Procrastinet

Guest KVETCH!

Since my brain seems to have gone completely offline - at least for online purposes, HA! - for the moment, I've solicited a guest entry from Twin C, of the Polenblog. Their site is down for the moment, and C had some Kvetchery to get off his chest, so I've thrown open the doors of Procrastinet to him. Enjoy!

As for me, I've got an absurdly busy month ahead so posting may continue to be sparse. But don't give up on me and I won't give up on you. Deal? Deal!

Welcome Twin C!

I was in Alabama this past weekend, and flew back on Sunday afternoon. Two things annoyed the shit out of me - first of all, since when are you allowed to put full sized suitcases in the overhead compartments of airplanes? Isn't that why they have a bag check? When I bring my small carry-on bag onto a plane, I don't want to take five minutes looking for a space to put it, annoying everyone around me who's trying to sit down, because a bunch of dumb fuckers' elephant sized bags are taking up all the compartments! Check that shit like you're supposed to!

Also, when getting off the plane, if you're in the back of the plane, unless you are giving birth or bleeding to death, SIT YOUR ASS DOWN AND WAIT YOUR TURN TO GET OFF!!!! Don't cut in front of me and the ten rows in front of you!!! If you wanted to get off the plane faster, you should have chosen a seat closer to the front, like I did. Now sit your rude ass down and get out of my and everyone else's way and wait your turn!!!!!

Also, the girl in the cube across from me is asleep, and snoring. I'm really annoyed, but I actually think that I'm just jealous.

I Have Lost Poor Polpetta

I'm beginning to realize E-Fren's job may be even more boring than mine. Says she: "You continue to inspire me to reach even greater levels of procrastination." She's taken my babelfish poetry idea and run with it, providing us these small gems:

1. Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you? (English-Dutch/Dutch-French/French-German/German-English)

The stuten eat oats and eat oats and eat the small lambs not also klimop kid'll klimop you eat?

2. On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed. (English-Italian/Italian-French/French-Greek/Greek-English)

In the top in spaghetti from entire that is covered the cheese, I have lost poor polpetta my while partial it has fternjstej'.

3. Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider who sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet Away. (Very simply from English to Japanese and back again.)

Muffet which sits down in tuffet it is small, her card and the milk it will do you eat. Paralleling, Muffet which calls also the ? on her side which comes, surprises.

4. Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew. Or that the everlasting had not fixed it's cannon 'gainst self slaughter. (English-Portugese/Portugese-French/French-German/German-English)

Oh, which continues this meat, would melt for thaw and in a rope would decide cleanly. Or that everlasting had not repaired, it is meeting cannon at self self more slaughter.

5. When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planet and love will rule the stars. (English-Korean/Korean-English/English-Dutch/Dutch-French/French-German/German-English)

The month is at a sieved household, and Jupiter freezing of anger the that, which confirmed by the time peace the planet leads, if and the love will prevail the star.

Meanwhile, my computer is having one of those days where even with nothing running the Task Manager says the CPU is at 78% capacity - so something on my system is seriously borked. Which is sad because there's actually quite a bit to post today, including a brand newly minted Despatcher writing in from Santiago, Chile. Stay tuned.

Frenicatures: Robert Blake

With Jacko and Peterson under her belt, here is La Freni's rendition of alleged wife-non-murderer Robert Blake:

(click for full size)

Look out, E, you're on the verge of turning this into an art.

EVEN MORE Amateur Court Sketchiness

Inspired by her dramatic success with rendering the Peterson verdict, Edith checks in with her unique take on Jacko.

(click for full size)

I've told Edith that if she keeps this up she'll rate a category of her own. So depending on her motivation level, keep your eyes peeled for more "Frenicatures."

More Amateur Court Sketchery

I'm thrilled that Friend O'Procrastinet "E-Z" Edith Freni (before you get any ideas, it's a BOXING name, guys...) has been inspired to submit her own stab at court sketch artistry. It's better than mine, and WAY better than the "official" one I found on CNN.

(click for full size)

If you feel like getting down on this action, please feel free to submit further Peterson renderings (or Jackson, or OJ Simpson, or even random portraiture - whatever, we're e-z!) via email.

In the meantime, you can check out the website of original offender Vicki Behringer, whose "reputation as a top courtroom artist is well deserved" - and if her own website says it, it has to be true! Despite, you know, the minor detail that her paintings don't look a damn thing like the people involved.

She does have some paintings of dogs in her "Fine Art" section which, while not really to my tastes, are pretty good. Anyway, I have trouble making fun of someone who openly declares "There is magic everywhere and it is my intention to share some of that colorful enchantment with others."

ProcrastiWife Speaks!

Reality TV has brought Lisa, my dear ProcrastiWife, off of the sidelines:

I just watched an episode of the Starlet (I really shouldn't have this much time alone) and it was so unbelievably humiliating and exploitative, honestly, I was riveted with horror.

First, it's a reality show about freaking STARLETS -- the judges frequently say "The Starlet... is such and such" and "to be The Starlet you have to... blah blah blah" as if being Tiffani Amber Thiessen is the ultimate in cultural significance, the Kofi Annan of the WB. I'm sure Tiff is still seeing some checks for Saved By the Bell, and that 7 cents per airing is a lot more money than I got from my acting career, but still.

Second, while I've never experienced anything that bad myself (though that nasty little twit at Actors Connection who asked at the end of my monologue "do you have anything else?" and then said, after I told him that I did, "Oh, I don't want to see it, I just wanted to make sure you HAD ONE" -- he can go straight to hell with my $30), I can imagine how they treat the girls is pretty much how it's done sometimes, and that makes me sad (but happy for me for getting out of that perverse racket, hooray!).

The judges (Vivica Fox, Faye Dunaway and a nasty little bitch of a casting director who has actually cast some excellent films) are SO MEAN to the girls' faces, but worst of all, they show them talking about them while they're deciding which two are getting the, literally, "don't call us, we'll call you." Holy shit, some seriously awful stuff is said -- Vivica Fox does an impersonation of one of the girls that probably killed her as she watched tonight. Not that Vivica was off base, but if anyone has Vivica's email, please forward her this link to her oeuvre with a kiss-kiss from me! I just don't think that anyone who appeared in Boat Trip should be making fun of anyone else.

It is, however, hilarious when Faye Dunaway tells a girl "it's like there's a veil over her eyes" when Faye Dunaway's face NO LONGER MOVES.

Next week, the girls are doing some commercial in a swimsuit, and Vivica tells one of the girls "You hear that? That's the gym calling."

Someone, please stop me from watching it.

PS: did I mention that this week's episode featured the girls doing a lesbian kissing scene in a hot tub? You wished you watched it now, don't ya?

Maxblog 2025

John DeVore offers us a glimpse of the probable future:

Max: How old were you when you met Dad?

Uncle Mister DeVore: About your age.

Max: What was Dad like?

Uncle Mister DeVore: He had a goatee.

Max: He still has a goatee.

Uncle Mister DeVore: Stick to a style, kiddo. You'll be fashionable at least 50% of the time over the course of two decades.

Max: Do you smell that?

Uncle Mister DeVore: That's me.

Max: What's that smell?

Uncle Mister DeVore: Bourbon?

Max: No.

Uncle Mister DeVore: Hash?

Max: No.

Uncle Mister DeVore: The mummified corpses of hopes and dreams stuffed into the trunk of a 50 year old man's soul?

Max: Yeah. Smells like socks.

Uncle Mister DeVore: We're born astride the grave, buckaroo.

Max: Uncle Mister DeVore?

Uncle Mister DeVore: Yes, Max.

Max: What's in this brown paper bag?

Uncle Mister DeVore: Secrets, Max. Act cool. You can act cool. Do it.

Max: You're drooling.

Uncle Mister DeVore: Look-keep the engine running. I'll be back. Then I'll teach you a valuable life lesson.

Max: What's that?

Uncle Mister DeVore: No stripper in the history of ever is studying comparative literature at Columbia University. So there's no need to tip her anymore than you have to. And you're never too good to not order well drinks. No matter how much money you make, shelf booze is as good as it needs to be, and there's more of it. Economically speaking. Now give me the bag, and when I shout "Yahtzee," gun the fucking car.

Max: You make me sad.

Another Country Heard From

The announcement of this year's Oscar nominations has sent friend-of-Procrastinet Bob L into a roaring, frothing tizzy, which delighted me so much in email form that I asked his permission to reprint it here, in whole. Thus continues Procrastinet's unofficial Things We're Honked Off at Hollywood About Week:

I know you've waited a long time to hear me say this so here it goes...

...the Oscars suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They know as much about filmmaking as I do about computers... now how do I "send" this to you... oh, sorry.

Anyway, the snubbing of Paul Giamatti (one of our best actors, period.) and the hailing of Sequoias like Clint Eastwood has gone too far. Also, I think Morgan Freeman is one of the best to grace a screen but come on, you don't make up for previous snubs by praising a walk in the park for him... fuck!!! Pardon my languauge... and the language to come.

Anyway, whenever they take a step forward (nominating Sideways for best picture or not being afraid to nominate Don Cheadle or Sophie Okonedo) they take two steps back by giving "long overdue" or "forgive us for our stupidity, but we always thought you were brilliant" nominations by the handful.

Why I'm getting upset, who knows?

Fer Fucksake people, the plane has crashed into the mountain!!!

The Aviator????

BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dick-Caprio (alright that was childish... but so is he!) over Paul Giamatti?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind... not up for Best Picture???

To quote Yukon Cornelius "...this country is as thick as Peanut Butter."

Or to quote Don Cornelius "...and the answer to the Soul Train word scramble is... Peaches and Herb? ...again? ...whos' choosing these fuckin' things?"

So to conclude, as if you didn't know this before: "awards mean nothing... and sadly, everything in this day and age."

I'm going to have that tatooed on my taint. So in case I ever win one of these fuckers I can drop trou and make page six!

Sorry to rant folks but if there are going to be "awards" out there they may as well go to the right people... or at least someone close!!!

Well I suppose I can't have the Red Sox and Patriots win in the same year and expect the masses to be in agreement on such frivilousness as the Oscars or the leader of the free world!?!?!

Well, two out four... is bad!!! Wake up you drones!

"God Bless America...wherever it is?"

Love Bob.

p.s. I may still have an Oscar party at my place...just as a form of cardio.

This announcement was brought to you by a sane person, contrary to popular belief.

I love it when my friends get so mad they use more exclamation points than a ritalin-hopped preteen with unlimited text messages. OMG! LOL! ROFLMAO!!!!!

Anyone interested in attending Bob's Oscar party, drop me a line.

I Write Because If I Don't... Part III

A series of Notes from the Third Shift - purgatorial musings from late night desk worker Agilda Peas. Previously: Part I, Part II.

[Editor's Note: Yeah, so I'm a bit behind in posting these - this one is from the wee small hours of the morning on election night. Election night morning. Whatever. Anyway - the election night angle is a red herring and the real story is pretty darn universal, in a girl-meets-boy kinda way. Unlike prior episodes, this one's a long one, and has a point. Enjoy.]

Time Knows a Thing or Two About Lice

Wednesday November 3rd, 3:30AM

I have to write because if I don’t people will start asking me for things. I’m going to try not to look at the clock. Like when I’m in the ring and I try not to look at the clock counting down from 3 minutes. The best part about that though is that the 30 second bell rings and you know, without having to look, that you have 30 seconds left. Tonight is not so bad though. Maybe it’s because of the elections that the evening has gone by so quickly. I’m not sure. Everyone has been buzzing around wondering aloud about the fate of the states. I know what’s going to happen. Don’t tell anyone.

Now I’m chewing on a lollipop stick. it’s getting kind of gross. I am already bored of this stream of consciousness bullshit. I am tired. I want to go home. My body hurts. I almost had a panic attack this weekend because I was alone in the Lexington staff house and it was kind of horrible. Maybe the night is going by so fast because I still haven’t adjusted to daylight savings.

Questions questions. Fuck me, there’s a story coming through my pores. It’s a sad one. It ends badly.

It was such a bore, the sitting. Staring into the computer screen like one of Romero’s Un-dead. Hour after hour after painful, nearly intolerable hour. “My whole life,” she thought, “My whole life leading up to this moment.” Tick tock tick. Second hands moving like toxic sludge over jagged rocks.

She began to imagine her body lying, half dead and limp on the razor sharp bottom of a dark ravine somewhere. She didn’t know how she had gotten there or what she was wearing or any of the specific types of things you know when recounting a bona fide memory. This wasn’t memory at all it was fantasy. At this particular moment, fantasizing about her half-dead, half-naked body, lying bloody and mangled, alone, at the bottom of a dark chasm somewhere “out there” was more enjoyable than contemplating the reality of her situation trapped inside this taupe labyrinth of fiberboard work stations.

Tick. The reality. Tock. Her situation. Tick tock. HER LIFE. The glare off the computer screen cut through her pupils like an X-acto blade. She barely noticed it any more. She’d been staring at this screen for four hours without blinking once, she thought, although she knew it wasn’t possible. She had blinked once, maybe twice, but so what? That only meant her eyes were getting dried out from all the staring. It didn’t mean she was cognizant. It didn’t mean she had she taken any of it in. It didn’t mean that the material staring back at her was any more than just McDonalds for the mind, cyber junk for a brain so inactive it confused boredom with hunger.

“Lose 18 Pounds In 12 Days!” This registered but she didn’t actually believe a person should lose that much weight in such a short period of time. It was unhealthy and probably involved taking some sort of Ephedra-type herbal supplement that might give her palpitations or worse, lead her to an early grave. “Customized Mascara For YOUR Lashes!” There was a questionnaire and she took it, only to discover that the mascara, which had been “specially” designed for her lashes by this website, was almost identical to the one she bought at her neighborhood drug store. Yes, hers had been massed produced to fit the needs of every Plain Jane consumer whore living on this or probably any other continent, but could lashes really differ that much from person to person? She figured some people had more of them, some people had shorter ones but a lash is a lash is a lash. Right?

The Internet mascara also happened to be $15 plus shipping and, while she did get to customize even the case to suit her fancy (there were three choices, she chose the least offensive: something that resembled Zebra hide), it just didn’t seem worth it. At her drug store down the block, she was charged $3.50 and, on the off chance that she was forced to purchase her item under duress, happened to be mildly intoxicated at the time of purchase, or had simply executed bad color judgment due to poorly positioned fluorescent lighting fixtures, they also allowed for cosmetic returns. “Nope,” she thought. “I’ll pass.”

Bullshit. All of it. The Internet was a time waster, she decided. Even the so-called legitimate online news resources gave her nothing but overly dramatic tag lines and content so lame it seemed to limp across the screen, weeping and sniveling like some sort of manipulative invalid Disney character intent upon making her feel. “Saddam’s Sons On The Run: Their Final Hours!” Apparently, some Special Ops bad-ass had discovered a briefcase lying next to Uday’s (or was it Qusay’s) corpse in the bathroom where they had finally fallen. She couldn’t remember everything that was on the laundry list of items they had found inside that briefcase, so she went back to the website where she had read the article and tried to find it again. No dice. All she remembered was that there was some Viagra and two women’s purses inside. “Women’s purses?” she contemplated, wondering what they looked like. Were they designer? Were they knockoffs? The kind of cheap imitation Kate Spade or Luis Vuitton she and her friends had been known to purchase from illegal Bahamanian aliens with shiny black heads, who lurked, shifty and suspicious, behind wobbly folding tables all along 6th avenue; casting furtive glances over boney shoulders, constantly checking to make sure the fuzz wasn’t in hot pursuit. It would be sort of funny, she thought if even with all those billions and billions of dollars between them, Saddam’s evil offspring were still buying the cheap shit for their lady friends. Funny, but not all too surprising in a country that holds women responsible for getting themselves raped, further punishing such “criminal” acts by raping them some more.

On the web page there had been a picture of Qusay (or was it Uday?) dancing with an unknown woman. They barely held hands and stood about four feet away from each other. She was looking down and away from him; his body was contorted to the point that his torso looked severely shrunken and unmanly. He stared at the floor. The woman was not attractive, as far as could be deduced from the picture and he looked less than enthused about having to be there dancing, in front of cameras with this slut he’d much rather be raping and mutilating in semi-private. The article said something about the briefcase items seeming more useful in preparing for “a night of disco dancing” than “a flight from justice.”

Disco dancing, justice, bathroom homicide and bodies riddled with bullets shot from guns fired by US Army Special Operatives. So many things to think about on this otherwise boring night! She settled on “rape,” “justice” and “disco dancing” because any time she thought about “Special Ops,” she thought about him.

She thought about him and the poster he had tacked to the bulletin board directly across from her showing two perfectly adoptable kitties that she could not, would not take. Four months ago she had made him promise that before he sent them off somewhere awful (such as “to death”) he would come to her first. And he had promised that he would. Enough had happened in those four months that he no longer felt comfortable, she figured, coming directly to her for anything. So instead he put up a poster, trying to reach as many people as possible though she knew he wouldn’t be happy dropping those cats in the lap of a perfect stranger.

He seemed so sweet and sensitive on that bus. She should have known better. The bus was filled with about 50 drunken Dominican men who’d have made Mike Tyson seem evolved. Sweet was hardly this boy’s reputation. This boy’s reputation sucked and she had been warned. She had been warned that he was an asshole, a pig even, who had been heard calling his girlfriend a “fat bitch” over the phone while sitting in his cube at work. Saying it so loud that his co-worker in the adjoining cube heard him and felt the need to tell her co-worker who sat out on the floor. Saying it with so much meaning that his co-worker’s co-worker, who felt so passionately about men using the “f” word to modify the “b” word when directly addressing their significant women, decided to pass the info on to her co-worker who sat in the last row by the window and who also happened to be moderately infatuated with him.

“I’m not all bad ass. I’m really sweet and sensitive.” Poke, poke. He gave her a little jab-tickle. Tick tock. That night, time moved too fast. She wanted to get stuck in traffic or maybe a torrential rainstorm and be forced to shack up somewhere for the evening. Didn’t happen. But they did talk a ton, flirt like mad and eventually pass out next to each other. By the time they got off the bus somewhere in the north Bronx, it was 2AM and freezing. It had been one of those beautiful early April days: warm and sunny with a slight breeze coming from the East. At 2PM her outfit was super cute. By 2AM she was terribly under-dressed and shivering, hiding behind a mail-box, attempting to shield herself from the wind. The two other guys who’d gone to Philly with them were pacing, with hands jammed in pockets while they waited for a cab. One of the other ones liked her, she thought, but she didn’t like him. He was loud, a little offensive and had a stupid laugh. “Clueless” is the word most informed women would use. At the time, he also walked with a limp and she had to be honest, the limp was not sexy. Months later, after hip replacement surgery corrected his imperfection, she would start to wonder if he hated her for choosing Mr.Sweet-and-Sensitive over him.

His surgery had kept him out of the office for about eight weeks. When he finally returned to work, he was a good 20 pounds lighter and, of course, missing the characteristic limp that had pretty much defined who he was to her for the two years they had shared an office together. In his absence she and Mr. Sweet-and-Sensitive had gone through all requisite phases of a doomed work romance. By the time he returned, all phases were complete.

She somehow got the notion that, in his thinner, non-gimp state, the Other One was gaining confidence, bravado. He seemed to think himself more a catch. The first day he walked through the office door she waved at him, smiling, and greeted him with a “Welcome back! You look fantastic!” She did mean it. He did look fantastic. He didn’t look so fantastic that she would ever consider fucking him but he looked better than he had that Spring day in Philly. And he was a good guy. Truth be told, he was a Mensch. He had offered her his coat in the arena. He had switched seats with her on the bus ride back because the guy she was stuck sitting next to was snoring so loud she could barely hear herself think. This was the switch that put her right next to Sweet and Sensitive for the remaining 2 hour trip.

She had made fun of the laugh once or twice, yes, but she’d never made fun of the limp. She liked him she just wasn’t attracted to him. She really was happy that his surgery went well and that he had returned relatively unscathed. But she sounded too chipper when she said “Hello,” because she wasn’t really saying hello. And when he returned her Hello, he said it in such a way as to make her wonder, “Does he think I’m regretting it? Is he thinking ‘See, she wants me now cuz I’m thin and I walk like a man. But she can’t have me cuz she already fucked my boy. Stupid bitch’?”

Over the next few weeks she would say hi too him on six or seven different occasions, each time attempting to gauge his subtext. “OK, that time he was totally making a statement about how he can’t be nice to me because I fucked his friend. That’s such bullshit,” or “Is he coming on to me? I think he thinks that’s OK” etcetera. She was incorrect on each occasion. He didn’t give a shit about her. He gave even less of a shit about what had happened between her and his friend. He probably wasn’t even very good friends with his friend. In fact, Sweet-and-Sensitive had told her several times that he thought this guy was a simp. Cool enough but “Jesus, he’s fucking loud!”

And then it hit her: co-workers are just strangers with whom you work. You never know these people and they never know you. Sure, they know the Work You, the you who strolls in on time wearing corporate casual clothing and comfortable, appropriate work shoes. They know the you who makes funny, appropriate work jokes at the coffee pot in the morning and eats lunch in the cafeteria like a friendless high school junior. They know the you who would never curse too loud or send out emails with links to partisan political websites. They know and they see the you that you make available to them. The you that can keep you employed.

And then it all blows up in your face one night at some party where a few of your co-workers converge to drink beer and talk about, what else, work? And when the topic of work becomes all too staid and some ignorant shit with beer in hand says something ignorant like, “My God if we talk about work for more second I’m going to scream! Can somebody PLEASE change the subject?” And someone, most likely the person you happen to be standing next to in a dark corner or over by the window, does. This person might want to talk about the partisan political party they can’t bring up at work or they might want to make an inappropriate joke or, and this is the worst, they might want to talk about the non-work you. The you who drinks excessively and smokes marijuana every night so that her racing thoughts don’t keep her awake. The you who works out five days a week because the thought of getting fat again is a nightmare. The you who hasn’t had sex in nine months, made out with anyone in six. The you who is an actor or a painter or a singer on the side. The you who HATES having to censor herself every time she walks into that building in the morning. The you who boxes.

“That’s right you box too.” He said.

“That’s right, you box. Too. I heard.” She nodded. She was already drunk.

“So come on, give me a little jab cross hook. Come on, tough girl, throw something at me.” He was in fighting stance, ready to spar. She thought she was blushing. She didn’t want to be blushing.

“No no no.” she said, “I don’t want to hurt you.” She faked all seriousness. He laughed. She had never really spoken to him much before that night. They had never had anything to say to each other. That night he said this, “You’re a lot different outside of work.” And that’s pretty much the point of all this. You’re always a lot different outside of work. What do people expect? He turned out to be A LOT different outside of work, outside of his apartment, outside of his clothing. Every time they hung out after that evening he became a slightly different person. At first, putting his best foot forward. Slowly getting sloppier and sloppier, until the whole situation was such a fucking pig-sty she couldn’t see the floor beneath her feet.

There were some high points to that story but for the most part it’s really too boring to retell. It’s been told a hundred times over by countless women all around the world. Girl meets boy, boy seems perfect when he is actually a louse. No girl wants to believe that her perfect boy is a louse so this one deludes herself into believing that he’s simply misunderstood. Boy finally proves to girl (only after bedding her down, of course) that he is, in fact, a louse and girl must suck it up and start from scratch. See? Boring. More boring even than reading about mascara or weight loss or the after-effects of a war fought so that yuppies can continue driving Hummers through the all too treacherous, mountain terrain of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

She loved those cats but she hoped the Army might kill him.

I Write Because If I Don't... Part II

A series of Notes from the Third Shift - purgatorial musings from late night desk worker Agilda Peas. Previously: Part I.

Do We Really Have to Talk about Meat Right Now?

Wednesday October 13th, 3:18AM

I have to write because if I don’t I’ll start trying to remember that song my mother used to sing to me when I felt bad about stuff. The song that made things a little bit better for a short period of time. I kind of wish I remembered what the hell is was. You’d think that something as important as that I would remember but I don’t. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s so fucking late and I’ve been drinking coffee all night. Or maybe it’s the fact that she never sang me a song that made me feel better about things for a short period of time. Well, that’s one for the weep-log.

The little stout one keeps talking to me about blood sausage and cow glands and churrasco and how wonderful this restaurant out on Queens Boulevard is because you can eat all this meat for twenty–eight dollars. And all I’m thinking about as she’s talking is, “Do we really HAVE to talk about meat right now?” I’m not quite in the mood.

I bet the Super-Jew would bleed profusely. If you stuck a poker in her belly.

Editor's Note: Our late-night correspondent, Agilda Peas, will soon begin making more sense. I promise.

Super Bonus Editor's Note: For anyone who was trying to google up some anti-Semitism and landed here based on the unfortunate out-of-context resonances of the last sentence of Agilda's rant - you're in the wrong place. Go elsewhere.

I Write Because If I Don't... Part I

A series of Notes from the Third Shift - purgatorial musings from late night desk worker Agilda Peas.

Part I: This is What the Germans Like to Refer To as Torture

Wednesday October 6th 3:28AM

I have to write because if I don’t write to occupy my mind I will fall asleep and if I fall asleep then I will wake up with my head on my desk at 8 in the morning and my boss will be standing over me wondering what the fuck I’m doing asleep on my desk. I’m trying to not look at the clock. I’m going to see how long I can go not looking at the clock. Like running. Like when I run and I try not to look at the clock on the treadmill. What happens is that I get lost a little so that when I finally do happen upon the clock I am surprised by how much time has actually passed.

If I don’t write, I will eat. And then I will be one of those people who eat when they’re bored or when times get tough and I can’t be that person. There are people in this office who eat non-stop over the course of a twelve-hour shift. There’s the obese Super-Jew licking the lid of her yogurt container, and the obese Nice-Guy unwrapping a candy bar and there’s the skinny Haiitian man who always has the mad snacks. Like tonight, he had a box of cookies on his desk, and a pack of gum and a bag of pistachios. The obese woman also always has a bottle of diet Pepsi. Not a bottle, sorry. Not just like a small bottle but rather a two-liter plastic monstrosity and I always think, “Who does that? Who can just sit around and drink two fucking liters of Pepsi over the course of a twelve hour shift?” How the fuck do you spell Haitian anyway? Oh. That’s how. But why wouldn’t…oh fuck it.

Everyone is coming in now complaining that it’s getting cold outside. I don’t see why they complain. My body really wants to look at that damned clock right now. No Body, Bad Body. You are not a clock-watcher, or a bored eater. You are just a worker.

What the fuck is it about me and clocks? Can God let there be a story now please?

Once, there was a little girl who lived in a plaster box in a big city. She had many animals who brought her things on a daily basis. Bones and shells and food and bumble-bee wings and other assorted goodies. The girl had no parents. Not like they were dead or anything. Rather she just had no parents. She hadn’t been born, she had been hatched maybe. Maybe she had just appeared one time in this plaster box with no explanation. I don’t fucking know.

There was a man, a long time ago. He lived in a tract-house with his wife who was not real. She was an imaginary wife but other people could see her. She was visible to other people but really she didn’t exist anywhere except for in her husband’s mind. He had been so desperate to marry, so desperate to have intercourse with someone he might call his own, that he began fantasizing about meeting the perfect girl. And one day, she appeared on his doorstep. But really he was just dreaming. But he had fantasized so much and he had wished so hard and for such a long time, that when she showed up, she had a physical form. The man greeted his wife with an apron. Ha ha.

Jim and Delilah were in the back seat of his Chevy Malibu on a hot summer night. No dirty, bad dirty. No porn for at least another half an hour.

8 minutes. I wrote all of that in 8 minutes. Doesn’t seem fair does it? No. It doesn’t. And this fucking tray is not anatomically correct. I don’t care what the cute boy from Humanscale said. Sorry. Not the right word. Ergonomically correct. And I can’t type right. And whose fault is that, huh? People keep coming over here and asking me to do shit for them and really I just can’t take it anymore. But what I really can’t take is trying to figure out more stories. No more stories. My head is full of fucking stories all the time.

What else can’t I stand? I can’t stand being unloved.

I’m sick of Loretta flirting with infidelity but not actually doing anything about it. John’s right. All she’s asking for is Todd to step in and show that he still gives a shit. She wants to feel wanted. I’m a liar. I don’t know anyone named Loretta, John or Todd. Actually, that’s a lie. I know several Johns but I wasn’t referring to any of them here. I’m making things up again. Oh and I also wasn’t talking about guys who see prostitutes. I don’t know any guys who see prostitutes. My male friends don’t have to pay for it.

What I REALLY want is to go back to Paris. It’s like a disease. It’s like an ache in my body so deep I want to hurt myself when I feel it. Whatever. I want to be back on those streets, by myself. Alone, just walking. The whole day and then coming home with a baguette and some tomatoes and cheese and sausage and wine. Wine wine wine. Would I get fat in Paris? Am I not cool enough? I kind of feel like I’m not cool enough for Paris. Poetry break.

a bored room in a board room
white walls washed with beige blood in a mirage of self-sanctity
save yourself, make your dough, make bread
butter bread with false hope.
live on the beach like a whale;
dead and bloodied and eaten upon by birds and humans looking for answers.
this is too too deep of a cut for such a shallow listening 7 minutes
Seven minutes and my HAND HURTS SO MUCH AND IT’S NOT EVEN 4:30.

Tandoori was a bitter bitch. People used to tell her that she was hard hearted. Unable to love, unable to care about anything other than herself. This made her cry at night. “If only they knew the real me.” Nobody ever knew the real Tandoori. The Tandoori who talked to herself, the Tandoori who was a desperate romantic, the Tandoori who felt the pain of others, was kind to animals, was always trying to better herself, was terribly afraid of things. The Tandoori who just wanted someone around who made her feel safe. The Tandoori who became fixated on people she hardly even knew because they possessed potential. Ick. Potential. Tandoori thought she was in love with Alex Mac. Is this her diary? Can this be her diary tonight? Fuck me, is this how my thoughts sit in my head? Is this like emotional detox? Is this like a brain cleanse? Like Master Cleanser for the mind?

Ohfucl. this isn’t woking right now, my mnd is goping a little bit. I’m jystn goung ti let my fingers fall where there fall and ifteh fall in the right place then so be it if they don’t’ fuck me. what am ai doing with my life? huh?

I should learn to speack abotuher language.

YES YESYES, it’s almost 4:30. This is what the Germans like to refer to as torture. Oh fucking hell, that’s just great. Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here. No. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. No. Fat. Shit.

Notes from the Third Shift

Procrastinet's founding mission is to help people kill time online. Well, here's a new expedition: get out of your own head and straight into the depths of someone else's as they... kill time.

Introducing "Agilda Peas," a very real person with a very fake name, a Procrastinet correspondent with a third shift desk job who writes to stay awake, writes to stay thin, writes to stay sane...

So when you get bored with your own interior monologue, come dip your toes in hers.

Introducing: I Write Because If I Don't...

Rise of the Moralistas

Another guest post on the aftermath of the election. This one is the view from Boston by David Valdes Greenwood:

Rise of the Moralistas

On election day, while standing for three hours in the cold of Goffstown, New Hampshire, trying to get out the vote for Kerry, I bought a Bush supporter a cup of coffee.

No, actually, I bought an old lady a cup of coffee. At least 70, she reminded me of my late grandmother, a once-formidable woman who eventually shrank into a tiny bundle of wattles and wet eyes. Exhaustion lined the face peeking out from a purple scarf, and the woman's mittened hands nonetheless shook with cold. When she put down her Bush-Cheney sign to try to rub some warmth back into her hands, I couldn't bear it any longer -- I ran across the street and asked her how she liked her coffee. Startled and pleased, she asked for no sugar but lots of milk. And she praised God that I was such a blessing to her.

Therein likes my experience of this election. I really believed that my party, the Democrats, were trying to do the right thing: voting to protect the world as much as protect ourselves. I believed that in electing Kerry we could show that America is not simply aggressive and reactionary and willfully ignorant of human life. And I believed, as I volunteered in three states, that one person makes the difference anywhere that one person is.

What the old lady believed is that all things come from God. I wasn't a good human, doing my part; I was a blessing -- a gift from the same God who was in control of the election. And whatever you think of that notion, there is no denying how motivational it was for millions of Americans to believe that God called them to the polls, to claim their country in a battle upon which rests their afterlife every bit as much as their current life.

When the contest is between notions of the human and the divine -- at this time in our culture, at least -- we lose. The newspapers are reporting that "moral values" was ranked the number one issue in the election. And not lefty, humanist morals, thank you. As local, state, and national outcomes made clear, we're talking Moral Majority morals--deep Amish morals--morals that a priest would feel at home endorsing in the 1950s. This election was the pinnacle of a retrograde revolution that's been building for twenty years, and its partisans -- let's call them the moralistas -- are feeling pretty confident.

What we on the left have to learn is that simply abhorring the moralista mindset is not enough to overcome its power in the polling place. As righteous as we may feel, we will get nowhere moaning that it hardly seems moral to kill thousands of Iraqis to liberate them. The moralistas have an answer: didn't God destroy Sodom in that same neck of the woods, just to make a statement? And if it's good enough for God... (end of argument). There's a version of that answer for just about every claim we make about the alleged morals of those who returned George Bush to office; we only waste our time trying to convince a moralista that he or she is not moral.

I see no easy way to change this tide. But we cannot, as some are already suggesting, suddenly start nominating -- or, ourselves, becoming -- soft moralista knock-offs just to appease. We still have to champion the best of humanity in concrete and uncompromised progressive ideals: the morality of peace, the ethics of choice, the responsibility we have to focus on this world (and not just some celestial one to come).

We may well remain the political minority for a while -- just as the moralistas were for the first thirty years of my lifetime. And, if we take anything from them, it is how their past experience holds a lesson for our future: they did not rise to their power in this election by changing the values they held all along; for years, they put their heads down, dug in their heels, and fought for their values. And now, so must we.

- David Valdes Greenwood, Boston, MA - 11/4/03

Amman, Jordan - 10/24/04: The Sweet Smell of Dead Cat

A continuing series of periodic Procrastinet Despatches from Amman, Jordan. By Nicholas Seeley.

I have been writing less frequently than I had hoped, in part because internet access here is really pretty scarce. There are a few internet cafés, but they are expensive, and often problematic to use. I’ve stopped going to the one near my house, because the owner’s friends keep trying to get me to help them fence black-market goods.

What’s abundant here are dead cats. You can’t go for more than a 10-minute walk anywhere without running across one somewhere. I’m given to understand that in this part of the world, people don’t really keep animals as pets, they’re seen as nuisances. As a result, domesticated cats and dogs become street scavengers, living off garbage and each other.

The cats are ubiquitous; when I get my digital camera working I want to start chronicling them. I haven’t seen any dogs this go around, but I got chased by a pack of wild dogs in this city years ago, and have no desire for a re-peat.

There’s one corpsified kitty in particular that catches my eye, it’s on the road between the house I’m staying at and books@ café, the good-but-really-pricy internet café. Walking anywhere in Amman can be a challenge. The roads here are in pretty good shape – they’re better paved than New York City streets – but they don’t really seem to understand pedestrian traffic. The sidewalks here are often less than two feet wide, and the curbs can be eight inches high or more. So one rotting cat can effectively block off and entire side of the street to foot traffic. The one on the way to books@ was like that for days, just lying splayed on the cobbles. Eventually someone picked him up and tossed him onto a ledge on the side of the road that overlooks the city.

This morning I went down to the café for the papers, then decided to stop a moment and browse through the shelves of history and politics. I expected something like you’d see in a book shop in Cambodia, shelf after shelf of the standard edition histories of the country, guidebooks and travel narratives. Instead, the section was dominated by books with titles like “Regime Unchanged,” “Reaping the Whirlwind,” and “9/11: The Big Lie.” “The Price of Loyalty” was a big favourite. I don’t mean a few, I mean dozens and dozens of titles, lined up for two yards, dissecting every aspect of the Bush administration: its personalities, its policies, its wars. This place isn’t patronized by Bedouin, it’s a hangout for well-educated, upper-middle class Jordanians. And they hate him. They pour out bottles of ink on tons of paper over how much they hate him.

As long as Bush remains president, we have no chance of winning the hearts and minds of anyone over here. It’s just that simple. It doesn’t matter what he does anymore. It doesn’t even matter that he’s wrong. He has made himself a paper tyrant, and the rest of us will suffer the consequences.

The news from Iraq only gets words. I was speaking last night to a friend who just returned from there – the editor of a very slick English-language magazine for Muslim audiences. He described asking a soldier what the situation was like. “Did you see that movie, Black Hawk Down?” the soldier replied. “It’s like that.”

“But,” sez my friend, “I thought it was improving! Sadr just signed that cease-fire, it’s in the news.”

“They don’t listen to Sadr any more,” the soldier replied, “They’ve gone rogue.”

“It’s hell here,” another Iraqi told my friend, “and no one knows about our situation, all that’s on the news is what’s happening in Baghdad.” Just like the international news doesn’t cover the kidnappings of Egyptian and Jordanian truck drivers or Sri Lankan and Philippino migrant workers. There have been dozens.

In America, you see two views of Iraq. According to the liberal media like CNN and CBS, (both, I have it on good authority, owned by a holding company set up by the Students for a Democratic Society and Chairman Mao) the insurgency is bad and growing worse, and the US isn’t maintaining enough order for the institutions of democracy to be rebuilt. According to the fair and balanced folks at Fox and WJFK DC, (and, oddly, the White House press office – who’d imagine they’d agree so completely?) the insurgency is only in a few towns, while most of the country is stable and recovering.

Here’s one more story that my friend got from some kind of military or state department official he spoke to. This official met an Iraqi man who he found shaking and terrified. He said he was a cab driver. A man had gotten into his cab, and offered to pay him a flat fee for three hours work, something not at all unusual. The man wanted to be driven to a number of locations during the day. The cab driver agreed, and his passenger had directed him to a hotel, where they stopped. What was unusual was that the passenger never got out of the cab, he simply waited there, by the hotel. After a long while, he directed the driver to a new location, near a bridge, and they parked at one end, where they again waited for quite a long time. The fare directed the driver to another location, then another, and at each one he sat in the car doing nothing. Finally, the three hours were up, and the driver asked for his money, about 7000 Iraqi dinar. The passenger haggled him down to 6000, and the driver agreed. Then the passenger reached into his coat for money. When he opened the flap, the driver could see the packages of explosives strapped to his chest. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I was looking for a foreigner to kill,” his passenger replied. Then he paid and left.

Makes dead kitties seem darn right playful, don’t it now?

See, what we hear about Iraq, from our friends who come back over the border, is that it’s much, much worse than anything on your news in the US.

But what the fuck, we’re all liberals. We’re probably just making it up.

- Nicholas Seeley, 10/24/04

"GoBo - An American Tragedy in Two Acts"

From the fertile brain of Ross Maxwell comes "The story of GoBo, the first Robotic-American to run for president, his dizzying heights, his tragic end."

Act I

Act II

Enjoy.

Amman, Jordan - 10/20/04

The first in a series of periodic Procrastinet Despatches from Amman, Jordan. By Nicholas Seeley.

Today was the first clear day since I arrived in Amman. There’s a place on the street where I’m staying where a vacant lot cuts a gap in the wall of buildings, and you can look out over the rooftops of low stucco buildings rolling up and down the sides of the surrounding hills, wrapped in a heavy orange fog of gasoline and dust.

It’s actually a lot like L.A.

Read the rest after the break below. I can't describe how pleased I am to have Nick on board.

Today, however, the haze had lifted, and I could see for miles: the thin lines of roads cutting patterns through the white blocks of buildings, the slender minarets of the mosques, and the shadow of the orange desert over the hills. It was pretty.

A little background. Jordan is a country a little smaller than Kentucky, bordered on the west by Israel and the much-disputed Palestinian territories, on the north by Syria, the East by Iraq, and the south by Saudi Arabia. Some three quarters of the country is uninhabitable desert. Water is shockingly scarce, and pretty much nonrenewable. Holy sites are rare, and there’s not a drop of oil.

What this means is that, despite being situated in what’s pretty much the South Bronx of world politics, Jordan is in the enviable position of not having a damn thing that anyone wants. What this means is that, despite many conflicts and insurgencies arising from its deep involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian war, Jordan’s undesirability has spared it the worst of the pain and suffering that has been the lot of the oil despotisms and cold war client states that surround it. The country has also benefited from a series of very savvy and forward thinking (inasmuch as that’s a synonym for pro-western) monarchs. The current ruler, King Abdullah, is close to the definition of an enlightened monarch, and like his father, King Hussein, has tried to pull his country kicking and screaming into the twentieth century, all the while walking a diplomatic tightrope through his rogue’s gallery of unstable, psychopathic and unsanitary neighbors. (Think about it: that metaphor’s not really as mixed as it sounds.) The country is overwhelmingly Muslim and Arab, but fundamentalism here is far from at a fever pitch, though if the American Crusaders continue their holy war, that could change. But kidnapping and terrorism are not yet on the table here, and other crime is virtually unheard of.

The first night, I ended up drinking in a café with a Jordanian deejay who would rather be any thing than be Jordanian. He travels the world, celebrates the variety of drugs he has tried, changes his image. He trashes Islam, and takes another drink. This night, he was showing off his dreadlocks, drinking whisky, telling stories about how police at Q.A. immigration would try to direct him into the “non-residents” line because of his hair and his looks.

Of course, the thing he wants he can’t have.

And there I was, at a table full of expats and aid workers, thinking “isn’t that what we all want?” To get out. Especially now, with our own country running full tilt down the roman road to empire, our government paralyzed by partisanship and growing less and less capable of governing by any means other than handing the reigns over to mega-corporations and transnational conglomerates. It’s always easier to clean someone else’s house than your own. It is easier to deal with problems that, at the end, you do not have an emotional stake in. The problems we try to solve are not our own. We hope we’re fighting the good fight, but we’re also opting out of something.

The other people I’ve encountered in a few days include Jews who pretend not to be Jews so they can do aid work here, homosexuals who play straight so they can stay alive, Palestinians trying to be Jordanians, and vice-versa, a Saudi who’s really a Palestinian who wants me to write the story of how he was exiled from his adopted country, and a dozen others who would rather wear anyone’s heartaches than their own.

I guess that means it’s no different here from any place else.

Still, there was something that happened when I got off the plane. A moment when the burden lifted, and things didn’t seem so terrible anymore. I think it was when I finally smelled this place.

Every city has it’s own scent, the olfactory evidence of everything its inhabitants have left behind. Even on sunny days New York smells like the rainwater that pools in the gutters and the hot murky steam that issues from subway grates. Phnom Penh smells of fried food and motorcycle exhaust and the odor of excrement that floats on the breeze off the Tonle Sap river. Sometimes these things are easy to define, to separate into components. Sometimes they are unidentifiable. Paris only smells like Paris.

The air of Amman is dry and full of dust, and smells of night-blooming jasmine flowers, over-ripe pomegranates, coffee and saffron. That smell came wafting in through the Arabian Nights windows of the airport, and I knew I had arrived. Not home, but somewhere, at least.

- Nicholas Seeley, 10/20/04

Introducing: Nicholas Seeley

Now, when you hear "post-Elizabethan dramaturg/text junkie" you probably don't picture a young Henry Rollins. With multiple tattoos, a mostly shaved head, bulging muscles and a bit of a rage control issue. But that's only 'cause you don't know Nick.

Here's Nick's first entry from his stay in Cambodia, a year ago:

Holy fucking shit, guys: I'm in Cambodia.

The trip was without incident. About halfway through The Lizzie McGuire Movie we flew over Kashmir, where people were shooting each other, but I'm relieved to say their deaths did not interfere with our in-flight entertainment.

Cambodian and Thai immigration were only mild headaches, compared to the shit I went through trying to get into Canada last week, and I met my editor at the airport all right.

My apartment is in a garrett overlooking the Royal Museum, where the bats live - unfortunately night falls early here, so I didn't get to see them fly. Right around the corner is the Foreign Correspondant's Club.

I'm writing from an internet cafe which seems to double as home to a family of five, and also possibly a garage.

This country seems crazy. They have internet and motorcycles, all they lack is buildings: every street looks like london in the blitz, a row of bombed out storefronts and gaping, roomless buildings from which spill a profusion of children, mechanics, plastic furniture, drunks, and electronic equipment.

The movie theatres only show Thai movies, but I just had dinner in a place that was getting Starz movie channel on its TV. A Coldplay concert was showing, it was a little slice of America abroad. Did I mention I really, really hate that fucking band?

The motos refuel from barrels by the side of the road, and they're like locusts: the only things that outnumber them are the little tan geckos that crawl over the walls of the buildings. Presumably cheaper than Raid.

I am beginning to understand why people worried about my vegetarianism; I just had some broccoli in brown sauce which contained an unusually high amount of un-announced squid. It was nevertheless excellent. And beer is 80 cents a pint.

These are my discoveries for the evening; I'm sure there will be more. I don't have to report to the office until tuesday, so tomorrow I plan to grab a passing biker, and explore...

And this week, as he prepares to leave for Jordan:

I'm in VA now, and jesus friggin christ people are crazy here. I had a long conversation last night with a stoned redneck-hippie crossbreed who was explaining to me how holding a gun on a living creature was the best high there was, and how he was going to enlist in the army so that he could get more experience killing people. Deer just don't plead for mercy realistically enough!

After quoting a local newspaper story about a 10-year-old girl's birthday party where her parents let her and her friends play Hilton Sisters for the day, complete with a stretch Ford Excursion (which they trashed), Nick closes with:

Where is an outbreak of ebola virus when you really need one?

Needless to say, I look forward to our first series of Procrastinet Despatches, and getting Nick's unique eye on the Middle East.

Safe passage to Amman, Nick, we look forward to hearing from you.

Introducing: Procrastinet Despatches!

It has long been my goal to have actual Procrastinet correspondents, to supplement the "roving reporters" (basically friends who send me links) and my own sometimes meager output.

When I heard that Nicholas Seeley, my dramaturg on 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, was heading off to work with NGO's in Amman, Jordan, I knew I'd found my guy.

In honor of what will surely be a sporadic correspondence with Nick in Jordan, I've established a new P'net category: Despatches.

Here's what The American Heritage Dictionary has to say about "dispatch":

dis-patch tr v. -patched, -patching, -patches. Also despatch. 1. To send off to a specific destination or on specific business. 2. To complete or dispose promptly of. 3. To put to death summarily. -n 1. The act of dispatching or sending off. 2. A putting to death. 3. Efficient speed or promptness; expeditious performance. 4. A written message, particularly an official communication, sent with speed. 5. A news item sent to a newspaper, as by a correspondent. [Spanish despachar or Italian dispacciare, from Old French despeechier, to set free, unshackle : des-, from Latin dis- (reversal) + (em)peechier, to hinder, from Late Latin impedicare, to entangle : Latin in- + pedica, shackle.

I'm using "Despatches" instead of "Dispatches" because it's snootier and more British Colonial sounding.

I have already requested that Nick avoid all the sub-meanings above which deal with sudden death, and informed him that his #1 assignment during his time in the mideast is to avoid being beheaded. Whatever else he wants to do, and in turn write about, is fine.