Touché, and Yes I WILL Marry You

Oh, Sweden. First of all, I never even realized that you had an oral tradition, but you do, and I am so pleased to discover that it encompasses a folktale about a princess ass that needed to be filled with a dead bird. Because she knew too much. The story goes something like this: a princess is intelligent, which has never happened. BUT. She must get married! The men line up because in addition to being intelligent, she is also an unparalleled sex-cutlet; but she chops off all their heads because they're not good enough. In fact, she decides that she'll only marry a man who is smarter than she is, which sounds like a terrible plan to me; I mean, Elegant Choice has basically the intelligence of a pencil eraser--he lives on the steadiest diet of mistakes--and I am a six-dimensional genius, but we are very happy together! Anyway, finally a little shepherd boy comes along, or should I say a shepherd MAN, and threatens to stuff her ass with things, which I suppose is what passes for intelligent conversation in Sweden. Like so:

    The boy, who'd never seen a princess in his life, stood with his mouth
open in amazement, stunned by how beautiful and elegant she was.
    "Well," she said, "if you've already lost your voice, then maybe you'd
better lose your head!"
    And the princess waved to her chief executioner.
    But now the boy regained the power of speech.
    "How terribly hot it is in here!" he said.
    "Ha-ha," laughed the princess, "it's much hotter up my behind!"
    "I see," said the boy, "then perhaps I might be allowed to cook this
magpie up there so I can have a bite to eat before I lose my head?"
    And he pulled out his dead magpie and held it up before the princess.
    The princess was almost speechless, but then she recovered. "You may do
that," she said, "but you're not going to be able to get it up there."
    "Oh, yes," he said, "I'll manage as long as I have this wedge to help me."
    And he pulled out the old wedge he'd found in the road and showed it
to the princess.
    She grew very embarrassed and hardly knew what to say, but finally
replied, "That'll burst my little butt!"

--"The Princess Who Always Had an Answer,"
Swedish Folktales and Legends

Oh, SWEDEN.

The One of Me Unzipping My Pants in a Graveyard Didn't Come Out

I disappeared! I fled from you like a refugee that is also a deer. My parents were down in Savannah for a romantic getaway, and Savannah is just a few hours north of us, so they invited us to visit for a few days. "How is THAT romantic?" I asked my mother. "Just you wait and see," was her mysterious response. Sure enough, it wasn't long after I arrived that my father mentioned that my mom's perfume was "an aphrodisiac for him," and suggested that I "try some on." "That...didn't come out right, Dad," I said. "No it did not," he responded. "ROMANTIC," my mother screamed. Anyway, here are the pictures.

These pictures were giving me mental illness every time I scrolled past them, so I took them away! We are capable of so much intensity that pictures of us are practically deadly. We should be more responsible about how we use our awful power in the future.

It just occurred to me that I am somehow wearing the same shirt in those pictures as I was wearing in the last pictures I posted; I think I am supposed to care about this but I just don't! Now get ready for some amazement. The true highlight of the trip was this: my mother had found a packet of hundreds of my Teenage Poems, and she delivered them into my care only after extracting a promise from me that I will not burn them. Because of posterity! Here is my favorite in its entirety, you will laugh so much:

The Stoning

We are civilized,
we are civilized,
we pave the roads we walk on.

Incredible work, fifteen-year-old self! If you didn't hear a clash of significant cymbals in your mind as you came to the end of that masterpiece, then you are doing it wrong.

YAY KAY RYAN!

Confession: I Don't Even Know Who Jane Addams Is

Was I the only person who read ValueTales when I was a child? These were books about famous historical people going crazy and hearing animals and dolls and test tubes talking to them about morality. Some of the famous-historical-figure choices made sense, like Beethoven and Helen Keller; others, like Michael Landon, were more mysterious. (The Michael Landon ValueTale teaches us about the value of a Positive Attitude!) I thought they were out of print, but it turns out a man named Dr. Johnson is reprinting them, and he maintains a website where you can page through extensive samples. I recommend The Value of Respect: The Tale of Abraham Lincoln, in which a squirrel named Bushy tells Abe to free the slaves; The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Tale of Louis Pasteur, in which a bee teaches Louis about rabies; and The Value of Humor: The Tale of Will Rogers, in which an actual rope comes to life and tells Will that everybody hates a sad person, so make some jokes! Also of interest is The Value of Helping: The Tale of Harriet Tubman, which contains the immortal lines:

Harriet wasn't an ordinary little girl, you see.

She was a black slave.

Well then. Anyway, I happened to pick up a copy of the Jane Addams ValueTale at a used bookstore yesterday. I never read this one when I was little, so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be, in large part, about crap-eating:


Don't worry, though, it's not all crap-eating all the time. A doll also comes to life

and murders her teaches her that children shouldn't work in factories! Way to go out on a limb, there, ValueTales. I used to believe that, but after viewing numerous pictures of children using their God-given free time to devour filth, I no longer feel convinced.

Brace Yourselves

I was meandering up and down the aisles of the bargain section of Books-a-Million last week, and the cover of this Illustrated Classic caught my eye:

Now, what is the most important thing about Anne of Green Gables? What would be written on her fictional tombstone? ANNE SHIRLEY: Her Hair Was So Red. What, then, is happening here? That hair is yellow. You can't give Anne Shirley yellow hair. Mystified, I began to page through the book, and discovered that yellow hair is the least of poor Anne's worries.

This is clearly an illustration from some alternate Anne of Green Gables, one in which Marilla sends her away to an institution instead of keeping her, and grief renders her into a transcendental halfwit. She either eats flowers or speaks to them. Her chair dissolves beneath her feet; she is no longer of this world.

It is a tragedy indeed when a person possesses such a small intellect that she cannot even choke herself properly, for it is she who needs choking most of all.

Much better. After all, L.M. Montgomery never explicitly states that Anne is not a formidable giant composed entirely of spare parts--a backwards arm here, an animal foot there--who makes men and buildings appear as adorable toys in comparison with her. Anyway, she certainly took that train to the right town. Physical deformities appear to run rampant in the Avonlea community.

Matthew was born partially melted,

Diana got bad squeezed by her mother's vagina,

Mrs. Rachel Lynde is a hideous human-conch-shell hybrid,

Marilla is a T-Rex,


and Minnie May is an actual demon. Thank God that Gilbert is just as handsome as I always imagined him:

Mmm mmm. Little surprise that Anne loses her mind when he criticizes her looks:

When a golden god calls you Carrots, what choice do you have but to "lift" your "slate" "above" your "head" and bash him with it? I hope his brains pour out of his ear--which appears to be one of those White Castle chicken rings. No wonder you eventually fall in love with him, Anne. Don't worry, you'll end up getting married, but not before this rare orchid of femininity does:

Will somebody please slip a diamond on this girl's bulging ring finger already? It is huge with longing. Be patient, though, Anne. Your day will come. Your dress may not be as beautiful as this one:

and Gilbert may not be as happy as he was the day his ten-year-old college friends lifted him by the ankles and inserted celebratory hands into his nearest joyful orifice:

but a halfwit orphan giant with a wolf foot and yellow hair must take what she can get.

Allow Me to Effervesce

DANG I have figured out a good way to shade wrinkles, it is like tiny bolts of lightning only made of ink. Yet they still electrify. What is better than shading, I think nothing, oh shading, come to bed, the white sheets need you! Now then. As for tomorrow, I will not even hint to you what you might be getting, because no human being could ever be prepared for it, not in a million years. You will live one more day without it, and the day after that, you will not understand how.

Robert Graves Hearts Rafael Nadal...Comic

What is sadder than a person who tries so hard to make her Robert Graves ghost look incredible? Let's get a close-up of that last panel:

My Cleavage Almost Tore Through the Page

"Are you going to put me in your next comic?" Elegant Choice queried demanded. "Maybe I will," I answered. "How do you want to look?" He picked up a pad of paper and scribbled furiously for a moment. "LIKE THIS."

I paused. "It's so...accurate. Just for curiosity's sake, how would you draw me?"

"Of course. And our cat?"

Clearly he is the person who should be making internet comics. By the way, I widened my margins in an effort to give myself more comics-space, and in doing so added mad girl colors to my blog. Do not be frightened.

Conversation with a Younger Self, Plus HMMMPH

The marvelous Kate Beaton has challenged her readers to contribute conversations with their younger selves, in written or comic form, and I totally made a comic because I love her so much, but I cannot for the life of me manage to post it on LiveJournal, which is a nemesis now. God, I wish there were an internet word to describe my incompetence, perhaps one beginning with an F. Anyway, I'll just post it here:

This is as good an excuse as any to spank you until you go read her comics, which I first heard about through Qwantz, I think. They are an ultimate best among comics. She is from the Maritimes, so I like to imagine her writing her comics while Gilbert Blythe stands silently behind her and smells her hair from time to time.

THISTLECOMIC

The biggest poison of all, of course, is how much they actually look alike. I expected better things of my brain, which is more often than not admirably ungrounded in reality.

I Think I Will Wear Him

I discovered a Magical Item when I was in Denver! It is the babiest elephant with a compass in his stomach. The compass needle trembles. Can you even handle it?