goblinbox.com

Freaky

by Mush on January 3, 2006 · 5 Comments · in Ink

In which I’m flattered, but mildly disturbed.

So I just discovered that there is an image in my gallery – of one of my tattoos – that was hit over nine thousand times in November. (Nine thousand times!) There are even a variety of juvenile comments about how much my ink sucks.

New tattoo

It never occurred to me to turn off comments in my gallery, because who the hell comments on random images?! And even curiouser: who drove all that traffic here in the first place?

Anyway, it’s kinda weird to think that so many strangers have seen my ass crack, that’s all I’m trying to say.

01/04 Update: The images in question are still getting mad hits – over two hundred since yesterday. I put a counter on the pages, and it looks like most of the traffic is coming from my boyfriend Google’s image search function. (Oh, you didn’t know Google is my boyfriend? Well ya live an’ learn, dontcha!)

Update: I upgraded to Gallery 2.1 and lost my comments. *sigh*

Laptop Envy

by Mush on January 3, 2006 · 8 Comments · in Blurbs

In which wanting and needing are not the same thing.

I just walked over to the 2nd Street coffee shop, where I bought a latté and a piece of Bonnie’s strange-but-good veggie lasagna. (She makes the sauce spicier than is typical, and there’s always broccoli in it. Plus she makes odd cheese choices sometimes. But her lasagna rocks anyway.) There were three people in there with their laptops, enjoying the wi-fi. Bastards. I want a laptop! I want to surf the ‘net at the coffee shop on a sexy, sleek laptop!

But since Bread quit his job today, I don’t see a shiny new laptop in my near future.

After Five Days, I Wish I Were Dead

by Mush on January 2, 2006 · 7 Comments · in Health

In which I get all gyno. Readers indifferent to or uncomfortable with talk of cycles, bleeding, and my totally bitchy uterus may skip this entry.

You know what they say: “Never trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.”

I’ve had a regular cycle since I started bleeding at 12. I was often surprized by my period because if I didn’t look at a calendar there weren’t any symptoms to let me know it was on its way. It was generally cramp-free and three days long. I never got PMS. I could even alter my cycle by will alone – a skill I learned by consciously monitoring the moon’s phases – and which came in handy when I had a big event or a vacation coming up.

Then I turned 30, which was something of a mistake (and something I suggest you younger women avoid at all costs). I was surprized when I started getting PMS, first in the form of feeling really cranky, and later as full-fledged mental instability. Within two years, I had great sympathy for those of my sisters who have been plagued with the psychosis of PMS since their teens. By 35, I had deep and abiding empathy for those women who need a fucking morphine drip when they’re on the rag. And the horror stories I’d heard over the years about cramps so bad they induced tears and hours in the fetal position were no longer just stories to me.

Happy New Year, Everyone

by Mush on January 2, 2006 · 5 Comments · in Music, Social

Strange but fun: a New Year’s gig with two extremely different bands. This entry is extremely long… YHBW.

I went back to town with Bread. At the hotel, he split for the bar to order himself a burger and a beer, and I headed up to 265 to put on my face and change into my gig clothes.

WTC and KO were there; W. was trying to meditate and rest a bit since he’d been on the run all day, and K. suddenly remembered he only had white socks – which he announced would look terrible with his black pinstriped slacks – and left in a hurry to rush home and remedy the situation.

We’re So Beautiful!

Someone emerged from the bathroom; I could smell the steam from where I sat cross-legged on the credenza in front of a mirror, and I didn’t dare turn around for fear he, whoever he was, wasn’t decent. He saw me, though, and uttered an amusing and heartfelt, “Oh shit!” before explaining, “Damn, I couldn’t figure out what you were, sitting up there like that!” WTC chuckled from his spot on the bed behind me. The showerer was BvB’s hubby and our sound man MvB, and he was, I was glad to see, completely dressed. He put on his new shoes and left the room.

W. settled back down in the bed behind me for a few more minutes of rest. In the silence I discovered, after applying black liquid eyeliner, that I only had brown mascara – and an old and dried-out tube of brown mascara at that. (I am plagued by dried-out mascara. I should start using false eyelashes again; they’re fun and they look cool and they solve the problem.)

W. must’ve abandoned the idea of rest as he got up a few minutes later. He sat on the floor next to the credenza I was perched on and ate a sandwich while we chatted and I finished my make-up. When I took my hair down from the knot I’d put it in to keep it out of my way, the nice wave I’d troubled to create earlier was gone. I put a couple rollers in briefly but didn’t bother to heat my hair so they didn’t really help. I need a cut and color anyway. Plus beauty’s a pain in the ass, really.

K. returned and dressed, and I have to say the man looked astounding. W. asked our opinions on his two shirts – one black with pinstrips, the other I think was red – and we voted for the pinstripe. I went into the bathroom and changed. We really did look fantastic together, I have to say, in our black, red, and silver. As we congratulated ourselves on cleaning up so good, K. said he felt like a million bucks and W. put on his shades. Laughing, we went down for the gig.

New Drums Are So Hot

by Mush on January 1, 2006 · No Comments · in Blurbs, MP3s

In which my brother got a new drum kit.

This is one of the dozen images my brother emailed me of his new drum kit.

On the phone today he told me, “My new drum kit is so hot it’s going to have my kids. As soon as I find its vagina, that is.”

In other news, this will cheer you up. He’s so funky, the Purple One.

Off The Main Sequence

by Mush on December 30, 2005 · 2 Comments · in Reading

In which I admit publicly that I no longer loathe RAH.

I received Off The Main Sequence as an automatic monthly selection from SFBC.

Last year I read an ebook of Heinlein’s non-fiction and decided I might be willing to forgive him for Stranger In A Strange Land and Friday and all that other incestuous crap.

I’d always found reading Heinlein to be like this: he’d set up a great premise with great characters and the first half of the book would be a joy to read. Then… well, then they’d all start fucking each other – sometimes they’d time travel and screw their own ancestors – and good sci-fi would degenerate into interstellar soft porn. Ugh.

I also pretty much hated the second half of Stranger, but that’s another story.

Anyway, I read some of his non-fiction quite by accident and realized that he really was the genius all the dust jackets said he was. And not too long ago I read a book of his shorts and loved it, and now I’m reading another book of his shorts with equal relish.

Okay, so, I’ll come out and say it: I was wrong. Heinlein doesn’t suck. I’ll even dig up some of the novels I hated and re-read them now that I’m older and of dirtier mind.

(But I never did like LOTR and I never will and I don’t care who knows it.)

So damn fat

by Mush on December 29, 2005 · 3 Comments · in LOTD

No more drive-thru! Oh my ghod, I’ve absolutely got to start working out!

The article Carmakers widen seats for wider … seats shows you that we’ve come a long way, baby. And not in a good way.

Perhaps affluence is actually bad for the species? I’m starting to think subsistence living is actually healthier… at least for the ones who manage to survive.

Sleepy Girl

by Mush on December 29, 2005 · 1 Comment · in Blurbs, Music

Yesterday was a long day.

I got home really late Tuesday night because rehearsal went so long, then I sat reading and unwinding for a bit before going to bed. I didn’t get enough sleep that night. Yesterday I worked until five, met Bread at the bar and had dinner with him at Torino’s, then went to rehearsal again. Didn’t get home until late but had to wake him up and ravish him because he’d made me promise I would at dinner, so I didn’t get to sleep last night until well past midnight.

Today I have rehearsal at seven and we’re running through the whole set twice, so I doubt I’ll be home before eleven. I am so sleeping in tomorrow! But then my house is a total mess and I still need to buy shoes for the gig, so I guess I’ll have to actually do something Friday rather than lounge on the couch watching TiVo’d episodes of Sex and the City re-runs as I’d like.

I’m really excited about the gig but right now I want a nap so badly I can barely keep my eyes open. I think I’ll buzz home at five and take a power nap before rehearsal, and show up with a sleepy voice rather than a sleepy head.