All Night Long, baby.

2006-03-18 3:46 p.m.

So does anyone else find it amusing that the Mountain Dew's new commercial features a Lionel Ritchie love song from the 80s? Uh yeah, nothing embodies the extreme lifestyle like Lionel Richie and a bunch of green glowing fuzzy singing nocturnal animals. I wonder how the advertisers came up with that one:

Ad Manager: "So our target audience is 18-34 year old males who want embrace the X-treme lifestyle. Ideas anyone?"

Ad Guy 1: "I know, how about if we have Johnny Knoxville and Tony Hawk jousting with giant phallic like salamis while riding in tricked out golf carts."

Ad Guy 2: "No, wait, what we need is Jessica Simpson participating in a wet t-shirt contest where she gets sprayed with a huge phallic hose filled with Mountain Dew!"

Ad Guy 3: "How about if we play a soft rock song from the 80s and have some adorable little animals lip sync."

Ad Manager: "Sounds nice but how is it extreme?"

Ad Guy 2: "We could film it with a green tint, like they're so extreme, they stay up all night."

Ad Guy 1: "Yeah, we could make them all nocturnal animals. That's pretty extreme."

Ad Manager: "For music I'm thinking Nine Inch Nails or maybe...Lionel Richie!"

Everyone stands up and high fives each other.

I made this just for you.

2006-03-15 10:46 p.m.

My cat just brought me an eight inch wad of fiberglass insulation. I have no idea where the hell he got it from. I hope he doesn't have little glass slivers in his mouth. At first I thought it was an insideout squirrell.

Someone's at the door! Run for your life!

2006-03-14 9:15 p.m.

Interesting fact: The doorbell on The Simpsons and Family Guy is the same chime as my doorbell. This leads to some exciting television watching as my cats have a coronary and scatter whenever anyone comes to the door. Do you know how often the doorbell rings on those shows? At least once per episode, if not more. I have the tiny cuts on my thighs to prove it.

Carny love.

2006-03-12 11:13 p.m.

It was the summer that I graduated high school and had a blissful two weeks before I started summer school at the university. There was no time off for a leisurely summer at the beach or kicking around Europe. Suddenly, the carnival came to town and set up shop in the huge bowling arena parking lot. My town was pretty small so a carnival was a big deal. I went on the first day it opened and that's where I met Luke.

He was stapling bunting around a booth and stared at me as I walked by. I wasn't always the girl that boys stared at, so when it happened I noticed. I walked to the end of the booths, straightened my skirt and walked by again and sure enough, his eyes were on me. He crooked his finger toward me, beckoning me. I could feel my face turning pink as I shuffled over to him. He grabbed my hand and held it as we talked, as if he were reluctant to let me go. "Hi, my name is Luke." I don't remember what I squeaked in reply.

Luke was anywhere between fifteen and twenty five years old. He had light blonde hair that fell into his sky blue eyes and he had a way of looking at you that made you feel like you were the only person in the entire parking lot. I spent every minute I could for the next two weeks at that carnival. I lounged against the gate, watching Luke operate the Tilt 'O Whirl or stood in front of the ring toss, waiting for the crowd to ease so we could talk. When the carnival would close for the night, we'd go to Denny's to drink coffee, smoke skinny cigarettes and scribble poetry in my word notebook. He easily fit in with my crowd and was immediately everybody's friend.

I silently counted down the days until the carnival was left. I lay awake in the dark, jittery on coffee and nicotine, wishing that I could be the one to capture this Lothario's imagination and make him stay, but deep down I knew that he was as much of the carnival as the carnival was of him. He had gypsy blood in his veins and could already hear the next city beckoning him. I knew I was no match for that.

He left as quietly and as quickly as he came into my life. Late one night I was sitting at Denny's with my friends drinking coffee when someone mentioned his name and how they had dated during the last two weeks. I giggled, no, I had dated Luke. Another girl's mouth fell open - but she dated Luke. Two of the guys at the table raised their hands, finally coming out of the closet, they had dated Luke as well.

We couldn't believe how we had all been swindled. Luke had managed to juggle us all while making us feel like we were the only ones. It was the summer that the carnival came to town and grifted all our hearts. I haven't been to the carnival since that summer. I wonder where he is now?

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