Category: Life

Flawless was better than the entire rest of the movie combined. And Trick was pretty damn good, altogether. Neve Campbell’s brother, Christian, was the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen. I told Fred that I want to adopt him and just look at him all day, he’s so adorable. Tori Spelling was pretty damn funny, too, and I’m no fan of hers. So I was sitting on the couch reading yesterday (I’m currently reading About a Boy, for those of you taking notes at home), and the annoying little voice in my head began suggesting that I go out back and water the catnip and morning glory plants back there, because lately if I don’t water them every day, they wilt horribly. Since I’m a big failure at ignoring that little voice, annoying as it is, I finally gave up on reading and went out back to do it’s bidding. Since it’s a pain to drag the hose over to the plants, water them, and wind the hose back up, I fill up a couple of gallon milk containers with water and water them that way. I had watered the morning glories and catnip plants, and was walking back toward the house, when I saw a morning glory plant growing in the middle of the gravel at one end of the pool. Deciding I’d be nice, since I had some extra water, I dumped water onto it. This big black ugly evil spider came running out because it thought something was caught in it’s web. It was a huge fucker, and as I looked closer, I saw the red hourglass. Black widow. Lovely. I ran inside the house and told Fred to come upstairs, which he did, and I grabbed the wasp and hornet spray, and led him out back. The black widow had gone back in hiding and wouldn’t come out, but we doused the entire area with bug spray, so we’re hoping it’s dead. Fred always says the first time he finds a black widow in the house is the last time, ’cause we’ll be moving immediately. The cats are acting freaky as all get-out, especially Spanky, who walks around staring at walls and howling all the live-long day. I’d blame it on a full moon, but according to the calendar, that’s a few weeks away. We got some thundershowers last night, so perhaps he’s still reacting to those. A tad slow, is our Spanky. Of course, since – I believe I’ve mentioned this – the entire world revolves around my menstrual cycle, he could be reacting to the hormones in the air. Fancypants spent all of last evening running around the living room and master bedroom, freaking out the other cats and just generally looking like a dork. Laura told Fred last week that her husband says she spends a week getting ready to have her period, a week actually having her period, and a week recovering. Sounds about right to me! ]]>

Whyyyyyyyyy? I don’t care for Pepsi, but if they came out with Pepsi with only one calorie, you can bet your bippies I’d be drinking it. And don’t try to tell me that Pepsi One tastes just like Pepsi. I can taste the nasty artificial sweetener taste, and can’t stand it. Though it’s been a while since I tried it, and maybe I should try it again. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. So I’ve been drinking a lot of water, which means I have to get up 45,000 times a night to pee, and I don’t think I ever really wake up completely, just stumble to the bathroom while asleep, and stumble back to bed, probably still snoring all the while. I’m surprised I haven’t squished the kitten yet, since she likes to lay in the warm spot where I sleep while waiting for me to return from the bathroom. Holy god in heaven. Check this out. Last time I had my hair cut and colored, I made my next appointment, six weeks from then, and Beverly promised to call and remind me the day before. Well, this weekend I realized that this week would be 6 weeks, and I couldn’t remember if my appointment was on Tuesday or Wednesday, the problem being that if my appointment was on Tuesday, the hair place isn’t open on Monday, and therefore Beverly wouldn’t be calling me the day before. I know! Thrills and chills all the time in this journal! For some reason, I decided that my appointment was tomorrow, so I got up, did my exercise tape (which kicked my ass as usual) and took a shower. By the time I got out of the shower, it was 9:40, so I called to find out what time my appointment tomorrow was. I know y’all can see the next part coming. “I don’t see you for tomorrow… Oh, you’re down for 10:00 today!” the helpful lady who answered the phone told me. So I had ten minutes to get dressed and be out the door, which I did with time to spare, of course. Hell, it’s not like I wear makeup or anything… The irony, of course, is that I got there before Beverly and had to cool my heels for ten minutes. I’m not sure why, but the kitten appeared to be mad at me the other day, and despite my pleas for her to come lay on her pillow on my desk and let me rub her belly, she wanted nothing to do with me and instead curled up with the wires between my desk and the shelves holding my cpu, printer and scanner. Whatever she was mad about she got over fairly quickly, but I’m curious to know what made her hate me so. Last week, I made a small deposit – $20 – at the bank, to cover a small check I had written the day before. And, since things were going so well on the banking front, this is the time something had to get screwed up. When I checked my checking account online – a habit I suggest you all get into (checking your own accounts, that is, not mine) – I saw that not only had they credited my account with a 20 cent deposit instead of $20, but the check I’d made the deposit to cover had come through, and they paid it, but it also incurred a $25 NSF fee since I hadn’t had enough to cover it. I called and the customer service lady made a note in the computer, but it wasn’t until today that they credited the other $19.80 to my account. That’s a little ridiculous, don’t you think? 4 days to catch a mistake like that? Anyway, I called and they reversed the NSF fee out of my account. I guess that’s what I get for playing it so close with my checking account. I rented The Teena Brandon Story Friday, along with Flawless, Trick, and Mumford. Fred and I watched Mumford Saturday night, which we both liked more than we’d expected. Then, since the movies are due back Wednesday, I watched The Teena Brandon Story last night. It was interesting, if a little repetitive. They had a limited number of pictures and therefore had to keep showing the same ones over and over. The main reason I rented it was so that I could see what the real people looked and sounded like, as opposed to the Hollywood-ized version. It left me sad, but it’s such a sad story that I should have known it would leave me that way. I also watched most of Flawless, and while the Philip Seymour Hoffman (Fred referred to him as “Philip Michael Jackson Hoffman Seymour” last night) as drag queen gimmick was interesting, the movie was a waste of time. Unless, that is, there’s a super-duper extra-special twist ending in the last ten minutes, since I haven’t quite finished it, because Fred was haranguing me to come to bed. I returned Mumford and The Teena Brandon Story after I had my hair done today, and rented Hanging Up, Anna and the King, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Luckily I have until Sunday to watch them, because I still have Trick to watch as well.]]>

kitten sits on the floor mat by the shower and watches me until I’m done and open the shower door, when she jumps into the shower and walks around licking up some tasty shower water (could I have said “shower” any more in that sentence?). Friday morning I hadn’t yet showered, and was waiting for the water to warm up, which she apparently didn’t realize, because she took a flying leap onto the shower seat, and sat there for ten seconds or so, trying to figure out why water was hitting her in the face before she freaked out and flew out of the shower and down the hall with her tail sticking straight up, like a kitty bat out of hell. Damn. I can’t believe it’s practically July. We had a nice sunny day Friday, and another Saturday, but three bright, sunny days in a row was apparently too much to ask for; it’s been overcast ever since. We’re growing catnip in a hanging planter in our backyard, and it’s growing very well and very quickly, so we harvested a few leaves Saturday. Spanky always eats his catnip immediately and goes trolling for more. The other boys take their time, sniffing and rubbing on the catnip before they eat it, especially Spot. The kitten, however, had no interest in the catnip, and just watched the other boys quickly get stoned, with a cartoon question mark hanging above her head. Spanky always gets really paranoid after eating catnip, whereas the other boys get relaxed and roll around on the floor a lot. Perhaps this is because Spanky is a spaz. I talked to the spud last night on the phone. It’s always difficult talking to her on the phone, because her answers always consist of “yes,” “no,” and “I don’t know,” so the conversation didn’t last long; just long enough to ascertain that she’s not being abused, she’s not dying of boredom (as if! she has Brian to play with, and I understand they were on about their fiftieth game of "go fish" last night), and she’s having a pretty good time. My god. This made me tear up. I’m having a klutzy day (I should find a graphic for that, with a foot in a cast); it’s not even noon, and so far I’ve walked into my cardboard Cartman poster, scraping some skin off my shin (ha! I’m a poet and didn’t knowit…), and hit the little toe of my left foot on the doorjamb (I screamed in pain, and all the kitties came running). Those fucking little toes are about useless, aren’t they? They never do anything but get kicked into the doorjamb. I wonder if my insurance would pay to have them removed. But then, knowing me, I’d just bang the nub where my little toe was into doorjambs and such. Because that’s the kind of klutz I am. ]]>

ideo killed the radio star as Video Kid the radio star. God help me, for some reason I’ve been laughing my ass off about that all morning. Speaking of this morning, today has been a double treat for me! That’s right, instead of just sitting around all day doing laundry, I also ran around cleaning the ENTIRE house! Lucky me, huh? I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but we canceled our cleaning service, because it went up $6 a week, which in itself isn’t a large amount of money, but it I did the math, and we were paying something like $300 a month to the cleaners, and since I’m not working, I just couldn’t justify something like that to either myself or Fred. Carolyn, the woman who was cleaning our house, took about an hour and a half to do the whole house, so I optimistically believed it would take me two hours or so. HA. I started at 8 this morning, and finished just before noon. Cleaning the house just kicked my ass all over the place. I was all kinds of hot and sweaty, and my face was a dark, dark red. I feel that I did a better job than Carolyn usually does, though, and I have a definite sense of accomplishment. I will be hurting bad tomorrow, though. After a quick dip in the pool, which was pure heaven, I showered and dressed and went to the movie store. And then, because I hadn’t had anything but three strawberries and a lot of water to eat all day, I swung by Burger King. Did you know that “A BK Broiler and a large Coke” apparently sounds just like “A BK Broiler Value Meal with a diet Coke” over the drive-up speaker? It must, ’cause that’s what I got. And the only reason I actually drank the diet Coke is because I was dying of thirst. In fact, it almost didn’t suck. Almost. So, the kitten is home. Fred picked her up on his way home from work yesterday, and when I picked her up out of the carrier box, she was doped to the gills. She stumbled around, weaving and squinting, and wouldn’t let me touch her on the head. The vet told Fred that there was a 50/50 chance the hairs would grow back, and if they did, there’s a place in Birmingham where they’ll remove them permanently. I wonder if I could get them to shape my brows while they’re at it… She’s been fine today, if a little clingy. I guess I didn’t need to worry about her hating me – she loves me twice as much today as she did yesterday, it appears. She won’t let me out of her sight, and follows me around, chirruping and rubbing against my legs. Which reminds me of a cute story about her (keep your groans to yourself, people). There’s a little yellow stuffed chick which usually sit on top of my monitor. Monday or Tuesday, as she was sniffing around my desk, the kitten reached up and smacked it with her paw, which made it fall backwards off my monitor and behind my desk. The kitten decided the chick was running and hiding from her, so she excitedly jumped down, ran around behind the desk, and dragged it out. Then she proceeded to carry by the butt across the room, stopping now and then to beat it up a little. She loves it when you pick it up and toss it across the room for her – she’ll go get it, and carry it back and drop it at your feet. It’s adorable. Now I’m off to try to grab a nap before Fred gets home. Y’all have a good weekend! ]]>

the kitten (I don’t know why I insist on calling her “the kitten”, she’s 10 months old now) was walking around with her left eye completely closed. I called and made an appointment to take her to the vet, and all yesterday afternoon and last night, she didn’t play much, preferring to lay on me and sleep. This morning, her eye was open more, but she was still squinting, making like Popeye. The appointment was at 10 this morning, and just like last time, the problem was that she had eyelashes growing in such a way that they were poking her in the eye all the time. The vet managed to pluck all the offending lashes from the inside of one eyelid, but when it got to the other eye, she started fighting, and they couldn’t get her to hold still. I had to leave her, so they could sedate her and do the plucking. This did not make me happy, ’cause you KNOW she’s going to remember who dropped her off at The Place Where They Stick Things Up My Butt and Hurt Me. Hopefully she has a short memory, though, and will only associate Fred with that place, since he’ll be picking her up on his way home. I can only hope. So, Fred hasn’t had any processed sugar in something like three or four weeks. He’s diabetic – I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that – and he was watching TV one night, and they showed an older black man on one of those reality shows about paramedics or emergency room doctors. The man was diabetic, and they showed his foot, which had toes which were all black and rotting off, and they were going to have to amputate. That was all Fred needed to see, and no sugar has passed his lips ever since. A couple of weeks ago, he bought the Anthony Robbins weight-loss tapes, and he’s lost about 20 pounds since. Though I’ve been listening to the tapes with him, I’d been not nearly as good about sticking to good-for-me foods, and thus haven’t lost much, if any, weight. Tuesday, he stopped by his doctor’s office on our way over to his mom’s house to drop off her Tony Robbins tapes, since the scales at the doctor’s office are much better than the scales we have at home, and he found that he’d lost 8 pounds since the last time he’d weighed, 6 days before. Now, don’t be emailing me and telling me he’s losing too fast. He was worried he might be and talked to his doctor, and she said he’s fine. Anyway, later that evening, he called and told his father how much he’d lost, and his stepmother snickered “Is he trying the multi-year plan?” Is it just me, or is that pretty fucking rude? After that, his father told him that exercising in the pool, which he and I have both been doing, is not “real” exercise, and that walking is better. Why do people find it necessary to be so freakin’ negative? I mean, I’m not thrilled that he’s losing weight and I’m not, but I have no one to blame for that but myself. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy for him that he’s losing weight, because I am. Which reminds me – we had an argument the other day over whether eggs are a dairy food, or a protein. Y’all email me and give me your opinion on that, would you? I say it’s dairy, he swears it’s like meat. His mother agreed with me at first, then changed her mind and said it’s like a meat on a diabetic diet. Anyway. In the local mall, there’s a stand that sells clear vases full of water with glass marbles on the bottom, a plant on the top, and a Betta fish in the water. They sell them for something like $30, and Fred’s stepfather put the same exact thing together, paying retail for all the pieces, for $12. Today, I was in the grocery store, and they have two or three of them at the customer service desk, only in one of them there was a crawfish instead of a Betta. It was pretty neat-looking, actually. Reminds me of the pet store in Rhode Island I was checking out, and along with the usual goldfish and other varieties of fish, they sold small shrimp. I had a vision of raising my own shrimp for food. But they don’t make fish tanks big enough to hold enough shrimp for me…]]>

Like I said yesterday, I always slowed down to 60 while focusing and taking the picture. Here’s the “Welcome to West Virginia” sign. I tried taking a picture of the Maryland sign, but I didn’t snap the picture fast enough. Anyway, I felt very welcome in West Virginia for the entire ten minutes I was there, before I crossed over into Virginia. I missed taking a picture of that sign, too, unfortunately. I know y’all are heartbroken. The one major difference between I-81 north of the Mason-Dixon line and I-81 south of the same is that in the south, they adore their wildflowers. Absolutely adore them. There are signs up by every patch of wildflowers Wildflowers! See the wildflowers! Don’t PICK the wildflowers! Wildflowers next 17 miles! The very thought that someone might PICK the wildflowers sends someone into a tizzy, apparently, given how many signs there are warning not to pick the wildflowers. There are miles upon miles of wildflowers; more than once, there were red poppies and yellow flowers and purple flowers as far as the eye could see. Above the Mason-Dixon line, though, it’s pretty much Wildflowers? Who gives a fuck about wildflowers? Up there, they apparently just mow the wildflowers down at every opportunity. Okay, okay, enough about the wildflowers, right? Oh, here’s something I saw more than enough of. Yes, that’s the I-81 South sign. Have I mentioned I spent something like 8 or 9 hours on I-81? It’s fucking eternal. There’s sort of a comfort to staying on the same highway for so long, though. As long as I knew I needed to stay on 81, I didn’t have to bother looking at the exit signs, didn’t have to worry about missing my exit. 81 takes you through Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley (note to self: when driving home from Maine in August, try to convince the spud that they named the Shenandoah Valley after Shannon Doherty. She’ll totally buy it. If she knows who Shannon Doherty is). The Shenandoah Valley is very pretty, all mountains and rolling green hills with charming little houses and farms dotting the landscape. Unfortunately, none of the pictures I took of the aforementioned charming little houses and farms came out. These pictures came out, though. These pictures illustrate the most frustrating moments of my trip to and from Harrisburg. First of all, there were a FUCKING TON of trucks on the road, especially on 81. I mean, miles and miles of 18 wheelers, lumbering along. And every time I got going good and set the cruise control, one of the lumbering trucks in the right lane would pull out right in front of me, and slowwwwwwwwwly, slowwwwwwwwly, ever so slowwwwwwwly, pass the truck it had been behind. Meaning that I had to hit my brakes, hard, and slow down by about 15 miles per hour until the truck had finally passed the other truck and got the hell out of my way. I was giving out dirty looks left and right, let me tell you. So I had entered Tennessee and had only one last exit to take, the exit for highway 72. I noticed finally that I had gone almost 40 miles since getting on highway 24, and the exit for highway 72 was supposed to show up somewhere around mile 33. At the point I realized I’d missed my exit, 24 was winding through some very steep mountains which nary an exit where I could turn around. I ended up going about 20 miles out of my way before I could turn around. It all worked out, though – I turned around and found my exit, so overall the whole fuckup added maybe half an hour to the trip. Which isn’t so bad for a 12 hour trip, I guess. I finally made it home around 7, and my wonderful husband had dinner waiting for me. He sat with me while I ate, and then we watched The Faculty, which wasn’t bad. We went to bed around 10, and I slept like the dead. It was very very good to be home. ]]>

my bright idea. So, the spud and I got on the road very very early Friday morning – 4:30 am, in fact – and managed to miss the very worst of the rush hour traffic around Chattanooga. Our next big city was Knoxville. Knoxville, if you’ve never been through there, has a huge, nasty stank about it. I can only guess it’s the smell of factories, but whatever it was, I was only too glad to see it in my rear view mirror. We made it onto I-81 North sometime around 8:30 or so (I’m guessing, because I don’t really remember), and stopped for breakfast at Shoney’s, which took us all of about 20 minutes to eat and get back on the road. Virginia took us FOREVER to get through – we were on 81 North for something along the lines of 8 or 9 hours, and that was me driving with a lead foot. For the first few hours, I drove slower than I wanted to – 7 miles over the speed limit, thank god for cruise control – but sometime after lunch, I realized that if I heard the spud ask “Are we STILL in Virginia?” one more time, I’d have to throw her out the window, and told myself “In for a penny, in for a pound”, and sped up like the true speed demon I am. I only hit 100 once, and that was only briefly. I first noticed the signs for Winchester, VA when we were about 177 miles from it. I did the math and thought to myself “When we’re near Winchester, I’ll only have 100 miles or so to go!” Which would have been cool if there were signs up perhaps every 20 miles announcing the mileage left to Winchester. Instead, every 2 miles, there was a sign. 175 miles to Winchester! 173 miles to Winchester! Which only served to make the journey seem longer. I’d think, “Has it only been 2 miles since the last sign?? I thought it was a lot more than that!” In other words, the trip dragged. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the clock every now and then and figure out how long it had been since we left home. “Ah, we’ve only been on the road for 2 hours… 4 hours… 8 hours… Miles to go before we get there…” We were finally, finally, about 30 miles from Harrisburg, when my cellphone chirped. I left it on “roam” for the entire trip, but there were certain areas – Virginia’s “Technology Corridor” being one, ironically – where I got a “No Network” on the little screen. Anyway, I had apparently been in a dead area without realizing it, and suddenly the phone chirruped, letting me know that I had voice mail. I scrolled through the options and began listening to the voice mail. Which was a long message from Debbie telling me that her car had broken down in the Bronx. Yippee! While I was listening to the voice mail and exclaiming “Oh, shit! Oh, shit!”, the call waiting kicked in, with Fred on the other line. We talked for a few minutes, then hung up, he to call my parents and I to call Debbie. Luckily, there was a rest area where I could pull over, which I did. I called Debbie, talked to Fred, and after half an hour, I was back on the road to Harrisburg, where the plan was for me to check into the hotel I had reservations at, and then we’d decide what to do. Mapblast is pretty cool, but it fucked up on the very last part of my trip. The last step was “Take I-283 for .5 miles to 495 Eisenhower Blvd”. Which was very well and good, except that I was driving down I-283, which is a separate road from Eisenhower Blvd, and in fact we drove by the Econo Lodge while still on the highway, with no way to get there. “Hey,” I said to the spud. “There’s our hotel…” We both looked at it as we drove by. I took the next exit and doubled back, so everything worked out. But I find that a sad lapse on Mapblast’s part. After we got settled in our room (there was a truly creepy guy hanging around in the lobby, and I couldn’t get the deadbolt on our door to work at first, so I was freaked out, imagining I’d wake up in the middle of the night with Creepy Guy standing over the spud and I, so I made a mental note to pile the spud’s (very heavy) suitcase in front of the door, and the little table on top of that, but I managed to get the deadbolt working later, so all my freakiness was for naught) I called Fred quickly, and then the spud and I went looking for food. Since it was Friday evening, all the restaurants we passed were packed, and we sat in line at the McDonald’s drive-up for five minutes before giving up and then went down the road to Taco Bell, where I ordered a bunch of soft tacos and 4 large Pepsis to take back to the hotel with us. While the spud dug into dinner, I called Fred again, and we discussed our various options, which consisted of my driving to the Bronx, where Debbie, Shaun and Brian were already in a hotel while they were waiting for her car to be fixed; driving home Saturday with the spud; or buying a one-way ticket from Harrisburg to Portland, where my parents could meet her. Since I was about 2 1/2 hours from where Debbie was, I wasn’t much up for that, if only for the reason that I didn’t particularly want to add 5 hours to my driving time, on top of the 12 to 13 hours I had to drive from Harrisburg to home. So Fred called and ordered a one-way ticket, and I found out from the desk clerk how to get to the airport. While the spud flipped through the channels trying to find something good on TV, I took a shower and dozed until Fred called at 11 to say goodnight. I talked him into calling to make sure I was up at 5:10 (I just don’t completely trust the automated system hotels use these days for wakeup calls), and then it was lights out for the spud and I. This is getting long, so I’ll end it here for today, and tell y’all about the rest of my trip tomorrow. Complete with pictures I took while going down the road! (Chill out, I slowed down to 60 to take most of them…)]]>

that, lemmetellya), but just to be sure I needed to go to the hospital to have it x-rayed. After the x-ray, we arrived back at the doctor’s office, and he told us I wouldn’t need a cortisone shot after all. I had a tumor on my knee. The orthopedist who found the tumor was partially retired, so he referred me to the best Orthopedic Surgeon in the area. After more x-rays, it was determined that the tumor – which had been developing for a year or more – had begun eating away at the bone directly under my knee. After what seemed like months and months of x-rays and consultations and more x-rays and more meetings, they operated on my knee. They wouldn’t know until they operated to remove the tumor whether it was cancerous. If it was cancerous, though I didn’t realize it at the time, they may have had to amputate my leg. So while they were removing the tumor and removing bone from my hipbones to pack in the space where the tumor had eaten away, people in the lab were testing tissue from the tumor and determining that it was non-cancerous. Can you see how this whole situation is one I consider lucky? Despite the pain I was in after the operation (they had this fucking NASTY-looking drain on one of my hips, and every time the surgeon or his partner came to check on me, I asked when they were going to take it out. Actually, I asked them as soon as they got there and again before they left. I wanted that motherfucker GONE), I was lucky that the tumor turned out to be noncancerous. I could have had cancer, fought it for months or years, and died. But I was lucky. Other lucky instances in my life: I got pregnant with the spud when I was 19. Instead of running for the hills, her father married me, and to this day continues to send child support. Sadly, it seems in these days that a father actually financially supporting his child is more the exception than the rule. I had the spud at the tender age of 20, and I knew nothing about kids. I lucked out, though – she was a great baby, and she’s a great kid. She did everything exactly when she was supposed to. The instant she turned 6 weeks, she slept through the night. At 6 months, she happily ate solid foods. She walked at 15 months, she talked when she was supposed to, and though she gets attitudinous occasionally, she’s still eager to please instead of a sullen, pouty brat (though I realize that’s yet to come). See? Lucky. What else? Well, I met a man online and after knowing him online and talking to him constantly on the phone, I met him in a hotel in Pennsylvania. In a hotel in Pennsylvania. He could’ve been a psycho, he could’ve raped and killed me. Instead, he turned out to be a normal guy (okay, that’s debatable) and the love of my life. Not to mention pretty freakin’ successful at what he does, and now he’s pulling down the big bucks, wooHOO! How the hell did I get so lucky? Did I have a really bad time of it in a previous life, and this is my payback? Or are the really bad things yet to come? Will I come home one day and find that the spud’s a pot-smoking high school dropout who’s selling drugs out of the basement with her tattooed pimp boyfriend? Will I find Fred in bed with a skanky stripper and a goat who are leaving nasty things all over my nice clean carpet? Will a crack develop in the pool, sending chlorinated water all over the lawn on the hottest day of the year, boiling the grass to a nasty dead brown color? Will the kitten run off with the little black cat who skulks through our front yard from time to time, leaving me with no one to lay across my head at night? Will Tubby sit on Spanky and Mr. Fancypants, leaving Spot to wander the house in solitude, uttering his weird squeaky meows? Maybe I should just shut up and be glad for the lucky life I’ve had, ya think? ]]>

god – 16 years) had been drinking heavily, beer, and I was such an innocent that I thought the taste on his lips and tongue was apple wine. How is it that I, stupid where many other girls would have been cautious, managed to make it out of that experience unscathed? Liz and I took so many chances, and we were always okay. For crying out loud, on a lark one night, when Liz wouldn’t stop playing Van Halen or something, I got out of the car and walked off down a one-way side street she couldn’t drive down. I walked through the scariest fucking part of Lewiston, through the neighborhoods which were the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks, with nary a qualm. At one o’clock in the morning. The worst fucking part of town, and there I was, wandering along. Liz was losing her mind because she couldn’t find me, and there I was smiling at every scary drug-dealer/ crack whore/ pimp I saw, asking sweetly what time it was. The one and only time we got the shit scared out of us, we were sitting at a red light, and some guys in a big, loud car pulled up next to us. They revved their engine impatiently, and I yelled at the top of my very loud lungs “Oh, I’m impressed!” When the light turned green, they followed us. “They’re following us,” I told Liz. “Go through The Area,” she directed, which is what we called our regular cruising route through the worst part of Lewiston. I did so, and they continued following us. When I turned left onto a small side street, they pulled around us, gunning their engine, pulled in front of us, and slammed on their brakes. Not impressed, I stopped my car and rolled my eyes. Three guys – big guys – jumped out of the car in front of us. Two of them were carrying bats. The third grabbed his crotch. While Liz sat frozen in terror in the passenger’s seat, I acted faster than I’d ever have believed possible. I slammed the gearshift into reverse, and floored it. We flew backwards at something like 40 miles per hour. The guys, satisfied to have scared us, took off in the other direction. I drove to the 7-11 parking lot, where Liz and I quietly freaked out. Did that stop us from cruising The Area? Nope; in fact, I’m pretty sure we did a few more circuits of The Area that night. Up Lisbon Street, right onto Pine, left onto Knox, right onto Ash, left onto Bates, to Main, where we went down Canal and then did it all over again. And over and over and over. Did it at least stop me from yelling obnoxiously at strangers? No. We were driving down Lisbon Street one night, and I saw a bunch of guys walking down the street towards the strip bars. “Woohoo!” I yelled. As a group, they turned and looked at me. “Hey, lady!” one of them yelled. Stumped for a reply, I came up with “Hey, man!” Liz laughed until she snorted about that one. I can’t deny that I look back on those days with a certain fondness. I also look on them with incredulity and a sort of horror. We were so stupid, so sure in our belief that nothing bad could really touch us, that we were infallible. Our naivete astounds me. How often, I wonder, did we come close to making a fatal mistake in our stupidity? We tempted Fate so damn often. The time we picked up two guys and went parking in the parking lot of a church. I exchanged a few kisses with the guy in the front seat with me, while Liz did something that entailed heavy breathing and occasional moaning. How hard would it have been for one of them to pull out a knife or a gun? To strangle one and then the other of us? There was no one around and no one knew where we were. Or the time we met two guys in the mall, and went back to their dorm room at the Lewiston Vocational College. We each sat on a bed and watched TV. When we got up to leave because of my curfew, they were pretty insistent that we stay. We finally just left. It was the summer session, and there weren’t many people around. How difficult would it have been for them to force us to stay? The list just goes on and on. There are so many people in this world who aren’t tempting Fate, who are jogging around a lake, or walking to a mall, or walking down their street, or sleeping in their own beds, and they are brutally raped or murdered or both. Why is that? Why is it that two dumbass kids like Liz and I can waltz around, doing something dumb here, something incredibly stupid there, and never have something like that happen to us? With all the chances we took, how is that? Is what I’ve always told myself I believed, life is a crapshoot, is that true?]]>

When Fred and I woke up this morning, this is the sight greeting us. This is the second time in three months this particular family has had their yard tp’d – in fact, as far as I know, they’re the only family in our neighborhood whose been tp’d at all. I guess either one of the boys (probably the 7th grader) has an admirer, or a couple of pain-in-the-ass friends. I’m running around (well, actually I’m just sitting here, but it feels like I’m running around) trying to get stuff done before tomorrow. I don’t know why I felt the need to dedicate 2 hours to clearing the crap off my desk this morning; it’s not like I’m leaving for a month or even a week. But I cleared off my desk, got the files in my desk drawer in shape, and got all the bills in a single pile. And did laundry, and got the house ready for the cleaning lady. Speaking of the cleaning lady, Fred and I agreed last night that today would be her last day. The cleaning service raised their rate by $7 a week, which we can still more than afford, but it means we’d be spending almost $300 a month on cleaning, and I just can’t justify that, when I can very well clean myself. Much as I hate cleaning. So, starting next week, Friday will be Cleaning Day. You know I’m going to have to come up with a graphic for that. Fred called his mother last week to tell her he was going to go see Tony Robbins in Denver next month, and what I heard sounded like this: “Hey, Mom, guess what? I’m going to Denver next month to see Tony Robbins…. Tony Robbins. … He’s a motivational speaker. Maybe you’ve seen him on TV. Tall guy, big teeth? Oh, well. The first night I’m there, I’m gonna walk across a bed of hot coals, barefoot. … No, Mom, it’s not a cult. It’s NOT a cult, Mom. I’m telling you, it isn’t a cult. It’s just an exercise to show me that I can do whatever I set my mind to, even overcoming a fear like that. Yes, I *know* that if it were a cult I’d say it weren’t. I’ll tell you what. I’ll bring you some of his tapes to listen to, and you decide if you think he’s a cult leader. Yes, Mom, I know that’s how they get people into a cult. But this isn’t a cult. CULT PEOPLE DON’T WALK ON COALS! IT’S JUST AN EXERCISE IN OVERCOMING FEARS! (exasperation) Fine, Mom, it’s a cult. Would you just listen to the tapes if I bring you some? Fine. Love you… Bye.” So he went out and bought her the Personal Power II “starter kit” – the first four tapes – and took them to her house last weekend, telling her that if she liked them, he’d buy her the whole set. Last night, he called and asked how she liked them, and she said that she likes them a lot, but he shouldn’t spend all that money ($200) on her. Fred got all exasperated, because while $200 is a lot of money to his mom – money she can’t afford – he can afford to spend that kind of money on her. And today, he went ahead and ordered the set for her. I hope she really likes the tapes and wasn’t just saying that. It’s coming up on 2:30, and I still have yet to actually pack (don’t lecture me – it’ll take all of an hour to throw all of the spud’s clothes in a suitcase and some toys in another suitcase). There will be entries up on Friday and Saturday, assuming I can get Fred to upload them and send a message to the notify list. If not, I’ll put everything up sometime Sunday. I will drive carefully, thanks for your good wishes, and if you see an amethyst colored Jeep somewhere on 81N in Virginia, honk and wave. I’m sure I’ll just squint at you suspiciously, but it’ll give me something to write about when I get back (“I don’t know what the fuck was going on, but these people were honking at me really loudly and waving. They looked kind of crazy…”) See you in a few days! —–]]>