droller than thou.

an open letter to bigass vehicles.

Dear Douche Baggy Assholes Driving (And, More Specifically, Parking) Gigantic Vechicles:

As you may have already gathered from the addressee section of this letter, you are a bunch of douche baggyy assholes.  I'm going to ignore the fact that you clearly have no morals regarding your impact on the environment.  I will also forego discussing your apparent disregard for your own safety and bank accounts.  I'm not even going to get into the gross, consumerist, buying-a-bigass-vehicle-in-order-to-compensate-for-some-crucial-element-that-you-are-lacking-in-your-lives thing.  No, I have a much more pressing and personal issue with you: parking.

To wit, I can't see when you park next to me.  You see, I drive a normal sized car, which cost me a reasonable amount of money to buy and insure, and gets a reasonable amount of miles per gallon.  Any normal sized person would have absolutely no problem seeing over or around my car.  Every time I find myself backing out of a parking space next to you, however, I have morbid fantasies about being smashed to bits by a speeding car--a car which I cannot see, nor can see me, due to your excessive girth and height.  This shaves precious minutes off my alloted backing-up-in-parking-lots time, as well as causes me great mental anguish, cursing, yelling, and, sometimes, UVI (uncontrollable vehicular incontinence).  

Some people might expect that with today's climate of environmental awareness/unpredictable gas prices, you assholes would be scaling down to more appropriately proportioned vehicles.  But no.  No, it's virtually impossible to enter any parking lot without encountering some retarded behemoth of a car--which is, by the way, usually either overlapping the parking lines of a compact space or blatantly taking up two entire spaces with its bullshit ass.

Case in point: Yesterday I went to the grocery store and, passing up several spaces, specifically chose to park my car between two other normally sized vehicles.  "You jerks," I thought as I wheeled my cart inside, "You won't get me this time."  And guess what I found upon completing my shopping trip and returning to my car?  Why, a Ford F-150 on one side of me and a fucking Cadillac Escalade on the other side.

This aggression will not stand, man.  

Sincerely,

Sarah

P.S.- Goddamnit, you pieces of shit.

P.P.S- For more open letters, may I suggest here?

on various minor problems, not all of which involve my genitals.

Lately I've been having some (minor) problems.  Observe:

1) I'm kind of down lately, probably due in part to our house still being in a state of recently-moved-in-shambles (and I just can't seem to motivate myself to do anything about it), and probably partly due to the fact that this semester is totally sucky and boring.  But that's okay.  Both of these things will be fixed relatively soon, and then we can all move on to more exciting things, like baking homemade bread and buying an immersion blender and reading books about bread baking and immersion blenders.

2) Queefing in yoga class.  Sigh.  How embarrassing.  It only started happening, like, 4 classes ago, and  only during shoulder stand.  I'm not sure what's going on down there, but whatever it is, it definitely involves a lot of air.  And also my vagina.  And, actually, they were fairly quiet little fwips (and therefore totally deal-able)... until yesterday, when I ripped a really loud one.  And everyone pretended like they didn't hear it.  (Six people in a small, quiet room?  Yeah, you all heard it.)  And that's when I thought to myself, "Hm.  Would it be better to try to convince them that it wasn't a fart, or is it actually worse to try to discuss air escaping from my hooha?"  I mean, how do you even talk about that with a bunch of weird yoga strangers?  Would you actually say the word "queef" (which, oh god, sounds so fucking disgusting to me; there needs to be a better, non-vomitous word [preferably not involving the letters q, u, f, or g, all of which tend to seem slightly gross]), or would you do some awkward dancing around a direct description--like, "It wasn't a fart!  It was air that came out of...another part...that's not my butt"?  In the end, I opted for pretending like it didn't happen, and held out hope that somehow no one else noticed it.  Riiiiiight.

3) I've become kind of (read: very) baby crazy lately.  As in, like, seeing babies in public and staring at them for a really long time.  As in, like, reading library books about pregnancy and birth and parenting.  As in, like, wanting to have a baby.  I don't know if this technically qualifies as a "problem," but it's kind of freaking me out. [Edit: I'm actually not freaking out anymore; I'm happily resigned.]  It's also freaking out The Mister, but I think he'll feel a little better once I foist one of my library books on him.  Or maybe he'll feel even worse...fun!  [Note: Apparently, babies are made by white people made out of paper.  Or something.]

4) I can't not lift the lid off a pot of cooking rice in order to check its progress.  I know, I know.  It lets the precious steam escape and makes it take longer to cook and, oh god, I just want my rice to be done!  Last night I made a very delicious rice-mushroom-onion meal, using Trader Joe's Brown Rice Medley, a most fucking tasty blend of brown rice, black barley, and daikon radish seeds.  I highly recommend it.  [Side note: A Trader Joe's Fan website?  Awesome!]

5) Um, hello?  Proposition 8 (in California)?  All those other douchebag states that voted to deny people their rights, either through marriage or adoption?  Yeah, I have a problem with you.  More on this later, to be sure.

6) I'm sure there's something else, but who wants to sit around and listen to me complain about air-filled ladyparts and civil rights violations and poor cooking habits?  Bo-ring.  

on various detroit-related things.

This past weekend I went to Michigan for my Grandpa's funeral.  It was weird and really Jewish and made me glad that neither The Mister nor I are religious.  Religious death rituals are so fucking bizarre--lots of talking about god and saying things in unison and standing and sitting.  Blech.  I wasn't really close with my Grandpa, so really the hardest thing about the experience for me was watching my parents have to deal with their grief/crazy family members.  Apparently we have a family plot in a large Jewish cemetery, which was cool to visit.  I'd never seen my (uncommon) last name written on so many surfaces--so that was actually kind of exciting--and I enjoyed the little family history lesson via the gravestones.  

Most of my relatives on that side of the family lived a really long time (according to dates in the cemetery), so I guess that's good.  Although, really, I don't want to die of old age.  I want to go out in some fabulous and painless way, like being eaten by a magical walrus whose magical breath puts me to sleep first, magically, and then my eulogy is magically sung by magical kelp fairies.  Or something. 

The best part of the trip by far (you know, other than getting stared at for laughing hysterically with my sister at the shiva service [for non-funeral-related reasons]) was getting to visit with some old friends from my one year of high school in West Bloomfield.  They took us on a driving tour around downtown Detroit, and it was so fucking amazing and beautiful and tragic.  I wish that I had a good camera with me (or any camera, for that matter), because there would have been some really incredible shots.  That's okay; I'll make sure to get back there someday with some sort of documentation device. 

Detroit is full of so much gorgeous architecture.  I have never seen so many beautiful, abandoned buildings in such a large concentration.  They reminded me of Miss Havisham (give it up for Dickens, woot woot)*--old and grand and dilapidated; you can see that they were once so incredibly regal, but now they're sad and old, still wearing their tatty fur coats and tarnished jewels and too much rouge...Kind of like how I imagine I'll be in my dotage.  Except replace the rouge with rosacea.  And also I probably won't be wearing any pants.

There are also some really awesome neighborhoods which have been beautifully maintained...but then one or two  streets away you're back to burned-out shells and graffitied walls.  (Not to say that there's not some cool graffiti scattered around; on one abandoned building someone had written simply "Charles and Ray Eames.")  It's so weird and lovely.  I kept fantasizing about being rich and buying up a bunch of the buildings and turning them into something awesome.  Just call me "Gentrification Jenny."  Or "Gentrification Genitals McGee," maybe, because that's funnier.  But, actually, my name doesn't start with the same sound as "gentrification," so maybe you should just stop trying to make me sound like some sort of gentrifying monster.  Sheesh.

In other news, I totally think Detroit needs to become the seat of America's green technology development and manufacturing.  They have the infrastructure, the workforce, and the need for industry.  Also some most excellent potato soup, served up by these guys.  

Oh, another exciting thing I learned on my trip is that there is some contingency of unknown people in Michigan reading my blog--so thanks and hello and welcome!  I promise not to make you uncomfortable by putting my hand too high up on your leg when we're sitting next to each other.  You know, when we're sitting side by side, reading my blog on the internets?  You know how we do that?

Finally, in parting, here are some links to photographs and information about the amazing urban landscape of Detroit:

Forgotton Detroit

The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit

Detroit Urban Exploration on Flickr 

See Detroit

*Except, actually, I totally hated Great Expectations.  In 8th grade I rewrote it for an English class project, making Joe a transexual Avon salesperson, and generally adding much absurdity.  My teacher did not appreciate it.  I was always much more of an A Tale of Two Cities girl, mostly because I was a morbid child and kind of obsessed with the French Revolution and guillotines and whatnot.  And now you know my stance on Dickens.

also this.

It's funny because it's true.

on an historic moment.

Way to go, America!  You're not as much of a douchebag as I thought (although, yes, you're still pretty douche-y).

This is the first time in my adult life when I can actually be proud of our president; it's the first time that someone of intelligence and integrity has represented our country to the world.  I'm not naive enough to assume that monumental changes will automatically occur, but I am grateful that we're taking steps in the right direction.  (I sound a lot like Kristen.)  Plus, I'm so insanely happy that Bush the Fucktard only has, like, 75 days left in office.  Phew. 

In my neighborhood last night we heard people yelling, honking, and lighting fireworks.  It felt like Christmas, but with less frankincense and a lot more myrrh.  

Awesome.