for updates & short takes

2003: A Banner Year; A Frankfurter Spectacular Year

January: My reality-show recap assignment at TWoP is to write about the drunken pixellated-bare-ass antics of people I went to high school with. The nickname "Man Boobatos" catches on more than I'd anticipated.

February: Aforementioned high school classmates invite me to the show's final episode party and apparently neglect to kick my ass. (As for the rest of that post: I never did get to see the piece about Pound that was supposedly in this Swedish magazine and any info is welcome.)

March is when my whole freaking life changes after I put up the Weight Watchers recipe cards. They get a lot of attention within just a few days, and it continues for a few more months. After about ten days I have to move my site to a new hosting company and after another week have to get a mirror site set up because of all the motherfucking traffic.

Also, there's a war or something.

April: I launch Pound's sister site Candyboots and put the Weight Watchers recipe cards there. I also drink a lot this month, if you must know.

May: I finally move to a bigger apartment and I get to be on the radio.

June: I don't do much in June except write my first column for BUST and also meet Pinky. HI PINKY!!!!

July is when I patiently explain the difference between online diarists and bloggers to all you people, and then I drink lots of cheap beer in Andersonville and then August is kind of a blur, but that's when that whole New York Times thing went down, right? Yeah, it's a blur.

In September Michael comes to town for our friend Amy's wedding and we have a fine time and take lots of naps, and then later that month I begin my long-overdue campaign of Jemima J. hate which continues into October.

And then in November I meet some bad-ass bitches and um, Clifford, and then I do some other stuff in December, but really you should just scroll down this page to see whatever the hell that was.

My God. I don't know what to tell you about next year. I mean, I have lots of things to say about what could happen in 2004, but they haven't happened yet, and I hope they happen, and if I'm posting less frequently here in the blog and then not at all in the journal it's been because I'm working my ass off on this other stuff, and now I'm getting all vague and goofy and I'll shut up. The plans for next year also include a collaborative blog to be launched sometime in the spring, and I hope to get the Disturbing Children's Book gallery up on Candyboots before 2004 is over. And of course I plan to laugh, love, and walk on a beach somewhere in soft focus at sunset being OH GOSH JUST THE BEST THAT I CAN BE.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading, kids.
pounded out by Wendy at 11:21 AM

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Just like The Crying Game except without that full-frontal scene that totally freaked you out

Last night a reader wrote me to let me know that this gender language analysis algorithm indicates that I am most likely male. He said my December 19th entry resulted in a "481 Male/191 Female" score. But when I tested the December 10th post I got a "female" verdict, and I wondered if maybe it's a matter of me using girlier syntax when I talk about knitting than when I discuss obscure Star Wars crap and hootchie dancers--you think? Then again, it seems that even in this post where I am deeply moved by the meows of a kitten I have a set of linguistic testicles that I scratch with my pronominal usage.

Not that any of this gives me a complex or anything. I mean, I've never been mistaken for a boy. Nope. No way.
pounded out by Wendy at 11:36 PM

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Ho go go

I'm usually all about doing the holiday blog posts and leaving nice cozy Christmas Eve messages as if I'm Joan Crawford in a velvet dressing gown addressing radio listeners from her home, but this year I was busy up to the last minute, I guess.

I went dancing with a couple of friends on Christmas Eve. That was fun, and I don't know why more Christmas traditions don't involve go-go dancers. The dancing lady at the nightclub last week was very tiny (elfin, even) and one of her costumes was this sort of drapey, dramatic caftan thing with a sheer veil. I guess it could be a Nativity costume, if you went to Dirty Church. Anyway, I'm glad I had something different to do this year.

I also got a real tree this year, for just the second time in my life. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue to get these real trees every year; I get kind of unnverved by them. I'm used to a fake tree that does absolutely nothing under normal circumstances, so to have a tree that lets ornaments fall and dramatically relieves itself of needles at random, passive-aggressive intervals is getting on my nerves a little bit. It's like living with a performance artist. I'll be sitting there at my desk and I can hear the tree clearing its throat, wanting me to look over and see it do something stupid.

It's still kind of pretty, though.
pounded out by Wendy at 9:19 AM

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Mom? Can I sleep with the lights on tonight?

Princess Leia sings the Life Day Song powered by audblog.

I saw the Star Wars Holiday Special last night for the second time in my life. The first time was in 1978, when I was seven years old. My brother and I were watching it on the black-and-white TV my parents kept in the spare bedroom, so I guess my parents were watching something else on the TV downstairs. Something that didn't suck big bantha balls.

At the time my brother and I were profoundly into all things Star Wars. We had the 45 single to Disco Star Wars Theme and I would nearly pee myself during the part where they'd do the Space Creature Cantina interlude. But after about the first ten minutes of the TV special, I was fidgety and slightly freaked out, because I guess my kid intuition was telling me that Star Wars People (and that included Wookiees) weren't supposed to be on TV with Bea Arthur. We stopped paying attention to the TV and played board games.

And then at one point I remember looking up and thinking: "Um, Princess Leia is singing." And that really was not right.
pounded out by Wendy at 11:53 AM

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It takes courage and also a very tasteful 400 x 250 pixel button

So I did a guest entry for my friend Sour Bob today. Or rather, for my friend The Guy Who Writes Sour Bob, since the entry is about making those kinds of distinctions.

I usually don't have to think about that stuff here; I never set out to make Wendy Online anything other than a fairly close approximation of Wendy Live, but of course you know I'm going to leave stuff out, right? There are things you don't know about me. Like you don't know which Sanrio character I am. I bet you think it's Batz Maru, but really, the truth would be too much for this blog.

Also, I hope you all understand that I've chosen to keep the matter of which Harry Potter candy I am private. I don't want to piss readers who might be Chocolate Frogs, and moreover I'd like to avoid the total shitstorm of criticism I got when I revealed that I was the Kevin Smith movie Clerks. And I totally appreciate your concern over whether I'm ketchup or mayonnaise, but, well, I guess I'd like to deal with these issues on my own. Thanks.
pounded out by Wendy at 10:00 AM

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Knit, purl, chomp

On Monday I finally got to meet Debbie, my editor at BUST, when she was in town to promote her knitting book. She was very cool and funny. And okay, she didn't read from the book, because, well, that would be weird, but she showed off a bunch of projects. The kids these days, they can knit anything: cell phone cozies, panties, cute drug paraphernalia. It was amazing.

Okay, I am not a knitter. I mean, I have never knitted. At the bookstore on Monday I was the one furtively tucking her Target scarf down into her coat where nobody could see it. But then I wound up buying the book. I don't think Debbie would have minded either way but... yeah, I think I might try this knitting stuff. I watched the other women sit there with their needles and fingers working away. I'm a fidgety person--or maybe I became one after I quit smoking--so I suppose the busy fingerwork appeals to me. I like to think it'll be just like how I play with gift wrap bows and rubber bands and plastic fast food beverage lids, except then an adorable hat or scarf will magically appear. Right? That would rock. And then, sometimes I kind of like to chew on stuff, like pens and drinking straws, and I bet the flat ends of some of those knitting needles would be ideal, along with some nice tough yarn. I am so not kidding.

Seriously, though, I'm going to try it sometime. Hilarity may ensue. But then again, maybe not. If I get completely lost I might ask Cinnamon for advice.
pounded out by Wendy at 11:55 AM

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Four more! Come on, girls!

The sounds of Women's Workout World powered by audblog
pounded out by Wendy at 5:39 PM

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Hello kitty. Shut up, kitty.

You know those audblog posts that are showing up on people's weblogs lately? Apparently Blogger users get a one-post free trial, so last night I got all ambitious and tried recording and posting one. I tried it because, for once, I had a good reason to get all multimedia on you people.

There's this cat. Or kitten, I guess: it sounds like a kitten. I've never seen it. It lives across the hall in the apartment of a new neighbor I don't think I've met yet. I think this cat is an even newer neighbor, because evidently it hasn't gotten the hang of apartment living. A few nights ago I started to hear it next door crying and crying. I went out in the hallway and stared at the neighbor's door. I could tell it was right there on the other side, mewling and yipping and channelling the despair of the entire universe. My heart wrung its hands and crawled into a fetal position and I think also my ovaries got all confused and started buzzing with some kind of displaced mommy instinct. "Kitty," I called. "It's okay." "Fuck that shit," it meowed back. "God is dead."

Since then, whenever I hear the yowling, I check to see if the neighbor's been home--there are signs that he or she has--and furthermore I can hear the TV or radio in the apartment sometimes, which means either someone's home or is trying to provide comforting backround noise for Drama Kitty. So I think it's under control. Still, I guess I must come home before the neighbor does, because the sound of me coming up the stairs seems to be the cue for another episode of Existential Cat Theatre, and I can hear it even after I've gone inside.

Anyway, I thought I'd share that with you through the magic of Audblog. I'd sign up and then step over to my neighbor's door with my cordless phone and let kitty do the talking. So I tried. Like I recorded and re-recorded. I sat on the floor and held the phone near the crack beneath the door. The cat yowled pitifully enough times and then some, but then there were also some uncharacteristic silences where I think it knew I was up to something. After several tries I finally decided to post the damn thing and see how the mp3 sounded.

Please explain to me why this cat's voice can carry all the way into the living room of my apartment, even when I have the TV on, but then almost doesn't register at all in an audio recording made a few inches from the source. I'm sure there's a scientific reason.

The audblog post pretty much consists of an uncomfortable silence with only a few little squeaks that you can barely hear over the hum of your monitor. I cranked up the volume and listened to it as well as I could over the sound of the cat still meowing in real time. It's not good.

(Note: just now I realized I still have the link in my cache. I might as well post it, I guess)

audio post powered by audblog

Yeah. I don't know if you can even hear it. Sorry. If I ever get the chance again I'll recite a dirty limerick.

If it helps, I posted something on Michael's blog this morning. Go there, too.
pounded out by Wendy at 1:31 PM

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Ghost emails, boobs

Every now and then the Outlook Express icon on my computer will blink like I've gotten a new email, but then when I check my inboxes there's nothing new. Today it's been happening a lot. They torment me, these phantom emails. And I wonder what it would be like if every time this happened I was administered a sharp electric shock to the hand through my mouse. I'm not sure if I want to know how long I would continue to check my inbox before the negative reinforcement kicked in.

In other news, you probably already know about my unreasonable love for the stunningly obnoxious group Gravy Train!!!! Now they've made a video that I love to watch over and over. I believe it is a brave and touching song about body image, and it's mostly work-safe, except for that one nasty part with the guy's butt.
pounded out by Wendy at 2:20 PM

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How everything is

My life is busy. My grandma's okay. My Thanksgiving was good and for the first time in my personal experience featured the entire turkey sitting on a platter on the dining room table just like in the Norman Rockwell pictures. My head is sleepy. My visits to the gym are sporadic but becoming less so. My TiVo playlist has almost nothing on it now but those We Are The Eighties video collections on VH1 Classic. My browser just crashed.

My days are much shorter than I would like them to be. My secret wish is to have a crystyal meth habit so I could get shit done, but I know perfectly well that would be a lousy idea, though I can't help but think that I'd lose a few pounds too. My credibility as a weight-loss or healthy body-image blogger of any kind just went careening off a cliff with that last sentence. My column on Queer Eye is out in the latest BUST if I haven't mentioned it, but I think I might have. My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult was one of my favorite bands years ago and I bet you didn't know that.

My other site has a few little updates. My breakfast this morning was worth three points. My sneaking suspicion is that I care much more about this than you do, unless you are also on Weight Watchers. My weblog software enables me to retro-date entries, so if it's okay with you I'd like to pretend this is still Wednesday. My plan was to post yesterday but I didn't get a chance. My God, I can't believe the year is almost over.

And you?

pounded out by Wendy at 11:03 AM

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