There’s so many options to waste time.

Her old nose was thicker, but with the new one, maybe a little bit. But not really. I don't know. I have no perspective.

Let me count the ways…

At the moment, there’s a stupid Facebook thing going around where you’re supposed to go to urbandictionary.com and do a search on your first name and then post it as your status.

There’s also one where you’re supposed to change your profile picture to your ‘celebrity doppleganger.’ but I don’t have one. Once in a blue moon someone says I look like Jennifer Aniston, but I don’t see it. She has a lot more chin than I do.

Anyway, normally I don’t do any of that stuff, and my status pulls from Twitter, but I decided to look it up just to see. And blow me down, if names were a beauty contest, I’m taking first prize.

I had no idea people were out there defining names on urbandictionary.com as if they were blanket truths (or words to be defined), but take a gander:

Vanessa

1. A moderately common name for an American female; pretty; hot; beautiful; perfect; cutest girl you’ll ever see; angel

2. As stated in other definitions of vanessa she is always known as being cute, and is the basic definition of perfection. she is the most beautiful girl in the world, and is perfect in every single way. people associated with the name vanessa are usually attracted to large wooden clocks.
vanessa is beautful and perfect

***What? Clocks? Large wooden clocks? What the hell does that mean? Does that mean people associated with me have the clock fetish or that I’m supposed to? (Must pay more attention to wooden clocks moving forward…)***

3. Means Butterfly in greek

***Actually, it doesn’t. In ancient Greek “psyche” was the word for butterfly, but now it’s petalou’da.***

When I was a little girl, people would always ask me if I was named after Vanessa Redgrave. I had no idea who Vanessa Redgrave was, but I would always say "Yes" because it seemed easier that way.

4. The hottest chick on EARTH, damnn you know that ANYONE named Vanessa is the hottest chick you will ever see. Anyone named Vanessa is hottest than the damn sun itself.

BOY1: yeah I’m hanging out with vanessa today.
BOY2: V-v-v-v-anessa..is her name?
BOY1: yeah dude why?
BOY2: SHES SOOO HOTT ISNT SHE?!?!
BOY1: NO SHIT BRO, NO SHIT..EVERY CHICK NAMED VANESSA IS HOTT.

5. A beautiful girl.
Loves music, hanging out with her friends, and eating.
Very friendly, sexy, and stylish.
The one best friend everyone wants.
The one girl every guy wants.
Shes tough so dont mess around with her.
Shes the most special girl in the world.

I want to meet my perfect Vanessa.

***This is uncanny. Has someone been following me around???***

6. Cute, beautiful, Visionary, Amazing, Neat, Amusing

Vanessa, You’re the only Vanessa in my world.

7. Smart, Funny, Charming, Caring, Responsible, Beautiful, Gorgeous Eyes that would be so easy to get lost in, yet you would never care, so lost yet held there so happy so content, and a smile that lights up a room and makes your heart pound. A rare combination, someone beautiful inside as well as outside.

Vanessa is an amazing person.

***On second thought, all this is a bit much. I’m starting to get creeped out. Why on earth have so many people written these wackadoo “definitions” for the name Vanessa? Weren’t the first five more than enough?***

8. Invented by Jonathan Swift as a nickname for his lady friend Esther Vanhougan.

That is pretty cute.

9. The most amazing types of people. Always makes a best friend and never lets you down. Loves green tea and tea tree and has the most amazing lime coconut cookies Super pretty and loves Simba Shares an interest in Disney movies with Avonlee. The most amazing type of person in the world and everyone who knows a Vanessa is very lucky <3

***Simba like The Lion King? Obviously this one was written by a ten-year old. But it’s still spot-on in many ways…***

Just so you don’t think it’s all about me (although it mostly is), here’s the definition for my very best friend.

Dozer

1. Marijuana, Weed, Herb, Mary Jane, Reefer, Grass, Dope, Green, Green Wood.

Smoking marijuana tends to get some people sleepy, in other words some people “doze” off.

-That dozer we smoked knocked me out

-Yall niggas think I’m trippin cuz I’m on dat dozer -Master P

He is a serious dope.

I had no idea.

2. A person who toils mindlessly at the same mundane endeavors as their forefathers without ever seeking to alter their course or advance their processes in anyway. (from HBO’s Fraggle Rock, Dozers perpetually built and rebuilt structures for the Fraggles to devour)

The dozers can’t seem to grasp the idea because it wasn’t listed in the manual.

Tee hee. It’s funny because it’s true. And it explains the random girl in the street who once gushed on about Fraggle Rock. We didn’t have HBO when I was a kid.

3. A Bulldozer

In other news, I’ve become obsessed with VH1’s Celebrity Rehab Season Three (and those of you watching know what I’m talking about – Dennis Rodman! Heidi Fleiss and Tom Sizemore AND they used to be in love and she got him on meth and he ultimately betrayed her!!! Mackenzie Phillips!!!!!), and when I was told that Leif Garrett (who I had to Google to figure out who that was. Whatever. Before my time.) was arrested for heroin possession, my very first thought was, ‘Yay! He can go on the next Celebrity Rehab!”

EXHIBIT A: Dennis Rodman.

I also have a huge crush on Dr. Drew. I don’t even have addiction problems, but I would like to check into the Pasadena Recovery Center and tell Dr. Drew all my sad stories and have him affirm that he is witnessing my pain right now and make it all better.

But I digress…

What I wanted to say is that I discovered you can watch complete episodes of Celebrity Rehab on VH1’s website and there was a still shot of Dennis Rodman on the screen, and I had a sudden epiphany: Dennis Rodman looks exactly like Mrs. Potato Head.

Seriously, give him a little red purse and slap a daisy on his wrist, and it’s doppleganger time.

EXHIBIT B: Mrs. Potato Head. (The defense rests.)

Dennis, if you’re out there and you have a Facebook account, feel free to update your profile picture accordingly.

I don’t know how I found this, but my ADHD is your gain.

So according to something I was for some now-forgotten reason (I think maybe it had to do with ferrets attacking human babies?) reading in Wikipedia: “In 2008, new research revealed that people with blue eyes have a single common ancestor. The authors concluded that the mutation may have arisen in a single individual in the Near East or around the Black Sea region 6,000-10,000 years ago during the Neolithic revolution. Scientists tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. ‘Originally, we all had brown eyes,’ said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the  University of Copenhagen. ‘A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ’switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes.’”

Greetings all blue-eyed (distant, many of you) relatives!

That first blue eyed guy must’ve really freaked some people out. I have to imagine that back in the day something like that could lead to false idol worship or at least the gifting of a nice hut on the Black Sea.

That would be like some modern-day child being born with yellow cat eyes, all reflective and stuff. You know that would be all over CNN within hours.

Meanwhile, if you’re a white supremacist, you’ll enjoy this little tidbit: “A 2002 study found that blue eyes have become increasingly rare among Americans, with only one out of every six – 16.6 percent (22.4% of white Americans) of the total United States population having blue eyes.”

Actually, if you’re a white supremacist that fact will upset you, but it will no doubt add fuel to your insane fire, so there’s that. At the same time, if nature arbitrarily made pale, blue-eyed people once, no doubt it will keep doing it randomly despite the genetics or dark hair/skin/eyes of the parents…just maybe not as much as Hitler might have liked.

By the way, eye color has to do with melanin (the same stuff that determines your skin color.) Less melanin produces green, grey, hazel, or light brown eyes. Eyes with very little melanin appear blue.

Can you imagine the wake where this nightmare is featured?

In other completely unrelated news, if you love KISS®, you might be excited to learn about the option to be buried in the official KISS® Kasket, perfect for the die-hard KISS® fan…who has died.

Nobody puts it better than Gene Simmons, “”This is the ultimate KISS® collectible, ” Gene allegedly said. “I love livin’, but this makes the alternative look pretty damn good.”

That makes me laugh every time I read it. It’s so stupid, it’s rather hilarious.

Please note, I, for one, have no interest in being buried in a KISS® Kasket. Now a Hello Kitty casket (It must exist. Right???)? That’s another story…

These guys scared the hell out of me as a little girl.

So does “KISS®” stand for something?
Is that why it’s in all capital letters?
Keeping It Somewhat Screwy?

Keep it Simple Stupid?

Kooks In Strange Subterfuge?

Anyway, in order to provide a perfect trifecta of uselessness, I thought I’d do a solid for any paranoiacs in the house.

It seems that some years ago an editor at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists used wind data and a list of probable targets to calculate that Tierra del Fuego would be the last place on earth to be affected by radioactive fallout.

How’s that for ironic? Your best bet for toughing out the end of the world is in the land of fire, otherwise known as a rockpile off the southern tip of South America. Bring your polar fleece and down jackets. I haven’t been there (yet), but anyplace that close Antarctica can’t be warm.

Ushuaia, Argentina. Not a bad-looking place to wait out the end of the world...

But in case you have short term memory issues or don’t really care enough to remember the little incidentals about me or simply show up to look at the pretty pictures and don’t actually read anything…I am easily amused.

And I will proceed to prove that fact to you again in a moment.

But before I do, let me take you back to a time in the not-so-distant past. A time we thought the world was going to end because of some faulty computer programming written thirty-five years earlier.

A time when we all learned the word ‘hanging chads,’ something we now know to be a little scrap of paper that destroyed Al Gore’s soul, but left him an environmental guru (as well as inventor of the internet).

An era when a little boy named Elian showed up off the Miami coast clinging to an inner tube and captured America’s attention…shortly before being deported back to Cuba and spending the rest of his life bad-mouthing us, joining the Young Communist Union of Cuba, and currently training in Cuban military school. Remember Disneyworld, Elian? Do they have anything like that in Cuba? Mickey Mouse? Goofy? Space Mountain? Didn’t think so.

The era when O magazine first hit the stands, Katie Lee Gifford quit Regis and Kathie Lee, and AOL bought Time Warner, thus sealing both of their fates.

It was also, as you may recall or may just now be learning, a time when Jack Black did not suck.

In fact, he was pretty damn funny then, culminated by his somewhat ridiculous band (and related HBO show) Tenacious D. And there was an episode of Tenacious D that year where they meet their ‘biggest fan’ who has set up a website about them and seems rather obsessed – kind of like Mel on Flight of the Conchords (another great HBO show about a ridiculous band that you should be watching if you’re not already watching it.)

So anyway – and yes, I still remember the original point of this post and am slowly plodding toward it – this is the clip containing a character named Lee. To fill you in and spare you the lengthy version: They’ve met Lee the night before, checked out the website he set up dedicated to them, and become obsessed with him. Way to turn the tables on your stalker! Watch it and learn.

And that is relevant because of this rather hilarious ‘Muscle Milk’ ad (I’m not immediately familiar with Muscle Milk, but I have seen it for sale at the gym. I imagine it’s for babies who want to be really buff.) sent to me late last night, that is highly relevant because of its earnest celebration of the impending holiday known as Thanksgiving.

And because that guy is obviously Lee.

And because he vaguely reminds me of my friend’s boyfriend (kind of like how Bret of Flight of the Conchords reminds me of my other friend’s boyfriend.)

And because this is my first year of appreciating that Thanksgiving can be funny.

(And lastly, just in case you’re not already watching Flight of the Conchords, here’s one of their songs to get you started…)

Oh hell, it’s the holidays. It’s the season of giving. So in that spirit, here’s another one of my most favorite Flight of the Conchords bits:

You know when I’m down to my socks it’s time for business, that’s why they call it business socks…

Jermaine should have been on my list of freaky-looking dudes I have crushes on. If the show is accurate, he’s part Maori (because there’s an episode where they set up “New Zealand Town” in New York City and force him to play the Maori.)

p.s.

The entire time I’ve been compiling this for you, Fu Manchu has been nursing (and there really is no other word for it. There’s a strange, loud, and consistently-timed sucking noise emanating from his head) on my bathrobe. Now I’ve got to wash my bathrobe, Fu.

Thanks for nothing. Weirdo.

p.p.s.

So as to prove my point, there are little bits of bathrobe material caught under his nails.

Don’t commit any crimes, Fu, because those claws of yours are evidence magnets.

I’d buy your love.

I would.

I might.

Okay, you got me.
I wouldn’t.

I’d quite possibly buy a lot of stuff and most of it I wouldn’t need, but I’d probably take my queues from the super-rich Beatles (as in ‘Can’t Buy Me’ more than ‘All You Need Is’) over the probably-barely-getting-by-anymore Barenaked Ladies and forgo the love buying.

Meanwhile, I must confess that I feel bedraggled and borderline ill. I’m mainlining zinc and  considering another dance with the devil (AmbienCT, which made me puke about ten days ago) in order to get some much needed – if not necessary – zzzzs.

In the meantime, and in the spirit of compensating for over two weeks of doing for others, I spent the day indulging in three of my favorite, pointless activities:

1. Reading cookbooks

2. Watching old episodes of Tony Bourdain’s No Reservations

3. Window shopping online

And the critical word there is WINDOW because I’m not exactly financially solvent at the moment and because I spent two entire days purging a colossal amount of stuff from my closet…and it’s still brimming with a veritable shit load of stuff. Beloved stuff. Precious stuff. Cute stuff. Stuff I love. Stuff I (obviously) can’t part with. And yet the love of new stuff surfaces in the face of so much stuff…

On the surface you might think I’d make a really bad Buddhist, but that’s not the case. Nope. One can love their stuff so long as they maintain awareness that the stuff (both the stuff I have and the stuff I do not have, but would like to have) and I are one. Loving my stuff is self-love.

Allow me to make this a little bit more confusing:

In Buddhism, non-attachment (the ideal state) is the exact opposite of separation. To have attachment, you need two things:

1. The person who attaches
2. The thing the person attaches to.

In non-attachment, you’ve unified with the whole universe. There is nothing outside of you. Thus, there’s nothing to attach to and the notion of attachment becomes absurd.

However, because as a species we tend to believe that we are having an autonomous and intrinsic existence within our skin, and what’s outside our bodies is “everything else,” most of us go through life grabbing for one thing after another in an effort to be safe or feel happy.

And the rub there is that we ‘pursue’ happiness because we think it is an external quality, something that lies outside ourselves. And because we think it is ‘out there’ or external, we stress and worry about gaining it…and losing it. Whatever can be found can also be lost.

Which is, in the end, a long-winded way of saying that I am one with the items for sale at Urban Outfitters.com and thus looking at them and owning none of them brings me the same level of pleasure as owning them. Although, admittedly, if I had a million dollars, I would own a few of them.

Like this skirt:

And this wallet:

And this jacket:

And this jewelry holder stacked doll chairs thingamabob:

And this sweater:

But in a totally non-attached way…

Really.

Honest injun.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

I can’t get this to format how I want, so sorry about that. Sometimes (more often than not), Wordpress mystifies me.

Completely superfluous and unnecessary processes dreamed up by the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in order to make themselves appear useful and/or alleviate job boredom!

There must be a rule that you have to be a certain amount overweight (and love beer) to qualify.

(And guess which one is actually real!)

• Driver’s license height/weight honesty evaluation – Because if you’re willing to deceive the DMV you fat, lying, 5’4” bastard, who knows what else you’re hiding?
• Carry-on luggage overhead military press - If you can’t bench press it, we clearly need to examine every single article inside it. Look! A shiny ball!
• Sbarro pizza slice poison prevention taste test – We’re only looking out for your safety. Sbarro poisoning is the 137th leading cause of airport death.
• Ass width measurement - Because there’s nothing worse than getting on board and realizing you don’t actually fit, you fat, lying, 5’4” bastard. (In order to prevent claims of discrimination, you’ll find the TSA agents may also measure those with backsides that might be described as a shapely or slender or small or fine. Just doing our job.)
• Water vapor testing strip administration – because one mutinous vapor can take down a whole plane
• Palm reading – You may not know you’re a terrorist, but your life line and that mole on your index finger don’t lie.
• Pop quizzes – “How much cash is in your wallet?” “Have you ever been to Dubuque? How about a rest stop in the state of Arkansas?” “What’s’ a four-letter word for light blue?”
• “Promptly chug-a-lug that Starbucks in your hand, sir” bladder density tests. Because nobody likes a wet seat, whether drenched with coffee or…other stuff.
• Pull my finger – It’s amazing what we can get people to do just because we’re wearing cheap, polyester government-issued uniforms!

Seriously though, the vapor strip thing is ‘real.’ As I was walking up to the boarding gate at the Orlando airport last night, my ticket in my outstretched hand, a TSA administrator with a gigantic beer belly stretching the capacity of his button-down shirt to its very limits, appeared out of nowhere and asked to ‘test my water.’ At first I thought he was trying to pick me up and had really, really bad timing, but then I realized he was serious. So after confirming I heard him correctly, I screwed the lid off and watched as he waved a little white litmus strip over the top of the bottle like a magic wand. And absolutely nothing happened. And he declared my water – bought just three minutes earlier from the news stand fifteen feet behind us – a clean, clear, vaporless water-like substance.

This is the Total Recall image I mention below the picture right below this one.

Thank god I hadn’t dumped it out and replaced the contents with vodka.

That would have been hard to explain.

Meanwhile, I bet I could make a killing importing those strips into Bermuda.

Those five-legged toads would make me want to test my rain water vapors, and what’s easier to read than a ‘no news is good news’ strip?

White means it’s all right!

I found this image on the TSA blog. It's apparently what they can see with those body scanner things. Remember that movie Total Recall? Wouldn't it be better if they did it like that? Or if not better, then less embarrassing?