Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku and Harmonies

If someone finds and buys me this sweater, I will wear it to Trader Joe's the next time I go grocery shopping and post pictures online.

The first rule of Introvert Book Club is: Don't talk about (or at all in) Introvert Book Club.

Which I guess is why no one wants to join Introvert Book Club to gab about Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. 

When you type a word over and over again, it starts to look weird. Introverts!

Anyway, today's theme is ... damn. I just can't do it. 

[HED HERE]

Join me, quiet folk,

So they can hear us all think:
"Please — STFU!"

—J.A.G.

"When I Fall" — Barenaked Ladies

This song isn't so much about introversion as it is about a window washer afraid of heights.  Whenever I hear it, though, I think of the guy on one side of the glass, not able to hear any of the noise from the "sheep" on the other side. I'm also afraid of heights.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Credit: TBWA\PARIS, France; photographer: Vincent Fournier

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku and Harmonies

If I had written this post while I was visiting my parents in South Florida, I could have entitled it "Miami Vise." But I didn't. So I can't. I mean, I still can. I can do whatever I want. But I won't.

Today's theme, written Don Draper-style, is ...

CRUSH

You should know how our
Vises take care of vices:
We'll squeeze your sin out.

—J.A.G.

I like mussels. I like Squeeze. Pat Sajak's OK.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Credit: Baneofyourreistance.com

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

I actually saw this movie. And I needed an image.

There are three accompanying music videos today. Even if you don't feel it right this second, you will. Everything's cyclical.

Today's theme is ...

HOPE

Do I shine like a
Motherfucking diamond — OR
Dive down the mineshaft?

—J.A.G.

"Coal Miner's Daughter" — Loretta Lynn

"Shine on You Crazy Diamond" — Pink Floyd

"Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day" — YES

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

I vant ... to make ... your teeth!

I'm kind of in a desperate, self-imposed spot here. It's 12 a.m. ON THE DOT, I've just completed one freelance article, I have another one to complete (whoops, now it's 12:01!), and a haiku needs to spring forth from ... somewhere. And so I take a real-work intermission now.

The two stories I was hyperfocused on today were a) Anthony Weiner telling NYC he just won't quit in his bid for mayor and a former intern trashing him in the NY Daily News and his campaign manager calling the aforementioned former intern all kinds of gloriously nasty things, and b) TEETH MADE OUT OF URINE.

I think it's obvious what I have to do here. 

Today's theme is ...

IF ANTHONY WEINER'S TEETH WERE MADE OUT OF EXCRETORY STEM CELLS AND HE WERE TELLING US ALL ABOUT IT, BECAUSE HE SURE LIKES TO TALK A LOT, DOESN'T HE

Urine for it now —
Next I'm getting a pee-NEZ!
I'll text u pics, k?

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Credits: Courtesy Anvari.org

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Yep — owl.

I'm currently reading Slaughterhouse-Five. I read it once in high school, once in college, one other time after college, and now. This is one of the techniques I use to remember parts of my life: recalling time periods in which I read certain books. I don't have as much time as I used to for reading books, so thank dog for my kids — their birthdays help me keep track of my time travels more efficiently.

I'm reinhaling this Vonnegut staple because I recently heard that Charlie Kaufman and Guillermo del Toro might be working together to adapt it for the big screen, and even the slimmest possibility of that excites me beyond my wildest Tralfamadorian dreams. 

Anyway, I got to page 56 in the beat-up old paperback that I think was my mom's from when she was in high school (antiquity bonus!), and I read this passage:

"Billy traveled in time, opened his eyes, found himself staring into the glass eyes of a jade green mechanical owl. The owl was hanging upside down from a rod of stainless steel. The rod was Billy's optometer in his office in Ilium. An optometer is an instrument for measuring refractive errors in eyes — in order that corrective lenses may be prescribed."

This passage made me laugh, because I have a friend who's an eye doctor who also happens to love owls. I love owls, too, but I'm not an eye doctor. So it goes.

Today's theme is ...

OPTOMETRY AND OWLS

Whoooooooo do you think will 
Pay for your myopia?
Eye really don't know.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Credits: Courtest Vitaver; courtesy robwitham.hubpages.com; courtesy http://iriview.blogspot.com/

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Yeah, yeah — the social isolation.

Yeah, yeah — those pesky IT problems you're on your own to solve.

Yeah, yeah — the temptation to loop The Yeah Yeahs Yeahs all day long with no one to tap you gently but firmly on the shoulder and tell you to stop that right now.

Yet I've got no beef with you, telecommuting. You afford me great luxuries, including avoiding this:

And being able to create content while looking like this:

Again, if you missed it — or if you're Marissa Mayer and naturally repulsed by the mere mention (ZING!) — today's theme is ...

TELECOMMUTING

And so it begins,
that slow slide across the couch:
Time to go to work!

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Credits: Courtest Vitaver; courtesy robwitham.hubpages.com; courtesy http://iriview.blogspot.com/

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Sometimes I really hate doing this. There's no romance in torture, you dumb JPEG. 

Here it is anyway.

HAIKU HATE

Nothing clever here,
just a five-seven-five day:
Forcing the issue.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Times Haiku screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

There are two, because equal and opposite forces are required here. 

Today's theme is ...

GRAVITY

When pull comes to shove,
We accelerate our end.
John Mayer was right?!

GRAVITY II

It's so not my fault
Newton used Uranus.
Stop bringing me down!

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

I have many awesome qualities. I also have many lousy qualities, chief among them a lack of discipline. Much of what I do is unfinished, abandoned, eroded from my master plan and cast aside as life's detritus for a better person to salvage. 

Except I should be that better person. And so I write haiku every Wednesday (or Tuesday night — don't call me out on my lies, I'm too delicate for such indictments). Even when I don't feel like it  — like tonight. Even when I have no ideas. Like tonight. I don't even particularly like haiku. It can be hokey, though it can also be clever. Hokey haiku. HAHAHA.

I write other stuff, too, but this haiku business is non-negotiable for now. I have reasons. I hope the scales start to tip soon. This is no frivolous undertaking! They say a habit forms after 30 days. Now, does that mean 30 consecutive days, or 30 Wednesdays in a row, or ...

Today's theme is ...

DISCIPLINE

This grind, now reflex.
Willpower leveraged to ... hey,
Is that a Stella?

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Chaseykroyd Jon Snowden defend 'Murica against the Walter White Walkers.

Today's theme is ...

SPIES LIKE US

Move the NSA 
Back one in the alphabet.
Damn. That made it worse.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Burned in my brain forever.

If ever a Sisyphean task existed, it would be that of continually sending me invites to play FarmVille or SongPop or Words With Friends or the newest blight of Facebook, Candy Crush Saga. Cease and desist your solicitations — I will not answer these online entreaties. 

I kid, I kid! Well, not really. It's true I do prefer more tactile game play, with real-life human interaction, to virtual gaming. (Though is clicking a trackpad really much different than pressing down on a trapped, shrieking, plastic-bubble-enshrouded R2-D2? Just sayin'.) 

My reluctance to partake is not due to intellectual snobbery. If you saw the Internet ridiculousness I partake in when I'm screwing around for mental respite, you'd be ashamed for me, and to know me. It comes down to a) I don't need yet another oh-god-where-has-my-day-gone time suck in addition to Facebook/Twitter (the same reason I haven't gone near Pinterest/Tumblr/soap operas/porn), and b) I'm a video game addict.

I'm a child of the '80s, which means I grew up suckling on the teat/joystick of the Atari 2600. This resplendent wood-grained console (just four switches to Valhalla, people!) was considered more valuable than any family heirloom in the rec-room* curio. This is what the 2600 looked like, because I'm a type of microprocessor Pitocin, intent on inducing an insane midweek flashback:

This particular console also looked suspiciously like the Cablevision box from that same time period, which means "designer" James Dolan was obviously trying his hand at more than Little Feat covers:

When it comes to my nostalgia for this particular gaming system, I think Black Francis says it best:

I know, there are a lot of disparate links and vids and pics going on here. I'm appealing to the short attention span of Today's Young Person. I give the people what they want.

Anyway, after conquering the 2600, I moved on to the Atari 5200, then to the Nintendo**, on which I solved all three original "Mario Bros." games, much to the chagrin of the college professors whose classes I blew off to achieve such lofty goals. Flash-forward to 2009, when the Wii system entered my life (I bought it for my kids for Christmas, played it once, then broke my arm a week later). The Xbox infiltrated in 2011. This new little black box has mainly been co-opted by "Minecraft," complete with comforting New Age-y music to soothe a fragile mom's soul.

I can't help but gravitate to my roots, though. Today's theme, therefore, is ...

THE ATARI 2600

Let me console you:
All that Pac-Man and Q*bert
Gave you good callous.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

* We did not have a rec room. But I had friends who did. I slept over their houses a lot.

** "Adventure Island" is the hardest fucking game ever invented, for ANY game system. I defy you to tell me otherwise.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Today's theme is ...

TREPANATION

Please make me hole-y,
oh God of Dura Mater:
Drill, deity, drill!

—J.A.G. (aka "One Tough Mother")

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

[Hans von Gersdorff in Feldbuch der Wundartzney (1517)]

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku

Today's theme is ...

THE WIDENING GAP

Seeking: seismic help!
To stay this tectonic shift
To cover the cracks.

There's a reason why
"friction" sounds quite like "fiction"
And also: "fission."

I've felt this before.
I'm set for the aftershock.
I know my own faults.

It's not how I planned 
to first see the Grand Canyon,
shaken to the core.

Teasing the fracture,
a hairline becomes a gorge ...
this mangled mantle.

The heart weighs heavy:
too much for outmatched Richters;
too laden with crust.

But maybe there's hope
in changes of frequency,
in changes of heart

Life's savage tremors
can rip everything apart —
or shake it all right.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku: Cicada Sexual Revolution 2013

Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me

Let's deal with the entymological elephant in the room: The cicadas are coming (to the East Coast), and they're going to be having lots and lots of cicada sex.

Naturally, we need some hot-and-heavy hemipteran haiku here. Now. 

Today's theme is ...

THE CICADAS

Hypnotic red-eyes,
Spewing sweet stridulation ...
Ay, so there's the rub.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku: I Can't See So Good

THESE WILL SOON BE ON MY FACE.

Insurance is a tremendous thing, especially when it includes a kick-ass vision plan that allows one to purchase highfalutin' frames at a tremendous discount. When I was a kid, my hand was forced: I had to choose my eyeglasses off "The Rack" (no in-depth explanation needed for those in the know). Suffice it to say it's not the rack used as a torture device, although I'm sure my meek, myopic 10-year-old self would argue I suffered on the playground nearly as much as Guy Fawkes in the Tower of London.

Perhaps I overcompensated for these deeply entrenched socioeconomic insecurities by springing for a pair of hand-painted Ronit Furst specs tonight (pic shown above). What the hell — it's almost Mother's Day, and they were all out of pince-nez.

Today's theme is ...

VISION, OR LACK THEREOF (literal or metaphorical)

This myopia
Is not a utopia.
Stupid cornea!

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku: In Defense of Matthew McConaughey

I think we know what finger he really wants to give all you haters.

Anyone else been on a Matthew McConaughey kick lately? WHY NOT? This is no joke, people.

Thanks to his share of mediocre movie choices (Contact, Sahara, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Fool's Gold, the totally bizarre Tiptoes with Gary Oldman — wow, this is a pretty hefty list), liberal draining of the Southern Gothic/Grisham-y film trough, and somewhat-bizarre-yet-ultimately-innocuous personal exploits, Matthew McConaughey has coolly claimed the title of Hollywood Laughingstock That No One Takes Seriously. Though this Family Guy slam does nothing more than confirm my belief in Seth MacFarlane's utter lack of vision (yep, still cranky ... OK, it was funny). McConaughey's pretty much in agreement with his critics anyway.

I never had a beef with a post-Dazed McConaughey. I thought he turned in fine performances in Lone Star and Frailty. He showed off his comic timing in Tropic Thunder. And he's proved his moviemaking mettle over the past two years with Lincoln Lawyer (please turn this into a TV series!), Killer Joe, and The Paperboy.

His ascent from Shitville to "Shit, MAN, you can ACT!" (said in sexiest Texas drawl ever) has started to receive its rightful recognition. The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle colorfully pinpoints McConaughey's sudden cinematic swerve as "practically at the Jessica Chastain stage" (uh-huh) and following "the opposite of the career trajectory of Robert De Niro, who was a genius for about ten years and now stars in movies like 'The Big Wedding'" (burnnnnnn).

You also have to have mad respect for a guy whose highest-ranking movie (the critically acclaimed Mud) on Rotten Tomatoes received 98 percent, while his lowest-ranking movie (Surfer, Dude, the movie he was ostensibly born to make) received 0 percent. That's range.

Next on my McConaughey manifest*: Bernie (starring Jack Black, reaping his own accolades for this sleeper black comedy) and the previously mentioned Mud, though I'll probably just be stewing the whole time because Michael Shannon has been short-shrifted once again. I may begrudgingly see Magic Mike at some point.

This is already longer than I intended for a short midweek post. Let's get to the motherflippin', McConaughey-lovin' haiku.

IN DEFENSE OF MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY 

Don't get dude's movies?
Bring him a bock, Camilla:
Matt's earned bong-o time.

—J.A.G.

You didn't really think I wouldn't sneak my shallow kicks into this post, did you?

* SEEN SINCE ORIGINAL POST
• Bernie: Nice little sleeper
• Mud: Engaging story, fine performance
• Magic Mike: Terrible movie (but M Mc was fun to watch)
• Dallas Buyers Club: His Oscar shot — excellent (slightly more elaboration here)
• The Wolf of Wall Street: He was in it for maybe 10 minutes but earned every single one of those minutes
• True Detective: Maybe he's not The Yellow King, but he's now The King — of movies, TV, everything!

If you want more of me on Twitter, @jenngidman is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku: Narnia, 'Breaking Bad,' and the Ghost of Christopher Hitchens

If Jesse from Breaking Bad bumped into Christopher Hitchens' mothball-ridden corpse as he made his way into the bowels of Digory Kirke's wardrobe, great things would happen when he finally emerged in Narnia.

Today's theme is ...

WHAT I JUST SAID 

Hey, Aslan, whaddup?
Fuck that C.S. BS, yo
You're no Jesus, bitch.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku: Ian Ziering Joined Chippendales

Today's theme is a doubleheader. I'm an overachiever.

IAN ZIERING JOINS CHIPPENDALES

Shake it, Steve Sanders!
Your 9021 O-face
Will make us complete.

—J.A.G.

'FRIENDS' REUNION RUMORS DISPELLED

Monica will not
Rev Chandler Bing's search engine.
You've got me now, God.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Getty/TMZ composite

Hauswife's Hump-Day Haiku: Hot Dogs!

To celebrate 80-degree weather, the firing up of barbecues across The Land, and the potential comeback of Anthony Weiner, today's theme is ...

HOT DOGS

Seductive nitrites,
Temptation crammed in casings ...
Bring your condiments.

—J.A.G.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.