pictures from my office

Today I made my students write speeches about this weird cat that is probably made out of real cat. This kept them busy so they didn't ask questions about my personal life. I don't know what we're going to do for the rest of the semester.

Boring Professor-People

Shit. Shit. I am becoming one of those boring professor people. I'm teaching American Lit and Culture this semester. I know NOTHING about American Lit and Culture. The wrestling coach was my US History teacher in high school and all I remember from that class is listening to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire," which comprises all of my knowledge about American History.

I've been scurrying to find every site on the internet that deals with contemporary lit and politics. I spent 6 hours last night making an entire PowerPoint presentation about the Black Arts Movement and Amiri Baraka. (I did not know how to use PowerPoint prior to this. It is friggin' amazing.) And today I'm researching literature of the Women's Movement instead of working at work. I'm reading scholarly articles so I can be smarter than my students. The last two books I ordered from Amazon were "The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story" and "The Compendium of Post-War American Culture and Literature."

I have become SOOOOOOO boring in the last 24 hours. I think Power Point is fun. I think the Black Arts Movement and Amiri Baraka are awesome. It is all I can think about. I am totally proud of how boring my class is going to be for my students.

Oh, oh, this is awful. See the guy in the pic? Phil Round? He was one of my English professors in college. He was so smart that even though he was not at all hot, he became hot because of his smartness. He taught the most boring classes like Lit Before 1800 and a whole class on Emerson. These classes were awesome. But the teaching of those classes totally comprised his whole life. He loves Chicago because they have the largest archive of Native American literature in the country, and he comes to Chicago specifically to go to whatever library it's housed in. He was so hot and smart, but all I could think about was that despite this, if I were married to him, I would be SOOOOOOO effin' bored that I would kill him in his sleep.

I am becoming Phil Round. Glub Glub. Please save me, Literati. Make me cool again.

I think I'm coming down with something

1. If I lived in France, I would know if I had the raging raw-throated beginnings of what we'll call Kathy's disease. Because I would be able to have a doctor come to work and tell me. "Go home," that doctor would say, and I would say, "Okay!"

2. I think I should probably have a "network."

3. Those tongue-depressors that doctors use to look at your throat totally creep my shiz out. Tongue sliver.

4. I was thinking about vaccines yesterday because I have to invent one that will stop Megan's students from eating her brain and turning her into a zombie. And then I thought about this book I read as a child about the power of believing in yourself and Louis Pasteur and how he invented the rabies vaccine, and I remember the soldiers that were in the syringe going through the needle into the body and then beating the living you know what out of the angry little anthropomorphicized rabies thingies.

5. And then I thought about Cochise and Abraham Lincoln because those were the other two books in that series that I had. Truth and trust and respect, respectively.

6. I have been trying to make a schedule for at least two hours. I cannot bring myself to do it. The future is hard to grasp.

7. I read this thing on yahoo or similar yesterday that says like all of humanity is on this downward slope toward depression all the way until you're 50-ish, and then you start going back toward happiness. I wonder how much this has to do with working. Probably loads.

8. Every day is so cold now. I don't think I've been warm once in the last week.

why am i not in france right now

i am crazy ass sick. well, i was. now i am just normal sick. but, like, on saturday i was so illin' that i had to hold on to the walls to get from the bathroom to my bed. what the?

i have mostly been unconscious since then, but i woke up this afternoon and now that i'm only normal sick i am able to do things like watch television. so i watched sicko. not because i'm sick. that is just coincidence.

anyway, the point is i learned that on top of having cuter haircuts and better music, and being more adorable and sassier, france also has awesomer health care. and nannies that come to your house for free after you have a baby. and a minimum of five weeks paid vacation. and doctors that make house calls. that would have come in handy earlier today when i was crawling to jewel in the rain for some nyquil.

My skull feels soft

Today I am suffering from generalized anxiety. Yesterday I read American Genius, a Comedy by Lynne Tillman for like three hours. I think the two are related.

Also, my shoes have a lot of elastic straps that stretch over the tops of my feet and slowly strangle them throughout the day. It hurts a lot in a not really kind of way.

a briefcase of squashed bread

Chris Bower has a new story up at the 2nd Hand. Read it.

We don't talk about real, actual venom very much

One thing I like about winter is the killer bees that live on my block do not chase me. Because they are either dead or sleeping under the ground.

This is the scariest hornet ever (pictured): Jefe told me that it shoots flesh-eating venom in human's eyes, and that the venom contains phermones that attract other hornets, so hornets basically eat your effing eyes.

That's unsubstantiated, though, because I can't find any record of that particular occurrence--even though it theoretically could. Plus, the hornet makes all kinds of scary insect top ten lists.

What does our venom do? Cause foxing on old, boring texts? Bring on fits of manic typing? Put you to sleep?

Absurd Art is Awesome

Whoa, check out this Daniel Guido dude. He makes ridiculous "hand art" that looks exactly like animals. These are way more awesome than 1) shadow puppetry in the shape of animals, 2) actual puppets in the shape of animals, 3) actual animals, and 4) actual hands. How does one get into hand art though? I think it's some strange by-product of 1) schizophrenia, 2) beastiality, or 3) all of the above. Can you imagine masturbating with that hand that looks exactly like Beachwood? Whoa. Daniel Guido. Whoa.

i have travel anxiety

i am going to indiana tomorrow. whenever i leave town i get nervous and sad. it feels like when i was little and i had sleepovers with my best friend sarah. she lived next door. so even though my mom was like 20 feet away, i still almost always freaked out and ran home in the middle of the night. i didn't have far to run. it was basically just across the driveway.

once i went on a cross-country trip with 3 other people. we were driving from indiana to california. after about 20 minutes on the road i freaked out and begged them to take me home. they didn't. i got over it eventually.

when i have anxiety the one thing that makes me feel better is knowing that other people feel the same anxiety. please tell me if you freak out when have to leave town. i prefer stories that make you sound crazier than me. thank you.

Know what cures SAD? Tiny effing monkeys.

Today I Discovered Some Journals That I Don't Hate

So I've been on a super-journal/press-research-bender these days. As in: I have been chaining myself to my computer for a couple hours every day to do this research that I really hate doing. It is frickin' painstaking, mostly because I am a big bitch when I look for places to send stuff. I hate most places I find and do a lot of eyerolling and sighing and hair-tearing. (See picture of dude biting his inkpen in half. I look sort of like that.)

My therapist would say these dramatic reactions and also my hatred of so many journals is in actuality some kind of defense/coping mechanism. I think Charles Simic is the only poet my therapist knows. When I tell him how my work doesn't fit with the aesthetic of usual journals and presses because it's off-kilter, he then compares me to Charles Simic and reminds me that Charles Simic is quirky and can also be found at Borders. That makes me really mad. I hate talking to my therapist about writing but it's pretty much all we ever talk about.

Anyway, I found a couple of journals that I do really like today. I love this piece, The Kookaburra's Tale, by Kira Henehan, which appears in Unsaid. I also really like the journals Forklift Ohio, GlitterPony (possibly just because it is called GlitterPony), and ActionYes. I am adding them to our links.

cold ass writing assignment

It is too cold to be human today. Today, I walked my girlfriend a block to her car and she had to drive me back to my place. A polar bear was jump starting another polar bear's car.

The writing assignment is to re-caption this illustration, using as many (or as few) words as necessary. Also, please pick me up and deliver me somewhere that serves a Hot Toddy.

"ba-donk-a-donk butt!"

i shouted that today at work and then realized that my boss was on the phone. possibly with a client. the weird thing was that it wasn't in response to anything. everyone was working silently and then i just suddenly shouted "ba-donk-a-donk butt!" i don't know why.

if i was a character on television or in the movies, they would say i had tourettes. but everyone in real life knows that tourettes is more complex than its media caricature. however, i learned today that the compulsive need to shout things like "ba-donk-a-donk butt!" has a name. it is called coprolalia. coprolalia is "the uncontrolled, often obsessive use of obscene or scatological language that may accompany certain mental disorders, such as tourette's syndrome."

also, venom literati corporate photographer neil kubath claims the greek translation of coprolalia is "feces mouth." he takes pictures of himself drinking pee, so i guess he would know.

make pineapplewar not love

there are new things up on pineapplewar by matthew savoca and jules pereira. and one thing by me. i really like everything that's on pineapplewar.

also, i read the PDF of sleepingfish that's on their site right now. it's good.

hmm. it turns out i didn't have much to say.

so...

sure is cold out...

I always feel like everybody already knows about the stuff I just found out about

I like two of this artist's things:

1. Inside-out teddy bears


2. Snowglobes, particularly the businessman one. So desolate.

"I Know I Said I Hate You, But" by Jack Morgan

You said you wouldn't
piss down my throat
if my heart were on fire.

Now my heart is on fire
and all I have is PBR
to help forget the pain,

the burning sensation
I get when I pee
because of your
philandering

and after drinking
so much horse piss
fall to flounder

beneath barstools
with open mouth,
wishing you were here.

Baby steps

My bathroom at work:

There are actually two; one is the ladies’ and one the gents’: One has black-and-white tiles and is completely disgusting; the other has stone-colored tiles and rust-colored walls and is also disgusting, but somehow less so. The less disgusting one is the ladies’. I almost never use that one, not because I like disgusting bathrooms or have gender issues, but because there is no mirror in there, and much of the reason I go to the bathroom during the day is to look in the mirror. I am hot, and looking at myself makes me happy.

Both bathroom color schemes are pretty masculine. The real reason I know the mirror-less one is the ladies’ is that it used to have pictures of the girls from Sex and the City displayed in frames. These pictures were cut out from magazines. I used to sometimes use this bathroom before we officially moved in because our then-bathroom was even more repulsive than either of the current bathrooms and occasionally could not be suffered. (We used to work on the opposite side of the hall. I snuck across.) When the woman who decorated the ladies’ bathroom moved out and we moved in, she took the pictures of the Sex gals, but left the frames. Now the frames are empty. I sometimes use them as makeshift mirrors when the other bathroom is occupied.

Baby steps away from pee week. Baby steps.

I miss Pee Week.

Life without Pee Week is a little bit less fun. I do declare that we should have theme weeks on a semi-regular basis.

Also, I would like to point out that k+ and I (and other co-workers) have been secretly blogging about Tape Ball here. We are pretty darned awesome.

The common theme between Pee Week and Tape Ball is toilet paper. Hence the photo.

pee week was good.

thanks to everyone for submitting to pee week. to end the week, here is an exquisite corpse poem that megan, sarah and i wrote on toilet paper (click on it to see it at a readable size). we wrote it at the zacopane, which, since the smoking ban, smells more like pee than ever.

Pee week is disturbingly popular.

Or should I say piss-turbingly? Usually, I am too much of a lady to talk about such base past-times as nose-powdering, but since it seems to be the trendy thing to do....
I have never been one to pass up a trend. I mean look how I am so fashionably dressed and observe my jaunty and trendy bangs. CUTE!
I have to admit, this is not my favorite picture in the bunch but I HAD to choose this one today. This is indeed a picture of me urinating. NO JOKE! Look at the emptiness in the eyes. I am off in pee pee land. You will see in past pictures that my eyes are locked in embrace with your mind. I am looking into your soul and you can't escape until you get realllllly hungry or coincidentally enough feel the wet and cold sensation of pee pants from urinating on yourself. Don't be embarrassed! It happens to my own mother all the time!
I also look just a little ashamed...just a LITTLE. I am almost never ashamed of my perfect body and it's functions-a-la-beauty and you should consider yourself lucky...it is like Haley's comet or a four leaf clover. Yes. Special.
I think that you are probably wondering WHY I am having my picture taken while using the lavatory. I don't know. It was the photographer's idea...something about seeing all aspects and how agents love the pee look. To tell the truth, he wasn't making a lot of sense but he is supposed to be the best sooo....

"commercial, break, pee, listening" by matthew savoca

sometimes when my girlfriend and i are watching Lost on television and it is one of the commercial breaks, she gets up and runs to the bathroom and when i hear the door shut i sneak up through the hallway and listen to her pee. she pees hard and fast and it makes a hissing sound, like there is a small hole in a pressurized chamber. it sounds to me like it ought to be hurting, but i don't think it is. i hear the toilet flush and i run into the kitchen and start making noise with a pot. she asks me what i'm doing and i say i'm making sweet milk for us. she gets excited and runs over to the couch. don't forget the cinnamon, she says. i get out the milk and heat it up in a pot on the stove and then i pour the milk into two mugs and i stir in honey and top them off with cinnamon. i walk back into the living room and sit down on the couch. she smiles at me and kisses my cheek. i hand her the mug that contains the most milk and wait patiently for the next commercial.

pee art by tracy

"BUY MY TOILET ON E-BAY, $9274842222222222222222222222223.24" by prathna lor

i don't like thinking about the amount of water being wasted every time i flush the toilet after i urinate. sometimes i feel like i have to urinate a lot but then only four drops of urine drop from the head of my penis. i look at my white urine slightly tint the toilet water. i feel empathy for many things, everywhere. i know someone will notice that someone else has urinated in this toilet and they will flush it if i don't flush it. sometimes i sit on the toilet for a few hours until i have to take a shit so i don't feel so bad when i flush the toilet. sometimes i stand in the shower and piss into the drain so i can avoid the toilet altogether. i don't think about where the water goes. i hold a toothbrush in my right hand and make clanging noises on the tiled wall so people don't hear me pissing into the shower drain. then i make other noises. i bang my fist on the faucet. i scrunch up a shower cap. i pretend to be frustrated with the floss dispenser. i imitate the silence of looking at your teeth, or squeezing a pimple on your eyelid. then i lie on the floor and stick my nose into the space under the door and watch for shadows.

sometimes after i flush the toilet i can hear the water run through the pipes very loudly. the vibrations destroy my house. i think about zip-locking my shit and urinating into plants, or the carpet. i think about how much my toilet would go for on e-bay.

pee art by neil kubath

neil kubath is lovely. so is his pee. so is his dog's pee. check out all the pictures he did for pee week in his slide show. i really like the vintage toilet. and the giant fur ball dog. that dog is fluffy.

Pee: Some General Rules Of Etiquette by Megan Martin

1. It is generally best to pee on people like waitresses, mail-ladies, or your mother after blaming them for problems that are not actually their fault. Be sure to pee directly on their faces, or up into their nostrils until they drown. If you pee in your cute little sister’s ear, however, do not expect gratification: she will only cutely giggle and say, “that tickles.”

2. It is far more polite to pee in your seat at the movie theater than it is to get up and walk in front of people in order to use the bathroom. Many people even enjoy the smell of urine--if you are a lonely, filthy spinster, you may even snag yourself a date by doing a discreet seat-pee! (If the gentleman next to you doesn't notice, it is proper etiquette to announce what you have just done.)

If someone else gets up to pee at the movies, do not be afraid to follow them into the bathroom stall and murder them there by shoving their head into the pee-filled toilet. This is a perfectly acceptable response, especially during any movie starring Daniel Craig.

If someone gets up to "pee" during a dinner party, they are probably just going to masturbate while fantasizing about you. Do not be so impolite as to disturb them. When they return to table, don’t forget to kiss their hand and thank them for their adoration.

4. While on vacation and staying at the home of someone you dislike, peeing in their shower is a lovely way to express your especial disgust for them.

5. The best and most tactful way to initiate a break-up with a current mate is to pee all over his clothes in the closet, paying special attention to creating puddles in his most expensive shoes. Better yet, pee on his clothes and then put them in the dryer. Your mate is obviously an idiot; he will just be amazed that you've done the laundry for once, and won't even notice the pee-smell until everybody else does.

EggBoy pee poetry

In slumber, ever inviting
The planter calls
My bladder twitches

Sphincters sleep on watch
The planter hails
My bladder chortles

Salty waste flows
Spreading on flannel
Such warmth, such solace

Guilt floods the senses
Mocking my disgust
So itchy, so cold

pee links

ever wonder how pee week started? prathna. lor.

also, zachary german has a good post about pee on his blog.

finally, vinnie lacey wrote a poem about the piss christ, and i just now realized it's a real thing.

there are gaps in my knowledge.

I Can Hold It by Sarah Eaton

Swimming is out of the question. Get out, and there is all of that decision-making: whether to change or prune. And then there is the peeling off and the peeing. It turns out you can move your suit to the side. But I would never do that with underwear.

There are a lot of things I would never do with underwear.

There are a lot of things I would never do with you. I would never let you spit in my mouth and then spit back into yours. I would never touch your eyelids while you slept.

When I don’t want to do the dishes, when I am having a panic attack, when I cannot take another second of talking to you, I say I have to pee. When you leave the room, though, that’s when I really have to go.

It is your fault that I have acquired this urge. Before I met you I could hold anything forever.

"How many babies come from urine?" by Blake Butler

She said since I wouldn't fuck,
could I at least help wet her bellybutton?
I obliged, half-hearted, cringing,
and wiped the after-dripping on my sleeve.
Since then I've spoken to several doctors on several continents
and each has assured me that all babies die, regardless.
I still feel like shit.
My skull is swollen with all this excess sperm.
My mom is coming over.
My pee is made of diet root beer, coffee and tap water.
The multivitamins make it neon.

"Piss Christ 2008" by Vinnie Lacey

Had Jesus been German
we'd have beer instead of wine
and bratwurst for unleavened bread.
The Weiner Schnitzel of Christ.

Had Jesus been Mayan
we'd have blood instead of blood
and flesh for flesh.
The Headless Holy One.

Had Jesus been R. Kelly
we'd have shit for brains
and urinate on one another.
The Perverted Prince of Penis.

Mypeeisyourpee
throughchristourlord

amen.