22 posts tagged “5ives”

You know it has to be true, as Paula Abdul once said it. 

5 Ways My Husband and I are Total Opposites

1. Everything I know comes from books.  Nothing my husband knows does.
2. I am misanthropic but social.  He is antisocial but not misanthropic.
3. I talk nonstop.  My husband does not talk at all.
4. I'm a freakin mess all the time.  My husband is calm and ordered, without even trying.  It's disgusting.
5. I think of rice as a side dish.  He thinks of rice as a meal.

Lately, for some reason, most of the music I've been listening to is from the past, from my teen years or thereabouts.  I don't know why.  Suddenly, though, I find myself thinking, "Hey, I want to listen to _____!" and fill in the blank with some song I haven't listened to in years and years.  Here are 5 of them that I've fixated on in the past couple of days:

1.  INXS "Need You Tonight"  Why did I never notice before how hot Michael Hutchence was in this video?  Maybe he was always hot.  I don't know.  I never really noticed it before, but now I'm kinda thinking I missed out on a pretty obvious teenage crush target.  But, like, those other INXS guys are kind of not so hot.  They should remain off screen.

2.  The Pursuit of Happiness "Cigarette Dangles"  Until I heard this song, I had no idea Canadians were sex fiends.  How happy I was to find this on the YouTube. 

3.  Scott Goddard "Cowpunk"  I couldn't find a video for this, which is probably just as well.  Let's see if we can find an mp3.  I have the CD somewhere, but...ah, I thought I had it, but it's failure.  Maybe I'll look for the CD tomorrow.  You can listen to it, if you're motivated, here.

4.  Soft Cell "Tainted Love"  I know, it's totally classic.  But I haven't heard it in forever, since back in my gay-clubbing days.  Um.  Don't tell my son about those days, eh?  Actually, maybe I should encourage him to hang out in the gay clubs.  That's where all the fun is.

5.  The Cure "Killing an Arab"  Yeah, sure, we were talking about The Cure a few days ago, and my man Itchy Dawg mentioned this song, so I suppose that's what made me want to listen to it again.  When you go through that phase when you first read The Stranger, I think you have to think this song is the coolest thing in the world.  Because when you read The Stranger, you are obviously deeper and darker and cooler and way more nihilistic than your companions.  You are too hip to continue referring to it by its English title--even though you cannot read French, you must refer to it as L'Etranger.  You, of course, are the only person who has ever read Camus. 

I forgot to do this yesterday, I guess, distracted by all this new software my friends have been introducing me to.  This internet thing is pretty cool, ya know?

Anyway, here are 5 (not necessarily the only 5, just the 5 I'm thinking about at the moment) Girl Crushes:

1. Grace Kelly.  God, she's mesmerizing.  I would donate my kidneys (sure, both of them) to charity if I could have a tiny fraction of her style, elegance, and beauty.  She's like a warm ray of sunshine.  She's delicious.
   
2. Cristina Yang.  Alright, Sandra Oh.  But I don't know anything about Sandra Oh as a person, really.  It's Cristina I love.
   
3. Glamour Mama.  She's smart and funny and has beautiful hair and excellent taste in footwear, and I'm not really sure what more you could want in a woman.
   
4. Kari Byron.  Nerdy science girls rock.
   
5. Michelle Yeoh.  She could kick my ass any time.  Any old time at all.

5 Things I have learned:

1.  When your mom said she wasn't just pretending, that she really did love your abstract art from when you were just a toddler, she wasn't lying.  She really wasn't.

2.  Try on the jeans.  It's a bother, but you really have to try on the jeans, even if you've bought that brand before.  I recently came home with a pair of jeans from a famous brand I have purchased before, and they fit, nominally.  But apparently that brand has been taken over by one of these Satanic people who wishes to expose the ass-crack of every female on earth.  "Contoured waistband"--what a farce!  I like to keep my ass under wraps, if it's all the same to you, Mr. Famous Jeans Designer.

3.  Emails from your best friends are worth saving.  Also, if you wrote epic emails about your epic adventures in a foreign country and/or in a Festiva, those are also worth saving.  The emails from friends are worth saving just to go back and read the subject lines.  For example, I still have emails from sgazzetti with subject lines such as:  "Brief update on the situation in Pomerania," "There is no spoon, or point," and a longtime favorite, "Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?"  I don't even have to read the emails to know that they have nothing whatsoever to do with Pomerania, spoons, or ponchos--or points. 

4.  Do not insult a Kenyan man by offering to pay for the hotel.  Kenyan men do not allow ladies to pay for the hotel.  They just don't, and it is an affront to their manhood to offer.  Umbrage will be taken. 

5.  Don't eat the shrimp in Danang.

Apropos of #3 and #5, I am going to be posting some old stuff here--some emails from previous travels and some posts from my old "blog."  I am erasing certain old accounts I have scattered in various places, to consolidate my Internet presence, as it were.  Therefore, the things I want to keep will find their way here.  So, if you suddenly start seeing that I'm in Malaysia or whatever, remember that it's the past.

5 statements my son made today that are patently false (but, hey, he's only 2 and a half!)

1.  "I'm not feral."

2.  "Mama has a penis."

3.  "Mama got lots of energy."

4.  "Poo-poo comes out your penis."  Obviously, we're in a penis-fascination phase.  I expect the phase to last for approximately 30 more years.

5.  "Papa said it's OK."

5 surprising things I am totally against:

1.  Vodka.

2.  Grass.  The stuff growing in lawns, not the illicit drug.  I'm OK with the illicit drug as long as you don't dump bagfuls of AGENT MOTHERFUCKING ORANGE on it, you assholes.  Agent Orange is, by the way, the primary weed killer used in those bags of "weed and feed."  Oh, yeah. 

3.  That line from that song that says something like "I'll have you naked by the end of this song."  Every time I hear that, I keep thinking, "Hmm, with that singular lack of subtlety?  I think not."

4.  Latte.  Just pop a caffeine pill and drink some Nestle Quik, OK?

5.  People.  As Bill Hicks used to say, we're a virus with shoes.

5 surprising things I am totally for:

1.  Tony Bennett. 

2.  Fishing in the dark.

3.  Teeny tiny automobiles.

4.  Men in suits riding bicycles. 

5.  Vespa scooters.

If a waiter stopped by right now to take your order, what cocktail or drink are you having?

Why stop at just one?  It's Friday, and that means it's time for a 5ive.

Tonight's drink order:

1.  Gimlet.  With gin, please, none of that nancyman vodka.  I like a 3:1 ratio, if you don't mind.

2.  Tom Collins.  Lovely.  Again, if you dare suggest to me a poseur Collins featuring vodka, I will suckerpunch you. 

3.  How about a rum and tonic for a change?  Yes, lime--lime makes everything better.  *slurp*

4.  Ooh, now it's time to break out the Campari.  Let's go with a drink I call the GinBaby:  an ounce of gin (the good gin, thanks), an ounce of Campari, top it off with tonic water and a lemon slice.  Gracias y muchos besos all around.

5.  Jeshush, I need a beer.  Or, have you any lambic?  No?  OK, then, hefeweizen.  Oh, what the hell, go ahead and throw the lemon slice in there--I'm in a good mood.

I may now need a shot of -brisk!- Akvavit to wake me up.  It is, after all, the very water of life.

RE:  #4.  Does that combination actually have a name?  I know it is akin to a negroni, but not.  I used to get it all the time in a friend's bar in Numazu, Japan, and there they hadn't heard of it, so they just started calling it after me.  It's good, though. 

Lately I've been drinking a drink I'm calling "The Babysitter."  It's Jones Pure Cane Soda Lemon Drop (which tastes just like CC Lemon, a drink I completely adore) mixed with a Campari-esque liqueur I made from mountain ash berries up in Alaska.  I don't measure--I just pour until it looks a pleasing color and then drink.  Sweet and sour and bitter, all at the same time.  If you dusted the rim with salt, it'd be a treat for the entire tongue.  I used to drink gin-and-CC Lemon a lot in Japan, too.  But I'm guessing that the esoteric nature of these ingredients would flummox your average waiter.  The above listed 5 drinks will do nicely. 

Hop to it if you want your tip, handsome.

Some thoughts after grocery shopping today:

5 Things America does not need:

1.  20% more chips.

2.  Phenylephrine.

3.  Fourthmeal.

4.  Velveeta.

5.  Another Republican president.

Well, it appears the thirst for trivia about the GinBaby is unquenchable.  People can't get enough of me.

Which is to say, however immodestly, that I've been tagged by the good Kirk with the 7-or-8 Things About You meme.  I hadn't yet met this version, but I had previously done the 5 Things No One Knows About You.  I will paste that into the body of this post so that you can learn all there is to know about me without so much as having to click a link.  Awesome, I know.

I've been having to give this some thought.  For one thing, as previously mentioned, my two very best friends read this.  Itchy Dawg has known me since I was 19; sgazzetti has known me since we were in grad school together.  They have seen me in a lot of stages, with many different colors of hair.  There is very little about me that they do not know.  For anyone else who might be reading, the challenge is coming up with 5 more things (in addition to the 5 I listed before, as, according to Kirk, there are rules about these memes that they don't count for a full 5) that no one really knows about me that are also interesting.  As it happens, I had actually listed far more than 5 things the last time I did this, so you are, in effect, going to get a sort of blizzard of new, potentially incriminating information about me.  I know, I know--it's probably going to be a thrill a minute.

First, the previous post:

I got tagged with that damn "5 things no one knows about you" meme.  You know the one.  I think I am probably the last person in the world to have been tagged with that.  It's going to be a bit difficult, because my two oldest and dearest friends in the universe both read this blog, and I don't think there is much they don't know about me.  But I shall give it the old college try.

1.  For many years, until I was well into high school, I absolutely refused to use the word "cool" to describe anything other than the temperature.  I thought people sounded like ass saying everything was "cool" all the time, and I similarly thought that any word that wanted to be so cool as 'cool' could not also be used by my mom.  Sigh.  Somewhere along the line, I gave up my ideals and sold my vocabulary downstream, no doubt for a case of wine coolers.

2.  Let's see.  I was in FFA, as in the Future Farmers of America, for three years.  I participated in many FFA events, including soil judging and meat judging (wink, wink, snicker, snicker).  I was never much good at soil judging, because, honestly, I am completely spatially unaware and thus unable to determine the angle of slope of any given piece of land.  It was vexing, that whole "slope" business, as if you can't farm on a hill!  I did well at meat judging (ahem!).  This was also the era in which I raised pigs (and then, yes, sold them to people who would kill them and devour their fatty bellies--made a tidy little profit doing that).

3.  I have a weakness for murder mysteries.  I am especially fond of Agatha Christie (oh, Hercule!  my love!), Dick Francis, and Ian Rankin.  I don't look at the end to find out who did it, but I do try to figure it out on my own, and a writer can really only earn my respect if I can't figure it out.  But those three write so well, I reread their books many times, even when I know who did it. 

4.  I have long had a serious Monkees fixation.  I know not how I succumbed to the affliction, though Nick at Nite had a lot to do with it, along with little supervision and long hours of insomnia.  You don't know schizophrenia until you have listened to Hank Williams, The Monkees, and Helmet all in one sitting, as I have.

5.  The year I was 12 we lived in Albuquerque.  It was the most terrifying year of my life.  To illustrate:  One day I woke up to find that our entire apartment complex was spattered with blood.  There were pools of blood that had not yet dried all around and broken glass and blood on the walls.  It turns out some guy on some drug had gone around punching out windows and just let himself bleed everywhere.  Still freaky.  And it colored my nightmares (and insomnia) for years.  That was also the year some guy probably tried to abduct me.  I say probably because I didn't get in the car with him.  He was creepy all around, and so I would barely even look at him, but in the few glances I stole, I noticed that he was...oh, no, let's not talk about it, shall we?  Shall we just say--if you're sensitive, forego reading this part--that I was confused about why he would be urinating on himself, but I was more confused that the urine was white.  For these reasons, among others (someone also tried to carjack my grandma, who awesomely refused to move at all, sitting through several red lights and finally making the guy too nervous, so he jumped out), I will never live in Albuquerque again, not ever, not for any reason.  I try my best not even to set foot in Albuquerque. 

There are probably other things.  I am, for example, completely anal retentive about matching my clothes and always have been.  I have no wisdom teeth (and no cavities in all my 32 years!).  I have had insomnia and nightmares since I can remember, although Albuquerque didn't help.  I have touched a real mummy, actually more than one.  I know the proper method for skinning a deer.  My IQ is apparently nearly twice my state's average.  I know how to weld.  When I was 2 years old or so, I cut the top of one of my fingers off; the same year, I hurled myself out of the car into oncoming Phoenix traffic, an act for which I still blame my mother (and, hey, thank goodness for car seats). 

Hmmm.  Fascinating, isn't it? 

Alright, well, that is a lot of fascinating information.  Well played, GinBaby.  God, I don't know why I'm being such a pompous ass tonight.  Forgive me, I beg of you.

So, for the next 5 things, I have been racking my brain.  I'll have a go at it, though.

1.  My favorite Beatles song is "Here Comes the Sun."  It's so simple and clear and perfect.  It was the alarm ringtone on my cell in Japan, although it was a version played on the shamisen.  It was a good thing to wake up to.

2.  In my youth, I read several seafaring novels (Moby Dick, Mutiny on the Bounty, etc.) and developed a secret and urgent fear of scurvy.  Just eat your oranges, people.

3.  I have a habit of listening to the same CD over and over again for a week or two before finally moving on to another one.  Right now, it's XTC's Skylarking, despite my irritation at the Colin Moulding songs.  My husband is annoyed by this habit, incidentally.

4.  I think Cary Grant is the epitomy of a gentleman and everything men should aspire to be.  So smooth, so charming.  Such great posture.  Ironically, I recently found out (thanks, again, Wikipedia) that my distant relative, Randolph Scott (he's my great-grandmother's cousin or something--my great-grandmother also went to Hollywood and was in a couple of movies and dated Errol Flynn and people like that before coming down with a mysterious and terrible disease, a disease found only in 100 women in the same hospital in southern California, a disease that they told her was polio that was quite demonstrably not polio, a disease that kept her bedridden for years, which just goes to show that southern Cali is eeeevil--but I digress) was possibly Cary Grant's lover.  Rock on Randolph--excellent taste!

5.  My favorite gin is Tanqueray Malacca, and I am constantly vexed that it is no longer made.  When we went to Malacca, I was also irked that they didn't have it available--it should have been flowing from the goddamn fire hydrants in Malacca.  I have made my peace with Malacca, the lovely town, but not with Tanqueray.  What is up, you fools?  That was the best widely available gin ever, and you stopped making it.  (I have heard of some boutique gins that are better, but I have not tasted them, as they are not readily available, so for the time being, I am just stuck Malacca-less and grumpy.)  I suppose a 6th thing you didn't know about me is that I actually prefer the spelling Melaka, but I am pretty sure the gin is 'Malacca.'  Imperialist fools.

First there is some important business to attend to.

When the MSN homepage came up today, it informed me of two extremely important events:  Chris Cornell has a new album coming out, and Paris Hilton has been sentenced, apparently irrevocably, to jail for 45 days.  Either of these two things alone is enough to delight me; in conjunction, they are manna from heaven.  Perhaps there is a God.

Also, I read this today, and all I can say (besides the fact that it is obviously very true) is I really wish I had written it.  Damn. 

Now, onwards!  To the 5ive!

5 Things that Have no Right to Exist (Music):

1. "Soft rock."
2. "Adult contemporary."
3. Albums made by television stars.  Yes, even Bruce Willis.  I will make an exception for Leonard Nimoy.
4. The entire oeuvre of Billy Joel.
5. Any music from Scandinavia save The Sugarcubes/Bjork (wait? Is Iceland part of "Scandinavia"?  I shall consult Wikipedia.  Ah, it appears it can be considered Scandinavia but isn't always.  So, Bjork is saved.), The Cardigans, and hilarious Scandinavian death metal.  Rock on.

5 Things that Have no Right to Exist (Food):

1. Brazil nuts.
2. White chocolate.
3. Mild salsa.  Just use some tomato sauce or something, people.
4. The "Wild Consomme" flavor of Pringles potato chips that they sell in Japan.  There is nothing wild about consomme.
5. Pizza with what is essentially potato salad on top (potatoes, boiled eggs, mayonnaise--hell, maybe even a little corn).  Yeah, that's right, Japan--I'm looking at you again.  The potato salad pizza is an abomination.

5 Things that Have no Right to Exist (Language):

1. Umlauts.
2. Especially gratuitous umlauts.
3. Alright, all diacritical marks, except the tilde.
4. Vocative case.
5. Chomsky's Minimalist Program.  That's really more to do with linguistics, I guess, since it clearly has nothing to do with any actual language spoken by a human being.  I think that sometime between 1986 and 1994, Chomsky was abducted by aliens, or perhaps Republicans, and he lost touch with the way actual humans produce actual human language.  It's disappointing.  Besides that, it's an utter dickbong to wrangle your way through the incredibly complicated and obfuscatory prose to find that the underlying argument means nothing at all that would matter to you. 

5 Things that Have no Right to Exist (Politics):

1. President George W. Bush.
2. Vice-President Dick Cheney.
3. Secretary of State (no...that can't be right?  oh, yes, it is) Condoleeza Rice.
4. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
5. Justice Clarence Thomas.  At least Scalia is funny, you prique. 

The reason I said "things" instead of "people" is that I mainly mean they have no right to exist in their current political positions.  If Cheney was just some grumpy old duck muttering to himself as he tended to his suburban lawn in Woodsdale, Colorado, I wouldn't question his right to exist.  Indeed, I imagine his sotto voce paranoid ramblings would make excellent fun for the neighborhood children, particularly given the innately hilarious quality of his voice.  Oh, yes, if I imagine him in his dark socks and sandals, spraying his lawn with fertilizer and blaming the dandelion invasion on shadowy Middle Eastern men, and then shaking his raised fist at the kids down the street who assault him with pebbles, then I can see his place in the world.  Every suburban neighborhood needs such a man.  What we don't need is for the crazy old man down the street to become our vice president.

5 Things that Have no Right to Exist (Art):

1. Pointilism.  That shit irritates me.
2. Thomas Kinkade.
3. The colors collectively referred to as "beige."  I'm going to go ahead and throw the "taupe" category in as well. 
4. The motherfucking Family Circus.
5. Tom Hanks movies, especially those that also feature Meg Ryan.