Happy Day of the Anniversary!

Hello my friends of the internets! One of the years ago today, I, the Chalupa, came to live with the Mama Medusa. Here I am on that day:



And here I am today!




Even though I strike the serious pose of the commemorative portrait, I am the happiest of pups. And do I not look rather trimmer indeed?

Celebrate! It is the day of joyousness to mark the year of joyousness!

Guess what you have not had enough of in the new year

Chalupaness.

And so, voilà!



At Mama Bear's house in the Deep Red . . .



. . .and before the holiday with her best pal, Phooey.

Nearly obscene levels of cuteness . . .

Seriously, how am I supposed to grade with this kind of thing happening beside me?

I know. I am becoming the crazy doggencat academic lady with no life, lost in a sea of cute.

I'll have sex with a bassist soon. Promise.

Poetry Friday, why Brautigan is the Chalupa's favorite poet

Hey, Bacon!

The moon like:
mischievous bacon
crisps its desire

(while)

I harbor myself
toward two eggs
over easy.

The Chalupa says: Are you kidding me seriously? The title with the bacon! The simile with the bacon! The harbor of the eggs! The man, he is the genius!

Medusa says: Mischievous bacon. Mmmmmph yes. Crisps its desire. Uh huh mmmmph uh huh. The moon like mischievous bacon crisps its desire . . . perfect brilliant delightful beautiful. Some poems turn me into an idiot critic. This is one of them.

I am still in the middle of the writing marathon, interrupted this week by a whirlwind of classesmeetingsprepgrading, but continuing through this weekend and I HOPE not beyond, at least with this project. Still, life will be madness until Thanksgiving.

Forgive my spotty blogging. Here's an adorable Chalupa:



(in the place where the bacon happens)

At long last . . .I, the Chalupa, make the return to the internets

Good morning of the fine autumnal day, my friends! I offer the apologies for my absence of late. The Mama Medusa, her days are of much the busyness, and I in turn have greatness of responsibility in "holding down the fort." Some of the days I spend the whole of my time visiting my comrade, Milo, dually holding down the fort of the friend and neighbor, Paloma. There is much of the guarding and barking and the patrolling of perimeters. We are the fearsome pair.


The chill, it is now biting the air. This is the hard time for the chihuahua, for we must find the ways to keep warm, with the basking in the sun and the burrowing in the cozy blankets and with the donning of the outfits. The bite of the chill signals the most important of holidays in the Medusa household--All Hallows Eve. This will be the first of my Halloweens with the Mama Medusa, and we have the big plans. My costume is in the making, and it will be of such fantasticness! I will not reveal the surprise now! You will see the glorious disguise of the Chalupa, if you are able to recognize the Chalupa! HA! I make the Halloween joke! Here I am in my cozy bed practicing some scary faces.

That is all for now, my friends of the internets! I will try not to be the stranger! Chihuahua kisses and warm wishes for the delightful Fall to all!

Chihuahua Wednesday, Supply your Own Caption Edition

Salty Dogs (the Chalupa and Milo at the shore)

Yesterday the Chalupa and I joined Paloma and Milo at their seashore retreat for the afternoon. (And we sang along to Ryan Adams at the top of our lungs all the way there.) The rewards this weekend, they have been sweet.

Greetings, viva la Chalupa friends of the internets!

How are you on this fine morning of the day?

Chihuahua Wednesday, the Return!

Are you asking yourself how you survived this long without la Chalupa?

Here she is displaying the patience of a chihuahua saint as the nieces and nephew prepare her for my surprise birthday bash . . .



. . .and during a more quiet moment on Mama's porch with her friend, the very lonely garden owl, whom she developed quite a fondness for


She sends her most happy summer wishes to her viva la Chalupa friends of the internets!

Chalupa update

The Chalupa is quite the calm traveller and she loved loved loved the Deep Red, the kids, her cousin dogs, ALL! THAT! GRASS!, and my mom's and sister's houses, which must have seemed positively ginormous in comparison to the garret. She was particularly fond of the nieces, a certain fuzzy zebra-print pillow in Katydid's room, carpeted stairs, balconies, and the neighbor cat.

What she did not like: hardly anything, just walking in the cemetery (she refused to walk over graves and there was lots of leash-tugging to get out of there as soon as possible) and the American Airlines flight attendant, Anne Marie, who caused a huge scene trying to make me make her stay in her carrier under the seat while we were trapped on a 90 degree tarmac with no air and the Chalupa was overheated and a crying and mortified (due to Anne Marie's yelling and scene making) was trying to give the very calm Chalupa in her lap some water. Anne Marie, you are a crab-faced, sour-souled, petty-minded asshat. Plus, you have seriously bad hair. I am sure that's why you hated me but that's no excuse to be mean to my dog.

At long last . . .Chalupa video!

Sorry for the darkness and the lack of anything really happening in the video. We are still working on the technology and the directing =).

Still, just seeing her taunt and try to bury her bone in her giant fantastic rosebud bed, as well as occasionally looking at me like, "Hey, c'mon, crazy lady with the camera, let's play" might be enough to make you melt from the cuteness. You can also hear the signature Chalupa snort. She snorts constantly, but I think in this case it's some sort of warning snort to the bone. Enjoy!

Chihuahua Wednesday, Funny Faces Edition

I got a fevah. . .

. . .and the only prescription is more chihuahua!



With her friend, Milo, in Paloma's kitchen






And at home being generally adorable

Medusa's Holiday Weekend

This holiday weekend has been pretty low-key, something that I usually do not mind but that this year feels like a kind of lame "kickoff to the summer," as all of the local news station insist on calling it. It's not like I made plans or anything, since this weekend falls during the three weeks before I begin the summer travels (which I have dubbed the Three Weeks of Six Weeks Worth of Work ), and it's not like I have not done some socializing and some relaxing. Still . . .something feels too lonely or quiet to me. Maybe it's that last year's Memorial Day weekend involved having a huge party with friends new and old, engaging in an ugly public argument and breakup with my boyfriend, and unexpectedly leaving town for a few days with the rock-n-roll circus. Maybe it's the sense that I should be doing something, that holiday pressure that I think we all succumb to sometimes. Anyway, I am not nearly as sad or mopey as this post has so far made me sound. What have I been doing with myself on this unholidayish holiday weekend during which I seem sad and mopey but am not?

• Well, the weekend began with me Building an Outfit over at the superfantastic Manolo's blog. You can check it out on the forum. I did not win but it was still superfantastically fun. My thoughts on my non-winning outfit are: a) I took a risk with matching the open-toed ankle strap pump with a city short (as really I prefer only flats with the city short or if a heel, a casual wedge); b) something is somehow off with the cut of the off-the-shoulder silk top, along with the placement of the ruffles; c) the necklaces, bag, and sunglasses are brilliant (and I may have ordered some of these items as a part of the retail madness part of this weekend, see below); d) I was never sure about the bracelet, though it does tie in with the shoes, but I think that's precisely why I do not like it, and I think it is too much with the necklaces; and e) the whole outfit might be a little boring--cream and brown with cream and brown. In any case, it was great good fun and I am very much looking forward to the next contest. Incidentally, I count this as the weekend's (only) "work."
• I have been following A. and Crazy's Vagina Power Weekend 2007 telephonically and on Dr. Crazy's blog. By yesterday they were feeling hungover and remorseful but I think this is wrongheaded and perhaps the undue influence of penis power. I am hoping they will reclaim the Vagina Power today, as Dr. Crazy and A. are fun and charming and witty and fabulous.
• I continue to work out as if it is my job. As you might surmise, working out like it's your job, which is to say for about an hour and a half every day, prevents you from doing actual work. Anyway, I am on some sort of mission that apparently involves seeing what will happen weight-wise, body-wise, and mood-wise if I work out for many days in a row. Today will be Day 14, and I think I might be (insanely) going for 30. The results thus far: I have lost 3 pounds; my legs, arms, and waist are visibly toned; and I feel almost too good--tons of energy, almost zero anxiety, and hence no work on looming projects this week, oopsie. I also feel like I might be living in the 1980s--the fitness-crazed 80's, not the cocaine-fueled 80's. I wonder what I would be feeling like if I had decided to live in the cocaine-fueled 80's** for 30 days. I would definitely have lost more than three pounds but I might be dead.
• Speaking of death, I almost choked on a cherry pit yesterday. During the near-choking, I thought about how funny and convenient it would be to die on Memorial Day weekend. I also thought it would be kind of nice to die by choking on a cherry pit, theoretically of course, as I am sure it would be a real nightmare physically. But how could you not smile just a little when in answer to your how did she die question, you got "she choked on a cherry pit"? Not only is it an alliterative death, but it prevents a maudlin and melancholy response. It's comical. By the way, I am not feeling particularly morbid this weekend, though the holiday inspires a kind of morbidity. I am always and have always been this morbid. There's this extraordinary line in Little Children (which I watched last night, see thoughts below) about all people being "miracles" because they know that everyone they love will die and they still go on. When I was very young, I realized just this--that everyone I loved would die and that I in fact would die. I completely freaked out and starting alerting everyone to this fact, like "Wake up, people! Do you not know what's going here? Why are we just walking around like this is OK?" Eventually I decided that this fact made life absurd and was a sign of God's excellent but sick sense of humor. (Around this same time, I started planning my funeral and have found such plans drafted out in various journals and diaries of my youth. I also was convinced I would die at the age of 24 right up until midnight on my 25th birthday, but that's another story.) So anyway, yeah, I was a freaky and morbid kid. But I still have that idea in my head. I still believe that this knowledge of certain loss and this refusal to let it stop us makes this life absurd. But maybe it does make us miraculous? Absurd or miraculous? An absurd miracle?
  
• Friday night I took a friend out for a belated birthday dinner and then we went to see another friend play music. I have been hanging out with the belated birthday friend since September. How to describe this relationship? We are friends but there is also an attraction and he has tried to make it a thing but ultimately it has gone nowhere and in the end I think we are just not that into each other. It's as messy and boring as the construction of that sentence. And the fact that I have now actually talked about him on the blog probably means that I am about to end it, at least in its current ambiguous configuration. Anyway, the other music-playing friend is the person some of you know as Demetrius or One True Love. Going to see him play with Ambiguous Friend (uh oh, a pseudonym, a sure death knell) was a kind of worlds-colliding experience, as it was at the bar that was my practically my living room during grad school and that contains at least three people I have slept with at any one time (Friday night's count was four) and everyone I had ever met was there. But it was actually kind of lame. My friends were nice to Ambiguous Friend. Ambiguous Friend was very laid-back but also seemed kind of bored. I was "meh" about the whole thing, even after two Sapphire and tonics. Who knew worlds colliding could be so uneventful?
• This weekend has provided the climax to the retail madness of the past two weeks, during which I have ordered far too many glorious treats from places like Sephora and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and a gluttonous number of books from Amazon and local shops. Hmmmm. . .seems like I might be living in the mindless-consumerism 80's as well. Yesterday I went into Marshall's to pick up a sports bra and a pair of running shorts and ending up spending $116 on neither a sports bra nor running shorts but on things such as a DKNY chemise and the piece de resistance, for only $39.99, a new dog bed and burrowing blanket for the Chalupa:
  Isn't it wonderful? As you can see, it is most luxurious and absolutely perfect for our very girly-girl bedroom. Yes, it is big enough for a German Shepherd but she loves her super king-sized chihuahua princess bed.
  
• Ignoring Major Project due in June and the unwritten syllabus for my summer class and instead watching stupid T.V. (the Real World Las Vegas marathon, the kind of boring Shear Genius with the mechanical and unlikeable Jaclyn Smith, What Not to Wear, this new fixer-upper show with my imaginary boyfriend Andrew Dan Jumbo, who I have figured out reminds me of my second fiance, P.) and good movies like Blood Diamond and Little Children. Continuing with my reviewing style that is part Ignatius J. Reilly and part obvious pointer-outer that movies cannot resist the force 0f the heteronormative train, I will say that I thought Little Children was spectacular--the strangely funny darkness of it, the performances of Winslet and Connelly and really everyone, and the clean yet somehow stifling and oppressive look of it. Just a fantastic film, really. But the end feels odd to me. Is the optimism supposed to be ironic or does it seriously want us to think traditional family values will save us from our post-9/11 world of fear-mongering and bullying? Is it just Tom Perrotta? He does seem to be obsessed (Election, Little Children) with the cheaters-never-win theme. On the one hand, there is all of this wonderful questioning of the joys of marriage and child-rearing; on the other, there is this idea that the reason we are not being good mothers and fathers and partners is because our growth is retarded and we are behaving like a bunch of adolescents. Perhaps that is the final message: grow the fuck up and handle your dissatisfaction in a less deluded state of awareness. Blood Diamond slams the American marriage industry, indirectly blaming heteronormativity for massive bloodshed. Among its political messages is an unexpected one about family and life choices and the ultimate luxury of such choices. And that Leo. My my my.
  
• Hanging with the Chalupa. Here she is with a friend, known as "Baby," watching a home-decorating show featuring a bedroom that looks eerily like my own. If you look through the window in the shot, you can kind of see Hairy Yoga Guy's porch.

That's all from Medusa Central. I must go out into the sunshine with the Chalupa, perhaps break up with someone who is not my boyfriend, and at some point sweat profusely on an elliptical machine, perhaps in some sort of Jamie Lee Curtis-inspired head band. Happy holiday weekend to all!

**Updated to add: Apparently Lindsay Lohan was doing my living in the cocaine-fueled 80's for me this weekend.

And last but never least, for the chihuahua freaks

Hello viva la Chalupa friends of the internets! What is the up? Hey, check it out. . .

. . .my impression of the drunk guy about to be falling over! Hahahahahahahahhahaha! I make the joke!

High the five!

Dos and Don'ts

DON'T arrange your life (and by "arrange" I mean proscrastinate until you have no choice) so that you have to grade fifteen 15-page essays in one day.

DON' T spaz out in the middle of mandatory grading session and decide you cannot read one more word of student writing until you relocate to your favorite coffee house in the middle of one of the most crowded parts of the city and DON'T drive to that place stupidly thinking you will find a parking place because you will not and you will have wasted over an hour of your precious grading time driving around like a jack-ass.

DO rejoice the next morning as soon as you realize every last one of those dreaded papers is graded.

DO not fret that I was too busy to post pictures on Chihuahua Wednesday. The Chalupa is on the job:

Good morning of the day, my viva-Chalupa friends of the internets!!

Welcome to my sunny kitchen! Is it not lovely? I extend the warm greetings to you from this particular spot of the garret, for I have the most exciting news! Since I came to live with the Mama Medusa I have been on the diet, mandated by the Doctor of the Chalupa. My former companion, bless her elderly and ailing soul, she did not walk me so the much but she did feed me much the muchness of the peoples food. The Doctor of the Chalupa is of the feeling that I will be of the better health, in the heart and in the floating kneecaps, if I lose a few of the poundages. A few is quite the bit for the 9 pound dog, my friends! How the ever, I visited the Doctor of the Chalupa this week. And?? I have lost nearly the one full pound in this the very short span of three of the months! Now I will spin for joy!




I have done well and deserve the congratulations, no??

It's that time again. . .Chihuahua Wednesday

The Chalupa, in various states of awakeness. . .



She wonders if you know that she hardly ever sleeps uncovered and will burrow under anything handy and soft. This is her favorite wool sweater, which makes her a little itchy but is otherwise quite nice.



Here she is squinting in the sun, but this looks exactly like the "squint of frustration," an expression she often makes when you have not been paying attention to what is required of you (e.g. "OUTSIDE!" "VISIT MILO!" "BREAKFAST!"). The squint of frustration is often accompanied by sighs or snorts, and once or twice I swear I saw a slight resigned shake of the head.



Finally, she encourages all of you to take the soonest possible opportunity for a nap in whatever slice of sun is available to you.

Up against the wall, chihuahua mother**

I am buried in end-of-the-semester work, including 1001 meaningless busy-work tasks manufactured by TDC, and I am also facing deadlines on several major projects. Until I extricate myself, I leave you with Chalupa photos.

She wants to tell you that she greatly enjoyed sharing particulars of her life with you all and plans to do more of this in the future. For now, she would like you to know these "details of privy:" 1) she loves to bark at air traffic; 2) she is very much looking forward to meeting her new friends in her Chihuahua Meet-up Group (oh no folks, I do not lie, it's for real) starting in May; and 3) she loves her viva-Chalupa bloggy friends.








**That's right, Jerry Jeff Walker. Uh huh, revealing my roots.

It is I! The Chalupa!

I have come with greetings of the Friday evening. The Mama Medusa, she is of the maudlin, with the pining and the grieving all over again of the lover lost and lost again with the moving to lands of vast farness from these. I know not of these sorts of matters, but I respect the feeling with which she feels this the sadness. This closeness she has with this one, it is of the deep and to-be-missed closeness of specialness. It, how the ever, makes for the not so good fare of the blog.

Do not fear! I am here to retrieve the cheerfulness of the day! It has come to the attention of I, Chunk-o-Pup Chalupa Puttalily Fandango, this thing of the mee. . . meeemer. . . .meeee-MAR. . .meeeemeeee. . meme. The Cat of Man of the Doctor of Crazy, he has informed me of the ritual of the tag. The great Sidonia has requested that the Cat of Man of the Doctor of Crazy and I reveal the Five Things about the Selves of Us to which you may have not heretofore been of the privy. Without the ado of further:

1. I was born on the Eve of Christmas. What chihuahua is this? 'Tis I.
2. According to the Rays of X of the veterinary caregivers, I have no knees in the hind legs, or rather the knees caps they have floated jauntily hither and thither from their places of ought-to-be. They rebel from the oppressive structure of the normative skeletal order! Yet I leap, I frolic, I run! I am the dog of miracles. Revolución!
3. The crazy hair of the Medusa? It is most fun to bite, especially when she is of the sleeping. She awakes! Do I turn to stone when I encounter the angry gaze of the awakened crazy-head Medusa? Tsk tsk! No no! It is the most fun of games.
4. My name in the real life it is that of the same of the most venerable of divas, I feel. She is of the talent and of the beauty, as am I. Viva la diosa!
5. The Mama Medusa, she waited quite the while after the passing of her grand chat domestique, the companion of seventeen years, the great Shiva, to bring another creature into the household. I was born précisément three days before the passing of the Shiva. Even though it took four of the years for her to find me, we, the Mama Medusa and I, were brought together for the reason, no?

With that, I will end! And I beseech you to enjoy this the Spring weekend, this the weekend, this the Spring, this the joy!

Peace the out,
I . . . . The Chalupa!

Random Bullets of Cranky Easter Morning

• What's up with the cold weather, people? 31 degrees Fahrenheit with an expected high of 40 degrees. This reminds me that every single May I vow to make plans for a mini-vacation to a very warm locale for the next May. I always pretend I will have the money or will somehow find the money to do this. I never do.
• Money. I don't have any. I don't care at the moment if it is incredibly crass to talk about it. It's an enormous struggle every single month. I am tired of it. It also occurs to me that it's RIDICULOUS that I am putting 5% of my paycheck into a retirement account when I have to panic and scramble right now to pay my bills. I have let my father pressure me into doing this. (And, yes, I suspect the reason I am woefully financially unsuccessful at this late age is because I have let my father continue to have a major influence on my financial decisions.) I am actually paying some bills with a credit card that doesn't charge interest until August, because by then I will be able to pay it off with a check from teaching summer school. Pathetic.
• I am teaching summer school. Boo.
• Paloma has invited me to a wonderful Easter dinner. She's cooking for her entire family and a few friends, all of whom I would really like to see. I know this should be a good thing and not a cranky-making thing, but I had no idea what she was talking about when on the phone Friday night she was "reminding" me of Easter this and two hams that and scalloped potatoes here and cobbler there, all at her house. She had thought she had told me weeks ago. Normally this would not be a big deal, but I am so so behind in my work. I was way behind before the weekend began, and the past three days of seeing out-of-town friends and going to papers at the conference that is in town has royally screwed me. I estimate I need about 10 hours each day today and tomorrow to get through the work and that may be a little on the conservative side. I can see squeezing in an hour tops for Easter dinner. That would be extreme eating and running, though. On Easter. Rude. What to do? Go for a bit? Say I am not feeling well?
• I actually am feeling sick. I don't know if it's allergies or what, but I am exhausted, achey, and, as is abundantly evident by now, cranky.
• There is a very large hawk in my neighborhood. I wish I could say something Thoreau-like about its mighty beak or the gold of its tilted feather in sunny flight (I heart Thoreau, in spite of myself, I really do), but as he seems to have taken a loud screeching interest in the Chalupa the past few mornings, what I will say is this: "Get within 100 feet of this yard in any direction, you filthy scavenging coward, and I will rip you apart with my own hands."
  
• I have been having these amazing dreams that I am in a reality that isn't real. I am not talking about lucid dreaming, which is standard dreaming procedure for me. I mean in the dream I am projected (for various reasons, by various forces, some friendly, some not) into a simulated reality, a holodeck-like projection, and have to navigate my way through it. At first, it feels like I am travelling through a muddy-feeling substance that looks like the world but has thick heavy mass and texture. As I learn how to walk, to breathe, to talk in this new environment, it begins to feel natural. I bounce around as I would in my normal environment, but there's no gravity. There is only substance around me, and I can walk through it in any direction--down into the earth, up into the sky, up walls and upside down on ceilings. I can find the substance is moldable and I can create things I need from it. Am I a) stepping precariously closer to the edge of psychosis; b) really getting into a certain something I am teaching right now; c) spending way too much time in virtual environments; or d) fabulously creative and brilliant?
• Have you noticed blog cliques? I have been branching out in my blog reading, and I have seen a few groups of blogs that seem to discourage outsiders and seem to encourage a certain exclusiveness--in posts, in comments--among a limited amount of people. I am not talking about those bloggers who have a combination of new readers, IRL friends, and readers from a certain community. What I see from those bloggers is an at least implicit generosity with all visitors, except of course those commenters who are hostile. What I think I am seeing are some blogs that are the virtual equivalent of the "cool kid" table in the high-school cafeteria. I do not comment frequently even on the blogs I regularly read and I have never commented on these cliquey blogs I mention, but I am fascinated by what it is that gives off this exclusivity vibe on certain blogs.
  
• How did I forget what a great movie Moonstruck is? I watched it last night before bed. Best forgotten line, between Olympia Dukakis's character and the NYU professor (played by John Mahoney): OD: I am not old for you. JM: I am too old for me!. HA! Think I actually told The Grand He that he was too old for himself once, not remembering that I had stolen that line. I do this constantly, by the way--steal lines from movies and forget they are from movies and think they are mine. A huge amount of them are from the 80s.
  
• Finally, in way of an apology for all of the crankiness I have just dumped on you: Happy Easter, Happy Spring!