No. 1 Compliment

Previously to today, the best compliment I'd ever gotten:

"She has hips you could do coke off of."

-- Josh W. (describing his then new love interest to his friends)

Perhaps some qualifications are needed here. First of all, those who know me may describe me kindly as "pear shaped," ok? If you don't know what I am talking about here, forget about it, you skinny bitch. Really pear shaped. As in, skeletal collar bones sticking out, little waist and...uh, really wide hips.

Second, he was describing this to his fratboy friends. See where I'm going here? The fratboys I have encountered have only dated size 6 girls at the very largest. And there he is, a fratboy, telling other fratboys that this girl had curvy hips - indulgent, sinful hips. (side note: I don't care for fratboys in general - I find that the fratboy mind-set and my own are mutually exclusive. Josh was the rebel boy in the frat, if you will, dating gentiles with hips and so forth. I do like a rebel...)

Consequently, Josh was the lucky recipient of my best taunt:

"Josh, you bastard, I hope your Neon falls to pieces."

Ahhh, he inspired such passion.

So Josh, you've been replaced. The compliment holding no.1 for over 6 years has fallen. Fallen to:

"You aren't a mild person in the least. Your personality is chili-pepper spicy, Momma-sita."

Great, no? Who wants to be mild, everyday vanilla? God, what a boring fate. It's nice to be assured that you aren't just a passionless, lukewarm, mediocre nobody. I would rather be a terrible nobody who raises hell than a pretty good nobody citizen. It's not that I want to be famous or remembered - I just don't want to go through life without making a wake.

Josh W., if you ever happen to see this, you asshole, and you know who you are, send me a line. I hope you've made it, and I'd love to hear what you're up to.

Hoard Your Contraband

I ate the last diet pill I'd been hoarding for months today.

Ephedra - lovely stuff. I started using it in college. I'd take one 15 minutes before I would have to wake up, hit the snooze, and go back to sleep. By the time the alarm went off again, I was so charged I had no trouble getting up and trotting off to class. Necessary for 16 to 19 hour days, months on end.

Because some people have used ephedra irresponsibly, it's now illegal for purchase in the US.

Ok, people died.

People die drinking alcohol. People die smoking, right? People die eating fast food. Congress doesn't get their panties all twisted up about alcohol, cigarettes or whoppers do they? I'm so pissed! Just give me back my diet pills!

So, I ate the last hoarded diet pill and figured I'd have to order some online and have it shipped. (you will not thwart me damn it) And I found, get this, the only site selling them is a site that also ships psychedelic mushrooms to your door. They only take euros, and send it to you in a nondescript brown package. Believe me, I'm considering it.

I'm thinking I should become a bootlegger. I'll smuggle in the best ephedra pills from Canada and sell them to collage kids, weight lifting fanatics and middle class mothers. I could do it on the weekend. What did they say in business school? Find a need and fill it?

Looks like I'll be taking a trip to Canada shortly to buy my contraband.

Your mind is a palace.

You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else, but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought  a house that needed furniture, would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace. --Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes

Mmmm. Frank McCourt. The author that describes eating a boiled egg in such deliciously beautiful terms, I was mad for boiled eggs for six months. Damn you Frank. I was a reformed vegan and you broke me. You broke me.


Did I mention I have a weakness for writers?

The first page of a diary...

A very good friend of mine never puts a mark on the first page of her journals. It's too much pressure - the first page is going to define the following pages, set a standard. It wouldn't due to have sloppy penmanship, a misspelled word, or not to mention a poem that you'd find so ridiculous in six months that you'd just want to burn the whole thing.

So she skips the first page.