Things I Know (unrelated to fighting) About Mixed Martial Arts (installment 1)

I know, I know! I haven’t been writing nearly enough about MMA (mixed martial arts for those of you who don’t know…seriously, get on board), as so many of you have pointed out. And, to the kind gentleman who told me that I probably don’t know anything about MMA because I seem like a siscy (I believe he meant “sissy”), that’s not true. Many sissies (wait, maybe he was trying to shorthand “Sicilian”) know a lot about MMA. I don’t claim to be one of them, but I don’t think you should generalize like that.

Actually, while I may not know much about the mechanics of mixed martial arts, I would wager that I notice many things during MMA bouts that hardened ig-sissies (that’s the opposite of sissy, FYI) do not. For instance, I always notice when the tag of a fighter’s shorts is showing. For all you cornermen cornerpeople out there, do your fighter a favor and take care of that. Unless 1) It is a diversion technique to distract your fighter’s opponent or 2) It gives them that crucial additional ballast necessary to get their underhooks set.

Other things I know about MMA:

1) Of all MMA fighters I have seen in the last year, Cris Cyborg and Thiago Alves are the most frightening

2) Of all the UFC’s Octagon Girls, Arianny Celeste is by far the most attractive (this includes one-time Girls, and Girls next door masquerading as OGs (Octagon Girls, not original gangtas), plus she’s fun to follow on Twitter. Her tweet about going shopping with Royce Gracie was a delight.

3) Thing #2 (from this list) is not misogynistic. Those girls have to work hard in atrocious, blood-, spittle-, and sweat-soaked conditions. That’s usually considered man’s work.

4) You will have better luck talking your girlfriend/wife into watching Pay-Per-View UFC events if you:
a. Pay – no asking her to go halfsies on it

b. Make the GSP fight on March 27^th the introductory bout for her. GSP is the gateway drug for squeamish, lady newbies

On Hearing Impairment and Romance (mutually exclusive)

Various things today.

First, I found many, many typos in a relatively simple (in terms of word usage) short story I was working on, and determined that I had made them because I was wearing headphones and listening to music while writing. It seemed an easy problem to solve. I took a break, had lunch, cleaned up a bit, hung a lovely little train quilt my mother had made for my hatchling on his wall, surfed the web looking up Kimber handguns (story-related), and then sat back down. For some reason, I put the headphones back on, but did not turn on my MP3 Player (which is not a Zune, people). Result: many, many typos.

Apparently I cannot spell as well if I cannot hear as well. But, you say, perhaps it had more to do with how very rapidly you were typing, or perhaps the absolutely not ergonomically-correct position you had inexplicably chosen today. No, that’s not it. Totally the headphones. Thanks a lot, Bose.

As respects Valentine’s Day. My husband will attest that, when it comes to Valentine’s Day, I am something of an a-hole. In the past, I’ve scheduled (I swear, I didn’t realize the date) business trips, college reunions, and skydiving adventures in places one can only access by boat. This happened for, as he tells it, several years in a row. Anyway, I forgot again this year, but was not scheduled to be anywhere, and we had a lovely dinner with our lovely selves, falling more in love with one another by the minute, and ended the night with a charming bottle of champagne. And I swear that every year hence, except those wherein I forget again or something shiny catches my eye and hypnotizes me, I will partake in the best Valentine’s Day ever.

Which brings me to my point (I’m calling it that because I’m tired and considering going to bed, and I couldn’t possibly end without making a point), sometimes the most romantic movies aren’t billed as romances. When I think back on all the romantic movies I’ve ever seen, and many of them do blur together, I must conclude, once again, that The Abyss is the most romantic movie of all time, particularly the extended director’s cut, which becomes the most extendedly-romantic movie of all time.

Tuesday Now (as opposed to Tuesday Next)

The impudent hatchlings are at it again. I was showing the real hatchling, my 21-month old son, the Disney cartoon Robin Hood (best Robin Hood ever, by the way) and he loved it. He especially loved that the main character is a fox, which he pronounces "fock". Now, during my pre-hatchling days, I would have found this hilarious and tried to find every ingenious way I possibly could to prompt him to talk about foxes (though in the singular) at every turn. Now, however, I must be RESPONSIBLE. I must be the ADULT. How I miss the old days.

One of the imaginary hatchlings, an urban fantasy novel involving demons and possibly a Spaniard, is behaving wretchedly. The plot keeps falling off the wagon and stumbling about, drunk and disorderly, and the characters keep trying to go to bed together when they have important THINGS TO DO. I'm seriously considering sending them all to counseling, and/or rehab. Has A&E's Intervention ever intervened with fictional characters? Would that be just utterly too Jasper Fforde?

Finally, a couple of future hatchlings are circling like sharks and I'm afraid it's time to dip my toes in the tank...more on that should I lose a digit.

Don't Cry for Me, Mongolian BBQ

Conversation between our fellow diners while we attempt to eat dinner at local Mongolian BBQ restaurant:

Late middle-aged gentleman sits alone at 4-top table, quietly enjoying his Mongolian BBQ.

Enter tall, big-boned woman with ridiculous haircut.

Woman: They don't got nothing fresh up there. It's all dried-out. I told them.

Man: Why don't you try the BBQ. It's good.

Woman: NO! I ain't want that. I want the good stuff. It's dinner time. They need the good stuff out. It's all dried up.

Man: (reasonably) But, it's a Mongolian BBQ. Why do you need the other stuff?

Woman: I want the buffet! (drops head into hands and proceeds to cry)

Man: (reasonably) Why don't you try your soup?

* * *

So, at this point, I've been up to the buffet to get the usual for my son: olives, cucumbers, ranch dressing, more ranch dressing, garlic noodles, rice and teriyaki chicken. Don't judge that diet. He's only 21. Months...not years.

The establishment was a little low on the teriyaki chicken, which I really like, but I don't like any kind of chicken enough to cry over it. Also, they weren't out of food or only serving dried up food.

However, the weeping Gorg got me wondering what kind of food, in a perceived dried-up state, might make me cry. I couldn't come up with anything, but I'm trying. I'd really like to find that food. I'd eat it all the time and, yes, I would cry when I couldn't have it.

On Moose, Snowcovered Nuptials, and the AK-version of LOST's Smoke Monster

The eye glowed yellow, caught by the blue-tinted xenon headlights. The creature was standing off the road, on a steep, deep-snow slope that dropped off into a ditch some twenty-five feet below. We had been warned about this kind of creature, told it was lurking just off the beaten path. We had seen them before, long legs seeming to move slowly while the massive creatures were actually quite fast.

I could not look away from the unblinking eye, the creature at once intense and bored with the sparse flow of traffic. I elbowed my husband, hunched over the wheel, steering us safely along the dark, slick highway, miles from anywhere. I leaned toward him, inclining my head though I never looked away.

“Moose,” I said. The creature snorted, the plumes of breath so large I thought for a moment it might be a dragon. It blinked. We passed. It ambled out into the road, those legs flickering through the headlight beams of another traveler, another contestant in the age-old battle of man versus beast.

I looked straight ahead, hoping not to hear brakes squealing, hoping not to hear the wrecked clash of flesh and machine.

* * *

We drove up to Gate Creek Cabins in Trapper Creek, AK on Friday night. It was a lovely drive until about five miles out of Wasilla, when a seizure-inducing snowstorm descended. It would have been okay, if not for the semis passing us and kicking up 1/8^th mile long snow monsters (think smoke-monster from LOST). My friend ET described the experience as “butt-puckering”.

ET was married the next day on a frozen lake, a ten-minute snow machine (snow mobile, to anyone outside of AK) ride from the cabins. It was a lovely, if brief ceremony, complete with shallow snow graves, women flailing in two-foot deep snow, and an inexplicable “crotch shot” of the bridge and groom (still in snowpants). I will not go into how I lost the vows, the one thing I had been charged to bring, and spent the morning frantically trying to read them off of a borrowed cell phone and handwriting them into pages stolen from the guestbook (they were previously-blank. I did not steal anyone’s comments). All in all, fine nuptials.