dreaming makes you stupid

I don't know if this happens to other people, but sometimes I wake up in the morning thinking of a brilliant idea. And then I go back to sleep for awhile, telling myself not to forget the brilliant idea. And then I wake up again, re-remind myself, go back to sleep, etc.

And eventually, I wake up for real, drink some coffee, and realize that my brilliant idea was completely developmentally disabled.

The first time I remember this happening, I was in college. I woke up reminding myself of a very important task I needed to perform: I needed to deposit spinach into my IRA.

As in, my Individual Retirement Account. At the bank. Spinach.

The sleep-logic was that:
1. It is good to save money.
2. Spinach is good for you.
3. Spinach is something you put into other things.
4. An IRA is something into which you put things.
5. Therefore, it would be good to put spinach into an IRA.

Yes.

This time, I slept in after an arduous day of travel, waking and falling back asleep several times, each time reminding myself that I must certainly start a new comedy show. Many comedy shows have themes, you know, and clever names to go with the themes -- this comedy show would be, apparently, for people who like things just as they are right now.

The name of the show?

STATUS QUOMEDY!

Or maybe it was more like "Status Quo-omedy!"

Seriously, is that not the fucking stupidest thing you've ever heard? Being asleep is like being drunk, although with less likelihood of illegally operating a motor vehicle.

re: atheist wedding (see previous posts)

Maybe if they start having kids, I could be appointed a god(less)parent!

Haha. I'd better come up with some better jokes.

welcome to fundamentalist beach resort family-fun-time Jesus paradise

This is a picture of me in front of Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach. The Oceanfront has had these "No Swearing" signs for some time. This is the first one I've seen away from the tourist beach strip.

I now pronounce you civil co-spouses. Go forth and spread Enlightenment values.

As announced a few posts ago, my brother and Jen 2.0 (for new readers, my brother's fiancee is taking my brother's last name, and therefore my entire name, which might be funny if I became actually famous and every time she called, say, her credit card company and gave her name, someone said "Really? Tell me a joke!") have asked me to officiate their atheist wedding.

Of course, I can't exactly go by "Reverend Jen" now, can I?

Maybe I could snag "Secular Humanist Jen."

I have found that this company makes inexpensive clergy stoles. I am thinking of getting one that says something sarcastic.

Infidels!!!

Virginia Beach is like a cookie sheet for toasting Caucasians

It turns out I don't actually like the beach.

Virginia Beach is full of very tanned white people somehow recreating at temperatures above 100, clad only in beachwear and actual exposed Caucasian skin.

I started baking to a crisp in the back of my brother's convertible. On the actual beach, my internal organs started to rebel against being cooked inside my torso, and just before I was about to vomit them up, I convinced my brother and Jen 2.0 to abscond to a seafood restaurant.

What I actually like, apparently, is not the beach, but something more specifically related to going to Coney Island on the train, walking around, eating a hotdog, seeing some twins tap dance, watching a woman with full facial tattoos eat fire, and remarking on how cute it is when entire families of Muslims go into the water in burquas.

women behaving badly

My mom and I went to a late-night showing at the second-run movie house of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The theater started the movie 45 minutes late, the tickets were $1.50 each, and in keeping with the environment, I ordered an enormous plate of nachos and a cheap Merlot.

This is how my mother and I spend time together. Who needs flower shows and movies in which Meryl Streep plays both herself and her mother, while making references to dead, oppressed women writers? My mom is awesome.

The Wikipedia plot synopsis, if you're interested in this sort of thing, is quite lengthy and contains sentences such as "Meanwhile, a triangular slice of watermelon is flying about in a ship made from a hollowed-out watermelon, observing the events unfolding according to his plan - the slice is joined in the ship by Neil Peart from Rush."

Also not inappropriately, the IMDB page happens to say, "This plot synopsis is empty."

dear blog readers, I miss you so!

Prepare for a torrent of blogging over the next few days! Short version: I was stuck on a runway at JFK for five hours. Airline lost my luggage. Now in Virginia Beach with parents. Had to make midnight trip to Wal-Mart to buy athletic clothing for personal trainer training, which I've now completed. I have 12.8% bodyfat. I love driving with the windows open while listening to the local hip-hop station! My brother and his fiance have asked me to officiate their (atheist) wedding!

More soon!

xo,
Jen

literary baby bump

My new project!

DorothyVonIrony.com

when someone looks deep into your eyes, you hope for more profundity than this

I have been informed by an optometrist -- who TURNED MY FREAKING EYELID INSIDE OUT during an exam -- that my contacts get foggy all the time because the insides of my eyelids are irritated and it's like "cleaning your windshield with dirty windshield wipers."

Hear that, folks? My eyes are filthy.

I was thinking of pursuing a career as an international sex symbol, but instead I shall be forced to stay home with a bottle of Visine.

The News: Week of Monday, July 18th

On Monday, I picked up a USA Today so I could riff off the day's news at the show at Pete's. I found this news item:

Poll: Clinton establishes sizable lead over Obama

The other fun piece of news in this article is that Giuliani has pulled ahead as the Republican front-runnner. Clinton vs. Giuliani? Really?

I have always wanted to see a national Presidential campaign based on the real issues: the 2nd Avenue subway line, manhole covers electrifying dogs, and transit delays due to skinny chicks passing out on the train.

the Dziuras are not amused

From blogger Marc Choi, and brought to my attention by my Williamsburghian colleague Mikey McClelland:

As Marc calls them: "Racist Flakes!"
(an ad for rice cereal from a Polish newspaper)
Mikey writes: "I love that my friend caught this over the shoulder of a Polish woman on the G train who was reading it, then got off the train and bought himself a copy."

It was especially strange to learn of this ad on this particular morning, as just a few hours ago I was making coffee and I looked out my window and saw a fifty-ish, pleasingly huggable woman in another building standing in front of a window folding clothes, and thought "How can my mom be in New York?" I squinted, and it was an Asian woman. Who looked kind of like my mom. She had the exact haircut my mom had, like, three years ago, and my mom has almost-black hair. It was weird.

I and my quasi-Asian family with the Polish last name will kick some ass over this.

Why does that little girl kinda look like me?

Related post: my celebrity matches

Spelling Bee: The Loaded Gender Quiz!

On Monday evening, the Season Six Finals of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee took place, with contestants Amy, Tamara, and Jonathan each taking home multitudinous prizes.

Bobby and I opened up the bee with the Williamsburg Spelling Bee theme song (the only time I ever sing in public -- come see it again in December!), and, as is the case during every Finals, I organized little mini-contests in between the rounds so those who aren't spelling (the finals are, of course, limited to the winners of that season's regular-season bees) can participate and win prizes.

In every Finals, some of the mini-contests are spelling-related (spelling backwards, spelling to a tune), one is a math competition, and, usually, one is trivia-related.

This season's trivia contest was something I called the "Loaded Gender Quiz": a team of two women answers questions about "guy stuff" and a team of two men answers questions about "girl stuff." Of course this is all dependent on various stereotypes, plus the patriarchy, and is very much culturally-bound and, in part, based on a sort of gendered '80s nostalgia. End of disclaimers -- here's the quiz:


LOADED GENDER QUIZ

GUY QUESTIONS (FOR GIRLS)

What's the title of a relief pitcher who only pitches the ninth inning or, in extreme situations, the last four or five outs of the game?

What is the common name of a Trichophyton rubrum fungal infection in the groin area?

Who were the bad guys in the Transformers cartoon series?

What is the aspect ratio of a traditional high-definition television image?

Cufflinks are required for what kind of cuffs?


GIRL QUESTIONS (FOR GUYS)

Of what illness are tampon users warned via a leaflet inside the box?

Name any babysitter in the Babysitters Club.

Name the metal structural support found in many bras.

If your lipstick is bleeding outside your actual lips, what item of makeup should you use?

What is a twinset?

(Incidentally, the guys -- two forty- or fiftysomethings -- won the contest, but chivalrously gave the prize to the girls, two roommates who, I take it, were not big Transformers fans. This is just as well, as I realized halfway through the contest that the guy-questions-for-girls were kind of harder, which was probably due to the fact that Mr. Intrepid Young Journalist helped me out on #1 and #4, and finds aspect ratios to be very manly).

"unforgettable"

I am going to Virginia soon to visit my family. As such, it is cool indeed that there is a $12 express bus to the airport that can obviate the need for a $35 taxi ride.

However, I'm not sure that I want an airport transportation company to "make my trip unforgettable."

I think that anything "unforgettable" on a ride to the airport can only be a bad, bad thing.

I also would rather avoid any "unforgettable" trips to the gynecologist, you know what I mean?

photos from Broads on Broadway

Here are some photos by Gary Winter of the March 31st "Broads on Broadway" show I headlined.

The marquee.

Yes, it's misspelled, but it's misspelled in lights.

Oh, look. What a nice girl I look like.
This is one to send home to mom.

Bedroom hair onstage? No idea.

Yay, comedy.

Well, you can't hear me, but at least I look funny.

I am funny from behind. I don't know if
that's really something to advertise.

Um, this is the kind of scary one. I was telling a
joke about working out. That's my excuse, anyway.

I think I'm still Incredible-Hulk-ing out, here.
I WILL CRUSH YOU LIKE A TINY BUG.

Thank you. That is all.

The Six Foot Heroes

I see signs all over New York, placed on delis of all stripes, offering:

SIX FOOT HEROES
...and that always makes me smile, even though I know they're talking about party sandwiches.

I decided if I were a guy in a band (well, a relatively tall guy in a band), I'd name the band The Six Foot Heroes, and then I'd print up stickers that said nothing except "New Album!"

And then, of course, everyone in the band would run around town sticking the stickers on the pre-existing SIX FOOT HEROES signs.

For those who knew the band, the marketing campaign would be omnipresent! But for deli owners, the vandalism would be small and baffling enough that it wouldn't be an urgent matter to scrape off those stickers.

New York Post style book (or maybe it was the Daily News)

Headline seen on tabloid someone else was reading on the subway:

Atl. City strangler suspect admitted killing: hooker
And I'm thinking, You don't need a colon before a list of just one thing! And then I realized that the colon is the Post's method of attribution. As in:

GAL: KIN SAW COP SLAY
So the Atlantic City strangler suspect admitting a killing, says a hooker. The suspect did not (necessarily) kill a hooker.

Punctuation means stuff!

on their way to Williamsburg?

I took this photo on the 6th Avenue L platform:


For anyone unfamiliar, here is some information on Rumspringa. I'm glad some drunk Amish kids got to come here and vandalize something before returning to, you know, churning.

Broads on Broadway

Just got back from headlining the Laugh Factory show! What a fantastic crowd! Pictures soon.

"Broads on Broadway? It's a good thing this club isn't on Twat Street."