Today, the smell of coffee made me want to shit, and I did.
Also, once I had half a cup of coffee, I needed to shit again, and I did. It was brown and just squirted the fuck out of me, and you could hear it like a small high pressure hose hitting the toilet water, though there was minimal splashback, as I could see from the fairly clean inner rim afterwards.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Some drunks.
So, on Saturday night I ran into my one friend and her one Belgian friend at the local student bar, and already when I was arrived they were both pretty wasted, and after my one friend left, her one Belgian friend ordered another beer, and somehow we started talking about abortion and he mentioned how he hated people and said to prove him wrong that people are worth something, so I asked him if he watched Buffy - there's this great character arc in the 7th season where an inhuman character realizes she loves humanity after all towards the end of the season -- and all of a sudden he started challenging me to give him a line from any of the songs of the Buffy musical and he would complete the lyric.
"Fine, I was like," and I started to sing kind of quietly,
"'night after the night/
the same arrangement/
i go out and fight the fight...'"
to which he immediately responded by singing much more loudly,
"still I always feel the same estrangement/
nothing here is real/
nothing here is right..."
After this we tried for forever to remember lyrics from other songs, and he confessed that his wife loves it when he sings "Rest in Peace" to her since he's this foreign export with an accent when he speaks English, and that after he does that, they usually sing that one song with a mini Buffy-Spike duet and then have lots of sex.
"Fine, I was like," and I started to sing kind of quietly,
"'night after the night/
the same arrangement/
i go out and fight the fight...'"
to which he immediately responded by singing much more loudly,
"still I always feel the same estrangement/
nothing here is real/
nothing here is right..."
After this we tried for forever to remember lyrics from other songs, and he confessed that his wife loves it when he sings "Rest in Peace" to her since he's this foreign export with an accent when he speaks English, and that after he does that, they usually sing that one song with a mini Buffy-Spike duet and then have lots of sex.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Saturday/Sunday canvassing.
I went canvassing for Obama on Saturday and Sunday too. I worked a lot, and it was relatively uneventful except for --
There was this one dignified-looking older black woman who would man the volunteer center at this one canvassing staging area - she was retired from some professional job and lived a couple blocks over, so would stroll over and work every day all day - and the second day I was canvassing, she was sitting there in a black pantsuit and wearing gold earrings and with carefully-coiffed hair, and in her tasteful black purse on the table, her cell phone went off, and her ringtone was "What's Going On".
When I was in this one black neighborhood in Gary, there was this young high school kid working out in the yard, and when I walked up to him and introduced myself and he was about to go get his parents, the ice cream truck started going by, so I first asked him to wait till I ran and got some ice cream, and then I had a second thought and took him along to get ice cream, and we were standing there eating sandwiches when his parents dashed out of the house to buy ice cream too. After that, we all stood around talking about Gary and about Obama, and they were telling me that the other week when Obama was in Gary to speak, this woman robbed a bank and got away with it, since she had planned to do it when all the police and everyone were tied up at guarding the convention center.
Everyone I met, too, was incredibly pissed at Jeremiah Wright:
1) This one black church organist I canvassed with was a very nice person - he was hoping these two old ladies on the list he knew weren't home, since he hadn't seen them in years and he knew they'd talk his ear off - but he said something to the effect that though Wright was right about shady U.S. involvement in foreign governments, he should have kept quiet after Obama started getting flack.
2) This group of black kids from a local high school who volunteered at the local office to make visibility signs for election day - "Barack the Vote!" - "Mama's for Obama!" - were talking about Wright while we were all coloring and painting, and the one girl was like, "And he even came in to talk to the Clintons after that one scandal, you know, who's that hoochie?, and now they won't even talk to him."
3) This one old asthmatic black lady who was out watering her flowers said that give her a thousand dollars, and she'd go up to Chicago and wring Wright's neck.
There was this one dignified-looking older black woman who would man the volunteer center at this one canvassing staging area - she was retired from some professional job and lived a couple blocks over, so would stroll over and work every day all day - and the second day I was canvassing, she was sitting there in a black pantsuit and wearing gold earrings and with carefully-coiffed hair, and in her tasteful black purse on the table, her cell phone went off, and her ringtone was "What's Going On".
When I was in this one black neighborhood in Gary, there was this young high school kid working out in the yard, and when I walked up to him and introduced myself and he was about to go get his parents, the ice cream truck started going by, so I first asked him to wait till I ran and got some ice cream, and then I had a second thought and took him along to get ice cream, and we were standing there eating sandwiches when his parents dashed out of the house to buy ice cream too. After that, we all stood around talking about Gary and about Obama, and they were telling me that the other week when Obama was in Gary to speak, this woman robbed a bank and got away with it, since she had planned to do it when all the police and everyone were tied up at guarding the convention center.
Everyone I met, too, was incredibly pissed at Jeremiah Wright:
1) This one black church organist I canvassed with was a very nice person - he was hoping these two old ladies on the list he knew weren't home, since he hadn't seen them in years and he knew they'd talk his ear off - but he said something to the effect that though Wright was right about shady U.S. involvement in foreign governments, he should have kept quiet after Obama started getting flack.
2) This group of black kids from a local high school who volunteered at the local office to make visibility signs for election day - "Barack the Vote!" - "Mama's for Obama!" - were talking about Wright while we were all coloring and painting, and the one girl was like, "And he even came in to talk to the Clintons after that one scandal, you know, who's that hoochie?, and now they won't even talk to him."
3) This one old asthmatic black lady who was out watering her flowers said that give her a thousand dollars, and she'd go up to Chicago and wring Wright's neck.
Addendum on canvassing last time.
Forgot from last time -
Me and the one girl from my apartment building met this 80-some year old black woman who was originally born in our neighborhood but was down in Indiana volunteering, and when we found that out and asked her where she lived, she asked me where I lived, and I told her the intersection, and then when she turned to the one girl from my apartment building, she said the same, and it was only later when someone asked us how long we had been together that we realized that people thought that we were married.
Also, after one stretch of canvassing, it had just started to rain, so we ducked into a McDonald's to call people to tell them to pick us up, and while the one girl from my apartment building was doing that, I went to go get a hamburger and frieds.
"You want a double cheesburger for a dollar more?", this really fat and really black black woman at the counter asked.
"No," I was like, "I'm trying to lose this for summer," and I grabbed this hunk of fat around my belly and shook it at her.
"Aren't we all, aren't we all," she said, grabbing this huge hunk of fat around her belly and shaking it at me, and then she was like, "Only, you had to pull to show, and I didn't, so don't you be saying nothing to me."
Me and the one girl from my apartment building met this 80-some year old black woman who was originally born in our neighborhood but was down in Indiana volunteering, and when we found that out and asked her where she lived, she asked me where I lived, and I told her the intersection, and then when she turned to the one girl from my apartment building, she said the same, and it was only later when someone asked us how long we had been together that we realized that people thought that we were married.
Also, after one stretch of canvassing, it had just started to rain, so we ducked into a McDonald's to call people to tell them to pick us up, and while the one girl from my apartment building was doing that, I went to go get a hamburger and frieds.
"You want a double cheesburger for a dollar more?", this really fat and really black black woman at the counter asked.
"No," I was like, "I'm trying to lose this for summer," and I grabbed this hunk of fat around my belly and shook it at her.
"Aren't we all, aren't we all," she said, grabbing this huge hunk of fat around her belly and shaking it at me, and then she was like, "Only, you had to pull to show, and I didn't, so don't you be saying nothing to me."
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Canvassed for Obama today.
I canvassed for Obama today in northwest Indiana, and got mostly black neighborhoods to canvass.
Walking into the campaign headquarters, we were all greeted by all these other volunteers already there, a lot of them good-looking middle-aged black women. One asked me and a couple people I went with where we were from, and right after I was like, "...but I'm originally from Michigan," she was like, "Where, I love Michigan!", and then when I said the northern lower peninsula, she was like, "I love the vineyards there, I've taken a lot of vacations there. But, then again, I'm a slush."
The campaign was very organized - packets divided into odd/even sides of the street so teams could go out and quickly go door-to-door, and when early voting information changed (a county courthouse that was an early voting site had electricity problems in the morning from severe storms the previous night), the office managers made sure that the extended voting hours got distributed immediately to canvassers.
The campaign also had a lot of donated food, and a black guy grilling up burgers and chicken for everyone, who was 2/3 black. It was almost like a big black family barbecue.
In terms of canvassing, in one lower income mixed black-white neighborhood where almost no one was home, the girl from my apartment building I was canvassing with got this fifty-some year old white guy in dirty jeans and a dirty black t-shirt and a graying pony tail pulled back under a black baseball cap. Huge amounts of pot smoke just rolled out the door when it was opened, and, as it turned out, the guy was an Obama supporter, though he wouldn't early vote that day since he was in no shape to drive.
At another house in another neighborhood, that one a little more well-off and a little more black, the girl from my apartment building I was canvassing came up to one door at the same time as three young black guys, so she asked them and the guy who opened the door about Obama, and the guy at the door and one of the three young black guys who came up to the door with her were Obama supporters and said they had already voted, though two of the three young black guys who came up to the door with her said they didn't vote. Anyhow, as soon as she started going down the walk, she said the three young black guys started hitting the other guy and were like, "Where's the fucking pot, you motherfucker!?!!??!"
Walking between streets along a main road, too, I passed a strip of businesses that included a black barber shop that was filled with guys, so I popped in to see if they all knew about early voting. They hadn't, and one guy who was getting his haircut gave me a power-fist farewell on my way out.
In terms of general canvassing, I felt weird just assuming black people were all for Obama, so I after I asked if people had given any though to who they might be voting for in the primaries - I don't ask them straightaway who they support, since that's very definitive and doesn't provide any opportunity for conversation -- I would be like, "So, who are you leaning towards now?", and most black people would be like, "Obama!" or something like that. One older black woman, though, was for Clinton, so I'm glad I said everything like I did for every voter I came across, so I didn't come across to her like some stereotyping dick who assumes every black person votes Obama.
Later, back at the canvassing office, three older black women were sitting at a table and I overheard them talking about how they didn't know who Hilary was until this campaign got going. "And Bill showed his colors too," one said, and to that the second was like, "Hello," and the third just nodded and was like, "mmm-hmmmm."
Walking into the campaign headquarters, we were all greeted by all these other volunteers already there, a lot of them good-looking middle-aged black women. One asked me and a couple people I went with where we were from, and right after I was like, "...but I'm originally from Michigan," she was like, "Where, I love Michigan!", and then when I said the northern lower peninsula, she was like, "I love the vineyards there, I've taken a lot of vacations there. But, then again, I'm a slush."
The campaign was very organized - packets divided into odd/even sides of the street so teams could go out and quickly go door-to-door, and when early voting information changed (a county courthouse that was an early voting site had electricity problems in the morning from severe storms the previous night), the office managers made sure that the extended voting hours got distributed immediately to canvassers.
The campaign also had a lot of donated food, and a black guy grilling up burgers and chicken for everyone, who was 2/3 black. It was almost like a big black family barbecue.
In terms of canvassing, in one lower income mixed black-white neighborhood where almost no one was home, the girl from my apartment building I was canvassing with got this fifty-some year old white guy in dirty jeans and a dirty black t-shirt and a graying pony tail pulled back under a black baseball cap. Huge amounts of pot smoke just rolled out the door when it was opened, and, as it turned out, the guy was an Obama supporter, though he wouldn't early vote that day since he was in no shape to drive.
At another house in another neighborhood, that one a little more well-off and a little more black, the girl from my apartment building I was canvassing came up to one door at the same time as three young black guys, so she asked them and the guy who opened the door about Obama, and the guy at the door and one of the three young black guys who came up to the door with her were Obama supporters and said they had already voted, though two of the three young black guys who came up to the door with her said they didn't vote. Anyhow, as soon as she started going down the walk, she said the three young black guys started hitting the other guy and were like, "Where's the fucking pot, you motherfucker!?!!??!"
Walking between streets along a main road, too, I passed a strip of businesses that included a black barber shop that was filled with guys, so I popped in to see if they all knew about early voting. They hadn't, and one guy who was getting his haircut gave me a power-fist farewell on my way out.
In terms of general canvassing, I felt weird just assuming black people were all for Obama, so I after I asked if people had given any though to who they might be voting for in the primaries - I don't ask them straightaway who they support, since that's very definitive and doesn't provide any opportunity for conversation -- I would be like, "So, who are you leaning towards now?", and most black people would be like, "Obama!" or something like that. One older black woman, though, was for Clinton, so I'm glad I said everything like I did for every voter I came across, so I didn't come across to her like some stereotyping dick who assumes every black person votes Obama.
Later, back at the canvassing office, three older black women were sitting at a table and I overheard them talking about how they didn't know who Hilary was until this campaign got going. "And Bill showed his colors too," one said, and to that the second was like, "Hello," and the third just nodded and was like, "mmm-hmmmm."
Friday, May 2, 2008
2 language factoids.
"Curtsy" is related to "court" (so I heard today, haven't had time to check this out).
"Floyd" is the same name as "Lloyd", since Welsh devoices /l/ sometimes, and so when this happened, people heard the devoiced /l/ as an /f/.
(If you put your hand over your throat and say /z/ and /s/, feel how /z/ has your throat vibrate in a way that /s/ doesn't; now say an /l/ and try not to have your throat vibrate like /s/ as opposed to /z/, and if that happens, you'll likely hear the sound as something like an /f/.)
"Floyd" is the same name as "Lloyd", since Welsh devoices /l/ sometimes, and so when this happened, people heard the devoiced /l/ as an /f/.
(If you put your hand over your throat and say /z/ and /s/, feel how /z/ has your throat vibrate in a way that /s/ doesn't; now say an /l/ and try not to have your throat vibrate like /s/ as opposed to /z/, and if that happens, you'll likely hear the sound as something like an /f/.)
Apartment building.
Yesterday I was cleaning my house, and it was hot out - like 70 outside, and humid - so I was just doing that in my dirty grey wifebeater and my Halloween boxer shorts with candycorn on them, so when it came time to take the trash out, I decided to just go take my trash out to the back of the building in my wifebeater and boxers, since I think my building needs more atmosphere like that.
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