Red Alert!

Red is a power color. Most politicians, business people, VIPs walking the red carpet, and the Red Queen know this.

Red is a color of danger. Emergency lights, stop signs, do-not-walk lights, and Satan know this.

And now, researchers at the University of Rochester have concluded a study that finds that men go GAGA over a lady in red. And not only when she is dressed in the color, a picture of a lovely lady framed in a red border apparently also gets the male heart pittering and pattering and opening his wallet to spend lots and lots of money on a date.

Why is this? Well, the researchers surmise that it’s probably related to more primitive biological roots.

Huh?

You know, humans are related to higher primates, and those primates are really hot for the girls displaying red.

Primates? Red?




Oh. Yeah.


Evolution-wise, humans have given up their monkey ways, but this study points out that -- maybe not so much.

What about gay men? What about color blind men? They weren’t included in the study, so who knows about the primitive urges there.

So, a baboon's bright red butt screams sex. A woman wearing red screams sex.

Alice’s favorite color is blue. She wonders about the screaming there.

Morning has Broken

Usually Alice’s sense of smell is the first to awaken in the a.m. Roasted coffee smell. Ummm. Very good. That first cup of coffee? Well It’s just okay, and she is always surprised that the taste is not on par with the smell. But then she does love the smell of freshly mowed grass, and is quite sure that eating a clump of it will not lead her to look for recipes.

Also, they say (you know those vague They people out there who are always saying something) that just smelling coffee is good enough for changing the activity of several genes. Well, okay, this result came from testing rats, but you know.

An interesting odd factoid is that chemical compounds, known as thiols, are found in many things, including coffee. Thiols are also the lovely ingredient in skunk spray. Hmm. Cofee. Skunk spray. Yum.

But Alice’s awakening yesterday morning was not brought about by brewed thiols. It wasn’t her sense of smell that was alert. It was her sense of touch. But there was no cup of java placed into her hands. There were towels. Lots of towels.

An overnight visitor had done something to the bathroom in the middle of the night and an overflowing toilet had drenched the wall-to-wall carpet in the living room. And the owner of the house (TOOTH) had thought it a great idea to take all the towels and throw them on the rug and stomp on them, then take the soaked towels and throw them into the dryer. Step two: repeat the above. Step three: ibidem.

ALICE: But the dryer will take hours to get the towels dry enough and. . .
VISITOR: Don’t worry! This is a good plan.
ALICE: Plan? You call that a plan? We need a professional. Someone who knows how to fix this mess.
TOOTH: You are being very dramatic and it’s really too early for this. What we need is coffee. We’ll take turns stomping on the towels and drying them. It’ll be a useful thing to do. But, actually, I have to go to work so I’ll leave you two to do it.
VISITOR: Well, actually, I have a train to catch this morning so I must beg off.
ALICE: WORK? BEG OFF? Nuh, uh! I’m NOT staying here alone to stomp on towels. Why, it’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever. . .

Alice looked over to the rug and noticed that her footprints were clearly marked in the wet depressions. She noted that she was not flat-footed or high-arched. Which was good.

Thus, by tracking our foot-prints in the sand, we track our own nature in its wayward course, and steal a glance upon it, when it never dreams of being so observed. Such glances always make us wiser.

That’s what Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in a story found in Twice-Told Tales.

“How will I be able to take a shower if ALL the towels are on the floor?”

That’s from wiser Alice .

Star Struck

No, not the kind that populate the night skies.


And not the kind that congregates in a land far, far, away.



The star that struck the man of the house with the power of incapability is not as jazzy or as razzy as the above.

It can usually be found on the lower left-hand side of an implement that millions use with little or no instruction. Otherwise know as this.

Man of the house (Moth) lives in an apartment building in Washington, DC, which doesn't have a doorman or concierge or even a neighbor who will open the door to visitors. If one decides to stop over for dinner with Moth, one calls on the phone in the foyer, and then Moth has to press "*" and then "9" on his phone in the apartment. A buzzer sounds and the visitor opens the door and is on the way to food, drink, and conviviality.

Except Moth doesn't get it, yet. Though he's lived here for over a year. He can't coordinate the two steps. Sometimes he presses "9" first, then the star symbol. Other times he presses the "pound" key. Just for good measure there are times when he presses "*" then "9" and the "pound" key. It usually ends up that I have to go downstairs and unlock the door. The reason I have to go is because Moth says that since I am only the Visitor of the house (Voth), that chore falls to me.

Moth is not a dull-witted person. Really. He is quite knowledgeable about many things; he gives lectures, he writes, he edits. He. Just. Can't. Or. Won't. Press."*". First.

So his oldest son came to visit. Brilliant man. Thinks, writes, lectures at university. Moth went out to walk the dogs and forgot to take his keys. Again. When he returns, he calls on the phone in the foyer. Oldest son is the only one awake and he answers. Wakes me up because he doesn't know what to do.

"Just press * and then 9."

I doze off.

"It's not working. It's not working! Why the hell is it not working!"

I go downstairs in my pajamas to open the door for Moth and the dogs.

Here's what I think:

Any Road

For a moment, nothing happened.Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.

--Douglas Adams

So I read -- again -- that Stephenie Meyer, author of the vampire-centric Twilight series, had had a dream about two people in a meadow murmuring to each other, and then had awakened to type fast, faster, fastest, since she didn't want to forget what she was hearing in her head. Days of hearing the dialogue in her head. Nights of not being able to sleep more than a few hours because like a snooze button on her alarm, words and sentences were beeping every nine minutes or so, and she had to type, type, type.

I had a brilliant idea! I would go to bed early, and fall asleep right away. I would sleep and I would dream. Yes. A plan. That's what I would do. That's what I did. Except it was not early. I did not fall asleep right away. I did not dream. Or maybe I did. *shrugs*

I think the b*tch used hallucina. . . um . . . hallucinati . . . I think she used drugs.

I had a brilliant idea! I would go to the master. You know, Mohammed. Mountain. Etc.

My sister! I would ask her what to take so that I could hear voices in my head speaking in complete sentences with character, plot, rising climax, denouement and all that stuff just waiting for me to process and sit and type, type, type to the nth power.

There was a problem, though. I imagined it would be like this:

ALICE: SISTER! I NEED DRUGS!

SIS: Don't we all.

ALICE: NO. I NEED DRUGS. JUST ME. LET IT BE ABOUT ME!

SIS: Why are you shouting?

ALICE: I NEED . . . drugs. So I can hear the characters in the book I'm going to write murmuring somewhere. Then I can stay up all night typing and in four days I will have a finished and complete book that YOU can read.

SIS: I see. You don't need drugs. You need discipline. You need organization. You need to STOP BOTHERING ME AT WORK. I'm busy. Put down the magazine, get off the email, and WRITE. Do I have to remind you -- again . . .

ALICE: Not about that stupid dog, is it?

SIS: . . . about Marley and Me?

ALICE: Maybe I'll write about a vile and wicked sister who is not sympathetic to her sibling's plight!

SIS: That's the spirit! Throw out those ideas! Don't you think that it's nice that you have me in your life as a sounding board?

ALICE: I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

SIS: Stop quoting Douglas Adams.

ALICE: No drugs?

SIS: Not yet.

So, to avoid all that, I'll just not call her. After all, it is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

SIS: Stop quoting Douglas Adams.

Sharing and Caring

Sarie is visiting for the holidays. She is trying to convince me to move from Deacon's apartment, and live with Tina, who is looking for a roommate. Tina has an apartment in midtown NY...she also has an ENORMOUS dog. I like dogs but this one is too big. The story is that many years ago, Tina went to buy a puppy -- a chihuahua, actually.

However, once she locked eyes with this other cute puppy, she was hooked. It turned out that said cute, little, puppy grew up to be an ENGLISH MASTIFF. It's huge and it's mouth spews out streams of slobber, just like Fang in the Harry Potter movies. As a matter of fact, Tina has baskets of rags throughout the apartment. She calls them slobber rags and uses them to clean whatever the dog soiled with his mouth...furniture...people. Lovely.

SARIE: Don't worry about the dog; he doesn't slobber all the time.
ALICE: Oh? It sure looks like it.
SARIE: No. It will be fine, you'll see.
ALICE: Another thing. When I went to visit them, the apartment smelled of...dog, too much dog.
SARIE: Pshaw. That was because Tina hadn't been cleaning in a while.
ALICE: What? So you think I would enjoy being with a roommate who doesn't clean?
SARIE: Don't judge. She hasn't been cleaning because she's depressed.
ALICE: What? So you think I would enjoy being with a roommate who doesn't clean her dog's slobber AND is depressed? Why would that be a good situation for me?
SARIE: Well, she thinks you're fun and wants to hang out with you. It's not all bad. I mean she likes to go out and oh yes, she would sit around at night with you sharing a bottle of wine. That would be cool, no?

Well, I guess I've had worse offers, so I am considering it. But then, an image comes to mind of me -- being an excellent roommate -- walking the dog AND using a big ole garden shovel to scoop the poop.

Now a chihuahua! THAT would have been a no brainer.

This Little Piggy

So, Alice here had three hours of sleep before it was time to return to work. Deacon had a holiday gathering last night and his friends brought their friends and so on and so forth. So it was a very late night -- or, rather, an extremely early morning.

It's not so bad arriving to work with a hangover. Really. It gives one a unique perspective on the mundane. And my office mates decided that the only way to shake off the boozetastic lethargy was to drink more. So, yep, that's what we did at lunch...finished off the eggnog -- without the doctors.

All was well; I was feeling better and alert and I was rushing to finish the day's paperwork. Then Office Mate #1 came running into my room to pick up some files.

OFFICE MATE #1: MAN! I have to be in turbo mode right now. I mean, the pig is high and I still have to get the blood.
ALICE: Well...um...okay.

Apparently, it isn't enough to know how to use a computer in this office -- even though we don't have a computer in this office. It seems not to matter whether one knows how to unjam belligerent copy machines. No. As far as I can tell, other duties as assigned apparently include some sort of sacrificial experience. Which I don't have -- yet.

So I decided not to worry about my office mate, a high pig, or blood. After all, I had to locate a file, which turns out to have been stored in the bathroom. I climbed into the tub and found it after five minutes.

I'm really good that way. Not for nothing, but that should count for something.

Yes, I am going to sleep very early tonight. Why do you ask?

If it had grown up,' she said to herself, 'it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.

--Alice in Wonderland

Spending Quality Time

EGGNOG! That's the best way to get through a workday -- well at my office, anyway.

Office mate #2 brought in a big ole container of the stuff, which she had made just before she came to work.

Office mate #1 broke out the little cups used for urine samples-- yeah, pretty ugh, I know -- and we did a taste test. It was POTENT. Just like we needed it to be.

Office mate #1 offered some to the doctors and one accepted and the other declined. When she saw that we were laughing and a little too happy, she acted alarmed.

DOCTOR #2: I hope there is no alcohol in that eggnog!
OFFICE MATE #2: What! How can eggnog not have alcohol?
OFFICE MATE #1: Is it even called eggnog if it doesn't have the booze?
ALICE: Yeah, it would just be an egg float--or something.

Doctor #1 is very proud that he knows a lot about...a lot. So after taking seconds, he decided to impart some wisdom to us.

DOCTOR #1: You know eggnog is a shortened form for what was originally called "egg and grog in a noggin".

ALL OF US: Yeah, o.k. No more for you.

Then, it was time to stop the nogging because patients started arriving. As a matter of fact a couple was sitting in the waiting room -- holding hands.

OFFICE MATE #1: Alice, you don't know them but they are the sweetest lovebirds.
OFFICE MATE #2: Yeah, I love them.
ALICE: Oh, are they both here to see the doctor?
OFFICE MATE #1: Yes. You see, the woman is taking steps to change her gender; she will be the man.
OFFICE MATE #2: And her boyfriend wants to change his gender; he knows that he IS a woman.
ALICE: But...
OFFICE MATES #1 AND #2: Yeah, don't even worry about it.

So the buzz didn't last all afternoon -- as I had hoped. An hour, and probably 6,000 calories later, we were all back to a pre-inebriated state. Pity.

But there's enough left over for tomorrow, if we want to share some again.

Hmm. Well, is the pope...well, you know the rest.

Blameless in NY

Alice has finally fallen before the power of a severe cold. She put up the good fight but the cold brought in a reinforcement. Deacon's newest Warm Body has been coming over...too much...yeah, I m saying it, and she has always been sick. I mean in the congested, coughing, germ-y sense. But Deacon does not believe that Warm Body is the culprit.

DEACON: Oh, come on! Why is she to blame for your illness?
ALICE: No reason. I mean, I'm sure it doesn't count that every time she's here, she's coughing out green gunk.
DEACON: Well, that doesn't mean that she passed on the germs, right?
ALICE: Or that she's the only one I know who is sick right now...
DEACON: That doesn't mean anything...
ALICE: ...Or that I suspect that she has been using my toothbrush and my towel...
DEACON: Now, I think you just have it in for her. She's not sick. She told me she's o.k.
ALICE: Or how about that she always says, I'm so sick, instead of hello.
DEACON: Oh, she's just trying to be amusing.

Is it true love? No. It's just an annoying example of a sentiment expressed in a song which had these lyrics: If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

Oh wait! Warm Body is here. Again.

WARM BODY: Gah! I'm sick! I've been sick since September!

Alice looks to Deacon who is busy trying to find the cold medicine.

Alice just hopes that she can convince Deacon to insist that the next Warm Body after this one pass a medical exam from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One Never Knows

Charlie is one of my building's doormen. He is affable and it is very easy to spend an hour chatting with him. One morning he had stopped me and we had a long talk about...life, love, the pursuit of happiness. You know, the usual.

Charlie has been divorced for two years and was telling me about the new woman in his life. She is very special to him, he said, but if it came to choosing to keep a date with her or rushing to his ex-wife's house to take care of his two children, he wouldn't hesitate to do the daddy thing. His girlfriend is seemingly understanding. So far.

CHARLIE: After all, what woman wants to be number two, or three, or whatever in a guy's life?
ALICE: Well, she knows that you are a good father and if the kids need you to drop everything, she probably is happy that you are such a hands-on parent.
CHARLIE: Yeah, she's cool that way. And very secure. I really like her.

Charlie then told me a story about a long-ago tenant who was socially awkward and finally--at 42 years of age--spent a night with a woman.

No comment.

CHARLIE: Yeah, check this out! He met her one week. The next week he slept with her...
ALICE: How do you know this?
CHARLIE: He told me. He used to tell me everything. You know, doormen are like bartenders or therapists. Without the booze or the couch, of course.
ALICE: Yeah, I figured...
CHARLIE: Anyhoo, a few months later, he told me that she was pregnant and was taking him to court for child support. She didn't want to get married. She actually hated his guts! But he was very rich and she just wanted a piece of the money.
ALICE: Well. She slept with him just to get pregnant and get him to support her and the kid?
CHARLIE: Don't look so surprised! Don't be so naive! A lot of women would do that.
ALICE: I don't think that I could just...sleep with someone I loathed for money. I mean...
CHARLIE: Yeah, you probably are the type that believes in passion, romance, and
ALICE: Well, some sort of love!
CHARLIE: Good luck, baby. You could probably do a lot of things if you had to.
ALICE: No. For example, I could never eat those revolting wormy things that those people swallow for money on that television show.
CHARLIE: You wouldn't eat crap for lots of money?
ALICE: NO!
CHARLIE: Well, I guess then that you really wouldn't sleep with someone that you didn't care about. It would be...
ALICE: Like eating worms! Yeah, just like that.
CHARLIE: You're weird!
ALICE: No kidding!

Then, for some curious reason, as I rode the elevator to the apartment, I kept on hearing this little refrain in my head: Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms...

Well, I do remember that I tasted a deep-fried cicada once. But I did have a feeling of affection for it. Yeah, I did.

Clearly Obscure

One of the more unpleasant tasks at work is filing. It would be alright if the patients' charts were computerized but the doctor has been following the same system for forty years and it's been working fine, thank us very much!

System? As far as I can tell, if one needs to find a file one can:

1. Look in this pile over here;
2. Look in that pile over there;
3. Look in those piles under here and there in the doctor's examining room;
4. Forget about it and make an new file.

So, whenever I or my co-workers find a file--on the very first try--it is always a bit of a celebration for us. Yes, I know, we're lame and stupid. But you take your successes wherever you can get them, at least in this office.

The other day co-worker #1 was frustrated. She had been looking for a file for ten minutes and she had been here, there, everywhere. As she has been doing for the last couple of weeks, she was loudly commenting that she needed to find a job in a normal office.

CO-WORKER#2: What constitutes a normal office?
CO-WORKER#1: You know! A place where one can hit a few keys on the computer and information pops up immediately and...wait, hold on! Oh my God, I found it!
CO-WORKER#2: YAY!
ALICE: YAY!

After a few seconds of happiness, we got back to the serious matter at hand. Co-worker#1 was thinking about breaking up with her boyfriend of ten years. She had expected him to put a ring on her finger by now, but this is what he tells her: He likes the way things are. He's comfortable. He's content. He's not getting married. Maybe soon, but not yet. He can't find a good reason to commit himself at this moment. Maybe soon, but not yet.

I didn't know what to say to her so I followed co-worker#2's lead and joined her in murmuring what, apparently, co-worker#1 wanted to hear: oh, we're so sorry that you are sad after being mistreated by that man...for so many years. You deserve better.

Co-worker#1 thanked us for our undivided support. We paused for a few seconds to mourn the possible demise of this...um... torrid...love affair. Co-worker#1 then looked at us and smiled.

CO-WORKER#1: But, hey, things are not so bad. I found the Parker file!
CO-WORKER#2: YAY!
ALICE: YAY!

I really need to find another place to work. Soon.