The Big Vacation, Day One

Last night, Chrissy Rodney came back to the East Coast from UCLA and I hung out with him and Razor (and Razor's girl, SJ) at Razor's apartment. I didn't know this, but their Australian Shepherd dog Fry had gotten hit by a car around Thanksgiving and died! That's terrible. But they have a new dog now, Job (named for the Arrested Development character, but not spelled like that for some reason), which is some kind of Huskie-mix thing, that is absolutely adorable: It rolls around on its little mat with its legs in the air like a cat and gives kisses a'plenty. We drank lots of beers and I ate a double cheeseburger that they had in the fridge. My appetite has been absolutely zero for the past couple of days. Maybe I've got what Ted's recovering from. Tomorrow is Billy's birthday. I know what I'm getting him as a b-day present, but not as a Christmas present. Maybe he just won't get one -- it's the curse of the Saggitarius.

So I'm on vacation now for two weeks. Don't really know what I'm gonna do with myself -- I went running in the early afternoon, which was pretty unpleasant, given the temperature and the fact that I haven't run in a couple of months. I had to walk, I think, most of the way. The rest of the day I spent working on little projects, but that's not going to hold me over for two weeks. Literally e-mail me and tell me which of you are here and not at work. Want to see "Kong?"

I rented American Pie, which, believe it or not, I'd never seen. I actually thought it was pretty great -- the actors all have a sort of refreshingly gross look to them, and their delivery is often novel, if not always natural. Observations:

• Is it just me or is Chris Klein's character actually a pretty awful singer? It seems like 'Oz' rises to the top echelon of the jazz singing club pretty quickly given that he can't really hit the right notes all the time
• What's up with everyone cheering on Jason Biggs while he's doing that strip tease on the webcam? I feel like I'd be more inclined not to want to see this guy in my trig class take all his clothes off. Not that it's gay, it's just, you know, not good porno. Also, what's the deal with there being no narrative retribution for him putting that girl all over the Internet? I mean, I guess he has his own humiliation televised as well -- I will say that I've never really understood the little problem he has in that scene. That's probably the one awful sex thing that's never happened to me.
• Favorite character by far: Shit-Break. It's time the movies had a hero who looks a little bit less like Chris Klein and more like a fresh corpse that's just entered the "bloat" stage of decomposition
• How creepy is Natasha Lyonne? I could've called that Hepatitis thing if I'd seen this movie when it came out

I was going through some of my old journals this evening trying to collate some of my more continuous threads of writing to use towards a more cohesive long-form thing, and I was struck by how weird I've always been -- or at least, how weird I was even back then -- and how I still kind of worry about the same irrational things and characterize things to myself in the same ways. It sort of freaked me out, but it was not a wasted errand, since I got several pages of good material that I think I can expand upon.

The Rase was wondering what the actual meaning of the word crapulence was, since she often references that line from the Who-Shot-Mr.-Burns Simpsons episode ("wallowing in my own crapulence"). I do that do, but I didn't know what it meant, either, so we looked it up:

crap·u·lence (krpy-lns)
n.

1. 1. Sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking.
2. 2. Excessive indulgence; intemperance.

So, literally, it means "crapulence."

It never fails to surprise me how alcohol can make you feel pretty okay no matter how awful you're feeling.

UPDATE: COCKBLOCKERS