Transverse Abdominal Slice With Detail of Massive Ho-Ho Bolus

Sam and I went to go see Gunther von Hagen's "BodyWorlds" exhibit at the Franklin Institute a few weeks ago. "BodyWorlds" features artfully posed human cadavers in various states of anatomical disassembly ("just muscles", "just nerves" and the disturbingly popular "just freaky cadaverous penis"). The bodies are able to be posed (and not immediately gobbled up by ravenous bacteria) due to von Hagen's unique "plastination" process. Plastination is a hoity-toity scientific way of saying "suck out all the juice, pump in some melted skateboard wheels, place atop bicycle while still nicely squishy and pliable, rake in the cash!". Despite being expensive and sensationalistic (with exhibits stopping just short of "Sagittal Plane Displaying Large Muscle Groups While Bungee Jumping and Slamming a Red Bull"), it was still fascinating.

We had heard there would be a "So You Want to Be a Plastinate?" feature within the show, and indeed there was. Much to our disappointment, it was done in as tasteful and low-key a manner as possible. I had been sorely hoping that Dr. von Hagen himself would be there, greedily pawing the soft, supple flesh of anyone who ventured too close. Sam and I both declined to fill out one of the admittedly-amusing body donation forms. He said he didn't especially care what happened to his corpse, but being flayed and deposited atop a horse wasn't high on the list. I had always planned to donate as much of my body as possible to people in need of transplants and/or a teaching hospital. This week, however, I devised an alternate plan.

Due to the obscene quantity of free food circulating in the office, I've been eating straight-up sugar for most of my meals. Cookies, candy, cake, pastry... it all slides right down the hatch, sped along its journey by copious quantities of diet Pepsi (which, as my coworkers are stubbornly convinced, "turns into FORMALDEHYDE in your body!"). As a result, I've been feeling even more tired and sticky and decrepit than usual. It occurred to me that perhaps I'd invented a new body-preservation process: sucronization, or the replacement of all bodily fluids with corn syrup. I may be eating poorly enough to make Richard Simmons' fluffy little head explode, but I'm doing it for SCIENCE! Once I die (I'm guessing either heart disease or a malted milk ball impaction), there are a number of uses to which society could put my sweet, crystallized corpse:

- Subject of a cautionary novel for high school students (ala "Go Ask Alice", would begin with someone slipping the naive heroine a Laffy Taffy at a party and end with her servicing hobos for dime bags of high-quality "Domino White").

- Organ donor for these nice folks.

- Sliced along transverse, sagittal and frontal planes, then placed into little packets and sold for $3.99 a pop as "CANdaver: The Official Snack of BodyWorlds!"

UPDATE: After snuggling with baby this morning, decided I did NOT in fact wish to die a sugary death. Ate an orange in attempt to atone for the nutritional horrors previously unleashed upon my body. Decided that, while fruit may be "nature's candy", nature ALSO produces cacao beans and sugarcane, so what the hell? Had some of nature's fattier, more delicious candy about thirty seconds later.

Scattershot: Late December Festivities

He's So Happy Because His Aunt Kept Letting Him Lick Eggnog Off Her Fingertip:

Christmas Song Least Likely to Be Heard in the Mall, Nevertheless Heard in the Mall - "Merry Christmas", Wesley Willis

Nothing says "happy holidays" like the musical stylings of an obese, obscene, schizophrenic "outsider artist". Hearing Willis in the mall is like hearing The Mentors in the orthodontist's office (although that certainly would have livened up those interminable bracket-tightenings and dire warnings about the hell which would be unleashed in my mouth if I kept eating hard foods). Although Willis is still preferable to hearing Wham!'s "Last Christmas" for the 10,000th time. Every time I hear George Michael crooning about how he's going to "... give it to someone speeeeeeeeecial", I inwardly leer, "Yeah, like you did in that public bathroom?"... and now you will, too (inwardly leer, that is. Not "give it to someone special" in a Port-o-John. Unless that's your method of spreading Christmas cheer). You're welcome.

Special Unrelated Note on the Orthodontist's Office:

I was quite possibly the worst orthodontic patient of all time. I whined, cried, came to appointments with bits of peanut brittle still clinging to my braces and wore my retainer for approximately 0.00002 seconds before flinging it permanently under my bed (just in case there were any maloccluded dust bunnies under there). Of all my dental transgressions, Dr. L chose to focus on my constant impertinent consumption of hard foods. He grew so frustrated that he once made me sit down and WATCH A VIDEO on the subject. "The Hellacious Horrors of Herman Hard-Food-Eater" was so inadvertently hilarious that, even to this day, I would pay serious cash to obtain a copy.

Every Previous Christmas Present Now Looks as Crappy as Slipper Socks:

My haul this year....

Two (2) movie passes
One (1) certificate for a one-hour massage
One (1) directive from husband to, "... just go and have fun. I'll watch the boy."

At first, I was planning to spread this gift of free time luxuriously thin, like foie gras on the toast point of the coming year. However, in the past three days, my beloved little boy has:

- Pooped on mom and dad's bed (I was unaware human excrement could exit the body so quickly. I was unaware human excrement could travel that fast under ANY circumstances, except perhaps when propelled by cannon).

- Once mom and dad's bed was cleaned, stripped and decked out in a new sheet, promptly peed on it (you'd think I would have learned).

- Bit mom's boob hard enough to draw blood.

- Grinned and looked especially adorable with mom's blood ringing his little mouth... kind of like an itsy-bitsy vampire.

So I'm considering just blowing my entire free-time wad at one go. Assuming I stay away from the kind of art-shock flicks to which I'm inexplicably attracted ("Le Monde est Merde", "Le 120 Minutes de Violence Sans Le Discernible Raison D'être"), it should be five blissful, excretion-free hours.

Medela Never Wrote Back

The LEAST those bastards could have done was sent me some free boob-cones or something.


Dear Good People of Medela,

I have been a proud user of your Pump in Style Original breast pump since my son’s birth earlier this year. For the past five months, “Pumpy” has been my constant companion, my buddy in black leatherette. It is truly the Rolls Royce of breast pumps – or perhaps, more aptly, the Honda Civic: a simple, well-designed, supremely reliable machine. Unfortunately, a dreadful event has recently befallen my pump. I need you to help rectify this situation, as it is more upsetting, disturbing, and flat-out yucky than I am able to bear.

At some unknown point, one of the containers of milk contained within my pump bag sprung a catastrophic, last-half-hour-of-“Titanic”-type leak. As I am both working and caring for a boisterous little boy, my mental state can best be described as “a few Twinkies short of a picnic”. Thusly, it was quite some time before I discovered the leak. By then, the damage had been done. And, oh, what damage it was.

My pump bag is saturated with breast milk. More specifically, sticky, smelly, rotting breast milk.

It oozes from every crevice of the bag. Prior to my discovery of the dairy disaster, several utility bills placed in the back pocket were saturated. A pair of 100% wool dress slacks was cruelly stained. A beloved Mission-style dining chair now has a Pump In Style-shaped rectangle branded on its top-grain leather seat.

Before this milky mayhem began, my pump was able to masquerade as a “laptop case”. Alas, as laptop cases don’t generally leak, stink or attract swarms of eager fruit flies, I fear its cover has been blown.

I hesitate to criticize the Pump in Style. As previously stated, it has been a true-blue breast pump. It has allowed me to both work full-time and provide my son with plenty of mom-juice, for which I’m extremely grateful. However, its inability to be cleaned following a serious milk leak is a horrendous design flaw. And, contrary to popular belief, it CANNOT be cleaned.

Immediately after discovering the leak, I whipped out a bottle of antibacterial cleaner and a roll of paper towels and got down to business. Over an hour later, I collapsed in a chair, dejected. My hands, shirt, face, kitchen counter and stovetop were all covered in goopy fermented breast milk. However, Pumpy was still as sticky, stinky and grimy as ever. In a glaring design defect, the Pump in Style’s case contains numerous nooks and crannies which simply cannot be accessed, let alone cleaned. This astounds me. I mean, it’s just common sense: things which contain milk will, from time to time, get milk on them, and therefore must be cleanable. Observe:

PLUS

EQUALS

PLUS

EQUALS

PLUS

EQUALS

PLUS

EQUALS

PLUS
ENOUGH CLEANSERS, SCOURING POWDERS, DEGREASERS, IONIZING AGENTS AND SUFACTANTS TO DEFOLIATE A SMALL SOUTH AMERICAN NATION.

EQUALS STILL FREAKING...

Get the picture? Things that hold milk should be cleanable.

I called your customer service line and was assisted by a young woman who, while friendly and sympathetic to my plight, was unable to offer any real solution. When I voiced the opinion that I couldn’t possibly be the first woman whose pump had taken an inadvertent milk bath, she concurred, and was as perplexed as me as to why Medela didn’t manufacture replacement pump bags. It seemed that, among the numerous replacement parts offered by Medela, a replacement bag would be a given. Because (lest we forget)… THINGS THAT HOLD MILK SHOULD BE CLEANABLE.

Please excuse my outburst. I’m a bit irritable lately, perhaps because I’ve spent the past few weeks lugging around the dripping, stinky albatross which is my ruined Pump in Style. I now ask – nay, beg – you to help me. Medela has helped millions of nursing mothers throughout the world, and I’m humbly requesting that you help one more. I’d like a response to the following questions:

Why can’t the Pump in Style be cleaned? After all, IT HOLDS MILK (perhaps I grow repetitive).
Given that the Pump in Style cannot be cleaned, why are no replacement bags available?
Given that the previous two items are true, and given that my Pump in Style’s bag is pretty much destroyed, what do you suggest I do? Spend $300 on an entirely new pump? Cry?

Thank you kindly for your time,
Jul
Working & Nursing Mom and Still-Proud Medela Pump User

Fakepolitik

Many years ago, I decided that politics were singularly silly and stupid and, as such, I would choose my political allegiances in the most silly and stupid manner possible. It's really not a bad way to go... certainly no worse than "lip-smackingly hot Sociology classmate claims Karl Marx was a genius" (Communist), "have donated to PBS, received tote bag, still feel guilty" (Democrat) or "soul-crushing terror of anal intercourse" (Republican).

My first candidate selected by the Silly 'n Stupid Method was Congressman Rob Andrews of New Jersey. I voted for Mr. Andrews during the 7th grade mock election, the highlight of which was getting to use the ancient, creaky, capable-of-transmitting-hoof-and-mouth-disease voting machines which had been hauled in for the occasion. I chose Rob because I was delighted with his firm, directive-like name. "Rob Andrews? Well, if you INSIST...". With the yank of a rusty, weevil-infested lever, I was off to the races.

Throughout the following years, I experimented with my S&S criteria, endorsing candidates on such merits as:

- Was defending own sexual proclivities on national TV on the night I Became A Woman (Bill Clinton).

- Cheesesteak-eating prowess. Former Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell could really rip into one of those greasy suckers. His successor, John Street, always looks vaguely pissed off at his cheesesteak. Which makes no sense, as it is the only thing in his life NOT facing federal corruption charges.

- Closest possible non-fictional counterpart to Christopher Walken's character in "Pulp Fiction" (John McCain).

- Wished to impress potential boyfriends with counterculture cred, despite being from an upper-middle-class background and secretly enjoying both Billy Joel and Hot Pockets (the entire Libertarian party).

It has been an arduous (and freaking ridiculous) process, but I believe I have found the ULTIMATE Silly & Stupid political selection criterion. It is thus: does the cause in question interfere with my lunch hour? I work in the heart of Philadelphia, where political protests occur pretty often. Each time I have to fight past a pack of angry, ironically-mulleted college students in order to aquire a pint of General Tso's, their group is forever on my shit list.

Organizations who have offended me in this manner include:

- SEIU (YOU may want reasonable healthcare co-pays, but I want a McChicken!).

- PETA (startled the almighty hell out of me by using a 5,000-watt bullhorn to accuse the bank in my building's lobby of harboring "SCUMBAGS!" and "PUPPY-KILLERS!" This is one of those situations where I could really use some backstory. How are banking and puppy-killing related? When you bounce a check, do they come eviscerate your Lhasa Apso instead of just
charging you $32? That's pretty hardcore!).

- Anarchists and/or Middle Eastern extremist groups (okay, I can't prove it was you. But SOMEONE left a mysterious bag of white powder in Center City last winter, which caused all sorts of police activity, which caused my mother to panic and beg me not to go out for lunch, which caused me to have to eat a Smart One, which was awful and had ZUCCHINI BITS in it. I don't give a good goddamn WHAT Nietzsche and/or Allah said... you made me eat zucchini, and that makes you WRONG!

Next up: taking a cockatiel with me into the voting booth to peck the buttons with its cute lil' beak.

Keep On Rockin' Me, Baby

J.Q. does not get classical. He does not get Barney or The Wiggles or godforsaken Raffi. My boy gets ORIGINAL ARTISTIC CREATIONS! Well, that's not entirely accurate. He gets an assortment of minor pop hits from the last several decades, reworked by mama in the silliest possible manner. I am basically like an a capella bar band. Some favorite selections:

Nirvana... "In The Crib"

My boy, my boy, don't lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night
In the crib, in the crib, I drool so much, I need a bib
Or I will shiver the whole night through

My boy, my boy, where will you go
I'm going to where the warm milk flows
To the boob, to the boob, it is round and not a cube
And I will eaaaaat, the whole night through

Public Enemy... "Baby Food is a Joke"

Get up and get, get down
Baby food is a joke in yo town
Get up and get, get down
They feed ya squash you better throw it on the, the ground

I'm still working on another P.E. cover, "Fuck Tha Strained Peas".

The Beatles... "Norwegian Prune"

I once had a prune
Or should I say, I once had two
I put them on a spoon
You laughed like a loon
I fed them to you
Oh, isn't it gooood
Gerber baby fooood

Note: this was the LAST thing which was funny about feeding my child prunes. I have no idea why I did such a thing. I think I assumed that "prunes will make you poop" was an urban legend, like "green M&Ms are an aphrodisiac" or "Mountain Dew reduces sperm count". In this case assuming not only made an "ass" out of "u" and "me", but it also made my son's crib resemble that scene in "Dogma" where the shit-monster is killed via grenade launcher.

"Turkey and Sweet Potato Suite" (an original!)

We just had some sweet potatoes
We just had some turkey, too
They used to both live on a farm
Now they're both inside of you!

First we take the sweet potato
We dig it up out of the ground
We put it in a jar in the store
Where it is more easily found

(Chorus)

Next we've got to have some turkey
It tastes good with butter and spice
But before we can eat the turkey
We gotta do something not so nice

We've got, got, got, to kill the turkey
We'll chop, chop, chop, its neck in two
But it's okay to kill the turkey
'Cause we're omnivores and it's what we do

(Chorus)

Dumb Jul Stories Flashback - God Bless You, Merry Idiot

For the past few years, I've attended Sam's company's Christmas party. Unlike my company's shindig (spouses not permitted to attend, drunken secretaries shrieking "I Will Survive"), their holiday get-together is usually pretty fun. Last year, the party featured a modified version of a Pollyanna called a "Yankee Swap". It works thusly: everyone brings in a relatively cheap wrapped present. All the presents are deposited in a pile, and everyone's name is put into a hat. When the first person's name is pulled from the hat, they get to choose a present and unwrap it. When the second person's name is pulled, they can choose to either take a new, wrapped present OR to steal the first person's present. Once a decent amount of presents have been opened, the stealing really takes off... during their turn, someone can steal YOUR present, you can then steal someone else's present, and so on. Since last year's Swap was a load of fun (most popular items? A dartboard and a pair of obscene salt 'n pepper shakers), Sam and I decided to participate once again.

Just like before, this year's Swap had several much-coveted gifts. A little video game console and a Lava Lamp were each "stolen" over a dozen times. The most popular item, however, was a Hello Kitty toaster (a marvel of Japanese technology, the toaster even seared a picture of Hello Kitty DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR BREAD). This toaster changed hands practically every round. I'd taken my turn quite early (I stole a Chia Pet shaped like Homer Simpson's head) and no one was interested in stealing it away from me. As a result, I never once possessed the elusive toaster. However, during the last person's turn, the tide changed. This guy had apparently had his eye on my Chia Pet for the entire Swap, and gleefully stole it from me. I could choose to take the last wrapped present (a boring little blue box). However, I could ALSO choose to steal the Hello Kitty toaster... and since an item can be stolen only once per round, that highly silly appliance would be mine FOR GOOD. I knew what I had to do.

I stepped forward through the noisy crowd and proclaimed, "Okay... who's hiding the toaster?"

Although the room was loud and boisterous, no one volunteered Hello Kitty. People were urging me to make a move, and one woman behind me said, "I think you have to take that last wrapped present." "Oh, no I don't," I said, "I can steal something, and I want to steal that toaster!" However, the toaster was nowhere to be found... until I turned around. Sitting on the couch, clutching the toaster, was the daughter of one of Sam's coworkers. The girl was about ten or twelve years old... and happened to be moderately mentally retarded. "Well, honey," said the girl's mom, "If she wants it, you have to give up the toaster." Did you ever have one of those moments when you REALLY need to use some common sense, but your common sense is apparently off in the bathroom reading "Field & Stream"? One of those moments when, in hindsight, the correct choice seemed obvious - "Don't run that red light", "Don't touch that hot stove", "Don't steal toys from retarded children" - and yet, at the time, you were still clueless?

In perhaps the Dumbest move of any Dumb Jul Story, I had one of those moments.

Yes. Although it fills me with shame (and giggling) to think of it, I actually REACHED OUT TO TAKE THE TOASTER. The girl looked sad and confused and began slowly pushing the toaster towards me. It was at that moment that my common sense returned from its little bathroom break and said, "Whoa! Wait just a damned minute here!" "Uh... uh... I can't take your toaster," I sputtered. "Awww!", went the room, their hearts warmed to see that Sam's wife wasn't a complete monster. In lieu of the toaster, I stole another popular item, a five-liter keg of Grolsch beer (amusingly, about the same size as my pregnant belly). The final wrapped present turned out to be a cheapie "Personal Massager" from Walgreen's. Had I stolen the toaster, I would have also inadvertently caused that poor girl to receive a thinly-disguised marital aid as her Yankee Swap gift. Oy gevalt!

Since this is a Christmas Dumb Jul Story, it needs to have a sappy Hallmark moral. So here goes: I hope my astounding idiocy has made everyone remember the true meaning of the season. Christmas isn't all about raging consumerism and eggnog-flavored cappuccino. It's about the precious things in life... things like compassion, sharing, caring for others... and not stealing toys from retarded children in front of all of your husband's coworkers.

Scattershot: Bathroom Remodel '05

Worst Song For Bathroom Remodeling:  "Piggy", Nine Inch Nails

 

1.  How ironic: despite swearing off the hooch and bulking up, Trent Reznor now seems LESS manly.  He's like a cut-rate Henry Rollins.  You expect to see Henry snapping sequoias in half using only his bulging neck muscles.  You expect to see the new, "improved" Trent hawking his own line of exercise gadgets on late-night TV.  "The Rez-o-nator!  Increase your existential despair by 280% in just FIVE MINUTES A DAY!"  That is NOT the mental image you need while tearing down drywall.

2.  While hauling a very heavy, very SHARP bag of masonry debris outside, I became deeply disgusted with the lyric "Nothing can stop me now".  Actually, a LOT of things can stop me now!

 

 - Tetanus.

 

 - Getting bonked on the head by the claw hammer I keep hanging from the doorjamb (everything I do, I imagine a crusty old construction foreman telling the new guy on the crew, "Now, don't you fuckin' EVER let me catch you doing something stupid like ____!").

 

 - A surprise visit from the Suburbiaville building inspector, demanding to know why our walls are stuffed NOT with insulation but old issues of Consumer Reports (answer: so we have reading material whenever we're brave/desperate enough to bypass the sea of rubble and use the toilet).

 

A Short Note to the Guy Who Invented the Metal Mesh/Concrete Method of Affixing Tile to Bathroom Walls:

 

Dear G.W.I.M.M/C.M.A.T.B.W,

 

YOU SUCK SO BAD!  What the HELL is your problem?!  If you couldn't come up with a better way to get tiles to stick to the wall, then you should have just SKIPPED THE GODDAMNED TILES, FUCKSTICK!

 

Sincerely,

Person Remodeling a Bathroom in Which Your Stupid-Ass Tile Adhesion Method Was Once Used

 

Drywall Dust Kills Brain Cells:

 

Me: "... and after we've cleaned up all the gravel in the vincinity- "

Sam: "Don't you mean VICINITY?"

Me:  "Oh, yeah.  I guess 'the vincinity' would be wherever Vin Diesel happens to be at the moment."

Grandma and Apple Pie

Baby and I participated in my company's yearly craft fair yesterday. I'm not really sure why... I'm reminded of that scene in "Speed" where Keanu Reeves accidentally punches a hole in the out-of-control bus's gas tank and Sandra Bullock asks him, "Did you feel you needed another challenge?". Except instead of a bus rigged with explosives, I've got a job, a baby and a house which perpetually looks like 90's-era Kosovo, only with drool-covered plush creatures instead of dead Serbs. And I decided to bake several hundred cookies in lieu of crawling around under a bus (as I have a much less slim and girlish figure than Mr. Reeves, I'd probably wind up getting smeared all over the Los Angeles freeway system, dooming Sandra Bullock and all those poor character actors to death. I'm sorry I failed you, Irritable Latino Man! Please forgive me, That Guy Who Was In "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"!).

Despite my idiocy in undertaking such a task, the cookie sale was a great success. This was due in large part to the help of Grandma S., who assisted in baby-wrangling and cookie-hawking. This was the latest of many selfless deeds which have earned her a spot in Grandma Heaven. What is Grandma Heaven, you are undoubtedly NOT asking? Tough shit... I'm going to tell you anyway.

By the time they expire, most grandmas will have spent approximately fifty years shoveling pot roast into their families' ungrateful gullets. This is why, in Grandma Heaven, there is no cooking. There are only Lean Cuisines, and only in non-spicy flavors (despite the fact that, in Grandma Heaven, there is also no searing heartburn). "Judge Judy" is always on, and it's always an amusing episode ("SHE says that when she refused to lend him $10 to buy a stromboli, HE retaliated by secretly masturbating into her bottle of Prell! HE says, 'The bitch crazy!' NEXT... on Judge Judy!"). There is no arthritis, no cysts, no rheumatizz, no sciatica. There is actually NOTHING which would cause one to get a stabbing pain in one's ass, with the possible exception of watching "Judge Judy" for four hours. In Grandma Heaven, grandchildren stay small and jolly and adorable indefinitely. As opposed to Grandma Hell, where grandchildren grow up, dye their hair alarming colors, flunk out of transmission repair school and spend their all-too-rare visits sulking and stealing codeine suppositories from the medicine cabinet. Oh, wait. That's real life.

Grandma S., you take good care of us. We hope you are with us for a very long time. But when you shuffle off this mortal coil, we hope it is not while clutching your hip and shrieking, OW!" And we hope it is to Grandma Heaven that you shall go.