The Lexicographer's Rules

ÒOne day last August, a couple of young fellows in Shibuya took to the street to pick up some female company. Two girls, standing close to 160 cm tall and adorned in the latest fashions, agreed to accompany the two for tea. As the male speaker relates, the cuter of the two bore a resemblance to pop vocalist Takako Uehara. While the four chatted, he gradually sensed something out of whack. Perhaps he felt the stirrings of a pronounced generation gap; or maybe it was the girlsÕ lack of pronounced bustlines. Finally, running out of conversation topics, he blurted, ÔI really like the color of the lipstick you're wearing.Õ ÔIt's Chanel No. 19,Õ the girl beamed. ÔMy mom bought it for me!Õ Now, as often as not, the purchaser of a French import is more likely to be a ÔpapaÕ (i.e., patron) than a Ômama.Õ Sensing something definitely amiss, he inquired, ÔUh, what year were you girls born?Õ ÔNineteen ninety,Õ came the reply. ÔYou mean you're... 11?!Õ he gasped incredulously. ÔPrimary school students?Õ ÔYeah,Õ she giggled, rouged lips pouting impishly, ÔAnd if you buy us some lipstick and eyeshadow, we'll play with you, too.ÕÓ"

—Japan Times. Japanese Lolita fetishesÑrorikonÑare getting younger, going from high school studentsÑkogyaruÑto junior high school girlsÑmagogyaruÑand now to kosume kids in elementary school.'

"Look, what we saw over the last two weeks is that Mark Green was coasting along and he coasted right into a firefight. And all of a sudden when that happened, he grew out of all his nice liberal tendencies and decided to go for the stiletto and the knife. If Mark Green tries any of that stuff with us, we will not be as kind as Fernando Ferrer was. And if he's going to talk about being positive, he better walk the walk. If he steps off that line, we'll kneecap him."

—New York Times. Despite the prediction of an advisor to New York City mayoral candidate Mike Bloomberg, the conventional wisdom in town is that never before will so much money have been spent in city politics for so little result.'

"'My alarm clock didn't go off,' I offer as an excuse for my afternoon tardiness. Brian gives me my own personal cubicle. He informs me that none of the three people I trained with showed up for work. 'They're weak,' he says. No, they're smart. I'm the sole survivor, and I'm only here to cause trouble. 'You've got to promise me you'll stick with this for at least two weeks,' Brian pleads. Little does he realize that approximately midway through my shift I will abruptly stand up, scream, and run out of the building."

—San Francisco Bay Guardian. Harmon Leon masquerades as telemarketer Wayne Francis, trying to sell the San Francisco Chronicle by means of unorthodox dialogue. "I once worked for three days as a telemarketer selling some sort of plastic container. The low point came when an old man said he couldn't buy the plastic container because he was probably going to die soon. I looked at my list of rebuttals and told him it would make a perfect gift for his children."'

"Just remember this. Life is not about your job. It's really not. If you need Cash, work at Starbucks. Seriously. Think: coffee. Life is not about your job. If you need validation, then. Well. Think again. Life is. It's about sticky frogs and getting your Girl to squeal and getting emails from your Best Friends and learning to Love Hockey. Honestly. Trust me. This from a nearly-reformed capitalist, who still drools over Cabrios, but who on a regular basis tells Visa via conference calls with Discover and MasterCard... 'It's not that I COULDN'T pay you... it's that I didn't want to buy stamps. Really I need you as an organization to understand this difference. It's going to be key to our continued relationship.'"

—Cubicle Girl. "I'm compiling, in my head, a list of helpful hints for those of you recently unemployed as we welcome you to the Ranks of the Job Seekers. Welcome! We've all been having a little party over here following the dot.com crash. It's good to have you new folks on board. I'm looking forward to yet another rash of job seeking advice being posted in the papers and making me feel even more inadequate. FUN!"'

"One night, upon returning from an evening out with his friends, I disagreed with my ex-husband. Out loud. I can't tell you why exactly; I was almost seven months pregnant - nauseous - tired - cranky - hormonal. At any rate, I told him to shut the hell up and quit picking on me. And he punched me. Hard. In the belly. I honestly don't remember much after that; I know that I wrapped my car keys round my fist and beat the holy fuck out of him. The situation ended with me locked out in the parking lot and him in the lobby of our building, frantically trying to hold the door shut, blood pooling on the floor, his face and chest the consistency of ground round, screaming like a nine year-old girl."

—Swallowing Tacks. "He hid his abusive nature very wellÑunfortunately, I didn't see any evidence of it until the morning of our wedding. I remember standing in the basement of a church in Seabrook, NH, wearing my white dress, flowers in my hair and in my hands, trying not to cry and thinking how in heaven's name do I get out of this? I should have tossed the flowers in the bin and bolted. Unfortunately, I didn't; I went through with the wedding and spent the next 11 months and three weeks of my life suffering nothing but abuse from the man I married."'