Found Blog

Truth be known, I have several blogs, scattered about the bowels of the internet like bastard children. I'll start one with great enthusiasm, tell myself I'll blog a little everyday, post three or four things only to abandon it, where it sits, totally dejected and equally forgotten. I've been doing this for the greater part of a decade.

Thing is, they're not totally forgotten. Not really. And every once and while, I'll visit these blogs and explore the contents like ancient tombs, cringing every once and awhile at my thoughts, feelings and observations of yesteryear. I am and probably always will be a self-important piece of work. Because if my hodge-podge of blogs have anything in common, it's the theme of "there's nothing as important in the whole wide world as what I'm typing right now." One of my many vanities, I guess.

Anyway, here's a few examples. A "Whitman's Sampler" of blogs past, from most recent (2008) to one at the beginning of the new millennium. (2001) Unjoy!

from my blog entitled Alice (I forget why) dated 1/14/2008

Dove chocolate

I really had a hankering for something sweet but was distressed when I found no sweet vittles in my kitchen cabinets. (True, there's a cake mix, but that requires eggs, oil and moderate manual dexterity, none of which I posses) I was about to surrender myself to a healthy, shiny, tasteless apple when I suddenly remembered half a bag of Dove chocolate in my purse, which boasts: "silky smooth milk chocolate promises". Well it's sugar, anyway.

This is the "cutesy" thing about Dove "promises" chocolate: each individually wrapped candy has an inspirational message on the inside of the wrapper. Messages, it seems, that were written by the same people who write for "Guidepost". Here are a few gems:
"Believe in and act on your dreams"
"Count your blessings and not your worries"
"Enjoy your DOVE and let your mind unwind"
"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more in life there is to celebrate"
"Close out the world for just a moment"
"Send flowers to YOURSELF"
"Smile at a stranger"
"Flirt"
And my favorite:
"Listen to your heartbeat and dance"

Yeah, it doesn't take a genius to deduce that these are meant for women. One's estrogen level goes up significantly after consuming a "silky smooth Dove promise" and reading it's glurgly, butterfly kisses-like message.

There's also something slightly presumptuous about Dove "promises". At first I wasn't able to pinpoint how, exactly, but the more I stuffed my gullet with chocolate, and the more messages I was fraught with it became clear: the people who make this shite are targeting frumpy, lonely women. Damnit, Dove!

First, there's this:
"Make "someday" today "
Then this:
"Take YOURSELF on a date"
And this:
"Tell yourself you look beautiful not just today, but everyday"
And finally:
"Watch reruns, they replay your memories"


Get a life, you loser.

So then I start musing about the many bags of this chocolate I've bought over the years, and how each time I would unwrap one and read the message I would think to myself: "Ugh, spare me." Yet I continue to buy and consume Dove chocolate promises! I mean, who eats this stuff? Is it high-power, big shoulder pad wearing, Diane Keaton pre-baby in "Baby Boom" New York City business women? No. Is it cell phone yapping, hair flipping, Diet Coke sipping, spray tanned California spawn of the socially elite? Like, duh. No. Perhaps it's the soy cube eating, riding the bike to work, I only buy my groceries at "Whole Foods" hippy dippies? No. Huh. Well, maybe it's overweight women who shop at "Fashion Bug Plus", want to be just like Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City" and often refer to themselves as "Claymates"? Yes. These are the people who eat Dove chocolate. This is the demographic that the Great and Powerful Oz over at the Mars corporation decided would plop three bucks down on a bag of candy that would aide them in coating their sadness in silky smooth milk chocolate. Well thank you, Mars co. Both my sweet tooth as well as my ass are in your debt.

from ModernFix, dated 3/27/04


My Feet

I can't seem to keep the heels of my feet from being dry and cracked. I know it's winter and all, but still.
Taking advice from my mother-in-law in regards to cracked feet is strange. She's much more serious about it than one might think, like getting rid of crust is big business, or an urgency. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate advice. But what we're dealing with here is dead skin, not cervical cancer.
There's steps. First, I must obtain a pumace stone. Then, soothing balm. The feet are to be..pumaced, I guess..once a day. Balmed, twice. This seems like an awful amount of work and I'm almost totally sure it would go unappreciated. Kind of like spending all day baking a cake that's gone in ten minutes. Why bother? I'm not married to a foot man, I'm married to an ass man. And I deliver. But I suppose down south it's part of the wifely duty to maintain baby soft feet for the man of the house. Nuts to that, I say, as Scott does almost nothing to maintain himself for me. Many a time have I been scratched by the increasingly yellowed talons he calls "toenails". He has an ever increasing amount of nose hair. Is it required for him to pumace and balm, though? Probably not. But look at me, turning it into a feminist thing. I guess what it boils down to is just personal hygiene.
Still, Scott could stand to trim the toenails and nose hair.


from ThievinMagpuh, dated 6/30/2001

ARTHUR


My daughter loves the show Arthur, some cartoon that comes on PBS. It's not bad for a kids show, but what's weird about it is the fact that all the characters are animals who own pets....who are also animals. Wouldn't that be like slavery? Didn't the creators of the show consider the weirdness factor of this even for a moment?

Francine the monkey owns a cat who's name I can't remember. Also, Francine has a friend who also happens to be a cat. Goes by the name of Sue Ellen. I find it odd that Sue Ellen THE CAT doesn't seem bothered by the fact that Francine happens to OWN a CAT as a PET. Apply these terms to human beings. If you were to say, go over to a friend or relatives home and there you spotted a supple young man drinking from a water dish and being referred to as "Fido", you might find this socailly and morally unacceptable. (unless you're into that sort of thing) It's an arrestable offense, after all. So why can the animal-like characters in Arthur get away with it? It must be a social norm.