I swear, the guy on CNN just said, referring to that bastion of American intelligence, “…today at the Panicgon…”
I really like PANICGON. If they don’t rename the building, maybe someone could invent a drug specifically for Anxiety Related to Fear of Any-Moment-Now,No-Really-What-do-You-Mean-You-Don’t-Believe-Us?-Code-Orange-Damn-You Death by Terrorist and call it Panicgon. Or Panikgon.
I. Last night, about a block from our house, two girls were standing on the sidewalk by the side of the road. They looked to be about 12 years old. They were barefoot, wearing short shorts and itsy tank tops…and each had a 4 litre plastic bucket on her head, worn like a helmet. As we drove by, they waved at us. So we waved back. They shouted something we couldn’t really make out but it sounded like we like you! you’re cool! and I felt a wave of nostalgic fondness for being 12 on the last day of July – only one month till high school! – and for 8 pm when the sun’s going down and it’s fireworks night so you get to stay up late, and for the prickle of hot concrete on bare feet…and for having the kinds of friends with whom you can do something utterly insane like stand outside with a bucket on your head. (Or do Showgirls high kicks down Granville Street…or sing out loud at bus stops…or dance in the rain in UBC’s rose garden. Say.)
Mr. Alton Brown has a show on the Food Network called “Good Eats.” He also writes fascinating books about food. And he has a page of rants. The following quotation comes from that page:
This morning dawned smoggy & sunny. I took my bus, with the guy at my busstop who not only says hi to me every morning but now has a girlfriend! She is very pretty. She has long, shapely legs. Today she was wearing a very short white pleated skirt, like a cheerleader skirt, and a thong. Plus she was wearing a white, low cut blouse. And black sandals with high heels. Just one thing: she wears open-toed shoes every day, with her lovely short skirts and spangly tops. But over her toes she has, like, toe socks or something. There is a fishnet covering on her toes. Just her toes. She does not wear stockings.
Also, when she talks, she sounds like a cartoon. Squeaky.
She’s pretty high-maintenance. The boy always used to sit just wherever on the bus but now it takes them 2 minutes to choose a seat because some of them are not to Ms. Toe Socks’ liking. I like to imagine that at home, the squeaky voice goes away and she beats him with her Hello Kitty plastic ruler. But mostly I imagine it for his benefit, a sort of hope that it’s all worthwhile for him, you know?
This weekend, I did not do the following things:
– laundry
– work on my novel
– get drunk
– surf the ‘net
– apply for school
– think about my job. much.
– go running
– vacuum
– shave my legs
– formulate my personal mission statement
– listen to music
– sit silently on my back porch in the dark listening to the peacock that lives in the Dick’s Lumber Store down the hill a ways shriek like it is being forced to watch “She’s All That,” director’s cut, including Deleted Scenes and Outtakes
However, I did do the following things:
