Idi bitty tidbits of my week

Oh my sticky stars, I’ve had so much catching up to do now since I’ve gotten back from the prairie. I’ve gone from whispering into my cell phone and having cicadas chirp me to sleep at Ragdale to going out almost every night to attend various reading/party thingys. Somehow we are lucky enough to know people like Alpana Singh, Andi Zeisler and Lisa Jervis from Bitch, and John Hodgman, all of whom had reading thingys here in Chicago this past week. Somehow we are lucky enough to not know people like Idi Amin, because last night we went to a preview screening of The Last King of Scotland, which had just about everything you could reasonably expect from a movie about Idi Amin. It was a good movie, though of course it had moments where I couldn’t cover my eyes enough, not even if I had three dozen hands, not even if Idi Amin himself provided three dozen hands in a handy wheelbarrow for my convenience. Those scenes were definitely more unpleasant than drinking Malort, and that is saying A LOT.

Speaking of disgusting things, I thought I had a pretty high threshold of tolerance when it comes to freaky reality show antics, but that was before I watched the new season of America’s Next Top Model and saw Monique sprinkle furniture and housemates with her alleged Moniqueness. (I am talking about both the time she “marked her territory” on one of the beds, which involved just water—but still, the idea was there—and the incident where she subjected Melrose to That Shower-Fresh Feeling. I do not know how to relate it any more delicately. If you don’t watch the show, I assure you that whatever foul thing you have imagined will likely suffice.) And while I have not watched Flavor of Love this season (I caught a little bit of the first season, and I’ll watch again only if Sister Souljah guest-stars and storms the house and punches Flav somewhere below his timepiece), I have heard that one of the contestants left an even more substantial mark on the stairs, just for you-know-whats and giggles. To all this I say: Dear Hostile, Bodily-Substance-Flinging Reality Show Contestant, if your excuse for acting like an crazed macaque is that it “gets attention” and makes for “interesting television,” then it ought to be okay for the camera crew to shoot tranquilzer darts at you whenever necessary, because that would make for interesting television, too.

Finally, the little radio segment I did for Writer’s Block Party last week can be found online here. It’s supposed to be sort of funny, though I think I sound oddly mournful on audio. Oh, well.