Bitch dimed me out about the pants.
Randy picked me up from the north side of the terminal tonight after the Unbelievably Kickass Atlanta Awesome Tour of '06. He brought me an icy gin and tonic and a surprisingly cleaned-up hairline, and
I brought
him itchy cigarette throat and the shakes. He got out at the curb and smiled.
"You look like hell," he said, coming in for a vodka-laced hug. "But you apparently managed to keep up with both of your shoes. I'm impressed."
"You should be," I answered, winding up and flinging my bag into the back of the truck like a clothes-stuffed discus. "I've been shit ass drunk for six days straight."
Randy smiled and opened the car door. "You've only been gone for three," he pointed out.
"That's beside the point, but it
does explain why I forgot to pack any pants," I answered. "What are we doing for dinner? I don't think I should have any animal products." There were roughly
31,000 superfluous milligrams of vitamin B12 coursing through my boodstream like a rogue freight train loaded with coke-addled hookers, and I didn't think I should throw any additional B12 logs on that B15 fire.
Randy thought a second. "Sushi?" They don't make sushi with animals, right?
"That sounds great," I agreed, taking a sip of gin and tonic. I spat the tonic back into the glass. "Hey, can we stop on the way and pick up some platelets?"
Atlanta was awesome on a level that I've only dreamed possible. I've honestly never laughed so hard in my life. I'd elaborate, but I'm completely fucking exhausted and there's a B18 marathon at three-thirty tomorrow morning that I've got to prep for. More later.
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It's like a whole new website! That doesn't suck!
The amazing and talented
Mark sent me an email yesterday shortly after that last post asking if I'd like some assistance with my html/table/everything problems. He then kindly suggested that he "start from scratch", and I'm choosing to believe that this is not because all of my code was mainly just {let's go with center}{/no wait! left!} {divsomething}{/divsomething} {wha?}{/no seriously, wha?} over and over again, and that actually Mark just really likes completely recoding other peoples' ridiculous websites from scratch. With no compensation.
It looks phenomenal, so much cleaner, and I'm overjoyed.
Mark, you're fantastic. I promise never to touch anything.
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Sidebar
After three years of extreme trial and serious error, I've formulated what is quite possibly the sloppiest html code in existence for this website. I'm the girl who's scared to open Photoshop. I don't even know what "html"
stands for. So whatever respectable code that was originally provided to me by
Blogger has been slashed at and fucked with, and all the dignity has been sucked out and replaced with precarious invisible tables and borders and padding and shit.
Having said that, can anyone please tell me how to get the shit in the
right column fucking
centered? Every time I try, there's a techie somewhere who strokes out.
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The modem at the house finally gave up the ghost last week, and no amount of slamming it onto the kitchen table would bring it back. Other things that wouldn't bring it back: throwing it into the yard, crying on it, shoving a sweaty, furtive hundred dollar bill into its air vent, and flogging it sadistically with its own cord.
I had just yanked it out of a tree in the backyard and was about to have Randy take a cameraphone picture of me backing over it with the car when my cell phone, perhaps sensing a loss in household technological kenesis, decided to get a move on happily dissolving its own battery pack.
Add to all of this the fact that I wasn't allowed to operate the television
or the stereo after I got caught violating my "stop trying to text message people with the remote control" probation, and it was a very long, very Amish, very quiet weekend. Except for all of the rage-filled screaming, which was not at all quiet, and probably not very Amish.
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Annoying Questions To Which I Received No Response: Part 4 of 17
[Asked huffily and indignantly of Randy, Captain Responsible, in his dark tie and blue lapis cufflinks and positive cashflow and red face full of strangled incredulity and shit, late in the evening on April 18th, 2006:]"Well,
yeah, obviously, I mean I know
that. But I'm asking you when my
state taxes are due."
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Google Fiction: Searches Incorporated Into Brief and Awesome Tales, Vol. 7
"Dad, I'm eleven! This is stupid." Tyrian squirmed in his leggings while his dad hovered over him, fastening the shield around his neck. The wind rushing over the scorched and parid landscape made him cough.
"That's about enough out of you," Gorin threatened. "You think
I had a birthday party when I was your age? Huh? You wanna know what
I had at your age? I'll tell you what
I had..."
"Yeah, Dad, the
plague. You had the
plague. I
know." Tyrian rolled his eyes.
"Hey, Honey?" Tyrian's mother appeared up over a smoking boulder. "The other kids are getting anxious down here, not to mention that they're up-wind. You about ready?"
"He's all set, Elsabyth!" yelled Gorin. Tyrian winced. He wasn't positive, but he was pretty sure that yelling out here wasn't a great idea.
"Okay, you kids ready?" Gorin clapped his hands together. The group clung together, mumbling nervously. "Everyone have their paintbrush? Hold up your brush!" Nine shaky brushes went into the air. "Okay, great! Who's got the ochre?" Someone weakly held up a basket.
Elsabyth moved closer to her husband. "I don't know," she said, "They don't look all that excited." The poor basket-carrier punctuated her thought with a dry heave. "Yeah," she continued, validated, "I really think we should have gone with a Puppy Party."
Gorin bristled. "A Puppy Party?" he spat. "That doesn't even make any
sense, Elsa; everybody already
ate! These aren't the
Dark Ages, for Christ's sake!"
"For
whose sake? And yeah, Gorin, these actually
are the Dark Ages. One abacus bought on credit does not a "Middle Ages" make. Asshole." Just then a little girl tugged on Elsabyth's sleeve.
"What is it, Plathera?" Elsabyth asked, irritated. The girl whispered into her ear.
Elsabyth nodded. "Wow," she said, "I didn't think of that. Hey!" she yelled to the group. "If we've got any virgins up there? Yeah, you all hang back! Good catch, Plath!" she added, throwing the thumb's up. Plathera stared at her feet.
"Okay!" Gorin clapped his hands together. "Everybody ready? Let's get this
Paint The Dragon game started! Last one into the smoldering cave is a dirty Christian!"
Vol. 1 Vol. 2 Vol. 3 Vol. 4 Vol. 5 Vol. 6
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Unemployment: Sometimes It's Warmish, But It's Still The Joint.
I was out in the yard today watering plants and playing with the dog and generally putzing around when I suddenly realized that I was sweating, that the Phoenix weather had taken the abrubt yet dependable April turn toward the blistering, screaming chambers of fiery hell, and that soon three and four-month-old babies in Scottsdale and Avondale and Glendale would be gleefully mistaken as prodigal as they struggled to walk upright on their chubby little legs light years ahead of other babies, because
other babies-- like Minnesota and North Dakota and even Northern California babies-- aren't
dying to get their sweaty little rolly-poly baby bottoms up off a scalding Arizona tile floor. It was
hot today, is what I'm saying.
So I went inside and changed into a lighter robe.
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D-E-N-I-A-L... Only One "I" For A Reason.
I know I've mentioned it before, but my mother is now mostly blind. And not in the "can't do a crossword in the hall closet with invisible ink without her contacts in" blind, I mean "four surgeries, a trip to an LA specialist, and a cornea transplant" blind. As a lot of you no doubt (and unfortunately) know, watching one of your parents struggle with an uncontrollable condition that weakens and demeans is an incredibly difficult situation to reconcile. I mean, for starters it's just not fair, right? And then once you add the unfairness to that and then multiply it to the power of completely fucking unfair, you find that the whole goddamned situation just reeks of fairness gone bad. I'd like a fairness recount, frankly, and then I'd like an award for Most Irrational Reasoning Of A Toddler. In a drama series.
It's been handy being unemployed because I've been available for emergency blind interception; I get my amazing powers of reasoning from my mother, and so it's safe to say that she's not having much to do with this whole "unable to see" thing. I'll give you an example: she called me yesterday and announced that she was going to run up to the store for a few things before dinner. I assumed that she meant that she was going to grab a backpack and then actually
hoof it to the store and back because clearly there was no way that she was going to feel her way behind the wheel of a two-ton automobile and turn the ignition. Right?
"Oh," she said dismissively, "I only drive to the grocery store on the corner." The one just past the elementary school zone. The one with two left turns across six lanes of traffic.
"You know what? I've actually got to get some stuff, too," I said hurriedly, throwing the groceries that I'd just bought out of my car and onto the floor of the garage. "I'll come get you."
So we went to the store. I pushed the cart and she held on to the side. She told me what she needed and I picked it off the shelf for her. "Didn't you need something?" she asked. Oh yeah. I grabbed some wine by the neck.
On the way home she announced that she was thinking about trading her car in. I breathed a sigh of relief. This was great; very common sense, very clear thinking.
"Well, I for one think that's a really smart thing to do," I said, trying to be supportive.
"Yeah," she replied, "My little car has just gotten too hard to manage. It's too hard to
see anything. It's so small, and there are too many
blind spots," she said.
"Blind spots," I repeated slowly. "Like... the windshield?"
"I'm thinking about getting something
bigger, like an SUV," she chirped, squinting at me.
"Mom, I don't think an increase in overall
tonnage is going to make any kind of positive difference, here."
"It'll be kind of like when a man going through a midlife crisis buys a sports car," she reasoned.
"Um." That stumped me. "No it... won't," I said. "It'll be more like a lumberjack going blind and deciding to upgrade to a bigger chainsaw."
Mom blinked at me.
"Or!" I tried again, "A
pilot going blind and then saying, 'Hey, I'd really like to try flying a bigger
plane! With more innocent people on board!'" I added that last part for crass emphasis. Hopelessly.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, slapping her thigh. I foolishly breathed easier. "That reminds me," she said, "I'm flying to Vegas in a couple of weeks for a conference. Your dad will be there already, so I'll fly up by myself and then rent a car-- or an SUV, or... take a cab," she caught herself, "to the Venetian and then walk around and see what's going on."
Needless to say, I volunteered myself to go to Vegas with her. "I've, uh, I've got to get some stuff," I reasoned smoothly.
Rest assured, we will be procuring taxis. Someone might want to get with our pilot beforehand, though; I might have inadvertently put some ideas in my mom's head.
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We had that enormous
party this weekend, and for the first time I can remember I wasn't a big freaked out mass of stressful updo and drunk ballgown. I think it's the hair; when I cut off all my hair, I apparently cut off my uptight sense of formal responsibility. It might have also been the percocet. But whatever, I wore the same dress I wore last year, and instead of hobbling around all night in those asinine black heels (a birthday gift from Satan) I kicked them off under a table during the first half-hour and spent the rest of the night gleefully shuffling around barefoot under my dragging dress like Morticia Adams and looking up at everyone. It wasn't a completely perfect night-- I did accidentally tell this woman who I used to babysit for that I was married, and I'm not sure how that happened, since I'm decidedly and staunchly UNmarried, but something snapped when she assumed that I was someone's daughter. I bristled and came back with "no, I'm someone's
wife." And then it was "husband" this and "husband" that, and a guy in the charity group walked by who happens to work with this woman, and she referenced my "husband" apropos of something, and I looked at the guy and I said, "you know, Randy," just to clarify, so I know that was weird. And I stood there hiding my bare feet under my dress just getting hotter and sweatier and hotter and hotter until I put shit in perspective and remembered that this woman used to breast pump in front of me and she did it furiously, like she was trying to pump oil out of her breasts or charge up an air rifle or something, and then I felt better. Because she's a weirdo.
Also, this other woman was there who I met last weekend as a friend of a friend, and when I met her the first time she preyed on my drunken "new friend" camaraderie and somehow got me to commit to going to some kickboxing class with her. The class meets across town in the warehouse district, but the town I'm referencing here is Tempe, so it's not so much a "warehouse" district as it is an "upholstery" district. But still. I can
guarantee you right now that I couldn't kickbox my way out of a paper bag, a
ripped paper bag, a giant ripped paper bag with a big
starter hole in it and a sign that says KICK HERE TO GET OUT with an arrow. So when I was in bed with an agonizing kidney infection last Monday and I got her reminder text about this underground kickboxing class in the hardcore furniture recovery section of town, I said a little stoned prayer of thanks that I had been smote down with a creeping fiery infection at just the right time. But she caught me again at this party and I don't know what happened, but somehow I came off as even MORE interested in kickboxing than I was before. I don't know what's wrong with me. Each time I heard myself verbally avow my recovered health or offer unsolicited promise after promise, I wanted to slap myself in the face with a stashed devil heel. Maybe I can bluff and invite her to a class that's even more difficult than urban kickboxing, like cage fighting! I'll invite her to my cage fighting class, and it meets down at the burned-out railroad depot!
"Bring a knife, and not a butter one," I'll tell her. "And wear Kevlar. Oh, and whatever you do, don't look anybody in the eye."
Other than that, a pretty normal weekend. I set the barbecue on fire again, but that's Sunday for you.
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R was out late tonight, setting up for
this annual event, and he came through the door sucking on his finger.
"I think I have a... "
"Splinter?" I finished, leaping off the couch.
"Well, maybe just a..."
"Hold on!" I held my hands up, dropped the remote. NOBODY MOVE. "I'll go get the sciss... I mean, the tweezers!"
"No," he said, "I mean, maybe just like a tiny, like a teeny, just a..."
"I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!" I yelled from where I'd sock-slipped onto my ass in the hallway. "I'M JUST GETTING MY SCISS... I MEAN MY TWEEZERS!"
I raced back to the family room a mere fourteen seconds later with a boron microscope, a mostly sterilized toolkit, and a lit acetylene torch. A personal record. Alas. Apparently somebody
else has been working on improving his time.
So if anyone's
seen R? Tell him the coast is clear. "Everything's okay," tell him. "Go on home, Silly."
I'll wait quietly in the hall closet with some matches, a pack of stick pins, and a rag soaked in Everclear. IF IT'S BURNING, IT'S WORKING.
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Annoying Questions To Which I Received No Response: Part 3 of 17
"Hey, do we have any ibuprofin?"
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Is Anatomy the One with the Rocks? Or the One with the Plants?
On Sunday, what I thought were run-of-the-mill cramps slowly exploded in a very hunched over way until I became convinced that my appendix was calling it quits. After driving down to Urgent Care and discovering it was closed, however, I reevaluated my
self-diagnosis track record and decided that instead of hauling my whiny no-health-insurance ass down to the emergency room (for what would no doubt turn into the fifteen hundred dollar enema/lecture special), maybe I'd just pick up some Tums and play things by ear.
All night I sat upright and cried, trying not to breathe or to let anything come in contact with my swollen torso, imagining my appendix as a little stuffed Vienna sausage getting redder and puffier and redder and puffier, and then around four in the morning when the pain migrated into my back I imagined appendix poison slowly leaking into my... something inside my back.
Urgent Care opened at eight, so I was there at seven. Lying on the sidewalk in front of the building. I shit you not. My fevered delusions of a renegade
Little Smoky running around with a detonated bomb in one hand and an ice pick in the other turned out to be a rabid kidney infection that earned me a Percocet prescription.
"I thought it was my appendix," I told the doctor as he handed me my antibiotic samples.
"No," he said, "Your appendix is more around here." He pointed to a relatively pain-free area.
So live and learn. Appendix in the front, kidneys in the back. I was personally surprised that there's room for all three kidneys back there, but whatever. Apparently I'm not the doctor.
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