Biscuit: Tasty Doesn't Get You A Date To The Prom

The conductor on the Manhattan-bound F train that runs through Park Slope at about 7:15 am has the most gentle, soothing voice ever. It's seriously like wrapping yourself in a little vocal blanket of hot tea. I could listen to her talk all day, not just for the hour I'm on her train; she's the best part about going to school so early in the morning.

My trip with her was cut short today, though; as I was on the freaking train, my professor called and said class was cancelled. It's really too bad he didn't call, say, twenty minutes earlier, when I was still in my house. So I turned around and headed back home, by which time it was raining little ice pellets. Not like I can even take a nap; there are fuckers with jackhammers right outside my window, where they're busily demolishing asphalt in the most annoying way humanly possible. The crap is up with today?? It's barely sunrise and already the day's gone all weird.

Still, at least the unexpected spare hour gives me a chance to mention the fact that I scored a 97th percentile on the LSATs. (BAAHAHAHA WAAHAAAA!!) Does anyone know of a law school looking for an applicant with a 168 and really great hair?

You scored as Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo). You have spent your life trying to life up to and impress your Dad, shame he never seemed to notice. You are a stickler for the rules. But in matters of loyalty and honour you know when they have to be broken. Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo) 75% Commander William Adama 69% CPO Galen Tyrol 63% Number 6 44% Dr Gaius Baltar 38% Tom Zarek 38% President Laura Roslin 31% Lt. Sharon Valerii (Boomer) 31% Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) 25% Col. Saul Tigh 13% What New Battlestar Galactica character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Oh yeah, bitches. Yeah.

This is something that has always bothered me:

I think that the guy who played the President in "The Fifth Element" was incredibly horrible casting. I hate that the President of Everywhere can't enunciate.

Unless they intended something all meta or ironic, in which case apparently I need it spelled out for me.

(snort) Man. Really totally on my last nerve.

From an article on advanced propulsion research:

The outlook that all physics has been discovered doesn't resonate well with Andrews. "I'm of the opinion that things like dark matter, dark energy, vacuum point energy … there might be a pony in that pile. And unless we invite people to think outside the box, we may never find the pony."

Worst. Metaphor. Ever. Besides, all I can think of now is a toybox filled with My Little Ponies jumbled up with miniature Enterprises.

Not, of course, that I have any idea what that might look like first-hand...their silky little tails...all painfully tangled up in the warp nacelles...takes hours to brush them out smooth and pretty again...

I've written like half of half a dozen entries over the past week. None of them ended up being interesting enough to actually post, as they generally centered around my hair or my lunch, two topics that I feel are already adequately covered in these pages. (Although my new hair is totes adorbs, seriously.)
I will totally share two things, though:
1) My apartment is currently cleaner than it has ever been, ever.
2) In celebration of the beginning of Spring, I just got myself a fun little case of strep throat.

Grrr.

Have you ever heard a pickup line so inappropriate, you didn't even know what to do except laugh?

Wednesday night. Me, Stephanie, Mark. Mark and I had been shopping earlier in the evening; the tshirt I started the day with had become, over the course of the day, too stretched out for night-wear. I needed something fresh and clean and svelte, so I bought a new one. The setting: a bar on the east side of Manhattan, where the two of them rarely go; I felt a little subversive, bringing the Greenwich Villagers to the dark side. Muah ha ha ha! We have a whole side room to ourselves, so I take advantage of the relative solitude to quickly slip into my new shirt, and then I sit back down and drink some vodka.

Stephanie: Wow, you have some arm muscles on you!
Me: HA, no, I'm afraid it's just a carefully cultivated optical illusion.
Steph: No really, there's like, definition. Can I see? (and then she makes the universal gesture for "let me squeeze your bicep.")
Me: (laugh) Okay, but you're going to be sorely disappointed.
(She squeezes, my arm predictably goes squashy.)
Steph: Well, that --
Guy Who Walked Over From Bar: Hey! Can I feel that too??
Me: !! Um?
Guy: We were looking at your arms before you changed shirts, and then you changed shirts and we were all so sad that we missed the show!
Me: ...we?
(cut to several other guys still at the bar, waving.)
Guy: I mean, I already wanted to lick your arm when you were still wearing the first shirt! And now...
Me: Umm, haha! Um, HAHAHA! HAHA! Um...Thanks? HAHAHAHA!

Meanwhile, Steph and Mark are laughing themselves silly and I flounder around wildly, trying to think of something to say that can bring this little interaction to a conclusion. All I come up with is more embarrassed laughter, and a few stammered syllables. Finally after several more comments about licking my arms don't result in a "Hey, sure, you wanna??" the guy heads back to the bar, leaving me bewildered and totally blushy and stupid.

Which is totally why bars on the east side of Manhattan are totally awesome.

This is why I love talking to Krissa. We just had an hour long debate re: this whole asexual movement, and eventually devolved into a conversation about recent topics in the endocrinology class I had a test in this morning. She always gives me the best openings.

Me: I love some of these hormone names
Me: like "inhibin" which inhibits stuff.
Me: I want to rename the other hormones along the same lines
Me: so like, serotonin could be happin
Krissa: HAHAH
Me: testosterone could be boyin
Krissa: progesterone could be babyin
Me: AAAAAHAHAH and oxytocin could be babyout
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Krissa: AHHAHAHAHHA YOU'RE SO SICK.
Me: OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE FUNNEST JOKE
Me: OMG I JUST MADE AN ENDOCRINOLOGY JOKE
Me: KILL ME HAHAHAHHA
Krissa: YOU ARE SUCH A NERD.

I'm on a conversation-kick, it seems.

So this story starts this morning, when I got the conductor with the remarkably soothing voice. That was extra nice.

Then on the way home, the F platform was fucking packed. Then the F train itself was fucking packed. I thought to myself that I'd just wait for the next train, and hopefully it wouldn't be quite so...well, fucking packed. Then I heard the conductor, and it was the same mellifluous voice. If she's still going, she had an even longer day than I did, and that deserves some respect. So I got onto her fucking packed train.

Two stops later, a guy gets on the train, wearing bobble antennae, and carrying a saxophone. Oh, please no, I thought. Please don't play the saxophone in my ear. Please --

Dreaded Saxophone Man: ATTENTION! ATTENTION!
Me: Oh, no. Not today.
Dreaded Saxophone Man: I AM ANTENNA MAN. I AM ANTENNA MAN AND I COME FROM GALAXY SEVEN. I AM ON AN EXTENDED MISSION TO SEEK OUT NEW LIFE FORMS AND NEW CIVILIZATIONS. AND TO SPREAD MY MESSAGE TO THEM.
Me: ...you've gotta be...oh my...wha?
Dreaded Saxophone Man Antenna Man: AND MY MESSAGE IS THIS:
Mellifluous Conductor: Attention, ladies and gentlemen. This is now an express F train. This train will be making express stops. The next stop on this train is Jay Street Borough Hall.

And for the next five minutes, as we sped past stop after stop, Antenna Man played his saxophone. Played is, I suppose, a bit of a relative term, as it was more like "blowing into the saxophone while his hands experienced epileptic seizures." Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee diddlydiddlydiddlydiddly HOOOONK squeeweeee!! I just closed my eyes and covered my face with my crossword puzzle book. Ages passed. I wondered if I could give him five dollars to be quiet.

Finally, he stopped torturing music. I breathed again.

Antenna Man: AND NOW, YOU SEE,
Woman next to me: Oh please god no. Make him stop.
Antenna Man: I HAVE CRASH LANDED ON YOUR PLANET. MY SPACESHIP REQUIRES REPAIRS BEFORE I CAN CONTINUE MY JOURNEY BACK TO MY HOME WORLD OF GALAXY SEVEN. I REQUIRE YOUR EARTH DOLLARS.
Me: *gurgle*
Antenna Man: AND I PROMISE THAT WHEN I GO, I WILL TAKE GEORGE BUSH WITH ME.
Me: !
Random passengers: *applause*

And then people started squirming around for access to their pockets.

Antenna Man: I WILL TAKE CHENEY WITH ME TOO, BUT HE WILL COST EXTRA.

Random passengers: *louder applause*

And then I started squirming around for access to my pockets. As did the woman next to me, and pretty much everyone else that I could see. Antenna Man took in quite a haul. People were actually passing dollars down from the end of the car.

I suppose this proves the old saying, "You gotta have a gimmick."

And also this is why the fucking packed train? Isn't always so bad. Thank you, Mellifluous Conductor, for showing me the way.