Many are the reasons why fall is not my favorite time of year:
*My wicked summer tan fades to nothing
*Pre-winter fat begins to encase my body
*My favorite holiday — my birthday — is six months away
Granted, fall is when baseball blessedly falls off the sporting map and gives way to superior sports like football, hockey and curling. So that’s a good thing. But fall is when the barfberries come out and ruin my life for the month of November.
You may be unfamiliar with these apricot-colored stink bombs. It’s OK. I’m here to help.
A barfberry is the colloquial term for the world’s most stank-ass tree, the ginkgo biloba. Or just the ginkgo tree if the proper name is too much effort. These are the trees that line sections of North Winooski Avenue in Burlington and in late October/early November they begin to drop their seeds and make their surroundings smell like something your dog yakked up.
Every year, I have wondered why the city would ever put such trees in the ground in the first place. I understand they’re pretty — their golden leaves are shaped like delicate Chinese fans and they symbolize a romanticized view of the Orient before the West ruined it with our thirst for cheap sneakers and crap knickknacks. But when the city planted the trees 25 or so years ago, they should have realized they smelled to holy Hell.
Yesterday, my coworker Dan Bolles mentioned to me in passing that GWAR, the scat, sex and sci-fi-loving shock rock band, would be judging the 14th annual dog Halloween costume contest at Burton on Tuesday. Come again? You mean GWAR, of the 3-foot protruding phalluses and gigantic swinging ball sacs? Yes, the very same. They happened to be in town for a show at Higher Ground Tuesday night. Well, I knew what I was doing on Tuesday afternoon.
GWAR about to devour a Burton employee’s pooch.
When I arrived at Burton’s flagship store in Burlington, the lobby was packed and three members of GWAR — Oderus Urungus, Balsac the Jaws of Death and Beefcake the Mighty — sat around a table, warming up the crowd before the contest, which served as a fundraiser for Burton’s affliate Chill program. I’m not sure how to put into words the absurdity of the scene — hoodied bros and girls with neon wayfarers atop their heads crowding around these all-powerful interplanetary man-beasts who stood about 8 feet tall.
Without one shred of irony, Oderus, the band’s lead singer, laid down the judging matrix: a 1 to 10 scale based on creativity, originality and overall costume awesomeness. Special bonus points would be given to owners who dressed like their dogs, or vice versa.
Recently, I’ve been asking myself the question in this post’s title. Why do people hate safety? What is so offensive about trying to be safe and not die a bloody, mangled mess? Perhaps I should explain what I’m talking about.
For the past couple months, the GF and I have been volunteering for the Safe Streets Collaborative, a partnership between Local Motion and the Burlington Police Department, as well as other community members and organizations. The point of the collaborative is just like it sounds — to make streets safer for everyone using them. Sounds pretty inoffensive to me. Again, I ask who doesn’t like safety.
Apparently, this guy didn’t like safety, and look what became of him.
Our volunteering has taken the form of “intersection intervention,” or as I call it Bike Light Recon. Basically, that means that we and other bike nerds stand on busy corners at night and flag down cyclists who do not have lights on their bikes. In Burlington, it is required that people have a flashing white light on the front of their bike and at least a reflector in the back. Most people don’t know this is a city statute, thus the point of the Bike Light Recon. It’s all about Ed-U-Cation.
Also the point of Bike Light Recon — making the streets safer for cars, pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchairs, old people, people who are infirm, dogs, squirrels, etc. But apparently that is offensive to people. I’ll explain.
Sunday marked the first time I have ever sat inside a giant piece of produce. It also marked the first time I have ever rowed a giant piece of produce on Lake Champlain. But when you’re a celebrity like me, you participate in quaint community activities like this, if only to give the fan(s) what they want — a sighting of me in the flesh. I also sign autographs at Borders on Saturday afternoons and give readings of my work at the University Mall Wednesday nights and alternate Tuesday mornings.
That’s me, representing the 7D Crew, goopy-gourd styley.
Anyway, since I was deemed the “sportiest” Seven Dayser, it was my responsibility to represent the word factory in Sunday’s Giant Pumpkin Regatta, which raised money for Linking Learning to Life — some program meant to help keep kids out of jail or something. I was happy to oblige, since it meant not only did I get to flap around in the water, but I also got to dress up. Yippee!
I decided my costume would be functional and fashionable, so snorkeling gear made the most sense. If I was going in the drink, as least I wouldn’t get water in my eyes. Maybe I could even catch a glimpse of a zebra mussel or two underwater. I borrowed a wetsuit and fancy snorkel set from a friend and somehow squeezed my way into the three millimeter neoprene. And because no costume is complete without a wig, my boss graciously provided one from her enviable collection of fake hair.
According to the city’s paper of record, the Burlington Free Press, MTV’s “The Real World” is coming a-knockin’ on lil’ ol’ Burlington’s door. They’re looking to cast folks for their 24th season of the “reality” show, considered the granddaddy of the genre, and the longest-running program on MTV, formerly known as the station that played music videos.
The photo above is what the “Real World” looks like in Cancun, Mexico, minus the barrios and aching poverty.
Now, I know what you’re wondering — what is this “real world” of which you speak, Lauren? The cruel world where people get laid off from their jobs, can’t afford health care and get caught in poverty’s downward spiral? No, I mean the real world of cheerleaderish post-teens with preternaturally sparkling teeth named Ashleeye and Madysonne whose problems range from where to get the best California wax to figuring out which alcohol will get them drunk without making them fat.
Recently, I received a letter from the president and C.E.O. of Vermont’s largest hospitalregarding fundraising. Below is my response. Please enjoy.
Dear Dr. Melinda Estes,
Thank you for your letter dated September 16. I appreciate you thinking of me and taking the time to write. It must be tough for you to find a spare minute in your day, what with you being the president and C.E.O. of Vermont’s largest hospital and all. And running it well, from what I hear from friends who are doctors and nurses there. They quite like what you’ve done with the place since you were hired in 2003.
I’ve witnessed the high quality of health care at Fletcher Allen myself in the past few months. In the early part of the year, I went to Africa and came back with some nasty stowaways in my belly. Thankfully, FAHC was there for me in my hour, or rather months, of need. My intestinal tract will forever be in your debt.
Not only are my guts indebted to you, but I am as well. Well, I’m actually, like, in real debt. I still owe your hospital about $100 for all of the travel health clinic, gastroenterologist and colo-rectal surgeon visits I made from January to April. That’s why I can’t quite figure out why you sent me a letter asking me to donate to the hospital’s Annual Fund.
The photo to the right is an illustration of me trying to figure out why you sent me this letter.
I understand we’re in tough economic straits. Why do you think I still owe you guys $100? But really. You’re trying to bleed a stone and it ain’t gonna work.You should know that. You’re a board-certified em dee.
While I appreciate the “recent achievements” of the hospital that you outlined in your letter, perhaps a nicer tack to take would have been something along the lines of “Dear Lauren, Sorry we sent your name to a collections agent and sorry we destroyed your credit. We’re prepared to forgive and forget if you pony up some greenbacks to help us get a few new EKG units. Love, Mindy.”
If green is the new black and gay is the new green, then that must make New York City the new gay.
Whatever. Anyway, what I mean to say is that, according to an article in the inimitable, hard-hitting news org Time magazine, the Big Apple is greener than the Green Mountain State. But how is that possible? I mean, I’m no Bill McKibben or anything, but Vermont is the essence of green. We invented green. Green didn’t exist before Vermont cooked it up in a secret underground lab.
This is what environmentalists look like in New York City. Not really. It’s a giant rat.
Time gets this little morsel of highly inflammatory information from someone named David Owen, who apparently wrote a book smearing Vermont and praising New York City for being environmental stewards on par with John flipping Muir. Owen’s new book Green Metropolis: What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability posits that New York City is the greenest city in America. Um, has he ever been to Queens? Just wondering.
In a September 24 Q&A with Time transcriber Claire Suddath, Owen calls out Vermont for not being anywhere close to green. By Owen’s standards, we’re not even chartreuse or aquamarine. We might as well be soot colored.
…wherein Lauren waxes philosophical and crap about hanging with the haters.
Now that the charming and affable Phelps clan of Westboro Baptist Church infamy have finished up their whistle-stop tour of hate here in Vermont and have zoomed out of the state in their peppy little Kia minivan, it might be appropriate to reflect on the day. Other people more introspective and cerebral than I might offer some sort of analysis about hate and peace and love and all that junk, but I can only tell you what I took away from the day. And in order to tell you what I took away from the day, I have to tell you what the day entailed. So here goes. Apologies if you nod off.
I hauled my fanny out of bed at 6 a.m., which for a reporter is like being asked to do math or not make stuff up. I hit the road to Montpelier by 6:45 a.m. so I could make it to the high school in time to watch the Swiss Family Bonkers picket students as they rolled into school for their first day back from summer vaykay. Of course when I arrived I was the last media person on the scene. Everyone was there- radio, TV, the daily print papers from around the region. No one was going to miss the most exciting thing to happen to sleepy Vermont since gay marriage.
11:15 a.m.- After a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday outside of OZ Synagogue- “Happy Birthday to Kennedy’s death, Happy Birthday to Kennedy’s death, the Jews lost their favorite waterboy, Happy Birthday to Kennedy’s death”- the Phelpses piled into their sweet Kia Sedona and hightailed it out of town. Please indulge me in a few observations:
1. The Phelpses (and I say Phelpses because there wasn’t a one of them who wasn’t part of the clan. They like to keep in the fam, nomsayin?) are nothing if not law-abiding. There’s not a jaywalker among them. They hit every crosswalk and followed every directive they’re given by police. When they were told to stand in the greenbelt outside of Chabad, goshdarnit, they stood in the greenbelt. I bet they even drive the speed limit.
2. The Phelpses are really fast walkers. Shirls is a powerhouse. She could go to the Hate Olympics for speedwalking.
3. The Phelpses are really bad singers. No, like REALLY bad. Like braying donkey bad.
4. The Phelpses are not nice. Despite appearances, they’re actually pretty mean. Shirls told me I didn’t look like a professional journalist. Ok, what part of my jeans, T-shirt, sneaker outfit made me look unprofessional?
5. The Phelpses don’t really have their facts straight. Shirls called Seven Days a “fag paper,” which I take exception to since neither of the female owners of the paper are fags. They’re not even dykes. WTF!!! Factcheck, Shirls, before you make outrageous claims like that.
Oh, how I love college kids.
Nothin’ says get the hell out of our state like a little pie in the face.
Many are the reasons why fall is not my favorite time of year:
