Size 44FFF

It's Sunday, which is not an auspicious day for posting, but I missed TWO DAYS this past week so I'm trying to make up for it. Instead of whining, or mocking, or pontificating, I will merely share a true story, which is mildly amusing, but not so funny as to make you suffer the pain caused by experiencing breathless hilarity on such a bleeding hot day.

One of my several income-generating activities is to work in a shop on the UES that sells Mexican crafts, clothing, and jewelry to rich white ladies who vacationed in Mexico in 1953 and like to point out how they bought a necklace almost exactly like this one for seven dollars, so why is ours so much more expensive. (I'm an heiress, of course, but you know how it is, I like to work so I can go among the little people and all that.) So last week, a woman came in looking for a shirt. She was very small, birdlike, and going here and there and talking a mile a minute, very quietly. She wanted a shirt for a friend of hers with a very large chest, so we spent a while looking at the shirts (and the earrings and the scarves) and found one that seemed like it would fit her style and her boobs. But the woman was uncertain; she just didn't know if it would fit the humongous breasts of her friend. Finally she asked me for about the fourth time, "You think this would fit someone with a very large chest?" I said, "Yes, I think so. But what size is she?" "I don't know," said the woman. "I never met her."

It turns out this was an Internet friend in Argentina with whom this woman has spoken often about her ginormous breasts. Probably it's some pervy sixty year old guy in Oneonta who gets off on telling random women about his huge boobs and sniffing the things they send him in the mail. I'll leave you to marvel at the nuttiness of all humanity and get back to you tomorrow with more questionable building materials for the space shuttle.

I Believe I Can Fly

Does anyone else find the latest iterations of NASA's shuttle program a little...disconcerting? For one thing, why is the shuttle covered in tiles? It's like going into orbit in my bathtub. And why are these tiles so easily broken by foam pieces? You can see where this is going: why are crucial pieces of the space shuttle made of foam? The only thing I can think of that's made of foam are those long noodle floaties that kids play with in the pool. Very sturdy, those noodles. So just to sum up, the space shuttle Discovery was built in 1983 out of foam and bathroom tiles. I'm no rocket scientist (har har), but this seems a little shaky to me.

Aside from the actual engineering of the flying bathtub, I'm not so impressed with the NASA news department's timing. First, of course, there's the delayed launch, which, I admit, was not the fault of the NASA news department. Then the flawless-except-for-the-pieces-of-shuttle-falling-off actual launch, followed by a reassurance that none of those pieces were THAT important, and they didn't hit anything anyway. Next, the announcement, while the Discovery is still in the air, that the shuttle program will be grounded. Except for that last flight that hasn't come in yet, which we're sure will be fine, it's totally safe, we're just curtailing the future of the program because, well, because our safety improvements have failed. But they're having a great time out there, right folks? And finally, the announcement that the flying foam from the launch actually DID hit the shuttle, which was the cause of the Columbia disaster, but don't worry, this time everyone on board will not die a horrible death, because this piece of foam was smaller than the really bad piece of foam, and it hit somewhere else. Whew, I'm feeling better, how bout you?

The giantest giant catfish ever was recently caught in Thailand. (Credit goes to Suthep Kritsanavarin/U.S Newswire Photography for the photo.)

This got me thinking about some recent thrilling advances in the creation of giant things:

Snapple's disastrously failed attempt at the world's largest popsicle

The terrifyingly named Extreme Human Bingo, also the world's largest game of Human Bingo

The essential-to-humanity's-perpetuation world's largest s'more

India gets in on the fun with the world's largest roti


And in case your grotesque fascination with things of inordinate size has not been satiated by this brief list, you can go here to get the tour schedule for the The World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things Traveling Roadside Attraction and Museum. Thank God for crazy people.

Where did I leave my robe?

Apparently Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts "has no memory" of belonging to the conservative Federalist Society, but fortunately, his spotty recall is buttressed in this case by a directory with his name in it. Roberts's name could be listed in a membership directory of the KKK and he'd still get confirmed at this point, but really, I'm concerned for the guy. We all forget things: birthdays, where we parked the car, whether we paid the electricity bill. But at the oft-mentioned young age of 50, should he be forgetting things like his affiliation with an influential legal organization? We're looking at thirty years on the bench, here, so if that's the kind of thing he can't remember now, what's he going to be forgetting in 2035? His blood pressue medication? How to put his pants on? When abortion was legal?

Second time's the charm?

Okay, so my blog is, for now, imageless. But a word is worth a thousand pictures. Maybe eventually I'll figure it out. So now I'm going to try something new: embedding a link. A while back Black Table had a piece on what the various contributors hate about summer. Well, here's what I hate about summer, fall, and every season: those motherfucking yellow wristbands. I know, I know, Lance Armstrong is brave and amazing, and he started a foundation, and all of those things deserve our admiration. But he also wrote a book about how his wife stood by him throughout his terrible illness, then dumped her for Sheryl Crow. And anyway, the point is that no matter how proud you are of Lance Armstrong or yourself for giving Nike a dollar, that yellow rubber band doesn't look good with your business suit. Or your evening dress. Or basically anything except sweatpants or an outfit made of dollar bills that you will peel off one by one and give to Lance. Yes, I know, how many opportunities do you have to both make a fashion statement and demonstrate your marginal charitability, all without saying a word? And I saw you living strong as you ran for that train this morning because you were hungover and late for work. But really, we all know you're a moderately good person inspired by moving slogans - you can skip the wristband.

Succumb to your vices = purple

Okay, so my blog is, for now, imageless. But a word is worth a thousand pictures. Maybe eventually I'll figure it out. So now I'm going to try something new: embedding a link. A while back Black Tablehad a piece on what the various contributors hate about summer. Well, here's what I hate about summer, fall, and every season: those motherfucking yellow wristbands. I know, I know, Lance Armstrong is brave and amazing, and he started a foundation, and all of those things deserve our admiration. But he also wrote a book about how his wife stood by him throughout his terrible illness, then dumped her for Sheryl Crow. And anyway, the point is that no matter how proud you are of Lance Armstrong or yourself for giving Nike a dollar, that yellow rubber band doesn't look good with your business suit. Or your evening dress. Or basically anything except sweatpants or an outfit made of dollar bills that you will peel off one by one and give to Lance. Yes, I know, how many opportunities do you have to both make a fashion statement and demonstrate your marginal charitability, all without saying a word? And I saw you living strong as you ran for that train this morning because you were hungover and late for work. But really, we all know you're a moderately good person inspired by moving slogans - you can skip the wristband.

Damn it.

Elephants. Poop. Posters.

This is a test post, where I try to conquer my ineptitude and link to a picture. It's by John Morton, from the RNC in New York last year, and I like it because it's got elephants, pooping, and mean things to say about GW. Thanks, John!

Check Your Head

It was announced today that New York City police would begin random bag checks on subways, buses, and commuter trains. I'm all for it, I guess; I mean, how am I going to complain about my civil liberties being violated if I get spattered? But I'm definitely NOT for them arresting everyone they find carrying illegal substances. If they cuff every New Yorker with a few joints in her purse, there won't be any room in the jails when they catch those bomb-toting terrorists. And the cops would constantly be abandoning their posts to bring in another minor offender. The streets would be completely devoid of law enforcement. Anarchy would ensue. Looting, riots, mayhem. We'd all be too out of our heads to notice the guy with the wires sticking out of his sweater. The end! On second thought, maybe that checking bags thing wasn't such a great idea.

All the Ladies

Now that I have a blog, does that mean I can be a Media Critic? Because I would like that. One of the best things about the "blogosphere," as the Media Critics call it, besides the fact that it's a forum for everyone too lazy to be a journalist, is that it's a place for women to be funny. In entertainment, funny women are considered a novelty, and smart-funny women (like Tina Fey), as opposed to dumb-funny, bitter-funny, or making-fun-of-men-funny women are even rarer. In literature, women are not supposed to be funny. They are either on a quest for love or self-awareness or they're doing the new chick lit thing, which I believe involves martinis, designer clothing, and jobs in publishing (the last two, of course, being mutually exclusive in the real world).

But in the blogging world, smart-funny women are par for the course. I'll give you an example: I will now tell a joke.

Nevermind, it's too long and it's the only joke I know. But the punchline is, "It's the peanuts. They're complimentary," which totally proves my point, right? Right?

The one danger with the funny women of the blogs, I think, is that there's a uniformity almost as rigid as among the chicklits in the voice female bloggers assume: perhaps she's the new liberated woman. I'll call her the Precocious Drunken Slut. And hey, I'm as much of a PDS as the next gal, I just think we should keep our options open while we have this amazing chance to define what we're all about. Cheers.

PS - omg, my blog spell check does not recognize the word "blog"! How meta!

Renunciation

Well, I'm afraid I've gone and done it. I've started a blog. But it's a Secret Blog, that no one knows about yet, while I get my feet under me. I'm blogging for the same reasons everyone else does: because my friends are tired of my drunken rants and raves, and I've got blog envy. I hope to use this space to mouth off about politics and other things that make my little heart go pitter patter, and some day, if you wish hard hard hard, I might let other people read it.