Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Ego Boost

This popped up unexpectedly in my in-box yesterday, from a Namibian I hadn't heard from since October. Yes, I can appreciate an email like this.

Just got back from 5 months in the Caprivi Strip building a lodge, was damn hard work but an experience. You can use whatever you want about me in your book. I'm sure I will be one of the many that fancied you in a big way.

Should I tell him he was one of only two "fanciers" between Cape Town and Cairo over four months in 2001? Nah...

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you want more "fanciers," consider getting a diamond inlay in your front tooth. Very popular in Germany and drives the men crazy!

Amanda Castleman said...

Marie, we seem to be sharing an audience ... an audience of diamond-inlay enthusiasts, no less, judging by the Dive Bar Diva comments on my blog.

Or maybe the phenom's spread further than we ever suspected.

I heard Paris Hilton was contemplating some sparkle for Tinkerbell, until the Chihuahua attacked a Today show producer. Imagine how much worse the bite would have been with a glass-cutting incisor...

Marie Javins said...

I don't buy into this diamond thing at all. How come diamonds are a girl's best friend but man gets to hang out with his dog? That's totally unfair. I'd take a beagle over a diamond any day... 'cept you don't have to pick up warm diamond sh*t off the sidewalk. And a diamond doesn't cry when you leave home for six months. Hm, maybe I've got this backwards... someone call my dentist!

Anonymous said...

We get dogs because that's all we can afford after buying you people the damn diamonds.

Marie Javins said...

"You people?"

Cut me some slack! All I ever got was a George W. Bush calendar of dumb@ss sayings, a stuffed donkey called Balthazar from Coney Island skeeball, a comb stolen for a hotel in Shanghai that said "I combed the streets for you," and a GPS.

Send all diamonds to me at PO Box 2132 NY NY 10009. (But don't come whining to me when I sell them on eBay and buy a digital Canon.)

Marie Javins said...

And if you can't afford a diamond, I could use a chinois for straining mulberry seeds.

e. Readicker-Henderson said...

Isn't putting "George Bush" and "dumbass" in the same sentence a pleonasm? One already describes the other, so you don't need both?

My last girlfriend got quite amazing presents. Which she um . . . might as well have sold on eBay, as it turns out.

But clearly, you date the wrong men.

Amanda Castleman said...

Don't we all?

Wrong men have thus far munificently bestowed:

An iguana with a faulty bottom, which fell out
A broken antique typewriter ("It was fine until I checked it on Alitalia!" he protested.)
A keychain depicting an embalmed and skinned human foot
Three zinc lozenges

Wait, I forgot the necklace of sapphires arranged into a heart – about as far from my personal style, even at age 16, as was humanely possible.

The pendant's gathered dust in an old jewelry box for years. But at last I can give those gemstones new life, by having them embedded above my eyebrows.

The look will be fresh and HOT! Plus, it'll bring out the cobalt highlights in my baby blues...

Marie Javins said...

AC's list is marvelous. And other's should feel free to post their lists as well... surely we're not the only ones lacking in romantic tokens. But I must rise to the defense of my GPS, which may not be the least bit romantic, but is a far more practical gift than an iguana or a skeeball donkey. Plus the bestower reads this blog. :-)

Amanda Castleman said...

Wait. I forgot my $7 replacement wedding ring from Port Authority bus terminal!

(I'd lost the $25 original rock-climbing. The marriage is no more ... but hey, at least no one's too deep out of pocket.)

Marie Javins said...

Maybe e. r-h will buy us both diamond tooth inlays if we ask nicely.

e. Readicker-Henderson said...

diamond teeth inlays for all my friends. But only if we inlay them in the shape of my initials, and I'm not sure you or Ax have teeth that big.

Amanda Castleman said...

Are you kidding? I had to finance that man's grapefruit gum habit in the Balkans...

Amanda Castleman said...

I have very dainty molars, thank you very much. Surely 3 or 4 carats will do the trick.

However, you might prefer yellow diamonds to match the coffee stains. They're trendy and rare, but I think you'll agree I'm worth the extra expense.

After all, who took you to see the oldest nude in Dalamtia?

e. Readicker-Henderson said...

Amanda, darling, I think I'm the one who kept shelling out for the grapefruit gum.

All we have to do to check your memory is notice that you couldn't even figure out why Marie wanted to buy you a piece of cake on your birthday.

Perhaps we should save that last bit of the grapefruit gum you have, of the Bosnian honey I have, to celebrate Marie's book when it comes out.

Won't that make you feel better, Marie? Knowing that we're in Norway, having a sugar rush in your honor?

Marie Javins said...

Yeah, it'll be great to sit bored out of my skull in my hot apartment staring at the iBook and coloring Duck Noses so that my puny paycheck makes a minor dent in the mortgage, while from the coast of Scandinavia, you and Ax toast my rash 2001 expenditure of all my wealth. Nothing would make me happier.

Ax, don't go near that grapefruit gum once you've got your diamond inlay.

Sara Kocher said...

I'm just wondering how an iguana can have a faulty bottom that falls out. Is that similar to the beagle problem?

I don't have a complete list, but the three plastic dinosaur-shaped bottles of fruit-scented bubble bath that I got for my 21st birthday would be near or at the top. Along with the fake-ribbon-covered Opus doll. And the ruby necklace that matches Amanda's.

J gives much better presents than the above (none were from him), which puts me on the opposite end of the problem...trying to find cool things that he might like so I don't populate the list of his worst-evers.

Amanda Castleman said...

Not to get too technical, but since Sara asked: iguanas strain to expel worms and, well, the whole monty can protrude.

"Prolapsed rectum" is the official term.

The smell is disinctive. I'd walk into the apartment and think, "damn! The lizard extruded his guts AGAIN?"

Then I'd get some Vaseline and a Q-tip, reassemble his organs, and call the really expensive vet for some sutures. Which Hannibal promptly popped out. Over and over. Until he was mercifully put down and stored in my ex-boyfriend's father's freezer for 5+ years.

What's the beagle damage? Pray tell, because I am DONE with animals that can not contain their bottoms. Really, the situation should be avoided at all costs...

Sara Kocher said...

All I know about beagles is the same as other dogs...lots of picking up warm sh*t off the sidewalk (to paraphrase Marie). Oh, and having to come home to feed them, exercise them, and love them. Not a bad deal, but definitely more additional responsibility than I want right now.

And anyway, I'm allergic to all animals with fur, so no dogs for me. And no iguanas either, now.

We have a boa and he's just my speed. A little cage cleaning, the occasional frozen rat (thawed, of course), a bowl of fresh water and we're all set. He doesn't even need a pet sitter if we go away for a long weekend.