Day Twenty-Nine. I'm tired. I deleted thirty-one voicemail messages from our home phone today without listening to them. On the upside, I've never felt so free. On the downside, if anyone in my family needs an organ or something, you're gonna need to call back. Leave a message.
¶ posted by Erin on Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Twenty-Eight.
I finally got around to calling the Mazda dealership to make an appointment to have my newly arrived speaker and stereo installed. Just in time to add a new and exciting complaint to the progress report:
"So now? Out of nowhere, whenever I roll down the driver's side window it goes, 'SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!' and something inside the door actually scratches the glass as it goes down."
"Really." Service rep is tired, so tired of me. Service rep wishes I would stop touching things.
"It's a physically painful sound. I've almost murdered two In-N-Out people and a bank teller with it."
Service rep wishes I would just go deaf and leave him alone.
I was so excited when I bought this car. Part of that excitement was just the upgrade factor; I'd been driving a Nissan Sentra for eleven years, and I'd always wanted a Miata. And this wasn't any Miata-- this was the Mazdaspeed one, the turbo one. Why not, right? I had a steady, well-paying job, it was only like three grand more, and hell, I was financing pretty much the whole thing anyway. Exactly the kind of caution-to-the-wind situation they warned us about at Bankruptcy Camp.
And it is fast, I'll give it that. It's fast as hell. If someone pulls out in front of me, I can pass that asshole and cut him off faster than you can tell me it's a bad idea. But it's also very, very small. I was so blinded by rebates at the dealership I didn't grasp how tiny it really is. Randy can't even ride in it, he physically can't work it out, his organs and his cartilage object too strongly. I think if I had thought it through at the time I might have reconsidered. I'm not a fan of small places. I get claustrophobic wearing a hoodie. Thinking about it now, I'm surprised I don't get panicky about the tight squeeze in there more often. But I guess I'll chalk that up to all the adrenaline I release just trying to stay alive in it.
You know what won't save your life if you roll your car at seventy on the highway? A canvas roof. I remember asking the salesperson what I was supposed to do if it rolled.
"It won't."
I wasn't even that curious, I was just trying to appear mildly prudent in front of Randy. I felt I should do something to make up for the fact that I'd just come ridiculously close to signing off on an $800 tint for two tiny windows.
Financing, you see. Apparently Bankruptcy Camp didn't take.
"No, seriously," I pressed. "If it rolls, what are my chances? Ballpark me."
"It won't roll."
I'm going to scramble out on a limb here and say you don't want to roll one. The salesperson did everything but clamp his hands over his ears to avoid the question.
So... for real, what happens if you roll one? As the woman who rides around with the top of her skull approximately one quarter inch ABOVE the steel frame of her car every day, I'LL tell you what happens: NOTHING GOOD, that's what. The time I don't spend passing people at ridiculous speeds I spend calculating my odds of catastrophic failure. Given that whole "quarter inch" thing I mentioned previously, I've come up with an alternative rolling game plan: if some uncontrollable freeway situation dictates I roll the car, I will simply lean over ninety degrees into the passenger seat, thereby sparing the top quarter-inch of my skull the inconvenience of scraping off.
There.
Problem solved.
The paramedics will arrive on scene-- sirens off, as witnesses to the wreckage will have assured them there could be no survivors-- only to find me lying there, scared to death, supine and sideways underneath the tattered canvas top. Alive thanks only to my ninja reflexes and a smart, totally feasible game plan.
"Wow!" the fireman will say, peering down at me, "That's amazing! I can't believe you're alive! You have to be the smartest, most attune driver I've ever seen! Hey, let's get you out of there!"
Then he'll reach his strong, gloved hand into the smoking wreckage of my Miata and he will attempt to lower the driver's side window. At which point both our brains will obviously leak out of our ears and our skulls will spontaneously explode.
¶ posted by Erin on Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Twenty-Seven.
The comments on the last post reminded me how much I prayed to break a bone when I was little, which in turn led me to remember the one time I actually did break a bone during my freshman year of high school.
I acted in two school productions my freshman year, not because I had any acting skill, mind, but because I was still far enough behind the social evolution eight ball that I didn't mind making a complete fool out of myself in front of hundreds of people. Plus I was loud, to this day I can project like an air horn in a coat closet, and in the freshman drama program that's a close second to talent. The first play was Life with Father. The most recent movie version was released in 1947. I can only assume the play was written in 1159. It was seventeen hours long. I played Cora, the character who was supposed to bring a spark of vital comic relief, but unfortunately for everyone I failed. I should have tried a little harder; I still blame myself for those fourteen people who fell into unresponsive comas during the second act.
I can't remember the name of the second play. It may not have even had a name, we might have just referred to it as Seriously? It took place in the early 1900s (who was picking these plays?) and there were only three characters: a farmhand, played by a guy named Craig whom everyone called "Stinky"; a maid, played by my gorgeous friend Christina who actually could act, and who tore it up in improv all through college; and a lonely widow woman. Me. Three characters. The play was seventeen-and-a-half hours long. I remember having to memorize a FOUR PAGE monologue. No doubt when I'm unconscious and on my deathbed those four pages will come rushing back in a riveting, unrelenting clarity.
While this second play was in pre-production, I was also gearing up for the annual school-wide dance recital. I had taken modern dance to get my requisite P.E. credit out of the way because it seemed like the option least likely to lead to merciless humiliation and/or put me in the hospital.
Yeah, no.
To say I was bad at modern dance does an injustice to people who are bad at modern dance. I'm not kidding; at one point the instructor divided the class into two groups, and the girls who found themselves in my group went home and complained to their parents, resulting in the groups being dissolved. One girl in my short-lived group-- a friend of mine, Melissa-- actually pointed at me and said, "I'm not as bad as she is." She said this OUT LOUD. And I think I just nodded, defeated and resigned: "True, she's nowhere NEAR as bad as me, this is BULLSHIT."
The recital was mandatory, though, not to mention for a grade, so they had to let me participate. And one of the dances incorporated into our routine was the Roger Rabbit. I could not do this dance to save my fucking LIFE. And it wasn't for lack of trying because I tried my ass off. For three weeks if I had to go somewhere, I got there by slowly flapping and piercing myself backwards. It broke my mother's heart. I looked like scissors.
When Seriously? got closer to its opening afternoon and we started rehearsing in costume and on the auditorium stage, I found I suddenly had literal hours of time backstage alone, in the dark, waiting for Stinky and The Maid to finish whatever they were doing on stage. Alone, in the dark... LET'S DANCE!
And I did, I jutted and poked and skipped my tiny pathetic heart out, inexplicably not getting even an ounce better, and then one day during a dress rehearsal I tripped over the back hem of my costume and went down, catching myself with my extended left arm.
I was so instantly humiliated-- and so used to falling-- that I didn't realize any harm had been done. Minutes later, though, when I was cued onstage to rail and rant at Farmhand, I reached behind me with my left hand to snatch and throw a book and the ensuing pain was crippling. It took three days to get my parents, lifelong supporters of the "Just Move It As Much As You Can" camp, to take me to the hospital. Where I learned my arm was indeed broken and required a cast.
"I just fell," I lied, "I tripped over my dress."
My mom rolled her eyes and laughed, I shit you not: "You were probably trying to do the Roger Rabbit backstage in the dark."
Goddamn it.
"I WAS NOT I TRIPPED THIS DRESS IS LONG MOM COME ON I WAS NOT I JUST FELL OKAY GAH!"
To this day, more than ten years later, if you happened to mention my broken arm to my mother she'd laugh and tell you I tripped over my ridiculous pointy Roger Rabbit self. And I would immediately and indignantly counter with MY version, the version in which no one (me) comes out looking pitiful and pathetic.
But here it is. I'm laying it out there, Mom. You were right. God help me, I don't know how you knew, but your sharpshooter psychic mom vision was 100% on the money. I was doing the Roger Rabbit backstage, and at one point my shoulders came down so low in the back that all the ligaments in my spine slacked up and my head almost touched my kneepits. I then caught the hem of my dress with my heel and went down. It was terrifying in every imaginable capacity.
I've started wearing my glasses again. I really don't need them. Unless I'm reading. Or driving. Or awake and standing upright. I spent my entire elementary school existence praying I'd be one of the lucky chosen few who had trouble seeing the board. All to no avail, my vision was perfect. I was crushed. Then I got to high school and things finally started going my way-- my eyesight turned to shit, hurray! So I got my glasses. And I was very excited for approximately ten minutes, the time it took for me to get dizzy and sick to my stomach. I put them back in the case, slammed them in a bathroom drawer, and I went back to squinting at shit nausea-free.
College. Squinting, squinting. Giant lecture halls, tiny chalkboards, I practically had to sit on the professor's lap to see anything-- and that only flew in like three of my classes. My glasses were in pristine shape, what with having been worn exactly ONE TIME, but the prescription was outdated. Yay, new glasses! I probably wore them less than a week before I just started using them to hold my hair back when I washed my face. A $245 headband.
I know this is tough to believe, but my vision hasn't gotten any better left totally unattended. I have to get off the couch and stand in the middle of the room to read the program guide on the television. If I'm embroidering something, I have to take the lampshade off and thread the needle by the light of the exposed bulb. Don't even jokingly ask me to help navigate somewhere-- Styro put me in charge of reading street signs on our way to Florida last summer and we ended up lost somewhere in Alabama for five and a half hours. She ultimately took the map back, thank Christ, or we'd still be driving around out there, me going, "Is that Pioneer Street? Or a fucking pine tree?"
So I'm in Costco last weekend, and they had a display of reading glasses; the kind where you can walk up and mash your face into one of five or so pairs of greasy frames to see which strength suits you. And I mashed my face into every one, each time going, "Oooooooh," as I was overwhelmed by the majesty of WORDS and shit. I seriously almost bought a pair until I came to my senses and realized I had a pair of glasses at home, my latest pair, a pair that cost four hundred dollars and didn't come in a ten-pack.
But then I pooh-poohed that, right, because they make me sick to my stomach, those glasses. The ones the doctor deduced perfected my vision. THREE TIMES. I've never worn them more than a week because my eyes get confused when they're not straining to the point of blowing capillaries and I get dizzy. Well, you know what? I bet if you threw a Neanderthal inside a 727 and flew his hairy ass from Los Angeles to O'Hare he'd get pretty goddamn sick to his stomach, too, but that doesn't mean we should ABANDON TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS.
When I got home, I dug my glasses out of the bathroom cabinet and I put them on. And left them on. I've stopped having to take my usual eight Tylenol every day for headaches, and my ridiculous face making percentage is back down in the low twenties. So this is how you people live, you people with glasses! You wake up, put the glasses on, see stuff all day, take the glasses off, and go to bed! I GET IT. Next I'm going to try one of those newfangled toothbrush things. It can't hurt worse than this twig.
¶ posted by Erin on Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Twenty-Five.
My friend Casey and I were emailing about zombies earlier and she was kind enough to outline the pertinence of the resulting gmail Google ads:
I don't see anything about a vaccine on that list. That would have been helpful. GOOGLE.
Google is helping the zombies. Google is not part of the solution.
¶ posted by Erin on Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Twenty-Four.
There are not enough Tums in the world to help me. Apparently when you eat every ten minutes on the ten minutes, things can go very very wrong. How did the cavemen ever survive Thanksgiving without Immodium?
I'm finishing up a new batch of zombies tonight and tomorrow, and I'll be sending a bunch to a kickass gallery in New York that's hosting a handmade toy show through the first of the year. The goal being to offer creative, individualistic alternatives to the standard mass-produced toys. It's a valiant effort and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
I've also decided to start shipping first class versus priority mail on all US zombie orders; the shipping time doesn't vary greatly between the two, and first class is significantly cheaper than priority. So what I've done, essentially, is strip your LAST excuse away from you. There is NO REASON why you shouldn't own your very own sock zombie.
Huge thanks to everyone out there who has already succumbed to the zombie sickness. I hope you love your zombie(s) as much as I do.
¶ posted by Erin on Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Twenty-Three.
A few months ago, Randy bought Cell from Costco and read it in the mornings while he rode the stationary bike. About a week in, I saw him sitting there, sweating and reading and pedaling away, and I asked him how it was.
"It's pretty good," he wheezed. "It's a lot like Stephen King's stuff. I guess this guy must be his son or something?" He flipped the book around to look at the cover. STEPHE KING.
The Costco price sticker was covering up the "N" at the end of STEPHEN.
It was, I believe, the point-and-laugh highlight of 2007.
So this morning I was browsing through the books at Costco, and I saw a paperback by Michael Crichton that looked like a good bike book for Randy. He's forever bringing home little things for me out of nowhere, simply because he was thinking about me, and this seemed like a nice way to reciprocate.
The best part is that the price tag is covering up the -EL in MICHAEL, so for the next few weeks I get to go, "Yeah, I don't know, I guess MICHA CRICHTON must be Michael's daughter or something. Real up and comer, eh? I hear she's going places."
¶ posted by Erin on Friday, November 23, 2007
Tomorrow's Thanksgiving! Apparently. That's the word on the street, anyway.
Randy's watching Hostel II in here right now, part of our Scare The Crap Out Of Thanksgiving tradition, so it's hard for me to fully concentrate on this post. I'd forgotten about this particular Thanksgiving tradition. Easy to do, really, since this is the first year.
So I brined our turkey, right, and then I trapped it all inside a bunch of plastic brining bags. I put all the brining bags inside a Hefty garbage bag and threw the whole 13.5 pound mess into the storage refrigerator. Where the brining bags inevitably burst under the weight of so much... salt. So now my turkey's swimming naked in a garbage bag wading pool with only lemon quarters to keep it company. It's a cold raw wet turkey water balloon. I'm pretending like it's not even there. I probably won't even cook it tomorrow-- I'll probably just make a salad.
¶ posted by Erin on Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Twenty.
Holly asked in the comments of Nineteen if I was going to make my "world famous 18-can corn stuffing" and she made me laugh. No, I'm not, because one: it's disgusting. And two: there's no time. If you're going to make my world famous kernel and niblet stuffing, you have to start hoarding corn in September.
So this necessarily begs the question: what stuffing am I going to make? There are only eleven thousand soggy variations on a theme out there, and I have no idea which one to pick. I spent last night combing through my November Gourmet and Food and Wine and Bon Appétit magazines, and the only conclusion I came to was to cancel all three subscriptions immediately. I didn't find a single recipe that didn't necessitate I either live in Provence or take out a signature loan. One actually called for truffle oil, two very specific kinds of wine, and five different types of mushrooms-- none of which were "button". I might as well serve cash. Here's seventy dollars and a fork, God bless America.
I'm going to soak some stale cornbread in buttermilk and I'm going to bake it. And then I'm going to pour some gravy on top of it and we're all going to call it a day.
I just wish I could figure out exactly how much Beluga I need for this gravy recipe.
¶ posted by Erin on Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Nineteen.
I took my usual bi-weekly 45-minute shower this morning and I cut myself shaving. It wouldn't be that big a deal if it wasn't right on my big toe knuckle.
So Thanksgiving's this week, huh? Oh. Well. I guess that explains the whole "but you've been so busy, are you sure" routine I kept shooting down from my family. Randy happened to read something about "brining" and now he's all gung ho. This is the same man who's convinced he can throw a sixteen-pound frozen turkey in a deep fryer and then eat it twenty-five minutes later without invoking his copay. If I hand him the reigns here we'll end up with a pale, wet turkey lying in the yard with a garden hose leaking out of it for three days. Easy does it, Emeril. That's the last time you get your grubby hands on my Bon Appétit.
So okay, I'm feeding six people. Where can I find a thirty-seven pound turkey?
¶ posted by Erin on Monday, November 19, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Eighteen.
I've had a baby hangover all day. It's like an alcohol hangover, but instead of nursing it with Gatorade I've been eating pureed squash with a tiny spoon. I don't think it's working.
Thanksgiving at my house this year! I keep emphasizing "low key", but I have doubts I'm being heard. My mom has always been in charge of the major holidays and her idea of low key and mine shouldn't even be spelled the same; mine should be spelled lw kee and hers should be loughhh keighhh.
"No, seriously," I told my dad, "I'm talking about deep-frying a turkey and mashing some potatoes. Paper plates, Dad. I'm not even going to buy napkins-- we'll all just share a wet dish towel."
"Okay," he reasoned, "Okay, yeah, that sounds great. Just low key, casual. Turkey, potatoes... and I can prep some Oysters Rockefeller."
I'm not making this up, and I love him for it. I gently told him no, that the Rockefellers' made other plans this year, but man, I can already tell he's going to be mystified when he shows up looking for a place card on the table and I'm cooking in my PJs watching Tremors on TNT.
¶ posted by Erin on Sunday, November 18, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Seventeen.
I picked up my brother and sister-in-law from the airport tonight, Baby Squishy in tow. I thought I had timed it perfectly so I could clean him up, dress him, feed him, and change him before we left the house; my thinking being if he looked professionally detailed it might overshadow the fact that I haven't showered in three days and I'm wearing the same clothes I remembered I'd been wearing since Monday at the baby hand-off on Thursday.
But then at dinner said baby jammed a ravioli in his ear and I spent an extra twenty minutes scraping pasta off his body with a tiny squeegee. So the joke's on me-- I guess TEN HOURS prep time just wasn't enough. Hey, here's your baby! He's sticky and he smells like chicken broth, you're welcome.
Video of Baby v. Captain The Jake. There's no cheese pictured, true, and Baby does seem to be the primary instigator, but I can verify that a much fawned over grilled cheese sandwich left the scene only moments before. I love that Randy's voice is apparently immune to cameras.
Wouldn't it be awesome if we never grew out of that "fall asleep in the car" stage? The baby was overtired so I strapped him in the carseat and drove four miles around the block, and now he's sleeping like it was his idea in the first place. That would be a handy trick as an adult, I think. There could be an all-night drive-around service for insomniacs.
On the other hand, though, I guess it would make actually driving anywhere pretty tough.
My brother and his wife are honeymooning out of the country until Saturday, and her mother has been in town watching Baby Loganberry in their absence. My mom was supposed to take over the custodial duties when Mom-In-Law heads home tomorrow, but since my mom's on a surprise thirty-day vacation celebrating NaNoDrinkMo, guess who's the baby watcher runner up.
I've never watched him overnight before and I want to do it right. I've been making lists of things I need to have on hand. One, lots of bulk cheddar cheese for The Baby v. The Jake Cheese Wrangling Game. Seriously, there's no greater entertainment than watching a toddler chortle around with a fist full of squished cheddar while my dog licks said toddler from head to toe like he's a giant cheese stick. I don't know how you people with babies AND dogs ever get anything done, for real, because this cheese thing sucks up literal hours of my day.
With everything else that's been going on, I completely forgot Randy had a corporate trade show in Vegas starting last night and extending through Thursday. I was not invited. I went to Vegas to hang out with Jen and get crazy with the nickel slots a few months ago, so Randy decided he was going to Vegas by himself to hang out with absolutely no one and wander around a convention center full of promotional real estate marketing booths. Yes. A totally even exchange, Randy. Have a great time, I'll be here, pining, very jealous, etc.
So last night I heated up some frozen pasta and curled up on the couch to watch Galaxy Quest on repeat, squinting glumly at the camera phone pictures Randy kept sending of his free upgraded suite and trying to muster up the energy to hook up the Wii.
This morning Randy called. He did somehow manage to get upgraded to an $800 a night suite, true, but unfortunately that suite turned out to be directly across the street from the New Frontier, a 16-story hotel they blew up last night around two in the morning.
Apparently it's pretty loud when they do that. When they bring a concrete and mortar building to its knees with a thousand pounds of explosives. You can hear that.
This in addition to the fact that he spent seven hours stumbling around the room wrapped in a comforter trying to hunt down the thermostat, stopping every few minutes to soak his frostbitten toes in a marble bathtub built for eight and trying valiantly to fend off second stage hypothermia.
Also! Approximately TWO hours were wasted lying in bed awake listening to the raging party in the adjoining room, teeth chattering with a frozen rage. As he finally reached for the phone to have management send a riot squad to break up this crazy fiesta, he realized what he was actually hearing was the radio in his bedside alarm clock.
I'm not sure when he passed over into this particular stage of total helplessness, but I'm thinking about sending over a day nurse. Maybe an actual nurse disguised as a stripper! That way he'll feel like he's living on the Vegas edge, and she'll get huge tips for checking his blood pressure every couple of hours and making sure he doesn't eat any tin foil.
¶ posted by Erin on Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Twelve.
The week before the wedding Randy and I began waking up progressively earlier, so looking back at Saturday morning it feels like we were up and on our way to Lowe's at three-fifteen. The patio was done (pictures to follow!!) and I needed a bunch of flowers to fill the spider pots out there to make things look a little more "wedding" and a little less "internment camp". We stopped on the way to get a bagel, got a zillion plants, came home, planted, set up fourteen tables and a hundred and four chairs, planted, arranged the linens, swept, planted, oh shit-- hung all the pictures back on the walls, planted, took a shower, got dressed, and showed up eight minutes late for my brother's perfect, gorgeous wedding during which I alternately cried at the vows and laughed at my baby nephew squirming around like a small starched octopus.
When the ceremony was over, I grabbed Randy and we jetted because a hundred people would be descending on our house shortly and I still had to make my bed. Hectic, is where I'm going with this. But the reception was perfect, everyone had a place to sit, someone figured out what was wrong with the keg tap, ASU won, dinner was fantastic, the firepit worked... and then about seven-thirty I look over and notice that Randy's slumped over, smiling like a marshmallow, and he's somehow gotten so drunk he's almost incapable of standing. This is so very unlike him that it's immediately hilarious. No one knows how this happened-- the group thinks about it and no one ever even saw him with a drink in his hand-- but nonetheless, the man is cashed. I laugh and Randy laughs because I'm laughing and my brother and his friends laugh, and I put poor Randy to bed.
Ten minutes later, my brother-- apparently missing Randy's keen drunk wit-- insists I go and get him.
This seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. Who am I to stand in the way of Randy and his fans, after all? Plus, it's been almost ten minutes since he passed out cold, he's probably rallied. So I go and I get him.
Terrible, terrible idea. There had been no rally. I let him sit there on the bench for five minutes, a sleeping, slumping marshmallow, before we all agreed on the terribleness of the "go get him" plan and I put him back to bed, apologizing for my terribleosity the whole time.
So everyone left around nine-thirty, I was in bed around ten, and when Randy woke up at seven the next morning, he felt fine. Great, even. I guess twelve hours sleep will do that. The first two things he made apparent upon awakening: even through the haze of the pass out cloud, he remembered I was a horrible troll who made him get up out of bed and who paraded him around like a circus marshmallow, and also, STARVING TO DEATH. I had to bring him handfuls of Triscuits before he could even find the strength to stand. He apparently had forgotten to eat dinner the night before. Never got around to it. So while the rest of us were full of prime rib and potatoes, Randy was operating solely on the strength of poppyseed bagel mush, a mush that was immediately flushed away by two vodka tonics.
My brother called that morning from the Dallas airport, on his way to honeymoon in Mexico. Just to thank us again and reiterate what a fantastic time it was.
"I really feel bad about making Randy get up last night, though," he said, "You tell that guy I'm sorry."
"Yeah, he didn't eat dinner," I said, "He'd had a bagel like fourteen hours earlier."
I deleted what I'd originally written. I was awake half the night last night worried about it, because people we know read this and even though I was vague, I didn't need to broadcast panic throughout my family tree. Not to mention the fact that it's not my story to broadcast. Things were really horrible and scary yesterday, and today things are better. Tomorrow things will be even better, and thirty days from Tuesday, things should be better than they've been in years.
I'll be able to write more about it later, but for now, damn, let's move on to Twelve.
¶ posted by Erin on Sunday, November 11, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Ten.
In two hours my brother is going to marry a woman he loves desperately and who loves him back.
And then we're all going to eat cake. I can't believe this all came together. I'm in actual shock. It's completely, 100% perfect. Even the stadium seating:
I'm just so full of love and relief right now. 43% love, 57% relief. But relief feels a lot like love, so whatever. I think I'm going to treat myself to a piece of cake. I know where they're hiding it.
¶ posted by Erin on Saturday, November 10, 2007
Friday, November 09, 2007
Nine.
You know what I should have had at my house? The rehearsal dinner. Only we would have called it the Rehearsal Nap. Bring Your Own Pillow.
Styro, sensing the depths of my desperation, actually mailed me some Xanax. She's now officially my dealer, and she deals exclusively in sanity. I popped two and half an hour later I found the will to bathe. It's a giant step.
11:30-- meet plumber, have toilet and sink reinstalled in the collapsed star bathroom. Hold flashlight and crucifix.
1:00-- pick up linens.
2:00-- find something to WEAR TO THIS GODDAMN WEDDING.
4:00-- uh, clean my house.
7:00-- rehearsal dinner.
Would it be terribly obvious if I wasn't at the rehearsal dinner?
¶ posted by Erin on Thursday, November 08, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Seven.
There aren't words to describe how badly my neck itches right now.
After the flooding, our powder room needed a new coat of paint. And somehow Randy timed it (and I'm 100% sure this was accidental) so that I was here with the contractor to select a color. Let's see, what's a good color for a small bathroom with no windows? MIDNIGHT! Of course!
It's so dark in there I don't even know if we can see well enough to install the light fixtures. There's a guy here right now applying the second coat of paint, and there's actually another guy behind him holding a flashlight. When I tried to take a picture, the flash wouldn't even go off all the way; it got scared halfway in there, stopped, and ran back into the camera. I'm afraid to go in, frankly, there are a couple of vampires hanging out by the back wall. This morning it was a ninja and a vampire, but now it's two vampires.
Wedding on Saturday. Entire family flew in from other side of the country today. Dad broke his foot. Mom dry heaving with the flu. I think someone's locked in my pantry. I have neck hives. The painters stole my broom. My bathroom looks like a small dead star. I'm out of garlic. My feet are cold.
¶ posted by Erin on Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Six.
It just dawned on me that I haven't showered since Friday. The cashier at Home Depot told me I was "really dirty". It wasn't even rude, I just nodded and grimaced, that's how dirty I am. You should touch my head. No you shouldn't. Yes you should.
A combination of concrete dust, paint fumes, regular old dust, and a fine mist of hardened cement in my hair has caused me to break out in rabid, itchy hives. It's cool, though, it's mostly just on my neck and face and arms and back and hands. And legs. And hair and eyes.
I just this second looked down and realized I've been walking around for two days in an old "Big Johnson" shirt of Randy's. You'll always go longer and deeper when you dive with Big Johnson scuba gear, FYI. Glad we opted not to clean out the closet.
The painters put the interior doors back on randomly and now I can lock people in my pantry.
I wish I could find my camera. The painters have my entire house and all its contents buried under sheets of opaque plastic. I keep waiting for Michael C. Hall to bust out of a closet.
So last week the Mazda service rep called to let me know I could pick up my car.
"You're right about that speaker," he said, "that's busted. I ordered a new one for you." He paused. "And I ordered some parts for that other thing."
"You heard it?" Oh, celebration!
"No," he laughed. "Noooo. But I ordered you a new stereo and CD changer. I don't think you're crazy."
Yes you do, you son of a bitch, because you just told me I wasn't crazy. That's like the main giveaway, do you not have cable? Have you never seen Denzel Washington trying to win back hostages? But I'm not going to miss out on a shiny new stereo to prove a stupid point, so Randy drove me back down to the dealership to get my car. Once I was in the driver's seat, the service rep came around to the window and handed me the diagnosis sheet.
"I'll give you a call when your new parts come in," he said. His voice was buttery, like he might be negotiating for innocent lives. I looked at the sheet while he backed away slowly.
Oh, this is not what I said, Service Hostage Negotiator Rep. CDs changing? When did I say shit about the cds changing?
"The cds don't fucking change!" I said out loud.
"Bleeee--ooooooop." The dashboard chimed in to commiserate. Of course. Awesome.
"I talked about heat, I talked about parked, I never said word one about the cds changing around."
"Bloooo-eeeeee-oooop." I thought about looping back around, back into the service bay, maybe finding that rep and tricking him into the passenger side. My phone charger might pass for a taser, I'd only make him stay until he heard it.
"Bleeee--it's us against them-- oooooop."
In the end I just drove on home.
For the record, I'm not crazy. I am high, though. This semi-gloss is killing me.
¶ posted by Erin on Monday, November 05, 2007
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Four.
He remembered.
Of course. You're looking at approximately half of my pantry guts. It's been a lot of fun. Plus I'm sick, I've been throwing up since last night. I feel okay otherwise, though, I'm pretty sure it's just my body rejecting the work. In fact, I thought I was over it until Randy looked in the empty pantry and goes, "Oh, cool, now you can go pick out a shelf paper you like," and I had to run to the bathroom again.
¶ posted by Erin on Sunday, November 04, 2007
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Three.
It's ten AM and Randy and I are in the middle of heated paint negotiations. We slept in until around eight this morning when the painters arrived (we sold sock zombies at First Friday last night and KILLED it, everyone loves a zombie made from socks) and as I'm brushing my teeth I hear Randy say, "I guess we should start getting our stuff out of the closet."
That seemed weird. Are we moving?
No. No, Randy wants the inside of the closet painted.
I didn't even know what to say. Seriously, Randy? You're talking to someone who sweeps around shoes. Painting the inside of the closet is like twenty times my inherent level of "thorough". I don't even know if I can operate at that level, I might pass out from lack of oxygen.
"So... I suppose you're going to want to take all the pictures down off the walls, too, then."
Affirmative.
See, and here I was debating whether we even needed to paint the bedroom. If Randy remembers we have a pantry, I'm going to have to go to the hospital.
¶ posted by Erin on Saturday, November 03, 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
Two.
Day two! And I'm 100% phoning it in. The house is half-painted and it's taking my complete attention to keep the dog from leaning his fuzzy eighty-pound ass against the walls. Some people opt to go stay a night in a hotel when they have their houses painted. So I hear. If I don't post tomorrow it's because I died in the night from the fumes.
¶ posted by Erin on Friday, November 02, 2007
We've reached critical mass here at the house. In addition to the complete backyard remodel, we also tore out an interior wall to put in French doors. And we're having the entire interior repainted. Walls, ceiling, trim, baseboards. Starting... now. The bathroom floor has to be pulled out and relaid, and I have a sinking suspicion there's still a bunch of water trapped inside the wall. It smells watery. There's somewhere between 30 and 400 people in my house right now. And it looks like Randy has completely stopped going to work.
Oh! Speaking of. Last night he got up on a chair to change the lightbulb in a ceiling can light, but once he yanked out the fixture he couldn't figure out how to get it back in. So he dragged the chair over to the matching fixture and yanked that one out, too. For comparison, he said. He still couldn't figure it out, so now both lights in the family room ceiling are dangling by their wires like eyeballs. Or they were; one of them crashed to the ground and exploded a few minutes ago when the wire snapped.
What am I going to wear to this wedding? I'm 15 pounds heavier than I've ever been in my life. I go to my closet to pick something out and I might as well be rifling through my third grade P.E. locker.
¶ posted by Erin on Thursday, November 01, 2007
