Committing suicide in an alternate fashion.

By working myself to death!

Been up to my eyeballs in budgets this week for the day job. Am going crazy. My Boss is going crazier. And between the two of us there is no place in the department safe from our menacing glares and scathing reminders about cash flows.

And each day I leave work and head home to…work. Awesome! Residents are pushy and demanding (as always) but this month it’s particularly grating. Am realizing that once I hire a new administrative caretaker for down the lane, I will have the ridiculous and time-consuming task of preparing and training that new caretaker. Why? Because the previous caretaker was a whining, under-motivated fucktard, and the property manager (yes, my boss) is a useless git most of the time. This is not encouraging.

Absolutely MUST go to Mamichan’s Champagne and Craft Night tonight. Large amounts of champagne and cross-stitching may be just what this situation requires. And on Friday afternoon, come Hell or high-fucking-water, I will be with my girl Kim at Sweeney Todd’s putting in some hair time. I used to abhor that whole gossip-at-the-salon thing. I totally live for it now. But only with Kim. (And there’s nothing quite so appealing to my vanity in the way I can proclaim that I have a stylist. Kim. MY stylist.)

Fuck. I have to get back to work.

101 Alternatives to Suicide

Didn’t go to work today. It’s days like these that I appreciate my boss for her discerning judgment when it comes to sick days. Throwing up your guts? Sick day. Mental exhaustion? Sick day. Crazy thoughts clawing at the inside of your skull? Very sick day.

Today was a sick day.

I cuddled up with Kate Bornstein’s latest book, Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws. Here are some of my favorite alternatives:

#12: Send out a distress signal
#17: Make a deal with the Devil
#22: Moisturize (Kate writes: “Just do it. I’m so not kidding about this one.”)
#27: Give ‘em the old Razzle-Dazzle
#38: Cast a spell
#46: Find the love of your life
#49: Find a God who believes in you
#52: Become a more frightening monster than the one they think you are
#66: Go stealth
#72: Give up nouns for a day
#77: Flirt with Death
#83: Plead insanity
#91: Believe in your own paradox

Today I made very good use of #62: Stay in bed.

I admire this book very much, and Kate Bornstein is incredibly cool and grounded. Every alternative in the book is something she herself has used to keep herself alive for another day, even the hard stuff like drugs, cutting, and starving herself. Kate lays out just one ground rule: Don’t be mean.

I can live with that.

It’s like, Whoa.

Yesterday was a madhouse. The schedule went something like this:

930am-130pm: administrative caretaker interviews
2-4pm: The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes film directed by the Quay Brothers was showing at the Walker. Went with friend, Masami. Another co-worker described the film as a really beautiful Tool video. True enough. Check it out the video for “Stinkfist”:

430-530pm: administrative caretaker interview
530pm: Take Kiba out for a walk. Have just enough time to take a breath, call a friend to say hello.
630-730pm: administrative caretaker interview

By 8pm I was running on the adrenaline of the day; too wired to lay down and pass out. Time to call friends in Iowa and see how the world is treating them.

8pm: Called Abby in Des Moines. Got the low down on her recent transfer to another Best Buy store, and tuned in for Abby’s most recent super-bad math joke (Abby likes to do calculus for fun. Yes, for f.u.n.)

Q: What do you call a parrot who runs away from home?
A: A Polygon!

9:30pm: Called Lisa in Cedar Rapids. Got the low down on the goings on at the photo lab she and I once worked in together. Caught up on all the eastern Iowa gossip. I hadn’t talked to Lisa for a few weeks so I had to fill her in on all things 2007 including my homeless family, my shopping spree at The Electric Fetus, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean at the Walker and all the cool happenstance around that event. After relating all this information in a solid 30-minute bout of conversation, Lisa gave me her trademarked response:

“It’s like, Whoa.”

Totally couldn’t have said it better myself.

Fat Fridays: Fat Flickr

Some fun to keep you busy on a fat Friday over at Flickr:

Fatshionista: Fabulous fat girl fashion and size acceptance community.

Fat Chicks with Guns: This is too good NOT to include. Hilarious! Totally wouldn’t surprise me if some of these women were distant Idaho relatives.

Fatacadabra: It’s harder than you might think to find a fat positive photo pool without the porn/objectification angle. Here you go…

The body positive still subject to same lame shit.

This is ridiculous. Ridiculous to the point of redonkulous. The AP posted an article about a recent study showing “Blacks, Hispanics Have ‘Misperception’ of Healthy Weight.”

A study by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School, has found that overweight Blacks are two to three times more likely than heavy Whites to say they are of average weight even after being diagnosed as overweight or obese by their doctors.

Weight “misperception” was most common among Black men and women, and also was found among Hispanic men (but not women) compared to Whites. The findings appear in the current online issue of the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

So, resisting the predominantly accepted picture of what health looks like (thin), those fat folks are really just suffering from ‘misperceptions’? If that’s the case, then I’m hoping that this misperception gets spread around a little. There are certainly days when I could use some misperception.

And what about the vaguely racist undertone? That Blacks and Hispanics think they are of average weight, but don’t realize what grave risks they are running….unlike those smarty-pants Whiteys who, what, get it?

This study manages to imply a really great and encouraging trend in body perception (it’s still out there, afterall, that’s gotta be good news, rigth?) and undercuts it with the same tired line about obesity.

Do it for greyhounds everywhere, won’t you?

Working in the apartment industry, I’m also in the know for events going on in the First Precinct of Minneapolis, and I get little e-mail posts about the various neighborhood committees in Loring. But this is the first I’ve heard about an off-leash area for dogs in Loring Park!

The MPRB Planning Committee, in a special meeting on Wednesday, Jan 17th @ approximately 6:15 p.m. will meet to take action to move to the full board (on February 7th) the approval of the dog off leash exercise area in the northwest corner of Loring Park and approve the 10 year operational agreement with Dog Grounds, Inc. for the construction and ongoing maintenance of the amenity.

A total of 10 Minutes has been allocated for the presentation and questions from the Board members. Your attendance and participation is requested and needed!

Call me if you have any questions.

Doug Kress, Council Aide
City of Minneapolis, Ward 7
Council Member Lisa Goodman
350 S 5th St. Rm 307
Minneapolis, MN 55415
612.673-2207 - general
612.673-3195 - direct
doug.kress@ci.minneapolis.mn.us

The meeting is tonight but my week is already booked to overflowing. If you can find it in your heart to attend and sing the praises of an off-leash area for dogs to the MPRB (Minneapolis Park & Rec Board), I would give you my undying devotion. Besides, look at this:

Have you ever seen a dog more in need of an off-leash area in the neighborhood?

Weekend Whirlwind.

The past few days have been a bit of a blur, and now that I’m coming down from the afterglow I finally have the attention span to write about it.

Thursday: The Walker Art Center brought Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean in for an artist talk. And I got to meet them. Yes, that Neil Gaiman and that Dave McKean. I embarrassed myself appropriately in all my fangirlishness.

Friday: An e-mail arrived from a mystery guy who was at the Neil Gaiman event and recognized me. He laid out all the details of trying to remember how he knew me and then revealed the connection: I showed him an apartment last year. It was alternately funny and charming. I spent the rest of the weekend corresponding with him via e-mail.

Saturday: Two of my residents recently divorced and decided that rather than move out of the building, they would each take separate studios. I was supposed to be on hand to help with the negotiations. However, when I arrived the situation evolved into a whole ‘nother kind of crisis (read: mess). Without going in to all the details, I’ll leave you with these keywords and let you come up with a narrative on your own: FBI. Canadian stalker. Private Investigator. Prominent Egyptian family. (Now take it and run with it!)

Sunday: Shopping! I headed over to The Electric Fetus with a gift card I received over the holidays. I had no idea what the balance was, but I figured it would be enough to treat myself to a used CD. Then the clerk told me the balance: $50. It was one of those moments where you stand and blink for a few seconds while you think of what to say next. I resisted the urge to ask the clerk to double-check that and went straight to the shopping. I haven’t gotten to spend that kind of money on music in a while (whee!), and then I went home and wrote up a proper thank you note on proper stationery for the friend who had given me the card. The e-card I sent weeks before suddenly seemed woefully insufficient.

Monday: Snow shovelling. I’m pretty sure this is how I spent the last federal holiday. I cried my way through the series finale of The West Wing. Then I spent the best three hours of 2007 thus far at a coffee shop with the former-potential-resident guy (see Friday) discussing design, comics, fictional autobiographies, and the finer points of zymurgy and the bass clarinet. Awesome.

Russian Mail-Order Fat Girl

Too Fat For Fashion got the scoop on the recent Russian edition of Harper’s Bazaar: the cover model is none other than Crystal Renn, a regular on the Lane Bryant scene. Check out the post for other great shots of Crystal. Sassy!

TFFF also brings up a good point: the thin girl featured in the photos with Renn is not presented as a point for comparison, to remind us how much bigger Renn is than the thinner model. She’s just there. I’m for that.

Slug Abed.

Kiba was a being a brat last night. At 2:30am I woke up to hear her shuffling around the apartment, whining, scooting some toys around, and then more whining. I invited her up on the bed. She jumped up, slurped me across the face, and then jumped down.

Bad sign. When she doesn’t settle down and cuddle back to sleep, my mommy sense gets all tingly because when Kiba can’t settle down and sleep it usually means only one thing: diarrhea. And that means trips out into the freezing cold in the middle of the night. Joy.

She went back out to the living room and was quiet for about 10 more minutes. Then more whining. Then I started whining as I got out of bed, piled on the winter coats for both her and me, and took her outside where she….did absolutely nothing. No diarrhea. Nothing! Well, I shouldn’t say that. There was some sniffing. Some dawdling. Some rabbit-watching at the elementary school yard. Oh, and some freezing of asses.

I was a mad momma. I got her back into the apartment and gave her a scathing look as I got her winter coat off. I jumped back into bed and tried to fall asleep to the sound of more dog pacing. Then it was play time and she picked up her favorite giraffe squeaky toy and started tossing it around the room. Then I heard this rhythmic squeaking: squeeek, squeeek, squeee–eee–eee—eee—eeek. It’s what I imagine pregnant squeaky toys must sound like in lamaze class. This went on for 5 minutes, but felt like 50.

Around 5:00 am Kiba let me go back to sleep. I was not happy to hear the alarm go off at 7:15am. I hit the snooze button three times before I finally drug myself out of bed, tired and crabby. And what do I see when I look down?

And then a little stretch to get more comfy:

The nerve!

A little romance on the dark side.

Dear Neighbor:

You don’t know me, but I’ve noticed your rockin’ dark gray Dodge Magnum on more than one occasion. Last night the license plate caught my eye: vampyre.

I think we’re meant to be together.

Hot Topic-ly Yours,
Morgan