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Hoofd kaas

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Gah, what a week. Wait, it’s only Wednesday? What a world, what a world, she says, slowly melting into a puddle on the ground. So, a quick recap:

I spent my entire weekend on freelance stuff, even though it was obscenely gorgeous. I made Irish soda bread to go with my Irish butter, which was almost gone but at least I had a slice while the bread was still warm and melted all over with the snobby butter.

I had a really bad day on Tuesday, do to several external forces all collaborating and picking that specific day to dump their collective emotional feces directly on top of my carefully coiffed shag and it was probably the worst day thus far in 2005. However, there was a delightful respite when I met Haus-Frau out for coffee (which is our code word for ‘gossip, giggling and gastronomic delights’) before my class. Also, I made a joke about drugging raccoons that made my cute professor laugh, so that was very nice. I don’t say much in class, mostly because the same five people are crawling all over any pauses in the conversation, so I write big long looping graphs of black ink on the stories and give my feedback that way most of the time. However, I’m now hyperventilating because I must turn in my story for workshopping in two weeks. Two weeks! And have I mentioned that I have nothing? Ok, three pages of scribbled long hand, but that does not a story make. And now I have a quandary, as I have mentioned that the story I want to write for class is not the story that wants to get out of my head. And it’s so delicious, the similes that are fighting for attention. I polish them with my shirt, these similes that don’t exist yet. Writers are silly people, it is totally true, even pseudo-intellectual poser writers like me. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to write a body issue piece because I don’t want to be the fat girl who writes the story about being fat, because when the skinny girl writes the story about how a skinny girl thinks she’s fat, everyone goes ‘Ah well, yes, so it is.’ And I hate that. I know it’s true, because I do it, but it doesn’t make it ok. Yes, I know how these body issues happen and yes, I understand them because I have thought them at some time, at some moment or minute of my life, I might have been that person, and just because I talk about my fat ass doesn’t mean that I’m envisioning cutting huge slabs of flesh away from my body like the extras to a rubber prop on a Mendes-directed Moby Dick. It doesn’t mean that at all. Just like when I wrote about a woman who was dreaming about having a baby doesn’t mean that I secretly want to have a baby. It’s a story, goddammit. A story. God! She said in a Napoleon Dynamite inflection, and then commenced sketching out the form of a liger.

So, yeah, still a little tense. I just wish I could write the Bingo story instead and everyone would be happy, because it would be funny and my typical mix of funny and also sort of sad but not all Amy Hempel and ‘Ooh, I am SUCH a writer you have no idea!’ that litters the post-graduate writing workshop landscape. But man. If I could, I would. Bingo. It’s going to be such a good story too. I can taste it. But no. Alzheimer’s disease. Fat girls. Yes sir. Time to make the fucking donuts.

I keep promising to get over myself. Someday I might actually do it.

In other news, the Dutch Cupboard Cheese has been gifted to June, as she’s the only one of us that likes it. In a reverse bit of TaunTaun logic, it smelled worse on the outside than on the inside, but it was completely invaded with a strange Dutch Cupboard conflagration of herbs (or, as Ward remarked ‘Herbs? Maybe Herb’s feet!’) and spices and also the insidious caraway seeds which are one of the few things I cannot stand. (When I was four, Aunt Brunhilda pointed them out in some rye bread and told me that they were chopped up minnows. Don’t fuck with your kids’ heads, people. It’s not nice.) Esteban, thankfully, shares my dismay of caraway, so we were both completely and utterly squicked out by the whole idea. June, however, was delighted, as now she has a chunk of cheese the size of a small dog, all for her very own, as Ward won’t touch it either (I think he was turned off by the sweating). I’m glad that we’re a family that shares. Sharing our smuggled dairy products, anyway. This is what Ward gets for laughing when June regaled me with the story of his hive breakout. I have to hear about his unmentionable itchy netherworld, he gets to live with the cheese. A fair sentence, to be certain. He’ll be out in a month while I can’t scour that image out of my brain.

So yeah, and tonight, instead of working on my story, I’ve given myself a Queen Helene’s Mint Julep mask and aloe gel chaser, written this, talked on the phone, and watched junk TV. But it was so worth it. Bitch poured beer in Miss Tyra’s weave. That shit ain’t right, y’all.

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Still kicking yourself about missing the Bad Bar Con?

Monday, April 11, 2005

You

It’s on, my babies. It is so on.

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The Cheese stands alone

Friday, April 8, 2005

It’s warming up here in the great white north, although not so white and not so great these days. The little lilac bush outside my front door has green buds, the hint of bees and lawn sprinklers and ripe strawberries to come. I have been craving watermelon these days, although a perfectly taut watermelon is not to be found. They are all anemic and bruised, wan jaundiced carapaces of mealy nothingness the color of diseased gums plagued by gingivitis. Even though there is no hope in the produce aisles, it is all I want, just some sweet turgor exploding in my mouth. Oh, Dr. Freud, how you flatter me.

I took a drive down my thinking road along the Bay, just to see how the water was, or if it was water rather than ice. It’s mostly open water now, although there are a few ice floats out there, despite the 60 degree days and obscene amounts of sunshine. Whenever I see such ice floats in the water, I always imagine a little reindeer and a little dentist floating away to colder climes. Hard to believe that five weeks ago we were standing in snow past our ankles in the quiet of a starless night, watching a man fall to his knee amongst a cathedral of trees.

Regardless, spring has begun to creep in with the time fuckery (yes, still bitter, but working on it) and I can’t say that I’m not happy to see it come. Each day, I drive around during my lunch hour with the sunroof open, exhausting my CD collection, driving aimlessly through my travel ruts, sometimes two or three times in an hour down a very banal street flanked by tire shops and strangely named banks. There’s one that is so generic I have proposed to Esteban that it should be renamed Bank Bank and see if anyone notices. They won’t, as long as they get free checking, really free, we mean it, free free free, oh will you shut up and take down your frayed banner because who doesn’t give free checking these days?

Along with spring means Esteban’s travel schedule gets all sorts of crazy. This week, Esteban was in Virginia, staying near Quantico (Chantico?) although half the time that people asked me where he was, I said he was in Boston, because I was mixing up last week with this week. Gah. Three trips in about as many weeks. He has a few weeks at home and then he’s off again for the fourth and fifth leg. During part of his schmoozing, he promised to get a foam cheesehead for a colleague in Amsterdam, who, in turn, promised to smuggle something into the country for him.

I, naturally, was very intrigued at this possibility. Smuggling? From Amsterdam?

Esteban was thinking Absinthe. I was envisioning, well, let’s not talk about it, but visions of women who could smoke cigars with their princesses came to mind. At very least, maybe some of that chocolate with the booze inside of it. I do love that boozy chocolate. So when Esteban got home, he unveiled the contraband.

Cheese.

Or more specifically, Dutch Cupboard Cheese. Which sounds like something you’d get if you didn’t practice adequate cupboard cleanliness. Or a euphemism for a sexually transmitted disease stemming from improper cigar smoking (yes, I know, I can’t get past it either). Esteban unwrapped it with a flourish and announced that it had made his hotel room smell like cheese. He held it out for me to take a whiff, but I went in very close and inhaled and was hit by a board upside the head. A board made of feet. Ah yes, the famous feet cheese of Amsterdam.

Esteban regaled me with the set of serious instructions that came with the Dutch Cupboard Cheese. One must not refrigerate the Dutch Cupboard Cheese. Also, you have thirty days from the point which you breach the seal (Breach! I am not making that up!) to consume the cheese. After thirty days, I do not know what happens. I assume that it breaks down into a gelatinous globule, or perhaps it grows tiny cheese legs and hops out of the cupboard and then swims upstream, looking to spawn with other Dutch Cupboard Cheeses. Also, we were warned that the cheese may ‘start to sweat a little’ and that this should not alarm us. Start to sweat a little? Yummy.

Also, we should place the Dutch Cupboard Cheese in a cool dark cupboard and also store it under glass, ‘so that the bugs don’t get on it’. Yes. Direct quote. I especially like the term ‘the bugs’ as if there are specific bugs associated with the cupboard cheese. Dutch Cupboard Cheese bugs. Although I also envision a bluebottle fly lazily ambling toward a steaming pile of cow feces some five miles away from here in the country, when the fly stops in midair, falls to the ground (as that is what a fly does when it stops ambling) and says ‘Hullo’ what is this I smell? What is this piquant aroma of feet? I think I’m going to check this out!’ And in three days, he arrives to find the cheese, unguarded and perfect, glistening with perspiration, just ripe for the plunder, but he is foiled by the glass dome and then stands just on the other side, smushed up against the barrier, begging for just a minute, even three seconds, alone with that glorious funky fetid mass undulating before him.

We’re taking the Dutch Cupboard Cheese to Ward and June’s house tomorrow. They are interested in trying it. We will breach the seal there. If we all survive, then the countdown will have begun. I assure you that we will not be able to finish what is very likely five pounds of footy cheese in 30 days. If you don’t hear from me after Day 31, you’ll know what happened. The cheese crept out of its cupboard and slit my throat. And then made innappropriate overtures toward one of Esteban’s dirty socks.

Someone nominated this diary for a Diarist.Net award in the category of Best Writing and it was selected as a Finalist, in fabulous company along with Witt and Wisdom and Paul Davidson. The votes have been tallied and I am very honored. It is so much better than any glossy magazine or Glimmer Train. Thank you!

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The one where I rant about Trading Spaces

Thursday, April 7, 2005

So the weekend.

It was a lovely weekend as weekends go. I really can’t complain. I mean, sure, I wasn’t being showered in jewels or trinkets or fuzzy pink leg warmers or anything, but it was pretty nice. Saturday morning, Esteban and I lounged in bed until almost noon, which is so shameful but it felt great so I have nary an ounce of remorse for it. Then we went to our normal breakfast place, but I had lunch because for the first time in 13 Saturdays I was not in the mood for pancakes. Thus, a third pound Black Angus burger for me and a cup of marginal chili. After lunch, we decided to walk from the restaurant to the hardware store because it was such a lovely day and also mostly because the hardware store was right across the parking lot from the restaurant.

I got a dust mask because I was hoping to attack the bedroom of its filth. Being that the cats spend 20 plus hours a day in the bedroom, it becomes rather dusty and disgusting in relatively short order, and being that no one but us ever SEES the bedroom, it is the very last thing ever attempted. I do not think that the rug in the bedroom has been vacuumed in 2002.

See how much I share with you guys? I lay out my shameful secrets to you, one by one, like pretty fish harvested from the ocean.

Yes, I know. Daylight Savings day does strange things to me and I have a harder time suppressing my inner Fruit Loop.

Anyway’ then Esteban and I parted company. His plan for the day was to fix Ward and June’s pc, then come home, work on the kitchen and make a nice spaghetti sauce. My plan for the day was to clean and clean hardily. My normal instinct was to ignore the living room and the bathroom, since they had been more or less tamed last weekend, but in fact, the living room still hadn’t been dusted and there were little piles of items needing to be put away here and there, like the nests of magpies.

See. I told you. Daylight Savings time.

Thus, I tamped down my urge to attack the bedroom and went about sprucing up the bathroom once more and then the living room. There was more to do than I thought. I did manage to get the bed stripped and the bedding washed, but that was about it. There were many trips made to and fro, much leaping for cobwebs, and so many sprayed chemicals that Rachel Carson would weep large environmental tears at my shiny dust free surfaces.

So the bedroom’ not so much.

By that time, Esteban had given up on Ward and June’s pc and come home, deflated and forlorn. He started working on the kitchen and sent me off to the video store to get four specific DVDs (Training Day, My Life as a House, Original Sin and Boob Raider’ I mean Tomb Raider). I made good on the DVDs and then stopped at the grocery store for popcorn and more Sugar Free Kool-Aid. I phoned him from the store to see if he needed anything. Apparently, he HAD needed mushrooms, but he had only seconds before my phone call, opened our 4-pound restaurant sized can of mushrooms. Then he proceeded to call me back twice with last minute items.

I really shouldn’t shop while hungry, by the way. I ended up getting two four-packs of root beer, two boxes of ice cream sandwiches, Pirate’s Booty, blue corn chips, a peanut butter Twix, strawberries, presliced fresh pineapple, fruit dip, dried apricots, whole cashews, and the world’s laziest product, pre-shaped frozen balls of raw cookie dough. You know, so I wouldn’t have to actually cut the dough off the rolls. Because that’s so hard. Grand total for stopping for popcorn and Kool-Aid: $58.95. With two $1 coupons for the Kool-Aid that were on the store shelf.

We then ate some extremely excellent albeit extremely mushroomed spaghetti while watching Training Day. Very strange movie. And it had the scary sexy guy from Urban Cowboy in it, although he’s just kind of wrinkly and soft now and not even a little bit scary.

Then we watched Trading Spaces. And I clapped my hands with glee, because the episode not only had Vern Yip on it, but also Doug, the hottie boom botty little diva of TS. What is more, the homeowner who was working with Doug kept having these passive aggressive fits and you could tell that he just wanted to slap her silly. And I couldn’t really blame him. I wanted to slap her silly too. Like she had any taste. Um’ hello? We SAW the way your family room had been decorated before, with the plaid brown furniture and the fugly Church Bazaar afghans over everything. Just suck it up, trash, and let the man in black work his magic.

Then Esteban declared that I wanted to marry Doug. I replied, ‘That’s not true. I want to go shopping with Doug. I want to marry Vern because he’d feng shui this place and I’m sure that he wouldn’t do creative dismounts with his underwear.’ Then he called me a fag hag. But I don’t think Vern is gay. I think he’s just tidy and friendly. Not to mention V-shaped. Besides, if I were to marry any of the TS folks, I’d take Ty. But not because I want to sharpen his skill saw naked or anything, just because he’s the most realistic one of the bunch. They’re all really just one big dysfunctional family.

And have I mentioned how much I want to punch Paige in the face? I haven’t? Oh. Well. I do. I’d have her on the ground, head trapped between my knees, giving her a mouth full of bloody Chiclets in a heartbeat. And I’d bet Dougie Poo would be cheering me on, too. Maybe Ty as well. And probably Amy Wynn, if she wasn’t kicking her in the skinny ass with her big old Amy Wynn work boot.

You know, I don’t normally have these violent tendencies. But something about perky people’ I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m perky. But I’m not all ‘Look at how perky I am? How much is this costing you? Do you know what time it is? It’s hour one of the first day, are you going to be able to get this finished???? Hee hee’ I’m so cute!’ Blech.

After my Paige hatred wore off, we went to bed and put the linens back on. I have plenty of sheets I could have used, but I wanted to have the exact same sheets on the bed. Because those are the 350-thread count ones. And my other ones are only 250-thread count. You’re just kidding yourself if you don’t think that those hundred thread counts make the difference because let me tell you, after sleeping on the divinely soft powder blue cloud sheets, my lower grade ones will feel like burlap. Think princess and pea, dahling.

But here’s the thing, my husband has some kind of weird body chemistry or something. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s covered in hair, like a Chia Pet. Perhaps it acts like Velcro or something, but on his side of the sheets, there’s roughness now. It’s wacked. My side, smooth soft and cool. His side, hard, gnarled and rough. He tosses and turns like a mofo, so maybe he’s wearing them out. Well, stupid me, when I put them on, I turned them around, so now the sides were reversed. Thus my side of the bed is now rough and caustic. And I’m pouting.

Note to self: check if Vern Yip has a Velcro body.

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I share a birthday with Paul Lynde too

Sunday, April 3, 2005

I have recently been exploring iTunes, because I live in a technologically backwards section of the country and when my friends win a free song on iTunes under their Pepsi cap, they save them for me. I did not ask for this to happen, it has just spontaneously occurred. I have some very nice friends and apparently I’m the only person in several social circles who has an iPod. I find this sad, if not for the reason that I’m not terribly cutting edge and yet, here in Cheddar Bay, I am the hipster. Which is just sad. That’s a huge responsibility, this being the hipster. There are new bands to research and discover before anyone else, there’s a new lingo to develop. I’d need to start using words like ‘erudite’ in my everyday speech and then look smug when people make a face like someone just farted. And let’s not even talk about fashion, as I’m woefully behind (mostly due to my woeful behind, but that’s beside the point). I mean, this hipster thing takes commitment, honest hard work. I don’t know that I have enough time to properly devote to this. I can barely keep up with the (fucking) laundry.

Anyway, because of this newfound wealth of yellow soda caps, I’ve been digging around on iTunes. I have to say, I really like how it’s organized, much like the iPod itself. I am always a fan of organization, especially when it is fluid and makes sense. This stuff makes sense. There are genres and then also, like Amazon, it seems to use some kind of sixth sense (or computer espionage, more likely) to figure out my listening preferences. Either that or I’m more mainstream than I’d care to admit. But one of the things it recommended to me was a collection of Gay Boy music. You see, there are specific mixes of Gay Girl music and Gay Boy music on iTunes. How convenient that must be for the gay population. I looked at both of them, and I have to admit, I am much fonder of the Gay Boy music than the Gay Girl music. But really, who would pick Jewel and Ani DeFranco over Abba and Erasure? No one, that’s who, because that’s just crazy talk. And when did Jewel become Gay Girl music, exactly? This confuses me. I thought Gay Girls had more taste than that. Or maybe it’s the tools at iTunes, wanking on Chick on Chick action. Regardless, this further supports the theory that I am just a gay boy in a curvy round package with girl parts. Which way to the bathhouse?

Of course, The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ is in no danger of losing its status as Most Frequently Played Song on my iPod, and if we’re profiling by song preference, I think that throws me right back into the Drama Club Fat Girls With Too Much Eye Makeup category. But this doesn’t stop me from fantasizing about Rupert Everett. I’m totally the right man for him.

Esteban : Where did you find rhinestone earbuds for your iPod?

Weetabix : Aren’t they cute? I got them on Target.com. Aren’t they totally me?

Esteban : They are indeed totally you.

Weetabix : They make me happy. I got a new condom too, so it’s all pretty now. I gave my iPod a makeover! It’s almost like I have a new one.

Esteban : I suppose, it’s not like you need a new one.

Weetabix : Well… mine IS almost full.

Esteban : Are you saying you want a new one?

Weetabix : No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that it’s almost full. I’ve still got a couple of gigs left and I can delete all that Christmas music from it too. It would be a waste of money to go out and buy a new one just to have a new one.

Esteban : But… in your princess heart of hearts, are you saying you want a new one?

Weetabix : (laughing) No, in my princess heart of hearts, I want a Jaguar.

Esteban : Right. I shouldn’t have asked.

Weetabix : One should not invoke the princess heart. One will never be happy with what one finds lurking there.

Fucking Daylight Saving Day.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Have a lovely week.

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Whinging crap

Sunday, March 27, 2005

My uterus would like to announce to the world that it is angry and not going to take this anymore.

I just watched the Bridget Jones sequel tonight. I thought it was pretty good. Even the part in the Thai prison with the Madonna songs. This should give you some understanding as to just how far things have progressed.

Also, note to Colin Firth: Call me.

The Advil? The Advil doesn’t work. I think it’s just colored sugar tablets. I’m made an actual dent in my stockpile of Liqui-gels and I still cower in the corner of my chaise, loathe to bend at the waist. You know what works great? Codeine. The codeine is wonderful. I’m so fucking moving to Canada. However, the codeine makes me sleepy. Sweepy. So sweepy. And during sweepy time, we are completely horizontal, and that is when the evil uterus plots the destruction of my 500 thread count white sheets. Why white? Why must I insist upon buying white sheets, despite sleeping with a man who exudes some kind of yellow effluvium from every pore (aka Man Grease) and also have my own self-destruction of said pristine yardage every four fucking weeks? Because I am stupid, that is why. I am stupid and also I shouldn’t have bought Double Stuff Oreos. Yes, I know that they look good, but the Lard to Cookie ratio is just too high. Too high! They perform very poorly in the bingeing arena for this reason. Strangely a good choice? Lemon-filled Sandies. Light, springy, just enough tartness and you can almost pretend that they aren’t padding your ass with the dreaded cellulite. Of course, you could always stick with tradition and go with the pretzels dipped in canned frosting, but there’s just no fooling yourself with that particular choice.

You should see my face. We’re talking levels of pallor that would make the members of The Cure jealous. I never thought it was possible for a fat girl to look peaked, but apparently it is. My stomach, however, is tied into knots, so there is just no fun in this. I made it out to the good non-squicky butcher today and didn’t, you know, kill anyone when it was ridiculously crowded and they made me wait while they did whatever it is that they have to do to produce ground round (No, do not tell me, I totally don’t want to know) so that I could make chili in my new Le Creuset pot. Oh the smugness. Even with the insane cramping, I still had an unhealthy dose of smug. It tasted really good but I could only eat half a bowl, as the uterus will not stand for any bloating that it itself did not initiate. There is a coup in my midsection and I should be cutting my paintings out of their frames and running for the hills, chased by two angry ovaries shouting ‘Viva La Resistance!’

I blew up at Esteban for telling me to take it easy because it was ‘zombie Jesus day’. Even as an agnostic with a wry sense of humor, sometimes it’s really hard to live with an atheist, even a snarky one. He made up for it by giving me a Hello Kitty Easter basket, filled with chocolate and a bunch of new CDs. Look at me, all legit and stuff.

Why? Why does it torture me so? Why? Because I am over this magic of womanhood thing. I am thirty-something years old. I shouldn’t be still whining about cramps. That’s for thirteen-year-olds who want to skip their tennis lesson. Maybe I need to rewatch the filmstrip about the flower and how to fasten a Kotex into one of those belt things that no one has used since the sixties.

Sigh.

Ok, I’ll shut up now and eat the bunny ears off my chocolate rabbit. Dipped in margarita salt.

PS. Seriously, Colin’call me.

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Stricken, Smitten and Schwartz, Attorneys at Law

Friday, March 25, 2005

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith these days. I am always humbled by humanity’s ability to use faith as a reason to be a better person. This is a very important time of the year for several religions. Passover. Good Friday. Equinox.

For someone who talks about Hell all the time and the likelihood that I’ll be ordering room service to be sent to the Evil Bitch suite where I’m attending Martha Stewart’s slumber party (because don’t lie, you totally would too, just to see the plate settings), I actually don’t believe in the idea of Hell. I think that if there is a god, it probably isn’t so vindictive as to punish bad people. If there is an afterlife, then the punishment is that you don’t get to have one. Or that you are lost. In New Jersey. Without correct toll change.

But just the same, the belief in God floors me. It’s like the untouchable love between a mother and a child, but concentrated into such optimism, such unwavering devotion, that I can’t even comprehend it. I want to have faith like that. I want to believe. It destroys me when I am in houses of worship, every damned time. It makes me angry that it was taken away from me, by someone or something or sometime, it’s gone now. Or it’s hiding. Perhaps in my dining room, where all good intentions go to die. And I don’t have that good of an excuse. I’m just reserving judgment. I don’t want to get fooled again.

For someone with so little faith, I do believe in it. I have faith in faith. People are inherently good. I shouldn’t believe that. Not after what’s happened in this world, not after what I’ve seen personally and also on the news. But I do. I can’t help it. I believe the best about people. I know that’s na’ve, but it’s true. A world with a St. Paul’s Cathedral, with Schubert’s Ave Maria, with acts of selflessness all around, how can you not know that you are living in an incredible world where people can strive to be more than the sum of themselves. They can be perfect. In some way, they have within themselves the ability to be God.

About one in four times that Esteban leaves on a trip, I become utterly convinced that I am never going to see him again. He is going to die, he is going to do something selfless and save someone else’s life, negating his own, and I will be a widow and the ache will split me apart and I will never function again. I don’t delete his voicemails, in case they become precious last glimpses of his voice, the last time he tells me that he loves me. I sleep on his pillow each night, pulling it into my face and inhaling. Sometimes I wonder if he is the most selfless person I know and if he wasn’t meant as proof of something more. Or to prove my point exactly. But I have to believe each time that he’s coming back. And that is my challenge. That is my test. That is my forty days in the desert.

Last night, I drove through a clouded night up the Bay and in the darkness of a soulless icy grave, a gleam from a lighthouse breaking through the cold. And it was enough.

My plan to write each night has been completely ruined because I have cramps and am grumpy and tired and want nothing more than to lounge in yoga pants and a t-shirt and wish for the Advil to start working. The brain has decided that it is bored with my Alzheimer’s/Mother story and now wants to go back to the Martyrs On Survivor satire story that I put on the back burner a long time ago. My brain has a long memory, even when it really shouldn’t. It should let its old ideas die, instead of resurrecting them (three day limit!) many months later. But it was not entirely wasted, I guess, as I have been scrawling things in my paper journal, nonetheless, and here’s what I’ve got from this week:

‘And you are?’ to Jesus’. ‘Um’ Bob. Name’s Bob.’
Cave painting figures getting fat’ two lines not one
Strawberries at the sports bar
Skirted trees, ready to dance
To Jesus’ water walking ‘Why are you looking at me?’
Mother was a plaster caster’ t-shirts with ‘Wanted Child’ on them
Distended (something that looks like ‘goated’) syndrome?
Sock puppet love triangle
Invitation letter for companies/vendors?
Anna = Joan of A. Mon Dieu!
An entire milky way in a black bowl of sky…too many bowl metaphors, get a clue dumas*
Emmanual Kant. Can’t what? DANCE!
Scaring, running, tell her that the boogie man is chasing her’ tell her that Nixon is.
No one marries the Up-The-Butt girl
Faces on the wall from different ages, albino castings of her childhood, plumpkin cheeks, eyes closed, a Greek chorus to everything she ever (ends there with a deep ink mark where I rested the pen)
To Jesus’ loaves/fishes ‘What?’

Can you tell that I’m a crazy list maker? Sometimes my lists mate and the ‘invitation letter’ is a reminder for one of my freelance projects. As you can tell, the story is heavy on Jesus jokes, but I swear that’s all of them for the entire story. They’re just the easiest to write. My favorite is the one about the Up The Butt girl. Because I’m twelve. It makes me laugh even now.

It’s true though. No one marries the Up The Butt girl. The Up The Butt girl stands alone.

*A long time ago, we were talking about the Cannes Film Festival and someone replied that they would love to go to “Cans” and a very pompous ass said “Uh, the proper pronunciation is CAN.” and then later, called someone else a dumbass, to which I replied “Yes, but the proper pronunciation is DUMAS.”

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That sure is some good peeing, mister

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

A nice weekend, definitely, full of long uninterrupted stretches of languorous loafing and undirected wandering. On Friday evening, we made random plans to see Constantine but then decided that we were both too tired and screw it, we’d just stay home and watch history geek shows. We discussed our plans to go to Chicago on Saturday. I was vacillating, though, because we didn’t have a real reason to drive three hours south and then turn around and drive three hours north, especially since they were forecasting a giant snowstorm. In fact, my sole reason was that I wanted to wander around Nordstrom and say “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home” clicking my Stuart Weiztman heels three times. Oh, as if, because I shop in no nonsense flat shoes, of the type you normally see on social workers and nuns, because I am sorry, but I will not have my aimless meandering cut short by an unexpected blister or unnaturally shortened calf muscle that is mid-spasm. Priorities, damn it.

And then when we woke up, the world was white and it was still snowing, so I just went back to sleep, figuring, aw hell, I didn’t really care all that much. Then Esteban woke me up and asked if we should go, but I grumbled about snow and then we both snuggled in and slept until 9 am. Once we woke up, I peeked outside and realized that it really wasn’t horrible. And Esteban was game, so we showered and packed some snacks and jumped in the car, and were immediately disturbed by the state of the roads. Our street had not even been plowed by 10 am and the main drag out of town was sloppy and messy. We were met by triads of plows following one after another, taking care of three lanes at a time, a technique only used for the very worst snowfalls, when the runoff from a single plow will leave a berm of snow and ice capable of taking out the front end of a Buick. However, we were undeterred, feeling that the highway would certainly be better than in town, zipped through Starbucks, which was empty since most of the world was still trying to get their driveways clear (we blissfully powered out of ours, since the plow hadn’t been through to block us in yet). The highway was marginally better, although as we got out of town, Esteban started making wary grumbling noises and griping the steering wheel tightly.

It was a very pretty drive however. The snow, which was still falling, turned everything a sort of hazy black and white, making distant barns and silos into dark shadows on the horizon, lines of fences disappear into the horizon that is nearer than it should be. Sometimes I really hate Wisconsin in winter, but then there are other times when I love how austere it is, how the trees make different shapes, some like whisk brooms and others like flowers and still others like dancers and hairbrushes and old women. I love how you can see the inverted triangle of a raptor in the branches, silhouetted like a G-Man with big shoulders, watching for his contact or perhaps just a juicy field mouse. I love how there are no colors unless you look closely and then you see the exposed veins of reeds slashing up through the snow, the cold wintergreen of the pines that refuse to ever take off their uniforms, and sprays of burgundy berries, looking like poison for an unsuspecting Snow White. It takes a watchful eye to see the color in winter and not let the unending blank gessoed canvas overtake you until you want to drown yourself in Prussian Blue and Cadmium Red.

We got a little past Sheboygan, right to the point where the good radio station comes in, when Esteban pulled off the highway, swung around and turned north. He felt bad about it and I knew that he had really gone further than he had wanted to, but he didn’t want to disappoint me. I wasn’t all that disappointed, although Nordstrom, you owe me two couple’s skates. I suggested that since we didn’t have anything planned and since we both needed to go to the bathroom and eat something, why didn’t we stop in Kohler where we could do both and explore a little? Esteban was game, so we drove around the little town made famous by faucets and golf, oohing and aahing over the poor little rich people and their matching dogs. We decided to eat at the American Club. Esteban was fine in his jeans, black shirt and black Clarks, but I was dressed in layers, none of which were four-star dining fair. I tzutzhed the hair, applied a fresh coat of lipstick, lost my polar fleece pullover that brands me as a suburban soccer mom and went with jeans, a v-neck white t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. Surprisingly, it worked and we didn’t look out of place, other than the fact that there are no fat people among fat cats. Ah well. Tourists we were, but the prime rib sandwiches with bourbon mushrooms in the club room were divine.

We made a quick stop at the grocery store, because I love rich people grocery stores, and picked up some foo-foo food, some kind of crazy beer that made Esteban all happy, and also a whole tenderloin to roast later that night. Esteban was relieved, since I had originally planned to make a Shepherd’s Pie, something he was not regarding with much excitement, as it would contain the dreaded vegetation such as toxic carrots and forbidden peas. Hi, I would like you to meet my husband, the four-year-old.

We drove back to Green Bay and when we got home, they STILL had not plowed our street, so Esteban cleared the driveway and moved the cars back in while I did some laundry and started dinner of the roasted tenderloin and some mashed potatoes (originally earmarked for aforementioned Shepherd’s Pie). I got creative with the mashed potatoes, as I picked up some incredible Pecorino Romano cheese when I was in Milwaukee at a different snooty grocery store, and man, Food Network is so right, because Pecorino Romano is the futhamucking bomb. I grated a hunk of cheese into the mashed potatoes and followed up with a little Irish butter (yes, I know, I have officially become pretentious. I apologize, but it is so good) and it was phenomenol. Not that Esteban would know, as he insisted on putting gravy on my piece de r’sistance potatoes. Sacrilege! Also, I made brownies for dessert. With chocolate frosting. Ok, whipped chocolate ganache. Gee, I can’t imagine why I can’t seem to lose any weight.

On Sunday, I worked on a short story and my latest freelance project, and then went grocery shopping at my boring pedestrian store, the one without the funky cheeses and crazy Irish butter. I know. I can barely put up with my own self. Where’s my matching dogs? However, Homerun Inn pizza is ridiculously yummy for frozen pizza. And it was on sale. Go me. While I was at the grocery store, I got suckered into buying a Real Simple magazine, which apparently I am powerless to resist. I don’t know why I do it. They take a very simple story idea that would be maybe half a page at the most in a normal magazine, take a lot of really nice photos, set it into a large font that is justified and artfully spread out and suddenly, it’s a fifteen page story. It’s like all those kids who turned in papers with two inch margins in college got together and started putting out a magazine. And I keep falling for it. Every damn time. I think it’s all the white they use on the cover. I am such a pushover for white space.

Look. I’m in love. Right now.

I guess it does make everything have more impact.

The words seem to have more authority, don’t they.

Your life is too complicated.

Start putting things away.

Use olive oil on your cuticles.

Wear a pair of really comfy slippers.

Put a basket near the door for your incoming mail.

Remember to tell your family that you love them.

This totally is working.

You now owe me $3.99.

I know that I blather on about my iLove to the point that it is obnoxious (and if you agree, just go ahead and skip to the next paragraph and save yourself the eye rolls) , but when I am emotionally downtrodden, I swear that my iPod somehow knows and manages to sort through my 3546 songs to bring forth the precise song that I need to listen to that makes tears of happiness well up in my eyes and reminds me of everything that is wonderful in my life. It never fails. Feeling as though life is overwhelming and complicated? Postal Service, thank you very much. Wishing I could run off to Vegas and drive around in a Jaguar and stay at a posh hotel? Hello Blink 182, who misses me. Ticked at Esteban for being a tool? Here comes Rhett Miller, who has a Question for me and me alone.

And also, man, Ryan Adams’ cover of Wonderwall? Just… perfect. The five notes at the end kill me every time. Just kill me. They are the soundtrack to my death, those notes. They remind me of sitting in my college dorm, wondering what kind of person it was that I was about to become, thinking about all the things I wanted to do and all the places I wanted to visit, and recovering from my fucked up childhood that was still occurring on the weekends and understanding for the first time in my life that yes, yes, I was strong enough and capable of taking care of myself, and that I didn’t need anyone to do that for me, and no matter what happened, no matter where I was going, that everything would be ok. So yeah, Ryan Adams, you alterna-country guy, way to go on that five note phrase because you cut me to the quick. Every damn time.

Yes, fine, it’s the song they were playing when Seth and Summer finally Did It and man, would I just grow up and stop watching The OC already? Especially because could they make it any more obvious that Ryan and Marissa belong together truly and always, even though they have zero chemistry and Mischa Barton couldn’t act her way out of a paper sack unless someone told her that there were calories inside, about to attach themselves to her skeletal frame. Which would be fine with me, because she reminds me of those women you see in bars who get all their nutrition through a long neck and also, maybe they’d stop focusing on my own distinctly non-stick insect frame.

Couldn’t leave you thinking that I was, you know, deep or something. The OC! Boobies! Fart fart fart.

Since I’m on the subject of The OC, I am bugged by one really simple stupid little thing and it is this. Supposedly Julie Cooper-Nichol was in a low budget porn movie in the 80’s, right? And the movie is called “The Porn Identity”, riffing off of “The Bourne Identity”? Except that the movie was twenty years shy of being made at that point. Oh, sure, fine, maybe the scummy porn director was riffing off the original Ludlum text, which was published in 1984. Fine, I’ll grant you that, but that’s like a porn movie in 2005 riffing off the title The Cloud Atlas (The Cloud Asses?) or something. They’re not trying to, you know, appeal to a particularly literary crowd, those porny guys. Ok, fine, maybe there’s some literary porn out there, but come on, OC Writers, stop being so lazy. I shouldn’t have to work this hard. That’s why I watch The OC, so I don’t have to think. It’s supposed to be junk food for the mind.

Esteban’s off to Boston this week. He was supposed to go to LA, but now the father of a friend has passed away, so he’s off to the funeral. It’s spring break, so I don’t have class and had intended to use my normal class night to work on my story (the one that I don’t want to be writing, but it seems to have a mind of its own. I just want to write the Bingo story and be done with it, but my brain is all ‘Noooooo’ Alzheimers disease! Mother issues! Body image! You WILL churn out some over-wrought well-intended piece of shyte for your workshop because I said so! Now shut up or one of your favorite characters is going to have to kill a fictional puppy!’) but I’m not, because I’ve been writing this gigantic entry instead. So that’s my plan for the rest of the week. Story writing and preventing the deaths of fictional puppies.

PS. If you’ve currently got Bernie Mac’s baseball movie Mr. 3000 in your Netflix queue, do yourself a favor and delete that bad boy. Watch League of Their Own instead. At least you can learn something from that one. For instance, there’s no crying in baseball. Also, I’ve used Madonna’s ‘distract them with my bosoms’ strategy in the past and I have to tell you, it totally works. Hand to God. Or, you know, my bosom.

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The unbearable lightness of Krispy Kreme

Monday, March 21, 2005

The following was written on Friday, before Diaryland’s big hemorrhage

An update on the great MA/MFA dilemma: upon further examination, I realized that I am three classes and a final project away from getting my MA. Because my existing credits won’t transfer to these MFA programs, if I went that route I’d be essentially starting over. Then, if I decided to get my PhD, there’s a very good chance that my MFA credit work wouldn’t entirely transfer and I would be setting myself backwards yet again. This is an interesting turn of events, to be certain, but since I still haven’t gotten anything official from the graduate school, only the e-mail from my professor, we shall see how things play out. For the record, Esteban thinks the school is ‘full of fuckwads’, save for one guy who seems to like me, and that Dr. Frank hates me and will torpedo my dissertation.

Whatever happens, it will undoubtedly be interesting.

My fruit detox went swimmingly. I no longer feel that at any moment, I will begin to perspire a light sheen of demiglace. I am slowly ramping back to meats and dairy, but still having a giant fruit breakfast. Last night (St. Patty’s Day) was the old Irish classic of cheese pizza, followed by a bowl of perfectly ripe and sweet melon while flipping casually through a fashion magazine and deciding that the clueless folks at Jane had nothing on my fashionista friends.

I do notice that I can be in complete control of my eating habits until one magic week when I’m all ‘Steak! Protein! Chocolate! Where’s the fucking chocolate!’ After a very satisfying lunch today (saut’ed vegetables and half an order of meatloaf) I came back to work and was in a mood that only a very fresh Reese’s Peanut Butter cup could cure, preferably so fresh that there was still a slick of oil, a shiny halo of goodness identifying it as the very perfect cup of my dreams. It was not to be. I got an old haggard pair of cups, but still, it was tasty just the same. And because I brought a dollar with me to the vending area, I saw some cherry gummy fruit snacks and before I could even deliberate a second purchase, my hand snatched up the fruit snacks and shook them like a lion breaking an antelope’s neck, for they were now mine and I defied anyone to take them from me. So yeah, it’s a little premenstrual goodness. In fact, Esteban mentioned last night that I have been unbelievably irrational right now, and then repeated for effect ‘It’s ‘unbelievable.’ And I could only observe him with an eerie calm, blinking once or twice, and think about how wrong he was, how perfectly rational I am, and where I would plausibly hide the bodies if I ever decided to kill a bunch of people.

You know’ hypothetically.

Also, there were Krispy Kremes present in the office this week. Krispy Kremes. If you remember, back in August, they opened a Krispy Kreme outlet about six blocks away from where I work. And given my propensity to get addicted to things, to make unwise decisions when I’m really hungry, to slack on my good intentions when it comes down to it, I decided to never set foot on the property. I wasn’t outlawing Krispy Kremes persay. I just could not go to that store, not where they have the Hot Now sign glowing like a lighthouse beam breaking through a foggy night. Not when I could ostensibly drive through (excuse me, ‘thru’) every morning on my way to work and consume 200, 400, 8 million calories of warm grease sponge without even batting an eyelash.

And I haven’t. I’ve never visited the place. Not once.

Oh, and the doughnuts in our department were still warm. I felt the box, so I know this. And yet, I was completely stone cold uninterested. Because they are just a fucking doughnut.

If they had been here today, though? Someone would have lost a hand. I’m just saying.

Today, my Annoying Coworker popped up like the maniacal Jack in the Box she is, gleamed at me from the other side of the wall and exclaimed, ‘Guess what!!’ She looked at me with enormous eyes, the kind of eyes you’d make if you got a new job, out of this department, no, out of the company’ wait, out of the COUNTRY. Yeah. Yeah.

She continued to leer at me, waiting for me to respond and match her enthusiasm. Finally, I raised my eyebrows in the universal bitch sign for ‘Yes?’

‘Nils is going to take his lunch at the end of the day!’

‘Uh huh’ I replied, because Nils had mentioned it to me five minutes earlier.

‘Can ya believe it? He NEVER does that!’ She shucked her mouth and then made big eyes at me again. And then spent the next five minutes making astonished excited noises because my GOD, Nils! Leaving an hour early! Chyeah! My gosh, you think you know someone.

You know what I’d like to see? Weetabix calls coworker a dumbass waste of hair. Film at 11.

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The Case of the Idiotic MFA Student

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Sometimes, I am a very stupid girl.

No. I am.

I’m assuming you’re arguing, because if you’re sitting there, all smug and ‘Yes, Weetabix, we’ve been waiting for you to notice, since you’re all ‘ooooh, I am an artiste! Read my journal about the boobies!’ and by the way, what the hell is with your parenthetical abuse? It’s a little annoying.’

Yeah, well, bite me.

Anyway, my stupid clueless casaba of a head must be filled with potpourri, I think. The kind that smells like peach (which, by the way, is how they cheer up the second layer of hell’ with that noxious peach scented potpourri, except that they call it ‘Pot Porry’ because, you know, it’s hell (yes, I’m putting things in parens just to piss you off, you fuckers)) and also, when it gets warm, vaguely like cat urine.

So the crappening with my quest for my graduate degree.

To sum up, for those who are late to join the party (except for Fifi who is bravely making her way through the archives and leaving me little messages in a bottle from the ancient empty comments): Three years ago, I applied to four schools, including one I used to attend (Let’s call that School A), and was rejected by all four. I decided to try again, increasing the number of schools. Many more rejections, including School A, but I did get accepted to one in California, which I decided not to attend, as it is in California and the majority of the people I love are not in California. So I reformulated a plan to take a writing class at School A, so that they would get to know me and, naturally, fall in love with me and want me for their very own. And then, after I had already submitted my third application to School A, new information came to light in which I learned that School A’s Master of Arts degree would not be enough to get a teaching job in a college and I would need to get an MFA, which is not available at School A. So I also applied to two MFA programs (Schools B and C), which happened to be also low residency, thereby giving me the MFA I needed while allowing me to live in my home and perchance even be a contributing member to society instead of the vilest of bottom dwellers, a loan-surfing graduate student.

By the way, that’s not my opinion, but rather the opinion of the people in charge of our government. Because otherwise why else would they be cutting grants and slashing federal aid? Because we’re just draft-dodging hippies who don’t vote, that’s why.

(I do vote, by the way. But can’t argue with the draft dodging, because I have a uterus.)

So then, there were various issues with my application to School A that I sort of viewed with bemusement and also kept pursuing, because it was the principle of the thing, damn it. Sure, I had decided not to go there, but man, there was no reason that this should be so hard. Like Cheap Trick, I wanted them to want me. No reason. In my head, I was doing it for English students everywhere, and I would stand on a balcony and raise my hands to them in supplication and they would sing my name in unison and then Madonna would play me in the screen adaptation. In a latex body suit. Shut up.

And then I got the School A shit canned letter. Fucking third time in a row. Despite having my O.Henry Award winning professor write me a recommendation and on the fucking School A acceptance committee, I was axed yet again. We artistes obviously are a self-destructive lot.

And because I can’t leave well enough alone, because I have to take a seeping wound and poke at it a little, just to feel the ache and burn, because of that, that right there, I did something stupid.

After class last night, I asked my professor if he ever did actually see my application at the review committee or if they had just never even allowed it to be considered.

And that’s when the proverbial shit hit the fan. He was shocked. He was dismayed. He was utterly flabbergasted. He caught himself just short of badmouthing his fellow reviewers. He had greenlighted my application and had to leave the meeting before they got to discuss individual candidates, so he had assumed that I had been accepted, especially since I graduated cum laude with an honors distinction in my major, had a perfect post-graduate GPA and a very good manuscript, and since he wrote one of my letters.

The few lingering students after class were likewise stunned. One said that my stories were better than PhD stories (I’m assuming that means the stories from the PhD students, not stories about people with PhDs, of which I have written exactly zero) and the girl whose story will be in Glimmer Train assured me that I do not suck and she couldn’t believe I would ever have a problem once, let alone three times. One guy volunteered another’s oral gratification prowess in order to get me into the program. My professor was utterly beside himself and promised to look into it. I urged him not to, because I had decided in December to not go to that school anyway, except that I didn’t say that. I said that I didn’t want to make waves, and I had been accepted elsewhere (at School B’s MFA program… still waiting to hear back from School C) and I wasn’t looking to appeal their decision or anything, I was just curious whose dog I murdered or whose boyfriend I slept with after prom because something, SOMETHING had to have gone down and got me blackballed. Something. Right?

So that was last night at 8:30 pm. About fourteen hours later, I received an email from my professor.

I’ve been accepted to the MA program.

He mentioned a ‘clerical glitch’. Um, sure. It wasn’t a clerical glitch three times in a row. Something went down this morning, some heads were busted, or are about to be busted, or something. I think my sweet, incredibly talented professor kicked some ass. I don’t know. I do know this: I have one very useless head. Because now, I’m in. I’m so totally in. In fact, if I decided, that no, maybe I don’t want to be in, now I’m the jackass. It’s not Dr. Frank anymore. It’s me.

Fuck.

For sale: one cranium. Hardly used.

Although one interesting development in this whole ordeal, after I opened the email from my professor and was just flooded with emotions (because really? I totally want to attend this program, even though there’s a million (ok, five or six) reasons why I shouldn’t) my first thought was NOT ‘I need some chocolate’ but rather ‘Oooh, Le Creuset is on sale!’

So I bought a pan. Ok, two. But I got the sauce pan as a gift with the purchase of the first (and then $25 offtoo! Yay!)

Now, truthfully, I’ve been coveting Le Creuset ever since I filled the spot in my heart that yearned for a red Kitchen Aid. Every time we watched cooking shows, the Le Creuset sat there, like Gatsby’s green light, making perfect brown bits for deglazing, making satisfying clunks as the cover was replaced. But the real lesson here is that as I move up Maslov’s hierarchy of needs, my emotional eating response has mutated to emotional shopping, but with an eating twist.

You have to admit’ that’s fascinating psychology.

Yeah, I’m a psyche dork. I’m the girl who was transfixed by a PBS documentary on the Bubonic plague and the identification of the mutation of a certain gene that allowed people to survive infection and which has later gone on to increase immunity to AIDS. In fact, I was shouting back to the television set yelling out the chromosome number and the amino chains like an armchair (chaise) geneticist, then going off on a rant about Downs Syndrome and women with three X’s and men with two x’s and a y, all the while Esteban wished that he could just sit there and be jetlagged in silence.

Before you get too impressed, realize that tonight I’ll be parked in front of my Tivo, watching America’s Next Top Model. I’m totally a Brandy haytah. Bitch poured beer in mah weave.

Also, when I picked up Esteban from the airport, we went out for Portobello mushroom fajitas (ok, that’s what I had, he had some noodle thing) and at said restaurant, the dessert sign had a misspelling.

Chocolate Suduction Cake $3.99

I stared at it the entire meal. Suduction. I mean, in whose brain did that look right? Suduction. Did you stick a fork into the cake and a frothy glurt of bubbles stream forth? It sounded like a medical procedure.

I told Esteban about it because I kept looking back at it, to see if it was still spelled so stupidly. Certainly I couldn’t have seen correctly the first time. Certainly the E just looked like a U. But no. There was no mistaking. It was Suduction at its sudsiest.

When Esteban went to the bar to pay for lunch, the hostess walked by and asked how everything was. To be fair, I wouldn’t have said anything if she had asked how my meal was, but since she asked how ‘everything’ was, I felt the dessert sign was fair game.

‘Good. But just so you know, there’s a misspelling on your dessert sign.’

‘There is?’ She stood in front of it and read everything. ‘Where?’

I forget sometimes that such verbal toxicity doesn’t jump up and slap everyone in the face, just a certain tainted segment of the population who are smugly holding their hardcover copy of ‘Eat Shoots and Leaves’ like a crucifix.

‘SUDuction.’

‘How should it be?’ She puzzled.

‘It’s like seduce.’

‘Oh, so with an I then?’

At that point, it was just uncomfortable, so I walked away and left her to her own devices (or devises). I am clearly not strong enough to change the world on my own. So much for thinking globally and acting locally. Next time I’ll start small. Their and they’re. You’re and your. Its and It’s. Its a good thing.

(Ouch.)

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