The Sad & the Pathetic: Issue 52

Hello my dear dreamers,

	I’m leaving for Greece  in two days and I must admit I’m nervous about it. I’ve been listening
 to some Greek tapes and I can honestly say I have not even retained how to say ‘Hi’. Can’t you tell?
 Fluency is my middle name. This does not bode well for the journey. Of course, I wouldn’t want to
 forget that I had an excessively traumatic dream(surprise, surprise). I’ll just say it included me
 forgetting my passport and ticket to Greece, using the phone in the Japanese embassy in Chicago and
 being accused of murder in the Japanese embassy. Just one of the reasons why I do crack. I know
 I’ll have a great time once I get there, I just dislike the unknown. Bad dreams don’t exactly help.
 Some day a candidate for their doctorate is going to make me their test study in dreams. We’re not
 talking loose, barely remembered dreams. I remember the fixtures on the wall of the embassy, the
 color of the marble floors and walls, what time it was, what my luggage looked like, etc, etc. There
 are other people out there who dream with an  inordinate amount of detail, right? I know I’m a
 freak, but I can’t be the only one. 
	Speaking of inordinate amounts. . . . I read this book the other day where the main character
 was a single female who made sure that the number of things she owned only totaled 250. This
 included toiletries and the like. *whistle* It sounds like a large number, but I was looking at one of
 the book cases in my room. I easily have over a hundred books on that one. Not to mention the
 others, or the stacks of books on my desk and floor. I probably have more than 250 slides of my art
 work. I guess I won’t be converting to the ‘minimalist’ life style anytime soon. And my mother. . . we
 won’t even get into that. I’ll leave it with the fact that we could have 80 people all sitting down in
 our house at once, not including beds or footstools or the 48 people who could sit outside in our
 various patio furnishings. You can’t not love my dad’s comment that we should throw parties and give
 chairs away as party favors. . . as my mother shoots him a dirty look.  
	Now apparently, Bekks was at a party two weeks ago where she met a hot guy who programmed
 his number into her cell phone. I wonder if she used one of my cheesy lines? Most likely, not. She
 told me this, but she won’t call the guy. So I told her I’d call him for her. “Hi, my name’s Mary. You
 met my friend at a party and programmed your number into her phone. She’s the cute short chick. . . .
 No, not that one. Yes, her phone is silver. Why isn’t she calling you? Because she’s chicken.” Bekks
 tells me that I can’t call him. I told her, either you do it or I’ll do it when I get back from Greece.
 That gives her three weeks! Plenty of time. She says, “But it’s been weeks!!!” I just look at her.
 “Okay, two weeks. But it’s been so long that he’ll think I’m pathetic if I call now.” I think of it as
 this way. . . . It’s been two weeks. . . if you think that’s pathetic, what will it look like after five
 weeks when your friend calls for you?? She says, “If he was really interested he could have asked
 his friend for my number.” Good point. But! Let’s do a little math. I’m optimistic, so I’ll say he has
 balls(preferably two, but maybe he had an accident with a pencil in his pocket playing basketball.
 Who knows?). Therefore he’s male. . . therefore he’s a moron. *end with geometric dots in triangular
 fashion* Call him.
	As long as I’m talking about Bekks’ men, I might as well mention Dr. Hamlin. No, Dr.Hamlin is
 not one of Bekks’ men. She was our high school senior year English teacher. She had a cardboard cut
 out life size of Fabio. Mmmm. . . *bleeck* Depending on what literature we were reading we would
 dress Fabio. So for example. . . we read Hamlet and Dr. Hamlin brought in velvet cloth and black
 panty hose and we cut out a little outfit for him. Actually, I think she still has a picture of that.
 For either Beowolf or King Arthur, we made him a knight out of aluminum foil which we stuffed with
 paper towels to give a 3-D look. Yes, I know . . . Dude, like we were totally the coolest babes, dude.
 But all that time he was wearing leather pants with fringe down the sides. . . . *grrrr* . . . Sexy.
 And of course holding a whip or chains, because you know how it goes. . . I mean when I’m posing for
 my own life size cardboard cut out they always make me hold a chain. Sometimes I just get fed up
 with it and refuse to use something I would never use anyway! So every once in a while they let me
 just be me and I get to hold handcuffs.
	But I’ve gotten off subject, so Dr. Hamlin bought Bekks and I caffeine. . . well we were at a
 coffee shop. (By the way, Thanks!) Bekks is catching her up on what she’s been up to. She was in
 Norway and Sweden camping and girl scouting. Well. . . let’s be honest. . . I do girl ‘scouting’ too.
 Scouting for those hot guys. ‘I don't know what you think of me, but I hope it's x-rated.’ Of course
 this brings on a whole new meaning to “All work and no play, makes me. . . uh. . .  fidgety(would be a
 good substitution).”
	But who really needs men when you have Paciugo’s. . . *drooling* Yesterday, Bekks and I went to
 see the movie Memento. Wow. . . this movie is awesome.(Patti you’d love it. Mark, you’d like the
 tattoos) Go see it. This is besides the point. We decided to grab some ice cream and there is this
 gelateria that opened up across the street that I was just dying to try. Italian ice cream. . . oh
 man. . . they say that they way to a man’s heart is through food; well mine is through limone and
 hugs. We took the ice cream back across the street and walked right past the sign that says “No
 outside food or drink” into the theatre. Pretty darn empty, but also an early movie. The key is to act
 like you know what you’re doing. Seriously . . . this gelato was orgasmically good. Mmmm. . . We’re
 going back tomorrow. *wink*
	As for something I won’t be going back for. . . twice I got up with Bekks to go play tennis with
 these French boys at an insanely hour. My first meeting with them was at 7 am Sunday morning. Good
 knight, these boys need help. I don’t think they were dazzled by my “wit and humor” . . . actually, I
 think they were still in bed where I should have been. But somehow on Monday night she convinced me
 to play with them at 5:30 in the morning! Man, I must have been doing some bad crack that night.
 That would explain why we were taking hymns we’d sung from 5th to 12th grade and putting dirty
 shameful lyrics to them. *hanging head* Yes, we’re bad. We’re so bad we’re good. We woke up at
 4:30. . *gag* . . . I have only one word. Wrong. 
	The two boys were pretty bad. I’m certainly no pro, but one of them said they’d been playing on
 and off for ten years. . . my tact was apparently in bed as well. . . I said, ‘Must have had a lot of off
 time.’ They are fraternal twins. . . and split personality could not apply to any twins more than
 these. One is really outgoing, the other completely sullen. Seems very unbalanced. The energetic one
 made me laugh because he was hopping around the scampering and what not. I told him he was very
 sprite-like. . . spritey. He didn’t understand what this meant. I said, “Do you read Shakespeare. .. .
 you know. . Puck from A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” No, he doesn’t. Bekks is trying to explain that
 it’s kind of like a fairy. He looks at me in shock. . “You’re calling me a fairy???” *shrug* 
	Fairies. . . which reminds me. . . My brother. . . (Just kidding Junior. *squish*) Yesterday, I’m
 taking a bath(yes, my monthly) and my brother comes in my room asking if I have any suitcases. Well
 of course I do, there was one sitting right outside my bathroom door. I tell him he can have that
 one, but he has to clean it out first. He says okay and then says, “Oh, you have cigars in here? Can I
 have one?” They’re actually tampons. . . “Sure Scott, take as many as you need.” What a dork. He
 knows what they are. I guess he gets his dorkiness from his big sister. . . . Actually, we were having
 lunch in the mall a week ago and you know how they have the vendor carts that sell junk? Well, I saw
 one that has one of those star burst shapes that you see at used car dealerships in neon orange and
 it says “I’m the little brother.” I think I’ll get him one for his birthday. Nothing like a gorilla
 walking around with his big sister whose a foot shorter calling him ‘Junior’. Okay, okay. . . so he’s
 not a gorilla, but he is Scottapotamus. 
	As for gorillas, Memorial Day we had a get together with Bekks’ family. Outdoor barbecue.
 Having it outdoors we were getting bitten by mosquitoes like crazy. Bekks brings up something about
 getting AIDS from mosquitoes, her brother Michael says you can. She says you can’t. I said if you
 could I would probably have it since I’ve been bitten by only a trillion mosquitoes (That’s a rounded
 off number). Bekks says something about monkeys and beastility. . . yuck. . . . So I solved the problem
 real quick. Clue of the week: Don’t have sex with monkeys who have AIDS. I would like it noted that
 my mother doesn’t think anyone should have sex with monkeys. . . but come on. . . she’s old school. . .
 Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you see Clinton on t.v. smoking a tampon and saying, “I did not have
 sexual relations with that monkey.”

*huge hugs*
ci vediamo
-Mare