Feaverish

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone. We at Chez Feaverish celebrated in the traditional Portland manner. That is, we went into Old Town and rounded up as many homeless people as we could fit in the car, took them to our house and got them all cleaned up, then made them sing and dance for us while we — the non-homeless — gorged ourselves silly on turkey and mashed potatoes.

Aw man, that’s so mean. I’m ashamed to have even thought of it, let alone written about it.

Let alone done it.

This is the worst kind of weather, where the morning temperature’s in the high 20s but by afternoon it’s almost 40 degrees warmer. How the hell am I supposed to dress for that? Basically nature’s forcing me to don 40 pounds of clothes for my ride to work, clothes which are totally useless for the rest of the day. But of course I have to schlep them home again come day’s end. It’s Sisyphusian. Not to mention the polar expedition’s worth of laundry I’m doing every week.

I much prefer the summer months, where it’s t-shirts and knickers 24/7, at work, at home, on the bike, wherever. Oh and speaking of work, I finally got the heating guy to open the vent in my freezing office. Turns out all that was needed was to flip a switch. Did the situation require condescension? Did that stop the heating guy from condescending? No it did not, and no it did not, respectively. If I had known there was a switch, obviously I would have flipped it. (Although the last time I played with the various knobs and switches in my office I ended up piping in some very loud Kenny G. Fool me once, etc.)

Also, it’s cold enough now that my face is completely frozen after only ten minutes or so of my morning commute. My nose and lips go numb, and by the time I get to work I’m trailing an impressive rivulet of snot, tears and drool.

By the by, I’m very much enjoying the Wolf Parade album. It’s in the same vein as, say, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, et al. They have a couple songs up at their Sub Pop page, and I’m sure you could find a few more on one or another of the internets.

Probably the hardest thing about being a spammer is coming up with great spam names. Usually it’s just a mishmash of vaguely ethnic names, but once in a while a spammer will really outdo himself. Witness:

There’s gotta be a backstory here. This particular gem is no doubt the work of a failed screenwriter, bitter beyond redemption at having wasted his productive years churning out Star Wars prequels B-movie tripe. His creative energy spent, he turns to composing spam, content at last in a medium that has the integrity to take pride in its wretchedness, until one day the ghost of Shakespeare rests its spectral hand on our hero’s shoulder and whispers phantasmic inspiration from beyond the grave: “Carsickness. Carsickness J. Invisibly.”

And thus it was to pass that in the year Two-Thousand and Five an email from one Mr. C.J. Invisibly briefly cluttered the junk mailboxes of millions of people around the world THE END.

When I got into bed last night L was already asleep and, through an ingeniously splayed arrangement of arms and legs, taking up 90% of the available sleeping territory.

Me: Baby? Can you scootch over a little bit?
L: Mmm hmm.
[no movement]
Me: Uh baby? Are you gonna scoot over?
L: [sigh] Finish.
Me: Finish? Finish what?
L: The list. Finish the list first.
Me: Um…right. Okay. Can you scoot over? I’m hanging off the bed here.
L: Finish!
Me: Okay, I’m finishing the—
L: FINISH! The LIST! FIRST!
Me: Okay baby.

Addendum: After a few minutes of stretching myself uncomfortably thin on the allotted spit of mattress, L — henceforth referred to as “Crazy L” — rolled over and I was able to get to sleep THE END.

Feaverish trading cards are finally here! See all my great stats! Learn more about everyone’s favorite unknown blogger! (For instance, did you know I used to play outfield and first base for the St. Louis Cardinals? I’ll bet you didn’t!)

Collect the whole set! One free in every box of Remington™ Core-Lokt™ .30-06 Rifle Cartridges and select boxes of Remington™ Express™ 12-gauge Buckshot.

Remember two months ago when I mentioned how badly I needed a haircut? And requested my loyal readers’ help choosing a salon? Well I finally got one last week (one haircut, not one salon). The whole experience was — and this goes without saying — an excercise in tummy-rumbling dread, crotch-sweating suspense, and, ultimately, measured disappointment.

Despite a wealth of options (haircut college midterm exam, back alley “clothes hanger” haircut, etc.), I ended up at a halfway fancy salon just a couple of blocks from work. It was suspiciously empty, though, which, you know, there’s just something off about a deserted beauty-service provider. I have no problem being the only customer at Bloodworm Barn (not everyone’s turtle likes bloodworms, after all), but when I go someplace where they claim to have the ability to skillfully enhance my person, I’m sorry but I’m gonna need to see a few living worksamples.

So okay, I’m nervous to begin with, but then first thing’s first is this scalp/neck/shoulder massage and I’m like — to my stylist — I’m like: “I only paid [large number here] bucks; this massage better be included, twinklefingers.” And she’s all “Oh yeah, tee-hee, we do this for everybody* etc.” but the point is the massage is having the reverse of its intended effect (i.e. relaxing me), so things aren’t boding well for the haircut proper.

Anywho, cut (ah ha!) to the present: The final result is, if I had to rate it, a 7 out of a possible 10. 6 points deducted for making me look like Billy Ray Cyrus, 3 points added for making me look like that awesome Dutch Boy kid. All in all I’d probably go back, if only for proximal reasons.

*Eventually another customer arrived, and despite my stylist-masseuse’s assurance that a massage was part of the [large number here]-dollar package, this new guy (let’s call him Cobra Commander) was not massaged. In the interest (interests? How many interests does full disclosure have?) of full disclosure, I should mention that Cobra Commander arrived with his wife and let her do all and I mean all the talking**: “He wants it cut like so. This long here, that long there. I’ll sit in the adjacent chair and watch.” And so forth. At one point Cobra Commander’s barber asked him (wait, did I mention Cobra Commander was on the aged side of middle aged? Yeah, he was.) she asked him if he “wanted his sideburns trimmed,” which I think you’ll agree was just a nice way of saying “You want I should snip off your nads while I got the scissors out?”

** For a while I was thinking maybe Cobra Commander was a mute, but then he started answering the barber’s questions with these little grunts and whatnot, so maybe he was just retarded monosyllabic, or otherwise lacking the articulation to illuminate his desired haircut.