A Brief History of Pants
Current mood: Pants
Category: Pants Fashion, Style, Shopping

Today many Americans might consider pants a symbol of staid conformity and even a tool of repression.  "I can't believe you wore those pants to an event like this," one might hear from a nagging spouse.  "I'm sorry sir, we can't let you in with those pants," is something one might be told by a snooty maitre d.  "You're under arrest for not wearing any pants," is another pants-related statement of oppression.  The list goes on and on...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

But while pants now seem to be a blasé status quo, through the centuries they have been agents of rupture and revolution.    

Some classicists of the sillier variety have suggested that the 4^th century Roman Emperor Constantine actually witnessed a heavenly message in the sky reading "wearing these slacks ye shall conquer," a loose variation on the more familiar story.  This story is probably the product of misguided hagiography produced around the 7^th century AD when King Ignatz the Occasionally Incontinent was consolidating control over the Salian Franks, handing out free pairs of chinos to sway recalcitrant chieftains and inadvertently creating a craze for pants all over Christendom.  The "slacks" version of the Constantine story, compelling as it may be, tells us nothing about the Roman institutionalization of Christianity as does the "real" version and is, frankly, anachronistic since pants did not make their debut in the eastern empire until sometime later.  Which is too bad, because the minor Gnostic philosopher Walter of Thessaly was also a darn good tailor (it was said that, privy to the secret knowledge his sect was said to have divined, Walter invented the ¾ inch cuff ages before there was anything to apply cuffs to).         

No, it was the Gothic hordes from the North who brought pants to the dying empire, along with the stirrup, to say nothing of their black mascara, Bauhaus records and strangely silent girlfriends.  These barbarian horsemen that began trickling into the empire had not established enough of a presence in Constantine's time to seriously affect fashion, although they claimed that they meant to arrive earlier but were delayed by road construction.  They were horsemen, and men who spent most of their time on horseback discovered at some point that male clothing worn by most of the civilized world was nothing more than an invitation to Hemorrhoidville (an actual town name in central Manitoba, by the way).  The Gothic equestrian expertise made them excellent cavalrymen and, by the end of the fifth century, the Roman Army was drafting them willy nilly.  Eventually, the Romans found that, while the Goths made great soldiers, they were lousy roommates.  The empire crumbled like a party after the keg has begun to float and, at the risk of taking the analogy too far, the northern invaders had been the ones doing most of the keg stands and even hit on the host's girlfriend.  But the Romans' attendant cultural decline in the west was not specifically because of the introduction of pants as one observer claimed.  Litus Inhisloafersus, fashion critic of the early 500s, complained in Vogue (yes, it's been around that long), "The coarse garments these Germans bring have lasted too many seasons.  It is time for a return of the toga, or at least something new that doesn't make my butt look so big."  Swishy criticisms aside, there was more at work, but the barbaric custom of not wearing a skirt symbolized the shock of the new.    

But, oddly it didn't last.  By the time of the High Middle Ages, pants were a distant memory, tucked away in closets that didn't yet exist since the closet, as we know it, was an innovation that didn't debut until the 17^th century (previously, people who we now say are "in the closet" were said to be "behind the tapestry").  Chaucer's "The Plumber's Tale" makes reference to the title character's "shewing hes foule prankes" in a scene modern readers can relate to, but it is not made clear that the offending buttocks come from above a pair of trousers or some other loin-covering garment.  As far as we know, men wore robes or gowns and leggings if they could afford them while women wore whatever best facilitated rape or, in the parlance of the day, "marriage."                         

During the Black Death an unfortunate misunderstanding took place that caused a widespread delay in the return of pants to western Europe.  In the 1330s a cult of self-flagellation developed in response to the Black Death and was eventually declared a heresy in many circles.  But, due to the vagaries of translation of Latin papal bulls to the vulgar languages, flagellants became confused with flatulence, and farting in church began to be punished to a similar degree.  What was considered by many to be a means of diluting the foul miasmas blamed for the plague was assumed to be a movement and, by extension, also an odious heresy bent upon undermining church authority.  One etymologist has suggested that the origin of "pew" for a sanctuary bench putrefied by parishioners' nether whispers sprang from this source ("he who fartes in Church sitteth in his owne pew" reads one 16th century book of English platitudes).  But he drinks. 

 A proto-trouser appeared in the 1500s based upon tights worn by male members of the nobility and new money like the Medicis and, for centuries, pants were symbols of wealth, attainment and fashion, and gradually took on a remarkably class-based significance.  As a result, men unwilling to talk about inequality, especially during the economically boisterous 18^th century.  James Boswell, who acted as an ever-present Boswell for Samuel Johnson in his later years, recorded that he refused to grant pants with an entry in his famous dictionary.  Johnson, a man with little patience for things with no permanence, thought them a fad, a long-lasting fad, but a fad nonetheless.  Even the man who coined the phrase "alcohol-burning funny cars!" more than a century before the invention of the internal combustion engine was not prescient enough to see that pants were here to stay.  When Boswell pressed him on the issue during a stroll, Dr. Johnson immediately dropped trow, saying "I refute it thus."  When Boswell mentioned that Johnson had used this line in the past, he received the sound spanking he had been angling for in the first place. 

But even if the great minds didn't want to consider them, by the time of Johnson's death, pants had taken on new meaning.  Nothing demonstrated this more than the rise of the Sans-culottes during the French Revolution.  The Sans-cullottes were true class warriors whose uniform was a pair of trousers that went all the way to the ankle, as opposed to the knee breeches worn by their second estate enemies.  During the 1790s pants were such a matter of international controversy that even a coffee shop discussion of a trip to the haberdasher was subject to fines in London.  France's "Reign of Terror" brought about the first incarnation of what's now known as the "fashion police" until the moderate Thermador regime calmed things and restored parity.  The revolution was not an unalloyed success but somehow pants had become a symbol of democracy.           

But they remained a highly politicized subject especially in the infant United States.  During the nationalist fervor that followed the War of 1812, Noah Webster, a typically pushy yankee who fancied himself the shepherd of a new American English, encouraged the popularity of 'pants' to the detriment of the supposedly more British 'trousers,' perhaps one of the more unfortunate linguistic turns in American history, perhaps superseded only by the late 20^th century usage of 'awesome' to describe anything better than mediocre.  For, by the mid-1900s, the English had come to refer to pants only as undergarments and misunderstandings and slappings abounded, especially during the American military occupation of 1942-1945.   

But before any of that, a Bavarian immigrant to the US, Levi Strauss, changed the way people think about pants, creating what was to become blue jeans.  Strauss' pants were popularized during the California Gold Rush.  Among Strauss' innovations was the use of the now familiar denim canvas, copper rivets and extra room in the seat to better facilitate that dance that prospectors do.  This was a boon for working people, most of whom had been forced to depend upon the irregular quality of homespun or else buy delicate britches that were made for rich bastards to prance around a meadow in.  But jeans, with their proletarian associations, would be considered an affront to bourgeois proprieties until after World War II, and some public school systems actually forbade their being worn until the 1970s, oddly enough, the same decade that produced designer jeans and a new subject for commodity fetishism.  Had you been too poor to afford anything else but jeans decades before, and were mocked for it by your classmates, now you were mocked for not having the right brand.  With this in mind, the nascent popularity of black market jeans east of the Iron Curtain should have tipped everyone off that the revolution had died with the kulaks (many of whom probably wore jeans).        

 But in order for pants to be used as a hierarchical tool, a cultural seed had to be planted that would allow women to wear pants alongside men.  Of course this did not begin in earnest until well into the 20^th century but a contemporary of Levi Strauss', Amelia Bloomer, had attempted to popularize the "Bloomer suit," a close approximation to pants for women's comfort.  The Bloomer suit was met with middling success perhaps because, as Bloomer's acquaintance Henry Ward Beecher said privately, "Amy just doesn't have the gams to pull it off."  Bloomer's primary intention was to give women freedom from the constrictive clothing they were forced to wear at the time.  But during the Age of Guess and Bugle Boy, the public school girls who could only afford hand-me-down Rustlers were made to feel inferior by their peers.  But at least nobody had to wear corsets anymore.  Mixed bag. 

And then there was the component that changed the way we wear pants forever.  Few now know that the 19^th century's most personally inspired inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, devised a prototype that he called "miracle teethed breeches" that didn't go over quite as well as the telephone.  While trying the new device out on himself, Bell had an accident with "Little Alexander" and, like the story attendant to his more famous inspiration, called for Watson (who, in the end, really wasn't that much help).  Disgusted with the entire enterprise, bell moved onto other inventions.  But his prototype was improved upon and eventually marketed as the "zipper."  The patent was guarded fiercely and eventually became the sole property of the mysterious "YKK" holding company, a monopolistic triumph to which even John Rockefeller, Sr. had to doff his hat.  To this day YKK maintains a healthy stock rating and inspires some of the least interesting conspiracy theories to be found on the "internet."  Even Haggar, the behemoth of pants production through most of the 20^th century, must parley with YKK on even ground or else return to the button fly. 

Despite various fashion trends, pants in their most basic form remained relatively stable through most of the 1900s but even the slightest changes reflected larger movements.  Sociologist Daniel Bell saw the consensus of the 1950s (Keynesian demand-side financial policies, interparty agreement on the containment of communism and the expansion of US trade, tight crotch, medium height waist, high hem regardless of socio-economic status) and proclaimed an "end of ideology" till the bottoms that ironically bore his own name rocked his theory to pieces in the tumultuous 1960s. 

The 1980s saw some strange developments below the waist but they are best forgotten and will not be elaborated on here.  Let's just say "parachute pants" is a misleading misnomer and 8-year old Tommy Sharpston of Noel, Missouri found it out the hard way in 1986.        

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama's pronouncement of an "end of history" circa 1988 seemed to be validated by the fall of communism, but also the contemporaneous debut of extra baggy "Hammer pants," a development that many considered an apotheosis of pantsness from which there could be no further developments.  It seemed as good an endpoint as any at the time, especially for people with uncomfortably oversized scrotums.  But the 21^st century's introduction of the controversial "skinny jeans" to gentrifying city centers across the country demonstrates that no trousered telos has been reached, just as the rise of radical Islam (a movement that, it should be noted, eschews pants.  See?  Maybe Samuel Huntington was right.) has disproven Fukuyama (who, by the way, was recently seen at a Cornell speaking engagement wearing what appeared to be a pair of triple-pleated khakis, gauche even by Ithaca standards). 

So what is to be the future of pants?  In the United States, it may prove to be a grim, authoritarian future.  So far in this century, bills have appeared in the legislatures of two states, Virginia and Louisiana, whose purpose was to regulate how we wear our pants by outlawing the public wearing of oversized, saggy jeans worn in a way that displays the boxer shorts.  This was to be the first law whose only purpose was to keep people from dressing like an idiot since Coldplay v. Michigan overturned one state law that banned those stupid "combat caps" everyone's wearing.  Both bills were both met with indignant protest, initially because they supposedly targeted young African American men.  But they were not the only ones.  An attorney representing that jackass you knew in high school who actually wore his pants backwards for awhile in 1990 when Kris Kross was popular threatened a lawsuit.  A legal brief protesting the bills was also submitted by the Society for People Who Recently Lost a Lot of Weight and Haven't Gotten Around to Buying New Clothes Yet Because They've Been Busy (S.P.W.R.L.L.W.H.G.A.B.N.C. Y. B.Y. B.B.).  The ACLU refused to touch this one because they had at least fifteen small towns to sue for erecting courthouse lawn manger scenes in just that one December.    

So, when government and activism no longer provide us with our sartorial freedom, who do we turn to?  The corporation, of course.  But today, we as pants consumers are defined by where we shop.  Do we buy our pants from WalMart, that huge conglomerate with a Chevrolet demographic that buys sweat shop wares and mistreats their employees?  Or Target, the huge conglomerate with a more Volkswagen-ish demographic that buys sweat shop wares and mistreats their employees but gets by with it with much less criticism because their commercials are cuter?  The pants we choose may well determine the future of America.  But probably not. 

8:49 PM - 8 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Just when you thought haikus were passe’, I prove you right.
Category: Writing and Poetry

Across America...
Horses starved by the thousands...
as we ate oat bran..

1:58 PM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Libris Scatalogica
Current mood: sore
Category: Romance and Relationships

There are two types of people: those who keep books in their bathroom and imbeciles.

An overly bold statement? Perhaps. But I have a hard time endowing any confidence on the intellect of someone who doesn't accompany regular bowel movements with literary pursuits (and, no Spanky, Maxim Magazine doesn't count- is there anybody out there who reads that magazine that doesn't wear a baseball cap turned backwards at least four days out of the week?). I suppose if you have an outdoor privy and, therefore, no source for reading light then maybe you can be excused. Many people who've attempted to keep reading materials in privys have found that books and magazines often fall prey to literate opossums and skunks.

Many people assume that reading in the john is something to do to relieve boredom, a diversionary pursuit to take one's mind off of the task at hand. I disagree; I'm of the opinion that reading material can actually enhance and perhaps even ease the primary reason for being behind closed doors. I was recently made aware of this after a friend who suffers from IBS told me how helpful Anna Karenina was after dinner at Paco's Tacos. The majesty of Tolstoy's prose, in combination with medication taken under the direction of a physician helped my friend through an otherwise unpleasant experience and not just as a time-passer. After all, it is not just time that we are passing.

Martin Luthor is probably the most famous bathroom reader in western history. The story goes that since Luthor was somewhat of a constipant (most laxatives were considered heretical in the sixteenth century) he was obliged to spend hours on the common man's throne at which times he would pour over Scripture. It is well known that the revelation that inspired him to publicly criticize the Catholic Church came about while studying Paul's epistles during "alone time." In effect, the 95 Theses came about through feces. Much psychological speculation has been spent on determining Luther's character being formed by his relationship with his father. I'd submit that we should also look to his mother as well; had Frau Luthor properly taught her son to eat his crusts like a good boy, the Protestant Reformation may never have taken place. Such are the contingencies of history.

Other great men of letters had similar problems that had a great impact upon their writing. For instance, when Henry David Thoreau wrote that "the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation" he was speaking of an affliction we are all familiar with, especially those of us who tend to eat too many marshmallows on camping trips (accrediting his refusal to eat beans to the tenets of the greek mathematician Pythagoras, Thoreau only worsened his condition out of irrational fears of pooting in front of Emerson- you know how yankees are). The discarded original titles of other great writers also give us insight into the relationship between literary genius and the failure to get things going. Few outside the philology clubhouse know that two of Friedrich Nietzsche's best known works were originally entitiled Stopped Up, All Too Stopped Up and, of course, Thus Shat Zarathustra, the last being a treatise on the ubermensch's ability to flaunt society's conventions by taking a dump wherever he willed it, a dream of Nietzsche's inspired by too much wiener schnitzel.

It would seem that American novelist John Updike had the opposite problem; what became the first book in his four volume saga of middle class ennui and the crisis of twentieth century masculinity was supposed to have been called Rabbit's Runs. For some reason Scribner & Sons thought this might be a bad idea and the title was nixed.

So we see that literature and voiding go hand in hand, a fact that most Americans don't truly appreciate. At this point I'd like to make a few suggestions for starting a diverse and useful water closet library.

The Beast in Me by James Thurber: Studies show that laughter helps in anal loosening and Thurber is one of the great American humorists. If you're not particularly literate he always has drawings too.

Very Good Jeeves or any of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories about Bertie Wooster and his butler: Another very funny bunch of stories. When Bertie tells Jeeves "carry on," it helps me carry on as well.  

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud: Reading about how we suppress our baser instincts (and, perhaps, end-stinks) in order to live in a society seems especially appropriate in those short moments when we are able to mometarily stop suppressing. Plus, Freud really liked to talk about doodoo.

Leaving Home by Garrison Keillor: Not particularly complex reading but Keillor's stories of small town life in the midwest say "gentle" in a way that Doxidan only wishes was possible.

The Apology of Socrates by Plato: After raising a stink with the youth of Athens Socrates had to face down a 500 man jury and accepted his fate with grace and logic. All you'll have to do after raising a stink is maybe light a candle.  

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson: Civil War history and feculence go together like gangrene and amputation. If you think your spouse or partner keeps an untidy bathroom you should have seen the latrines at Andersonville Prison. Or, better yet, you'll enjoy seeing how Lee was able to escape after Gettysburg because, during their southward pursuit, Josh Chamberlain's 20th Maine made the mistake of descending upon a Maryland pear orchard that wasn't quite ripe for the picking yet. Sherman was right, war is hell. 

The Brothers Karamazov by  Fyodor Dostoevsky: Long book, long night, I don't wanna talk about it.

Culture Warrior by Bill O'Reilly: Sometimes I run out of toilet paper and Random House's hardcover edition has the best traction I've come across as of yet. Even though the dustcover has Bill's face on it, if I were you, I'd resist the obvious temptation since it's a much slicker paper.

That does it. I guess I'll catch you later. I've got to go.

Currently reading : The Brothers Karamazov By Fyodor M. Dostoevsky Release date: July, 2005

1:45 PM - 12 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

You win, Mrs. Blankenship

The recent decision to remove Pluto from our celestial pantheon reminded me of third grade. Or, at least something that happened in third grade. And no, Emily, I don't mean that incident with the howler monkey at the zoo. I won't write about that. Never.

I grew up in an area of the country that was on the edge of being poor. Not everybody was poor. Many of us ate steak for supper at least once a week and shopped at the mall and the girls wore Esprit shirts, whatever that is and went on vacations every summer to Myrtle Beach or Gatlinburg or Civil War battlefields. But many other people had to rely on outdoor plumbing and eat nothing but October beans which were only available one month out of the year. In October. I heard stories that some people were forced to collect their flatulence in aluminum tanks to be used for heat in the winter. That poor. Most of us never even saw an iPod until the early twenty first century.

So the county school system didn't have a great tax base. But I can't blame it all on that. Nearby Meadowview Elementary had newer facilities and got to do school plays. But many people in the school system didn't really value education anyway. We didn't have school plays and field trips but we did have a principal who considered football the apotheosis of a public school education. He and his wife were avid squaredancers so we were often taught the Virginia Reel in gym class and we would perform it for our parents at assemblies sometimes. He liked to scream "eat, don't talk, eat!" at us in the cafeteria. Somehow my interests in football and (to a lesser degree) square dancing survived the eight school years at Glade Spring Elementary under the authority of this ogre. But I did pick up a healthy disrespect for authority figures. Some assume this disrespect is something hillbillies are born with but, no, like disaffected suburban youth (and those who are disaffected from being disaffected), we had to learn it. What we didn't learn is how to stand up to these county-mandated tyrants when we weighed 60lbs. and he daily scared the cafeteria's urinal cake-shaped yams out of us. 

In third grade (1983-1984) we were using science books published in 1963. These books forecasted a future moonlanding and told us that Mercury was the smallest planet. I verbally disputed this because, as my Childcraft Encyclopedia that my Mom read to me when I was four said, Pluto was actually the smallest planet (as I think we discovered in the 1970s, I don't know). For that, I was berated by Mrs. Blankenship because I was heretically suggesting that something in our dishelved books was incorrect. The class was encouraged to laugh at me just as they were months earlier when I said that, as I had learned in Ranger Rick Magazine, some African crocodiles had a symbiotic relationship with a type of bird that picks their teeth clean so they don't rot (I was later vindicated when an oral hygiene poster that featured a cartoon crcodile with really great teeth revealed that, yes, this was indeed factual). My teacher didn't like having a student who knew something she didn't.

At the science fair, shortly after, I was accused of being mean because I openly argued with an older student who, armed with the same science book I had used, invented an electric science trivia game that, again, had Mercury amed as the smallest planet. I was encouraged to drop the subject. I think it was around the same time I was sent to the principal's office for combing my hair wrong.

I think Washington County, Virginia has newer science books now, probably featuring nods to the new intelligent design paradigm (when I was in elementary school, biological evolution was mildly debated but acceptable as long as humanity was acknowledged as the telos of God's creation- suits me) but not new enough to be hip to the very newest developments in astronomical taxonomy. And, until newer books are bought, I imagine they say that Pluto is the smallest planet even though it was recently cast down to planetoid or asteroid status. And some kid with more knowledge than tact (i.e., conformity awareness) is going to get shot down over this somehow (Mrs. Blankenship hasn't retired yet, after all).

But me, part of the generation who ever so briefly knew the orb named after Mickey Mouse's dog to be the smallest planet in the Copernican universe, I have fallen victim to yet another Kuhnian turn and, by sheer accident, Mrs. Blankenship not only has her wooden paddle to support her but the also the world's scientific luminaries. Well played Mrs. Blankenship.        

11:58 AM - 10 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

It's time to talk about worms

As I'm writing this summer is almost upon us and along with summer comes various dangers that we don't often think about during the rest of the year. You could get run over by an ice cream truck. You could meet a dangerous pervert in the park. Worse than that, you could fall down in the yard and become impaled on a sprinkler like what happened to Uncle Leicester. 

Since you're a careless little bastard any of these things are liable to happen to you so I won't waste my time warning you. But I am going to discuss a summer danger that is easily preventable: worms. Every summer men, women and children all over THIS GREAT LAND are confounded by worm-related mishaps and illnesses yet the media is far more attracted to shark attacks, ebola outbreaks and found footage of small children falling into the gorilla cage at the zoo. Well, just because the major media outlets' priorities are skewed doesn't mean should be. Unlike Roy, I see worms for the danger that they are. Because I want to edify the public as to the dangers of worms, and because my foot's asleep so I can't stand up, I'll now line out some worms, and worm-related problems you should be aware of.

Tapeworms- Arguably the best-known, and most feared, parasitic worm. Tapeworms are ingested into the stomach where they live for months, eating whatever you eat (except for pesto- for some reason they don't like pesto) while you become skinnier and skinnier until you start a modeling career and later appear in supporting roles in movies they show on the USA network. Tapeworms can only be extracted by a doctor or by making it impossible for them to afford the rent due to neighborhood gentrification. People usually catch tapeworms by eating off of the ground like a cow to amuse their friends at picnics.

Guinea Worms- people generally catch guinea eggs by unintentionally eating their eggs, usually at Waffle House at 4 in the morning or that one wierd diner we went to where the cook creeped me out because he was wearing a leather mask (good patty melt though!). The worms emerge from the skin a year later but sometimes they're a little late because they didn't get the notice in the mail. The emergent worm causes a skin irritation that usually results in constant scratching and getting invited to fewer parties.

Hookworms- Hookworms are equipped with a built-in grappling hook that they use to attach themselves to your foot, a fact that really should make us reassess this whole intelligent design issue. They then work their way into your skin and wreak biological havoc. Of course, this can be prevented easily by acting like a normal person and wearing shoes, but not white ones until after Memorial Day. What were you doing walking around barefoot anyway? I know it's hot but nobody wants to see your feet you dirty hippy! Act like an adult and start thinking about life insurance. When are you going to get your life together?

Liver flukes- although "liver fluke" sounds like an accident that happens at the butcher shop, it is actually a hermaphroditic flatworm that likes to live in your gallbladder or liver. I guess if I lived in someone's liver being a hermaphrodite would probably come in handy since it's dark and you're all alone but it's better than being trapped in a loveless marriage! 

Meal worms- Mealworms are for fishing and are smaller than nightcrawlers but don't tell them that because it hurts their feelings. They're not parasitic but they do have a tendency to make squeamish girls squeal and not want to sleep with you anymore after you dangle one in their face.

Ringworm- What the hell's it called ringworm for? It's not a worm, it's a ring-shaped skin irritation that doesn't go with anything you have clean to wear. Remember that Lifetime Original movie where Valierie Bertenelli had ringworm and Tyne Daly was her dermatologist and how throught the shared experience of treating the former's ringworm the two women come to understand that the most important things in life are the things that can't be bought and how friends and family are more important than a successful career? I found it far more life-affirming than the one where Meredith Baxter was an anorexic battered wife.

Heartworms- usually only dogs get heartworms so if you have them you're probably a dog. Would you like for me to rub your belly? Oh, you're not a dog? Then why are you licking your own scrotum? Waiter, please make this gentleman leave!

Gravy worms- gravy worms are a particularly insidious parasitic pest often found in KFC's pre-mix gravy that they mix with the mashed potatoes without you asking them to because they just assume you wanted gravy. Well, maybe I didn't want any gravy, did that ever occur to you? If I want gravy on my mashed potatoes I'll ask for a container of gravy and put it on myself, thank you. Okay, I admit I made up gravy worms but I had to get my message about unwanted gravy out there and this seemed like the most effective outlet. Give me a break, it's been a tough week.   

12:44 PM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

you might be an emo kid if...

You might be an emo kid if...

Letting people know what bands you like is more important to you than seeing out the rear window of your car.

You're envious of your grandfather's eyeglasses and your sister's blue jeans.

You have an extra ipod that is only for songs you listen to ironically.

When you were in college selecting a major was almost, but not quite, as important as finding a band that was looking for a new bass player.

Your idea of a healthy relationship is frequently having beers with a girl you like so she can tell you all about her boyfriend.

You named your band after a book you never read.

You once wore Chucks to a funeral.

You bought the complete Elliott Smith Knife Set off of a late night infomercial ("they slice!, they dice!, but mainly they stab!").

You take a new band more seriously if their name begins with 'the'.

You plan on having "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" played in its entirety at your wedding reception.

You consider a clean restroom at a club a sign of pretentiousness.

You stopped going to the record store because the guy behind the counter actually smiled and wished you a nice day.

You wish Modest Mouse was as modest as they used to be.

You're surprised that the tie-with-denim-jacket look didn't catch on ages ago. 

You liked "Garden State" when you saw it but later realized that, darn it, that movie was just too popular to be that all great.

You once got into a fist fight over whether "Pablo Honey" or "Kid A" was the better album.   

You got fired from the coffee shop because you didn't have enough piercings.

You think Generation Xers just weren't disaffected enough.

2:15 PM - 11 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

I just blogged all over my pants!

So yesterday Linda just started puking all over everything. I said "Linda, whats wrong with you?," and she got mad because she thought I was blaming her for being sick and then it all turned into an argument about the way I use commas (I think they are just as grammatically important in verbal communication as they are on the printed page but she disagrees).  I guess I need to be careful about my voice modulation; apparently when I'm trying to portray a sympathetic tone it comes out as indignation, just like when I try to mock a Trinidadian I end up instead sounding like Henry Kissinger (and vice versa). I can control the volume of my voice but not my tone.  This isn't the first time its gotten me into trouble; I lost my job at the dairy because they said I didn't say the phrase "cottage cheese" with the right amount of conviction.    

It turns out that Lindas throwing up wasnt due to any illness but its her natural defense, analogous to how a skunk sprays stink out of it's anus or how some bugs just taste bad so animals remember not to eat them again. Or at least thats what her boss told me.  He's probably lying though. He's lied to me before. One time he tried to convince me that I worked for him and even forged my signature on a W-4 or something to try to prove it. I didn't know why he'd want me to work there because I barely understand how legos work, much less how to work the zoo's artificial insemination apparatus (well, since they have more than one I guess it would be apparati).  I found out from Linda that it was all a prank motivated by his wish to see me make a mistake and end up with wildebeest semen all over me.  Well, there's no way I'm gonna let that happen to me again. The guy barely even knows me but he went to great lengths to humiliate me!  What kind of person would do that?  Apparently the kind who giggles like a little girl every time he hears the word 'nougat,' that's who.  

Anyway, me and Linda need to have a long talk, with or without proper punctuation (I'm willing to compromise). If she feels threatened enough to vomit all over my stuff then there must be something going on that I don't know about.  If she's scared of the kitchen door I'll just say "look, it hit you in the nose once but that was an isolated event and it's just an inanimate object, incapable of malice toward you or anyone else" (we're talking about a woman who once had to be convinced that her fork wasn't coming on to her). If it's me that she's afraid of, then I'll take the clown mask off, I dont mind. But she needs to tell me what's up or, as Oprah says, "share her feelings." Otherwise, I'm backing out of our agreement that she could be in the front of the two-person zebra outfit at the next costume party (there's a lot of costume parties around here for some reason; it's like living in a mostly heterosexual version of Fire Island).  If she's gonna keep up this random vomit thing it's only fair.       

3:08 PM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment