so fuzzy!*

Saturday, mar. 15, 2008   |   0 comments

My site was inexplicably reviewed in the now-defunct The Net magazine in '97, and not too favorably: "Some chick (woman? girl? she's out of high school but still thinking about it, so it's hard to say) named Evany posts recaps here of thoughts she had while cruising down the I-5 rocking out to Marvin Gaye's "Grapevine," eating bean with bacon soup and drinking iced red wine (shouldn't that be illegal?), and flossing her teeth, like so: "[and then a huge hunk of THIS page is quoted, which for some reason, really made me blush]" These chatty, slangy meanderings can be charming, occasionally even funny, but a little goes a long way." sit here flossing, something that I do maybe once a month. Unless there's bleeding and tenderness (ohohohOH) and citrus sting, I can't get that cathartic, goodgirl feeling. Don't get me wrong...I'm not catholic or anything. It's just that if your mouth feels the exact same way after the floss as it does before, then it just doesn't seem worth doing. Same goes for all chores de me. Why mop the floor if it's not visibly dirty?--if it's not filthy something fierce, your first pine-scented push of the be-sticked sponge just doesn't yield that shocking commercial-clean streak that shines, like jesus, thru the dinge (WHAT A SENTENCE!) Why use a stridex pad unless it's going to produce that signature, in the shape of the girl-scout salute, dirt mark?

My cleaning habits tend to be more cyclic than constant. A weekend's worth of manic cleaning (the grout BEHIND the toilet looks like farmer's lung! Maximum grody!) is the yin to the yang of the three weeks worth of fermenting fridge ginger, the dirty/clean/whatever clothes serving as bonus bedding, the empty(thankyou) pizza box sitting atop the TEE-v.

Of course, when I GO to the dentist, it's "oh, not as much as I should, I'm afraid, hoHO, only once or twice a WEEK." I always lie to my dentist. The goal of my semi-annual (ha) checkups is winning. Nothing to do with the health of my teeth and everything to do with getting my dentist to BELIEVE. Convincing him/er that I floss regularly is just as good, m/dentally speaking, as the act itself. Just like during Presidential Fitness testing: if you couldn't do pull-ups, you could do the hang (in there, baby). I remember this friend of mine opted for the 30-second quiver, and when she finally let go, she blew about four pounds of snot outta her nose, bless her. I loved how you'd go all year in PE without doing any physical activity (squat thrusts?) and then they'd spring this Presidential Fitness thing on you. First of all, what does that mean? Were our side-stepping abilities being rated against those of other countries? Canada, say? Norway? Was this like instead of the cold war? In addition to? Anyhoo, I remember my poor, unprepared, pudgy body launching into a puke session after being made to do the 6-minute run in seventh grade (PE being directly after lunch, lunch being Der Wienerschnitzel). Which, of course, was mighty cool. Coulda been worse though. I could've been the guy who farted during the PSATs.

* I was flipping channels really fast, catching nothing but a word here and there, and it was creating the sort of haiku-y spoken word stuff that I sometimes catch myself almost believing could be meaningful -- "dead" "free-range" "invasion" "orca" "boycott" "disneyworld" -- and hit PBS., where I paused just long enough to see this slow-mo footage of a dandy-lion being blown apart by the wind, with Mr. Roger's voice-overing these two words: "So Fuzzy," only he said them reeealllly sllloooowwly, like he was double-dipping into the meds. "Ssooooo FUUUUUUzeeee." I turned off the TV right after that, knowing that nothing I could find would be better than that.

For some reason (perhaps because it's 1:44 in the ayyy emm and I'm free-associating on nothing but coffee fumes), this all brings to mind a very recent trip to Sammy's Pet World, which is this great place near where I live that has lizards, snakes, spiders, fish, birds, chinchillas, and all sorts of excessive pet accessories. Hamster village. Rhine-stone-studded muzzle. Dried pig ears. It's right next to Peet's coffee, so I like to get a coffee and then cruise over to check out the freaky animals while I enjoy my steaming cuppa joe. Anyways, I was there just as they opened, and was immediately sucked in by the birds who were all really loud and fussy and busy in that newly-awoken bird sort of way. As I was smiling at this one conure, hanging up-side-down from the roof of the cage, swinging and screaming, I heard this muttering from below. I squatted down to see a big red bird in an unlabeled cage, closing its eyes and swaying a bit like it was just heading off to sleep, still muttering. I leaned in closer and finally caught what he (she? it?) was saying: [dreamily, in that stoned old-lady bird voice] "I can FLYYYYYY. Yesssss."