The Suárez and the Fop

I love Aesop's Fables. Always have. Given my lifelong pattern of self-destructive behavior, it stands to reason that this would be my favorite:

The Scorpion and the Frog

     A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the 

scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The 

frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion 

says, "Because if I do, I will die too."

     The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,

the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of 

paralysis and starts to sink. Knowing they both will drown,

the frog gasps, "Why?" 

     Replies the scorpion: "I could not help it; it's my nature."

So it is with Luis Suárez, Uruguay's enigmatic and bizarre anti-hero. A few days after single-handedly resuscitating La Celeste's World Cup dreams by scoring a brace against England, he inexplicably tried to take a bite out of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini's shoulder.  The game was tied, and Uruguay had started to dominate because the thuggish Marchisio had been sent off for a brutal foul.  There was no apparent provocation, nor rhyme, nor reason.  Given Suárez's history, one can only surmise that he simply could not help it; it's his nature.

Orientales, la patria o la tumba

¡Celeste, carajo!

History repeats itself

Back in the 1980's, right around the time I was hitting puberty, I had Joan Jett and Lita Ford to, ahem, pine after.  They were smoking hot, and they rocked.  Today, thanks to Lizzy Hale and Taylor Momsen, we have rock 'n' roll redux.  Yowza.

Sometimes they come back

The blues, that is.  And they did so with a vengeance last week.  Funny, because I'd been thinking about asking for -- nay, demanding -- a reduction in dosage and/or gradual tapering off my crazy meds.  So much for that now.  Shit was flat-out scary, especially because, like always, I couldn't come remotely close to pinpointing the source.  Epic fail.  I guess better living through chemistry is here to stay.

On the first day of Christmas

AMC gave to me a Godfather marathon. "You can act like a man!!!"

In dreams

Nightmares, really.  It's too bad my therapist changed her address and phone number without forwarding the changes to me -- I'm trying hard not to take it personally! -- because she would have had a field day with the bizarre dreams I've had lately.  Last night, for example, I dreamt my immediate family and I were stranded in a foreign country.  We had to spend the night someplace, and I wound up in a place that looked suspiciously like the basement of our home in Cleveland, only it was infested by spiders and some sort of demonic female child.  I killed them all, only to be chastised by my father, who explained that I need not kill things strictly based upon the fact I feared them.

The night before, I dreamt some random guy was bullying me, and I was so surprised by his high-school tactics all I could do was laugh.  All of my friends were embarrassed by what they perceived as cowardice on my part, so I vowed to not hesitate if it should happen again.  Happen again it did, on a school bus -- we were both teachers.  I was speaking with another teacher, and he muttered something under his breath.  I asked him to repeat it, he started threatening me and got up, so I got up and started swinging for the fences.  I mostly missed, but he backed himself into a corner, at which point I jumped on him and savagely bit his nose, and started shaking my head back and forth like a rabid dog while also throwing haymakers at his rib-cage. Those around us screamed in horror and unsuccessfully tried to pry us apart, until I managed to actually bite a chunk of his nose right off his face and spit it at my friends, as if daring them to think me a coward again. Yikes.

A few nights before that, I dreamt I was at a bar with the woman who cuts my hair, and she accidentally bumped into an overweight, extremely unattractive woman.  The woman started cursing her out, so I got between them and explained to the woman it was an honest accident.  She started cursing me out, and then her equally overweight and ugly boyfriend pushed me and took a wild swing at me.  I grabbed a barstool and smashed it over his head, and when his girlfriend started giving me lip, I punched her out.  We high-tailed it out of the bar, and drove off in a panic -- I didn't want to get arrested.  My companion insisted we take some bizarre short-cut, and we wound up lost and out of gas in some hick town, where we were promptly arrested and held prisoners in a barn.

I guess I should be thankful my dreams haven't become really violent. Yet.

Spike in my veins

KoRn's "The Paradigm Shift" hit stores a few days ago.  After listening to it a few times, my opinion is the album is outstanding.  Lots of old-style songs, lots of new-style songs, some dubstep... hopefully, something to please everyone.  I know I'm pleased as punch, especially with "Spike in my Veins," which features a great vocal line, a Slayer-like riff, a Mushroomhead-like keyboard accompaniment, some timely dubstep, and a great chorus.  I can't wait to see them again when they tour.