Baked Lunch - it's like Naked Lunch only with brownies and with clothes on

After studying the figures, I've noticed that I get more hits on posts with the following labels: Literary panels, Angelina Jolie, Spleens, and Allie Brosch. The one with the most hits was the one where I wondered if Allie Brosch (writer of Hyperbole and a Half) was doing ok. The second winner was "No Risk Anglina Jolie" based on spam mail that I got. And third was "My Hetero Spleen," which could have been popular because I mentioned Jake Gyllenhaal, also possibly because of my sexual orientation questions, and also possibly because spleens are trending. I don't know. But somewhere in all of that is the winning combination to make me a Blog Star so I'm throwing them all in one post. And I'm going to include Stephen King who starred on my a literary panel because that was the fourth popular one, and also because it's in his contract. But what to make them all do together?....

They're going to bake brownies. Cue the cooking show music! (bah tah tah tah TAH! Bah bah BAAAAH! Ba-dum)

You are now looking into a studio kitchen with a really REALLY long counter. It's about the size of the low brick wall that Charlie Brown leans against when he's having a heart to heart talk with Linus - with no visible ends in either direction. Behind the counter, smiling back at you, is Angleina Jolie, Allie Brosch, Stephen King, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Bette Midler because I mentioned not liking the song "Wind Beneath My Wings" in one of my last posts and I'm afraid that I might have hurt her feelings so I'm going to make it up to her with brownies.
"That was a run-on sentence, Gen," Stephen King says to me.
"What was?" I ask him.
"That last sentence. It needs editing."
"Thank you, Stephen, we will not be discussing my editing skills today."
"It's what you brought me on for. And really if you want any success as a writer-"
I cross my arms at that guy. "Do you WANT a brownie?"
Stephen King closes his mouth. He lowers his head, and pushes back his glasses. "Yes."
"Well, alright then. Grab an apron."
He gleefully takes the apron folded neatly next to his bowl on the counter. It is blue and in white letters it says, "Genevieve Rheams is my favorite writer and overall human." In fact, all of them are wearing this apron.  "So I guess we should start by introducing our bakers for today," I continue.  "To our far left we have Angleina Jolie."
Angelina is wearing a helmet, elbow pads and wrist guards because she is the No Risk Angelina Jolie version of herself and she's nervous about baking accidents. She grins through her mouth guard.
"And next we have Hyperbole and a Half blogger Allie Brosch."
"Genevieve," she says, wearing her triangular pink dress and her blonde hair in a pony tail sticking straight up on her head. "Are you sure you want me around sugar? You've read The God of Cake, you should know that if my inner child eats too many brownies it could destroy you all."
"I know, it's why the producers asked you to join us. Ratings suggest that people like to watch cooking shows where the cooks tweak out on sugar and destroy the studio. If possible they would also like you to develop a moonshine addiction, sell ducks on the black market, and fall in love with Stephen King."
"I'm your girl."
"Excellent. And to Allie's right we have Jake-"
Jake Gyllenhaal's eyes go wide. "My name is Carl."
"We have...Carl?"
"Yep," says Carl who is not Jake Gyllenhaal, even though he has the same smile that makes my toes go numb. "I'm a bus driver."
"What kind of bus driver?"
"I drive the tour bus for a Green Day Tribute band called Teal Day. See, I enjoy pot brownies and I was sent here by the court to learn how to cook clean ones. I brought my paperwork."
He pulls a folded white piece of paper out of his back pocket and hands it to me. I scan over it.
"Yes, well, this seems to be in order. Ok, uh Carl, I don't know how much you'll like these brownies after you've had the special ones but-"
"Oh I've never eaten a pot brownie," he says.
"But," I hold up the paper. "Yeah, you have."
"No, no. I just enjoy the idea of them. I was sentenced by an ideal court."
I look back at the paper.
"Well I'll be damned," I say. "Ok. Welcome to the show. Next we of course have Stephen King, who is chatting up the baker next to him who is the lovely! The legendary! Miss Bette Mid-"
"Don't try to flatter me, pip squeak," says Bette Midler. She narrows her eyes at me and then begins sifting flour into her glass bowl.
"Oh Ms. Midler we haven't started yet," I tell her.
"I don't have to listen to you," she says, narrowing her eyes even more until they are coin slot sized. But what shows through that slit is so much loathing that I know if I put a coin in it wouldn't be candy that comes out but hate. "I know what you said about my song."
"Oh, uh, about that. I didn't say I necessarily disliked it. I just said-"
"That you'd rather stick your head in a beehive than listen to it?"
"Uhhhhhhhh..."
"Listen, sister. That song has inspired millions of people. Make that billions. BILLIONS of people, world wide. I bet everyone here likes it." She looks down the line of bakers. "Who here likes 'You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings'?"
One by one, all of their hands go up, Angleina Jolie pausing only to spray Lysol above her head before she sticks her hand in the air.
"See," Bette tells me.
"That song reminds me of Brad and the kids," Angelina muses.
"I play it when I need writing inspiration," says Allie.
"The guys in the band ask me to play it constantly on the road," Carl-who-is-not-Jake-Gyllenhaal says.
"You don't like that song?" Stephen King asks me. "Are you missing a soul?"
"The ideal court would not approve," Carl warns.
"Alright! Alright! Look, Bette, I'm sorry I said that. I think you're a fantastic actress and I love your voice. I love 'The Rose'."
She scowls at me. "You would."
Seeing that I can not win her over I decide that it's time for our bakers to start baking.

Which will happen in part two of this post. Oh come on, don't be disappointed. It's only a 24 hour commercial break. In the mean time, Carl-who-is-not-Jake-Gyllenhaal insists that you enjoy Green Day.

Trendings Never Endings

Everglades snakes, Cruise ship captain, Jessica Alba, 1,100 year old tomb (of a female singer) were some of the things that were trending on Yahoo the other day. Like the terms "TTYL" and "Jessica Alba," "trending" is a term that I hear but don't understand. Ok, I'll admit, I know that TTYL is text language for "Trending Takes Yogurt Literally." I'm not THAT out of the loop. But when I think of the word "trending" I think of "trendy," you know, like "hip." Is this what it means? Because if it does, then this means that 1,100 year old singers are trendy! Woohoo! Archaeologists besides Indiana Jones might finally be popular instead of nerdy!

Wait a minute...now "Madonna single" and "Willow Smith" are trending. Not Everglades snakes? Well, why not? An Everglade snake could eat Madonna and Willow Smith in one gulp! Does trending not follow the laws of the food chain? Does it follow any laws, this trending, or is it some kind of renegade thing that chooses random topics for people to think about and perhaps click on when they should be doing something else at work?

Because if that's it's game then I have fallen for it. I'm not likely to click on Madonna, but 1,100 year old singer, who could pass up that one? Who was this singer? Perhaps the Madonna of her time? One of the judges on Egyptian Idol? What did she sound like, I mean, what constituted as exceptional singing that would make a Pharaoh's heart swell? It's so much more exciting for me to imagine something like that when I'm at work than focusing on the data entry stuff that I'm supposed to be doing. Um, and in case my manager is reading this, that I am HAPPY to do and DO do all of the time!...Most of the time!...Um, this is not Genevieve's blog. This is Jessica Alba's. Fire her.

There are other terms I don't understand that I should. Like "housing bubble." I keep hearing this term on NPR, and though I have magnificent reading comprehension skills and should be able to figure it out, and though I owned a house for eight years, I still don't know what it means. I can tell that it is a bad thing when it bursts. That's what the news guys seem to be saying, anyway. But what is it? It sounds kind of cute. I imagine a charming little home floating in a bubble like Glenda the Good Witch. A bubble makes the house magical and shiny, but when it bursts it gets soap all over it and everyone inside is sticky. Is that what it means? Because if it does, that's no so bad. Then you just hose off. I suspect it's something other than the cartoon that plays in my head though. Something that involves numbers, money, and other words that I don't understand like "escrow." Which makes me think of "Scarecrow." This entire paragraph only solidifies the fact that I should never own a house because the entire business exists for me in the form of "The Wizard of Oz." You know. That movie where the house FALLS FROM THE SKY AND KILLS SOMEONE.

OH! I just checked Yahoo, and the trendingness, whatever it is, has already changed. Now the top trend is...Nano quadrotor. What the hell is that? And how does it one-up Madonna being single? I don't understand trending, what makes things hot from one moment to the next. Trends bursts like house bubbles, big one minute, small and covered in liquid soap the next. It's sad really.

TTYL.

Blogging from phone - denied!

Ok, I tried blogging from my phone and it didn't work. Damness. In no way do I blame my phone, but rather my bad technology karma.

My essence thinks that electronics are a threat and it attacks them like white blood cells on an infection. I don't even have to touch an electronic device to mess it up. Sometimes when I walk past TV remote controls they explode. This is problematic because people usually have four or five of them. So when I walk into some one's living room and five remote controls spontaneously combust, it's like setting a roman candle off in some one's house. And there's no way cover it up, like if you spill Coke on some one's couch and you dab it with a napkin or lay a cat on top of it. No, this is loud, and there is shrapnel, and oftentimes your host is holding one of the remotes and you inadvertently kill him. Which is just awkward.

I wish I were one of those techie people who can fix anything, or figure out an electronic device if given a few minutes to troubleshoot it. I'm not even sure I'm using the word "troubleshoot" correctly. It would be oh so convenient if I could blog from my phone because then, hell, I could update this baby anywhere. I'm not always by a computer, but I am always by my phone. And my essence WANTS to hurt my phone, but it knows it can't because my essence is also codependent and it knows that the phone is a gateway to people. So it lets me make calls and receive them, and has recently adapted to text messages but it gets uppity at the idea of checking my email, blogging, facebooking, or joining Twitter. Honestly, by the time my essence becomes comfortable with the very idea of Twitter, it's fad will have passed. There will be something new, possibly something combining terms like "trending" and "occupy." Maybe "Troccupy," which will be shortened to "Troc" and then abbreviated to "trc," which leaves out one letter, which then makes it much more convenient to type, dnt yu thnk? Troc will be even better and more awesome than Twitter than any of us can imagine, but I won't be able to use it because my essence's karma won't be able to get within a mile of it.

So here I am, sitting at my computer and blogging, which my essence has allowed because I've convinced it that I'm not staring at a monitor but a pile of mud. I'm karmically in tune with mud, which anyone who has grown up with me or tasted my pies can attest to. I wonder if I can convince it that my phone is really a hamster. Then I can join the millions of others on Twitter! Unfortunately, it's not fooled for long because it senses lies. I mean, it is ME.

Speaking of which, gotta go. My essence has just figured out that I'm using a device and my monitor is beginning to melt.