DEAR ALL OF MY FRIENDS,

I've had a bad day. Please tell me a funny story or remind me of a hilarious memory.

If I check this blog tomorrow and there are zero comments, I...I'm going to be really fucking pissed. Yeah.

Fairin' with Darren OR At the Fair with Unky Dar OR The Return of Pig-Fistin' Bear!

Sweet merciful crap, the pig-fistin' bear is following me:


(And now he's sideways!) If you remember, we first met this fellow in Wisconsin Dells, just sitting randomly outside a gas station. We took some fun pictures, I gave him a little kiss, and then we had our goodbyes. But Darren and I get to the fair on Sunday--and what do we see in the Midway?--Why, pig-fistin' bear, of course. He's stalking me. And there were two of them. The other one was wearing green overwalls, but he had the same cute little pockets and the same tail that looks exactly like a big poop coming out. That tail is so gross.

Other fun at the fair with Unky Dar--here's us on the BIG SLIDE, only after a giant Dr. Pepper, Pronto Pups loaded with mustard, and a big helping of greasy, squeaky cheese curds, extra grease:

Woo-hoo! Fuck yeah! You had to ride little pieces of carpet down the slide, and they were scratchy and dirty, much like Darren's mom's carpet.

Of course, we got some Sweet Martha's cookies. We got them from the other building, though, not this one, where the cookie is trying way too hard to be sexy. It's actually kind of creepy--the eye winks, but it moves very slowly, so for most of the time (as seen here) the sexy cookie just looks like she has a lazy eye. And also, since she is clearly pigeon-toed and wearing white socks with high heels, this is not a good combination.

Also, the chocolate chips just look like zealous beauty marks. Or skin cancer.

The State Fair has a motto--The Great Minnesota Get-Together--and it also has a mascot, which is this gopher. I'm pretty certain that it looks much more squirrel than gopher-like, but upon further examination of the tail we determined it was a gopher. Plus, that makes more sense with the U of M TC campus right by, and the fact that this is just that fucking gopher Goldy in another costume.

What's most important, though, is that this gopher looks stoned as hell. I have never seen a rodent so fucking high in my entire life.

And then, we met the sonofabitch in real life! Notice his tie is black now and not red, and that his eyes are green instead of blue. Also notice that I made him wear my pickle hat. No, see?! He's pointing at it with his little white gloved hands. What a cool gopher-squirrel. (Actually, Darren and I decided after that we should've asked this to determine what kind of animal he was: Let's say you see a sexy lady squirrel in one corner, and a sexy lady gopher in another corner. Which one do you fuck?)

Eating Snoopy's weiner. What? It's okay you guys. I used to live on the same street where Charles Schulz lived as a child. Give it up for Chicago Avenue! Woo! (I do wonder why Snoopy has decided to wear a turtleneck to the fair, however, because it's usually pretty hot there.)

What Darren found on the bathroom stall (but what he really just wrote in there and took a picture of):

Darren and I didn't realize until about 10 minutes too late that the barns (lamely) close at 6, so when we went to see the cows they were all trailered up to get moooooved home. So I had to cow-poke through the holes. But the cows are so cute. I love the cows. And she licked my hand, which is funny, because she is the one who is delicious. (No, I'm sorry. Actually, my uncle's cows were part of the reason I became a vegetarian for awhile...I would go in the barn and just talk to them and pet their pink noses for awhile. They are just so cute. When they're not going to the bathroom in the gutter or giving birth. Then they're ish.)

We didn't get to see the sheep, either! And apparently when they leave the sheep building, they become Klu Klux Sheep with white hoods and costumes:

We went on the Ferris Wheel and saw this sign...

...which is pretty funny. Actually, it just made me want to ask the Carnie: Excuse me, but what's your policy on "Crybabies"? And then he'd just point to the sign and say NO crybabies. And then there, inevitably, would be a crybaby, and while the kid was crying the carnie would just point to the sign and shake his head back and forth every time the kid looped around. Then, after the kid left he's say to the other carnie workers GODDAMMIT ALMIGHTY. How hard is it to read a sign? There are no crybabies on the ferris wheel. That's all there is, the only rule, goddammit.

Also, I like that there is a license plate on the ferris wheel, just in case it gets pulled over for another DUI in Illinois or because its tabs are expired.

Grease! Here are some hotdogs being made. They go down a conveyor of grease, and you watch them cook from beginning to end:

And then they come out! In a move that Darren named the reverse turd.

Because I had a coupon for it, Darren and I got handwriting analyses. It was pretty fun, actually. You sign your name, and then they put it in this giant (um, fake) computer, and then a printed page comes out that tells you, VERY CORRECTLY AND NOT AT ALL RANDOM, everything about yourself.

For example, my printout said that I was very respected and organized, and then there was a paragraph or two about how I like order and also spontaneity and how I'm amazingly gorgeous and underrated.

And Darren's just said: SMALL DICK, BIG QUEER. It was really awkward for everyone.

And, Darren, I know I've just been making fun of you this whole time, but you were pretty amazing at the fair. [sings] I...had...the fair of my liiiiife/and I've never felt this way before! The state fair...yes it's true...I owe it all to yooo-ooo-oo-ou.

Darren and I look like brother and sister in this picture. That's really, really gross if I tell you what we did on that ferris wheel.

A good, good way to close out the summer.

Another one of those self-interventions.

The last couple of weeks have been busy, but slow. I'm in a bad routine. I wake up earlier than the good Lord ever intended for anyone to wake up, I go to school and listen to other teachers talk at me, and then I come home exhausted beyond belief, and instead of painting the rest of the hallway like I'd promised myself I would do, I instead lay down and read, only to fall asleep 15 minutes into it. I wake up, go running to train for the 10K, still haven't improved my mile, goddamnit, come home, do stuff online, and realize I'm not all that tired, take a sleeping pill, or stay up until 1 in the morning, and then do it all over again.

I hate this. I hate that I'm so tired, and I also hate that its getting dark earlier, and I hate that I'm not motivated to do my work for grad class or organize the stuff I'm supposed to do, or even do laundry or petty work like paint the damn hallway. I'm not sad, maybe a bit lonely in this house, but James comes home on Saturday, and I'm not angry or worried enough about school that it should warrant this crap-tastic routine. I don't know what it is.

I do know, though, that the dreams I've been having--the nightmares--have been worse than they've ever been, and it might really be that I'm not refreshed in sleep because my mind just works and works while I'm trying to get the REM sleep. Why won't they stop? Consistently, every night, I will have a nightmare. The degree of these dreams vary, and they aren't monster appocalypse nightmares, but they are frustrating. Consistently, every night, I will spend at least an hour (of what translates into dream-time, I suppose) dreaming that I am in high school. I'm not teaching it, I'm in it. I have a test to make up, no two tests. I have missed too much school, and I have to give a speech tomorrow, and I have to re-take math, and all of the kids are making fun of me because I can't open my locker. Also, I stand in the lunch line, and as I've always dreamt, there is too much food, and I want to eat all of it, and I can't decide what to eat, and then I go to pay for my lunch and there is no money in my account, and I am humiliated.

A couple of nights ago, I dreamt that my thesis was due and I didn't have it done. Then I dreamt that I went to this school event for some mysterious MFA program I was in, and I ate all of the fancy pastries and then found out that I had to pay for them, and then a group of people sang Christmas songs, and then I woman with a ridiculous amount of jewelry came in, and then the food all reappeared. Then I dreamt that I was staying at my grandparent's farm, alone, and I was with my dad but he ditched me, and I was dead certain that the farm was haunted and I had to mow the lawn. And--a nightmare that I literally had 15 years ago, that I remember now was reminiscent in that dream--I consistently dreamt when I was younger that that farm was right next to the edge of the world and that a simple misstep would make me fall to my death. The spot right next to the corn silos, I'd dream, to the far right of the summer kitchen, was the edge of the earth and that I'd easily walk over there and just fall and fall and fall. I was having this dream when I was ten years old. And I'm still having the same dreams. I'm still dreaming that my choir teacher hates me, just like I did all through high school and undergrad, and I'm still dreaming that tornadoes have stealth-like qualities and follow me around everywhere I go, waiting to attack, and I still dream about lunch and being late.

Today I remembered a dream from two years ago. Two years. These images will appear in my head, randomly. They're stored up in the hippocampus or something, little dream memories, and something at home or a new dream will trigger them and I'll remember. Because they affect my whole day. I'll wake up after sitting through Chemistry class in high school, and I'll feel the whole day that I really did fail, that I really am missing or forgetting something, and that I do have those little fake teenage type stresses following me around. These dreams are ridiculous, and I am convinced that I'm not normal--or, to be more positive, that I have some obscure super-power that allows me to remember everything that I dream. Is this why I'm so tired? Or, is it the lack of Iron? Or, is it my impeccable laziness? I feel very much like a zombie today, and not the good kind that gets into fights with sharks and wins or makes shark zombies.

RT sent me a NY Times article last week about student loans. I'm glad that when people think of student loan debt that the immediately think of me.

The article, of course, was not positive or hopeful. It was miserable, which is fine, because that's what student loans are, and it discussed the impossibility of letting student loans go. That they'll follow you everywhere. That, easily, 30K in loans can turn into 100K in loans, because the private lenders will rape you with interest. Now. I'm not regretting the loans I took out, at all, really. I regret that nobody explained how they worked to me, that I just signed forms and then 5K showed up in my bank account and that I spent it on a shiny new Dodge Intrepid in 2004. But what other choice did I have? My folks didn't pay for school. I worked through college. Grad school was a ride. But I still have a lot of loans. Like, a lot. Somehow, the Federal government let me have even more for this program, which is not a free ride, even though it should be. My point is this. Either I get a job next summer, teaching, and making some decent dough, or, well, as Unky Dar and I discussed yesterday, I join the Navy.

You think I'm kidding.

The only thing that would suck about joining the Navy is that I'd have to give them three to four years, which would find me in my early 30s, in a sailor suit, and thrown back into life as a civilian instead of a mean-war-fighting machine. On the positive side, I'd spend those three to four years not being fat, because the Navy won't let you be fat, as you will be harder to save when you are drowning. I'd get some cool white pants, and I'd learn to do those really cool moves with the guns that will only remind me of how awesome marching band (and discipline, fuck yeah!) is, and because I have a Master's degree, I'd automatically be like a Lt. or something. People would have to answer to this. I'd get to travel the world, spend some time in Greece and Portugal and in the Virgin Islands, and I'd get to meet a ton of sailors who would convince me that they weren't gay, and I'd get to befriend a lot of the gay ones and get free haircuts and dye jobs for a couple of years. Actually, I see little negative aspects of this plan. The Navy trains indoors, which is fine, because I could just work on my tan while I was on the boat, sunbathing. I'd get respect up the ass, being a woman in the military and all, and I'd just spit that sexual harrassment right back at the assholes who thought they could get away with it, and then I'd use my Navy karate moves to kick them in their blue balls. I look good in hats. I think it'd be noble to have to polish the shoes you wear every day, and I've always wanted to learn to shoot a gun, and I already know how to swim, and, most importantly, I'll return home debt free, thin, and a veteran, so all of you would have to send me presents on Veterans Day.

Come on. We're fighting war in the desert. The boats can't get into the desert. They haven't invented "sand boats" yet, and I don't imagine they'll do it anytime soon. If I'm going to be in the Armed Forces, I'm going to do it under the Obama administration. I'll get one of those cool Navy peacoats like my dad has, and they'll probably let me keep my cool new Buddy Holly glasses, because they look like the ones that are standard issue to the people in the military.

I'm really talking myself into this.

What else about today. Well, I'd pretty much give my left leg to be at McGoff's right now, listening to Nate play "My Name is Jonas," which has been repeating on my itunes for the last half hour. THE WORKERS ARE GOING HOME! THE WORKERS ARE GOING HOME!

Happy Monday. Tomorrow is one week until school starts for me, and I'm sitting here talking about bad dreams and traveling with the military to Greece.

Retired Transformers and Blow Job Robots.

Last time I went home, I found that my dad had purchased a new revolving fan. Not really news, I know, although he was pretty excited about the "good deal" he'd got on the thing at Sam's Club.

But then, between rotations, I saw that the brand name of the fan was "OPTIMUS."

I stood up, looked at my mom: WHERE IS THE TAPE.

Of course, the tape was where it always was, above the desk. WHERE IS A MARKER I said, and a marker was where a marker always is, in the desk. Then I came back upstairs and did this:

As always, my mom asked me what the hell I was doing, and I said OPTIMUS PRIME. DAD BOUGHT A TRANSFORMER FAN! Then I proceeded to explain to my mom how it was absoultely hilarious that this fan was named "Optimus Prime." Like it really used to be the Transformer, Optimus Prime, turning into a semi-truck and battling other Transformer robots and everything, but then one day--one day Optimus decided it was time to retire, and to keep himself busy during retirement became a revolving fan. Used to be a semi, now a fan. Just chillin', ha ha ha.

Well yeah, Barb, Dad said. More than meets the eye.

This, I would argue, is the coolest thing I've done all summer. Travis! I said. Did you see what I did to the fan?!

Travis said, Who cares.

*

A couple of weeks ago, when Liz and I were in Stillwater watching the TSB perform (and also a drunk woman falling in the river), we found ourselves doing Jean and Liz things and somehow ended up inventing a "Blow Job Robot" and exactly the experiment to go with it. Our research question was: Does the size of a man's genitalia determine how quickly he will ejaculate during oral sex?

I know it sounds pretty vulgar, but we looked at this rather scientifically. Our experiment takes very random samples of men, but also uses variety in race and age. The sample is 250. The robot is able to perform the exact same procedure on each subject. (This is why you need a robot, and not just some slut (or some gay teenage boy who needed practice) who would do it for free.)

The most important part is that you have to make the men unconscious before letting the robot proceed, in case there were men who were intimidated by the robot or men who were especially attracted to the robot, which would affect time before arousal and ultimately ejaculation. Liz has suggested using a pressure point that makes men pass out; my suggestion is to knock them unconscious by punching them in the face.

Anyway. We went into much more detail than that, and I'm certain that our conversation to an outsider was the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever heard. But this is the perfect opportunity for Liz to finally use her lab coat.

Here are our plans:

"Robot Blow Job

Need: Scotch Guard on Lab Coats, goggles, sexy lab, and blow job robot.

sample 250 US men, need full demographics, age, race, virgin?, recent food eaten, medical history, etc.

Q: Circumcision?

subjects can't masturbate for 2 days beforehand.

1. weigh body, mass

2. weigh junk, get % BMI

3. measure junk, flaccid

4. caliper: ball size--circumfrence?

5. knock out (pressure point)

--know how to continue unconsciousness w/o affecting O2 saturation/brain O2 levels?

--w/o sedative compromise

6. attach heart monitor, other cool gadgets, BP cuff, etc.

7. Bring on Blow Job Robot!

8. BJR: Simple arousal program

9. measure junk engorged and weigh --donate sperm to sperm bank?

10. record aperture of BJR opening, etc.

11. BJR robot preparation

12.time interval from program start to orgasm initiation

13. time length of orgasm, measure quality and quantity of sperm

14. measure length of time between orgasm completion to flaccidity

15. clean up, remove monitors, clothe subject

16. Awaken subject

17. afterglow interview--do you remember any of it?, do you feel like you had sex, got raped?, do you want to go again?

18. after 1 week, redo experiment, same subject, but conscious"

"19. analyze all results

20. publish extensive articles, profit

21. avoid lawsuits"

Isn't Liz the greatest? You may think this is disgusting, but this experiment is pretty well designed. Let's talk validity and reliability here, folks. Now all we need is 250 test subjects, sponsorship from KY to fund our project, and someone who can build a robot with a cum bucket for a stomach.

Getting ready to decorate the classroom.

HOW I SPENDED MY SUMMER VAYKASHUN

In random order, or else this post would take nine years to write. (And thanks for all the gaps between pictures to make this super-annoying, blogger, you big, ugly douche):

Watchin' a Southern belle eat marshmallows:


Gettin' postcards from Turdy, who is "on vacation at the beach with a bunch of assholes":


Takin' pictures of Truckers' Dreams:
Hangin' out with guys who are saddened by small-dick holes (and who totally got the same glasses as me because he knows Jenny likes me better):

As a partner to the Amazin' Tie Man! (he can tie that shit in seconds! Fuck yeah!):

Watchin' Darren fall in love with a goose:

And quickly gettin' his heart broken:
Lookin' for land with Sailor Liz:

Ridin' Jenny the turtle:

(Um.) I guess, pushin' out farts? While drinkin' High Life:

Bein' as lazy as this porcupine:

Not dumpin':
Watchin' Mark poop snakes, ignoring the no dumpin' rule:

Watchin' Darren eat it with fine woodsy chopsticks:

Minkin': Eatin' gyros at a food festival with this piece of bitch: Lookin' good:
Lightin' snakes:
Ridin' in a goose:
Wonderin' if this was Jill or Jenny:

Pictionaryin':

Welcomin' Darren the salesman "in from port":

Watchin' Liz get goosed:

Avoidin' bites:

Hangin' out by big chickens (Jenny and I considred stealing this chicken and putting it in the yard with GO AWAY written on the side of it in bloody red paint--this chicken is evil):

Gettin' sexually aroused:


Climbin' a fire tower:

Spottin' a fire!:

Buildin' a fire (pit):
Drinkin' with this slut:

[Scottish accent] DRINKIN' OUT THE WINDY! Yessssssssssss!:

Makin' as many poop jokes as possible:

Froggin':

Air punchin' (while wearing a tank top found in the kids' section at Goodwill and Jamaican swim trunks that were probably formerly owned by a hairy guy with gold chains and long toenails):

Barfin':

Clownin' around--HARHAR (And isn't it ridiculous how many ceramic figures we've seen this summer of '08?!):Chasin':

Winnin' cornhole:
Book huntin' and hidin':

Cavein':

Togain':

Beer flaggin':
Dancin' at the duck shack (baby duck shack!):

Peasantin':
Gettin' attacked by the neighbor's animals:

Takin' band photos:
Summer 2008, please don't end.

***

PART TWO FOR CHRISTINA (ahem, Christino):

Stevie Wonderin':

Sweepin':
Terry Davisin': Mama Cassin':

You can't leave me opportunities to use this picture. You know this. Really, sorry, kid, I didn't see you much on my vaykashun. Thought these old photo gems would do. Hey, remember in March when we tried to get that fucking fake snow off the windows? NEVER AGAIN.

Wish I was in GR right now.

PART THREE FOR THE FUTURE MR. JENNY:

I obviously have a lot of free time today.

Mr. Jenny, I'll be moving in shortly. You and the Penguin shall hire me as your maid/nanny. It will be just like Mr. Belvedere! Except all you'll make me do is clean your fish tank.