Recently, I was contacted by a famous attorney, threatening to sue me for copyright infringement. As if that weren’t bad enough, this person had the audacity to come to my blog and threaten me. Her exact words:

“Um, Jenny? I have copyrighted the negligent and unpredictable blogging schedule and I’m afraid you’re infringing on it. Please post immediately to avoid further liability.”

Well listen up, Ms. Eclectic: maybe the reason I haven’t posted anything since last week is because I’ve met someone who is more important to me than this blog. Is that so hard for you to believe? What? Just because I’m not all physically fit like you and your six-pack ab Sunshine Family, climbing mountains and rafting rivers and hiking trails, does that mean that it’s inconceivable that I might step away from my computer for longer than it takes me to check on the frozen pizza and toaster strudels?
Well that’s where you’re wrong – I don’t even like toaster strudels. HA!
Look, this new special friend of mine has shown me things no one else has.

We go all sorts of places together.


Meet new people.

Do new things.

Try exotic foods.


It’s like being married, but where it’s actually enjoyable to be together.
But maybe you’re too busy deep sea fishing and filing class action lawsuits against telecom giants to understand that. Now I’m asking you, blogger to blogger, won’t you drop this silly lawsuit and let me be happy, just this once? I promise to bring my new special friend to Tequilacon – I know you two will get along just famously…

Filed under: General on August 23rd, 2006 | 22 Comments »

“Garble blarble snicker garble muffle tee hee!”
[Click]
And so begins the prophecy.
Somehow, I didn’t think it would happen quite this early in my life, but I guess I always was a bit ahead of my time. It became a kind of running joke with a former roommate of mine – many years ago, I confided to her that when I was older, I hoped to become one of those ladies who lived alone in a house that was rumored to be haunted.
I would be known as Crazy Old Lady Amadeo, or simply, The Bat Lady, a moniker I would earn, in part, due to my penchant for wearing black, but mostly because of the dozens of bat houses nailed all around my home to keep away the mosquitoes and other flying insects. And although I would still have cats, to be known for that just seemed far too clichéd, because really, who doesn’t know a crazy cat lady?
I wanted to be a middle school dare – double dog, even. Who would be brave enough to walk through my backyard and ring the doorbell at midnight? To toilet paper The Bat Lady’s home would earn the respect of every 7th grader in the entire district.
“I heard she drinks blood!”
“No, that’s a lie, but she did kill her husband, I think.”
“My brother told me he saw her digging a grave in her backyard!”
It comes down to this: I wanted to become a campfire myth.
So on Monday morning, as I sat on the train listening to the cell phone messages that had accumulated while my phone was accidentally turned off all weekend, it actually didn’t shock me to hear five prank calls in a row from the same group of children. I took it as the first sign that my transformation had begun.
Saturday, 9:25pm:
“Garble blarble snicker garble muffle tee hee!”
Saturday, 9:27pm:
“Hi this is Mike from the Department of Health Insurance. I’m afraid you cannot… ha ha ha. (Shut up!) Hee hee hee. (Shhh!) You cannot apply for garble mrble muffle. Ha ha ha! BYE!”
Saturday, 9:29pm:
“Grble garble crackle… I’m just trying to help people, you know and… hee hee hee… garble muffle snirfle. So I want to find out if you know any girls who want to make out with me. Ha ha… Muffle curfle grble… Bye!”
Saturday, 9:33pm:
“Hi Jenny, I’m calling from your work. I just want to let you know that so-and-so said you like doing drugs. Like… (say marijuana) marijuana, and… (Shhh!) and you are fired, and I’m sorry to tell you that you can’t have insurance, and you’re going to be really broke… hee hee hee. (Quiet!) My name is Mike and I’m just wondering if you’re married so we can go out and stuff. [heavy breathing] I’m so just messing with you right now! I hope you don’t have caller ID! Hee hee hee! Bye!”
Sunday, 4:31pm:
“Yes, I’d like to order a pepperoni pizza, large. And I was wondering… ha ha ha… umm, I’m calling from Chuck E. Cheese… snicker snicker tee hee. And my English is not very good, how do you say, (say por favor) por favor, you are getting prank called. By some girls. Bye!”
According to my original plan, with Phase One – Become the Object of Youthful Derision – well underway, this means that I am now ready to enter into Phase Two – Crazy Hair. Over the next three years, I need to ensure that my hair is a) at least 75% grey (almost there), b) down to my mid-back (may require extensions), and c) a tangled, matted mess (cease all hair product usage).
After that, things get a bit more challenging. Phase Three is going to necessitate some intense research and commitment on my part since it involves acquiring a severe limp and one bug eye, but I may be getting ahead of myself.
For now, I just need to revel in the knowledge that Mike wants to garble snicker tee hee blarble me. That’s all any woman wants, really.

Filed under: General on August 16th, 2006 | 24 Comments »

It all comes down to a matter of minutes, really. Five minutes earlier, five minutes later, everything’s different.
I was five minutes late meeting up with Dee-Dee and Natasha for dinner on Thursday. Dee-Dee had received some good news recently, so we wanted to celebrate at a new restaurant.
I waved to them as I walked into the train station, where we then exited and started to hail a cab. A utility truck had just pulled up and parked on the corner, making it difficult for cabs to see us on the sidewalk, so several whizzed past. A yellow cab slowed down and halted in front of two fifty-something women to my left who had more aggressively staked their claim in the street .
“So we’re up next?” asked Nat.
“Looks that way,” I replied.
A couple more cabs passed by, until Dee-Dee spied a uniquely decorated PT Cruiser pulling up to us. The three of us looked at each other briefly before piling into the unorthodox taxi.
“Ooh, are we in London?” Nat laughed, as she scooted across the bench seat.
On the dashboard sat four small sequined high-heeled shoes. A neon-colored fan was clipped to the sun visor in the passenger seat. I glanced in the back window and saw two shiny disco balls.

“Wow – you’ve really got your cab decked out!”
At that moment, the cab driver looked back at Natasha, paused a minute, and then quickly donned a rainbow sequined cap. We cheered in approval, then told him our destination. As he pulled away from the train station, he asked simply, “Mambo, salsa, or disco?”

Again, the three of us looked at each other for a moment, and then Dee said, “Mambo?”
With that, the cab driver cranked the speakers to eleven and blasted out the loudest mambo music I had ever heard coming from a glittery PT Cruiser. The back seat became a surreal mobile dance club as he flipped on some neon lights, activated the disco balls, and switched on a strobe light that began pulsating by Nat’s feet from beneath the front passenger seat.

At the first stoplight, the cab driver reached over and handed us some maracas, two tambourines, and one of those metal ridged things you play with a stick (or a Bic pen, in this case). It was at exactly that moment that I thanked the universe for reminding me to bring my camera along.

We violated no less than forty-seven traffic laws during the course of our ride, the least of which was our lack of seatbelts, the greatest of which was the driver’s lack of hands on the steering wheel while he played the drums.

We entertained the south Loop, west Loop, north Loop, all the way up to Rush Street as we shucka-shuckad and ching-chinged our way through the crowded streets of Chicago. Never in my life have I seen so many other cab drivers or passengers smiling and laughing. It started to rain – hard – and our cab driver turned the music down briefly to show us how to roll the windows up.
”But only if you want to,” he said.
We didn’t.
My shirt got soaked and Nat’s sweater was soggy, but it didn’t matter because we were jamming to the beat of a funked up version of “Mambo Italiano,” and we wanted the whole world to know it.

I was actually a little happy when he couldn’t find the restaurant right away – it gave me more time to perfect my off-beat tambourine rhythms. As he pulled over to the curb to let us off, Dee-Dee handed him the fare plus a 100% tip, thus ending the dream sequence of our evening.
We quickly darted into the restaurant and found ourselves a bit discombobulated by the stark reality of a mambo-less world. Once we had regained our composure and received our first round of drinks, we raised our glasses in celebration.

“That would only happen to the three of us.”
“To think we almost got stuck in a yellow cab.”
“We are so lucky.”

Filed under: General on August 14th, 2006 | 26 Comments »

Now that America’s Next Top Model is on hiatus, I have had to seek reality TV solace in Rockstar: Supernova. The premise is basically the same as every great reality TV show: three aging former rockstars (Tommy Lee from Motley Crue, Gilby Clarke from Guns ‘n Roses, and some other guy from Metallica) have formed a new band and are searching the globe for a talented lead singer to front the band. What started out for me as idle curiosity quickly turned into full blown devotion. Suddenly, I care about who gets kicked off each week, and find myself calling my friends during every commercial break to debrief.
Although I’ve been trying to keep my obsession somewhat under wraps, this afternoon over lunch, I decided to let down my guard and bare my soul to Natasha:
J: “So, I think I might have a major crush on Gilby Clarke.”
N: “Are you kidding? What’s with everyone? Dee-Dee said she thought he was cute, too!”
J: “That’s because he is! I would totally date him. But he’s married.”
N: “Yeah, and he’s like 55!”
J: “No he’s not – I looked it up online. He’s only 43.”
N: “Sick. Seriously, he looks like a magician. He looks like doves could come flying out of his coat at any minute.”
J: “No he does not! Take it back! He’s cute!”
N: “…or maybe he could saw you in half. Yeah – he looks like Doug Henning!”
J: “Shut up! No he does-”
N: “…totally looks like Doug Henning. Your boyfriend wears rainbow shirts and purple pants!”
J: “I think you’re thinking of Mork.”
N: “Or maybe it’s Gallagher I’m thinking of. Yeah, why don’t you just marry Gallagher and smash watermelons at your wedding?”
J: “Gallagher’s bald. And gross. He’s nothing like Gilby!”
N: “No wait! I know who he looks like – Son of Svengoolie! He just needs a top hat and some black makeup under his eyes and then-”
J: “Son of Svengoolie is like 100! Gilby wears tight leather pants! I’d like to see Son of Svengoolie squeeze his flabby body into Gilby’s leather pants!”
N: “Jenny Svengoolie – that has a nice ring to it. Yeah, you should totally marry him.”
J: “Shut up – Gilby is way cuter. And FYI – Doug Henning is dead! He died like 10 years ago, so way to be harsh.”
N: “Is he? Or did he fake his death to pursue a career with Guns ‘n Roses? Have you ever seen them together?”
J: “Ohmigod, Nat! Remind me to never open up my heart to you like this again. Geez. I guess that means I shouldn’t mention the fact that I also think Dave Navarro is totally hot…”
N: “What the hell has happened to you, Jenny?! Gross! Dave Navarro is 5’1”and slimy – he’s shorter than Prince!”
J: “See – this is why I don’t ever talk to you about people I want to date. You’re so completely unsupportive.”
N: “So, you’re saying that if I were more supportive, you would be dating Dave Navarro right now?”
J: “Or Gilby Clarke.”

Filed under: General on August 10th, 2006 | 21 Comments »

You know what drives me nuts (aside from train etiquette violators and fuse thieves)? People who are always doing stuff.
I know you know what I’m talking about – we’ve all seen the type. Really talented, brilliant ideas, unique vision, all combined with the worst traits of all: unparalleled initiative and mad organizational skills.
These are the people who make the rest of us look bad, as we sit around at coffee shops saying things like:
“Hey Natasha – we should learn how to make aromatherapy candles and sell them on the Internet!”
Or
“Wouldn’t it be great if we formed our own breakdance crew? We could do shows around town for kids and the elderly!”
Or
“I have such an awesome idea for a novel! It’s based on this box of old scarves I found at an estate sale. It will require a lot of historical research, but I’m totally going to do it!”
Well, for me, that person is my dear friend Jen Benka. Always with the original ideas, and the artistic eye, and the enviable planning skills. And now, she’s done it again. She and her friend and fellow poet, Veronica Wong, have organized what looks to be an amazing weeklong poetry event in New York City starting this Sunday, called “Finally With Women.”

“Finally With Women” is a reading series which will be held Sunday, August 6 through Thursday, August 10, from 6-8 p.m. Each night will be dedicated to one woman poet and consist of readings of her work:
Sunday, August 6 – Mina Loy
Monday, August 7 – Audre Lorde
Tuesday, August 8 – Barbara Guest
Wednesday, August 9 – Muriel Rukeyser
Thursday, August 10 – Gertrude Stein
Not enough information? Here’s the description from The Village Voice:
“One hundred acclaimed and emerging female writers will celebrate the life and work of influential poets Mina Loy, Audre Lorde, Barbara Guest, Muriel Rukeyser, and Gertrude Stein at this five-day readings series titled Finally With Women. Each day will be devoted to a different poet, with about 20 readers per day, including experimental poet Elaine Equi, transgender activist Kate Bornstein, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Marie Ponsot, spoken-word artist Tara Betts, and essayist Vivian Gornick.”
Still need more? For more details on all the performers, check out the official site at Finally With Women.
Congrats, Jen! Now you’ve inspired me to go find that box of old scarves…

Filed under: General on August 4th, 2006 | 9 Comments »

Hey karma, it’s me, Jenny. Pick up, it’s me. Karma, I know you’re home – I saw your number pop up on my caller ID… Fine. Okay, look – is this about the walking on the wet paint thing? Because you know I had no other choice! Or what – is this about Harry Potter? God, you can be such a baby sometimes. Whatever. Call me.
So last night at around 8:30pm, my electricity went out. In 95 degree heat advisory 100% humidity weather, my electricity went out. I scrounged up a flashlight, trucked down to the basement, being ever so careful not to let the door slam shut behind me, and started looking for my fuse box. All the fuses seemed to be in working order, until I noticed two empty sockets underneath the four main ones.
Curious.
I opened up each of the other 11 fuse boxes belonging to the other tenants and saw that they all had two fuses in those bottom two slots. And then it hit me:
Some lazy ass mofo stole my fuses! They blew their own fuses, so instead of hauling their worthless carcasses to the hardware store, they just decided to screw someone else over. IN 95 DEGREE HEAT ADVISORY 100% HUMIDITY WEATHER! What kind of a soulless bastard does that? Before my mind was able to swirl into its eventual full rage, I had a quick flashback, just like in the movies:
It was 2002, and I was standing in the kitchen with my mother, unpacking my dishes as I moved into this apartment. I pulled open a drawer under the cupboards and saw a small box of fuses. I remember my mother saying “Oh that was nice of them to leave for the next tenants.”
I ran upstairs and threw open what had since become my junk drawer, tossed aside a few vacuum cleaner belts, a mini cassette recorder and some travel candles, and found the half empty box of fuses. Thank god my brain hangs onto what are typically useless random memories like this.
I ran back downstairs, screwed in one fuse, then attempted to screw in the other one but noticed that it didn’t quite fit. As I soon discovered, whoever stole my fuses was not only a thief, but an incompetent moron and somehow stripped the socket so that the fuse wouldn’t fit anymore.
My only saving grace was that the fuse that did actually fit controlled all the electricity in my living room, including my window air conditioner. The other one, unfortunately, controlled my refrigerator.
So now, here I sit, awaiting some sort of response from my landlord, packing ice into the tiny Styrofoam cooler I bought today so that I don’t have to buy all new condiments. I have also, at the clever suggestion of my friend Dr. Greene, made inconspicuous marks on all my fuses. This way, if my electricity goes out again, I will be able to identify who stole my fuses. And then I will remove all their fuses, smash them with a sledgehammer (after recouping my own, of course) and lay in wait for the culprit in the basement. But first I will build a snake pit right in front of their fuse box.
I will also set a spring loaded booby trap in my fuse box containing a dozen scorpions and tarantulas. Not the deadly kind. Just the ones that make you really, really sick. My plan will be complete once I:
a) Borrow a jackhammer so I can build a snake pit in the concrete floor of my basement
b) Figure out where you can buy non-lethal yet still extremely painful snakes, scorpions and tarantulas
c) Prevent the scorpions and tarantulas from killing each other or dying of asphyxiation
d) Ensure that I do not accidentally set off the trap myself
Until I figure all that out, I’m just giving the malocchio to everyone who walks into my building.
[spit, spit]

Filed under: General on August 1st, 2006 | 31 Comments »

When I dusted off my very first published novel and posted it here a few weeks ago, I was feeling pretty happy with my talent as a seven-year old. It may have been the pinnacle of my career, in fact. But then, last weekend, I visited my brother and his family, and realized that I had been dethroned by both my nephews.
At just six and eight, their raw talent far surpasses anything I could ever hope to achieve. My eight year old nephew is delving into the world of prose poetry, and the six year old clearly has a knack for historical non-fiction.
At this point, I’m going to focus all my creative energy on getting them both agents so that I can retire early. I mean, a six year old who uses the word, “fierce?” He has made Tyra Banks and me so very, very proud:
Dragons Are Fierce
Illustrated by Andrew, Auther is Andrew (Age 6)

Dragons breathe out fire
They have scales that are rock solid.
And they drink water like us.

Dragons have sharp teeth,
Some dragons have white teeth.

Dragons are like dinosaurs except dragons have wings,
When dragons run out of meat they have to eat nothing,
Or else they will die.

Dragons are fierce, they also have a devil’s tail.
They love to play in the fire like devil’s.

Dragons have a flame box.
If they don’t have a flame box they cannot breathe out fire
Or else they can’t breathe out fire.

Sometimes dragons have horns,
Sometimes they don’t.
Dragons usually have a spiky tail.
Moast dragons had red or blue eyes.

The End.

Filed under: General on July 31st, 2006 | 12 Comments »

Usually, it takes a lot to really get my blood boiling, and even when it does start to bubble, I can usually keep it under control. I’m kind of like an M&M with a molten Sicilian center surrounded by a thick, level-headed German shell. Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.
But when I’m really stressed out at work, like I have been for the past two weeks, and then I lose my DSL and phone service for three days and have to spend 45 minutes beeping and booping my way through seventeen layers of automated help menus at AT&T, and the sushi place forgets to put my ebi in the takeout box and I don’t realize it until I’m all the way home, the little things start to make me crazy.
So today, the object of my hatred is the universe of people who simply do not understand how to ride a train. The collective rage deep inside me has been churning up, so much so that I had to do the only thing I know that can calm me down: I made a list. Some people drink, some people smash things. I drink, smash things, and then categorize. For your reference, I have listed these in the order in which I typically encounter them.
Premature evacuators
These are the people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to get up from their seat and stand by the door for the remaining five minutes of the train ride into the Loop. Apparently, if they are first off the train, they win.
But instead of simply asking the person next to them if they can get out, they will shuffle their papers and zip up their jackets and snap shut their briefcases and look at their watches and wiggle in their seats and exhale heavily all with great dramatic flair so that the person next to them gets up. Well you know what? You can shuffle your ass and snap your pleather briefcase all you want, but unless you speak to me, or until that train comes a-screechin’ into the station, I will never let you out. Ever. Even if I’m in a hurry. DO YOU HEAR ME! NEVER!
First-time revolving door users
Are there parts of the world that don’t have revolving doors? Because the train stations in the Loop seem to attract an inordinate amount of people who have no idea how they work. So here is my advice to those people: IT’S NOT F*CKING DOUBLE DUTCH, PEOPLE! JUST JUMP YOUR ASS INTO THE FIRST AVAILABLE SLOT AND SHUFFLE YOUR FEET! DONE!
I swear to god, at 6:00pm rushhourtryingtogethomeafterareallycrappyday why do I always get stuck behind the family from the suburbs that has just been on a shopping spree at the American Girl store and has fifty two bags and forty three children who are ascared to step inside the revolving door? And then they shove in, two at a time, which brings the entire process to a screeching halt.
Smelly food eaters
I understand that some people are stuck on the train for a good hour or so, right at dinner time. You want to eat? I’m totally cool with that. But please, please, can you please just not get the jumbo double onion burrito from Taco Bell or the extra garlic chicken wings from Popeye’s two seconds before you hop onto the train?
These are smells that waft through the train car like cartoon skunk spray, weaving their way around every single passenger and ultimately fusing with my skin cells, so I actually smell it when I get home. Look – there’s an Aunt Annie’s pretzel store right by the doors, or a Subway sandwich shop over there in the corner. Cinnamon raisin pretzel, turkey club and chips – healthy, satisfying, and pretty much odor free. That’s all I ask.
I’ve been toying with the idea of claiming that I’m pregnant so that I can ask people to not sit by me with their smelly food. “I’m so sorry, but you see, I’m pregnant [touches belly and smiles], and very sensitive to strong scents like the rank odor that is seeping out of your chicken and jalapeno quesadilla right now. Would you mind moving down? Two or three cars should be fine. Thank you ever so much!”
Ravinia-goers
This will mostly make sense to Chicagoans, so I’ll explain a bit. Every summer, there are nightly open air concerts at a place called Ravinia Park, where you can bring a picnic dinner, some wine, and enjoy the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with your sweetheart.
Lovely, no?
No. Not if you are just trying to get home, but your train happens to be on the Ravinia Park route, in which case 50% of the train is filled with first-time train riders who don’t exactly understand that:
a.This vehicle is first and foremost a commuter train. For people to commute. It does not become your private party bus after 5:00pm.
b.You cannot stack your six lawn chairs with built-in cup holders on the four seats next to you, and make other people stand in the aisle.
c.If you and your eight friends from college carrying beach blankets and margarita mix do not move your frickin’ Corona ponchos away from the doors, none of us will actually be able to exit the train, in which case you will never get to hear the sweet soulful sounds of Patti LaBelle.
d.While I’m really excited that you’re going to see Bobby McFerrin and the Beach Boys all in one night, if your picnic basket hits my kneecap one more time, I will set it on fire. I carry matches in my bag just for moments like this.
That one guy
So finally, there’s always that one guy who, through no real fault of his own, just annoys the shit out of you. Okay, out of me. He annoys the shit out of me. In my case, it’s that one guy who looks like Harry Potter.
I mean, first of all, what grown man goes out of his way to make himself look like Harry Potter? Now, come on. Those glasses? Why don’t you just get yourself a wand and a lightning bolt scar and call it a day?
I honestly can’t help it – he doesn’t deserve my rage – I know that. He’s just minding his own wizardly business… oh, wait. Except for the part where he always has to call his wife/girlfriend/whatever and get all schmoopy woopy with her because apparently he can’t bear to live without the sound of her voice FOR THE THIRTEEN MINUTES IT TAKES TO GET FROM DOWNTOWN TO MY STOP where she then picks him up.
I’m not a praying woman, but please lord, let me never be so dependent upon another human being that I cannot somehow occupy myself for thirteen minutes without no-I-wuv-you-more and goo-goo ga-ga-ing with them on the phone in a public setting. Amen.
There are actually at least three to four more categories I could discuss, including the Seat Hoggers, Garbage Leavers, and Nail Clippers, but releasing this pent up rage into the universe has gotten me too worked up. Now I have to go back to drinking and smashing things.

Filed under: General on July 26th, 2006 | 28 Comments »

SBC AT&T sucks ass.
That is all.

Filed under: General on July 25th, 2006 | 10 Comments »

Temporary phone issues have cut my blogging abilities off at the knees… it’s like living in the 80’s! And me without my cocaine and boat shoes.
Be back soon!

Filed under: General on July 25th, 2006 | 6 Comments »