There are few things I find more grating than a boring or stilted conversation, an exchange that has gone beyond its useful purpose and is just awkward and it seems the only way to end it is to smash the other conversant with a brick, right upside the head. Come on, admit it - everybody has one at every office in the world.
Good conversation is essential to my life and mental health; bad conversation is like a plague of locusts delivered upon me. To that end, I have devised a few things that can be said by you, the conversation victim, to either end the talking right then, or at least to amuse yourself while the talk goes on. These can be shouted or whispered, depending on your comfort level with the dramatic tension.
Can you tell I puked in here?
My hair is multi-tiered and it's edible.
(if you're female and talker is male) Wow, time to change that tampon!
(while hacking, coughing, and digging a finger in your mouth) I thought I'd fished all those pubes out at lunch.
Dime-sized hemorrhoids, boiling diarrhea, and rectal gonorrhea...could this get worse?
View from the laundromat, where it rained like a bitch all day on Sunday. Rained. At the end of January in Michigan. I should have taken it as a sign that shit would be weird.
It's been a while since I've injured myself and shown you the carnage, hasn't it?
Just yesterday afternoon, I found something more dangerous than a Milkbone, deadlier than a box spring, more treacherous than a door frame: the common and unassuming plastic laundry basket.
Didn't I tell you laundry would be the death of me?
I meant that basket no harm; all I wanted was to stuff it full of my data-stained clothing. Okay, maybe I was a little rough with it. But that's neither here nor there. All I know is, I thrust my hand in with great enthusiasm and a pair of lightly used undergarments, and the beastly basket chomped into the nail on my right ring finger.
See?
Pretty impressive, huh? Did I whimper, did I whine, did my clothes come off the line? Hell no! Well, really, they were never technically "on the line" but you see what I'm gettin' at. I persevered - I played hurt. I didn't even call in sick today.
Now I'm tagging myself - very carefully, because my finger is so seriously injured - with a meme I saw at Susie's Biscuit Emporium.
Five guilty pleasures
1. General Hospital. Hands down, my biggest, guiltiest pleasure. I used to watch it in high school (yes, I'm old enough that Luke and Laura's heyday was when I was in high school), and then dropped it for years. A couple of years ago, I decided to start watching it so I would have more to talk about with my mom; really, it was an effort to steer her from politics, because - wow! She gets agitated. So, here I am, just watching so I can talk soap talk with Mom. That's all it was.
Until we went on vacation and I had to choose between taping General Hospital or Jeopardy! during Ken Jennings' run. And I chose GH. Then I knew it was more than just a mother-bonding exercise...it was an addiction.
So forgive me if I know a little too much about the Quartermaine family tree, or if I have an opinion about which Carly is the Carlyest Carly that ever was Carly. Avert your eyes and let me have my daily hour of slack-jawed disbelief suspension.
2. Musicals. I love musicals. Not just rock musicals, either. If you looked in my collection, you might see Man of La Mancha, or Sweet Charity. You know, the musicals that are old like me. With very little prompting, I can still sing along to much of Fiddler on the Roof, or Sound of Music.
Given my choice between being a rock star or a Broadway star, I'd have to go with my childhood passion and say Broadway star.
No, wait, scratch that. I just remembered how much ass rock stars get. But I still like musicals.
3. Pizza. Cheese is on my list of migraine triggers, but damn - could you live forever without pizza? If you could, then let's trade tastebuds. I love pizza. And it doesn't have to be "good" pizza either; in fact, I prefer not to eat pizza from the places that load the pizzas up so heavily with cheese and toppings that it takes a crane to move the fucker. I have no problem stuffin' my face with the hot n' ready pizzas Little Caesar's has just waiting for me.
Damn, now I want some pizza.
4. Hip hop/all age-inappropriate music. It's true. I am a white, middle-aged woman who listens to hip hop and other "young people" music very loudly in my car. To be fair, I do not attempt to adopt hip hop slang or fashion, unless I find an easy opportunity to make someone cringe, then I will totally say things like "That briefcase is fly, baby!" Do the kids say "fly" anymore?
I'm pretty sure at this stage of my life I'm supposed to be settling into a diet of blues lite and soft classic rock. I should be driving to PTA meetings and listening to Air Supply, not some unholy one-two punch of Rob Zombie and LL Cool J. This can all be traced back to the day I removed that maturity chip someone implanted as I slept.
5. This blog. Yes, I'll be a copycat on Susie with this one. But I would definitely call this a huge guilty pleasure. It's quite true I've completely ignored playing or writing music since I started this blog, but it's such a great creative outlet in so many ways. I can write, or take pictures, or take and tweak pictures, or make Play-Doh tallywhackers, and I get feedback! Instant feedback! I could easily have a Master's degree if I'd taken all my blogging time and applied it instead to grad studies.
But then again, I wouldn't have set up shop in the most awesome neighborhood in Blogsylvania if I'd done that. I'd just be some dickwad with an MBA.
But you did, but you did, but you did - and I thank you
I know I said I wouldn't talk about this any more, and I'm not, but I just wanted to drop a quick post to say THANK YOU to everyone who has sent me an email this weekend. You've all been so supportive and sweet and, frankly, I wonder if you've somehow overlooked the fact that I'm an asshole, or if you see it and like me anyway. Either way, I am truly humbled by the love I've been shown this weekend.
Big sweaty cyberhugs to you all! I'll be back with some asslessness later, really I will.
ps: I hurt myself on a laundry basket yesterday. There will be a picture of my Serious Injury later. Does that make y'all feel better?
NOTE: If you wish to be made to laugh, please skip this post and read just about anything else on this site. If this is your first visit here, and you see this warning and read the post anyway, let me assure you: it's not usually like this here. I promise.
Do you cringe when you go to somebody's blog and you see, "This is the hardest thing I've ever written here..."? Well, fair warning: this is the hardest thing I've ever written here.
I'll cut right to the chase: Jim and I are splitting up.
This was my idea. And before anyone asks, Jim has never, ever, ever been abusive to me in any way. He's a good guy, and a gentleman too. So I'll not tolerate a word against him.
To anyone who's been reading what I've written here for the last year and change, you wouldn't have seen it coming from what I posted. I chose to ack-SEN-choo-ate the positive, to only write about the lighthearted moments, the fun, the laughs. And I didn't make any of that up - there has been plenty of cramp-inducing laughter, and lots of sweet romantic moments.
Where this relationship went wrong will remain between Jim and me; I'm just not ready to get that candid in public about something that isn't only my business. I have hesitated to post about it at all, but it's been a long time since I've written about Jim, and sooner or later, you'd start to wonder. We have every intention of keeping this amicable and as simple as possible. After all we've been through together, I don't want this to be any more painful than it already is.
It's been a long time, and I guess I'm a different girl now than the one behind the counter in 7-Eleven who used to draw crayon pictures on paper lunch bags so she could give her third-shift boyfriend some crappy coffee in a cool paper bag on his way in to work at night. So much has happened since then: all the concerts, and college for both of us, and all those jobs. We have each lost our father and a sibling since we've been together. We've seen comedy, tragedy, and history unfolding, sometimes all at once. A lot can happen in nineteen years.
Some of you may not like me anymore after you've read this, and if so, I'm sorry I offended you. This was not a choice made lightly, in haste, or on a whim. But I have to be honest with myself about what I want out of life.
Did I mention this is a really hard post to write?
It's likely I will take the weekend off from blogging after I post this; I hope no one will be put off by the fact that I plan to return here shortly and resume the usual shameless vulgarity you've come to expect from me, or by my coming to your blogs and leaving my customary obscene greetings. It's my way to blow off steam, and now that I've been all weepy and TMI with you, I hope you'll still accept my shenanigans in the same spirit as always. It doesn't mean I'm disrespecting my current situation; it just means that being able to laugh and spread chaos online really gets me through the day.
I'm not opening comments on this post. For Jim's sake, I'd like to request that there be no public online speculation about this. If you work with us, please do not let this be the way that the news spreads through the company; if you are finding out by reading this, please come talk to me first. Please do not tell anybody else at work about this blog that doesn't already know. Seriously. Jim doesn't need to go through any worse shit than he already is.
And you can certainly tell me what's on your mind - good, bad, and/or ugly - via email: bucky4eyes AT gmail DOT com.
Katy Barzedor proclaimed this to be so at 12:05 AM
Friday, January 27, 2006
Stuff Portrait Friday: again with the toys
Kristine obviously has a fixation on our toys, as she has asked to see them yet again in this week's SPF (well, I wouldn't have remembered that, but for the fact that some of my Flickr toy pictures are in the SPF group there).
But that's OK. I have lots and lots of toys. In fact, I think I will save them for last. So there. Call me a rebel, why don'tcha?
On to the assignments:
My Secret:
This one won't be a secret forever...but it is right now. See how mysterioso my funky ass can be when I'm of a mind?
My Eyes:
I was rather fond of my undead look on Halloween. Oh, sorry Nilbo: Hallowe'en. In Michigan, we just call it The Night After Devil's Night.
My Toys:
These pictures barely scratch the surface of my toys, but I have not the time to take new pictures. I am a lazy SPF-er today.
Evolution makes more sense with a visual model.
And please don't tell me you didn't think I'd go for the dick joke sooner or later.
...or the flashing buttplug joke. It plays Funkytown and the lights chase in rhythm to it.
I have a feeling Kristine is going to stop inviting me to SPF if I can't leave the plug up my ass next time.
I'm special. So special. I got to have some of your attention. Give it to me.
Yes, that's right - in addition to being "helmet special" I am now also "spotlight special" - and not the kind of spotlights they always turn on me when I escape from my bed at night and make a dash for the barbed-wire fence and they have to tackle me and re-buckle my straightjacket, either.
Nope. This time, I have been featured on Kristine's new site, Bloggers in the Spotlight. And there is an incredibly hot picture of me on there. Really, you will be driven wild with desire, and then I will have to move because you'll all be stalking me.
Thanks for that, Kristine. Now I will be awoken at all hours of the day and night by erect penises knocking on my door, and my doorknob will be slick with flying vag batter. I will have to raise the Blogger Arousal Alert Level to red.
What's gonna happen when I break out them chaps? Oh, lordy...
What? I hear you gasp collectively, No hump day post?
Hey, remember those paper cuts I audioblogged about yesterday? Well, pal, I just ain't healed yet. Do I need to expound about the apercutspay on my abialay?
You know what kind of day it was?
My doctor didn't wanna see me naked. And I pay him.
The dog wouldn't kiss me until I ate some poop first.
I faked a headache to avoid masturbation.
Wait, do you think I could get Rodney Dangerfield's gig, now that he's not usin' it?
If you're all still speaking to me after this, I'll see ya 'round the burning bush.
(Stolen from Eclectic and twisted to fit my needs)
The Keys to my Heart:
You are attracted to large physical endowments.
In love, you feel the most alive when the clothespins are in just the right spots.
You'd like your lover to think you are hygienic and passable...but you're so far below the mark that it's a minor miracle you get any ass at all.
You would be forced to break up with someone who wouldn't drop that restraining order.
Your ideal relationship is consensual. You want a relationship that overlooks your faults...your many, many faults. And someone who will stay in bed without the "look the other way while I mix your drink" cocktail.
Your risk of cheating is zero. I mean, look at you. You don't give a shit what anybody thinks, but really, what are your chances, skank?
You think of marriage as something that will double your laundry. You are afraid of laundry.
In this moment, you think of love as something that people use to dress up their humping.
Wow! I guess I'd never thought of myself as such a fuckin' romantic.
Oh, if you'd like to take the real quiz, go clickety click here.
Warning: I will be talking about General Hospital in this post. But before your eyes glaze over, let me just say:
Look at my monkey! Right in its face! Look at my creased monkey!
What? What the fuck did you think I meant?
Okay, now that we've all faced my creased monkey and lived to tell the tale, let me get back to the GH agenda I whipped out earlier.
If ever there was soap royalty, it was was Luke and Laura. Their romance (but let's not talk about that first "date" - ahem) sparked even my interest back in the day (cavewoman talk for the 1980s), and unprecedented number of Americans tuned in every day to follow their convoluted but always entertaining misadventures. I can only conclude that this means Americans are very easily entertained.
Luke is still around, in between long vacations, and they've long since stuck Laura, unseen, in a catatonic state in some hospital. The show has never dared to recast its most overwhelmingly popular characters. And now, the only daughter of Luke and Laura, one Lulu Spencer, has been made a teenager and brought to the forefront of the storyline. One would think that the offspring of soap royalty would be treated with the same deference, in memory of the astronomically high ratings once achieved by mommy and daddy.
But this, instead, is what they chose to do to Lulu one day last week, when they had her walk in front of a vase full of red roses:
Please don't even tell me that's not by design. How disrespectful can you get? My lord, I was pissed - and got more and more pissed each minute I left it on pause and took pictures. I shook with righteous anger, so hard that it might perhaps have taken on the appearance of laughter. Of course, I would never find humor in something like this. That would be wrong.
Admittedly, I need help. Or better hobbies. Or lots of Play-Doh and a rubber room.
Well, it appears my troubles at work have at long last been smoothed over. Good thing, too, as it's currently spewing freezing rain outside and that will soon turn to the wretched six to eight inches of snow we're expecting. Not exactly the night I'd like to just mosey up to work to check on things.
Before I take my sorry but bountiful ass off to bed, I'd like to leave you with one more soothing image for the night.
What a great fucking cocksucker of a motherfucker day
Deep breaths, Katy, deep breaths...
Um...I'm extremely agitated right now, which is to say, I'm in search of an ass in which to lodge my boot, my head is spinning on my shoulders like somebody just put fresh batteries in the Energizer demon, and my sphincter is clenched so tight I could bend Uri Geller in half.
But it's about work, so I can't really say much. What can I say? Well, this is not the first time this problem has reared its ugly fucking head. And I'm guessing it won't be the last time.
Okay, I had a whole bunch of other stuff written here, which felt good to do, but I erased it. No need to get too specific about the whole work thing. But I'm pissed, rest assured. Livid. Veins-a-poppin' mad.
I shall endeavor to have something light and peachy for you here later, after I've had time to calm down (roughly translated: I'll post after I drink tequila for a while). In the meantime, please feel free to tell me what an ill-tempered cunt I am. That always cheers me up.
I know you come here for highbrow entertainment, and it's my intention to keep providing it, same as always.
Tonight, I have provided some poetry for your dining and dancing pleasure.
For some reason, the final tagline doesn't load all the way. When it gets to the end and you see scrambled text, just move the slider slightly to the right to see the unscrambled text. Damn streaming video...
If you've never been awoken at 4:15 a.m. by your cellphone playing Maroon 5 Harder to Breathe, which means you have a text page from the web server, which means you have to go restart the web server, you just haven't lived, pal o' mine. That was precisely the manner in which my day began, and when I'd finished with the business at hand, I was awake enough to idly cruise a few blogs. God, was that a mistake!
I thought Jess was my friend, until, at the suggestion of her latest post, I followed the link on this post at 4:30 this morning, and promptly gouged my eyes out with pointy origami (and it hurts more because it takes longer). What kind of god would allow this to happen? Warning: if you, too, were scarred by Jess' recommendation already, DO NOT watch this again! Even one viewing is 98% certain to cause brain damage. Don't risk repeated viewings. You might end up like me.
You may have noticed that I've been a complete slacker about answering my comments lately, and for that I apologize. I really do like it when you comment. Guess we can chalk it up to one thing: I'm an asshole I'm really swamped right now. So, I tried to answer a batch of comments this morning, and then pretty soon, there's more comments, and more comments, and before you know it, I realize my whoring abilities are bein' called into question because of my lack of ability to swallow pills the size of my head. Well, let me tell you all something...um, why do you think I only get two dollars? And I'll tell you something else: if any jizz ever gets shot my way that has lumps in it the size of DayQuil capsules, I won't swallow that, either. Lumpy jizz is no better than lumpy DayQuil.
Everybody here seems to be on a "Have lunch with a blogger" kick, too. You think you want to be seen with me eating in a public place, but that's only because you haven't seen my table manners. Remember that scene in The Blues Brothers, where Jake and Elwood go into the fancy restaurant and proceed to toss shrimp and bread at each other, guzzle Dom Perignon like it was Ripple, and offer to buy another patron's children? Yeah, that's me at dinner. Of course, then you'd have something to blog about..."Good lord, that Bucky is like Pigpen from Charlie Brown!" "Even my dog uses a knife and fork more adeptly than Bucky." "When Bucky was done eating, it looked like the bread basket had exploded on her placemat."
I think it's time to whip out the graphics and sneak out the back, Jack. Catch y'all on the flipside.
Having given myself over to the reality of this cold that has settled into my bones, I was tempted in a biblically huge way to just succumb to the creepy crawlies and call in sick this morning. But I grabbed myself by the collar and made me get up and dressed. When I finally made it out onto the porch and had locked the door, I realized that the whole porch was covered in a thin sheet of ice. Now, I have trouble with my balance on a good day with my health and a flat, dry surface; throw some ice down and it's a sure-fire way to get some spontaneous flailing that would put all the performance artists in the world to shame.
Having no faith in my ability to balance on the icy steps, in my cute but not iceworthy boots, I grabbed onto the post at the top of the steps and made my way down, one by one, heel hooked on the back of the step, until I couldn't go any farther without letting go of the post. It wasn't pretty, but I hopped over the side into the yard - one more step down would've been lovely, by the way - and was able to make it to the car without my ass meeting the ground in that sudden, impetuous way that it usually has. We'll call that a small miracle.
My forward progress was all predicated on the notion that once I got to the office, I could quiet the demons in my head, chest, and throat with some DayQuil. That is some nasty, nasty shit. I can't think of too many things that I think taste worse than DayQuil. So, why don't I just shut the fuck up and take the handy dandy taste-free DayQuil capsule form? Well, because..have you seen the size of those things? I can take small pills. Big pills have to be broken into smaller pieces for me. Yes, I am that big a pain in the ass. But you can't bust up a liqui-capsule. Why did they have to make the fuckers as big as my head? Why can't they make them half the size and say, "Take four"? Anyway, you see why I am a slave to liquid DayQuil and its nasty-ass tongue poison.
Once I'd settled in at work (and by that I mean I had a fresh can of Coke and was reading email), I had a breakfast bar so that my tastebuds might have a pleasant memory before I poured on the liqui-shit, and then I dug out my trusty office DayQuil. I went to pour some into a spoon, and it looked...wrong. It was, well, nigh unto lumpy. Grateful that I hadn't put this chunky abomination anywhere near my mouth, I looked at the expiration date on the bottle, and let me tell you - it doesn't take long for DayQuil to start growing legs. Looked like a trip to Walgreen's would be my fate.
I shuffled over to the cold and flu remedy aisle - you know I'm really sick when my first stop isn't the toy aisle to browse the plastic figurines and Play-Doh - and began what I thought would be a quick search and recover mission for the DayQuil. I saw rows and rows and rows of NyQuil blue, but nary an orange buoy bobbed alongside the blue. I searched across the aisle, I searched the endcap, I went back where I'd looked before because, let's face it, I'm old and sometimes I miss stuff. Nope. Just my luck, I thought, they're all sold out of DayQuil. NyQuil is bliss, and I don't even mind the flavor, but something tells me my sleeping at my desk during work hours would be frowned upon in the sternest possible way. I was just about to ask somebody why the hell they didn't have any DayQuil when they knew I could burst in at any moment, in dire need of clarity in the midst of my snot fog? I mean, really, people!
Then I saw the sign. Certain products were being kept behind the pharmacy counter because they contain pseudoephedrine, apparently a key ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamines (who knew? I've been makin' meth wrong all these years!). I had to take a little card with a picture of DayQuil on it, in all its orangeness, and have the pharmacist hand me a bottle. It's a good thing I didn't feel like gasoline-soaked dog shit after pharmacy hours. If I'd felt better, I'd have kept going back to the pharmacy with new tags, just to see how many they'd let me buy before the cops showed up. But I decided a wiser course was just to take the shit back to the office and try to dose myself into a state of pseudo lucidity.
I had to work hard for that DayQuil. I tore the protective plastic collar off the bottle and poured it into the dose cup - no lumps, just smooth orange elixir. 30 millilitres is a lot to drink when it tastes that much like electric dung. Sure, it helped and I was able to work all day, but at what cost to my poor tastebuds? Here is a sample of my DayQuil face:
I think the word I was searching for here was RETCH!
I may still be emotionally scarred from this. Let's hope I don't get sick again before the trauma wears off.
After a day spent in denial, it's time for me to admit that I'm coming down with a cold. My throat's been swollen and several shades of irritated since I woke up this morning, and I've been trying not to laugh so I don't start the coughing. In other words, my body is in revolt, and it's more than a little revolting.
At some point, I probably had something in mind to post tonight, but rational, linear thought has been as elusive as a greased pig on a luge track. So I have decided to give myself over to shameless endorsement. Here is a short list of My Rectummendations, at No Additional Charge to You:
If you decide to start watching Babylon 5, and you know I've recommended that elsewhere, start with the second season. Watching the second and then the third season will make you curious enough to go back and watch the first season. You will be interested enough in the overall storyline that you will forgive the utter cheesiness of the first season because, may J Michael Straczynski forgive me, if you started with the first season, you might not make it. I love the show, really, enough to marry it, but even I have to snicker a little bit when I see episodes from the first season. Then again, come on - you have to love a show that features a line like "What do you want, you moon-faced assassin of joy?"
Find out when the northern lights are most likely to be visible, and arrange to be someplace far enough north and sufficiently dark to enjoy the view. Everyone should see the aurora borealis at least once, and if you can see those suckers more than once, then you're as lucky as I am. I've seen the lights all white, where it looked like the sky was made out of rippling, shimmering satin; I've seen the lights shoot bands of red, of blue, of green. I wonder what they'll look like next time? Okay, I'll stop with the nicey nice.
Go into the mall, with no children along, stand in an awkward pose in the middle of a crowded area, and loudly wail, "Uh ohhhhhh...POOP!" You will make lots of new friends that way.
Wear a bouffant wig to work for a whole day. I mean this whether you're female or male. It's a great stress reliever. Bonus points if you can find a plastic molded bouffant wig.
Make paperdolls out of figures you cut out of grocery store tabloids. I love to arrange play dates for Bat Boy and Kennedy's Brain. Sometimes they "borrow" Angelina's wardrobe (shhhhhhh, don't tell her).
Eat french toast with powdered sugar on it while wearing your jammies and watching Scooby Doo. I don't care how old you are - that's just pure entertainment there.
Have sex with Brad Pitt. Oh, wait. I should probably only recommend things I've actually done myself, huh? I don't care - I still think sex with Brad Pitt is a good idea. I don't know if it's a good idea for me to have sex with Brad. These thighs could make that poor boy whimper like an Ewok in a bear trap, and nobody wants that (with the possible exception of Ms. Aniston).
Mostly, I recommend that you not write a post when you're in a half-crazed state of mind like I am right now. On the other hand, if it gets any of you laid by Brad Pitt, then I can take some pride in my work here.
Can someone get me a Ny-Quil cocktail and a late wake-up call?
I threw this together very quickly tonight, from the bad assemblage to the cheesy Garage Band backing track, to let you know that I have not forgotten my abiding commitment to the blending of two arts, Play-Doh animation and pornography. There is a full-scale project swimming around in my head, but I just haven't had the time to devote to makin' it happen. In the meantime, watch this a couple of times and see if you really still want me to continue with long-form animation.
It's been too long since I've waxed philosophical about the laundromat. Actually, it's just been too long since I've been to the laundromat. Oops!
But I didn't come here to air my dirty laundry. Not today, anyway.
My long, long-overdue trip to the laund-O-rama started out blissfully enough, with a whole row of machines waiting for me, just for me, and my soap wasn't frozen. I like it when the laundry begins like that. I'm easy to please, folks. When it came time to dry, I was pleased to find six consecutive dryers empty on the Wall of Good Dryers.
The bank on the right is the Wall of Good Dryers. All the other dryers in this place are crap.
It was great. I set my carts in front of my dryers and skipped out to grab some lunch. When I returned with some food that I really shouldn't have but do anyway, but don't tell my doctor, ssshhhhhh, I noticed a big red van was parked by the door. As I ate and waited for my clothes to dry, I noticed an unusually large and unruly group of children running between the laundromat and the red van, back and forth, back and forth.
When I was ready to go inside, I realized it was even worse than I had imagined. The front of the laundromat was swarming with what I presume to be the offspring of the two adults in the middle of the swarm. It was stunning; there were so many of them, and they were in such constant motion, and there was such chaos, that there was no proper way for me to count them. I'm prepared to say there were at least six, but I suspect more, many more than that.
All the carts people had set in front of their dryers were gone, now in the hands of what I began to think of as the Scavenger Children. I hunted around and found a couple of carts and began to unload my dry clothes, and as the Scavenger Children ran, screamed, touched things not theirs, and generally rampaged as their mom and dad halfheartedly admonished them, "Now, get over here!" I began to think of the parents as the type who would send their children into a neighbor's burning trailer to grab valuables (to keep). An older gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and asked, a touch accusingly, "Did you 'borrow' the cart I had here?" I indicated that I had not, but he kept looking at me suspiciously the rest of the time we were there. I'd seen the "Sportsmen for Bush" bumper sticker on his car, and I really hoped it wouldn't be a shooting offense to him. I just don't wanna be shot for a cart I never took, anyway. Mister, look around - obviously, the Scavenger Children took it.
The whole laundromat was swirling with the thunder of children gone completely out of control. I traded a number of "Oh my god!" raised-eyebrow looks with nearby patrons (except for mister "borrowed" cart, who continued to give me sour looks for the duration - I think my shades and my hippie hair put him off). When their wash was loaded at last, the whole army was trundled out to the van, presumably to make life a living hell for some shopkeeper or restauranteur while the clothes washed.
I came away from the laundromat with two words in mind: Birth control. If only it could be retroactive in some cases.
Oh, and remember this vending machine?
Well, there's a reason it's a hand-drawn sign and not a placard featuring Series 8 Homies - because it's still full of Series fucking 7 Homies! I fear I will have to go to Pro-Clean just to get my Series 8 Homies. Sure, I could just order all of Series 8 from the Homies web site, but that's not the point. It's the thrill of the vending machine that gets me, the dropping of the plastic egg, that little moment of not knowing which one is inside. But when it's the same ones I've been getting for months already, well, as BB King once lamented, the thrill is gone.
I was hunted down and tagged by Jim, clad in his signature prom gown, and he would like me to tell you five weird things about myself. The original meme was to list five bad habits, but I think I talk about my bad habits here plenty enough. So I'll be like Jim and stick to the weirdness.
Shit. Now I have to think of five weird things that aren't already apparent to you.
Uno: I am wearing a pair of Skechers sneakers that just slip on - no shoelaces, no velcro. I love them enough to marry them. I think they are the greatest shoes ever invented, and when I found them in the bargain store, I bought three pairs. I'm glad, because I don't even see this style on their web site anymore. I take a lot of flak for the fact that I'm too lazy to lace or velcro, but you know what? I've got a grabby little pucker for your tongue.
Dos: I own an embarassing number of guitars for someone who so rarely plays, and I would rather shove a pointy party hat up my ass than change the strings myself. Anybody got a pointy party hat?
Tres: I once told Mitch Ryder that I used to listen to "Jenny Take a Ride" on my Close n' Play. Mitch did not look amused.
Fouro: I wouldn't want to live in a world without anal sex crab legs.
Fiveo: Let me list various items strewn about me in my home office: tampon angel, stuffed Opus penguin with a garter on his head, three skull shot glasses, pretzels, monkey pillow, Play-Doh in three separate areas of the room, mega butter body butter, broken penis candle, other monkey pillow, four (visible) Babylon 5 figurines, seventeen (visible) Homies, Guitar Army by John Sinclair (don't tell me you are shocked I have hippie relics about my house), a mismatched Flintstones alarm clock and wristwatch, and a toothbrush with a handle so thick and so bright pink that I'm almost afraid it will ejaculate if I stick it in my mouth.
There's this...recurring fantasy that just won't leave me alone. It haunts me in my sleep, distracts me when I'm awake, and stirs longings in me I dare not spell out in too much specificity lest I border on vulgarity. I know, I know, I don't usually speak of matters such as these here, but it's gotten so far under my skin that the only way to rid myself of it is to come online and shake it off like a tick, watch its blood-filled carcass sail through the ether and splatter in an unholy kaleidoscope against some firewall in a darkened cobblestone alleyway.
Uh, what was I talkin' about? Oh, yeah...
In my fantasy, what I want is there in front of me, waiting only for me to...slip in my spatula and flip it over until it's golden brown on both sides. Oh, yes, baby - french toast, eight slices of white bread, four eggs, a splash of water, dash of cinnamon, just enough vanilla to make my nostrils flare. Crispy, but not burned. Good griddly gluttony. Jump back, gonna kiss myself. Eight slices of french toast, all perfect on my plate, and some apricot syrup, distributed unsparingly. And just like that, it's gone - fork exhausted on the plate like a pecker who's just done double duty, napkin crumpled and syrup stained, plate licked clean of syrup and every last crumb....mmmm, and then I step out on the porch and smoke a wonderful, lung-punching, unfiltered Camel. When I come back in the house, I wander over to the scales. Now mind you, in this fantasy, this is my 17th day in a row to have eight slices of french toast for breakfast. I step on the scales. I look down. I weigh a pound less than I did yesterday. Dammit!
Oh, wait - that's not a fantasy; that's a flashback to my high school years.
I was one of those irritating "Oh, I can eat every morsel of food in sight - in fact, I regularly slap candy from the hands of children and eat it myself - but I just can't seem to gain an ounce!" kind of people in high school. I was watcha call too skinny, actually. I was close to six feet tall, and I couldn't get my weight over 115, hard as I might try. Oh, and I tried. God, did I try. I really wanted to fill out a little more (note to self: should have specified where "filling out" was to cease and when "a little more" was "a little too much").
And it wasn't like I was bein' dainty, eatin' like a bird. Oh, no fuckin' way. No. I was nicknamed "The Eating Machine" (not for my skills at oral pleasure, unfortunately; only nickname that ever got me was Gaglia), and I lived up to it. Let's start with the french toast, eight slices of it. That would be a good start to the day. I could probably eat two cheese sandwiches at lunch with no problem, and that might hold me until dinner, where it wouldn't be any problem for me to eat a box or two of macaroni and cheese all by myself, or a whole large pizza if it was a fancy eatin' night. All of this was accompanied by enough milk and orange juice to drown my graduating class (unfortunately, that never happened). Oh, and beer. I know, I know, I was in high school, and the law is sort of against high school students drinking beer. But I drank it fast, so the law wouldn't see me do it. I think we're even...or something. I liked my beer by the quart, and since when is it okay to finish an entire pizza without at least two quarts of beer? This doesn't even take into account all the snacking I would do between meals. My body constantly demanded more fuel, more fuel, more beer (well, it didn't specifically demand the beer, but I sort of felt like that's what it would have told me, if it'd had the words).
My appetite was apparently entertaining to some adults in the neighborhood. We'd have these big block parties, where everyone would bring food and booze and there'd be volleyball and kids on Big Wheels, and sometimes adults on Big Wheels (note the aforementioned booze). I lived for that shit, because it was a chance to wade in up to my bony ass and eat for as long as the carcasses had meat on 'em. I always had the feeling the adults were watching how much I ate, and most of them were highly amused by the sheer volume of food the beanpole bitch could consume. There were quite often barely suppressed bursts of laughter as I'd circle and make my sixth or seventh trip back to the buffet. My sis even dated a guy for a while who would occasionally take me along on a date, just because it made him laugh to see how much food I could eat when put in an all-you-can-eat situation - though I still feel kinda bad about that brunch at Charley's Crab, where I was so bloody fucking hung over I couldn't even eat a plateful. I'm sure it was probably delicious, for someone who hadn't been up all night re-tasting Miller Lite and Kessler's.
I not only didn't have to watch what I ate, I went out of my way to try to gain weight. Just typing that now makes me shake my head at the unfairness of it all. By the time I was 25, I was to the ideal weight for my height. Fantastic! But then, I realized what a motherfucker the human body can be, and let's just say no one would ever accuse me of being "too skinny" ever again. The worst part is that I didn't realize just how damn good I looked at 25, hell; even at too-skinny 18, I'm sure the lack of gravitational ravages would make up for some of the ability to count each rib - although my best friend, Lynda, did nickname me "Pendulous Mammarus Minumus" in high school gym class, so take that into account while you're picturing me as a naked teenager and then saying 200 Hail Marys, you hellbound sicko.
So there you have it; my fantasy is just high school with the zits and anxiety surgically removed.
Oh, and I think I did promise you some anal sex, and I do try to make good on my promises (um, unless I'm offering Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat, as a prize which turns out to be completely fraudulent and starts a blogworld scandal).
So I give you...Anal Sex Catch of the Day!
Oh, Pat, let me squeeze them succulent breastseses one more tahm...
The really weird part is that I always pictured Jerry as the catcher, not the pitcher. But oh, I see he's got a slider that brings tears to Pat's eyes.
I hope this wasn't too sentimental and romantic for you guys.
No, the title does not refer to Jimi Hendrix' Strat at Monterey. Check out the psychedelic flame job/fireworks extravaganza Circus Kelli did on my PT Cruiser, y'all (click on the pic, choose "All Sizes" and then view original size to check out the lettering on the driver's door). Sweeeeeeet! My car is now a "KT Buckster"!
I apologize for my extreme blog bitchiness last night; all I can say in my defense is: I'm a chick. We get nuts like that sometimes. The coveted Patience With My Bullshit Award goes to Jess for puttin' up with my ranting last night and for fancyin' up her puppy and sending me the pictures to make me laugh (it worked). Thanks, girl, for helpin' me bring the blood pressure down...you're better than xanax.
Yes, I know you're all looking for Play-Doh porn from me, and you'll get some, trust me. But do you really wanna see what I would do with Play-Doh when I'm in a bad mood? You think the broken penis candle was gruesome? I think my sexual imagery in clay is open enough to interpretation and analysis; I shudder to think what a mental health professional would have to say about my angry sculpture.
So...I will try to play nice next time. And when I say "nice"? I mean there will be depictions of anal sex. But not angry anal sex.
It's not often I get in a cleaning mood, but today has been one of those rare occasions. I've been shredding the amazing mountain of old bills I've managed to accumulate, and have also been trying to free up space in my home office. There are just things that have to go, and I'm on a mission.
But you might not be surprised to learn that I unearthed some objects that I could not, in good conscience, classify as "normal" - not even close.
The first specimin is from my years at Meijer (it was a Christmas present from my boss), and is a vintage Flintstones alarm clock.
Note the pterodactyl that rotates to represent the movement of seconds. This is one fancy godddamn clock. Somewhere, I have a matching wristwatch. It shall be my obsession 'til I find it, and then I can reunite the long-lost, star-crossed lovers.
I'm a little concerned about the alarm, though. Is it just me, or does this look like...somehow more than just an alarm meant to be rattled by a vibrating pterodactyl?
Is it perhaps less likely to be thrown 'cross the room if it looks like tits? I really could use these more strategically:
Oh, how they defy gravity. *sigh*
I also found something up here that I can't even honestly remember receiving. If you gave this to me, please refresh my memory.
Oh, like you've never found a penis candle underneath a stack of old utility bills. This must be in case of power failure. Or if there's ever a horny rat in the woodwork.
Make a wish...
Maybe I should clean house more often. Remember last month when we all prayed for dick? Hmmmm, I wonder...
And now, on a completely unrelated but equally absurd note, I give you the very latest in hairstyles for bats:
Why? Why the fuck not?
Epilogue: It has been determined that Bucky's worsened dementia tonight has been caused by the odor emitted from shredding Polaroids. Who knew those things put up such a stank as they died?
I've confessed here before that I am addicted to General Hospital. Every weekday, I see these same people, give or take a Carly replacement or three, and they're almost like the family I'm glad isn't my family. And you see people change, you see kids grow up (if they keep the same kid on contract), you watch characters go through pain and change and...zits.
Yeah, I'm a TV zit watcher. Lots of closeup shots and the fact that I'm usually watching GH on tape gives me the opportunity to closely examine this phenomenon. One actress in particular seems to sprout a lot of facial molehills.
This is Emily, also known as Saint Emily or Poor, Pathetic Emily, depending on which snarky soap fan you ask. She is the simpering voice of reason and conscience in a small New York town gone mad with its own retardation...and she gets lots of zits on her chin.
Now, I'm not sayin' she's not still cute, but man - she does her fair share of onscreen kissy face, and I'm always worried what that kind of close proximity and friction could do to her, ah, condition.
Dramatization.
Today she was makin' out with mob boss Sonny Corinthos. Now, whattaya suppose is gonna happen the day the Godfather leans in for a kiss and ruptures her pus-filled volcano? You think there's not gonna be a hit on her after he pulls back and sees his favorite jacket ruined?
I don't see how it can be good for anyone in Port Charles. Sand that thing down, Emily. Do it for the children.
***************
On a less zitty note, Arjay's wife was able to smuggle the Play-Doh to me today. Yes, that's right - we successfully stole modeling compound from her young children. Score!
I am amazed by the variety of colors they make now. There is gold and there is silver and there is fuschia and there is black! And it's virgin Play-Doh.
And as if things couldn't get any more right-in-without-splinters, there was also a brand-new Play-Doh Fun Factory in the smuggle bag!
Well, don't I feel silly - my nickname for my lady parts is "Fun Factory" too!
I don't think it should be hard to guess what I'll be doin' all weekend.
I was at lunch today...yes, "lunch" where you leave the office and sit down in a restaurant and eat and talk and everything! Just the fact that I left my desk to eat differentiates today from any day in the last three weeks or so. And it wasn't just any lunch, mind you - it was Mongolian Barbecue. Oh, yeah. It would have been nearly orgasmic if not for the fact that there were no fucking crawdaddies! Well, to be totally accurate, there were no non-fucking crawdaddies, either. They were crawdaddy-less. Crawdaddy deprived. They gave me no tail.
Would the lack of tail excuse the conversation I then had with Arjay's wife?
See, my newfound fascination with Play-Doh sculpture coincides with her desire to be rid of a case - yes, a case - of Play-Doh given to her small children by their evil uncle. They are in a new house, and since I'm sure it's her fondest desire to avoid Play-Doh-infused carpeting, she wants me to take possession of the forbidden modeling compound. She's kept it hidden from the kids pretty well, and she needs to sneak it out of the house without their seeing, since they are children, and they will want the Play-Doh. At their age, the fun factory is just that easy.
She told me at lunch of her plan to bring it to me today, smuggled out of the house in shopping bags. It seemed reasonable to her that she would be able to take the dreaded rainbow-colored menace out of her house, and be a patron of the arts by then handing it over to me. That is, until last night when she heard a delighted shriek from the basement: "Oh, cool! Play-Doh!" Her oldest had discovered the contraband.
And for a second, I found myself truly disappointed. Sure, I could afford to go out and buy enough Play-Doh to build a life-size replica of Michaelangelo's David, only with a huge schlong this time. But I wanted that Play-Doh. And I would've let my friend steal it from her children for me.
Oh my god. I'm a bully.
I think we need an intervention here. And some fucking crawdaddies.
Man, I know I gotta go, it's the same thing every time, But I don't think another drink's gonna make me lose my mind. So I think about my next drink, And it's you and me and the bottle makes three tonight... (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy)
Because I was desperate, and suffering from massive writer's block last night (that video drained me like a feeding bat), I just posted a picture of some MD 20/20 and mused that perhaps the strawberry-kiwi might not have made me vomit as much as all the grape Mad Dog I rabidly (!) consumed as a teenager. Nilbo commented:
Yeah, because it's all about the flavour and not the alcohol content that makes you puke.
Okay, point taken. It all tasted like paint thinner anyway, no matter what fruit picture they slapped on the label. I can't even really blame it on the cheap wine, either; perfectly acceptable, respectable, overpriced alcohol makes me sick, too, if I have more than one serving. I can vomit Moet Chandon Brut with just as much vigor as I can heave Andre's Spurkling Bargundy. And I have.
Many a miserable night have I spent embracing the toilet while my stomach says "Nope, that's gotta go...and that...and that..and that..." It seems odd that I haven't been completely soured on beer, as many times as I've made myself sick with it (I was going to write "as many times as it's made me sick" but then I realized that I really had more choice here than the beer did). Same for wine. I even used wine puke to make a presentation for my mom once. Do I hear a chorus of "If you were my daughter I'd kick your ass!" ? And let's not even talk about Kessler's, which may be smoothe as silk goin' down, but it's lumpy as metal shards wrapped in burlap comin' back up. Nilbo also commented:
Kinda why I avoid Lemon Gin. Put me off citrus fruit for years. For all the pukin' I've done - and I'm kind of an expert at it - there are only two things I cannot, absolutely cannot, consume anymore as a direct result of tasting them while vomiting: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and vodka. The PB&J aversion stems from an incident when I was seven years old, ate a PB&J sandwich, and then vomited in a grand and rococo fashion. It turned out to be the flu, and had not a thing to do with the sandwich, but logic plays no part in this. The association is now there, and to this day, I can eat peanut butter, or I can eat jelly, but dear sweet parasailin' baby Jesus, don't put 'em together if you mean to put it on my plate.
Then there's vodka. The sweet nectar of potatoes. Rasputin's holy water. 'Twas ruined for me at the age of 13. Again, the problem stemmed from the fact that my company for the night included Juanita, bad drinker, terrible friend, dumb twat. Juanita, Sue and I were out walkin' the mean streets of Grand Haven one night, lookin' for trouble, and we found it at the bachelor pad of several young men, all of whom were too old to be consorting with 13-year-old girls. A couple of the guys were probably aware of this, and they disappeared shortly after we arrived, I guess so as not to be liable if anybody decided to play hide the sausage with teenage girls.
The one dude who stayed was the object of Juanita's desire; he was just her type (male, breathing, use of both legs, etc.) and she wanted to make a move, in her completely clumsy teenage way. Juanita started to play a game where she and dude would draw cards, and if her card was higher than his, he had to kiss her. Yes, that's right - her lips were the punishment for losing. This was fine until dude decided that Sue and I should play, too, especially Sue (she was the cute one - I was the funny one, Juanita was the...um, the ugly, not-so-bright one). Unsurprisingly, Juanita did not like this change in the game one bit and declared an end to cards.
I suppose dude decided the next best way to get some from teenage girls was to provide access to alcohol. Well, what took you so long, my friend? He went to the kitchen and returned with a fifth of the cheapest of cheap vodka (I don't remember the brand name, but it had a red label. Anybody?) and some water glasses. No ice, no mixers. Crappy vodka and questionably clean glassware. Dude started to pour shots into the glasses, and when he got to mine, Sue volunteered, "You'd better give her a lot!"
"Yeah," Juanita helpfully piped in, "she's a hardcore drinker!"
There's no tellin' where they got that idea, but once they'd said it, I sure as hell wasn't gonna look like some wimpy, wussy little pussy of a drinker. When dude handed mine to me, almost a full water glass, I took it...and I gulped it. Gulped it, like hot jizz on a winter morning. Juanita, Sue, and even dude looked on with a new respect as I drained the glass and slammed it down on the table. God, I was cool. So very fucking cool.
Um...I don't really remember much after that, though I'm sure I was sick quickly enough after that little escapade that we didn't hang around long enough for dude to start jigglin' the jailbait. I'm pretty sure I threw up all the way home, a nice little trail in case we got lost and needed to find our way back to dude's house, and I would also put money on the fact that I threw up even more after Juanita and Sue had left me to the mercy of my parents.
So please don't ever offer me vodka. Even really expensive, hoity-toity, la-de-freakin-da, fru-fru vodka like Grey Goose. I am traumatized, and will make the association that vodka=nausea for the rest of my life. I just can't drink the shit.
Because I will Absolutly vomit.
Go on, tell me your drunken vomiting stories. You know you want to.
Well, according to tradition, I'm supposed to take the turning of the calendar as an excuse to improve myself by way of resolutions. But for me, that's tough.
I'm not sayin' it's tough for me to find something about myself that needs to improve, because I can find that shit all day. And there's the rub: I'm such a broken, twisted, fundamentally wrong person that I wouldn't even know where to start the fixin' process. When you think about it, isn't any single resolution I could make just a drop of grease in the sleaze bucket?
Smoking cessation would have been the obvious choice, of course - nice, easily identifiable, widely villified vice. But, dammit, I quit on my birthday last year, so I don't have that as a choice on the Menu of Self-Betterment. What am I gonna promise, then? To cover my bare ass when I wear chaps? To give a senior discount to my johns who can produce an AARP card? To use eco-friendly rechargable batteries in my flashing butt plug? To stop fashioning oversized genitalia from children's modeling clay? To start wearing my helmet when I skateboard in traffic?
It would all be a lie. I don't even have a skateboard.
I prefer to make resolutions that have nothing whatsoever to do with self improvement, but that I do stand a chance of fulfilling. Therefore, in 2006, I resolve:
To purchase more Play-Doh for bigger and better displays of semi-animated filth. I think I've found my calling.
To use Photoshop for evil and not for good.
To lobby vigorously for a special edition release of Homies Monopoly.
To get those bargain breast implants installed (the ones built on a technology similar to that of Ball Park Franks).
To blame every instance of flatulence on the nearest pet/child too small to contradict my story.
To vomit hilariously at least once this year so that I can tell you all about it.
To sing inebriated karaoke at least twice this year so my friends can tell me about it and then I can tell you about it. And you ain't seen nothin' 'til you've seen me drunkenly belting out Mack the Knife. Truly frightening shit.
Unlike most lists of resolutions I've made, I think I could actually keep this one in my pocket and make lots of "Done!" check marks on it throughout the year.
