Death Becomes Her

So, tonight while I was driving home amidst sheets - yes, sheets - of pouring rain, I had an epiphany.

It came to me, suddenly, while I sat at the slowest-changing light in all of Downtown - which, for those who care to know, is at the intersection of Route 6 & Pleasant Street.

I must pause now for a rant about this particular traffic light.

It takes forever. It's no wonder I always become contemplative at that intersection - it takes so damn long to turn green. And why must I always catch the red light, anyway? It doesn't stay green for as long as it stays red, clearly, or else I'd get the green one more often... right? Right.

Anyway.

So, I was at the light, watching the pouring rain fall in waves. The rain hit the shiny, well-lit pavement in time with the hazard lights that I could see flashing on the other side of the intersection. The lights were coming from a yellow cab, which was pulled over to the side of the road, it's lights flashing.

Moments passed and I was still waiting for the light to change to green. While I waited, I watched the rain, and the taxi, and then my mind started to wander.

Now, when I say "wander," what I really mean is that I started coming up with one of my imaginative, inventive interpretations of real life..

Case in point, this is what I imagined while I waited at the red light: That cab driver is totally being mauled and killed by a serial killer passenger, who will moments from now click off the hazards and drive away with the body of the taxi driver lumped to the floor in the front, then promptly pick up some thankful, sopping wet girl who has lost her umbrella and is walking to the next bar to meet her friends. He will pick her up, and then he will kill her, too.

All this because I saw some hazards on a taxi. I know. I'm fucked up.

But... the point is: my imagination is hardcore, and often I am capable of thinking of the worst possible things in a very short amount of time, with very little inspiration.

So...

I should write horror!

I can't believe it never occurred to me before.

Speaking of Family Vacations...

So tonight while I sat on the couch skimming The New Yorker...

Aw crap. Let's be honest, by "skimming The New Yorker" I mean it sat next to me on the couch while I chatted on facebook.

God, I'm even a bad liar in the blogosphere. Lame.

Anyway. While facebooking and cuddling with The New Yorker, perhaps hoping to retain some of it's genuis by means of osmosis, I overhead a familiar tune that caught my ear, which then peaked my interest enough so that I managed to tear myself away from the world of social networking and glance at the television for the length of a thirty second commercial spot.

The commercial was for an Atlantis family vacation.

The jingle was The Moldy Peaches.

You may be more familiar with this song because of Juno. It's the song that Juno & Bleaker (Bleeker?) sing to one another in the closing scene.

So, really, I like the song, but my issue is this: In the original song, Kimya Dawson sings the lyric "Squinched up your face and did a dance, shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants" and in the Atlantis commercial, it's something like "We swim with dolphins and maybe go golfin'."

Ahem. Pathetique.

After viewing I was inspired and I decided to transcribe some correspondence.

Dear Atlantis Family Vacations,

Make up your own theme songs. Don't you pay people for that shit? If you're having difficulty filling writing positions, I know a few.

Love,
Katie

And, because they were not operating alone:

Dear Moldy Peaches,

Fucking sellouts.

Love,
Katie

Family Vacations are All the Rage

Not really.

I mean, the house is big enough, I'm managing to steal WIFI from some nearby provider, the kids have gone back to their actual home with their parents, which means the incessant cartoons, Oreo-eating, and dog-(mis)handling has drawn to a to a close... but now it's raining.

Rain. On my mini-vacation to the beach.

The beach. A magical, risky place where those who are pale-skinned, freckled, wide-hipped and sunburn-prone, such as myself, only spend one or two days every year.

Today was going to be my day.

I came prepared.

Board shorts. Tank tops. Sundress. Sunblock. A beach towel. Books. Magazines. A bathing suit, for Christ's sake.

And now this.

The plan has turned on me. Turned. In a big way.

We are T minus one hour away from our tour of the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory.

I will revel in the golden chip's production, not the golden rays of sunshine; the cool metal of the factory lines, not the cool waves of ocean water.

Rainy family vacation.

Oh, joy of joys.

Let's Go Play on the Mood Swings

So, if we were to pretend, right, that somewhere, in a room some place, there exists a blueprint that's as big as me.

It's probably shoved in a really big metal drawer or something, kind of crumpled, but useful, nonetheless.

So, anyway, picture a huge, nearly six foot tall blueprint just sitting in a drawer, in a room. And, of course, this blueprint is basically a map.

A map, as it turns out, to me. A map of my "buttons," if you will.

Now, imagine that every little thing about me is mapped out on this Me Blueprint.

So, it clearly indicates things such as how many seconds I will wait behind someone at a red light before I honk; how long I can stand someone tapping their nails on a counter top; what you have to say in order to make me laugh so hard that I cry, etc.

This Me Blueprint is the deconstruction of everything that makes me tick.

Okay, now that you've imagined this document, imagine that someone has it in their possession. That they know it, have studied it, and can use it for good or evil.

That's what it's like with him.

He's got the freaking answer key right in front of him. He knows what to say, how to say it, and could probably bet money on what my reaction will be. I swing - good mood, bad mood, I like you, I hate you - back & forth; he's pushing me on the swing set.

I hate it.

So, I will now attempt to regain control of the situation.

I'm going to do some remodeling, change up the blueprints a bit, and watch him fumble through the old version, the one that's been shoved in a drawer for all these years, while a different contractor can get a look at the new specs.

(I might be stretching this metaphor a bit... but I'm kind of into it nonetheless.)