You know you’re in trouble when your academic advisor uses his Google toolbar to search for Google, then somehow manages to pick a search engine that isn’t Google but claims to be hosting Google searches.

During kickboxing, you shouldn’t have to feel the flying sweat droplets of the guy five feet away you, who doesn’t seem to be in the same exercise class as you are but is instead kicking the living shit out of the voices in his head. If you subtly move five more feet away, you should not continue to be showered with the acrid perspiration of his overzealous uppercuts, which stings on your cheek with the utter inhumanity of it all. But you will. Dude, I didn’t ask to share your bodily fluids.

To the genius who pulled the fire alarm in the middle of kickboxing: thanks! I had no idea it was such a beautiful, balmy night, and I certainly enjoyed that last gentle breeze of autumn before it transmogrifies into the icy finger of despair that is winter. Also, I was glad to get a break from those squat hops, which feel just as bad as they sound.

More Excitement:
cupCAKE: this guy i met over the summer
cupCAKE: who lives in another dorm
cupCAKE: was knocking on my door
cupCAKE: and i’m sick and i didn’t answer
cupCAKE: and he knocked again
cupCAKE: and then he OPENed the door
cupCAKE: dressed as batman
…
kikisdemolition: did you explain to batman that you were sick?
cupCAKE: no i didn’t
cupCAKE: i could wallpost him on facebook
cupCAKE: to explain

Today’s youth and their newfangled “facebook” “wallposting” technology.

Remember, kids: BLAST OFF ON LAST REP!

Half a year ago, I enthused about the new Martha OMNIMEDIA magazine, Blueprint. They were offering a free trial issue, so I went against my better judgment and signed up. At the time, I said:

Normally I don’t go for free things with elaborate opt-out procedures (like writing “cancel” on the bill [too lazy, too much room for forgetfulness]), but this magazine seemed possibly worth the trouble. In fact, maybe I’d even subscribe.

Didn’t those words come back and bite me! Shortly after I received the magazine and invoice, we started getting busy with moving, and I put the magazine away in a box and decided to deal with it later.

Then I got a second invoice, reminding me in not-as-friendly terms that I owed Martha $18. “… your account is seriously overdue. I know that you value Blueprint, or you never would have ordered in the first place,” the letter admonished. It came in a bright yellow envelope with a “Credit Division” return address.

Yeah, yeah, I thought. I’m busy moving right now. I don’t know if I want to subscribe or not, because I’m not sure which box the magazine is in.

Then a few weeks ago I received this:

“This is your FINAL NOTICE. As you know, we have sent you repeated reminders about paying your bill; however, you have neglected to respond. This course of action seems so unnecessary when two moments of your time now will ensure you remain a customer in good standing.”

Youch! I finally figured out which box the magazine was in, flipped through it, and decided I didn’t feel like saving the amazing 14% off its newstand price. I just hope that when the credit divison comes after me and throws me in jail that I’ll get to room with Martha.

A few weeks ago I posted a conversation my sister and I had about the wondrous miniature desserts for sale at Pancake Meow. My sister, being the BEST SISTER IN THE UNIVERSE, bought me the cinnamon roll necklace I had been salivating over, and now I’m the happy owner of a miniature, scented cinnamon roll! I had even actually baked* cinnamon rolls this morning, which was an awesome psychic coincidence.

Please enjoy my dishpan hands.

* Where “baked” means “nervously opened one of those pneumatic Pillsbury tubes (waiting for that horrible POP sensation**), slapped the slices of cinna-goodness onto a pan, and threw it all in the oven.”
** Alan is the only person in the world who likes those tubes. The anticipation is just too much for me to bear. Will it open or won’t it? Will it explode? Can the force of all that air pressure injure me? cupCAKE sums it up best:

Kiki: i’m taking a two person survey. do you like opening those Pillsbury tubes that kind of pop open?
cupCAKE: no
cupCAKE: at one point i tried to force myself to do it, but usually i make someone else do it
cupCAKE: or hit it with a fork and dash out of the room
cupCAKE: yeah, those things freak me the hell out
cupCAKE: whoever invented them was a masochist

Alan has his, uh, own reasons:

Kiki: i already know the answer to this question, but i’m conducting a scientific survey for my website
Kiki: do you like opening those Pillsbury tubes that pop open?
Alan: i do!
Kiki: why?
Alan: it’s loud!
Kiki: is that it?
Alan: uh
Alan: and cool
Kiki: i’m not getting much of a soundbite out of you. i’m trying to quote you for journalistic thoroughness as an opposing viewpoint
Alan: the deafening explosion that emits from the container reaffirms my manhood and makes me realize how powerful I am

Just for the record, I’m of the female persuasion. It might be necessary to clarify that, based on my illustrious career of accidental transvestism. I don’t think I dress in a particularly mannish fashion, unless you count my unisex uniform of jeans and a t-shirt, and I’d like to think that I don’t look that much like a dude, but I’ll let you be the judge. Now presenting: Five Tales of My Gender Indeterminacy.

In fifth grade, I got my first short haircut. It wasn’t all that boyish, really, more of a short bob, I’d say. As I wandered around the playground at lunchtime, a gaggle (dazzle?) of fourth grade boys called over to me. “Hey, you! Boy over there!” I looked around. “Yeah, you in the blue shirt. Wanna play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with us?” Being somewhat of a loner, and being a big fan of TMNT, I obliged. It took several days for them to figure out there was a girl in their midst. I never did get to be Michelangelo.

In high school, I was eating dinner with a close friend of the family, an older man who was like a grandfather to me. “You know,” he mused, “you look like that actor from Titanic.” “Kate Winslet?” I offered, preening a little. “No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Last summer, I was waiting for Alan to pick me up at the airport and see my newly-cropped ‘do. As I started to enter the women’s restroom, a little girl of about 4 was walking out with her mother. As I passed them, I heard the girl’s tiny voice ask, full of innocence and confusion, “Was that a woman or a man?”

When cupCAKE showed me the amazing Face Recognition Celebrity-Lookalike Thingie, it told me I looked like Colin Farrel. Twice. Using two different pictures of myself.

This one’s less of a gender indeterminacy, but an orientation indeterminacy. Today I subbed for a kid that I have a good rapport with, who coincidentally also happens to be my sister’s friend’s little brother. “There’s a rumor going around that you’re gay,” he confided. “Why? Because I have short hair?” I wondered. “I don’t know,” he shrugged, and dashed off to his next class. So that explains why kids keep telling me I look like Ellen DeGeneres.

Mark Morford’s essays are so delectable that I want to drown them in Godiva chocolate sauce and lick the bowl long after reading them. I cannot let any reader of this website go another day without having experienced him. His rants are the most consistently hilarious, awesomely-written words in the history of the universe. A thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters might eventually churn out Shakespeare, but I doubt they could come close to Morford.

Although it’s totally wrong of me, a quote from his article “Real Death, The Final Frontier: From Steve Irwin to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, there’s still one video you ain’t gonna see on YouTube” made me chortle. (If you’d like to start with something tamer, I recommend “Dog Water, Tastes Like Chicken: Premium, meat-flavored bottled water for pets: silly trifle, or hot sign of the apocalypse?” or “Sticky Hedgehogs, Stolen Puppies: British heroines, toxic ice cream and the case of too many cute, dead mammals”. Of course, I do love All Jocks Must Get Stoned: The fantasy of ‘clean’ pro athletes is so very 1925. Why not let them all be drug-crazed gladiators?”, too, but it’s a bit more risqué…) In His Infinite Wisdom, Mordford wrote:

“But it’s glorious irony, isn’t it? That our inborn terror and fear of death is the very reason we can’t help but imitate its tropes and mock its methods and play with its silky black robes like a dumb child kicking around a live hand grenade?”

Try not to picture that.

Mark Morford, will u b my myspace friend?
[_] yes
[_] no

* It’s really a shame that there’s no feminized equivalent to “having my manbabies.” It kind of loses some of its effect when you actually could have someone’s manbabies. Or like, babies. Or something.

After a week of sheer procrastination, I suddenly got the bright idea to renew my domain name at 10:30 last night. Then I found out that kikisdemolition.com would have turned into a pumpkin at midnight, so I made damned sure to commend my own fore(?)sight. I also switched hosting companies, and was having some trouble importing the mySQL database on my new host, so I decided to harass the oft-harassed Alan, my friendly neighborhood computer programmer.

Ring, ring.
Alan, in a very business-like tone: Alan Company. How may I direct your call?
Me: Um, I’d like to rent an Alan.
Alan: For what length of time?
Me: I don’t know. Forever?
Alan: Now, I’m just a receptionist, so I’m not clear on the details, but if you want to rent an Alan forever, wouldn’t you be better off purchasing one?
Me: Um, I guess so.
Alan: Okay, I’ll transfer you to our sales department.
Alan sings some you’re-on-hold music.

All that, plus he fixed my website. What more could a girl want?