Random Esquire

1.  I don’t know why I called this a Punchlist.  I was just thinking about someone I wanted to punch so maybe that did it.  Is there anyone you’d truly enjoy punching?

I might enjoy punching John Goodman.

2.  It’s getting cold here in Chicago and going to really dip down on Sunday.  DO NOT WANT.

3.  The Ballerina has a reputation of saying things no one else would say.  Like, “How much money do you make?”  I once sent a dinner invitation e-mail that said, “Come any time after 6:30.”  She responded with, “I’ll be there around 6.”  A few weeks ago, I suggested we have another dinner at my house.  She said, “I’m only going to come if it has a fall theme.”  We’re getting together on Sunday and belatedly celebrating her birthday.  I said that I’d have cake.  She said, “I don’t like chocolate cake.”

It occurs to me that The Ballerina could end most of her sentences with, “…just an FYI.”  Sort of like how you can make anything sound dirty if you end it with, “…if you know what I mean.”

I almost accidentally killed Little Filthy yesterday.  Here’s the thing:  After Little Filthy eats, he drinks an entire bowl of water.  He eats all his food, drinks, then licks the food bowl repeatedly, then drinks some more, then licks the food bowl again - back and forth until every last bit is gone.  Then he uses the bathroom repeatedly.  This is normal for him.

The other day, I noticed a full water bowl despite the fact that he’d just eaten.  It was the same way the next morning and he didn’t drink much in between.  I started to put more water into his food.  But then I had this brilliant idea of dropping some small treats into his water bowl.  I dropped in a few.  They floated around on the surface and he was able to fish them out relatively easily, not drinking too much.  I thought maybe if I had treats that sank to the bottom, he’d have to drink the water first before he could get to the treat.  So I decided I’d slice up some banana and stick it to the bottom of his bowl before filling it with water (See #3e here).  But then I realized something about Little Fitlhy.

I won’t lie.  He’s not a Rhodes Scholar.  He can’t herd sheep, lead a blind man across the street, or even consistently come when you call him.  He’s more likely to bang his head into a wall from running too fast, eat a dirty kleenex (see #3 here) or drag your underwear across a room (See here or #2 here…or #1 here).  It occurred to me that, considering his love of bananas, he’d probably go nose down and try to fish it out and probably drown himself in the process.

At that thought, the banana slice dropped from my hand back on to the counter.  So much for that idea.  So instead, I cut a small piece of banana and mashed it with the side of a knife and then whisked it into a big bowl of water.  He drank it all.  Two bowls of it.

Yeah.  I probably need a girlfriend, huh?

1.  I came home and found that Amazon Claus had delivered my two new HDMI cables.  Love is in the air.  If you don’t know the import of this…well, your vagina is showing.  (kidding…kidding…)

2.  I listened to my voicemails and sure enough, Kristin Chenoweth had left me another message, asking me out.  I hate to keep turning her down but I’m off the blondes.  Well, more or less.  Maybe.

Who the hell knows.  Except that she totally didn’t call me.

But I’m not giving up hope.

3.  Churro eyed the photos I took while at the S&M party at Marche, here.  There were two pictures of two different blondes.  I said we’d each take one and asked which one he wanted.  He looked at me blankly.  I said, “Which one?!“  He said, “That’s like asking me if I’d rather have a million dollars in gold coins or a million dollars in silver coins.”

Touche.

4.  Okay, so, I’m totally not off the blondes.

Whatever.

5.  Speaking of blondes, QTMama IM’d me today and I was reminded of a conversation we had about a week ago.  I was talking to her about relationships and at one point, she said, “You did that? That’s something only men do.“  I paused and then said, “Do what?”  I could practically hear her sigh.

1.  This Indian woman goes out into the field to cut some grass for her cattle.  A man who’d allegedly been stalking her attacked her.  So she cut of his head with her sickle.  And then she walked on down to the village, carrying his head.  She said she had no regret.

Don’t fuck with an Indian woman.  She ain’t playin’.

2.  This dude at a 15 pound hamburger…with a cup of mayo on it.  And a cup of ketchup, a cup of mustard, and a cup of relish.  Total weight? 20.2 pounds.  That’s going to take a full bottle of Maalox to cure.  When asked why he did it, he said, “I wanted to see if I could.”

Welcome to the modern-day fat America moutain that needs climbing.

3.  This shouldn’t crack me up but it does.  This woman gets so drunk, she has her 9 year old drive.  They get pulled over when cops notice how tiny the driver is.  Dude.  Parenting FAIL.

1.  Those wildfires are hard to watch.  Especially when you learn that someone started it.  For some reason, it’s almost worse to me when someone accidentally starts it - like a kid who plays with a match and ends up burning down 50 houses.  It’s like someone coughed without covering their mouth and caused a tornado.

2.  Since I’m on the topic of murder, Drew Peterson is still kickin’ it, isn’t he?

3.  I walked into the kitchen today to find Little Filthy sitting and staring at the kitchen island.  As soon as he spotted me, he started to jump so his head would peek up over the counter.  I’d eaten part of a banana earlier and left the other half on the counter.  He’s banana crazy.

That just reminded me of something.  When the Seattle Peeps were here and they actually met Little Filthy, it occured to me how many times I had to say, “Oh…he [does this] when [this happens].”  Examples (all of which they witnessed, save maybe the banana thing):

a) He goes nuts when you open that cupboard.  (There is one particular kitchen cupboard that causes Little Filthy to lose his shit when it’s opened.)

b) He humps his toys the moment you try to take them.

c) He jumps (literally - he jumps up and down) if you move the rug that he’s standing on.  He pounces straight up and down, staring at the ground.  If I do this to him, I can walk into the room an hour later and he’s still jumping and staring.

d) He falls asleep when you file his nails.  (I file them every so often since he tends to jump on me and snag my pants otherwise.)  If you put him on his back with his legs sticking straight up, you could file his nails all day and he’ll sleep the entire time.

e) He loses his mind if he smells a banana.  He can smell you reaching for a banana.

4.  I cracked my patio door open last night so cool air would come in during the night. I woke up and it was 55 degrees in my place.  And I sort of loved it while I was in bed, anyway.  But it occurred to me that a woman might really find the whole practice odd.  I like chilly air when I sleep.

5.  That brings up another cold-weather practice: Wearing socks in bed.  Do you do it?

I don’t think I could do it.  It feels like going to bed with shoes on.  Just… odd.  And besides, don’t your feet get too warm?  It’s kind of gross, too, if you’ve been wearing the socks all day, right?  Hell, I think it’s sort of gross that people get into their beds after collecting dirt on their skin all day.  Those people only wash their sheets once a month and always have a rash.

It just occurred to me that I’m going to be single forever because I’m a weirdo and my dog is, too.

I’d been feeling unsettled lately because my place was in a bit of disarray.  Too many evenings away from home sometimes leave me feeling like this and I could tell my place needed a thorough scrub down.  I groused about it earlier via instant message to the Ballerina earlier today.  A few hours later, I reported in that I had just cleaned the floor and felt measurably better.  Here’s how the conversation went:

RandomEsq:  “Dude, floors are disgusting.”

The Ballerina: “scrubbing floors periodicially is so soothing.

…it’s like masturbation.”

*Blink*

I whip open the shower curtain when I’m done with my shower.  That is, if it was even closed entirely to begin with.  The cold air doesn’t bother me.  Every woman I’ve ever dated closes the bathroom door and practically platic-seals herself in the shower and when done, only reluctantly reaches a hand out enough to grope for a towel before disappearing back behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz.  When Boss would get done with a shower, I’d walk into a room full of steam and the mirror would be weeping.  And she’d still be shivering.

2.  There was some kid on the Today show whose arm was torn off by a crocodile when he went swimming…at night.  Every time I hear one of these stories, I wonder why the person went swimming someplace where there are crocs.  It has never even occurred to me to do that.  It isn’t like you see people on the Discovery channel peacefully swimming with them like you do with some sharks.  Pretty much everyone avoids them.  They’re hard enough to spot but to go at night just seems to be asking for trouble.  Or, in this kids case, a bionic arm.

3.  I saw this ad yesterday and did a double take when I saw the feather duster peek out behind the leg of one of the mariachi band members.

Boss and I had dinner last night.  I heard the latest about her day:

1.  A kindergarten boy left the bathroom naked…except for his shirt.  In his hand?  His underwear.  Filled with poop.  Apparently, the wall had received a new paint job.

2.  Another kindergarten teacher peeked into the boys bathroom after hearing some singing and found a little boy with his pants and underwear down around his ankles as he used the urinal.  He was shaking his butt back and forth and singing with his hands up in the air.  She asked him to come see her after he was done.  She wanted to inform him that a hands-on approach might be the way to go.  He walked out of the bathroom when done to see her…with his pants and underwear still down around his ankles.

3.  The bathroom sinks have those faucets that turn on by pushing down on a round cylinder shape - I think that’s an early 1980’s style.  Anyway, they’re sometimes hard to push which is why Boss walked into the bathroom to see that a little boy had climbed on top of the sink so he could step on the nozzle for other people to wash their hands.

As for my day?  I woke up this morning to a cold nose and air on my face.  I opened an eye and saw Little Filthy demanding we go pay homage to the breakfast gods. I grabbed my phone and snapped him staring.  Monster.

I saw this dude - Martin Sullivan, former CEO of AIG - on television.  He was in front of Congress trying to explain why AIG executives spent $440,000 on a week long retreat in California after tax payers spent $85 Billion dollars bailing out the company.

And his hair was very white except for a tinge of yellow.  It was gen-u-ine old man hair.

Here’s how to identify genuine dirty old man hair:  It looks like mayo that’s been left out too long and has started to go yellow.

That’s old man hair.

Just one more reason to wanna punch the dude.

In 1966, a young film maker named Frederick Wiseman filmed for four weeks inside the Bridgewater State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts which was run by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. It showed the routine of the prisoners - psychiatric sessions, force-feeding of inmates, bathing, shaving.  The film screened at the New York Film Festival before the Mass Supreme Ct ordered that it be banned and destroyed, saying it violated the privacy rights of the people shown.  The Superior Court, in 1969, said it could be shown to professionals.  Wiseman appealed to the U.S. Surpreme Court, which refused to hear the case.  It was the first time in U.S. film history that a film was banned “not for reasons of obscenity, immorality or national security.”

In 1991, the Superior Court reversed the ruling and in 1992, PBS showed the film.  It was called Titicut Follies after the variety show at the Mass. Correctional Institute.  I happened to see it and had no idea what it was at the time.  One scene stuck out in my mind.  It was of a thin patient being strapped down on a bed and a man feeding a long tube in through his nose down into his stomach.  When the tube was fully inserted, the man (doctor?) stuck a funnel on the top of the tube and poured something the consistency of pancake batter into the funnel, thus force feeding the man.  He had a cigarette in his mouth, the ash dangling over the funnel.

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