CAN MY FRIEND WHO OWNS A TOYOTA ALSO PARTICIPATE?
Only if he or she rides in your Jeep 4×4! Jeep Jamborees are strictly for Jeep 4x4s. No exceptions.

Harsh, isn’t it?

Of course, who wants to go on group offroad outings with a bunch of nutty jeep owners anyway?

I was trying to get everyone to pose for a photo re: winter preparedness.

4 WD vehicle capable of surviving the Starbucks parking lot, dogs in coats, etc.

You can see how it went.

Starbucks Parking Lot: 0
Rock Crawling 4 Runner: 1

Did not bottom out!!! Ah, the possibilities. Now I can support coffee megacorporations every day!

Until you crank up the V-6 and zoom/rattle down the road with some Shakira.

Which I am going to go do now. For possibly the first time in recorded history I am excited to be helping someone move.

Because yesterday I bought this truck. Then I drove around all afternoon, loading everything in the truck from lumber to boxes of wine, to young prostitutes and hitchhiking nuns. There was plenty of space.

I’m a truck lover. I love loading things in the truck, flexing my brawny muscles, and then driving around. YeeHaw. I know, I know, get a hobby.

Now I am going to attempt the greatest feat known to man: I am going to drive out of the Starbucks parking lot in Blacksburg. Will the 32 inch wheels defeat the 45 degree angle between the parking lot and the road? Will the rock guard come into contact with the street?

Wait and see, Dear Reader. Wait and see.

Further updates on this gripping early Saturday morning experience as they become available.

Doesn’t writing papers just make you want to scream with boredom and ennui?

It does me.

Depictions of Masculinity.

In Renaissance Italyity.

This paper’s a snooze.

Bring booze.

These books weigh 35 pounds.

Zounds!

Do you ever feel like the world is ganging up on Titanium White? No?

Sometimes I feel this way and on those days I like to wear my Team Titanium T-shirt. Available in many attractive sizes and colors. Or, at least, in white size large.

Today was one of those days. I was innocently in the painting studio class, painting away at various landscapes, still lifes, and so on, and was informed that Titanium, Color of Colors, kills the hues of all colors it is mixed with. No!

This reminds me of the first time I bought oil paint. Prepare yourselves for a long and improbable story.

I was in Spain and had lived there approximately 1 month. I wanted a change, baby. No more acrylic for me.

Spanish stores are the old fashioned kind where everything is behind glass and some sneering shop keeper demands to know what you want and then might or might not get it for you depending how many pushy old ladies try to get in line ahead of you. Well, not every store is this way. But the paint store was.

So was the cheese store. And in the US, the dairy industry is only viable because of the demand for cheese used in pizza. Or so they* tell me.

None of this is relevant.

So I approached it warily. A skinny smoking woman was behind the counter. A Spaniard. Her name was most likely Maria. Let us think of her as Maria in any case.

So I ordered some paint and then I asked for some turpentine.

Sample conversation re: Turpentine in Spain (translated from the Spanish)
Me: And also Turpentine. But preferably the kind that won’t kill me.
Maria: That won’t kill you? With a pistol? HA HA HA (makes guns with hands and shoots me)

Then she gave me regular turpentine, well in fact I have no idea what she gave me. The kind that’s highly toxic but which does not have a pistol, presumably.

So this Turpentine was basically the Titanium White of paint thinners, a sly mass murderer, and I would just like to salute all the paintings I did in my closet sized bedroom, and also the anger of my host family when I opened the window in the dead of winter so as to not suffer brain damage from the fumes.

What brain, you might well ask?

There’s no smart in art, as I always say.

What’s the difference, it’s not like we had heat! We really didn’t.

To the memory of Turpentine past:

Manifesto Re: Titanium White

I would like to take this opportunity to affirm my dedication to Titanium, not just as a color of paint, but as a lifestyle.

I live Titanium.

And I would like to see anyone try to stop me.

*the vet students

I realize this is a stupid title for a post and I do not think Dracula ever said that- though let me assure you, Gentle Reader, that he should have. In fact, let us have him say it now:

Sample Conversation Re: I Vant Your Vlood

Dracula: I Vant Your Vlood
Me: You cannot have it, I have pledged it to the American Red Cross.
Dracula: Vell I Vant Your Vlood Anyway
Me: Oh fine, it’s bound to be quicker.

Which is of course true. The benefit to giving blood to society is tremendous. I am O-Negative, so I am a universal donor. (Applause) And plus I can feel smug. The lesson: Give blood!

I digress. The benefit to me in giving blood is basically a free tshirt (usually Xtra large- aka- way too big) but more importantly free pizza.

There is no time benefit in giving blood unless your job gives you paid leave. Which my old job did actually. Before when I worked full-time. I digress. Again.

Well this time as I was waiting an unreasonably long time for the harassed nurse in hot pink cargo pocket scrubs- in other words, the well dressed, harassed nurse- the two volunteers at the front desk finished the pizza – even though it was 5:45 and when I would be done around 6:30 obviously that would be dinnertime… and a perfect time for pizza. But it was not to be. And so I killed them.

Which is the perfect end to any story, except of course it is not true as I am a peaceable and well mannered contributor to society. I am the sort of person who universally donates blood; I am the sort of person who feeds the cat when it is hungry; I am not one to kill people over pizza. But it was still wrong of them to do it, just as it was wrong of them to put in so much hair wax this morning, or yesterday, or last week, or whenever it was they last showered.

The moral of this lesson is twofold: first, give blood. Second, do not begrudge the pizza eaten by hair wax prone red cross volunteers.

The moral of this story is also to be vigilant. Needless to say, had I realized that they were eating the LAST of the pizza, instead of SOME of the plentiful pizza, I would have walked over and asserted myself by snatching it out of their fat, greedy fingers. I would have explained patiently that the pizza is for the good people, the virtuous people, the people like me who take time out of my day to give blood to save the economy and make the world safe for freedom- and not for lazy Red Cross Volunteers.

So to recap. Let us make a note of the following life lessons:

1. give blood
2. don’t bear grudges
3. be vigilant
4. when it comes to pizza it is every wo/man for him/herself

Also, happy Columbus Day! So began an exciting time of cultural collision and epidemic disease. Or something like that.

And, happy birthday to my dad!

The brief Mozart fling is over.

For once, a break from Bach. In groundbreaking news, the downstairs neighbor is playing Mozart. Sure, it’s the most twiddly and ornamental Mozart you can imagine, but still, it’s Mozart.

The downstairs neighbor, lovelorn as usual, is hammering away at Bach on the piano, also as usual. Today I’m trying to drown her out with Bach’s complete works for harpsichord. On my trusty iPod, and not, Dear Reader, on my trusty harpsichord.

I realize it seems pointless, but I have the urge. And it just feels right.

Last night’s Greek fish recipe ended in tears, or rather ended in a murk of fumes from scorched oil, scorched fish, and melted spoon.

It started with the highest of hopes, as cooking so often does in our kitchen. It also started with the Julia Child trick of testing whether the oil is hot enough by dropping a piece* of bread into it to see if it turns golden and bubbles. The oil is ready when the bubbles spread out immediately.

The flaw was the bread choice. Dark wheat. Although it burned to a blackened crisp immediately, the color difference was not noticeable.

Potential life lessons abound. We could easily take away messages such as “order a pizza next time” or “cod is overfished and this is what you deserve for buying it anyway, Environmental Destroyer.”

But I think the real lesson is concerned with the melting point of plastic cooking utensils and I conclude that, for safety’s sake, we should get a deep fryer which coincidentally I have wanted to do now for almost a year.

*really more of a morsel of bread, the merest fragment

This picture illustrates the dog’s determination to get in the closet, to the point that she somehow managed to tear off her shirt on the door hardware.

I have always assumed that she is interested in the closet for the trash can, which she normally knocks over, removes the contents, and relocates them around the house.

But as you can see, in this case the trash can is outside the closet as well as empty. Rice and canned goods are also stored in this closet. I suppose tearing open a bag of rice and dragging it all over the house might be equally exciting. Or perhaps she is just a creature of habit. We may never know.

Tonight we went out to local restaurant Ceritano’s where the pizza’s good, the wine’s cheap, Bridget The Neighbor got a year older, and the restroom concierge is a piece of paper.

Now personally I find restroom concierges to be an indispensable part of using the restroom and a paper concierge is better than none at all. I love to sing songs while in the restroom and it’s just not the same if there is nobody there to harmonize.

There are those who will claim that you can easily convince other restroom goers to sing along with you- I favor Gershwin tunes but really anything will do- however, I find it’s much easier to slip the concierge a twenty. Try slipping your average non-concierge restroom visitor a twenty. Will it be well-received? Unlikely.

I have it on good authority- that of Bridget The Neighbor- that as far as Color Me Beautiful goes, Welly is in fact a Winter and should not be wearing orange. She would look better in red.

This may be true. But I think overall she looks pretty good. This time last year, when we adopted Welly, she was quite the butterball, weighing almost twice what she does now. I wasn’t fully convinced she was a Whippet at the time, since she more closely resembled a blob.

The reward: dog clothing in a color that doesn’t flatter her complexion.

Tonight the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar came to this benighted corner of bumf*** lovely little Appalachian town.

Here are the good parts:

-I bought tickets from some guy for $5 each, instead of $20 for ‘real’ tickets
-Mary M was quite good
-Pilate was quite good except for Pilates Dream– he evidently interpreted it as an invitation for breathy vocal ditherings completely out of step with the rest of his excellent performance. Hint- it’s a tender, reflective, worried song, not a jingle to sell used cars
-The second half of The Temple was truly unsettling, with a sea of lepers thrashing around under a big piece of fabric. They looked like a monster. It was something out of a nightmare.
-Judas convincingly fell apart as a person from Damned for All Time on. He was frantic and bizarre and it was great.
-leather costumes on the studly Romans

And the bad:

-Jesus was about 90 and his voice had degenerated into a scary rasp. So instead of a young and vital falsettist, we had a crusty, stiff, croaking/screaming freak tottering around the stage, blessing people like a demented Pope. I’m sorry to say he bombed all his songs. He was dreadful.
–Herod’s Song Another mediocre performance of this one. I just don’t get it. It’s an infinitely singable song and can be easily costumed with a sequin jacket. So what gives? Why is this song always performed so heinously?
–The Crucifixion went on for endless ages. This scene has enough built-in drama and really does not need to be overdone. And I see no reason why John should be crouching in the corner of the stage like the Yeti.

And then leaving the theater, the people in this red Camry failed to understand the message of Jesus and wouldn’t let me merge into traffic. I forgive them. They know not what they do.