This adorable creature inspired a book:

And now he’s back with more.

I love this little shell.  I would totally dress up as Marcel for Halloween, if I liked dressing up in costume.

My favorite bits:

“We slept 8 to the muffin.”

“I would call myself Sheldon Conch.”

“We don’t have newspapers, but sometimes I read a receipt.”

“Treats & snoozing, snoozing & treats.  That’s it.”

“Oh god, I can smell his face.”

regardless, i ended up last night watching criminal on youtube, and it was just as disturbing as when i saw it when i was 16, but for (mostly) entirely different reasons.  my best friend at the time was a guy named dan, who LOVED fiona apple. (and poetry, e.e. cummings, guns, working on cars, and having long hair. not your average teenage dude.) he listened to it a lot, and because i had yet to go through my depressing period of time (that came later in seattle) i didn’t connect much to fiona apple’s music, although i rather liked how it sounded.

i particularly liked the song criminal, because, well, it’s a really good song.  i wasn’t allowed to watch MTV at my house, so i avoided seeing the video for a number of months, until it came on over at a friend’s house.

i was…disturbed. i don’t even think i could fully put my finger on it, as nothing really explicit was happening in the video, but it just skeeved me the heck out.  i was a pretty good girl, and it just seemed so dark and twisty and creepy.  and i don’t think the bruises all over her helped.  the guys i knew thought it was both creepy and weirdly kind of hot (the boy confirms this to be true) but i didn’t get that at the time. i was not a dark and creepy teenager, even though i kind of wanted to be.

dark times certainly came later, but creepy always eluded me.

in fact, a few years later, after a little more life lived and boy heartbreak, i dug up my fiona apple CD’s and ms. apple and i got along on a whole new level, but i never saw another video of hers again.

fast-forward to last night.

watching the video again, i was disturbed, but for adult reasons.  the same adult reasons that cause me to balk at shortened text message-speak and give the side-eye to loud kids at a restaurant and go to bed at 8pm like i did last night.

i’m just too old for this business.

i mean, i’m not old, but i’m too old for the entertainment of the young people.

here are my thoughts when watching the video now, as a 30-year-old:

1. sad houses are usually not this nice-looking (i mean, without the dingy-porn-lighting). i mean, this house is remarkably well-furnished (there’s an expensive eames chair and a sports car in the first 30 seconds) for being, presumably, a Lair of Destitution.

2. that red-eye business makes her look like a rat.  how is that attractive?  they should really make a button to remove that from video/pictures.  so unflattering.  oh wait…there’s a button for that.  1997, meet 2011.

3. sleeping on concrete looks really uncomfortable.  why would anyone make a bed on a concrete block?  i thought this house-owner had money.

4. who’s holding the camera in the bathtub? aren’t they afraid they’re going to drop it in the tub?  cameras are expensive.  and, more importantly, someone else’s bath feet are about 2 inches from her FACE.  i’d freak the crap out.  i don’t like other people’s wet feet touching me.  or dry feet touching me.  let’s just make that feet touching me in general.

5. i get the pizza & bottles littering the floor, half-naked women strewn about and cameras…but the vacuum sitting out?  nothing says party like attempting to suck up the crumbs, amiright?

6. and what’s with the oranges in the bathtub?  won’t those go bad?  there’s, like, 8 oranges there — enough to make juice!  that juice would be so tasty. and healthy.

a decade ago i thought she looked so strung out and weird in the video, which i think was the point.

now, she just looks like an urban outfitter’s model.

times i have changed.

now, let’s lighten things up around here.  it’s time to tell you about my Delta Burke pants.

some background information:

1. delta burke: for those of you who don’t know who delta burke is, let me tell you. delta ramona leah burke is a television actress. (would the proper verb be was? i mean really, where have we seen her lately except on the label of a department store item that you will soon learn about?) she is perhaps best known for her role as Suzanne Sugarbaker on the CBS sitcom Designing Women, which aired for about 7 years in the late 80′s-early 90′s.  a bunch of southern ladies + one african-american ex-convict character = hilarity.  i’ve seen just about every episode, and remember distinctly when dixie carter’s character, julia, chewed out a tax collector named Ray DON, and her eyes got all big and crazy.

delta burke in her suzanne sugarbaker heyday:

tell me that she doesn’t look all 80′s TV-Star who peaks and then devolves into movies of the week and salvages a career by starting an clothing company you can find exclusively at k-mart ala jaclyn smith?

2. in britain, pants = underwear.  so, for this story, pants means underwear.  interestingly, pants is also slang in the UK for screwing things up royally, like “he really pantsed that up”, which — as you will learn — is also not entirely an inappropriate sentiment for this story.  however, i’m an american, so in this story, underwear = underwear.  pants = underwear and underwear = underwear.  basically what i’m telling you is that everything = underwear (as it usually does in life, right)?

*       *       *       *      *

for the last two months, the boy and i have been spending our weekdays 6 hours away in grand junction with his mom during her radiation and chemo treatments.  on the weekends we come home for a few days, but this situation has entailed us keeping everything we need (clothes, food, computers, work) with us at all times.  we’ve been staying with relative of his mom during the surgery and for the first 4 weeks of treatment (6 weeks altogether), but it’s stressful to have people in your house for that long, so we decided to give them a break and stay in a hotel for the last two weeks.  we happened upon a lovely residence inn that had two-bedroom suites with kitchens that would be perfect for what we need, and it is close to the cancer center.  they also have snack and free happy hour, which bodes well for the local college students who are staying there because the college ran out of housing.

they also have a pool and jacuzzi.

now, when i am going to a place with a pool and jacuzzi, i ALWAYS remember my swimsuit, because packing my suitcase and taking a trip is out of the ordinary, and so i think about all the things i need.

unless you’ve been living out of a suitcase for two months.

guess who forgot their swimsuits? (i’ll give you three tries, and the first two don’t count).

no big deal, right?  we’ll just find a cheap swimsuit — since they’ll probably be on clearance this time of year — and call it a day, or just not go swimming. except, his sister was coming to hang out with us and absolutely wanted to go swimming, and she would have been by herself.

let me tell you this: there are NO swimsuits in western colorado in november.  none. zero. swimsuits? nyet. the only swimsuit we could find was $70 at a sporting good stores for, you know, actual swimmers.

plan b.

the boy had some shorts he could wear, so we decided that i could wear the tank top i have to run in, since it’s a swimsuit-y material, if i could just find some shorts, like cheap spandex bike shorts or something.  emphasis on the word cheap, because i want to go swimming, but not like $50 bad. store 1: nothing. store 2: nothing.  stores 3-6, nothing.  at store 6 there was a glimmer of hope with some flourescent volleyball booty-shorts on clearance, but they didn’t have my size.  at least the patterns were hideously ugly, though.  points for ugliness.

grand junction apparently is a desert for something other than just climate.

the boy even found some plaid swim trunks at old navy for $5 that we initially thought were hideous, but have kind of grown on us by now.  we had nearly given up on our little acquatic adventure when hope arrived as we were wandering around ross (dress for less!) waiting for troy’s sister to try on things, in the form of one Delta Burke, actress and apparent underwear apparel magnate.

let’s talk about this: are you seeing how far these things go up?  the picture frame actually cuts off the top of these pants (pants = underwear); i swear they extend about 2 more miles inches up to provide dual action underwear + blindfold purposes.

i’m not sure if that’s how they are supposed to be, but they might stretch that far up because these were 3 sizes too big.  yep. it’s what we call big-girl pants (see also: grandma panties). there are a few reasons for this: one, my choices were either extra-small or 3 sizes too big. yeah, not going to be prancing around in an extra-small anything.  two, these were the only shorts-like pants in the store.  if i’m going to be swimming around in not-a-swimsuit, it’s not going to be in lacy underwear cut up to there — you know what i’m talking about…there.

that’s how i found myself the proud reluctant wearer of $5 underwear from a forgotten 80′s actress, around the pool.   like, in front of actual people, with a steely glare for anyone who dare insult my ridiculous awesome swim-pseud.

no reason for shame, though, because these delta burke pants are going to SWEEP THE NATION, people.  in fact, it’ll be so popular, wearing 3 times too-big underwear, that the new “pull up your big girl pants” will be “hike up your Delta Burke pants.”. i’ll see to it.

don’t mess with me in my Delta Burke Pants.

the time will come that i don’t get a lump in my throat and have to take a deep breath when i see something surrounding the teaching profession.  this week it was parenthood (we’re watching the first season before we head old school with watching seasons of mad about you) when lorelai gilmore sarah braverman starts dating the 11th grade english teacher, mr. cyr.

there are probably many reasons for it, good and bad and none that i can fully express.

i guess my response can be summed up in the same way that sarah braverman answers the note given to her by mr. cyr later in the episode:

it’s complicated.

i just wonder when.

if you recall, i’ve been looking forward to several movies all summer, and this is the last of the trio that we saw.

oh, it did not disappoint.

it actually ended up being the worst movie i could think of to go to after a particular relationship conversation, me not wanting to see a dreamy relationship set to music that, in that particular mood, seemed elusive and irritating.

it ended up being perfection.

i love the movies; i do.  the boy and i share this, and i’m so glad.

epic weekend.

one of my favorite songs from the movie (albeit difficult since all of them were lovely), from the first lady of france.  they’ve got something going for them, those french: Quelqu’un m’a dit – Carla Bruni

and setting it in one of the most bizarre choices of location (the suburbs)?  well, that’s just the icing on the cake.

band: the dead weathers (aka jack white & alison mosshart’s newest project).
video: directed by jonathan glazer.
thank you: christopher, stewart, and ken wang; respect.

(via)

me: you know, if we don’t hang out with your bff soon, he will think you have dudevorced him.

boy: [silence].

me: dear?

boy: [silence, tacit refusal to acknowledge my wit anymore].

*    *    *    *

this shun, i might add, comes from the boy who sent me a “kansas is OZ-some!” postcard on his trip to kentucky.  seriously.

me: the one you went on your mandate with?

boy: [sigh] yes.  we get along really well.

me: i’m glad you love your new bff.

boy: seriously we’re going to call him that?

me: yes.  i mean, i’m pleased your new bromance is going well.

boy: [shaking head] don’t call it that!

me: i mean, going so well that you would maybe say…

boy: don’t…

me: that you were…

boy: come on, don’t be silly…

me: mengaged?!?

boy: aaaaand you went there anyway.

me: [so pleased with myself, beaming from my wit and charm]

boy: [shaking head, wordless, contemplating how possible it might be for him to break up with me and date a mime instead]

moments later…

me: are you going to tell him how we talk about him?

boy: never.