Michael goes to Australia. He thinks, oh golly, I hate traveling alone, I better take my Homie. Michael doesn’t actually ever say “oh golly” but he does in fact take his Homie to Australia.

This Homie is a Baller. That means someone who plays ball. As in any sport that involves a ball, including basketball, football, the other football, baseball, table tennis, bowling, shotput, pinball, cricket, you get the idea. If there is no ball involved, Baller does not care for it. For example, he thinks Frisbee is for the weak. Why don’t you throw a real ball? he asks. It is a good question.

Michael takes Baller on a car ride because when you go to Australia that is what you do. You don’t go see the bush or taunt wombats or look at kangaroos or avoid all the poisonous snakes that live there. You go in a car and you sit and then occasionally you fall upside down.

While on the customary car ride in Australia, you see signs. That is what Australians do all day. They sit in their cars and look at signs.

The other thing you do when you visit Australia is drink beer. Baller drinks beer. He thinks its delicious. Michael tried to make him eat some Vegemite on toast but Baller instead told him to go suck it.

Thanks, Michael!

In my line of work, if you can call it that, I do a lot of apple-c/apple-v if you know what I mean. As in, cutting/pasting. So I think it would be a ballsout experiment for you to all hit apple-v (or control-v) and see what comes up and then talk about it. Here is mine:

why don’t you just shoot me then because right now you are killing me slowly.

i have a headache. look at what you’ve done to me. i’m a shell of a person. i used to laugh.

Hahahahahah that’s awesome!!!!!!! OK, that is from an email I just sent to my coworkers. OH well, now it is here. I was cross because no one pays attention to the schedule except me. It’s as if a schedule is really a suggestion to them. Like oh hello, you can take it or leave it, this is just merely an idea or a construct that may not make sense to you. PLEASE the last thing I want to do is to apply my deeply personal, completely subjective rules of TIME unto YOU. Why I even bother MAKING a schedule is a complete mystery. Anyway I cut it because I thought it was too dickish but then I was like wtf am I talking about, it’s all totally true, and put it back in, so there you go.

OK your turn.

Also: Homies. I’m behind and I’m sorry.

I realize that many of my friends who should read my blog, do not actually read my blog.

But, of course, many friends do read my blog. I am counting the friends who are regular readers whom I’ve never met. That is nice. These people I have never met are actually better friends than the friends I’ve met who should read my blog but don’t, the ones I mentioned above. Not that reading my blog is a necessity to be my friend, but you know. This is all I’ve got.

So, why not do SHOUT DOWNS? I am tired of “giving props” and “giving shout outs” to the peoples who deserve them. I should be shouting down to the people who deserve them too. Yin and yang that is what I always say.

I shall begin with:

JoMo: You are a dick. But you knew that. But you are a dick.

Roz: Do you even know I have a blog? Sniff, sniff. You are a dick.

Chris: Your jeans are expensive. You are a dick.

Dominic: See above.

Karina: I don’t care if I see you everyday at work and yell at you. You are a dick.

Lizzie: You may be tall, but I can take you downtown to Painsville. You are a dick.

Jeff: Put the beer(s) down. You are a dick.

Yoko: You don’t have a mean bone in your body, but guess what? You, too, are a dick.

Jared: Paging Dr. Jared. Dr. Dick Jared.

Leila: I’d sue you for being a dick but THEN you’d countersue and then win and I’d be totally fucked. For that you are a dick.

Kumar: Come here so I can kick your ass, you dick.

OK, if you were not on the list above you are very lucky in addition to not being a dick.

Now, if you are on the list and you actually read this garbage blog, then you have my apologies and I suggest reading your name and shoutdown again, but this time replace the word “dick” with “delicious cabbage” or “sweet lover.” Shoutdown becomes shout out. This is why words are better than numbers.

I have been writing, for those who care (i.e. friends who are not dicks). I’m trying to do many things, among them write the second book. Also I must do my taxes. (YES I HAVE NOT DONE THEM YET.) Also I have to write something for an upcoming publication called Field of Gray led by my friend Israel. Which reminds me.

Israel: You are a dick and I am running late with the story. That does not change that you are a dick.

Man, so many shoutdowns. I am tired from shouting down.

Everyone else: you are delicious cabbage.

Let’s talk about bowling. Bowling is the only thing my doctor has told me to avoid completely: “Your tendonitis is bullshit, don’t go bowling because it will break your fingers in half.” OK she didn’t say that exactly, but you get the idea. I said I would never go bowling because who even GOES bowling in the first place? I do not live in 1955. The only bowling people do now is on Wii and even then we all know Mario Tennis is better. Like I do not think it will be a problem to avoid bowling. It’s not like avoiding wheat or dairy (on a side note I had to go on a wheat- and dairy-free diet to figure out some allergy issues and I was totally angry and hungry all the time so I caved in after two weeks and told my doctor at the time that I rather die tomorrow by eating pasta than live forever and never eating toast again, and then he kind of gave me that passive-aggressive thing that doctors do, as if to say, sure, fine, WHATEVER, it’s your life and you’re going to die but hey, don’t let ME stop YOU from eating your precious toast. And I’m like holy shit am I paying you to be a total dick? So then I left for another doctor who was like yeah I’m not gonna force you to do anything unless you are in the throes of death because I am not a jerk. She is the best.) Anyway, what I mean to say is that not bowling is not a problem.

But then Pony came to visit from Hawaii and the whole office decided hey, let’s go bowling. And then I gave about a thousand other suggestions that does NOT involve bowling, such as air hockey, ping pong, skee ball, and trapeze lessons, which all got shot down because everyone I work with, especially Pony, is a real douchemeister. YES YOU HEAR THAT? YOU ARE A DOUCHEMEISTER.

But hey, I am a team player. I figure, I will go bowling but I will not bowl. I will watch and drink beer. Delicious beer full of wheat.

Done and done.

Anyway while at the alley, I figured out a new way to bowl that does not require me to break my fingers in half. It was a technique I knew would make all my coworkers talk mad shit and make fun of me but by that point I was drunk so who cares. They are all douchemeisters anyway. So I walk up as far as I can go in the lane and then do a granny roll between my legs, but I do it, very, very slowly with very, very little spin on it. It kind of just rolls straight ahead and then hits the pins squarely in the middle, and then I get a strike. Yes. That is HOW YOU DO IT. I was the winner and I was victorious. Granny tortoise style, much better than the crane or praying mantis style. Jackie Chan would be like, whoa, wtf, I am going to cop that shit for my next movie. And then Jet Li would do it. And then Steven Seagal would do it but like, no one would care. And then some place, somewhere, Jean Claude Van Damme would be like, I am going to make Bloodsport 8 in tortoise style and everyone would be confused because they thought Van Dam was dead and then he’d have to explain, no, I’m not dead, I’m just Belgian. And people would be like oh right, Belgian, like the waffles, you know, I thought you were Danish, like the pastry. And then Van Damme would sulk and get his fake tan on.

So bowling: I give you the thumbs up.

I was house-and-cat-sitting on the Upper East Side again, this time for the Siben-Manning-Davies family. I realize that is what I do for a living now. I just go to people’s apartments and pick up poop and marvel at how all of that can come out of something so small. A total mystery. Anyway, the S-M-D family has a cat named Bailey who is the most non-cat cat I’ve ever met. And I don’t mean that it’s like a dog, it’s just not very cat-like. Like if you try to chase it, it immediately rolls over on its side. WTF? What cat does that? It’s docile and passive and I am used to Aura’s cat which will fill a tube sock full of rocks and smack you in the balls when you aren’t looking. And if you DON’T have balls, it would find the nearest set and smack them just to send a message. Kind of like how you have to beat someone up in prison right when you get there. This is why everyone who visits Aura’s cat has to wear a protective cup. Anyway this is not the point.

I decided to be healthy and take advantage of Central Park while I was house-sitting. Their apartment is a block away from the park. I figured, OK, Annie, time to jazzercise and run even though nothing is chasing me. Just run willingly in the name of health. So I did it.

It sucked.

First of all, every single plant in Central Park was blooming. Do you know about this? Apparently in the spring, all these stupid green things decide to do stupid things like grow and release anthrax into the air and this causes my face to blow up and my eyes to start watering and my nose to start running and it is like I’m taking a shower in my own snot (in Korean “snot” is translated directly to “nose water” which sounds a lot nicer than it actually is). So I run around for a bit, crying my eyes out, and then I run into a SWARM OF GNATS. Do you know about this? They swarm in like large patches and then ultimately I run through it because I don’t run with my glasses on. Then they decide to swarm around me for the rest of my run. And then when I opened my mouth about half of them went down the hatch and I ended up swallowing it. So my guess is that I ate 20% of all the gnats in Central Park. Good news is that I’m not hungry.

Now, if you excuse me, my entire office is going to go bowling.

Tonight/Last night I ended up presenting at Pecha Kucha as a last-minute sub for architecture critic/total douchebag Philip Nobel. (Pecha Kucha is kind of like Powerpoint karaoke where you prepare 20 slides and get 20 seconds for each slide and it moves ahead with or without you. It’s mostly architects, designers, and the like. Then there’s the occasional person who doesn’t know shit about anything and that’s where I come in.) Nobel wrote the organizers saying he was “sick” and stricken with “fluemonia” though, quite frankly, he sounded pretty good when I talked to him. Like coherent enough to do Pecha Kucha. It’s SIX minutes, you’ve got to bone up, you know what I mean? You’ve got to BRING IT and SHOW UP as my track coach used to say (he was an Olympic speedwalker, yes speedwalking is a sport, kind of). Anyway Nobel totally bailed and Marco asked me to sub. I said yes, of course. PK is fun but stressful, and more importantly Marco is a good friend. I will BRING IT AND SHOW UP. So I was like yeah! And Marco was like yeah! And I was like sweet! He would’ve high fived me if 1) I high fived and 2) we were in the same space. Then Marco was like OK better hurry with the slides.

Oh. Right. The slides.

Like every idea I’ve ever had, I did NOT think this one all the way through. I thought, dude, I can totally use Nobel’s slides, that’d be hilarious and no work. But then Nobel told me he hadn’t done his slides at all which just proved to me that that pansy had no INTENTION of doing PK and instead bailed because he had not the COJONONES (that means “balls” as in “testicles” or “yambags” or “hot pockets” and Pedro just told me that “cajones” means drawers, but not the kind like underwear, the other kind in which you store your underwear) to get up there in front of 400 people or whatever it is. He has a big mouth BUT NO BALLS. NOBEL, WHERE ARE YOUR BALLS? With a mouth that big, you should really know how to back it up. Maybe you swallowed your balls with that big mouth of yours ha ha ha. No really.

Anyway, I spent all day scrambling to make 20 slides with SWEET animation and the most eye-gouging color combos because that is how I roll with the Powerpoint. If you are forced to use Powerpoint then you have to go crazy with all the features because it is comedy gold. Not that it mattered because the computers at PK did not run my version of Powerpoint, so not all of the slides worked. Oh well.

Anyway, I spent about 5 slides calling Nobel out on being a douchebag flakemeister and the next few hitting on some of the majorly douchebaggy things he’s said about architecture and the like. Meanwhile, I have no clue about architecture whatsoever so it took a lot of research and reading and Nobel helped me out by sending some of his articles. Then I had to ask friends really stupid questions like “Who is Philip Johnson and where is he the dean of architecture?” And then a friend had to explain that Johnson wasn’t actually the “dean” in a literal sense, but more of like dean of Architecture with a capital A and I was like, so it’s kind of like how I want to be mayor of Earth? Exactly! Anyway, I totally rather be mayor of Earth than dean of Architecture but maybe that is me. Also I do hate it when people capitalize architecture. Like, you don’t capitalize history or health or science, do you? OK then!

Anyway it went well, and this time I only got a few boo’s (for saying that the new ICA in Boston looks a bit like Costco). Last year I think a few people walked out because they did not think people should make fun of architects. So thanks for everyone who came out and raged, it was good times.

Early Saturday morning I woke up with this strange feeling that I was being watched. Something in the room. I don’t know if you’ve ever woken up with this feeling, but it’s like you suddenly wake up because something is off. Your body senses it. You feel that something is not just looking at you, but maybe even looking through you. With crazy eyes. I dunno how I got this feeling while I was sleeping, but it just kind of came up. So I woke up. And what do I see?

AN EYEBROW CRAWLING UP MY WALL.

NO, IT WAS NOT MY EYEBROW. SHUT UP.

I don’t know what kind of insect it was. It’s the kind that looks like an eyebrow. It’s probably poisonous. A poisonous, creeping, crawling, squirming, slithering eyebrow that has way more legs than it needs.

Listen, insects, why must you have so many legs? Everyone else gets along fine with just four legs and or even two legs. Because two is all we need. Having six seems totally unnecessary. And having twelve legs or however many this eyebrow had is just offensive. Like you are showing off. Guess what? I AM NOT IMPRESSED. YOU DO NOT NEED THAT MANY LEGS.

I have no idea how this eyebrow got into my apartment, but it was raining the night before so it was probably like, hey, this place is nice and dry and look she has cereal. I think I’ll hang out here and oh look I think I see some friends rocking a party on her face. Oh wait, those are just HER EYEBROWS. Oh well, now that I’m here I shall just hang out and look at her until she wakes up.

*sits and stares*

So, of course I flip out because I am not a big fan of insects, which is to say that I hate them and I am afraid of them. I mean, I like what they do for us and our planet, blah blah blah but I rather not see or hear them, kind of like children ha ha ha. No really. Anyway I ran to get a cup and a piece of paper because I just did not have it in me to kill it. NOT because I am against killing insects, I just really did not want to deal with the mess. I just imagined squishing it and then having like all these legs fly everywhere, all over my bed, which is totally NOT an option. So in the four seconds it took to gather my trapping tools, the eyebrow climbs up to where I can’t catch it. Clearly it knows I’m coming. I mean it probably has twelve eyes to go with its twelve stupid legs. So then I kind of wait and watch it crawl very slowly. With all those legs you’d think it’d be really fast, but actually it’s quite slow. But then it FALLS OFF THE WALL so now you know that having two really good legs is better than having twelve crappy ones.

So it actually FALLS INTO MY SHEETS and I flip out and actually cry OH GOD NO and move the sheets around to get it under the cup and it falls BEHIND THE BED. And I realize I can’t move the bed because it has drawers filled with stuff. So then I have these nightmares of this eyebrow making more eyebrows in my winter sweaters and whatnot. Then I see it come up the wall again and by that point I have lost my cup somehow. So I grab the most toxic thing I can find in my apartment, which is Tilex. And I spray the crap out of it and it falls BEHIND THE RADIATOR where I can’t reach it, so I spray it some more and hope it dies. And now there is a dead eyebrow behind my radiator. Getting crispy.

I mean I hope it’s dead. Maybe it’s not dead. Maybe it is still somewhere here.

Current mood is disturbed.

I just received a very sexy photo from Dr. Jimbob of GA Tech. It is so sexy I am almost afraid to look at it because it makes my LOINS CRY OUT. THEY ARE BURNING HOLY CRAP MY LOINS ARE ON FIRE. And I’m sure it’s not from the gonorrhea (this time).

It is a 8 x 10 glossy headshot of…THE DIAMOND.

(HINT: Not Dustin Diamond or Lou Diamond Phillips)

NEIL DIAMOND!!!!!

DUDE!

NO. YOU DON’T GET IT. IT’S NEIL FUCKING DIAMOND!!!!

No, no, no, YOU shut up!

He is smoldering. He is smoking hot. And god his hair…his beautiful hair…it is like cornsilk (fashioned into a fro helmet). Oh the Diamond is making me blush with that look. He wants me. I know that he wants me because he is telling me with his soul. That gentle pucker of his lips. His Romanesque nose. His butterfly collar. Say no more, Annie, I am yours forever.

He’s showing just enough of the signature Diamond chest hair, but not too much to be crass, that’s because the Diamond has class. He buys drinks for the ladies and pulls out their chairs for them before making sweet, sweet love to them with his birdsong.

The Diamond came in a protective plastic sleeve because that is how much people care about the Diamond. When you get a photo of the Diamond, the first thing you do is put it in a plastic sleeve. The second thing you do is put it on your fridge and then build a shrine around it. I will be sacrificing small children or lambs (whichever I can get from the deli up the street).

My fridge is redonk. The Hoff, Ricky Martin, the Diamond. Everyone who comes over will want to make sweet, sweet love to my fridge. As they should. I mean look at it. It’s so beautiful.

There really is only one person on this planet who truly appreciates the Diamond. And that is Neil Diamond. But holy shit, I heart him. Oh dear, I think he’s undressing me with his eyes! Oh Neil, you devil!

Thank you Dr. JimBob!!!!!

Remember Pec? He lives in London with Pedro. Pedro decides to take Pec to Finland. “Sinun henkäistä haistaa kuin löylyttää -lta by entisaikainen herra.” That is Finnish for “Your breath smells like the socks of an old man.” It’s obviously correct because I translated it online. The internet never lies.

Pec is confused. What? Huh? NO ONE TOLD ME FINLAND WAS COLD. What is this snow bullshit? Someone remove all this snow and replace it with either A) sunshine or B) money. Please hurry.

Pedro and Pec go to a museum. There are giants in this museum. One tries to eat Pec.

(Note: I am slowly realizing that everyone wants to eat Homies, it is getting ridiculous. Next time I will send everyone pretzels.)

Pedro takes Pec to a meeting. Pedro is designing a building that transforms into a robot that makes really good espresso. Pec thinks Pedro is totally wasting his time. Finland doesn’t need a building like that. It needs HEAT. GOOD GOD, IT NEEDS HEAT.

Pec thinks Finland is kind of sweet and charming. If you disagree, Pec will shank you.

Pedro brings Pec to dinner and introduces him to all of his friends. They are like, we thought you’d be a lot taller in person, no offense. None taken, Pec says, I’m tall where it counts. Just ask your mom.

Mmmm Finnish beer. Tastes great with reindeer and whale. Burp.

Thanks, Pedro!

Meet Mitch. He rocks the bongos. He used to be in an underground death metal/emocore band (with bongos) but due to creative differences and the lead guitarist’s addiction to crack cocaine, Mitch left. VH1 Behind the Music was going to do a profile on them (”and then…the bottom fell out”) but the producers decided that their story had been “done” before and decided instead to do a profile on The Lohan because her story is so much more unique and timely. Mitch takes the bongos very seriously. So when the lead guitarist decided he loved crack cocaine more than music, Mitch threw in the towel, which happened to be soaked in death metal/emocore bongo sweat. You don’t love the music anymore, Mitch cried, you’ve changed. I don’t even know you anymore. So Mitch left. He launched his solo bongo career.

His latest tour called BONGOS ON FIRE (IN MY PANTS) 2008 took him to Durham, North Carolina with a stop at Tracyene’s House of Bongos n’ Oysters. Ah, bongos and oysters. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Mitch quickly makes himself at home. It is the nicest home he’s ever had, because when he was on tour before he’d have to stay on the bus so the band can save money so the lead guitarist could then take the money and buy crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is one hell of a drug, kids.

Tracyene, the owner of Tracyene’s House of Bongos n’ Oysters, is a classy Southern dame. She makes Mitch breakfast because that is what classy Southern dames do. It’s part of that whole hospitality thing.

Mitch loves eggs. But if he thinks about where they come from, he kind of gets grossed out. So he decides to never think about that.

Before Mitch takes the stage, he takes a walk outside. Durham is nice, he thinks. He likes people’s accents too.

Mitch ROCKS OUT ON THE BONGOS. He plays the crap out of them while world-renowned NON-emocore guitarist shreds on the guitar. Mitch gets his mind blown. He says, hey Dylan, we should like totally be in a band. And Dylan was all, ok, dude, let’s get the led out. So they jammed until their faces melted from rocking.

Thanks Tracyene!

Speaking of rocking: Last night we had band practice and as we left our practice room there was a dead mouse on the floor. WE ROCKED THE MOUSE TO DEATH. I was like dude. We rocked the MOUSE TO DEATH. And Heather and Jeff and Andy were like dude, we ROCKED THE MOUSE TO DEATH. And we were totally stoked by our powerful rocking. And then I did this: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And then jumped over it and shook my head like that famous scene in Flashdancer except I was more disgusted than Jennifer Beals. Anyway I told the practice space manager guy, hey we rocked a mouse to death and he thought I was kidding. I was like no man, clean up aisle 6. You can’t miss it. It’s the DEAD MOUSE THAT IS DEAD FROM THE ROCK.