3.6.00

The Birth of Chonk

So, there isn't a whole lot to report at the moment. My days aren't that "interesting", per se, but I like the chance to be able to relax, catch up on some naps, spend some quality time at Books-a-Million, see some movies (may I recommend that you wait until "Road Trip" is on video? It's really not all that great), rent some videos (may I recommend that you wait until "American Pie" is on tv? It's really not all that great), and have hash browns for breakfast. I know that fast food isn't good for you and that McDonald's is an evil conglomerate that uses Ronald McDonald as a front for more sinister goings-on, but damn, those crunchy servings of potato goodness are just too yummy to pass up.

I've been attempting to write for the last couple of days, but aside from some snide commentary about MTV, some complaints about my brothers-in-law to be, and the sudden realisation that this year is halfway over, there hasn't been much. I have plans for the journal, though; I can't remember if it was here or on my other list (I really should just group the two together) that I mentioned that I was intending to change the format of my journal so it was more "ramble-friendly". "Hush, Baby" is... I don't know, it sounds too "girly-girl-dear-diary-i-have-a-secret-crush" for my liking. And I don't want a design to take over my words in the race for meaning and importance - that's what my main site is for. So, here it is: what was "Hush, Baby" is about to become "Chonk".

I'm yet to write the definitive history on this word, but "chonk" was conjured up by my best girl friends, Jo and Ingrid. (They're sisters, but you probably wouldn't know it; Jo is sort of short, small, brunette, and more pixie-like than ever since she had the life-changing haircut - she went from hair down to her butt to just below her ears. [Me, on the other hand... I can't take that plunge, I like my mop just the way it is.] She's also very busy and involved with university and concert band and charities and - she just seems to have a LOT going on at any given time. It's good for her; she has a lot of energy to devote to different things, but she's human - when the need arises for the energy to get back up to full throttle, she does what anyone would do: lays down on her bedroom floor in the foetal position and takes a nap. Caramel-haired Ing, on the other hand, is just more laidback than Jo. She does roughly the same amount of stuff, but without the nervous energy; she's funky and easy-going, and creates some of the most amazing visual art you're ever likely to see. When I get some money, I'm going to commission her to do some paintings for me. I think I've fallen off track here...) - anyway. Only being about a year and a half apart in age, Jo and Ing have a sisterly bond that means they share a secondary vocabulary, a whole lot of words that the ordinary person is not likely to understand and will probably dismiss as almost babytalk. It's not like they talk in a "secret code" or something, but there are words and they have their uses. In the years I've known them, their words have been passed along to me, and one of my favourites - and by far the most useful, given my largely negative, Chuckie-from-"Rugrats"-"We're doomed!" type outlook on life, is "chonk".

Jo and I talked on the phone about this just the other day. She said that it occured to her to wonder how other people cope without the word "chonk" in their everyday language. I'd have to agree. It's a great substitute for cussing, if you happen to find yourself living in a mostly Catholic household when before it was almost-anything-goes (cough, cough, me, cough); "Chonk!" "Chonkity chonk chonk, chonk chonk." "Chonk this." "Chonk you." "Chonk me!" - though I don't use it that often. (Mostly I say "frick" and "frack", but "chonk" slips in through the cracks occasionally.) It's a great tool for expressing frustration, anger, a lack of emotional wellbeing, tiredness, vagueness, apathy, and complete and utter exhaustion, i.e.: "How're you feeling?" "Chonked." "Ah." / "How was uni today, dear?" "It was _chonked_, mum." (If you're still not getting the feel for chonk in the "-ed" form, think of "stuffed", "screwed", or "fucked up".)

Go on, say it out loud. "CHONK." It's fun to say, and it even feels good to utter - a mouthful of syllable, hearty like a thick soup. Chonk.

And so here it is: new! Improved! Grey! It's Chonk!

In the meantime, here's something I find chonked: "The Real World, Hawaii". I didn't have cable back in Australia, and their MTV is probably stuck somewhere in season seven of TRW, so I haven't had the opportunity to watch this. I caught about three episodes last night because they're having an all-weekend TRW marathon, to usher in the ninth season, "The Real World, New Orleans". Or as I see from the ads, "The Real World, New Orleans - During Mardi Gras". Since Nathan's family lived in New Orleans for about two years and seem to make constant treks down there for weekend trips (Nathan's mom is obsessed with that place), I've been told more than once that it's not that wild when it's not in the grip of Mardi Gras. I knew that anyway; no place could be an almost constant party and actually survive intact. So the ads for the new season have been bugging even me, since I know that mothers and daughters do not typically go around flashing their boobs (or "na-na's", to quote Amaya from the Hawaii season of TRW), nor do the police always come out in SWAT-team force, and that the streets are typically not filled with drunken college kids trying to gather as many beads as they can whilst simultaneously attempting to pick up and get laid.

Where was I? Oh yes, Hawaii. So - of what I did see (and I wish I'd stayed up and watched the whole season, it looked quite interesting if not a bit cringeworthy), well, wow. The cast had a fabulous house to live in (I haven't seen any other shows, except for a few ep's from the days of Puck and San Francisco, but I'm sure that the earlier casts are probably spitting chips right now), with beautiful decorations, wide open spaces, a pool table, a hot tub, a pool, a gorgeous kitchen, huge bedrooms (with the exception of the room that had bunk beds - I mean really, if you're going to have a house that big and fucking cool as that, where do bunk beds figure in?), and a computer; and then the piece de resistance: not only are they living in quite possibly the best house in Hawaii - Hawaii, as in a place with a city at its core and lush tropicalness as far as the eye can see, which tempts even me, and I'm a faithful winter-lover - but they were given jobs. Given employment. Handed an activity attached to a wage. For nothing. No interviews, no requirements, no nothing except for the fact that they happened to be in the cast of an MTV show and the producers needed something for the kids to do. The very premise made me slightly ill, but I was drawn in anyway. Much like I am with roadkill.

TRW is televisual roadkill.

Especially with this cast: an alcoholic bisexual girl; an insecure past-sorority girl with neediness issues; a supposed free-spirit who appears to smoke too much weed and loves to show off her nipples (I'd say breasts, but there didn't appear to even be anything there, despite censor-blurring); two white-bread type guys who look similar from a distance and don't seem to have any defining characteristics; a super-intelligent, sensitive gay guy; and a boastful, outgoing, over-sexed black guy who is very interested in Black Power, being a playah, and utilising the expressions "yo" and "you know what I'm sayin'?" as much as possible.

So, as you can imagine, I'm regretting not sticking around to watch the aftermath. I'm sure MTV will, as it does with 90% of it's programming, repeat the series to death eventually - but until it does, I'll just read the analysis provided by past cast members. Oh, and I'll go to Mighty Big TV too, since they have recaps of TRW (and just about every other cringeworthy piece of chonk on tv.)

In other news, I dyed my hair with Clairol's "Natural Instincts Exotic" in "Egyptian Plum". (I was hoping they'd have a colour swatch of some kind on the site, but noooo.) I wanted "Amazon Indigo", but there was none, so red it was. It took two packages to make sure my hair was saturated in colour - I have hair that goes down to just past my butt, and if I ever miraculously lost half of my body mass - and with it my no-need-for-a-bustle type bottom - it would probably look longer. I like it, even though it can be a pain to live with:

Nathan: <rolls over in bed and gives me a sweet little cuddle>
Me: Ow!
Nathan: What?
Me: Hair. You're on my hair.
Nathan: Sorry.

(The cat seems to like my hair, too. I can't sit anywhere where my ponytail might dangle - say, on the couch with my hair flipped behind it - or else she'll think, "Ooh, toy!" and proceed to pounce it and help me get more split ends than I have already.)

Anyway, that's probably about it for now - I'm going to go grab some dinner and see if MTV's still playing episodes of TRW ad nauseam.

And you can say happy birth day to Chonk!

(Or not.)