It took me a long time to remember ellipsis.

This past weekend I got pretty loaded at the UofM football game, and I just now remembered that I showed off to my in-laws and Jim's 50-year-old cousin and various acquaintances by stuffing an entire can of Bud Lite in my mouth. No, I'm not a reptile, it was one of those Red Bull-sized cans, but still. I distinctly remember my father-in-law saying, "You're a lucky guy, Jim," and everyone kind of snorting. But in hindsight, they weren't snorting at the obvious innuendo, more at the fact that Jim's drunk wife was stuffing a beer can in her mouth as a clever party trick. Now I'm not so much embarrassed as, how would I put it? Umm. Oh, I know.

I remember one night in college after partying until Dem's closed, we stood out in front of the bar, wolfing down our enormous slices of pizza, and I noticed a girl walking towards us. She was coming from the direction of her dorm, and she was holding a leash attached to a tiny ratty-furred dog. The little rat dog looked just as dour and undernourished as its owner, and I'm sure I nudged Janet and pointed as the girl came toward us, pointedly ignoring our snickering and drunken swaying. Then, just as she reached us, and the scattered clusters of drunks all took notice of the ugly little dog and the angry sober girl, the dog decided to squat and take a crap. In the angry girl's concerted effort to ignore us, it didn't register that her 10 ounce rat-dog was pulling against the leash, so she continued on, until the laughter of the crowd made her finally turn around to see what was so goddamn funny. Well, her rat-dog had been crapping across the entire sidewalk in front of the bar, leaving a trail of rat-dog pellets, so the effect was this:
Ugly Angry Girl - Long leash - Ugly Angry Rat-Dog . . . . . . .

I think I feel like that girl, the moment she noticed the shit-ellipsis. Is there a word for that?

VLog: The Return and The Finale

Failed experiment. I'm not sure why I thought that would be so cool. I started in on my own personal video log complete with commentary on music, winter hair-loss, and my neighbor's car accident, and lo it was all junk. Me talking, looking washed out and as if I were retaining water in my 11th month of pregnancy, not what I had in mind. Here's a portion of the transcript:

[clears throat and tosses hair]

[tosses hair again because first hair toss resulted in all hair hanging in front of her face]

Mignon: [In sotto voce, as a result of the 16-day cold] Here we are, at home.

Audience Thought: Well, thank you for that. Your couch and pajama-clad children led me to believe you were in a subway.

[clears throat again, this time catching hold of something, ruminating on it for a moment, then swallowing - grimacing at her mirrored-self swallowing something she just coughed up]

Mignon: The kids don't have school today, so I didn't get to do... [looks skyward, trying to recall if there is anything noteworthy to have skipped out on] ... anything.

Quinn [stage left, in his fake-baby voice that actually sounds just like his real voice, except he talks with his tongue stuck out to his chin]: MOMMY I WANT TO TALK YET ME DO IT BYAH BYAH BYAH YOOK I'M A BABY YET ME-

Mignon [motioning for the child to go away, then, when motions are ignored, shoves him off the back of the couch]: So I wanted to talk about the car accident my neighbor got in yesterday. [stops to think, Why am I talking about this? What can I make up about this event so that it is worthy of describing out loud - Ooooh, let's say - oh wait, I'm still here in front of the camera not saying anything!] It was a bad one and-

Audience Thought: Oh crap. I didn't sign on for this. Is my coffee still hot? Shit. I hate reheating coffee. [leaves to reheat already-reheated coffee, returns with hot stale coffee and a piece of toast]

Mignon [tossing hair, then uses both hands to smear it back behind ears]: -and so it really made me contemplate the defendant side of the aisle.

Audience Thought: Phew. Dodged a bullet there.

Mignon [leans forward to fiddle with iTunes, putting on something super-trendy, tries to sing along, then erupts in a coughing fit while attempting to ska]: HACK HACK HACK

Madeleine [enters from stage right, by hurdling over the side of the couch onto the laptop in Mignon's lap]: MOMMMYYYY, I want to be a-

*screen goes black*

Audience Thought: zzzzzZZZ*snort*KNXX Crap. My coffee's cold again.

Well that was a blockbuster.

I've wanted to do a video blog for a while now. At least 35 minutes. But I couldn't wait for the kids to get occupied by Playmobil and fighting, so here's my cherry-popper. I'll do one later wherein I'm not wedged into my chair with children and actually have some coherent commentary. On books, music and passive aggressive behavior.

Here's the appetizer...

Wherein I ramble on about stuff with respect to smartness and junk.

I'm not feeling particularly charitable towards the disadvantaged these days. Not poor or handicapped or minorities. We're good. Me and poor, handicapped minorities. I mean ignorant people. People that parrot talk radio, people that speed on my 25 mph street, people that pick up something from the produce department that they later decide against buying and leave it on the shelf in the bakery. Lazy people. Inconsiderate people. I'm not forgiving and I swear at them. I shake my virtual fist at them. If I had their audience, I would say, "You. You're fired. Pick up your things and go elsewhere and don't bother asking for a reference."

Mostly because of the election. I just can't abide by the uninformed lazy voter. Sure, disagree with me, but don't rely on the hackneyed lies and innuendo you read on your mechanic's blog.

Last night Jim and I were discussing stupidity (i.e. ignorant, uninformed, carelessness). I said, "What if you were wrongly accused of some kind of complicated crime. Bank fraud or patent infringement on a registered process, and you had to pick 12 peers that would judge you based on technical and complicated evidence. And also you were a racial minority. Or poor, or super rich, but still innocent. Where do you wish you were? What pool of people would you feel most comfortable judging your innocence or guilt in the face of mind-boggling evidence? We decided New York. Both of us. So I guess I'm saying stupidity, as defined earlier, tends to be a result of a sheltered existence, where you get your news from the radio or from your uncle the tire shop owner. To be smart, you need to have experienced... stuff. Right. Stuff, you know?