BT on the newest/oldest slimming craze:
Dieting secrets of the risen dead!
Hieroglyphic evidence that liposuction predated Christ! "We already had this technique for removing the brain through the nose, and one day we were looking at these unsightly saddlebags on the body of Pharoah's third-favourite concubine and we thought, 'Well, why not?' Next thing we know, our 'I Can't Believe It's Not Brains' slimming technique is the talk of Luxor and the dead are just battering down our doors. I mean that literally, by the way."
Betsy HP:
I consider it bad enough that there are standards for navel beauty. I refuse to worry about hiding my unsightly toes from an aggrieved populace.
who needs context? Wimps, that's who.
Frankenbuddha: Everything you know is wrong!
billytea: I knew that.
Gus:
Fiona, I did miss your note in Natter. The sins of skipping are many and dark.
billytea:
Gus shall henceforth be known as Dark Skippy. He is Legion.
Daniel C. Jensen in Bitches:
You know you are a geek when you go to a garage sale, pick up a Yoda Pez dispenser marked for a nickel, and play puppet with the head, mimicing out loud, "Buy you I will."
Damn it, Nicole!
(sulks as Nicole plays Lance Armstrong to my Jan Ullrich, beating me to Daniel's high-snerk quote)
Beej, talking about when it's 'clutter' and when it's over the top:
After an adventure a coupla years ago, I'll never, ever judge anyone for their stuff-keeping.
I live on Capital Hill (DC), a neighborhood thickly carpeted with 'characters'. One such, Dick, had been a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a radical activist for free press and an all around intellectual powerhouse. We knew him as the cranky guy who loved arguing more than breathing, and who could outwit the sharpest of minds. He'd hold court every day in the park across the street from my house.
Exactly 2 years ago, the fire department carried his body out of his studio apartment directly across from me. He'd died from the heat, age and goodness knows what else. After they removed the body, the fire guys broke down his door. I was confused.
Next day, I went over and saw why.
The rubbish, and I mean literally garbage, was over my head. I'm 5 feet and I'd have to say the trash was at least 7.5 feet high. Dick would push open the door about 10 inches, climb up on the mountain and crawl into the corner to sleep.
It took me and 4 other volunteers 8 days to excavate the room. Under all the trash (notebooks, letters, newspapers, books-a-million, 50s porn--"Backdoor Betty" is one title that stuck in my mind, women's pantyhose in plastic bags--don't ask, candy wrappers and unopened tins of tuna, mostly) we found a bed, Barcalounger, dining table, 4 chairs, a tv and book cases. It took me three days to free a fan I found because the cord was so deeply imbedded in the trash.
In one corner, a water leak had literally composted the trash into dirt over the years.
It was an amazing thing watching different people's reactions to this poor fellow's mental illness. Some were sad, some bewildered and some actually outraged. Everyone had a deeply personal experience of it.
At one point, standing on the pile, after we'd gotten it down to the lounger, I tried to imagine the moment at which one simply says, "Okay." and let's the stuff take over. It's impossible to say, but I still wonder.
