The house, we shall engulf it in flames, and then we will begin anew.
Randy and I woke up this morning and were just sort of lying there in bed... he was probably talking and I was probably trying to be asleep some more, I don't remember. But then I saw this on the wall out of the corner of my eye.
And for a second all of the hopeful options ran through my mind. Maybe someone had taped a baseball mitt to the wall while we were out to dinner. Or a small cat. Or, wait! Maybe a bunch of hornets got in and spun a big hive thing together! That was probably it!
I interrupted Randy's running monologue on, what, the escalating price of sidewalk pavers to point to the mitt/cat/nest. "What is that? On the wall?"
He rolled over to look. "Oh, that's a gigantic spider."
And then a full second passed before my brain processed the information. It was like hearing that there was a sweaty man under the bed with a meat cleaver and no meat and a hankering, only EIGHTY MILLION TIMES WORSE.
I launched my body out of bed and I didn't stop launching until I was standing in the kitchen. But ever since Randy came back from this horseback riding trip he was on last week we've had these two campfire-smelly rider coats hanging on the patio, right, and every single time I walk past the window and I catch sight of these two black ankle-length coats my immediate reaction is "AGGHHHHH! IT'S HOOK GUY! AND HIS HOOK FRIEND OR COUSIN OR WHATEVER!" because it's exactly like that hook-killer from "
I Know What You Did Last Summer" is on my patio, making fun of my dead plants and getting ready to hook some shit up. And apparently he brought some hook-dude with him.
Up until this morning the coat situation was slightly annoying but still sort of funny. High on enormous spider terror waves, however, and standing nearly naked in my kitchen, it graduated from "slightly annoying" to "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW, HOOK GUY & CO.?" And that "still sort of funny" part ran back and hid in the neighbor's yard.
Now, apparently, a giant spider was going to eat my dog and steal my shit AND THEN that whole "meat cleaver" thing was going to happen, too. So far Saturday had the makings for a great, great day, is what I'm saying. So far I'm dead like four different ways.
So once I realized the coats weren't animated (again) and I'd stopped myself from running headlong into the street, bed-dressed, screaming about dual hovering movie serial killers and a gigantorm dog-eating spider thief (uh, again), I grabbed the camera. And wished Randy luck as he approached our eight-legged friend with a shoe; I was privately afraid that the spider might just swat the shoe out of his hand, but from my vantage point (inside my car in the garage) it sounded like everything went okay.
It's Randy's birthday tomorrow, and I'm having trouble figuring out what to do for him. Should I sneak out and decorate his truck with silly string and gummy hearts and maybe get him a
Build-A-Bear? Or should I bake him some cupcakes and then ask his mom if I can come over and fill his room with balloons while he's in 7th period?
He's turning fifty-two so I want it to be special.
Fulfilled with EVIL. And I'm not sure that counts the same way.
I signed up to take this tax preparation course with H&R Block.
(I just typed that sentence and then I stood up, shaking, set the laptop down, and slammed another shot straight from the bottle. Of poison.)
The course is work related, obviously, and when I lie awake at night sweating, waiting for the 1040A demons to skulk into my room on their creepy pencil hooves (accompanied more often than not by their vicious—yet admittedly shorter and more efficient—1040EZ brethren), I remind myself that the tax glass is actually half-full of puppy blood because I’m thirty years old and I still have to bluff my way through the “here, quick fill out these simple tax forms” part of any first day on the job. After fifteen years of working I still have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do; at my last job I misread “dependents” as “dependencies” and my federal withholdings ended up being like 34. I was making extra lines on the page with a ruler so I could keep entering “1”s. A course in basic taxes will not be a completely misspent ten weeks.
(I typed “ten weeks” and then Randy had to run out into the backyard and catch me after I flung my limp, desperate body off the roof of the house. He spilled his drink in the process, and we were already out of ice. I’m now officially on very shaky ground with the melodramatic suicide parole board.)
So the specific class I signed up for meets on Mondays and Thursdays at a location that is so near to my residence that if I listen closely I’ll actually be able to hear the taxes being taxingly taxed from my fetal position under the comforter. Only when I showed up for class on the first day (still wrapped in the comforter; it’s a neutral, forgiving fabric pattern), the note on the door told me that my class had been combined with another at a second location and that I should call a number for more details. The voice mailbox at said number? It was full. Tax enthusiasts all over my square quarter-mile were freaking out in their respective comforters, I’m sure, redialing like only the tax obsessed can. I actually fell asleep in the parking lot while I was walking back to my car, and I only missed being run over by a Quizno’s patron thanks to a helpful hint of burgundy in my Calvin Klein sheet set.
Luckily I received a hastily scrawled letter in the mail the next day detailing the situation. Apparently the H&R Block people aren’t exactly at the top of their organizational game in September. I’m pretty sure they hibernate in clandestine underground bunkers through most of the summer and into the fall, or at least I’m hoping they do, because so far that’s the only aspect of the job that I can even remotely identify with.
(I typed that sentence before I realized that my new boss reads this website. And to that end I’d just like to clarify here that I am every bit as passionate about tax preparation as I am about getting to the office before 9:45am and not wearing the same pants every single day for five weeks.)
So the following Thursday I donned The Pants, kissed the comforter adieu, and drove like eight miles to my new class location. I knew I was in the right place because the sky was filled with the kind of greasy, choking smoke most commonly associated with multiple depreciation calculations. Plus there were people inside. Dead people.
INSTRUCTOR: “...”
ME: “Hi.”
INSTRUCTOR: “...”
ME: “My original class was cancelled, and it looks like I’ve been added to this class.”
INSTRUCTOR: “...”
ME: “A class that meets pretty much across town from the original location. Which is convenient.”
INSTRUCTOR: [pets a serpent]
ME: “And I couldn’t get anybody at your office on the phone, either, so I didn’t know that I was supposed to come here until I got this letter yesterday.”
INSTRUCTOR: [scratches said serpent. Serpent coos.]
ME: “You know. And... that’s pretty professional.”
INSTRUCTOR: “...”
ME: “So...”
INSTRUCTOR: [kicks serpent in the neck. Serpent screams. Serpent attempts to flee but quickly finds that its body is hopelessly entangled in a mass of Child Tax Credit forms. Serpent loses its will to live. Again.]
ME: “Uh, so... I guess I’m sorry?”
INSTRUCTOR: “You can sit over there. Between Maria’s oozing torso and the severed head of Tim.”
ME: “Okay.”
INSTRUCTOR: “That’s not Maria.”
ME: “Wow. Okay.”
So other than having to a) get up and bid a bittersweet farewell to my comforter in the wee hours of the morning, b) drive just past Wrath (if you get to Avarice you’ve gone too far!) on the Divine Comedy morning route, and c) trick my brain into thinking it’s eating Nerds ropes and watching porn when in actuality it’s doing the precise polar opposite, well, I think it's safe to say that I've never felt more fulfilled.
I don't even know what a 1099-G is.
I had this whole other thing I was going to post about this H & R Block tax prep class I'm taking, but
cw's liveblogging account of the new season of The Amazing Race makes my entire life seem A WASTE. OF TIME. Seriously. If I could get cw to liveblog my tax class? I might not have to kill myself by cramming 1099-G forms down my throat.
My allergies are out of control and I feel all crappy and drippy and shaky. Randy's out of town this week so it's just me on the couch playing downloaded Boggle and begging the dog to go get me some cookies. FYI: "I'll buy if you fly" doesn't work on dogs. Or at least it doesn't work on
my lazy ass dog, but that's probably for the best since The Jake is usually way too drunk to drive anyway.
But I dragged my snuffly ass out of bed this morning to go get my roots done because it was seriously just a matter of time before PETA showed up at my door, screaming at me to free the greasy brown muskrat that I was forcing to sleep on top of my head. So I was lying there with my head in the shampoo bowl after the root muskrat had been delicately painted with stripes of bleach and covered in pieces of foil, and I overheard another stylist having a conversation with her client. Apparently the stylist had to forgo a trip to Sicily because she got an infection in her face from plucking her eyebrows. The client heard this and was all, "Oh my God, did you have to take antibiotics?" and the stylist was like, "You're goddamned right I had to take antibiotics, I was in the fucking
hospital for two days." And then the client started laughing because really, you did hospital time due to an eyebrow tweezing mishap?
"The worst part," the stylist said, "I mean,
aside from not going to Sicily, duh, is that the ER doctor was a total hottie. And I was lying there on this gurney looking like that kid from
MASK, and I just wanted to scream, 'I don't normally look like this!' I'm not kidding, I want to go back to the hospital now and be all, 'Hi! I'm cute, see? Are you single?' Seriously," she went on, "You have no idea how attractive you are until you're really, really ugly."
That conversation was pretty much the highlight of my day. Now I'm back in my pajamas and my clean, blond muskrat and I are going to curl up and nap on the couch. Hey, do me a favor? When I wake up tomorrow and I'm trying to figure out why the back of my head feels like I got tapped with a tack hammer, remind me that it's because I laid with my head on the rim of a porcelain shampoo bowl for twenty minutes and not because I a) was attacked in my sleep, b) was in a horrible car accident and don't remember, or c) have skull cancer. I always jump the skull cancer gun.
Ha ha! "Relevant to the story."
Having read the requests for pictures and sensing my inherent laziness,
Matt took the liberty of seeing into my fitness room*** and taking this image WITH HIS MIND.
I'm not kidding when I tell you that I wish Matt was my son. The son I never had when I was what, like, four years old? (Or, more specifically, the son I'd
had when I was four and opted to
keep. Four was a rough year for me.)
This is actually a lot like the way in which I've rooted my laptop to the bike, except that I didn't actually
tape it; I squished a thin, hardcover book on origami between the handlebars and the screen-thing, and then I set the laptop on top of the book. There's almost enough room for my knees to clear the book when I pedal, and if I plug the cord into an extension cord and then throw the whole thing over the ceiling fan, I'm much less likely to catch my foot on it and bring the whole system crashing to the ground. (Thankfully we have a small oscillating fan that only smells like it's on fire if you shut it off, so I'm still able to stay cool.) I guess the worst thing that could happen-- aside from someone entering the room and attempting to a) walk, b) flip any of the electrical switches on the wall in either direction, or c) speak to me-- would be that the book could snap and my computer might tumble to the ground. At least then I could stop explaining to people why I own a hardcover book on origami when I can't fold a napkin in half and when my preferred method of money handling is "wadded".
I want to clarify a couple of things, though. For the record I never drink while I'm exercising. That's the hand I hold my crack pipe in. And we passed on the "Hang in There" poster... we already have an actual
cat wired to the wall so it seemed redundant. It's so cute that you think my hair is long enough to wear in a pony, but in reality it's still only long enough to wear under a tight nylon cap with a cheap synthetic wig on top. Last week I thought it might be long enough to... but it... and then... nevermind.
When I saw the carrot suspended from the ceiling it reminded me of the first time I ever opened the door to this room. I had just moved in and was trying to find a place to store all my nothing. This room-- in addition to containing exactly zero furniture and smelling like maybe someone had taken all the furniture and made it into salsa-- had a single vine that had smushed its way in the corner of the window from the outside of the house and had grown about three feet straight into the room. Can you even believe I didn't take a picture of that? I guess I was too preoccupied trying to decide where all my nonexistent shit should go to worry about the fact that a plant had been growing
into the house for what I can only now approximate to be close to
eight years.
There's also this whole bathroom that no one ever uses, so after about six months I pulled the curtain back to clean the tub and it was full of giant spiders. But that was just this past Sunday and thus not really all that relevant to the story.
Matt, when you and
Amy have kids I want to be called "Grammy". Don't tell your actual mothers, okay?
*** see also: Luggage Room
Randy came home from work tonight and discovered that I've found a way to rig my laptop to the handlebars of our stationary recumbant bike. I had been trying to keep that piece of personal dork genius a secret. I don't think I have to explain why.
So now I can watch 800 channels of television, listen to the stereo, AND fuck around on the internet while I furiously pedal to nowhere. I'm trying to trick myself into believing that I'm actually sitting on the couch, only for some reason I'm drenched in sweat and breathing loudly from my mouth. And that the couch sucks and I want to die.
Google Fiction: Searches Incorporated into Brief and Awesome Tales, vol. 8
[A couple of months ago I pasted the anti-bot code into my template to keep Google and other search engines from indexing it. And as painful as it is, this means that volume 8 of Google Fiction will be the last. Don't pretend like you care... I know you hate Google Fiction. I only wrote the last three volumes for
Erika. You know what's surprisingly satisfying? Calling a paragraph a "volume". Okay!]
Miles and Allen stood on the fairway, shielding their eyes and staring up at the tee box.
"I thought you said this chick could golf," Miles muttered. Allen shrugged and continued to stare. And wince. And shudder involuntarily. But mostly he stared.
"She said she could," he answered. "Look out!" Miles ducked as a renegade golf ball came careening sloppily toward his head.
"Wow," Miles whistled. "She really got, like, some
distance on that one. If she could
aim she'd really have something there."
"I think it's hard to aim when you're on your back. And when you're not, uh, playing with clubs." Miles nodded in concession. That was reasonable.
"Where'd you
meet this girl, anyway?" he asked.
"The Pasty Beaver," Allen answered. "She was working the pole during the lunch shift last Tuesday." He dodged left as a ball bounced down the hill and hit him on the shoulder. He reached down to get it.
"Whoa!" Miles grabbed his hand. "Don't pick that up with your bare hand, dude. Seriously. And can we get moving here? Before another foresome wants to 'play through'? The ranger wasn't cool with that last time, plus she's gotta be close to running out of condoms."
"Yeah, alright." Allen peered up the hill. "Hey, Sapphire? Time to sit up, we've gotta get moving. Let's get your pants back on, okay?" He looked back at Miles. "You have to admit that was awesome, though."
Miles kept walking. "Whatever, man. If that was 'golf' she's like the
sluttiest golfer on the planet."
Vol. 1 Vol. 2 Vol. 3 Vol. 4 Vol. 5 Vol. 6 Vol. 7
So much for the next seven hours.
"Remember, raptors run at 10 m/s and they do not know fear."Thanks to
Lora for the link.
(
Amy, this
one made me think of you and
Matt immediately.)
Tomorrow I'll pour in a couple of Slim-Fast shakes and then a sensible dinner.
My car's been running on "empty" for about three days, but I don't have any money for gas. So this morning I threw two
Dexatrim tablets in the gas tank. You know. So it'll
feel full.
Seriously, You Don't Even Want To Know.
Yesterday I spent roughly two mental hours trying to think of
Dr. Phil's first name. Like, I was
asking other
people.
Not a whole lot of brain action in the hopper this week.
And I've got to run... my
mensa meeting is today, and I've got to be there by the time the big hand is on the six and the little hand is on the one that looks like a fork.
So then "what the fuck was that" probably doesn't mean "hells yeah".
I got pulled over in traffic today. And when the officer leaned down into my open window, the first thing he said to me was, "Well.
That was interesting."
Which was not a cue for me to happily start thinking that everything might work out okay. As it turns out, "interesting" is not cop speak for "kickass".
