Miracle drugs
Something about living in New York makes me sick. I mean that literally, by the way, not in my usual spoiled, vocal fry “Like, ohmigod, this place is SO GROSS,” kind of sick. I always have a cold or the flu or the plague or some body part disintegrating and it’s all very bothersome and distracting, but we still must persevere. My preferred method of persevering is whining and bitching for about a week until I haul ass to the doctor who demands I offer up a gallon or so of blood before giving me drugs. I should probably check his credentials at some point.
Unfortunately, because I am sick all the damn time, the drugs no longer work the way they’re supposed to. I am single-handedly defeating years of scientific research with the germs in my own body. Amazing! I’m putting that shit on my resume.
Anyway, my latest bout of sickness (strep throat this time, because I am, apparently, seven years old) easily defeated the pathetic penicillin offered up to combat it. So after another visit to my doctor/bleeder, I was given a super, special miracle drug. Almost immediately, I felt weirdly better. Almost tingly with power. It was kind of incredible. I felt like I could shoot laser beams from my eyes and eat glass bottles for breakfast.
The new drug is called Ceclor. Seriously? Ceclor? That’s not an antibiotic, that’s a monster from Greek mythology.
Adulthood
Today at the supermarket, I bought:
1. Apple Jacks cereal
2. A giant candy bar, milk chocolate
3. Two boxes of Devil Dogs (only $5!)
4. Chocolate milk
5. Fresh cut strawberries (mostly for show)
6. Band-Aids (I have an ouchie.)
Yup.
A Query:
What does it say about a person if her response to a six-foot (quite literally) pile of garbage on the elite Upper West Side of Manhattan is a giggle and a quick blog post? Oh, and a link to an article in The Times about how most other people are pretty effin’ pissed at this bullshit, and Bloomberg better get his ass in gear, that bitch.
Please note in the article that the trash also saved a potential suicide victim. And you think all NYC public works officials are hopeless, heartless incompetents. Hah!
A Slice of NYC Life
Not to brag, or anything, but I live two blocks from Penn Station. It’s an easy stroll to Times Square. The Macy’s Day Parade ends about twenty feet from my apartment. I saw Alec Baldwin outside a McDonald’s not far from my Upper West Side office not too long ago, and last week, a man in a pink tutu and a tiara told me he liked my hat while we waited in the subway during the massive and utterly lovely post-Christmas blizzard.
Yeah. I kind of like it here.
That said, there is an oddness to New York City that I can’t always wrap my head around, and part of it is happening as I type this blog entry.
The man who lives next door to me is currently engaged in what I can only describe as wild monkey jungle sex. He seems to be enjoying it, as is his partner. Good for them. It’s hard finding love in the city, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to criticize the joys that these two have found (quite literally) in each other, even if it’s frankly all kinds of awkward for me, and, gosh, these walls are outrageously thin.
But here’s the can’t-wrap-my-head-around-it part: I’ve met this guy. He’s over 60. He gets dialysis twice a week. He is on more drugs than Keith Richards and his death rattle snores have woken me in the dead of night more than once. (Like I said: thin walls.) The guy is in a wheelchair, ferchristsake. How he’s accomplishing what he is accomplishing at this very moment defies the laws of physics. And yet, somehow, someway, there he goes. And goes and goes and goes. It’s gotta be a New Yorker thing. It’s gotta.
I’d like to know how he does it, but a mild-mannered, soft-spoken white girl doesn’t ask those kinds of questions of her elders, no matter how sassy her hat is to the drag queen strangers she meets in the subway. Nevertheless, if this old guy keeps it up (thatswhatshesaid), I’m pretty sure the structural integrity of the outrageously thin walls will be compromised, leaving me with a picture perfect view of the proceedings. I suppose I could just wait.
Or I could go try the new sushi restaurant down the street. There are always options here, thank God.
Um. Yup.
So. You guys know that when I so confidently bellowed, “See you next year!” in my last post, what I really meant was, “See you a full year from now and, oh, gosh, have I mentioned that I’m awfully lazy and a bit of a goober?”
Of course you did. You guys are so smart. I love you all.
It is a new year. And a new resolution. Weekly Shocks shall arise from the ashes like a phoenix from a burning waste dump. Gosh, does that ever stink.
Speaking of stink, guess who lives in New York City now?
But I kid the teeming metropolis of the whole damn universe. Please don’t hurt me, New York.
Happy New Year, my people. Did you miss the puggles?
Weekly Schlocks
You wanna know how Weekly Shocks got started? Guess. No, go on. Guess.
No, I did not lose a bet. Cheeky git.
Give up? It was a New Year’s Resolution. I know, right?
I write. A lot. It’s what I do, it makes me happy, and I think I’m sort of good at it. But, if you’ve been reading this blog over the past year, you’ve probably become very familiar with my inconsistency and laziness, hallmark traits of a budding humorist or a petty criminal or one of those unfortunate people who is so overweight they require a a crowbar and heavy machinery to get themselves out of the house. I’m not quite at the point where I require a sponge at the end of a stick to bathe myself, but I am absurdly lazy and I thought forced, regular writing might help in curing some of that. So I made a resolution: start a blog. Write some funny stuff, or at least try to, you goober. Publish it, at least weekly. Come up with a clever name. And see what happens.
Did it work? Well, sort of.
There was a rather insane period where I wrote everyday, sometimes more than once. That, frankly, was freaking awesome. Of course, that was also when I was procrastinating my Real Life Writing Project, the Oxford Dissertation from Hell. But that bitch got finished (bloody thing got absurdly high marks, too, goddamn), so my need to write other junk subsided for a bit, and so did my posts. Oops.
But overall, I’m pretty pleased with how this site turned out. And it seems like lots of you people did, too. I never in a gajillion years thought I’d get so many readers, many of whom left me very kind comments, and only some of whom required restraining orders and a few dozen shocks with tasers. I didn’t name this site Weekly Shocks for nuthin, after all.
So thank you all. Really, really, thank you. You’re lovely. Thanks for sticking with me through this whole thing and I hope you’re looking forward to the new site – coming in about a week or so. It’s about me, obviously. And writing. And who the hell a girl has to smack on this earth to get some of her dribble published. It’ll be fun. It’ll be epic. It’ll CHANGE THE FREAKING WORLD.
Or at least it won’t suck. Too much, anyway.
I’ll still play with this site for a bit, because I like not having rules holding me down, man. So don’t go away. But visit the new site, too. OR ELSE. 🙂
Have a safe, wonderful, and prosperous 2010, people. And always find something to laugh at.
To close out 2009, how about a little trip down memory lane? Seems to be the thing to do on this last day of this weirdo decade. So, hot dog: some of the weirdest, quirkiest, and (hopefully) funniest bits, month by month, of Weekly Shocks.
January: Now, I fully admit to being a Facebook whore, mostly because it means I don’t have to interact with real people in real time and the steady hum of my laptop drowns out the voice of the Devil in my head.
February: Nationalized health care is a strange, bizarre world to someone who grew up in the Newt Gingrich Nineties and believed that the biggest threats to American national security were welfare moms and that stain on Monica Lewinsky’s dress.
March: Never, ever, ever use your turn signal to actually signal turns. It’s a sign of weakness and it gives lesser people information on where you’re going. The only time your turn signal should be on are during sixteen-mile stretches down highways with multiple exit options you have no intention on taking.
April: “Like, so we went to, like, this totally sketch store near Newbury Street? And I’m, like, ‘Why don’t we just f*cking go to Newbury Street, because the stores there are, like, way better and I need new shoes anyway,’ and then that bitch called me a ‘f*cking stuck up c*nt,’ and I’m like, ‘F*ck YOU, sl*t,’ and like…”
May: In the meantime, I’m utterly traumatized and am switching to Adult Pampers until I can circle my toilet at a radius of ten feet without sobbing and wretching, which, I imagine, is also the radius you’ll need to keep from me before my bodily stench causes you to do the same.
June: Do you think Pluto has gotten over the whole planet-demotion thing yet? Or do you think he’s just out there in the cold, dark, vacuum, slowly circling the distant Sun, and he could really use a hug right now? Do you think he cries himself to sleep at night, his self-esteem in tatters? More importantly, do you think I should stop attributing deeply depressing and mildly disturbing human emotions to erstwhile planets? Me too.
July: I also plan on getting there via train, because every plane that leaves the ground these days seems to end up crashing in a fiery blaze into an ocean or a farmer’s house or a napping cow, and, well, I’m just not up for that. So, my peripatetic journey will be England to Deutschland via train. Hot dog. I am crazy like a fox.
August: I’m very forceful and independent and will chain you to my radiator after our first date and beat you repeatedly with a lead pipe.
September: I’ve realized that I would be in far less debt right now if I had developed a heroin addiction instead of succumbing to the far more expensive habit of formalized education. The federal government of these glorious United States pretty much owns my soul, my ass, and the souls and asses of any and all future children I might bear. I can’t decide if this fact is ridiculously funny or just ridiculous. Probably both. Hooray!
October: I got a job offer from a car dealership in Manhattan, having never applied for it. I have never sold a car. I have never owned a car. I don’t even have a license. And who the hell buys cars in Manhattan? Perplexed. Intrigued. Convinced it’s a cover for a prostitution/drug ring.
November:
I love you all. Really, I do. But, for f*ck’s sake, people.
Search Engine Terms
These are terms people used to find your blog.
Today
Search Views
puggle penis size 1
No. A thousand times, no.
December: I spent five minutes pacing the hallway of my house wondering why there was blood all over the floor and who the unfortunate, erstwhile owner of said blood could possibly be. Then I realized it was mine. I suppose you have to expect these things every now and then, right? Right? Hello?
Indeed. Happy New Year, folks.
Hubris in the Snow
*checks weather forecast for Washington, DC*
Haha! Suckers!
*checks local weather forecast*
Oh. Shit.
Hey! I guess I know what to get Elin Nordegren for Christmas!
Oh, my pretty England. What horrors will you wrought upon the Christmas season this year? What’s that, you say? Divorce vouchers? Why, brilliant! I hope they come in a variety of colors and fonts, just like the wedding invitations you and your soon-to-be-ex so lovingly chose together, invitations that now symbolize the crumbling wreck of putrid failure that is your marriage. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
Well, that’ll happen.
I spent five minutes pacing the hallway of my house wondering why there was blood all over the floor and who the unfortunate, erstwhile owner of said blood could possibly be. Then I realized it was mine. I suppose you have to expect these things every now and then, right? Right? Hello?
Starting the preparations
So it’s December. You know what that means! The preparations for National Bicarbonate Of Soda Day are stepping into high gear! I’m just so grateful that this deeply important, solemn holiday falls on the 30th, giving me a whole month to prepare by purifying myself and begging the Soda Gods for forgiveness for my innumerable, degrading and disgusting sins.
Speaking of preparations, the new year will bring big changes to Weekly Shocks World in the form of new underwear from my mom and a new blog for you good folks. The new blog will actually have, you know, some sort of focus. I haven’t really figured that part out yet, but in between my Soda Day self-flagellations, I’m pretty sure I’ll come up with something.
Good God, this month is gonna be hell!
For the three of you who might be a bit worried about the future of this wee bit of intrawebs-floating bunny turd, fear not: I promise I’ll still update Weekly Shocks with the same kind of regularity and hard-hitting profundity that I currently do. Or not. Who knows.
Also! I caved. I joined Twitter. Follow me if you like. Bonus Charlie Brown photo included.
Puggle Update: Part The Second, or, You Guys Are Filthy
I love you all. Really, I do. But, for f*ck’s sake, people.
Search Engine Terms
These are terms people used to find your blog.
Today
Search Views
puggle penis size 1
No. A thousand times, no.
Um, ew?
The Yankees won. Congratulations to them, their fans, and their Lord and Master, the Dark Prince Satan the Steinbrenners.
Now. Let us never speak of this horror ever, ever again.
WalMart Headline of the Day
I have to open this with a shocking, punch-you-in-your-face-and-knock-you-on-your-hinder confession. So, please: sit down, preferably with a bottle of Scotch handy and some smelling salts if you’re an antebellum Southern belle or otherwise prone to fits of “the vapors.” Ready? OK.
I have never been to a WalMart.
I know! I know! I’m a freak of nature and an elitist snob and a sorry-ass excuse for an American. The worst part is I didn’t even realize this sad fact about myself until very recently. I mean, shit. How the hell have I managed to avoid the obligatory WalMart experience? And not even realize it?! Christ on a bike. I’m going to have to put ‘Visit Shrine of WalMart’ at the very top of my bucket list or else I’m surely destined for a violent and invasive examination by stern-looking Homeland Security officials, not to mention a cozy seat of fire at the hand of Satan, deep in the pits of Hell.
WalMart is making those trips to Hell even more convenient by getting into the coffin-selling business. You can order one online. And have it delivered in 48 hours. This new venture of theirs just shrieks all kinds of trouble if you ask me, but you won’t, because, again: I’ve never been to WalMart. I am deeply ashamed of my shortcomings. Forgive me, capitalism, for I have sinned.
Some scary thoughts on this spookiest of days!
1. In Florida, some kid got her wildlife officer-dad to bring a five-foot alligator to school for show and tell. The ‘gator escaped. It’s still on the loose. Oops. Trick or Treat!
2. I got a job offer from a car dealership in Manhattan, having never applied for it. I have never sold a car. I have never owned a car. I don’t even have a license. And who the hell buys cars in Manhattan? Perplexed. Intrigued. Convinced it’s a cover for a prostitution/drug ring.
3. Along a similar line, I took a freebie ‘what-career-best-suits-your-personality’ test, because the whole witty blogger thing just doesn’t seem to be raking in the dough the way it should these days. I blame the Obama administration. Where’s my bailout, damn it? Anyway, my test results are in. Apparently, I have all the skills and interests necessary to be a coroner. Seriously: it’s my Number One Career Choice, according to this test. And my first thought was, “Well, yeah, that makes sense.”
4. Someone is systematically going through this blog and reading every single post I have ever made. And he/she/it is reading these posts more than once. Um, hi! Thanks for stopping by. You’re lovely. I don’t know whether to cheer or grovel and plead and beg for mercy, but still. Thanks again, please wipe your feet on the way out.
Keep it real, homedawgs. I’ll catch you in November!
“Well, it’s not the worst blog I’ve ever read.”
Behold! An actual critique of Weekly Shocks! From an actual sort-of famous literary/blogging guru person who refused to let me use his real name in connection with this site! So I’m calling him Stinky! Stinky thinks my blog isn’t the worst he’s ever read! HOORAY!
I am so totally moving up in the world.
That time of year
Look out, folks! Halloween is sneaking up on you, and he’s on a massive sugar high and wielding a butcher’s knife! Uh oh! My family is celebrating by going on one of those absurdly luxurious Disney Cruises in the Bahamas and leaving me here unsupervised, so I’m planning on getting into all sorts of mischief, assuming, of course, I can tear myself away from the steady stream of crappy horror movies playing on AMC.
Now before you get your undies in a twist and stuff them down my throat, I will admit that AMC does play good movies now and then. They showed the Stanley Kubrick classic The Shining not too long ago, a fine film featuring Olive Oil as a twitchy, shriek-y wife and a drooling kid with a 70s-styling bowl cut and a totally bitchin’ Big Wheels bike. Jack Nicholson (Nicklaus?) is in it too, playing some minor, insignificant role. Nothing you’d recognize. It was a fun bit of psychosis, like all Kubrick films, but it doesn’t compensate for the rest of AMC’s Halloween lineup which is mostly B-rated gross-out flicks and, occasionally, the completely gratuitous and invariably awful remake of some Hollywood classic.
For example: I got tricked into watching Psycho yesterday. No, not that Psycho. The other one. The Gus Van Sant-directed train wreck made in 1998. I didn’t even know Gus Van Sant was involved with this movie, and, judging by how terrible it was, neither did he. Vince Vaughn was particularly laughable, with his fey, puffy-lipped, giggly and wiggly performance. I loved it. That’s the problem with train wreck remakes – they’re so abysmally goofy, so bottomlessly stupid, so inexplicably pointless – I mean, Van Sant created a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s original, fer cryin’ out loud – you can’t help but waste two hours of your life wondering what the hell these people were thinking. It’s terrible, but really, watch it and you’ll feel better about your own life. You will. Whatever failures you may be experiencing at the moment, at least you’re not ripping off someone else’s work and falling flat on your face to the tune of millions and millions of dollars and some anonymous blogger’s sarcastic, floppy scorn.
Speaking of falling flat on one’s face to the tunes of millions and floppy scorn, Facebook updated again. And the inevitable bitching begins! I can’t be bothered to come up with something new, witty, and appropriately cutting to write about yet another stupid Facebook design, so poke around the archives if you must; everything I’ve said in the past about Facebook updates is most likely still applicable. Timeless material, that Weekly Shocks blog is! It must be written by a silly goobernugget devastatingly attractive genius.
Carry on, my lovelies.
Oh, so you think you’ve got it rough, huh?
Been a super busy week, folks. I’ve spent most of the last hour, for example, researching anglerfish on Wikipedia. Don’t you wish you had my life? I know, I know.
Well, we can’t all be me. I know, that’s rubbish, but don’t be sad. Just be grateful you’re not a male anglerfish, yeah? I mean, not only is the poor sucker ugly as sin (see above for a refresher, if you can stomach it) but at some point in his life, he’s going to be reduced to a pair of atrophied fish nuts disintegrating into his lady pal. Sounds like spousal abuse to me. From Wikipedia:
When he finds a female, [the male anglerfish] bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads, which releases sperm in response to hormones in the female’s bloodstream indicating egg release. This extreme sexual dimorphism ensures that, when the female is ready to spawn, she has a mate immediately available.
Yikes. Looks like someone got beaten repeatedly with the short end of the evolutionary ugly stick. Nice teeth, though, right?
On the dangers of bragging in one’s goofy blog
If you’ve been committing my blog to memory (and if you really have been, please: seek help), you may remember a gratuitously self-congratulatory remark I made in the wee hours of the morning when I triumphantly finished my dissertation. Drunk on lack of sleep, Diet Coke, and the impossibly sweet knowledge that I would never have to write the word “problematized” with a straight face ever again, I shamelessly broadcasted my ability to write over a thousand words an hour. To be honest, up until yesterday, I was still pretty chuffed about that. I mean, 1000 words/hour. Sweet as, right? Hell, until I pulled that off, I didn’t even think I could read that many words in an hour, let alone come up with ’em. Shit, son. I’m amazing.
So I was rather pleased with and proud of myself and then I had the sparkling bright idea to read Christopher Buckley’s Losing Mum and Pup, his poignant and surprisingly witty memoir about the deaths of both of his parents in the space of a year. I’ve since speedily returned, tail tucked and ears flattened, to my previous self-perception as a half-wit, blubbering hack with three, maybe four brain cells floating around in her skull. You wanna know why? Here’s why: William Buckley, according to his deeply impressed (and impressive) son Christopher, could dash off his seven hundred word columns in five minutes.
Well, then.
Now, comparing one’s writing ability to Bill Buckley’s is never a good idea, unless you’re a self-hating masochist contemplating suicide or Gore Vidal, but I mean, crikey. 700 words in five bloody minutes?! And we’re not talking about just any words here. We’re talking about the words – whether you liked them or not – of the unequivocal intellectual champion of the American Right. And in his free time – you know, when not writing his reams and reams of prize-winning non-fiction or running for mayor of New York or serving as ambassador to the UN – he wrote best-selling spy novels. Just ’cause. Jesus Christ. And here I am, bragging about my 1000 words/hour, virtually unread and unreadable master’s thesis! Pathetic. Don’t I suck a pack of AA batteries. Also, one more thing: “problematized” isn’t even a real word, you ninny! What were you thinking?! Sheesh.
So, I’ve learned my lesson. No more bragging about my mad word-producing skillz in Weekly Shocks. Instead, I’ll brag about the fact that I have now possessed a cell phone for longer than two weeks without losing it, although I have to admit that I can’t remember my own phone number or find the email that contains said number, making the phone not especially effective as a communications device, but still! I haven’t lost the buggery thing, now have I? Oh yeah, baby. Bow down before me. I’m gonna make such a great mom.
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