. i got out of the habit of having something pithy to say on a daily basis. what’s new? i saw the new david lynch movie, mulhollen drive. it had a good dose of his twin peaks-style creepiness, and lots of lesbian sex. (unwisely, i saw it with my parents). i can’t possibly write as coherent a review of it as salon.com did, so go read theirs. but i highly recommend the movie. frickin’ weird, man. a childhood in idaho can produce some weird stuff when they let us out into the real world. that’s right folks, mr. lynch is a native boisean. he graduated from borah high school. my hometown’s legacy to the world of pop culture: david lynch, kevin smith, and curtis stigers.

so i’ve been slothing around boise, sleeping lots, recovering from the flu and jetlag and enjoying the finer points of living with one’s parents: fridge full of free food, comfy bed, nice shower, free laundry, some serious quality time with the cat and bottomless peppermint tea. been hanging around the Flying M in the afternoons, the happy independent coffee house in downtown boise, working on a scrapbook and reading the newspaper cover-to-cover just because i have that much free time. on friday i’m headed to SF for the weekend (to see my chiropractor, as usual), then back here for thanksgiving with the family, and then i’m embarking on the great american roadtrip: zeke and i are moving to buffalo, NY.

11.11.01

victoria’s secret is selling a $12.5 million dollar bra. i’m not making this up, altho they might be. it’s on the front page of the christmas catalogue. yes, boys and girls, that’s right, it’s a bra made up of 1,200 sapphires and 2,300 diamonds plus a big ol’ 90 carat rock in the middle. you can have the matching panty for a mere $750,000 (no giant diamonds in that one).

damn! i knew underwear was an expensive habit, but really. men: now do you see what lengths we women go to in order to seduce you with our underwear?

slithy tove hasn’t had too many hits lately; hopefully a phrase like “fantasy bra” will help pop the ratings back up. while i’m at it, i might as well talk about jarvis cocker. has anyone heard the new pulp album yet? maybe it’s not out yet, i’m never really in touch on these sorts of things. anyway, i was reading this article about it while i was in amsterdam and how it’s this big return-to-nature thing for the band – they went off into the woods to record it and it has songs with titles like “the trees” and “we love life.” i’m not sure i know what that means in the context of this-is-hardcore-pulp. but anyway, i was crushed to discover just how truly ugly jarvis cocker really is. the article closed with the quote, “you sound like such a cunt if you call yourself an artist.” well, that’s that. guess it’s back to being unemployed for me.