Going Dutch With Myself

In 2 weeks I will be starting a new job; a HUGE change after being employed at another company, who for 9 years, were kind enough to keep me despite my contributions to the shared company iTunes folder and abuse of "company-all" e-mail privileges.

9 years is a long time and I'm pretty nervous about leaving the comforts of an office I've been settling down in (read: converting a file cabinet into a shoe closet) for so long. And on top of the usual and customary "will I be good at my new job/will my new co-workers like me/will I be the one known as the-asshole-who-burned-the-popcorn-in-the-microwave?" first-day-fretting, my first day is in Belgium. The one in Europe.

I will be spending my first day + another 6 weeks in Belgium learning my new company's ways while fooling them into thinking I'm not a toolbox and have NOTHING to do with the Harold and Kumar movies. A lot of people who I've told about this are very happy for me because they are hoping I will return to America with diamonds that taste like waffles for them, but I have been very quick to remind them I am not there to shop and galavant around the country -- I am there to work. And insult the locals with my poor attempts at Dutch street slang.

Even though I will be there working, I am still looking forward to the new experience and hopefully having some time to play tourist. The only thing I am NOT looking forward to is running into fucking Gargamel and his skank Azrael. They better not even THINK about trying to turn me into gold, I am tragically pale enough already.

Der Creepster

And I will FREAK OUT if I see just ONE of those blue jackwagon Smurfs crawling through my bathtub drain, leaving their blueberry-scented droppings all over the place, and boring me with their incessant small-talk.

What a cunt

But luckily I'll be distracted by getting lost everywhere I go, being paranoid that everyone is making fun of me behind my back in Dutch, and maintaining my daily Chimay intake.

Regardless of what happens, I will be sure to keep you posted, or most likely, just warn you to as when I'm coming back.

Finally Giving You Something Good to Read

I am interrupting your regularly scheduled blog o' shite to cleanse your palettes with some real good shite. 


As some of you may know because you posses the awesome power of telepathy, I am a mega-huge-crazy fan of the author Flannery O'Connor. She was an American novelist, short-storist, and essayist. And her work has been the single greatest influence on my writing to date. In fact, I can't think of anything I haven't written in the past 15+ years--including every post in this hot horse piss site--that has not been touched by her. 


She lived on a farm in Milledgeville, Georgia her whole life which ended at the age of 39 from complications from lupus. (Which is truly a fucking bastard jackwagon disease!) Today is the anniversary of her death, so tonight I'm raising a glass of wine and giving thanks to my beloved muse while I fall in love with a few of her stories all over again. And I thought if you find anything I barf up here even mildly entertaining, perhaps you might like to get acquainted with her awesomeness. 


The story that got me hooked, and is probably her most famous story is A Good Man Is Hard to Find, which you can read here: http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html 


And if you like stories with wooden legs and barnyard seduction, you may enjoy Good Country People: 
http://faculty.weber.edu/Jyoung/English%206710/Good%20Country%20People.pdf  
or you can watch this guy with the BEST STASHBEARD EVER give a commentary on the story: 





I'll return you to your usual bog slop soon enough...now is the time to honor the great writer who has inspired me to give you literary vertigo. 


"Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe" --Flannery O'Connor

Workin' It

The other day when I looked into a mirror to see if my hair was on straight, I noticed that I looked like a baked potato that swallowed a potato sack containing Jabba the Hut. This, coupled with the realization that my pants were being eaten alive by my own ballooning thorax, was disheartening to say the least.

No more monkey lizards for dessert!

So before my ass started swallowing more than my braies, I decided it was time get in shape. Other than round. Or beached whale.

I signed up for a membership at a gym around the corner from my apartment, and I've even managed to actually show up and workout. When I'm not working out my upper body by throwing 50lb dumbbells at the skinny chicks taking naps on treadmills, I like to take aerobical classes designed for a total body thrashing. The Latin Dance Bear Wrestling class is good, and the Plutonium Pipe Strapped to Your Back Pilates really engages my core. Mostly to vomit itself all over my leotard.

But my FAVORITE class is Inappropriate Talent Show Dancing with Philadelphia's own John Oates. Check us out!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

But exercise is not enough -- I also have to stop eating foods that taste really good. I've tried all the usual diets -- stapling my mouth shut, swallowing a tapeworm before each meal, Slim Fast, eating only goat's blood cabbage soup for 8 weeks....the list of failed attempts to outsmart my fat cells is more massive than my sequoia thunder thighs. So I've decided to create my own diet to try. Feel free to fail on this one too:

• Breakfast: Black coffee while browsing the current issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.
• Lunch: Small salad (no dressing) using the pair of jeans you've been holding onto for over 5 years that you hope you will fit into again as a placemat.
• Dinner: Your own tears.  

So hopefully the next time I look in the mirror it won't mind looking back! Even if it's sweaty, hungry, and ready to disembowel a grown man for an ice cream cone version of me.

Hold Please.

I know many of you have started to panic because I haven't posted anything in awhile, and I also know that is a lie. But I have been quiet lately, as I've become absorbed in another writing project which requires all 6 pairs of hands on my typewriter that looks like a laptop. Anyway, I hate to leave you hangin' more than you do, so here's a blog I just regurgitated from the bowels of my crusty archives. It's one of my worst ever. ENJOY!

----------------------------------------------

Dear Friends,

There are only 5 things I fear:

1. Snakes
2. Nutcracker dolls
3. Axe murderers
4. Developing a peanut allergy
5. Dying from a rare diabolical disease that is disguised as a cold

I am currently living in the midst of fear number 5. Now as some of you may already know, I am a bit of a hypochondriac, or as my dad started calling me in 1988 when I organized my own funeral after I drank some expired milk, his "little fruitcake." So when I get sick, I become obsessed with finding out what is going to kill me this time and wondering who will come visit my grave. This year so far I've had endometriosis, melanoma, tapeworm, deep vein thrombosis, and dry mouth.

But last week I developed another life-threatening illness that has this fruity nut girl quite confounded. It started out as a fever and sore throat (spinal meningitis), then my joints were sore (lupus), then my head was clogged and nose was stuffy (infected with vicious migrant ants from Arizona), then I had fluid in my lungs and chest pain (pulmonary fibrosis), and now I'm in the coughing/sinus headache/upset stomach/Roy Orbison syndrome/fatigue phase (hibernation sickness)--only I have no princess and wookie to nurse me back to health. I'm left with green tea, pseudophedrine, prescription ibuprofen, and whining.

So what's going to be on my death certificate? My mom says I have bronchitis. My co-worker says lyme disease. My sister says it's just a cold. My brother says I should stop shooting snot rockets at him. WebMD tells me I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and that Roy Orbison may have impregnated me with a globule containing 5 generations of vicious migrant ants from Arizona. Damnit, Orbison, this is NOT how I want to go! Well I guess I'll see him and the rest of his Arizona ants in hell soon enough.

It was nice knowing you all. Please be sure to try the hummus platter at my funeral reception--I'm having it special ordered.

Take care now,

The Late Lady Stabson

Finally, a way to cover my feet AND remember my name!

Today is the first day of wearing the coolest fucking shoes EVER. Cool as fuck cos I designed them myself (obviously) and stole the idea to do so from someone MUCH cooler than me (obviously). His name is Jim and he plays guitar in Tinyfish who are totally HOT. But anyway, look at me awesome ogre feets!! 

Sorry if you happen to glance at my leperous ankles; I think the blade on

the potato peeler I use to shave my legs is getting dull.




















I'm still trying to figure out how to do the laces the double-tongue action going on here, and this is what I came up with after lovingly throwing the shoes across the room about 5 times.

I love, Love, LOVE them, but they are definitely not as cool as my "Box of Glass" designer shoes by Christian Renoir:



Go here to make your own Lady Stabson shoes in your very own size and name! http://www.converse.com/#/landing/create





How It's Done

Many of you already know that I was sent to your planet to primarily fight mutant killer bees from outer space (have you ever seen one? YOU'RE WELCOME!) But were you also aware of the fact that I know how to do almost anything?? The last 2 things on my list to learn are how to write a blog that doesn't have a vomit aftertaste and how to fold a fitted bed sheet.

But until I figure that out, I would like to share with you how to do everything else in the world because I care. Or maybe because I have nothing better to do.

However, with that being said, I would rather have nothing to do than dictate HOW TO DO EVERYTHING EXCEPT FOR 2 THINGS to my minotaur slave who types up all my blogs, so I will just share a few with you now. But if you want to know how to do something that I haven't covered here, please leave a comment with your question, preferably in English and preferably with Phillies tickets attached.

My more devoted readers (ie, the ones that don't exist) may recall that I have already shared with you how to tell if you do not like to have sex with your sex partner and how to buy last minute Christmas gifts. I am sure you have them printed out for easy reference or as back-up toilet tissue.

But did you also know...

How to eat an Oreo without any teeth?

1. Gather about 15 - 20 pebbles or small jagged rocks. 
2. Apply Krazy Glue to your gums.
3. Apply stones. 
4. Eat Oreo.

How to flirt with a woman?

1. DO make eye contact. If she does not have eyes, proceed with fondling her genitals.
2. DO buy her a drink. If you are out of roofies, she doesn't have to know!
3. DON'T kiss another man in front of her.
4. DON'T wear socks with sandals.

How to let your friends know that you have been taken hostage but can only do so via text message because your mouth has been taped shut?

1. :-X

How a progressive rock band from outside North America should tour there? 

 

1. Just take the same advice I gave Marillion in 1995 -- these are the only American cities that can guarantee a full venue with fans who can handle soaring 12 minute instrumental solos and 4 song sets that have >10 costume changes. Although you can substitute Milwaukee for Grand Rapids in an emergency. YOU'RE WELCOME, MARILLION!

How to listen to Japanese Zeuhl?

1. Drink 4 buckets of sake.
2. Remove your ears with common household kitchen shears.

How to kill a plant?

1. Give it to me.

That is all for tonight. If there is anything else you need to know how to do -- I can't imagine what else you could ever need to know now, but if you do -- please let me know. In the meantime, YOU'RE WELCOME.

Salute to Gettysburg, PA!

Sometimes I have the privilege of leaving Philadelphia to visit other places that are not Philadelphia. I had such an opportunity last weekend and of all the other places in the world that are not Philadelphia, I decided to see Gettysburg, PA.

Gettysburg is a wonderful town with the country's highest population of psychics and ghosts with its major exports being rusty shackles and dented tins full of bullets (for ghost hunting purposes only). Gettysburg is also birthplace of "Bagelry,"a method of bagel-making invented during the Civil War by Sgt. Other on Little Round Top with a musket barrel and some dough shrapnel. The now world famous "other bagel" is aptly named after him.

Gettysburgians love their bagels, and as many of you know, eating is one of their favorite pastimes. However, what you may not know, is that they are one of the few remaining pockets of American civilization that still eat garbage. Although the tradition of eating trash is starting to wane with the younger generation, many of the inhabitants--particularly those who still wear knickers in the bath and hunt ghosts--will partake in garbage grazing from time to time in honor of Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" where he appealed to a torn nation, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and it is their destiny to eat garbage."


However, a recent uprise from an elite and fast-growing anti-garbage militia have taken to the streets with a campaign to put an end to the garbage noshing. The town's psychics are predicting this is the start of Civil War II.

Anti-garbage militia vandalism

According to our ghost tour guide, if Civil War II does break out and you happen to be in Gettysburg at the time, it is critical that you are NOT anywhere near a brick wall within city limits. As you know, brick walls are usually made of bricks and wall paste. But in Gettysburg, the brick walls are made of bricks and pure malice, which is stronger and filled with more harrowing doom than typical wall paste. The psychics in town predict that a war will really piss them off, even more so then when you park your car too close to them.

One afternoon I decided to take a break from taking in all this COMPLETELY TRUE wonderment of Gettysburg and do some shopping. I went into their only major department store, 7-11, and after about 2 seconds decided to go punch and taunt a brick wall.

When I heard the wall hissing loudly in 21/8 time, I knew it was time to go back to Philadelphia. I was sad to leave, but I will definitely be back next year. A psychic told me so.