Sometime you just have to let the funny happen to you. I just received this email from my dear friend Nutreena.




So this morning as I was on my way to work I saw the news about Anna Nicole Smith. Now, true I once made a very derogatory comment about her Trim Spa ad campaign, but I was unnerved by how surprised I was about the news.





I was more rattled by the headline accompanying her photo: Tragic Beauty

Uh, no. She isn't some sweet lovely young thing who remained virtous and yet still came to an undeserved end. She isn't quite at the level of Francesca or Iseult or even Catherine of Wuthering Heights. Perhaps it's because of how she lived her life in public that I can't see her as a tragic heroine even taking into consideration the death of her son. (And that truly is a tragedy.)

I would say the real tragic beauty in this situation is Anna Nicole's daughter. The paternity of this poor girl, as one can imagine, is in dispute. These are the makings of Victorian tragedy-an innocent girl orphaned by unfortunate circumstances and thrust into the news as well as gossip columns from the moment she was born.

I have to say if I had to pick between Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole. Well, I definitely would prefer Anna.

Never thought I would ever say that in my life.

This morning I set one of my cookbooks on fire as I was making my morning tea.

It wasn't a big fire, just the corner of it. But it was enough, of course, to fill the entire apartment with smoke very quickly.

I'm exhausted, which is how the whole incident began to begin with. I was hobbling around the apartment last night like my grandmother. This morning I can feel every muscle in my thighs and lower back.

People don't realize when they "comfort" me with the idea that despite all my physical issues, I'll live a normal life span that that is precisely what I'm terrified of. AT 32, I am daunted by three flights of stairs. Can't wait to see what the next decade brings. I can only hope it's electroshock therapy or a lobotomy.

Not necessarily in that order.
According to Salon. com, "Eric Schaeffer, a 45-year-old binge-eating, downward-dogging, recovering drug-addict hypochondriac with an online dating habit, a taste for happy-ending massages and golden showers -- and a hankerin' for a wife who wants to bear him three children starting in about five to six years." And if you can believe it that's the COMPLEMENTARY part of the interview (wait for the incest and homosexual hijinx sections to get really scheezed.)

The good news is that he makes me seem like a kind gentle sweet tempered person. "How?" you ask.

'Question: You wrote about that first date with her: "I despised her. She made me sick to my stomach. I literally wanted to vomit. Choke her to death and smash her dead head in with a rock and then vomit onto her deadness.

Answer:Isn't that clear that going so over the top shines a light on the absurdity and therefore renders it less angry? I think it would have been scarier to say, "I wanted to slit her throat." '

Not a surprise is blog is titled "I Can't Believe I'm Still Single." (Fortunately most of the rest of us who can read can.) I have to say, I rather like the vomiting on deadness. Have to incorporate that into the act.

And you know, women complain about his AGE CUT OFF.

Because I know I would hate to be excluded from the dating pool of stellar example of what the NY dating scene has to offer 30 year old women.

I'm depressed. I don't even have the energy to tell why this article makes me even more depressed. Maybe it's because all I want is someone 25-45 with whom to snuggle.

Oh and he has to like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And cats.

(No not the musical. That would be cruel.)

Massage therapists preferred.
When I first moved to NYC, there were two magic stores within a few blocks of my house. And I don't mean magic like putting a rabbit in a hat and suddenly it vanishes. I'm talkin' about the serious mojo. Handblended incense of personally crafted spells. Fragrant oils with shells and herbs floating in them. Books of Shadows sold alongside Books of the Dead. Carven statues of dragons and gods.

And black candles.

Because witches often use candles of different colors depending on the nature of the spell, stores that catered to witches (I was one at the time) sold an array of different candles. Some already impregnanted with fragrance, other plain allowing the knowing witch to customize it.

For my party that looks like it might not be, I wanted black candles. I was still living in that bygone era in which stores sold black tapers. But with only a few days left (OK sure I only have 6 people coming and the odds are they could care less if I burn turqoise candles as long as they don't smell), I had to order black candles from Soma Luna an online version of the stores I was used to visiting. Incidentally, there was a store like this in my small little town of Storrs CT so why NYC seems to have run dry of the Ye Olde Satanic Goodes Shoppe I can't say, but man is it annoying.

If any of you in the NYC area know of any store like this for the future, please PLEASE let me know.

(It's all the fault of that movie the Craft isn't it?)
Yet again my freshmen are ambitiously redefining passionlessness. When asked in an introductory questionnaire about 5 topics they would like to explore in more detail many of them could not come up with more than 3.

There is no joke, no snarky remark, no obnoxious retort about that. Just saddened silence.

Labels: apathy, education, freshman

The Inferno Canto III

According to Alarming News, I am a "relationship-y blog." Good to know. I suppose it is because I haven't ranted on the sad state of students at the moment. Mainly because now I am more satisfied with my work conditions. If the students at Manhattan College aren't "better" than the students at NYU, they certainly are smarter about how they behave in my classes. They don't feel comfortable loudly proclaiming that they don't "do" books or exclaim when presented with a two page syllabus, "You expect me to read this?"

The date with the aforementioned Idiot From NJ did not happen. I just wasn't in the mood even to be fed by an enamored dolt.

Although Karol considers me to be "brutal", I'm not nearly as heartless as I pretend to be here. On the blog, I write a good game, but it's more wishful thinking than anything else. My fear with this Idiot is that I'll lower my standards, go out with this guy, end up finding enough about him to rationalize dating him, slowly become more annoyed at him and more depressed at settling for being with him until he leaves me yet again dumping on the front doorstep of "Why must I be abandoned even by men who should be hopping on one foot while thanking the good lord jehovah for having the fine luck of happening upon a woman like me who was having a fit of low self esteem so I would even consider dating them."

I have my Bloody Valentine's Day party this week, which has a whopping 8 people set to come so far. The whole reason I planned this party is so I won't be too depressed about Valentine's Day. And now I'm going to be depressed over the party AND Valentine's Day AKA Lupercalia. TO make matters worse, I don't have to work on Valentine's Day meaning I have the whole freakin' day to sit and watch flowers and balloons go by to other places. Sniffle.

Well I shall stay at home with Dante, "per me si va tra la perdta gente."

Of course, even he managed to get married and have four kids. OK not with the woman he idolized, but still.