For The Last Three Days I Have Done Nothing But Drink Diet Coke And Smoke Cigarettes

My actual whereabouts, however, remain heretofore unknown. Thank you.

Green Tea, Day Two. One More Morning Like This And You Are Looking At MY HEALTHY LIFESTYLE!

So much tea, so little time.

Healthy whole grain cereals. All natural face lotion. A finger nail buffer made from Dead Sea products. When will this barrage of health and well-being ever end? And that's not even counting regular yoga practice, sometimes twice a day. If I keep this up, I will be allowed to hang out in all natural settings in white clothes as I meditate peacefully. Screw my impure heart. Who can remain so in the face of all these fish oil vitamins I'm taking? How did this happen? How did I transform from someone who swills ice cold Diet Coke at seven in the morning to someone who is rocking gently out of sleep with nothing but the thought of further relaxation. I'll tell you how! Guilt, pure and simple. Those lifestyle sellers make tough sales pitches. They act like the planet will fall apart if you don't have a cute teapot that currently has green tea in it. As for me, I just make it by the cup so I guess I am not as far along as I thought I was.

After My Morning Yoga Routine, I Decide To Drink Tangy Citrus Green Tea Instead Of Coffee

To the left you will find an example of the kind of natural environment I like to surround myself with during my AM yoga practice. It is also an example of the kind of surroundings not available to me as I live in a city, don't have a car, and am not allowed to wear white clothes because:

1.) I am clumsy and would spill a lot of green tea and/or coffee on said white clothes;

2.) I am just not calm enough to be able to wear white clothes. (Also, although my heart is largely pure, my heart is largely impure.)

As I understand it, getting the okay to wear the white yoga togs is a really big moment in any yoga apprentice's life. As for me, I am still new to this whole green tea thing. Usually I just think it tastes like the alfalfa I used to feed my guinea pigs. That's why my yoga togs are black sweat pants that are covered in cat hair. Not only that, but I had a cup of coffee before I "practiced." It wasn't even decaf! What would Rodney Yee say about that? Will the yoga police come to my house and upbraid me? Everything has police. Which is why I can't wear white clothes.

My Roommate's Friend Spins Yarn Out Of Cat Hair

This makes her a good person to know in a time of disaster if all your clothing has been burned or otherwise compromised and you have no way to get more. Depending on the weather, I guess I would rather wear clothing knit out of cat hair yarn than just walking around nude exposed to the elements. Go Eileen! Full points for ingenuity! The East Bay is full of such creative people.

Finally I Have Met My Filmic Soul Mate. His Name Is Donnie Darko.

Two peas in a pod.

Granted, a jet engine has never crashed into my house and I have certainly never traveled in time (as far as I know), nor have I ever stolen my parent's gun to shoot some guy in a bunny costume for driving over my girlfriend while I'm trying to get in touch with Grandma Death. Nor have I ever used an ax to commit an act of vandalism, although one time I did use my forehead. Well, that's not true either. But I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard. As for Frank, the evil bunny rabbit, I can't really talk about that. I will just say that I've never had a shrink who wore cowboy boots. But I bet I have a lot in common with the sarcastic English teacher who gets fired for teaching actual literature. Yeah, she's my soul mate too. However, the fact that Karen and I are now soul mates should not take away from my soul connection with Donnie Darko. Not that I sleepwalk or anything onto golf courses. But isn't there such a thing as a cosmic golf course? Aren't we all just wandering around in our pajamas on a big cosmic golf course watching other people use metal clubs to hit balls into holes? See, now we are all Donnie's soul mates. However, that doesn't mean I won't fight you for him. With my forehead. Watch out for the rabbit.

In Fact, The Turkey Was Not 'Moist.' It Was Dessicate. But Who Am I To Judge? I Just Had A Cheese Sandwich.

Poultry is possibly the most disgusting food on the planet, if you ask me. Which you did not. Gobble gobble. Maybe that is because you never had to watch your mother cook gizzards and eat them just like that. Just boil them in a little pan of clear, innocent water. I would rather change a very dirty diaper of a baby with gastroenteritis than eat gizzards. That is all I have to say today.

Beowulf: a great movie for people who believe in the sanctity of their anus and tits.

Yeah, you like that?

Beowulf is fearless. You know what happens when the monsters come around? Beowulf doesn't flinch; he gets naked and waits. He sleeps naked in a room full of men singing songs about raping virgins and just waits. When Grendel comes around, he hops on his back and starts fisting him so hard Grendel gets soft and small. Then, right when it's almost over, Beowulf yells his own name and rips off Grendel's arm. Fearless.

When he goes to kill Grendel's mom, he brings a big sword. He lets her come right up to him and stroke it; he doesn't care. Beowulf has no fear. Instead of killing her, he gives her his big golden horn and a good seeing to, siring a fire-breathing dragon who wants to kill Beowulf for some reason. Is it for fucking his mother? Is it for killing his half-brother? Is it for not being there enough when he was little? We may never know.

Some Frisian wants to kill him, but Beowulf is so brave he's like, "I don't need no Jesus 'cause y'all can't kill me." Then he stares the Frisian down until he cowers in fear from Beowulf's bare chest that is so manly everyone is really impressed.

When the dragon comes to town, Beowulf isn't afraid. He's fearless. He's older now, so he doesn't get naked, but he hops on the creature's back with a chain. Still no fear! All of the soldiers in the kingdom shoot arrows at the dragon, but Beowulf coldly swats away the arrows before they can hit him. He's held onto his sword this whole time!!! Then his dragon son slams him into a cliff like it was nobody's business, and still Beowulf keeps his sword and composure.

Then the dragon hovers over the castle tower. There's this thing on top of it that is a long shaft with a round, sharp head on it. It gets uncomfortably close to Beowulf's anus. It goes up his warrior skirt a little too far for his liking. This scares the crap out of Beowulf. "Nothing goes that way, yo. Beowulf's anus is sacred, ain't you heard?"

He's a little embarrassed, so he has to up the ante a lot. He has to rip out the dragon's heart. The dragon has a heart much too small to pump as much blood as a dragon must need, but that's OK. It's magic. But he can't reach. For some reason, he thinks that cutting his arm off will get him into that nice sweet red hole just far enough to stab the heart with his sword. He only has his short sword, so he has to do it. It just isn't long enough to get to that sweet spot. He cuts off his own arm, but he drops his sword when the fire hits his hand. No big deal: it's a long way from his anus. So he reaches with his sound arm as far as he can and miraculously pulls out the beast's heart as if it were a tomato on a leafy branch in spring. Of course, the dragon falls a long way down without a heart in its chest, but Beowulf is not afraid. He dies bravely.

Oh yeah, and Angelina Jolie is naked. Well, kind of. It's not really her, but if you really try, you can look past the fact that she moves like Shrek and fool yourself into thinking it's really her. She has stiletto heels growing out of her feet because that's what men want. It's about as hot as when Bugs Bunny dresses up as a girl bunny. Soooo hot.

CSI. My Apartment. Episode One. The Bathroom.

Slightly disheveled bathroom. Towels hang lopsided from racks. Rumpled bathmat. At least twenty bottles of bath and body products loiter around all corners of the tub and sink.

Camera pans in on chrome toilet paper holder. We absorb the silver color and lack of fluffy white surrounding it. Camera backs up and out of the bathroom turning to open a small linen closet. Camera pans in on empty plastic wrapper that once encased 16 rolls of toilet paper.

The familiar theme song plays: Whooo are you? Who-hoo? Who-hoo?

Commercial break. Then back to the show.

Five people live here. There are five suspects. Interrogation tactics ensue. In an exciting twist of plot, the interrogators are all suspects themselves. Lights shining in eyes. Sleep deprivation. Good cop bad cop. Meanwhile the crime lab examines the evidence. In another exciting plot twist, all of the crime lab technicians are suspects too.

In the end, nobody really knows who used up the last of the toilet paper. Some cases are never solved. But at least everyone suspects each other.

Yesterday I Went To See The English Movie. I Would Tell You More About It But I Have Slipped Into A Coma. And Not From The Junior Mints Either.

As for the Scottish play, it was Scottish-tastic! My friend Jack Morgan (Macduff) did a really great job knocking on the gate in the morning after Duncan has been killed, but before anyone knows it. I felt these knocks were full of tension and impending doom for the Macbeths.

However, for the second half of the play I was distracted by the thought of how much my viewing experience would be enhanced by a small portion of the liquid kind of Scottish-tastic. That amber liquid. Those clinking ice cubes. Ah... Maybe some other time.

But screw Scotland and England. Come to Pegasus in downtown Berkeley tonight if you dare! 7:30. Me and William Moor. It will be a night to remember if it is good and a night to forget and feel resentful about wasting your time if it is bad. Thank you. I mean "William Moor and I" of course.

Who-Hoo! Today Is National Beowulf Day! I Am Soooooo Excited!!

I plan to celebrate this step backwards for English literature by going to see the Scottish play.

But by all means, get out your leather underwear and join the 5th century panty party. It takes place in a dank, moist cave and there is a naked lady with Barbie feet.

Maybe if you're lucky, she will let you engender a monster with her, the monster that will be your ultimate undoing.

Do you not understand!???! This is a story about greed and lust for power!!

Good. Now that you know the whole plot, you can come see the Scottish play too.

7:30 at 125 Morrison Hall at Cal. Five bucks. My friend Jack Morgan is MacDuff.

Together we can celebrate MacBeowulf Day. Thank you.

I Have Nothing To Say. Just Like The Last 56 Posts.

Nothing.

I have some poems here.

What's Not To Like About A Guinea Pig In Hot Pants?

Herman couldn't agree more.

As I'm sure you can imagine, the only real options about whether or not a guinea pig should wear hot pants or not involve not "Yes" or "No" but rather should the hot pants be:

A. Leather

B. Pink Satin

C. Rhinestone

This is going to be great. Guinea pigs have some junk in the trunk.

My Cat Is So Cute I Just Want To Squash Him. However, All The Other Pets In My House Disgust Me.

My cute cat, Stanley, finally looks like a cat again

Unbeknownst to me, I have been living across the hall in my apartment from a rodent farm. There are also snakes involved. I fear something truly nefarious is taking place. On top of that, my cat's chubby co-pet, Morgen, had her brand of food switched and now has gastrointestinal distress. Consequentially, the front half of our apartment smells like a dirty diaper. I am becoming one of those people who breathe through their mouths a lot and/or burn a lot of incense. Not the kind of place you would bring guests over to.

Oh, hello there! Don't mind the cat poop. And why don't you step on back to our eenie-weenie chamber of horrors. Please just don't tell me it's 'nature.' I am okay with 'nature.' That is something that takes place outside or at the zoo. But not across the hallway from my bedroom. Thank you.

A Little Bit More About Me. Not That You've Asked. How Rude!

I am most like the 'Gerard Butler' version of Beowulf. I may go a little berserk, but then I really think about what I've done.

I still have three, not two. That means I am still available to funnel your requests directly to Satan. Mostly I'll be asking for a new lifestyle. Flashy car. Wads of cash. That sort of thing.

I will be reading aloud (or stuttering aloud) my poetry at Pegasus in downtown Berkeley on Sat. Nov 17, 2007 at 7:30 pm to celebrate the inaugural issue of Sorry 4 Snake. Although I have sent a message to my lupine family living in the forest preserves outside metropolitan Chicago, I do not think they are going to be able to trot out to California in time to see the show. You may be wondering about my human, adoptive family, but I will just tell you this. There are two things I don't talk to my 'mother' about and the second thing is poetry.

It is still all about Disability in the City. However, this serious slice of the pie of life does not stop me from looking fabulous in my stylish thrift shop purchases or from having shallow conversations with my three best girlfriends about my shoe obsession.

I am writing a new opera. It is about the trials and tribulations of living on the Oakland / Emeryville border. For example, am I imagining things, or are there no street lamps on my block? Also I will be singing a moving aria to the stray pit bull that I ran into the other day and am hoping never to see again. At least it was just one dog. Not like the the wild pack of canines that tried to befriend me on my way to work one morning. Thanks passing motorist!

The libretto might go something like this:

Dog: Growl!

Me: Tra-la-la! Are you friendly? Are you vicious? Tra-la-lei!

Dog: Pant! Drool!

Me: IthinkI'llcrossthestreetrightnoooo-oo-oooow!

Of course, I could also write an opera about my slow internet connection in my bedroom that is making me blog in the living room with the smelly cat. (More on that tomorrow.)

But as far as I can tell, there are maybe only one or two things more about me to know and then you will know everything there is possibly ever to know about me. Ever. Of course, I'm lying. I lie all the time. But that still doesn't mean I find the music of Bollywood a nice choice for 9am. Like some unfortunate people I know. Right now. I may have to go and put on some death metal. Okay that will have to do.

Welcome to National Beowulf Month, Week 2. I Hope You Are Enjoying Yourself.

I am not Beowulf!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that I have thought of a few more movies that I think are going to turn out to be better than this Beowulf thing-a-ma-jig. Oh, wait. The list is too long to mention here because it includes almost every movie I have ever seen, including Conan the Barbarian. This is partly because Conan does not use shitty animation to tell its spellbinding tale of life in Barbarian times. But maybe the movie will turn out to be great and I will be forced to boil my leather underwear and eat it. Somehow I doubt that though. I do not eat leather, first of all, even if it is boiled. There is no second of all.

But please continue to go about your daily lives, by all means. The movie is still a week away.

In Other News, National Beowulf Month, Week 1, Is Coming To A Close

Who says boxer briefs are a recent invention?

I would just like to take this opportunity to go out on a limb and mention a few films I think will turn out to be better than this Robert Zemeckis offering. Like Citizen Kane, for example. Or maybe also Fred Claus, the heartwarming Christmas story starring Vince Vaughn as Santa's brother. Or the deeply disturbing documentary I watched on the history channel the night before Halloween about how Romanian superstitions about vampires still exist to the point that corpses are stolen from the grave and stakes driven through their hearts. I am pretty sure that my somewhat Americanized great aunts who have occasionally slipped me a twenty at family functions do not engage in anything like this practice, but still!

Seven Samurai is another great movie, as is Virgin Spring of course. I am pretty sure (in other news) that these movies manage to shy away from the kind of overused stereotypes and tired plot contrivances the new Beowulf movie will be dishing out. I've written about them in an article I sent to a magazine and the minute it gets rejected, I will be posting it here. But in a Huge Major Spoiler Alert I will just say that Angelina plays Grendel's dam as a new Eve with Barbie feet and in a stroke of original brilliance, the filmmakers make a really unusual choice to use sexual lust for a woman as a stand-in for greed for power, etc. I wonder where they got that new-fangled idea.

I am also thinking that the new Elizabeth movie with its cheesy love triangle is a better movie, plus all those "girly" movies I have at home that I'm not going to share the titles with you other than to mention that one of them has Drew Barrymore in it. In other news. And that I love it.

In Other News, My Cat, Stanley, Continues To Make Loyalty Into An Extreme Sport

my Xtremely loyal cat Stanley does his part to celebrate National Beowulf Month

My cat, Stanley (the cat previously known as Gerard Butler) is so loyal he won't leave my side for just one teensy-tiny minute. Isn't that special? However, he is really just rooting for information. He keeps asking me to spoil some of the plot of the new Beowulf movie for him since I seem to know all about it. (Teaser: there is a phallus symbol involved.) But what he really wants to know is who the f*ck is playing Selma.

In other news, I still live with four roommates in a five-bedroom one-bathroom flat with two cats who really, really hate each other.