All that snoring was me

Earlier today, I had a comment from what I would assume to be the Ghost of Bad Perms Past, and the comment told me that I was working too hard. I would assume that a bad perm wouldn't come back from beyond the veil just to fuck with me, so I took the message to heart, and have managed to make it through the day without a productive moment.

We worked until about 12:30 last night and got the ugliest of the ugly stuff done on the project, which means that we get a real holiday weekend!

But my bad perm was right that I worked too much yesterday. I have photographic evidence, taken at my desk last night, to show the side effects of pullin' a long shift. Wait, why does it sound dirty when I say "pullin' a long shift"? "I got caught in the stockroom with Renaldo, pullin' a long shift."




By this point, my hair had decided it would break formation and each strand would wander in a different direction. And I keep the Pop-Tarts handy just in case of emergency; if we'd gotten snowed in, I'd have felt bad bein' forced to resort to cannibalism.

Needless to say, I'm pretty out of it today. My body clock gets confused very easily, just like I do. I've slept a lot today, so maybe I'll just sit here with my tchotchkes and my Play-Doh and my Photoshop and try really hard not to hurt anybody.

Heh heh heh heh...

Is "bad perm" redundant?

Once upon a time, I thought it was a good idea to get my hair permed. In my defense, this was in the 1970s and we hadn't grown frontal lobes yet. People were still wearing leisure suits. I guess my fried hair didn't seem so awful in comparison. Still, I find it hard to comprehend that somehow frizzy, fuzzy, foofie hair was completely worth sitting for hours drenched in a solution whose aroma could best be described as ass-ripened ammonia.

This particular perm was for a special occasion: 'twas the night of the Autumn Dance at the junior high school, and masquerading as a standard poodle was to be my key to social acceptance. Or so I deduce; I'm a little hazy on the details this many years later. So many brain cells pickled in the interim...

But I wasn't in it for the chance at romance; at 14, I was already resigned to the fact that love would likely never be mine, and it was best to instead surround myself with alcohol and have at it. That was my master plan the night of the perm, to drink myself into a near stupor and then dodge the dance chaperones for a couple of hours. Yes, sir - nothin' but the most highbrow entertainment for this girl. My companions for the evening were Juanita, Sue, and Phil, which automatically dropped the IQ level even further. We were like monkeys without a barrel, like a ship without a well-oiled cabin boy, like a virgin (hey), touched for the very first time. No, really, we weren't like any of those things. Well, probably the virgin part. But not the monkeys or the ships and such.

We'd managed to convince an adult, who shall go unidentified just in case he or she could still be in big trouble for it, to purchase alcohol for us and stash it in my garage. Mom had repeatedly offered us a ride to the dance, and we'd repeatedly insisted on walking. That had to've made her suspicious, to see four lazy teenagers refuse a ride to their destination. We finally slipped out the door, and I sneaked into the garage to retrieve the cocktail fixin's. I saw the crumpled paper grocery bag, snatched it up, and bolted out the garage door and into the alley behind our house. The four us ran until we were behind the hardware store a couple of blocks over, and then we stopped to breathe and gloat over our acquisition of such fine contraband - until I opened the bag for a better look, and we saw as one that I was a dumb virgin and I had in my arms a bag of my dad's leftover barbecue charcoals from the summer. The slaps on the back quickly turned to smacks across the side of my head for grabbin' the evil twin; they made me go back all by myself to make the swap. Fuckers.

The plan was to walk down to a little park on the east side, about a mile, and consume our alcohol (not charcoal) in the comfort of the swingsets and slides. Unfortunately, that brazen twat, Mother Nature, saw fit to whip us up an impromptu blizzard as we headed toward the park (did I mention that Mother Nature is a bitch?). Instead of admitting defeat and heading back to my house, we showed exactly as much sense as I'd have expected from us and decided the heavy snow would not deter us, and was actually a reason for us to start drinking on the way to the park. Damn, I hope none of them ever reproduced, either.

So, there were the three of them passing around a fifth of Southern Comfort, and there was me with my trusty MD 20/20. I was all sophisticated and shit. Would anybody be surprised to hear that it was all gone, every drop, before we'd managed to fight our way through the near white-out to the park? By the time we were able to barely make out the snow-covered swingset, even the gaggle of drunken imbeciles we were could see it had been a colossal miscalculation to refuse a ride on this most hellishly frozen of evenings. As we huddled in the alcove with the drinking fountain (and, to our credit, no one stuck his or her tongue on that or any other metal), pondering our mile-and-a-half walk to the junior high with much more "aw fuck!" than "peachy keen", we noticed there was a car idling not far from us.

Of course, we all automatically thought it was the parents of one or the other of us, and truthfully, we were so miserable it would almost have been worth it to be busted if we could just sit in a warm, dry car for a while. As we resigned ourselves to our fate, the driver's window came down and some guy who looked to be in his late 20s popped his head out and said, "You kids need a ride someplace?"

Now, wouldn't that be a red flag to you? I guess we felt safe because there were four of us, and we willingly got in the car with what turned out to be just the guy and his wife. I wonder in retrospect how wise it was for them to invite four drunken teenagers of questionable origin into the sanctity of their Buick, but it turned out that nobody had bad intentions, and the couple seemed a little bemused by our predicament. I'm sure this had been them not so long ago. We told them we were headed to the junior high, so they pointed their car in that direction, in the awful snowstorm, and took us. I hope these people went on to win the lottery.

It was only once I was in the car and beginning to thaw that I realized my hair was completely drenched from the snow, and I was pretty sure there was a strict prohibition against wetting the hair for a day or two after the damage, I mean perm, is done. I shrugged it off like responsibility and concentrated on having my hands thawed by the time I got into the dance. As luck would have it, the storm moved on as they drove us, and by the time we got to the school, it was almost completely cleared up. We thanked our chauffeurs and disembarked for our night of adventure and adult avoidance. Oh, man, did we reek. They all emitted a sweet-turned-corrupt odor, and I smelled like someone had vomited grapes on me; in retrospect, I should have sprung for the Boone's Farm.

Juanita lost her sense somewhere between shutting the car door and stepping onto the walkway to the school's front entrance. She always had that uncanny ability, when drinking, to be just fine one second, and then completely insane the next. She demonstrated that on the lawn by suddenly shrieking and slapping my admission money out of my hand, then laughing maniacally while I chased my dollar into the snow. Juanita ran off, to what purpose or to what end, or to the beat of what drummer, I really couldn't tell you, but she ran off, arms waving uncontrollably, just like a...hmmm, just like a dumb fucking teenager who's just consumed a huge amount of Southern Comfort. Inexplicably, we let her go and did not pursue her. Can't imagine why...

Once we were inside, Sue and Phil essentially ditched me. They were both cute, so it stood to reason that both of them had a shot at some romance, or at least makin' out, by entering the hormone-drenched dance floor. I was left to wander, conspicuously drunk and adorned in a dripping, freshly ruined perm. Understandably, it didn't take long for one of the chaperones to get that bloodlust in her eye and start to hunt me down for capture and detention. At that point, I did one of the few sensible things to happen all night and I left the school before I was bagged and tagged.

I was still pretty looped, and since the snow was finished, and none of my drinkin' buddies was anywhere to be found, I walked a few blocks down to the Burger King, where I loaded up with two orders of onion rings and a Coke. My plan was this: eat all the onion rings to cover up the smell of wine on me, that grape vomit scent that was oozing out my pores, so that I could call my dad for a ride and he'd never know I'd been tippin' the bottle. It was brilliant in its sheer audacity! Or...it was ill-advised in its utter lack of planning. I still can't figure out why Dad never said anything on the ride home; there is no way he could not have known I was stinkin' drunk. Wish I'd thought to ask him later on, when the statute of limitations on drunken teenagerness had passed.

That was pretty much the end of that little group of friends. I never had any idea why Juanita had run off like a banshee with hornets on the anus, and I guess I never cared enough to ask. Sue and Phil both drifted off into a better class of prettier people, and Juanita...didn't.

To this day, I still can't eat onion rings that aren't accompanied by a glass of insanely cheap wine.

Addendum: My mom was rarely mad at me for anything, but she was supremely incensed that I went out and ruined my new perm the first night I had it. And by "supremely incensed" I mean my mild-mannered mother was fucking pissed.

Be nice this time

Okay, I was almost in the neighborhood of nearly just about sincere the other day, and then I went and sprang that video with flickering fish and pasty white ass on you like that, and frankly, I feel a little chagrined about it now. I'd like to make it up to you as best I can without gettin' so sappy I stick to your face.

The truth is that many of you deserve my thanks, fellow bloggers. I started to name names, and then I decided that there are just so many of you I'm grateful to know that I'd best not do that, lest I leave somebody off, or lest I name somebody who emails me and says, "Ewwww, don't ever use your name and mine in the same sentence again." See? I'm socially fuckin' graceful like that.

But so many of you have amused me, inspired me, humbled me, touched me (no, not like that - well...sometimes), have in some way moved me with your writing and your photography, or by personal example. Some of you have become what I consider real friends - can online friends be "real" friends? I think so. A couple of you are related to me and have to be nice, but thanks to you, too. I've gained insight into different view points, gotten helpful advice about the craft and the business of writing, and had a lot of laughs. Mostly, I've been treated with extraordinary kindness by people, many of whom I didn't know, or barely knew, a year ago, have been given tremendous support by these people while I have gone through things that never got blogged. You've shown me love and patience - and I know I can certainly try the patience - and have often been the cooler heads that prevailed when I couldn't collect myself. So...thank you.

And now, because you just knew you couldn't take me to a nice party and hope for me to keep my pants on the whole time...

Ha! No, you have to watch the video if you're weird enough to wanna see flashes of my pasty bare ass. For now I'll leave you with something that is equally as disturbing as my bare ass, but hey - at least it's not my ass.

I give you...

Flaming psychedelic Mason Reese (click on his name if you don't know who he is):


Oh, I can hear you now: Why, Bucky, why? What kind of god would allow this to happen?

The artiste in me retorts, because artistes always retort: Aha! You ask why? I ask, why the fuck not? If it has not been done, then I shall do it, no matter how utterly unnecessary, regardless of the cost in human life and cornea, always pushing the envelope right up someone's ass. Also, I figure you should share in these horrid visions I just can't stop.

Sleep well.

World's cutest bloodsucker

Four days without definite plans has allowed me the dubious luxury of excessive television viewing. Twice, people, two times I got to watch General Hospital real-time. Which, come to think of it, is a huge pain in the ass, as I can't fast forward through the commercials. But it's the principle of the thing, you dig? It's like, ha! I don't have to watch GH at 4:15 when it's gone all stale, hell no - I can watch it fresh and crispy at 3:00 p.m., just like god intended.

Somewhere along the way, though, I accidentally switched to one of the educational channels, and was rewarded with a program about vampire bats. I'm actually kind of a bat fan, so I found it fascinating to watch the little bony buggers go about their business. Then they showed something that boggled my mind on several different levels. As the cameras rolled, a sleeping man - I would hope and assume this was a willing accomplice - was set upon by two vampire bats, who bit his neck and proceeded to feast on blood. Apparently, the bats have a venom in the tongue that administers an anaesthetic to the bitten area so that the victim doesn't feel the extraction.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from it. How could this sleeping, bat-bit guy volunteer for any such thing? How could the film crew just stand there and not feel compelled to shoo the bats away? How could I sit and watch this with such rapt attention? What the fuck was wrong with all of us?

And then they made my day.

The announcer intoned about how the bats will, in one feeding, drink blood equivalent to 50% their own body weight. At that point, I noticed some extra infrared action on the screen, and the voiceover confirmed my best/worst suspicions with the added information that the bats must urinate continuously during feeding to make room for all the fresh blood. Yes, the bat was pissing all over the sleeping bloodfest dude. I started to howl with laughter, because nothing makes me happier than finding something else I can add to my ever-growing list of Insult to Injury. It's a hobby. Shut up.

It's been hard for me to think of anything else all day. Pissing vampire bats. Even Jack Hannah didn't trot out such finery when he was on Maury Povich for a whole hour the other day. At first I laughed, because that's what we do when we do not understand. But then I started to think about it from another angle. How could I make fun of the bats when I had not truly walked a mile in their hairy little feet? What if this wasn't some source of perverse pleasure on the bats' part, but rather, an embarassing affliction that the little guys just can't help? Should we really cast shame and scorn at these poor victims of their own incontinence?


This poor li'l dude can't help it. Would that sweet little face piss all over you on purpose?



This fellow's obviously so happy to see you that he pissed all over the place. Are you gonna be the cruel cocksucker who tells the little sweetie that it's not okay?



This bat is just learning about the horrors of urine + gravity.


You can tell by his facial expression that this poor fucker almost didn't make it.



You gonna be the one to look into this face and say "Hey! It's not okay for you to pee while you feed."?

Forget sympathy for the devil...let's just show some love to the pissing bats, y'all.

Made with my own nekkid hands

This is my holiday video for y'all. My little present to You, the Internet as a Whole. I don't know where else I could've made such a diverse yet intensely cool bunch of friends as I have here in the last year or so. For you, and those you care about, including and maybe especially your critters, I wish for a year filled with laughs and realized dreams (unless your critters are dreamin' about rippin' bunnies to shreds, and then I don't condone the realization of that), of plenty of what you want and only a negligible amount of what you don't.

Now that I've said that, I almost feel bad launching this video on you. Oh, well. You could only take so much sincerity from me, right?

This is serious, dammit

When I posted about my acquisition of several cans of Play-Doh, Jess weighed in with this request:

When you make a playdoh snowman, make sure you give him big nuts, they really appreciate it, no one takes snowmen seriously these days.

Well, I couldn't have said it better myself. When is the last time you saw a snowman and thought to yourself, "Damn, I wish I'd become a snowman instead of an electrical engineer" or "I wish my husband would hurry up and leave for work so I can boink the snowman"? Never? My point exactly.

So, in the interest of equal recognition for all men, be they made of flesh or frozen water, I give you...


Schlongy the Snowman!

There must have been some magic in that big ol' schlong of his...


If there were any of you praying for Dick after my last post, I'd have to say your prayers are now answered. You can tell Schlongy prayed harder than anyone!

Now, in case you're not one to be impressed by a major display of schlong, I want you to know that my extreme Play-Doh modeling skills permit me to do a little sumpin' to please everybody. So, if you're not a fan of dick, I've made a special holiday presentation for you:

The Festive Labia Ornament Holder

...because there are few things in life more festive than labia. Or, in this case, clay-bia.

This is only the first time I've had the Play-Doh out of the cans. Lord help us all.

No handbasket required

While I don't believe in a literal Hell, with pitchforks and flaming colonics, I do believe that if you fling shit, it will eventually fly back in your face. So, for the sake of semantics here, let's say that "going to hell" means getting one's just desserts for transgressions, whether one believes in karma, Satan with a clipboard, or something in between. In that spirit, here are several reasons I'm probably going to hell, or will at least sit in the lobby for a really long time:

• When I was a kid, my mom participated in product surveys all the time, and we would get free unlabled shit to try and rate for the survey company. After my brother got shampoo, my dad got mouthwash, and my mom got deodorant, I could see a trend there, and I complained aloud (more than once and often in public) that by the time they got to me, it would be down to butt rinse.
  
  For the record, the butt rinse never arrived.
  
  
• Also in kidhood, my sis (Squirl) was taking a shower, and little chatterbox that I was, probably age 10 or so, I was in there talking to her. I had my cat, Tene, with me. Tene was walking on the edge of the tub, and...can you see where this is going? It just kind of seemed like a good idea to "encourage" Tene to give in to gravity and suddenly join Squirl on the other side of the shower curtain. The cat slid down the tub into Squirl's supposedly sacrosant shower space and shrieked, so of course, Squirl shrieked in utter surprise, and Tene was a wet grey-striped streak hurtling out of the tub. I claimed for years that Tene fell into the tub. Don't know if I ever 'fessed up to that one. Sorry, Squirl, heh heh. Don't tell Mom!
  
  
• I feel the need to share this with you in this context, because it's just wrong for me to laugh at this, it really really is. But...you tell me if you think I could have helped it. A few weeks ago, I received an email informing me of the death and funeral arrangments of a gentleman named Richard. Now, I mean no disrespect to the dead, but to the person who wrote the email? You be the judge.
  The email contained the sentence "Dick will be shown at ______ Funeral Home" and ended with "Please keep Dick in your prayers."
  First: I've never been to a funeral home like that.
  Second: When is Dick not in my prayers?
  
  
• I am most definitely going to hell for this:
  
  
  
  
• And if not for that, what about for the sin of wasting my time watching a soap opera every day?
  
  Sonny Corinthos is my co-pilot.

Somehow, I don't think there are enough Hail Marys in the world to make up for these and other transgressions. But y'all are welcome to laugh at me all the way.

Do I amuse you? Like a clown?

If anyone ever brings back the position of court jester, I'll be first in line to apply for the job.
I can't help it; I'm a smartass and the only cure is duct tape.

It delights me in a childlike (read: immature) way to make people laugh, especially at things we all know we shouldn't be laughin' at, but can't help it. If I can milk a situation for cheap laughs, you know I'll be grabbin' at the giggle teats like nobody's business. I know it makes me feel good to laugh, and I can only assume that's true for everyone else, too. Really, if I've made you laugh here, it's like we've had sex, and you sort of need to send me two dollars, lest my pimp catch on to all the freebies and rearrange my shit.

When I worked at 7-Eleven, there was an older gentleman who was a regular weekday mid-morning coffee achiever, and he was always particularly amused by my chatter behind the counter. He told me more than once that I should do stand-up comedy, and every single time, I would reply, "You think I'm funny standin' up? Hell, you should see me layin' down!" And every single time, he laughed his foolish ass off. Yeah, he was a pretty easy audience, so I wasn't gonna gauge my entertainment career prospects on his chuckles.

Stand-up comedy just wouldn't be a good gig for me (check out Amy for your stand-up comedy needs). I don't think I could do spoken comedy with the focus totally on me. I've done stage plays before, back in the dark ages, but that's different - there are usually other people onstage to deflect the focus (and I have since come to grips with the fact that I have zero talent as an actor and should not inflict my attempts upon the world again). Same with a band. I find karaoke much more intimidating than singing with a band onstage. Although karaoke is kinda scary, overall. But I just don't think I could memorize a comedy routine and carry it out with any freshness (I'd get that not-so-fresh feeling), and I don't think I could improvise with all eyes on me like that.

That's where the court jester gig comes in. That is my kind of live comedy. I could do that. The jester wanders through the crowd at a party, playing off the best snippets of conversation for maximum hilarity, face-to-face with the revelers, never staying in one knot of people long enough to become tiresome, encouraged to eat the party food and have a few drinks - that job description was tailor-made for me! I can't do it all when it comes to live yucks; I need to be able to play off what other people are saying. Anyone has the potential to play straight man to my jingle-hatted harlequin. I don't need much of an opening to walk through.

So...anybody need entertainment at your next banquet in the great hall? If you hear jingle jingle, that's me comin' down the hall. If you hear fwap fwap, it means I forgot to put on a bra.

Mind like a pinball

I'll be all over the place for a minute, if y'all don't mind.

• Song on repeat right now: Blue Buddha by My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult
  How did I miss these guys all this time?
  
  
• I might have been Christmas shopping for children in the family, and I might have accidentally put some extra stuff in the cart, and darn! I have to keep it for myself now.
  
  Hmmmmm, wonder what I could possiby do with this...
  
  
  
  Ages 2+? Should be perfect for me.
  
  
  
  Party pack. Hmmm. We used to call that a gang bang.
  
  Of course, you know I will supply photographs when I have time to get some of this out and mold it to fit my worldview of the day. You might just see turd-shaped Play-Doh, depending on how the week progresses.
  
  
• You know that sensation of creeping, burning shame, of tingling embarassment, that feeling that happens when you walk up to the adult bookstore counter with the packet of hardcore magazines? The magazines that come three in a pack, shrinkwrapped, all glossy pages and only perfunctory text, and no matter which two subjects you buy on the outside, it could be bondage, gumjobs, horsey love, or lesbo Mennonites, the magazine you can't see in the middle will always be about butt sex? Yeah, those.
  
  Well, I had that very sensation several days ago, but unfortunately for this story, I was not in the porn shop - I don't even know what one of those places looks like on the inside, ahem. Oops, dodge that lightning!
  
  But I was in Walgreens, and the magazine I was purchasing wasn't even particularly racy. No, it was way worse than that. In my sweaty hand, I clutched a copy of the January issue of Glamour magazine. Maybe that doesn't sound so bad to you, but think about it from the clerk's point of view, this clerk that sees me nearly every day, since I don't have my shit together enough to get everything I need in one trip. Imagine what your face would look like if you saw Mother Theresa in a sequined thong and matching bra with cups in the shape of clutching hands - that was the expression on the clerk's face as I shook the magazine from my clammy grip onto the counter.
  
  I wanted to shout out: "I have no fashion illusions! I'm buying this for the 'Women Who Blog' article, because I'm a Dooce fan."
  I wanted to protest: "Maybe there's more to me than you know, oh holiday-smocked judger of perpetually disheveled customers buying magazines they may or may not understand."
  I wanted to stammer: "It's for my, ah, mom."
  
  Ultimately, I said nothing, paid my cash, and left with my shameful purchase.
  
  In retrospect, I probably should've bought it at that same dark little shop where I buy my soap opera magazines and morphine. I can count on their discretion.

Snickers and the Santa snowjob

Look at that sweet, happy, guileless face.

You wouldn't know that two hours prior to this picture, Snickers puked.

And then it disappeared.

Yeah. Didn't think it was a good idea to fill Santa in on that particular detail. Good boy! Give Santa kisses!

Nothin' about anything

My beautiful laundrette


This is the laundromat where I buy all my Homies. I used to come here because they had Galaga, a video game which I can actually play for several levels before the unceremonious death of my fourth spaceship. Come for the Galaga, stay for the Homies. Yes, I absolutely refuse to grow up.

Is it possible to have a crush on a laundromat? Hell, yes! It's even possible to consummate your love if you can find a washing machine that is on uneven footing and is goin' through spin cycle. Just lean right in...Oh, stop lookin' at me like that. Like you've never humped an appliance.

You have, haven't you! And if you haven't, you've thought about it.

'Fess up. Tell me about your torrid affairs with household appliances. Ever touch the eggbeater in an impure manner? Ever covet thy neighbor's FloorMate? Fill my comments with your appliance fantasies and downright smut.

You know you want to.

The future's so bright...

As you can see, sunglasses are nothing new for me. Here you see my brother Timmy outfitting me with my first pair of shades.

There. Is that cute enough to make up for the fact that I dangled a tampon in y'all's collective faces? I really hope so, because there just might be more in store.

In fact...

something just might...

jump out and say "Merry Christmas!" to you:



Someone, who shall remain nameless, took Kylz' suggestion of a tampon angel to heart and made me this lovely, crafty little darling named the Angel Tamponia. If I had a tree, she would go right at the top of it.

But I don't have a tree. Hmmmm.......
What shall I decorate with this gorgeous little seraphim?

Any suggestions?

Because I'm so traditional

Susie wants us to join in decking the halls, and I can't say as I've been asked to do that lately, so why not? This is all about sharing our Christmas traditions, a favorite recipe, a warm and fuzzy memory that will make the class say "Awwwwwww!" in one sugary chorus.

You know, even a cold-hearted bitch like me has certain things that only get done this time of year, or only feel special this time of year. I hope I can convey to you, via my writing, how much these things make me light up like a gasoline-soaked jack o' lantern. Prepare to meet the kinder, gentler Bucky.

First, I would like to share with you my most cherished holiday recipe.

YULE EAT IT AND LIKE IT

Ingredients:

• 1 (one) 6-ounce package Sugar Babies, room temperature
• 1 (one) 6-ounce bag of Reese's Pieces, slightly chilled
• 3 (three) pounds of king crab legs, shells split
• 1 (one) quart simmering butter
• 1 (one) 4-ounce tube of anchovy paste
• 1 (one) large (frickin' huuuuuge) bottle of red wine
• 1 (one) generous (frickin' huuuuuuge) wine glass

Directions:

• Eat crab legs, dipping generously in simmering butter
• In between pounds of crab legs, eat the Sugar Babies (first break) and the Reese's Pieces (second break). Dip generously in simmering butter.
• After finishing crab legs, Sugar Babies, and Reese's Pieces, store remaining simmering butter in a handy rectum for safekeeping and ease of access.
• Take anchovy paste and pitch out nearest window, 'cause man - that shit's nasty.
  
• Belch or otherwise release trapped air.
• Open large bottle of wine.
• Holding the glass firmly in one hand, use gravity to extract the wine from the bottle into your glass.
• At this point, you should have something like this:

This holiday treat is best enjoyed while taunting one's friends who have not taken the trouble to make this complex but fascinating creation.


Salut, suckah!


Now, onto my Christmas traditions.

You know, it wouldn't be Christmas without my tradional Christmas hat:

Because Santa wants me to dress like the third Blues Brother.


And what Christmas hat would be complete without a Christmas robe?

I like to put on my long leather coat over this robe and go out. The coat doesn't cover the bottom of the robe, so I look like an escaped mental patient. People look at me weird. It's fun!


I also have a little collection I like to call the Christmas beads:

You should see what Santa made me do for these...


The cream of the crop, of course, is the most traditional of all Christmas accoutrements:

Monkey socks from Susie!

Now I've done it. I've spilled all my Christmas secrets, and now everyone will realize what an incredible pussy I am. What? I meant I'm a wimp. Scrape your minds out of the gutter. Is this how I raised you? I've only got one Christmas mystery left to reveal, and then you will all know that I'm a big softie and this hardened posterior, er, exterior I show you is only a facade, a show, a mask, a big fakey tricksie false thingamabob.

I'm going to show you my Christmas decorations.

Sure, I protest all the time that I don't decorate for the holidays. That was a lie, a big, buck-toothed lie. I have a special ornament, one that's been passed down from generation to generation by the women in my family. I love this ornament. It holds a special place in my heart, and I don't think I could ever not have it without feeling a void.



It's 'bout to get all festive in here.

Played dirty water from a swordfishtrombone

If you've been a reader here for more than ten minutes, you've likely seen me mention Tom Waits. I go on about him as if everybody knows who I mean, but I do realize that he's more of a fringe entertainer than a mainstream household name. So, here's a little bit of explanation for those of you who haven't been enchanted by Waits' overwhelming weirdness yet. This is not a formal bio, and I'm not gonna be all anal about his discography or filmography, but if any of you have tidbits you think are important, by all means add them to comments.



Tom Waits - singer/songwriter/actor/eccentric. TW began his career writing and recording songs with more of a folk/ballad leaning, dipped into a lot of blues, and has become more and more experimental with his musical styles since he surprised everyone but himself with the release of Swordfishtrombones in 1983. His lyrics have always been something out of the ordinary, even when he wasn't pursuing more avant garde musical styles. I love him for writing things like:

Licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue
scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town
the one eyed jacks across the railroad tracks
and the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through
(Burma Shave)

and

And the moon's a silver slipper
It's pouring champagne stars
Broadway's like a serpent
Pulling shiny top-down cars
(Drunk on the Moon)

and
Please allow thirty days for delivery
don't be fooled by cheap imitations
You can live in it, live in it
laugh in it, love in it
Swim in it, sleep in it
Live in it, swim in it
laugh in it, love in it
Removes embarrassing stains from contour sheets
that's right
And it entertains visiting relatives
it turns a sandwich into a banquet
Tired of being the life of the party?
Change your shorts
change your life
change your life
Change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy
get rid of your wife
(Step Right Up)
Well, you get the idea. Not your ordinary "moon/june" lyricist. I discovered TW at 13, and I just ain't been right since then. Yeah. It's Tom's fault.



TW hasn't really broken into mainstream radio play, but he has written songs which became hits for other artists, such as the Eagles' cover of Ol' 55 and Rod Stewart's version of Downtown Train. If you don't know TW as a singer or a songwriter, you might well be familiar with him as a film actor. He's appeared in a number of films, including some directed by Jim Jarmusch (Down By Law and Mystery Train), and Francis Ford Coppola, including Ironweed, Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, and perhaps his most flamboyant turn, as the bug-munching lunatic Renfield in Coppola's underappreciated Bram Stoker's Dracula:


Raw deal, Renfield: "Mawwwwster...you said you'd make me immortal!"

This post is by no means all-inclusive regarding TW's career, and if this has piqued your interest, I urge you to go all Waits on your family and walk around muttering the lyrics to Pasties and a G-String.

I need to close my ears

Why do I always hear this shit?

I was recently shopping, minding my own business, squeezin' the Charmin and thumpin' the melons, when the conversation of three women nearby intruded on my consciousness. Having no desire to be bumped out of my own little zone, the zone where I concentrate on my list and buy things in some kind of order instead of zig-zagging around the entire bloody store, I tried to block out most of what they were talkin' about.

My strategy was successful until one of the women delivered the "What the fuck?" statement of the day:
"Her daughter looks like Kevin Bacon."

What?

I continued to shop, but my mind was no longer on my task. It just kept going through my brain, like curry through intestines, Her daugher looks like Kevin Bacon, Her daughter looks like Kevin Bacon...just like that episode of the Brady Bunch where Marcia dreams about her football-injured schnozz, reliving the moment of impact and the shriek of "Oh, my nose!" over and over and over again. I had lost all sense of direction; I was putting small items in the bottom of the basket and setting the giant bag of dog food in the baby seat, grabbing kosher food when I'm not even Jewish, asking for a carton of Camels when I haven't smoked 'em since the 1980s...I was all fucked up. I drove home, taking a full extra ten minutes for the drive because I kept missing my street, and stared into space

It's been a few weeks, and I'm still staring into space. Her daughter looks like Kevin Bacon. What does that mean? Is it an insult or a compliment? Which Kevin Bacon? Footloose-era Kevin? Wild Things Kevin? Animal House Kevin? Of course, I began to visualize. And what kind of a friend would I be if I didn't share with you, the Internet as a Whole?

Her daugher looks like Kevin Bacon. What would that look like?


Would she be friendly and wholesome, yet a tad flirtatious, with a Mona Lisa smile?



Would she be seductive but greasy, and a little bit cheap, yet high-rent at the same time?



Would she be practical, a no-nonsense gal in a business suit with an agenda?



Would she be the kinda playful gal who likes to mix it up, gender bend a little?



Or would she look like a two-dollar whore who only consented to this interview after being promised cigarettes and bourbon?

More questions: Who would like to be at the head of the mob that comes to my house, all torches and pitchforks, and forcibly removes my Photoshop? And would you be so kind as to complete my lobotomy while you're at it?

When I grow up

Today I was just musing, like people do when they're avoiding tasks they should be doing. I've been a computer geek for a long time now, professionally speaking, and I was daydreaming about other paths I might have taken...

• Rock star. Of course, this was my preferred career path, but it was tragically derailed by my serious lack of talent. I know what you're thinking, and I know that hasn't stopped many a successful rock star, but I guess I just have too much self-awareness for the job. When I suck, I know I suck, and no amount of personal bravado will diminish the suckocity of my performance.
• Porn star. Naturally, I've been inundated with offers to join the ranks of the money-shot-splattered elite, but there's one thing, one overarching concern that keeps me from accepting: gravity. It ain't been kind.
• Carpenter. I think this would be a fantastic and rewarding career for me. Just so long as I don't put too much value on havin' a complete set of fingers, and don't mind bein' able to see sunlight through the palm of my hand. Perfect!
• Elephant poop cleaner. No, wait - I haven't given up on that dream yet.
• Rocket scientist. Damn, wish I'd thought about that before I discovered alcohol.
• Cartoonist. Aside from the obscene scribblings I've posted here, I've also developed a few comic-book characters. One I developed in junior high school, and kept alive and fairly current until I was in my mid-20s, was The Rodent Runner. The title character was a rat who was chosen by the rat god to set the rat population straight so it didn't end up like humankind. Saddled with a bitchy, flamboyant guardian angel named Rodney, the Rodent Runner never gets much soul savin' done, but his misadventures are consistently gross and bizarre. There's even a gratuitous appearance by Ratsputin in one installment. More recently, I developed a character called Cutie-Pie the Bat. The premise is that this really sweet-tempered little bat just wants to make friends, but gets the smackdown from everyone he meets (I have one sketched out where Mother Theresa attacks him with a broom). Oh, the hilarity. But I could see how that would run out of steam really fast.
• $2 whore. This has long been a goal of mine. Of course, you have to take into consideration that when I started this dream, two bucks meant a lot more than it does now. My advice to youngsters would be this: if you aspire to be a whore, don't put a price tag on it just yet. Allow for inflation.

I await your rude additions to the list.

Told you there was more

Just when you thought you could sleep through the night without sitting bolt upright, cold sweat drenching your jammies, and horrid thoughts of naked hags on whaleback clinging to the inside of your skull like tuna that won't come out of the can after it's been open in the fridge for three weeks, here I come again with the threatened/promised second installment of drawrings from my notebook dated 9-12-87 to 6-1-88 (if you have nothing better to do than be sickened, the first installment is here).

There's a little something for everyone. As always, if you'd like to be really nauseated, you can click on any of the pictures to see them in Flickr, then hit the "All Sizes" button there to see the sick shit UP CLOSE.

Shall we start out with a little dead Nazi humor?

Hitler's first home perm. His fashion advisor mysteriously disappeared shortly thereafter.


Then you've got a cat(?) that's missin' a little somethin'...but it comes with good instructions.

That's where the nipples go. Actually, shouldn't there be, like, eight? And technically, aren't they teats and not nipples? And why is the cat wearing panties?


I had obviously spent too much time in front of He-Man with my nephews when I drew this.

He-She the hermaphrodite. By the power of Grayskull, I really needed a hobby.


Did you think I'd forgotten the fart jokes? Oh, hell no! Remember who you're talkin' to here.

"Don't you dare." But look at that fucker - he's a bully, and he won't be deterred from his sport. The farting will not be halted. Sucks to be you, dude on the bottom.


Finally, what display of my drawrings would be complete without the obligatory exaggerated schlong picture?

I figure, if you're gonna draw a tallywhacker this big, you might as well have it drippin'. Just in case it wasn't already offensive enough.

So that does it for this notebook, at least the stuff I can show you. Some of it even scares me now. But, you know...that's only one notebook out of a dozen.

Sleep tight.

Crossroads

Let's say I was given a choice.

This:


Caffeina - goddess of coffee, and by extension, of productivity and peppiness. She represents all that is good and industrious. Truly the perfect choice for the virtuous.


Or this:



Skull shot glasses - they represent inebriation and depravity, drunk and disorderly, looped and lewd, plastered and promiscuous, sloshed and slutty...pure liquid evil. Wonder what's inside.

I didn't have to ponder for long, because my mom and dad taught me how to do the right thing when faced with unexpected choices. I knew just what needed to happen, what course of action I needed to take.



Well, jeez! You didn't think I was gonna take the pansy-ass coffee, did you? Interestingly enough, pure liquid evil feels a lot like tequila.

A few freaky factoids

I was tagged by Kylz to list ten Weird and Random facts about myself. Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to put five new tag-ees at the end of my list, but I'm no good at that. Iffen you like the meme, go 'head and steal it. Iffen you don't, then go about your business and leave the bunnies alone.

Last summer, I posted my 100 Things About Me list, but I'm such a multifaceted bitch that there will always be new wrinkles to reveal, new stretchmarks to unveil...no, really, come back - I promise, no wrinkles or stretchmarks. But here's ten more stripes in my freak flag:

1. I really detest coconut. Put it on any food and it's ruint. Just ruint. It's like somebody sprinkled shredded plastic on my food, and all I can feel is little bits of plastic smegma in my teeth when I take a bite.
2. I crack my knuckles a lot. There. Just did it again. I find it hard to get a noise out of my pinkies with the regular crackin', so I snap those sideways.
3. The thought of bein' on a boat out so far in the water that I can't see land freaks the livin' shit outta me and makes my pucker clench involuntarily.
4. I will, however, get on an airplane without a second thought. Flying doesn't bother me at all. The airport pisses me off, but the flight itself is no biggie. I like to get there fast, wherever "there" is.
   
5. Why has no one invented chewing gum that's flavored like genital secretions? Okay, that's not really a fact about me, but don't you guys ever wonder that, too? You could have brands like Blo-Jizz and Pussy-Chew. Can you hear the jingles? Don't leave your Pussy-Chew on the bedpost overnight...
6. I like to cuddle. But don't you dare let that get around. If anyone asks, I'm still the same "acid-dipped, cast-iron bitch" I've always been (kudos to Jim for that very accurate description of me).
   
7. I am a cramper; the Cramps should be my favorite band. Toe cramps, foot cramps, leg cramps, hand cramps, shoulder cramps, neck cramps, girlie cramps - if it can cramp, it will cramp for me. That said, I'm sure it's highly entertaining to watch me drop stuff when my hand cramps up. As Eddie Murphy once said, Haha, very funny, motherfucker.
8. I don't just swear a lot when I write - I have a filthy mouth. Yes, I do kiss my mother with this mouth. But I don't say "Cocksucker!" when I'm kissing my mother. Well, not in anger.
9. Though I've played with plenty of BB guns, I have never fired a real gun. Now, for many of you in other countries, that's probably no big shock, and certainly not unusual. But in the USA? It's akin to saying, "I've never actually known all the words to Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Sure, it's possible...but people will look at you really, really funny.
10. When I was in college, I used to draw terribly unflattering caricatures of an accounting instructor I hated. But all these drawings were not in my notebooks. Some of them were on the margins of tests and papers I handed in to my favorite computer science instructor. Luckily, he appreciated the sentiment, and the pictures. He also liked the flow chart I gave him in COBOL class that had a picture of a man with ram's horns on his head and tassels on his nipples. Nothing says "A" student like titty tassels on a horny man. I still can't understand why I was never expelled.
    

Funky monkey

How the hell long was Blogger down last night? Did everyone have the same kind of choking, drowning withdrawal pangs that I did?

When I feel cut off like that, there's only one thing to do: monkey movie.

Watch it, I dare you - feel my boredom as if it were your own! You know you want to.

Wait, wasn't Friday afternoon, like, three minutes ago?

As the weekend draws to a regrettable close, let me take care of a few items of bizness.

• Jess, I'm so sorry your adoption plans for Pete the St. Bernard didn't work out. All those doggies still need help, and lots of food, so I'm gonna give a shout out and a link to the national Saint Bernard Rescue Adoption Foundation and the Illinois Saint Bernard Rescue, where Pete is currently a foster home guest. These are the sweetest dogs in the world, and any donations anybody wants to throw their way will be most appreciated. I dare you to go look at the pictures and not melt into an embarassing puddle in your computer chair.
  
• Kristine, I got your package (heh heh) and I am delighted. A photo session is sure to follow. That's all I'm gonna say about that for now. Oh, get your minds out of the gutter people. Although when dealing with objects which will fit up my ass (and, contrary to popular belief, there is a finite cutoff size for that), one never can be too sure...
• Of all the questions I get asked, probably the one that is most often repeated is: "What would it look like if you fell asleep, and then someone drew you facial hair with a black magic marker?" Well, wonder no more, my twisted friends:

Personally, I think I look like a Homie. This one, in particular:



Okay, then, let's make the resemblance complete!



I hear the swoosh swoosh of the butterfly net, so it must be time for me and my mental-patient bathrobe to bed down for lights out. Tomorrow may be brutal, but I'll try to slip y'all a note under the door.

No "in bed" required

I can't believe I've never blogged about this before, but a search wouldn't come up with the key phrases on my site. So, if I've finally gone completely soft in the head and have posted about this before, well...blame it on Google search. But Closet Metro's post the other day made me think of this particular incident.

Several jobs ago, I had the pleasure to supervise a young man who was from China. YC was probably 19 years old, and though his accent was thick as a brick, his command of the English language was better than many native speakers, aside from the occasional phrase like "Oh, sure, make me the escape goat!" that managed to get past the goalie.

YC was working his way through college, on a computer science major, I think, and he was brilliant. He also had a sparkle in his eye and a sense of mischief and good-hearted evil that many people overlooked. I saw it, and did what I could to encourage it, within the bounds of good taste at work. The job he had with me didn't pay nearly enough to take care of his needs, so he also worked the drive-through at McDonald's part time. One day he came into work with the best story ever told 'round the file room (yes, even better than the time EM told us her three-year-old daughter referred to her own genitals as "Francine" and then pronounced in her baby voice, "Francine smells like tuna!" Okay, I did collapse, helpless in convulsions of laughter about that one too, but on with the show).

YC had been at his drive-through station with the headset and cash register, takin' orders and handlin' cash, when a girl drove up and began insulting and mocking his accent through the speaker. When the little cunt finally pulled up to his window, she smirked and said, "Where's my fortune cookie?"

YC looked down at her and said, "Here your fortune: Suck my dick."

I don't honestly remember the rest of the story, as my eyes were full of tears and my ears were full of my own snorts of merriment. I wonder if he continued to work at McDonald's after that. All I know is, he probably makes more money now than the bitch who wanted the fortune cookie.

Where's my "Sweet Revenge" rubber stamp?

Just not right

Sometimes I got nothin' to say, but it never stops me from blathering and slathering frosting on a hollow cake; I take another look with fresh-pressed eyes and I was right to walk that night sky into the solid ground.

Um...what?

I'm starting to spend so much time in my bathrobe that I look like an escaped mental patient, so I figured I might as well write that way, too. Oh, I hear you all now. "Ooooh, how about some more o' those sexy, sexy bathrobe shots?" Well, let me tell ya - I ain't that easy.

Okay, yes I am. Fact of the matter is, though, I don't have any new bathrobe pictures, and I'm too lazy to take any. So quitchyer whinin' about it. Wait, wait, that was harsh on my part. Come on back, 'cause I've got a picture I think you'll like even more than the bathrobe.

It's festive.



Click on picture for larger image if you're not already totally grossed out by this.

Call me Tiffany Epiphany/SPF: CSI

Hard as it is to fathom, sometimes commercial television can spur me to deep thought.

Just now, I overheard the following exchange on an ad for Judge Joe Brown:
Plaintiff: He beat me constantly, he beat me with my son in my arms.
Defendant: She never lets anything go!

Well, that set me to ponderin', in a deep, reflective, and self-absorbed kind of way, and I had the following epiphanies:

• I'm so glad my mom didn't snort homemade meth behind the trailer while she was pregnant with me.
• If it weren't for the uncouth and shameless, there'd be a lot less television programming available.
• That level of stupidity seems to be genuine.
• Now I'm even more frightened than I was a minute ago.

Now, moving on from frightening to just plain disturbed, I have participated in Stuff Portrait Friday this week, but am posting tonight as I have no idea what blogging I'll be able to sneak in around work tomorrow. The SPF theme for the week is Crime Scene Investigation, and Kristine has asked us to show:

• The weapons
• The victim
• The crime scene

The tale that's about to unfold in front of you is a sordid affair, filled with lust and greed, desire and revenge, superstition and bloodshed. No, sorry...that's just my day planner

All I got is monkey.

The Weapon:

Yup. It could only mean mayhem when the Monkey of Doom was trotted out into the town square.


The Victim:

Martydom comes easy to the Narn. Still, G'kar didn't seem to see it comin'.


The Crime Scene:



Ritual death by monkey butt. The Homies are a cold-hearted lot. Poor bastard died with a face full of rhesus rectum.