The Return Of Brown Bear

Found in the kitchen area. Brown Bear is back.
Safe.
Who knows what mental trauma he may have been through.

The Doodie

So I am in the stall, going pee.
It's "Take Your Kids To Work Day" remember?
And two of them walk in. Mumbled talk...one boy, one girl.
She has to pee.
I'm done and washing my hands now.
She's undoing her diaper, he's standing right next to her in the stall, taking bites of his bagel.
She keeps saying, "That's a doodie."
I left.

The Teddy

Today is "Take Your Kids To Work Day" at my job. I don't have kids, but 99.999 percent of the people I work with do. It's a zoo in here. A menagerie of whiners from toddler to ten.

One stole my bear. She saw it as she was walking by and asked about it. I had my back to the opening of my cube and tried to ignore her. Kids don't play like that. Louder, she asked what his name was. He doesn't have one. She told me she had a bear just like him at home, but he's bigger, and his name is Brown Bear.

OMG...as I type one of the women I work with burst into tears and ran into the CEO's office. I don't know why.

Anyway...back to the kids.

I suggest naming my bear Brown Bear Junior. She says, no. He's just Brown Bear.

OK.

She asks if she can play with him today. No problem. He actually isn't really mine. He was already in my cube when I started working here and had on a promotional life insurance t-shirt. I took it off. He wasn't naked though...I tied a ribbon around his neck.

So little girl leaves with Brown Bear only to return about ten minutes later and asks if she can take the bow off.

Odd. He's so much cuter with the bow on.

I say yes. She leaves.

I wonder if I'll ever see him again.

Penis De Milo

"Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft."

-Penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa.

-Beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

-Sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear.

-In Ghana a decade ago, 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. Those who were jailed have been released.

From a witness: "It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny."

From Reuters

An Echo, A Stain

Most of the music I like is sung by men. That’s not to say I don’t like female singers, I do, just not that many of them—particularly when it comes to music released within the past ten to twenty years. But when I do like them, it’s like an obsession. When PJ Harvey’s Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea came out, it’s all I listened to…on repeat. And roll your eyes all you want—Tori Amos is amazing. “1000 Oceans” makes it into my favorite songs of all time list.

I went to my friends wedding this weekend. Dan and Tracy danced to Bjork’s “Come To Me.” It was gorgeous, enchanting, sweet, delicate. I remember when I bought the album, Vespertine—I was visiting my friend, Kathleen, in San Francisco for a weekend and I was flying home, alone, listening to it on the plane. Massive turbulence. Flying through a wicked storm. I saw black clouds. Lightning. Scariest flight ever. Oddly, it was September 2, 2001. I thought I was going to die and Vespertine was my soundtrack. Not a bad way to go, I suppose. I could’ve been listening to The Strokes’ Is This It, the other album I bought at Amoeba Music that weekend. It was the cool cover with the naked chick that ended up being banned so they changed it. Oh yeah, they weren’t albums, they were discs. I was still listening to my SONY Walkman from college. What a great electronic device—lasted me until I bought an iPod…in 2004.

Kathleen flew to NYC a few days later to visit her family. She was booked on United Flight 93 to return to San Francisco. Thank god she changed her plans and went home the 9th instead. I don’t talk to her anymore, which is sad. I met her in high school.

I hate flying.

I saw Bjork at Radio City with my sister in support of that record. She was amazing. Had a choir of kids who sang like angels. It brought tears to both our eyes. It enveloped us, seduced, intoxicated. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

Bjork’s on repeat…going through her whole catalog...on that same iPod.

The Heart Never Forgets

I read this on Drudge's headlines: Man With Suicide Victim's Heart Kills Self

Twelve years ago, Sonny Graham received a heart transplant from a donor who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sonny killed himself on Tuesday in the same way. But get this...

Sonny was married to a woman named Cheryl, as in the former Cheryl Cottle, widow of Terry Cottle, the man whose heart was beating in Sonny's chest.

After he received his transplant, Sonny wrote letters to Terry's family. He eventually met Cheryl and fell in love with the woman, thirty years his junior.

"I felt like I had known her for years," Graham told The (Hilton Head) Island Packet for a story in 2006. "I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I just stared."

Wow.

Annoying

Today is annoying.

So is the use of the phrase "not to mention." Like if you were to say: "I really find Jimmy's habit of smoking in the house annoying, not to mention the fact that he always leaves the toilet seat up."

Why "not to mention" when you are in fact mentioning it?

I also get annoyed when people say "I could care less" as in "Dick and Jane are moving, thank God, because I could care less about those two losers!"

It's "couldn't care less" because if you could care less, well then you wouldn't be caring the least about it and apparently that's the point you are trying to make.

Also in the annoying category are people who smoke outside of a restaurant and then come in when they are done, but exhale that last long puff they took once they get inside. Gross.

Total Swoon

Josh Brolin is hot. I just saw No Country For Old Men last night. Great movie, but dare I say it...his performance was better than Javier Bardem's. I loved them both in it, but Brolin...damn he was good. Man also loves cooking and racing cars.

Littles

Babies are cute...especially baby possums and baby bats.

I want one of each, but I would want them to stay this size forever and carry them around in my bag.