I recently finished The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler. It was a bathroom book, by which I mean, a book I keep in the bathroom because it is BORING IN THERE, and so when business needs to be conducted, I need something in there to read.
(Shaddup.)
Anyway, previously unbeknownst to me, Fred also reads my reading material when he’s conducting his own business in there, and after a few days of leafing through The Washingtonienne and reading bits of it, he begged me to put a magazine in there because the horror of The Washingtonienne was causing his bowels to slam shut and no business was being conducted.
It took me a few weeks, but I finally finished The Washingtonienne and today I am announcing that bitchypoo.com, in conjunction with vituperation.com, is awarding The Washingtonienne the title of The Most Vapid Book of This Century.
Honest to god, it was the least substantial book I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and I don’t know why I read it all the way through – well, yes I do. I read it all the way through because it was the only thing in there, and somehow I kept forgetting to replace it, so I was held hostage by circumstance.
I should have known when I opened the front cover and a great burst of hot air blew my hair back that there wasn’t going to be a lot of “there” there. It’s like the literary equivalent of marshmallow fluff, except that marshmallow fluff is tasty annnnd…. The Washingtonienne is the opposite of tasty. It’s like marshmallow fluff gone rancid. If marshmallow fluff went rancid. And I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Anyway, you get my point.
I certainly don’t blame Jessica Cutler for this horrific book unleashed upon an unsuspecting public, because she was only capitalizing on the notoriety of writing a blog about who she was fucking and in what position (that’s an assumption on my part, since I never read her blog) and if someone contacted me and was all “Write a book about (whatever trainwreck issues might arise in my life, of which there are thankfully few, or ARE there, ho ho HO wouldn’t YOU like to know?!) and we’ll give you lots of money! Whee!”, I’d be all over that.
I do blame the idiots at Hyperion who thought they’d capitalize on… Oh. Well, I guess I can’t really blame them, either. They’re in the business to make money after all.
I guess who I should be blaming, really, is my own stupid ass and the fact that I feel a weird compulsion to buy books written by bloggers to support! the cause! man! That’s bitten me on the ass more than once, and I guess I need to stop doing that shit. Probably I should just stick to buying books by bloggers I actually read and enjoy and not every book written by a blogger, whether I’ve read them or not.
So, um, yes. The Washingtonienne: don’t bother.
Maxi is a pretty cat and she’s a good cat, but what she is not, is a smart cat. She has, lately, taken to asking to go outside. We almost always let Maxi and Newt out the side door, because that’s usually where we are when they ask to go out. So we let her out, she sniffs around, chases birds, does whatever, and then decides she wants back in the house.
Instead of going back to the door she came outside through, she climbs over the fence into the back yard and goes to the back door and comes in the cat flap in the screen door. This works fine and everything, except that often times she tries to come in the back door when we’ve already closed it for the night, so she sits there and waits for us to open it. Usually, we don’t even know she’s out there. Eventually one of us goes out the side door, and Maxi races over to the fence and howls at us. And howls. And howls some more. Does she climb the fence and jump up on the side stoop? She does not. She howls, and then she races to the back door. So we either have to open the gate and call her, then let her in the side door, OR we have to go inside and open the back door to let her in.
I cannot even imagine how much time she’s probably spent sitting patiently by the back door, waiting for someone to let her in.
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New fosters!
The white one is a girl named Smudge Bunny and the black and white is HG (stands for “Hourglass”, because he’s got an hourglass-shaped patch of white on his tummy).
They’re very skittish. Their story is that an 89 year-old woman found them and took care of them as best she could, but she was just throwing them scraps of the food she had around, so their little digestive systems were pretty messed up when the shelter took them. They’re about 6 months old.
Smudge Bunny, though you can’t see it in the picture, has a smudge of gray on top of her head (you have to look closely to see it) and a smudge of orange along her tail. I just got them last night and haven’t spent a lot of time with them yet – they’re so nervous that I wanted to let them get used to their surroundings a little before I start spending time in there. I took them a small plate of canned cat food this morning and they were interested, but then I moved and they zipped under the dresser and hid.
They’re sweet little things; I’m sure they’ll come around, especially once Fred the cat whisperer gets his hands on them. I just hope he doesn’t fall in love with Smudge Bunny’s gorgeous blue eyes; I really don’t want the permanent cat population to get up into the double digits!
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Newt keeps his eye on the prize (but then it flew away!).
Previously
2007: I was filled with a black hatred for the goddamn lights and my goddamn husband and every goddamn thing that ever was.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Another reason I love the man: he makes me laugh every day.
2003: I’ll tell you what, he’s lucky I didn’t go get the cleaver and chop that fucking finger right the fuck off.
2002: My mind is blank…
2001: It’s just the little things that get to me, y’know?
2000: Married people! Having sex in the middle of the day! What IS this world coming to?