" danger hat: November 2005

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Ephemera: Featuring Bloodfoot (not for the faint of heart, meaning you, Ryan)


Ouch
Originally uploaded by BozAphra.
This is what weeks of derby skating has done to my foot. Actually this is what weeks of wearing crappy rink skates and thin socks has done to my foot. I've bandaged it up real good for tonight.

Also, I'm pleading for help. I need a Derby name, and am not clever enough to generate my own. The other leagues are peppered with loveliness like "June Carter Crash" and "Ellen Degenerate." One of the Arch Rival girls is thinking of "Yoko Oh No!". Please help me create my alter ego!

A Danger Hat Society ring to the winner! Bonus points from Sarah Kate if you can make it naughty librarian sounding. Bonus points from me if you can involve an incendiary device and a literary allusion...

Friday, November 25, 2005

Venom: An Inventory


Flat Eric/April Reads a Story
Originally uploaded by BozAphra.
Replicas Ryan Owns:

Jack Sparrow's Leather Tricorn
Cursed Aztec Coins from Pirates
Indiana Jones' Leather Jacket (circa Raiders)
Flat Eric from Series 1 of the Office
Monkey! from Series 2 of the Office
Crow
Gypsy
Tom Servo
(puppets in progress)
Gnome from Amelie
Klingon Daqtagh
Communicator Pin
Tricorder
Team Zissou Intern T-Shirt
and the ubiquitous Vote for Pedro T-Shirt

Replicas Ryan Wants:

59 Cadillac Ambulance/Hearse (w/ lights and alarms and a license plate that reads Ecto-1)
Delorean (w/ time dial and flux capcitor)
William Wallace's Sword
The Simpsons' House
The Incredibles' House
Jeep (w/ Jurassic Park Logo)
Dick Tracy's Yellow Fedora & Jacket
Jim Stark's Red Jacket
A pack of Morley Cigarettes
Wands from Harry Potter
Naoto's 90 degree shirt
Haruko's Vespa
Grail Diary
Batleh
Rocketeer Jacket
Rocketeer Helmet

And I'm certain I've forgotten some from both categories. Someday when we've owned a house for awhile, I'm sure that he'll want to build an exact replica of it right next door, doo-dadding it up to match the exact specs from when we first moved in.
The truly frightening thing about his illness is that it's a mild case. If you don't believe me hit www.ghostbusters.net. There are people who devote way more time, money, and effort to perfectly reconstructing props from films. I dive deeply into the waters of fiction, often drowning myself in its muddy waters; however, this need to make the landscapes of our alternate realities tangible is a different animal than my girlish escapism. And I must admit I am not entirely immune from it myself. On our first date, Ryan gave me a box of chocolates with "Choo Choo Choose Me" on the top. Since then I have purchased a leopard coat like Parker Posey's in Party Girl, and received gifts that include the same model of sex mask that Enid wears in Ghost World, Diving for Sunken Treasure by Jacques Cousteau (complete with bookplate dedication to Edward Applebee), and a stuffed Scrump from the Disney Store. I also have been known to prance around in blue shirts with carnivorous dinosaurs on the front.
Probably we should create our own glittering realities, but there is something comforting about manufacturing evidence of other worlds where pirates don't tote AK-47s and you can go back in time.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Ephemera: Derby Practice+

There is a wee little child who is at the rink on Wednesdays. She is tiny all around and blond and always in a leotard and those fleshtone tights that cover skates. I cannot, cannot emphasize how tiny she is. She is like a Little without the tail.
Todays bit o'horror: I always have the impulse to dropkick her.
I think there is something wrong with me. I really do.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Venom: The Echo Wedding

So, if you're familiar with this blog you might be familiar with a post entitled, "Drunk at Wedding." If you're new, please read the entry from 10/29. Don't worry, I'll wait for you.

Tonight Ryan and I went to a second event, a "fiesta" for the bride and groom. We really didn't know what to expect. Turned out to be another reception, complete with dancing, buffet, and my nemesis... The Open Bar. But a margarita and a half doesn't a drunk April make, so this will not be another stream of woe. I thought it would be, especially since the kids from Chicago who helped me get through the last event were very much, um, in Chicago. Oh and the girl from grade school was there (but not the Ecstacy couple). But in general it was fun until my fun-stunting migraine swelled to unbearable proportions due to camera flashes and a loud band. So now we' re home instead of lining up for the Love Shack.

Anyway, I really was counting on tonight being a huge suckfest, but it wasn't and now I have little to moan about beside the little man drilling hole in my brain behind my right eye. So in the spirit of things that don't suck I have a short list of things that really really don't suck:

1. Birth Control (I was always afraid, but it is like manna from heaven. No more debilitating cramps, hormonal protection against reproduction, and no having to rush to hide used condom wrappers when guests come over. It's a win win win)

2. Two-Day Work Week. The only time my job doesn't totally suck is around the holidays. I'm used to hoofing it in the retail world, where holidays mean you have to work and eat shit from all the people who don't have anything better to do. But when you work for a college, it's suddenly, "In observance of Arbor Day the campus will be closed from Wednesday to the following Monday, oh and Tuesday can be half day because of all your hard work." And I still get paid! It's totally brilliant.

3.The Bush White House in decline. I naturally play devil's advocate and since most folks in my circle (besides old hubby bear) lean left, I had been trying to take an even view of things. I disagreed with the war and the education plans, and actually most Bush policy in general but I could never quite get up to the "evil" level of fervor that my anti-Bush buds could despite the fact that there was something icky in my tummy. I figured it was just all the God stuff. So it actually has come as relief to have some evidence of the ick.

4. Peanut butter on a bagel and coffee. If anybody ever finds the body and I'm put on death row, this is my last meal.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Resolve by Insomnia

To encourage regular posting while also directing myself away from my navel gazing self-pity, I have decided to institute a schedule for this blog. So mote it be:

Monday: The Danger Hat Society
This idea was originally intended to be fleshed out during the annual Labor Day weekend "3-Day Novel Writing Contest" but as I was planning a wedding and also going down the mental crapper at the time, I thought it might be better to put it on hold. So now I bring it to you in serialized format each Monday. Easier said than done? You betcha.

Wednesday: Ephemera
Lists, doodles, vignettes etc... In other words, stuff I think is brilliant and hilarious that no one else cares about. Posting it on the web legitimizes it and makes me believe that there is a separate April out there who thinks and snorts about the same things I do. We'd be such good friends if only we could be in the same room, but, alas our love must remain in HTML.

Friday: Venom
Because there's no stopping a good thing, a weekly installment of gorgeous self-mutilation and pathetic overanalysis.

Saturday: The April and Ryan Show
This one may take awhile to get started, but a glimpse into the burgeoning comic strip that's stewing in my brain. What use is a super-geeky husband if you can't poke fun? Also the world loves those sweet slice of life comics like "Hi and Lois" and "Family Circus," so why can't I profit off my sweet slice of life? Also, it will never happen.

The schedule is in no way a guarantee that I will provide any of the above. Like most people I know, I am painfully ambitious with no follow through. It is however a 75% guarantee that I will abandon this blog and increase the chance of a slow death by Sinex and Orbit Gum (I've moved from Bubblemint to Citrusmint, it's like Florida in my mouth!). Here's hoping.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Wedding Pics Posted


Whew
Originally uploaded by BozAphra.
I finally got around to signing up for Flickr Pro so now I have enough room to start dumping wedding pics. The first round is up, but does not include the sequential joy of watching me go from coiffed and lipsticked to red and sweaty due to my rocking out to an embarrassing degree.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

The Power of Love

So my ever-lovely husband has ordered a cake for Nov. 5, 2005. For those of you who haven't been keeping score, this benchmark date in scientific history marks the 50th anniversary of the flux capacitor. We will be downing our sugary dessert and toasting Doc Brown's genius around 9pm at Blueberry Hill. All comers are welcome. Seriously, I mean it, we'll have a whole friggin' cake.