marinelli's miscellany

Language Log » Bull Fart A depiction of Bernie Madoff....

Oct 2nd

I would never make him get rid of something so awesome as a Living Colour ticket from 1990. (Rather,...

Oct 1st

On health insurance.

I am feeling about 50% better from where things were a few nights ago. Considering how bad things...

Oct 1st

Annalisa made a “cootie catcher.” I don’t...

Oct 1st

Foreskin’s Lament’s Lament. My copy of Shalom...

Oct 1st

“It’s terrible to think that all I’ve suffered and all the...”
— This Robert Lowell quote via...

Oct 1st

“Big Bird… lello, mommy?” When my first...

Sep 30th

Journal fragment, 2/18/2003.

Sep 30th

Why it’s a problem that no one at the ER asked what...

Sep 30th

Bullets momentarily dodged

Update, re: this post reading in part: We may be able to avoid the power getting cut off if we are...

Sep 29th

“When I was young and kids would gather to jump someone,...”
— Yes. This nails it. Live from...

Sep 29th

An invigorating game of tug-of-war with the beagle.

Sep 29th

Perhaps

If I were conducting an ethnographic study of internecine warfare among the nursing staff of this...

Sep 29th

“Would-be budding artists… are continually seeing...”
— my dad, February 18, 1978.

Sep 28th

“It wasn’t until I had enough poems - several of them...”
— excerpt from a essay in...

Sep 28th

Developing options for assisting clients...

Sep 28th

Frida Kahlo = LOVE ayse: Frida Kahlo Blue Bird (via...

Sep 27th

He took the girls to an event at the Science Museum while I...

Sep 26th

The time has come

For this bronchitis to fuck off and die.

Sep 26th

Previously referenced Food Lion gift card, in use as I write...

Sep 25th

If I had a dollar for everyone not following me who...

Sep 25th

Presented without comment

Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) offers “Love, Marriage and Stinking Thinking,”...

Sep 25th

A few things: When I said this, I wasn’t...

Sep 24th

X-Ray time is an awesome time to...

Related: Knockers not especially well-suited for a mobile, braless state, knocking together with...

Sep 24th

Continued difficulty breathing may lead...

Chest pain (check); Low blood pressure (check); Tremor (check); Heart palpitations (check);...

Sep 23rd

Shhhhh… they’re getting along. (I dare not move...

Sep 23rd

I’d been here for all of 7 seconds, just tryin’...

Sep 23rd

Dear late teens/ early 20s me:

Your future contains epic struggles involving violence, poverty, bureaucracy, disillusionment,...

Sep 23rd

Asthma is but one of the awesome gifts I have bestowed upon...

Sep 23rd

A friend stopped by when I was having a (no, not...

Sep 22nd

Freeing up resources on a sluggish computer:...

Sep 22nd

If there are any Sherpas in the original...

Sep 22nd

Just taking 50 mgs of Seroquel with 2...

Yeah, I probably still won’t sleep. Motherfucker.

Sep 22nd

Listen

The National - Start a War Posted today not only because it’s always been a lifesaver, but...

Sep 21st

You GUYS!

A sweet lady from our Quaker Meeting needs me to help program her cell phone tomorrow at 9. And...

Sep 21st

Personal Technology Sherpas

Sep 21st

Last of the wine from last night (the cork for which my...

Sep 21st

“Don’t be a bitch, you gotta spit that shit out...”
— @KuraFire. (JUST FOR CONTEXT,...

Sep 21st

Ingredients for a perfect snapshot as long as my second chin...

Sep 20th

Our most mentally deficient cat, seated in our most broken...

Sep 20th

Nerds in da house! (@teacup and @KuraFire, our lovely...

Sep 20th

WTF??? Eyeroll.

Sep 20th

I misspelled "Southern" in a rare @- reply to...

Sep 20th

Um… dude. Can I just say “holy shit?”...

Sep 20th

Observation

I consider it the wildest of all possible successes if, in the course of entertaining (or at least...

Sep 20th

Me and Ernie, via @KuraFire’s BrightKite feed (who...

Sep 20th

Annalisa, rugged individualist at the 43rd Street Arts...

Sep 19th

And ye shall know the depths of my panic attack by the...

Sep 19th

OH HAI, HAIR-FALLING-OUT-IN-CLUMPS STAGE...

I didn’t miss you. Also, fuck off.

Sep 19th

Good news!

The power hasn’t been shut off yet. Bad news! We’ve been booted from the budget plan,...

Sep 19th

The 9 year old singing to the cat. AKA torturing the cat.

Sep 19th

New term I just coined.

“Humptervention.” Because guess which obstreperous beagle puppy named Ernie WON’T...

Sep 19th

Manic Depression is, indeed, a...

Stupid asthma and hives causing stupid necessity of prednisone which triggers stupid hypomanic...

Sep 19th

“I got pregnant four months after I moved to Canada. ...”
— You guys… you’re...

Sep 19th

I was just thinking about how right now,...

I looked up and saw a unicorn. No really, I did. Sure, it was on the TV, in cartoon form - the set...

Sep 19th

Perspective

Are we going through some hard times now? Yes. Holy shit, yes. Are they as rough as those of our...

Sep 19th

Here, from my stack of ancient Ms. Magazines, I give you the...

Sep 19th

FUCK YEAH FRESH BASIL. Also, since someone is bound to ask,...

Sep 18th

PUPPY HANGOVER UPDATE

Ernie now has mad Hershey squirts comprised of roughly equal parts cat food, grass from the back...

Sep 18th

“The point: I should avoid either vocabulary nerdery...

Sep 18th

Well, maybe he’ll sleep it off.

Sep 18th

Awwww, it's baby's first bender.

Husband left his glass (why did he bother with a glass? God only knows…) of PBR...

Sep 18th

I have a huge stack of old Ms. Magazines I’ll be...

Sep 18th

One of my favorite photos by my Internet friend Jane, aka...

Sep 17th

“Hey, Mom? You really need to clean up this office. I...

Sep 16th

Things wot are on our back porch: giant container of...

Sep 16th

“I never meta meta I didn’t like.”
— @canislatrans, replying to...

Sep 16th

Moment in a marriage in which Tumblr is...

He told me he’d finally figured out how to identify his Tumblr crushes, and he was proud to...

Sep 16th

Thank you, Denis Leary

For the phrase “empathy boner.” (Rescue Me, episode titled “Drink.”)

Sep 16th

I trust I need not specify what is wrong with this picture....

Sep 16th

She said "I am not helping" but that was...

shoesonwrong: Good luck with the bajingo probing. Once I kicked the doctor in the head on accident. Sort of on accident. Kind of on purpose. SHE WAS NOT BEING GENTLE.
me: OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
shoesonwrong: Don't worry. You're probably too clenched to fart. Queef at the end, maybe. I am not helping.
[...LATER, after I asked if it was cool to share the above, and she said feel free!, and then my initial Tumblr posting effort got all FUBAR'd...]
me: Stoopid Tumblr. I should, like, do some laundry instead of constant page-refreshing, no?
shoesonwrong: Pfft. Laundry is for wimps who want to smell good and not get a UTI from their underwear.

Sep 16th

Awaiting doctor. OH PLEASE GOD DON’T LET ME FART.

Sep 15th

He was right.

I should have slept. Awaiting The Probing now, hahasob anxiety attack sob goddammit GET ME THE FUCK...

Sep 15th

If anyone wants to try Evelina Giobbe’s recipe for...

Sep 15th

Stop. Beagle appreciation time.

Sep 15th

Annalisa says, “Good luck on the tour with Metallica,...

Sep 14th

Matt was the only one who told me his...

Sorry! I don’t actually have one (anymore). Geez. yowhatsthehaps: The rest of you have...

Sep 14th

I like that I have the complexion of a dead person in this...

Sep 14th

Sponsored links after an email conversation with the...

Sep 14th

“Found 20 bucks in my leather jacket, the last residue of a...”
—  Colson Whitehead [via],...

Sep 14th

Digging for sandbox treasures at the peace festival. (So...

Sep 13th

I am great at holding grudges and being...

Upon receiving a Facebook friend request from this rare specimen of human being (rare in that she is...

Sep 13th

Thanks, y'all.

Your replies to this are more help than you’ll know.

Sep 12th

“My brother in law! He cracks me up. He’s soooo...”
— Oh, awkward. - my neighbor...

Sep 12th

It's been a hard week, Tumblr.

Tell me something that made you happy today. (But I guess I have to use a question mark to get the...

Sep 12th

At least if I’m too broke to have made the NC tweetup...

Sep 12th

FOUND: MALE BOXER MIX DOG (not neutered), LAKESIDE...

Sep 11th

September 11, 1992.1 __ Note: The following was drafted a...

Sep 11th

LOVE. IT. ayse: thedailywhat: RJ Matson.

Sep 11th

This time, @InSoOutSo, I am not the one responsible! My...

Sep 11th

“I (COMPLETELY) appreciate the sentiment that what we need to...”
— From my comment at the...

Sep 10th

Random thing that just reduced me to...

I just received a Facebook friend request from a man who once dated my mother (after she moved to...

Sep 10th

“That pink powder on my desk? Oh, that’s just from...”
—  Everybody’s favorite...

Sep 10th

“Make sure your belly button is always pointed in the...

Sep 10th

Sometimes the universe has a sick (get...

Incidentally, this (aside from my joking attribution of “…” to our ex-insurer,...

Sep 10th

The thing about "trying" is it can mean...

One good thing out of this otherwise complete waste of time / exercise in flogging ourselves with...

Sep 10th

Necessity is the mother of me leaving weird notes in my...

Sep 10th

My husband is soliciting captions for the above photo...

Sep 10th

This would be emotional eating. UPDATE: The accompanying...

Sep 10th

“The server at www.joewilson.house.gov is taking too long to...”
— I’ll just bet it is.

Sep 10th

Facebook | Censure Joseph Wilson

Sep 10th

Notes from a job fair

This morning I learned there was to be a huge job fair in Richmond today - Monster.com’s...

Sep 9th

“Hey, just had a thought. Maybe when Obama wins all of the...”
— @califmom, in the wee hours of...

Sep 9th

Teenager, 7:30 PM earlier tonight. Hey, she only fell asleep...

Sep 9th

Hey, kids. I wish we could be watching this together right...

Sep 8th

It does not matter what position we start in. When I wake...

Sep 8th

Just the teenager finishing her honors summer project for...

Sep 8th

Priorities, priorities.

I guess now that I’m done firing off correspondence to school administrators in support of my...

Sep 7th

“We understand that showing the speech may or may not work...”
— Excerpt of our email to...

Sep 7th

“The first day of school is a busy and full day for our...”
— In a carefully crafted message...

Sep 7th

“I am glad we are protecting are kids from hearing this...”
— Commenter...

Sep 7th

Department of Redundancy Department

I just realized that a gripe I tweeted today is nearly identical to one posted in February. My...

Sep 7th

Recommendations now being solicited for...

My IRL friends are slowly signing up for Twitter and I’m doing my best to help them figure it...

Sep 7th

Beagle puppy secretly plotting some manner of mischief....

Sep 7th

“PLEASE tell me you were weeping & pooting in Targhetto...”
— @lambvox, replying to my tweet...

Sep 7th

Watch

Johnny Cash’s final video, “Hurt” (NIN cover). __ The week the biopic about...

Sep 7th

On a lighter note, a picture of Annalisa from some years ago...

Sep 6th

Listen

Salman Rushdie - 6 March 1989 Years back, Granta had the full text of Salman Rushdie’s poem,...

Sep 6th

Grief, hope, worry, compassion, grace.

Almost a year ago, I posted this: Teenager just learned her close friend (with whom we’ve all...

Sep 5th

It would seem my Internet friend @Gwog has very specific...

Sep 5th

Wait now you are Googling WHAT, dear husband? (This has better be nothing more than a joke at my...

Sep 5th

I WILL ALSO BRING CHICKEN NECKS. seoulbrother: So, uhhh…...

Sep 5th

Tonight, on weird skin ailment theater

Okay, so the hives are on my left boob. Which is now covered in ointment. So I’m not...

Sep 5th

Erm… not sure if I saw this before, but it would...

Sep 5th

“I passed my motherfucking drug test”
— I could never follow everyone...

Sep 4th

What amuses me about this picture is that in 2003 I was 40...

Sep 4th

Addendum

Harsh: Waking up after an extended period of self-delusion. Harsher: Realizing, years later, how...

Sep 4th

She might need me more than she thinks...

All that is beautifully and inevitably mercurial about this moment: Waiting for her dad to pick us...

Sep 3rd

In Zayd Dohrn’s Plays, Glimmers of a Fugitive...

Sep 3rd

Watch

As promised: the evidence. Who’s got a tickle spot? (via vmarinelli) In which our...

Sep 3rd

Oh, no big deal. Just Fireland dropping by to comment on...

Sep 3rd

Dewclaws and puppy-butt. Especially for @InSoOutSo.

Sep 3rd

YOU GUYS.

The puppy has tickle spots. TICKLE SPOTS. ON THE PUPPY. __ EDITED TO ADD: Stay tuned for video...

Sep 3rd

A bullshit poem about my bullshit job.

The only bullshit in this “bullshit poem” is its author calling it a “bullshit...

Sep 3rd

Annalisa and pal Thea waiting to see “Up” at...

Sep 2nd

I’ve had this same article bookmarked since December of 2008, and have referred to it...

Sep 2nd

Only in Richmond, Virginia: Butterfly sculpture made from...

Sep 2nd

Sometimes I can't help but be...

From my phone, while watching my nine year old hula hoop in the back yard, I was just now able to...

Sep 2nd

Found

In a forgotten text file from 2001, transcript of IM exchange with my aunt (who is also my cousin...

Sep 2nd

Similarly, what is not to love about my daughter (still in...

Sep 2nd

What is not to love about @lambvox wearing my...

Sep 2nd

ABOVE: my husband and I made a Favrd sandwich with...

Sep 1st

The Past Is Not Past. Or Is It?—By Scott...

Sep 1st

“Do you remember the time you tried to slow traffic down by...”
—  my aunt, helping me piece...

Sep 1st

And yes, this was posted at 4:39 A.M. WHAT.

Sep 1st