i'm down with the bio-urn

well, i'm not down yet, anyway...

hate to get morose on a sunny wednesday afternoon, but i saw this and had to share. personally, i think burying your dead seems somehow to be [and i mean this in the absolute kindest way] an arrogant use of space. the idea to cordon off areas of earth for each of our dearly departed seems to lack foresight, no? we sure have a lot of people on this earth... where they all gonna go?

on the other hand, i can completely see the importance of being able to go back to a loved one's remains. i still have the ashes of my sweet siamese cat, oliver, in a little oriental urn high on a shelf.

i love this idea. what a terrific happy medium. imagine: a graveyard that has become a forest. and such chic packaging to boot!

i'm crabby

i feel like crap. sore throat like i swallowed a bowling ball. was i in a fistfight? my eyes are hot and my head aches. my acid reflux is flaring up.

i'm bored with work. i'm tired of answering stupid questions for people. it smells like cat poo in here. i need to work out but i just don't feel well. it's raining like crazy. the floor needs mopping. the litter boxes need changing. the laundry needs folding. the dishes need cleaning. the living room needs vacuuming.

[sigh]

dove ads ≠ dove bars

can i be in the campaign for centaurs?

there's been a lot of buzz about the new dove ads with their campaign for real beauty, mainly because joe lunchbucket types have decided that the billboards featuring regular ladies and not actual models are an eyesore.

come on, fellas. it's not like dove scoured the countryside in search of gilbert grape's momma. these chicks aren't even that fat. hell, one of them [sigrid] has a pretty taut, dope body if you ask me. i read an interesting quote, "if the dove 6 put on clothes and were in a chicago bar, they'd be considered attractive."

when you have a chance, really look at the women. go on. they're just not that fat, people.

as you continue down the kennedy, compare that ad to the h&m ad for a paisley bikini top.

rail-thin arms, ribsy torso, and big, full breasts... oh, and no head. who needs the head? we're trying to sell a bathing suit to anorexic strippers, okay? we don't need no stinking head, mang.

i do have to give some props to h&m for at least letting you see what their teensy tiny bathing suits would look like on your own body. above is their version of me in the suit above. hmm. not too convincing, but at least it's a start. check it out.

brainjacking

"great job! remember it's chaîné 5-6, renversé on count 7, slide to splits on 8..."

for the past few nights, bad dreams and intrusive thoughts have been hijacking my brain, making sleep a challenge.

in my dreams, though the situation is always different, the premise is always the same -- no one will help me. here are my most recent dreams:

in one, i'm in a greek restaurant, trying to order dinner, but unable to find out if the orzo [i love it with greek yogurt!] has been cooked in animal or veggie stock. the waiter looks puzzled and walks off. no help, so i sit there with no meal while everyone waits, salivating, for me to get served.

in others, i'm being attacked by some kind of normally benign animal. i'm yelling for help, trying to untangle myself to no avail. this emmeffer is biting the shit out of me and people are just walking past, unaffected.

my brainjacking also tends to be of the overachieving kind. the night before last, i was robbed of precious sleep obsessing over an imminent work confrontation. i got all pissy about it, in my mind, plotting my side of the argument. ironically, the matter never came to pass and things ended up going my way.

last night, my brain decides it needs to begin choreographing, so it plays the intro to this piece i'm teaching in august at full volume as it pieces the steps together. then, it says, "let's review -- we want to make sure you don't forget," and then reviews the six eight-counts over and over and over, debugging and making small edits along the way, forcing another review.

these annoyances relegate me to the childhood entity i have been described as by my mother after an attempt at co-sleeping: i become like sleeping with a goat... a choreographing goat, at that. i flop and jab with elbows and knees, braying in frustration.

characterphobia

run for the hills!

i just read jamie's blog about her hatred of all things disney, and i have to admit that...

i have a fear of people dressed as characters.
now, i guess it's not a fear, per se. rather, a strong dislike. i become very agitated and need to get away from the diminutive folk smothering themselves in pounds of foam and fur. i just can't stand it.

what always makes things interesting is that i go to disneyworld twice a year for work. invariably, i have phobia-inducing incidents annually.

the character breakfast catastrophy: each year, one of my sadistic friends decides to make reservations for breakfast with the characters and i begrudgingly oblige. loading my plate with the sugary carb-fest that is mickey shaped waffles, french toast sticks, and really well-done has browns [love it], i cower over the sneezeguard, willing myself invisible. as quickly as i can, i return to my seat located on the inside of the booth so as not to have any direct contact with our furry friends.

occasionally, all my scheming backfires. one year, my friends decided to all get up and refill their plates, leaving me sitting there. before you know it, pluto is sitting in the vacant seat with his snout propped lovingly on my shoulder. i was mortified. i think he was waiting for me to react, pet him, talk to him. i sat wooden, mechanically shoving my breakfast in my mouth, sweating, praying he'd leave and go canoodle with some plump little terror circling his napkin overhead to the repeating happy breakfast tune.

the character breakfast catastrophy, part 2: this year, my friend jeannine was chatting up mickey mouse as we exited the restaurant. jeannine is small -- 4'11" -- and the woman in the mickey suit was likely to be even smaller. before we departed, jeannine and mickey hugged. mid-hug, there seemed to be a change in weight distribution -- one thought the other was supporting her as if in a dip -- and both came crashing to the floor. small children everywhere were stunned as poor mickey struggled to right him/herself, wrestling with the large heavy head. i was shellshocked and broke out in nervous laughter. the horror! receipt in hand, we escaped as quickly as possible.

the character breakfast catastrophy, the aftermath: later that evening, we arrived at the annual sales meeting kickoff dinner. to make things festive and fun, the company had hired a photographer who was taking pictures of my coworkers, cocktails in hand with... mickey. oh, shit.

i made repeated trips to the bar, trying to entangle myself in a brow-furrowing conversation about event-planning and marly floors. alas, my efforts were for naught.

"git up thair'n getcher picture tay-kin," commanded a vp we'll call the sheepherder.

"she's afraid of the characters," retorted jeannine, sipping her martini.

"yer afrayed of the characters?" asks shake-pop-down, another vp, with her newport-cured voice.

"well, it's not really a fear, per se..."

sweet dreams are made of particleboard

i had a really insane dream this morning. in a nutshell, i was laying down on a boat that was floating down a river. there were houses right to the shoreline, many with very high attached piers that came out over the river. i was marveling at the modern architecture, impressed to see so many very cool houses along one riverside. each house had very clean lines and gorgeous expanses of glass. i passed under a pier that was under construction -- i could hear circular saws [i hate them] and see woodchips cascading in a plume from above. somehow, i managed to get the chips in my mouth. i got really annoyed because i tried to spit them out, but they were large and were hard to extract.

i go to my yahoo page to see today's horoscope

"Dreams are often the stuff that goals are made of. So if your nightly retreats are starting to repeat themselves, it might be time to take the hint. Formulate a battle plan and just see how much you can accomplish."

what's the hint? that i need more fiber in my diet? that ikea's not all it's cracked up to be?

this mouth is made for eating

i just saw jessica simpson's video for her latest karaoke adventure, "these boots are made for walking", which has reportedly caused quite a stir.

the video opens with her looking haggard and sunken-eyed. someone give her something to eat already! early in the clip, someone in the bar scene gives her an audible slap on the ass. talk about some severe dolby action -- if anyone whacked her emaciated backside hard enough to make that sound, they'd knock her clean in half.

i know, i know: she has been doing the u.s.o. thang and so everyone should just think she's america's sweetheart, but i don't buy it.

in grosse pointe this weekend, i was getting a manicure and kim, the nail technician and i got to talking about the simpson sisters. kim mentioned that ashlee had gotten a bad rap, and i agreed to some extent, saying that her voice was far better than the fairer of the two. kim disagreed.

"ashlee's voice is dubbed," she informed me gravely, "jessica has a way better voice. she overdoes it sometimes [sometimes?!], but she's a far better singer."

i commented on how freakishly skinny jessica has become, which i found odd since she's always been a proponent for wholesome, healthy body images. "oh, she worked her ass off for that body," kim disagreed, "she deserves it. good for her!"

maybe i dislike her so intensely because she bears a striking resemblance to a younger, skinnier version of a certain individual who has been wreaking havoc on my family lately. there: i said it.