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My paper white mask of not-so-much-evil-as-general-disagreeableness


2009
03.14

Posted in friends, mortuary school | No Comments »

As part of my education in the fabulous field that is funeral service education I am enrolled in a course titled “Restorative Arts”. As the name suggests, the course involves our ever-patient professor attempting to impart his artistic ability upon students like myself without throwing up his hands or coming at us with knives.  

We have been told that it is the sincere hope of our department’s instructional staff that – upon completion of our restorative arts coursework- we students will be capable of repairing the remains of deceased individuals in such a way that would make them acceptable for viewing… axes to the face, head-on collisions and self-inflicted shotgun wounds to the head be damned.

We’ve been given tools: 

…and wax: 

…and have also been instructed to make our very own human heads. To wit:

This is the start to my human head. I am modeling it after my friend Cindy, a delightful gal who is a mother, research scientist, medical doctor, triathlete, hates big meanies, loves her mother, enjoys long walks on the beach and prefers puppies over kittens. Cindy’s being a doctor meant she was delighted to have her likeness rendered in wax. This is, of course, is a welcome reprieve from several of my other friends who regularly put their hands over my mouth and say things like, OH NO NO NO… STOP RIGHT THERE whenever the subject of my current romp through education comes up.

At any rate, if you look at the photo above you might be tempted to think that it’s an ok start for a freshman attempt at molding a human face so long as the face in the photo above belonged to someone who wore their sweater tied around their neck, considered polka a legitimate form of music and had all the rhythm of a seizing epileptic. Unfortunately for me however, Cindy’s not white and my project is hopelessly hee-haw and all this means that I get to experience the joy that is scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch which makes me use long run-on sentences about how I would really, really like to make some statement about suffering for my art but I think you all know me enough by now to realize that I don’t suffer for my art so much as get cranky when my homework cuts into the all-important Cocktail Hour.

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Living nextdoor to me…


2008
11.07

Posted in friends, life in california, neighbors, politics, prank | No Comments »

…means that you probably have to pop a few more Xanax than the average person.

Have you ever wandered around your neighborhood after an election and thought to yourself, “I wish I had some use for all these leftover campaign signs.”

Well I don’t. I just pull ‘em out of the ground and stick ‘em on my neighbor’s lawn:

Please! Knock on my neighbor’s door at midnight to vote!

A south-facing view of their yard.

My, oh my! A fellow Libertarian? Well land sakes! Because you know that Barr-Root sign sure as hell wasn’t leftover from my yard.

…and one to grow on!

I must admit that I’m a little fearful of going to sleep tonight.

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Come in. Lay on my couch.


2008
10.24

Posted in blogging, bullet points, friends | No Comments »

I think I’m really onto something with the whole f-list thing because once I logged off my blog the other night I kept adding to it until my crankiness ran dry and my sunny disposition was restored to it’s rightful place: behind and to the left of my acerbic disposition which is in turn located somewhere in the upper regions of my thoracic cavity behind my sternum.

At first the additions to the f-list were completely logical magnets for the hatred shared by every rational human being: the Lakers, speed bumps, inventors of shows like Sorority Forever because really, how could you watch an episode of Sorority Forever and not want to punch the cast, creators, producers, network execs, advertisers and every sorority girl within a fifty mile radius square in the jaw? Hell, I wanted to stick myself in the eye with a red-hot poker for the sin of having sat through it without throwing my television into the street.

Anyway. So somewhere between adding item #21 (Kobe Bryant) and item #3,284,091 (sorbitol) I realized that I had become significantly more chipper. It would seem that when one burns so far through a list of stuff that one would like to drop-kick off the face of the earth that one is resorting to sugar substitutes and films in Esperanto that one can have feasibly purged oneself of homicidal urges that make one a threat to oneself and others.

Also, it helped that in the course of reading through comments and e-mails I was treated to te f-lists of others and will include them here:

Kaylia’s F-List:

Bosses
Micromanagers
The Stock Market
Radical Rights
Radical Lefts
Makers of the Push Up Bra
Expiration Dates That Lie
Anonymous Comments And Those Who Leave Them
Starbucks
Closed Minded Nutcases
My Pile of Dirty Laundry
My Pile of Clean Laundry
Country Music
American Idol
Political Commercials
Emo Kids
Dress Codes
Bottled Water
Mechanical Pencils
DHL
People Who Refuse to Wait Their Turn
Drivers Who Refuse To Wait Their Turn
Any Driver Who Has Ever Hit A Pedestrian
That ASSHOLE Who Hit Me Last Week

/deep breath/

Josephson’s f-list is, reportedly, me.

He didn’t submit an f-list but I can guarantee that my brother would agree with Josephson.

Malathionman took the f-list in a new direction and included every disease-free female in North America who looks tolerably well without the assistance of a paper bag over her head.

Jay’s f-list is unique in that it brings together ESPN and the Amish:

ESPN
The NFL
Reality TV
The Weatherman on TV
The Amish
TV Political Analysts
TV Sports Analysts
TV Financial Analysts
All TV Analysts of any kind
Kids
Shirtless dudes in Wal-Mart
Political ads (especially local politicians and their pathetic attempt at humor)
People who engage in the Mac v. PC argument
Joe the Plumber

April was too nice to post an f-list although I would be willing to bet she secretly harbors nasty thoughts about styrofoam.

Tracy’s f-list crushed me with her hatred of Prius’s but then she invoked Dr. G and won me over again:

1. The handful of parents at my kids school who have made it so the kids can’t wear their costumes to school on Halloween day or have Christmas parties or pageants – so now we have to have “Winter Party” instead.

2. Prius owners – because unless you crushed your old car you have accomplished nothing. Your old car is still on the road and now you have added another one.

3. Actors/tv shows that use their sitcom/time slot to make their personal political statements. If I wanted to see/hear that I would be watching CNN or Fox. Please give me a warning at the beginning of the show that you are going to throw this in my face so I can go watch something else like Dr. G Medical Examiner.

4. The welfare system

So dear readers I am asking again – for the sake of election year therapeutic purposes – are there any more f-lists out there? I’m collecting assignments in (checks imaginary watch) 48 hours.

…and now I’m off to a weekend at the ocean for a little environmental therapy of my own. Read you in a couple days!

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No time to update…


2008
10.17

Posted in friends, mortuary school | No Comments »

…the last several days were spent at the NFDA convention in Orlando during which caskets, beer, sleep deprivation and soul-killing humidity all played a part and dude, I’m exhausted. I also have a microbiology exam to study for, two kids to beat, a husband who swears that five days without sex is potentially fatal and a half marathon to run in San Francisco on Sunday.

But I will say this; this is what four wannabe morticians in a jacuzzi tub looks like:

Four dorks in a bathtub

Catch y’all next week.

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Olga The Not-So-Much-Terrible-As-Tasteless-And-Uncouth


2008
10.09

Posted in anxiety, family, friends, life in california, manners, mortuary school | No Comments »

First of all, a long overdue THANKS goes to Dayngr, who sent the mother of all care packages to my dad and his guys in Afghanistan. Go check her out, she and hers do some good work.

Now for something completely different…

I was at my local grocery store today buying liquor and other assorted implements of impairment to help smooth the flight to Orlando tomorrow. Not so much for my sake, but for the sake of my fellow passengers who would no doubt prefer a passed out sasquatch to one that rocks nervously in her seat while mumbling about defective jackscrews and fuel vapor explosions.

At any rate, I was being checked out when the kid behind the register asks for my ID. So perplexed was I by this request that I stared at him blankly for a few moments before diving for my wallet while muttering something incomprehensible.

“Come again?” The kid asked.

“Uh… nothing. My english is not so good.” I joked before handing over my ID to prove that I am, in fact, 34 over 21.

“Really? I think you speak English pretty good.”

I gave the kid a half smile and narrowed my eyes. He looked back at me with the kind of bright-eyed innocence that told me that 1) he didn’t catch the joke, and 2) he really thought that English was my second language.

Which reminds me of when I was in college and working at the IHOP on Florin Road (and my readers from Sacramento will read “IHOP on Florin Road” and their eyes will cross because nothing good ever happens after midnight. Or on Florin Road.)

Anyway, after I started working at IHOP on Florin Road it was only a matter of days before it became apparent that many of South Sac’s residents had little regard for a white waitress. Or rather, a white waitress who was blonde, blue-eyed and six feet tall. In fact, so deep ran their disregard for me that many customers derived great joy from plying me with their rather colorful collection of racial slights.

Good times!

The matter was not helped by the fact that my primary advocate was a manager who was a warm and wonderful human being and spoke the king’s English but – being fresh out of Pakistan – had not yet mastered the blighted vernacular of his customer base. This led to frustration when I would try to explain to him why, exactly, a customer’s exclamation of “DIE HONKY BITCH DIE! DIE! DIE!” did not sit particularly well with me.

Another employee and I finally took matters into our own hands.

Aaron was a fellow server who, having noticed my difficulties, devised a plan by which I would be more readily accepted by the community: he made me a nametag that said “Olga” and started telling everyone that I was a Russian immigrant.

Though I concluded the plan was completely retarded I went along with it. It would work something like this: if a customer started giving me the third degree Aaron would sidle up to me, eyebrows raised.

“Her English isn’t bad huh?” My co-worker would then take advantage of the baffled silence to explain my status as a Russian refugee.

The “problem” customers totally bought it. In fact, most of them became downright civil with me.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so I’m leaving for a funeral director’s conference in Orlando tomorrow and the guy at the grocery store now thinks I’m a lush who speaks English as a second language and while I’m gone I really do think you should check out the best political blog entry I’ve ever read, my brother’s squibbles on the occupational risks of being an archaeologist, and my future sister-in-law’s thoughts on, well, everything*.

* Oh yeah. That little tidbit there will most definitely get me a stern talking-to by my brother, probably right around the time I’ve finished the third screwdriver at the airport tomorrow and have been rendered incapable of speech. You’re welcome Matt.

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Remember a few weeks back? When I did that triathlon?


2008
10.03

Posted in bicycling, fitness, friends, life in california, ocean, photos, running, triathlon | No Comments »

Well, apparently a few of you did and since you were short-sighted enough to indulge my enormous ego kind enough as to e-mail and ask if I survived the experience – and since my fingers have started bleeding from typing define survive – I’ll just throw a post up here with a run-down of Steph’s 1st Olympic-Distance Triathlon.

Well, the morning started off with me having my transition point ganked by Athlete Number 948 who had apparently failed to realize that while number 948 was relatively close to 958 which was my number, they were not in fact one and the same. Luckily for her, Athlete Number 948 reappeared before I had the opportunity to douse her wetsuit in Tabasco or deflate her bicycle tires.

The incident was quickly forgotten however when, just five minutes later – I was at the inflation station letting the air out of the tires on my coach’s bike. To be fair, I hadn’t intended to let the air out of her tires but it sorta happened because, well, I’m retarded and I don’t know any better.

So it was that during the moments when my coach and I were supposed to be down at the beach enjoying a nice pre-race anxiety attack I was still in the transition area pleading with random strangers to please, please, please help me operate this hand-held device, I believe it is called a bicycle pump? Because I haven’t yet mastered the use of simple tools and I need to un-sabotage my coach’s equipment.

Finally we made it down to the beach in time to see this:
This was the wave before ours, which really? Was pretty much identical to what our wave looked like. Also, even though the video shows you the ocean and wetsuits and dozens of pairs of arms and legs flailing about there is no way that a video or photo or even mere words can do justice to the experience of leaping into freezing surf and being subsequently battered within an inch of your life by your fellow race participants.

Of course video, photos and words cannot adequately convey the beauty of kelp forests or the thrill of the open water experience either and that kind of made up for the multiple elbows I took in the nose and having my goggles ripped off in the kelp.

Exiting the water and heading into T1

In other words: the swim was crazy fun. However, I just have to ask: would it have been terribly unfair to shove the photographers off the cliff and into the sea? So far as I can tell there has never been a flattering photo taken of anyone wearing a wetsuit and I, for one, wouldn’t be heartbroken if I could make a beach exit without these people standing around prepared to create images of me looking like a bloated harbor seal.

Anyway, the rest of the race was pretty much a blur; I did intentionally crash on my way into Transition 2 when I failed to unclip from my bike in time. Basically, it came down to crashing or staying on the bike and being disqualified and I chose to eat asphalt. And if that choice makes no sense to you whatsoever then don’t worry – it just means your normal.

T2 @ Pacific Grove Triathlon

This is the entrance into T2 where every bicyclist except for me dismounted in an orderly  – and vertical – position. I only post this photo to show everyone the big DISMOUNT sign that notified people as far away as Japan that THOU SHALT GET OFF THINE BIKE HERE. And? Just in case athletes missed that message the sign was flanked by a bunch of over-caffeinated race officials shouting “DISMOUNT! DISMOUNT! DISMOUNT!”

Such features are very useful for people who, unlike me, have mastered the art of disengaging themselves from the tiny clips that keep their feet attached to their bike.

So after the swim was the bike and after the bike was the run and when my coach caught up to me during the run we looked at each other and simultaneously mouthed the words, “Dude, seriously… next year we sit on the sidelines and drink beer.”

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Why you shouldn’t make friends with bloggers


2008
09.22

Posted in blogging, friends, neighbors, photos | No Comments »

So we here at Matulich Manor have family friends who works for a Really Giant F-ing Athletic Shoe And Apparel Company. Last week this friend attended a corporate event at which attendees were asked to wear costumes. Apparently he decided that Rick James attire was in order. Did  I mention that this event took place in Beaverton, Oregon?

Um, yeah. It would appear that our friend doesn’t have a particularly strong sense of self preservation.

…or a wife who shies away from forwarding photos. For this I am grateful since – if she had considered the ramifications of distributing this – she might have considered the possibility that it would end up on my blog and refrained from hitting “send”.

Ryan as Rick James

Just do it. Indeed.

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…because I’ve had all my shots.


2008
08.11

Posted in friends, life in california, photos | No Comments »

Last Saturday a couple of friends of mine – friends who prefer anonymity to the social flogging that would result if people discovered that they hung out with me – and I went to 2nd Saturday. For those outside of Northern California, 2nd Saturday is a gathering of local artists who converge on the streets of downtown Sac to celebrate yet another month of not having a real job.

So there we were; Maria, Lori and I (I only guaranteed anonymity until the second paragraph ladies), walking around minding our own business when I spotted a bicycular contraption that looked like it had been pieced together by Dr. Frankenstein himself. Never having been one to avoid something interesting even at the risk of communicable disease, I moved closer to investigate and discovered that the thing was basically a makeshift plywood chassis lashed together with bungee cords. In true homeless hippie fashion, it had been loaded up with an ice chest, easel, mismatched handlebars, bag of recyclables, mongrel dog, bucket seat from a Dodge minivan and – inexplicably – a car battery.

“You want I should take your picture?” The owner materialized out of the crowd. Dude had the hard scrabble look of someone who hadn’t seen the inside of a bathroom since the Ford administration.

Still, the guy seemed friendly enough as he stood there smiling, oblivious to the fact that I plan on voting for McCain. He held his hand out expectantly and I handed him my camera – my brand new Canon SLR that had been purchased with the blood of my children - without so much as a hitch of hesitation.

Had he been there, my husband would have immediately gone into cardiac arrest. But he wasn’t there and the homeless dude snapped a pic and returned my camera and all of us went on our merry way.

Steph @ 2nd Saturday

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You’ve Got Mail


2008
06.18

Posted in friends, life in california, neighbors | No Comments »

Our neighborhood is a fair amount diverse. This means two things; the first is that liberal white university types with overdeveloped guilt complexes are moving here in mother-fucking droves.

The second is that being slipped my neighbor’s mail by mistake yields results that are way more fun than some dogawful J. Crew or Pottery Barn catalog:

 Jet Magazine

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to run this nextdoor and check to see if the neighbors have my issue of Honky.

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A Whole Month’s Worth of Photos


2008
05.29

Posted in blogging, family, friends, life in california, mortuary school, photos | No Comments »

I’m sick with something. I’m not sure what bug hit me but it’s chewing at my throat and making every muscle fiber in my body sore and achy. I’m pretty sure the damned thing is gunning for my sense of humor as well because I just puked on my husband’s side of the bed and I haven’t been able to muster the energy to properly savor that moment the way I should.

At any rate, I can barely sit up so I’m just going to post photos and try to come up with something to go along with them. Sound good?

Alright, here goes: 

Soap Saver

Ok, so let me explain; yesterday was our new housekeeper’s first day (yes, I am quite the spoiled bitch) and while I was taking a bath last night I noticed that not only did she manage to get the hard water stains out of the toilets and sinks, the woman made spotless our soap savers. 

I have no idea if she scrubbed them or soaked them or dipped them in a substance that will eventually eat my face off but who really cares, really so long as they look good. After seeing this I proceeded to throw the contents of my refrigerator on the floor before letting my children lick the tile clean. Just because I could.

This carving was a gift from a friend of mine who was gracious enough not to kick me out of her house when I ran rough-shod over her southern sensibilities:

Love of Learning

It’s called “Love of Learning”. Isn’t she adorable what with her books and no face? And totally unexpected since just two days prior I had the audacity to ask my southern girlfriend about her rib recipe which, apparently, is grounds for justifiable homicide where she’s from. Even when the southerner in question is a white woman who threw off enough of her old-fashioned southern upbringing to marry a black man.

Went to Tahoe the other day: 

Steps - Lake Tahoe

There was no real reason for the trip other than the fact I was about to kill and eat my offpsring if I spent one more day cooped up with them. In the end the pile of gold kugrands required to fill my gas tank was worth getting out of town for.

I helped out with a jog-a-thon at my kids’ school: 

Runners

Quite a few parents turned out, which was nice since it meant we didn’t have to jump through hoops for permission to beat students when they got out of line.

I finished up finals, but not before I snapped a few photos inside the Winchester Mystery Trailer: 

Infant Casket

You know what I love best about this photo? The fact that right next to the infant casket is a Costco-sized package of granola bars and a sign admonishing people to pay fifty cents before taking one.

I received straight A’s by the way. Not that anyone really cares, but I figure what’s the point of getting straight A’s if you can’t lord it over everyone? Oh, and there’s more funeral education photos here.

I’ve been growing stuff: 

Asiatic Lily

It’s large and loud and orange and therefore I am totally in love with it.

Ever see a wind farm?  

Wind Farm

This is a photo of the wind farm on the Altamont Pass taken during the drive between Sacramento and Santa Cruz.

A friend of mine made the trip up to Sacramento to participate in the Sac State Alumni recital:

Gary Playing Clarinet

He’s an incredibly talented musician and I can’t think of anything smart to say about him although trust me – I’ve really tried to come up with something. Since we grew up together I try to tread lightly since he’s the only one who can produce photographic evidence that I’m a total tard and not at all as cool as I try to portray myself on this blog. He leaves for Kansas next month to earn his doctorate.

…and since this post doesn’t have nearly enough photos to destroy the bandwidth of most of my readers, how about another photo of the Winchester Mystery Trailer?

Casket Wall 

Yup. That just about wraps it up. Sorry about the loading time.

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