CAN WE GO BACK TO THE DAYZ. Except not really.

Despite protestations that I was never going to attend a fair again (too many times going to fairs convinced I was going to have a good time, only to puke up blue cotton candy or spend an obscene sum of money to get sunburned and nauseated by beer and deep-fried snickers which seemed like an awesome combination at first but then my friends wanted to go ride a spin-y ride and then I got sick (FAIRS ARE BAD PLACES FOR THE WEAK OF STOMACH), or one time I got yelled at by a cop in the parking lot who slammed his hand down on my car and screamed "DON'T YOU KNOW THE RULES OF DRIVING IN MINNESOTA??" -- this is what fairs do to people), I was easily persuaded to attend the Pima County Fair with @theKFoss by 1) The promise of a free admission pass and 2) Being told that Boyz II Men were the featured entertainers. 

Of course, I remembered almost immediately a reason I do stay away from fairs: rides that make can me pukey and discriminate against odd numbers: 

This is why fairs are bad for a teenager's self-esteem. It's a very restrictive model!

It was also quite hot at first -- I guess it was the earliest day on record that Tucson has hit 100 degrees. 


But gradually, as it became clear that I wasn't going to puke up blue cotton candy or cry over being a single rider (vast improvement over fairs of teenager-hood), I began to enjoy myself. Night fell, and night has the magical ability to turn to fairs from depressing places to magical, neon-lit tabernacles of delight. 


Plus, there are funny signs. 

Call for Thrift Store Finds!

I'm putting out a call for weird and funny things that you've found at thrift stores! 

This one couldn't go on Hello Giggles, but I present it as an outtake for you all: 

The Blanket With The Inappropriate Towers on It That Do Not Make Me Think of Towers:

Halloween Shenanigans: Strange Clouds

So I actually put in some effort into Halloween this year -- me and Bad Cholla spent an afternoon at Savers creating Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding costumes. 

For those wondering if the costumes were a little outdated (Jason: "Timely. What you going to be next year? Judge Ito?"), they were originally conceived of for a roller skating party. But then--ironically--the Tonya Harding to my Nancy Kerrigan suffered an injury, and we didn't go roller skating. While we eventually wore the costumes on Actual Halloween and I think they were successful, when I told people, "Originally, they were gonna be worn roller skating," the person always went from "polite about costumes" to "Oh! That WOULD HAVE been really clever!" So the true epic awesomeness potential was never fully unlocked, but I think we still did good. See?

Signs of Life: Politics in Arizona

Awwww! I miss my blog. I haven't updated in FOREVER. I miss being unemployed.

[This is hardly a revolutionary theory, but I'm pretty sure there's a direct relationship between "underemployment" and "amount of time spent blogging." Similarly, I'm pretty sure there's a inverse relationship between "amount of sex someone is having" and "amount of time spent blogging." No, I don't mean to say that bloggers are underemployed and sexless. I think they're underemployed AND/OR sexless]*.**

*Don't hate! Imma blogger! This applies to me too!

**Also, obviously doesn't apply to professional bloggers, who, like, blog for food and shelter.

Anyway, I've got a backlog of blogs I wanna post, but most are of the long/ambitious variety.  So I decided to go with a Signs of Life Photo Essay. Presented largely without comment, Politics in Arizona: A Photo Essay.

For the record

So, I've solicited YOUSE GUYS opinions on what my next blog post should be. Here's what I can gather about what folks seems interested in, so far:

Here are the most popular posts, in order of popularity. Unsurprisingly, the post Pamela Ribon tweeted comes in at a clear number one. The others are a little more puzzling.

Things That Are Sad and Signs of Life in Norway to Cheer You up

Hey, I reviewed the Spring 2011 Virginia Quarterly Review for The Review Review. 

Here, I detail my feeling-y feelings about reviewing literary reviews and problems I sometimes encounter therein.

After the review was all done and published, I found about this, which I had had no idea of before. It makes things in my review echo uncomfortably -- but also, not really. Blergh. I'm glad I didn't know about any of that beforehand. THINGS THAT ARE SAD.

I guess, for once my obliviousness helped me out.

To cheer you up....pictures?

Signs of Life: Montreal Edition (Really Old Pictures of Not-Food)

I made another (terrible) attempt at Paintbrushing some pictures, with all due acknowledgment of my rip off inspiration by my girl crush fellow blogger hyperbole and a half.

This is a building near(ish) this guy's apartment in Montreal:

Seems fairly inoffensive. But let's look more closely at the French, shall we?

Sauna mixte = Sexy times!

Extermination = BUGS!

So let's look at this picture again:

Signs of Life: Window Display Fail

1) I know they were going for a "set up for a proposal" but it just looks, at a glance, like the window display is for a regular old pair of house keys. This is confusing. I genuinely expected the post-it to read, "Sorry for the mess, we've had a break-in and the thief tauntingly left the keys to the store behind."

2) The big set of keys kind of make the ring -- no slouch in the sparkly department -- look tiny in comparison. The reaction to this potential proposal set-up would be, I feel: "Ooooh, keys! -- Wait, look, a ring! Oh. It's kind of small. No, no -- I mean, it's nice. But not as big as these keys, you know?"

3) Wait, is this imaginary person proposing to SOMEONE THEY HAVE NOT YET SWAPPED KEYS WITH? This seems like a bad idea. Someone tell them they are rushing things!

4) Again, I don't mean to be so picky, but -- any important announcement/question: a break-up, a proposal, a firing, a declaration of terminal illness, whatever, should not be declared via post-it. "Hey, there's half a Subway sandwich in the fridge": sure. "Let's be together always?": Not so much. Not a case where you want to say it with office supplies.

5) The message on the post-it itself: "Come and go as you please but stay with me always." This is confusing. Do they want me to come and go as I please or stay with them always? WHICH ONE IS IT?

6) For example: What if I left for Bulgaria for like several years? Would that be okay? "Hey, I'm back!" "But you were gone for several years!" "Yeah, I went to Bulgaria. You said to come and go as I pleased." "But I've married and had children with another in the meantime." "But I said I'd stay with you always!" "But you left." "But you said come and go as I pleased! Jeeeez, mixed signals, much?"

Signs of Life, Part IV: Jason Wins

Jason saw this in Seattle -- what?

Ha ha! Bonus Post! Signs of Life, Part III

In town:

We could all use more of this:

Want to wear a bear?
Yeah, I wear a bear:
That's a bear-skin rug, my friends. And relax: that bear has been dead for a very, very long time. And you know what? I'm with Stephen Colbert on this one: bears are vicious killers and it's us or them. I don't invite bears to THE COTTAGE.

And thanks to Jason, here are some search keywords that lead to my blog:

Signs of Life, Part II

It's funny to be up in Canada, the place the blog was born. This post is also sort of a sequel to this.

Sometimes it's hard to find things:

Here is an odd case of emphasis:


I would understand if it read:

Don't invite BEARS to the cottage.

Or: DON'T INVITE Bears to the cottage.

But why: Don't invite bears to THE COTTAGE?

It makes it sound as if THE COTTAGE is the ominous part of the sentence, when, really, isn't it BEARS or DON'T INVITE?

THE COTTAGE isn't, in and of itself, particularly scary. I mean, you wouldn't say, Hope you have a nice time without bears at THE COTTAGE! Or, Be safe from bears while you're up at THE COTTAGE! I hope your time at THE COTTAGE is very relaxing with no bears.

Signs of Life

Have Put Out the Germ! Saw this for sale in the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Supposedly, the Via Dolorosa is where Jesus carried the cross. This was also for sale:

In New York, I discovered that if you buy T-Mobile, you can avoid Sin!



A gas station in Wisconsin that I pass on the way to work every day -- well, they sell Freedom:


Yes, we will all have to pay at the pump for Freedom, America:
And, back in suburban Minnesota...well, this just sounds dirty:

Happy New Year!

So, it's New Year's Eve, and I'm chillin' in the Jerusalem apartment with the parents. Not that I'm complaining -- I have notoriously bad luck/bad timing with New Year's Eve celebrations, which in the past have included being hospitalized, falling asleep in a cab on the way home from the airport, and being stuck in a supermarket parking lot in the freezing cold. So being in a Jerusalem works for me.

To be fair, the past few New Years have been totally pleasant, often including going out and dancing to eighties music with Mary and friends, afterwards eating Mac and Cheese at 2:00 am to absorb the booze. Last year, I joined Kate at Mancini's, where she informed me she is going again this year. Hi, Kate! Happy New Year!

What have I been up to? Well, I had ambitions to do a chronological account, but that's clearly not going to happen, nor would be very interesting. Instead, I'll give pictures with captions!

Okay, so in continuing crazy-cat-person-ness, I bought some cat treats that I have been giving to stray cats. I made friends with a cat that lives in the Armenian quarter, near the Armenian Catholic church. Also, there was a cat in the Monastery of the Holy Cross that DEMANDED so serious loving:
We went to the Temple Mount and saw the Dome of the Rock, which I will talk about in more detail later. I just wrote a bunch about it and deleted it -- there's so much complicated history there, so it's hard to write about it, particularly in the flip way that I usually write.

I will say, from the Temple Mount, you can see the Mount of Olives and the Valley of Josaphat, which according to some traditions is where we are all going to go when the world ends:
I sat and looked at the view for a long time. Not bad!

Speaking of the world ending, I generally don't wear crocs, but there are some cases where I make exceptions:
Cute:
I wonder if I wouldn't rather go here when the world ends:
Or maybe here: