That's My Bix!

Over the weekend, I took my little brother Jonathon to my stylist Stacy to get a cool Jimmy Fallon haircut and eradicate the horrid Costcutters ‘Gee, Wally, maybe we should tell Mom about Whitey knocking over that liquor store’ bowl cut. He’s all stoked, especially when he walked in and Stacy looked at him and said ‘Wow, is that an Independent shirt?’ Because she knew the skateboard brand, you see. When I did not and had to rely upon subtle clues while in Pac Sun and also the price tags (it’s very expensive to be counterculture, apparently). Stacy is so much cooler than I can ever hope to be. And also, she has her tongue pierced, which impressed the hell out of Jonathon.

And standing there in the salon, that’s when I noticed that my little brother, the little boy whose diapers I changed and who gave me a complex when I was eighteen and he was four months old that people would think that I was a teenage mother and he was my baby or something, yeah, that little brother is now a scant inch taller than me.

Have I mentioned that I am not a short person? No. Not in the least. However, Jonathon has always had that appearance of certain puppies, with limbs and extremities of random proportions, hinting at a great size yet to come. You look at his shoes, which go from spacious to ugly stepsister small in about four weeks time, and it’s like a rush of wind in your ears as the genes all get their ducks in a row to have yet another growth spurt. I suspect that it happened while he was actually sitting in the chair itself. Either that or the weight of my bosoms has finally begun to compress my spine.

Which reminds me: his glasses don’t fit. Esteban noticed this when we went school shopping a few weeks ago and has been reminding me to get the kid some glasses that fit on his head. Apparently, Esteban, who has needed glasses his entire life, is very sensitive to this fact, while I am all blithely ‘People wear glasses for real? Like, not as a prop of some sort?’ Even still, so hard to fathom.

So my sister Mo was going to take him and was in some kind of talks with my drunken mama about his insurance for an eye exam or something. And then when pressed for details, Mo said something about waiting on Mom and then the entire thing was left in Mom’s lap. Which, beloved reader, we all know is a road to disaster.

Today, I called Mom and asked about the exam, which is indeed covered by his insurance. She waffled a bit because it would mean that she’d have to take him (organ chord of scary music) Across Town, then acted flighty, and changed to subject to complain about how she doesn’t have a DVD player because she gave one to Jon for Christmas, assuming that he’d keep it in the living room and when he chose to keep it in his bedroom, she’s holding it against him (Even though I swore on a panel at Journalcon I was going to try to reduce the amount of editorializing on this woman, I simply cannot stop myself from a single whispered ‘typical’ and now back to our previously scheduled paragraph, already in progress) so I said ‘Well, it’s his and that’s his right. Jeez, just go and buy a cheap one’ they’re like $45 or something.’ This is when she hit the homerun hit of the season thus far.

‘Well, I don’t know, Weetabix, it’s just that I’ve been concentrating on getting Jon ready to start school that I don’t have a lot of money to spend on myself.’

Um, excuse me? You mean like, perchance, buying all of his school supplies? No, couldn’t be, because I did that. You mean, buying his deodorant and shampoo and new toothbrush and toothpaste and pomade to make his new haircut look cool? Hmmm, seems I did that too. Shoes? Nope, me again. Must be referring to several hundred dollars in new school clothes, because everything the kid owns was either ripped, stained, or too small? Whoops, seems that was me too. So what exactly could she be referring to then, I wonder. What indeed.

Ok, maybe she’s talking getting him ready for college in four years. Perhaps we’ll just give her the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

His new haircut looks way cool, though. He wouldn’t let me touch his hair after we left the salon. How damned cute is THAT?

And because I apparently can only be negative, here are some pictures from the weekend. Hold your mouse over the photos for the captions, like usual.

At work, the file cabinets have been known to contain strange and magical and sometimes terrifying surprises, mostly related to the culinary realm. I suspect that a small nomadic tribe could subsist solely from what they could forage from the maze of filing low filing cabinets (which often resemble a Vegas buffet, complete with grazers wearing plastic track pants and off-colored foundation that ends at the jaw line) and in fact, I think if one day I turned a corner and saw a yurt set up in an empty conference room and perhaps caught just a glimpse of an errant llama disappearing betwixt the rows, I would be ridiculously happy about my job. And who wouldn’t.

(I tried to talk Esteban into ceasing the home renovations and just buying a yurt. He wouldn’t go for it. Something about winter something freezing to death or other and ended with the conversation ‘I love my undercover hippy wife but as God as my witness, I can NOT explain to my friends that we’re moving to a yurt!’ (Ah, but that is the beauty of a yurt. The yurt moves to YOU, my friend.) Regardless, vacationing in one is still on the table, so I think ‘yurt sweet yurt’ would look lovely on a cross-stitch sampler.)

And given that it is prime garden season, people often bring in extraneous garden fare and leave them out for anyone to grab. Last week, there was a bounty of lovely cucumbers. I like cucumbers. They’re probably one of the few vegetables that I really enjoy raw. I especially like them in a summer salad with tomatoes, feta and balsamic vinegar and that sounded lovely, so I grabbed a nice-sized one and brought it back to my desk.

However, I kept feeling a bit ashamed of this cucumber on the desk. It just looked so’ phallic. I finally stashed it in a drawer and forgot about it until it was time to leave for the day. I was forced to carry it out through the office, the whole time thinking, ‘Oh my god, people are going to think that I want this cucumber for inappropriate reasons!’

People, think twice before sending your kids to archaic parochial schools, ok? Just a little public service announcement.

I had to go to my physical therapy appointment (the last one, by the way, because my delightful physical therapist/cheerleader and I have decided that there hasn’t really been all that much progress made on what I have begun to not-so-affectionately call ‘Hump o’Pain’ and I’m going to go back to Dr. Perky and talk about our options and probably also try to get her to prescribe me some medicinal marijuana, because hey, wouldn’t that make this whole messed up knee thing worth while? Damn right it would) and then run some errands (because my life apparently is simply the stuff that happens between errands), so I threw my physical therapy shorts over the cucumber so that no one would pass by it and think about it going into someone’s vagina.

Clearly I am not right in the head, I know this, but damn, once you start thinking about that scene in Animal House where Otter picks up Mrs. Dean Wormer by commenting on the size of his own cucumber, it’s all downhill from there. Or at least, since 1978. I’m a zit. Get it. See. You’re broken too. Welcome to the club.

Anyway, I then forgot completely about the cucumber, which then started molting into a weird vitaligo cucumber and was, dare I say it, becoming flaccid. And one morning when Esteban and I were leaving to go somewhere, I moved the shorts and saw the tragic spent cucumber, lying there limp and twitching in my shorts (*snort*), I knew that if Esteban (who is always irritated by the number of random magazines/empty Dasani bottles/unprotected mix CDs/Sbux cups which live in my car) saw a half-bad (but half GOOD) cucumber lying directly on the leather seats, well, he’d have a fit. And rightfully so, but still, I wasn’t in the mood, so in a move normally reserved for John Woo movies, when he was bending to get into the car, I whipped the cucumber in the vague direction of the alcove for the entrance of the breezeway.

Would that this were a perfect world and would that I threw like anything other than a kid who was always picked third from last in everything but tug-of-war, it would have fallen into the camouflage of the licorice plants in the hibiscus topiary or maybe into the stinky bush where it would molt into a puddle of rot (you think I’m making that up? Obviously you’ve never forgotten a cucumber in the crisper drawer for a month and been astonished when you retrieve something that is seriously no longer a cucumber but is now rather a strange cucumber/pond scum slurry) and I’d never had to think about it again. But no, I hit the corner of the alcove and then rested near the bottom of the topiary pot (and did not, thankfully, explode with a sickening schpleck!), all unbeknownst to my beloved obsessive compulsive husband.

It was so elegant and so flawless a maneuver that I may have chortled softly to myself. Just a little.

So then we went off to get our Starbucks and breakfast and because I sometimes have the brain capacity of a fruit fly, I promptly forgot all about the cucumber lurking at our front door.

(Oh my god, doesn’t the phrase ‘The Cucumber Lurking At Our Front Door’ scream to be a children’s book or perhaps a porn movie?)

On Monday, I pulled into our driveway (after running another errand! Gah! On my tombstone, apparently, it will say, ‘She forgot to pick up the dry cleaning’ oh, and we’re out of cat litter.’) and watched as a squirrel was poised over my potted mandevillia (note to self: take pictures of that before it dies because it’s GORGEOUS), furiously scooping my special fluid-retaining genetically altered soil out of the pot, a crusty old black nut in its jaws.

I jumped out of the car and it ran under the pine trees. I grabbed the broom and dustpan and swept the dirt up and then refilled the hole with more dirt. Then I realized that the reason that one of my other pots had a bunch of dead plants in it was due to the fact that something had dug six inches down and left a big gaping hole and exposed all of the roots. And the worst part was that this audacious little lawn rat was sitting there under the pine tree, nut in its craw, waiting for me to go away so it could continue to destroy my container plant stuff again.

And that’s when I apparently lost control of my faculties and tried to chase the squirrel out of my yard with my broom and dustpan. And may or may not have sworn at it using choice words that would have made the cast of Oz blush (fyi: that’s someone else’s line but I don’t remember where I heard it, so thank you for letting me borrow it, whoever you are).

And just then, Esteban came home. I ranted to him about the squirrel and how it turned me into an 86-year-old woman who yells at lawn animals and shakes her broom at them and how the next thing we know I’ll be wanting to watch Lawrence Welk and give money to the television preachers because they said they’d pray for my gout. And as I was showing him the dead plants and the holes and the black dirt still scattered on the driveway, he bent down and picked something up.

‘Wow, apparently it was going to bury a cucumber too.’ His eyebrow was raised in confusion.

Ah yes. The cucumber. This is, of course, one more reason to hate the squirrel. He foiled the Great Cucumber Bamboozle.

So then there was that whole messy explanation, which took far too long and made me sound mildly retarded, especially after just confessing to declaring war on a damned squirrel. And I felt really stupid and guilty and apparently had a sad little lost girl look on my face the entire time which is proof that I could never be an evil mastermind because I would spill every genius scheme the very second any single thing went awry.

When my husband listened to my confession patiently and finally said calmly, ‘In the future, remember… we don’t throw cucumbers at our house.’ it was then that I knew that I married the right man.

It’s fall. It’s definitely fall. I don’t care that we’ve had the first warm stretch since 2003 and I don’t care that I had a blissful prolonged float in the pool (which is rather rare because in order to be wet and also above the warm water without getting too cold, the air temperature must be in the 80s) and have a line of demarcation across the tops of my formerly Victorian pale melons, it is definitely fall. There is a sort of light change going on. Not just the fact that when I wake up in the morning at my insanely early hour, it’s still dark, which means that I’m going to have to finally figure out how to use the fancy sunrise alarm clock Esteban got me for my birthday in June.

No, there’s something different at play here, something about how the angle of the light is softer, more diffused, creating shadows where before there were none, making stars out of objects that had been backstage all season. And there is almost always a thick slick of dew on my car in the morning, not to mention these weird long albino mosquito things hanging out on the sunroof, gossiping and having tea parties between the droplets. And there were bees at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, which means that fall is definitely here. The bees usually show up in late September, driven crazy by fermented fallen apples and so incensed by NBC’s new Thursday lineup that they’re ready to sting at the slightest provocation.

On Thursday, when I drove down to Milwaukee to attend my first class of the semester, there was this lovely fog rolling in off Lake Michigan, as though the breath of the Lake itself were yawning up onto the shore. The sky was an unusually deep periwinkle and the landscape was a study in frosted greys and muted stained glass, and yet the sun was coming off the clouds, shooting rays over the tops in that stereotypical Hallmark card way that usually screams for a bible verse to be printed in italics just below and to the left, ’cause look at all the God going on there, man. Just gobs of God no matter where you look.

This fall craziness seems to have infected everyone. Esteban has been unusually productive to the extent that I want to look for a discarded pod under his side of the bed. He cleaned out most of the garage last week, went out on an ’emergency supplies’ run for his new car (including things that I’ve never had in any of my cars, like a candle and blanket to keep from freezing when you’ve run off the road in winter and there is no cell service or passing cars and you are thinking about eating your own left foot or something) and then was so inspired by the site of his natty trunk that he took it upon himself to clean out the trunk of the M as well. My golf clubs are weeping from their spot in the garage, having the foresight to know that they probably won’t see the inside of that trunk again until Spring 2005.

I have declared martial law on (fucking) laundry and have also thought seriously of thinning my herd of 97 t-shirts (because seriously, I’ve got more than 40 white ones, and they don’t even look all that great because they are either too baggy or too short and I just end up wearing the same four white t-shirts from Eddie Bauer or Lane Bryant over and over anyway, because they’re the only ones where the shoulder seams sit right on my shoulders, instead of drooping, and yet still fit over my boobs). I also painted the front door (which, by the way, did not need to be painted, but I was sick of having a white front door and now I have a red front door. Much like a high quality bordello, but in our little post-WWII bungalow. So, a bungalello. Or a bordalow. Wow, I can see why the bungalow bordello thing never caught on.) Summer Slacker Girl has been bound and gagged and stuffed into a closet where she is desperately trying to remember the safe word. (Note: it’s ‘Captain Hook’)

I feel like writing something (and by ‘something’ I mean something fictional or serious or, rather, not serious (in an experiment spurred by a discussion with one Ms. Finger) instead of updating my silly little web journal. Truthfully, I have no excuse not to, other than the fact that my head is filled with pink attic insulation and my eyelids are heavy and there is a pain in between my shoulders from laying on two coats of primer and then seven applications of Ralph Lauren Hunting Coat Red (yeah, seven, mutha fucka Ralph Lauren). I even have a song that is feeding my imagination (which seems to be the trend when I get in a writing groove. When I finished the Car Salesman story, it was ‘The Air That I Breathe’ by the Hollies, repeated about 54 times. With the Baby Story, it was a duet of the Etoys song and The Cure’s ‘Pictures of You’) except I have nothing in my head to take advantage of this song, but for a few tendrils of stories and an urge to smack Sofia Coppola for making fabulous films that leave me breathless while also being such a pratt.

This morning, it is raining for the first time in what seems like months and the giant house spider that lives in my hibiscus topiary outside is dancing around raindrops like a Las Vegas showgirl. And soon, she’ll wrestle with a misguided fly and if we’re lucky, Esteban and I will be sitting in the garage, drinking iced tea and we’ll get to watch her drag it up into the eaves, like some crazy Cirque du Soleil act, and then we’ll go to Starbucks and then Home Depot (for the eighth time this weekend) and then steady ourselves to spend Labor Day tackling the damned Rose Bush. We’re speeding toward the equinox and all you can do is strap yourself in and get ready for impact.

My husband and I went to dinner last night. I had just done an impression of someone (I forget who) and it was really good. Except that Esteban didn’t even blink. And I was like ‘You don’t even appreciate my (whomever) impression!’

He replied, ‘You’re right. I didn’t. I think I’m just stunned by its brilliance and can only sit here and genuflect. In fact, I may have to wait until later, when I’m alone, to fully savor what was indeed a very satisfying impression of (whomever’ gah, that’s killing me!)’

I sat there, scorched. Finally I responded, ‘You know, this is my karmic comeuppance, for being a sarcastic whippet for the last fifteen years while you’ve sat by my knee, studying the ways to best take me down. I have obviously taught you well.’

Esteban laughed. ‘Oh, so I’m your novice now? Ha. I am so not your pupil.’

I replied, ‘Oh yes you are. Always two there are, no less, one’s the master’ and you’re the apprentice’ suck it.’ He had nothing to say, because he was smirking, so I said ‘Look, dork boy ( a term of endearment, believe it or not), I even quoted Star Wars for you.’

He then delivered the death blow.

‘Oh, no. I think you quoted Star Wars for YOU.’

And what can one say to that, I ask you. What. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Well played, Esteban. Well played.

I have been wiped out all week. Part of it has to do with the fact that it’s my monthly exhausted time (and by the way, THANK YOU Ms. Uterus for timing my two day window of PMS and zits for the one event of the year where my speckles and under eye circles are going to be the subject of a million digital photos splashed across the internet) and part of it is due to the fact that I just came off a weekend trip and refuse to give into my body’s need for sleep because damn it, it’s just forty-eight hours and I can always sleep later. I had planned to catch up by going to bed early on Monday, but then I was offered free tickets to an acoustic concert by Richard Marx and Edwin McCain, who are purveyors of two of my favorite sappy songs ‘I’ll Be’ and ‘Hold Onto The Nights’. With the former, I have been known to bawl uncontrollably thinking about the idea of having a greatest fan of my life, and with the latter, I used to get all sappy about my crush of the moment (Chuck aka My Lloyd Dobbler, complete with Converse high tops and trench coat) when I was fifteen and really wanted to hold on to the memoREEEEEEES. I accepted the tickets immediately and Penny agreed to accompany me, but then I started to feel even more tired and crampy and cranky, however I sucked it up and went to the concert. And sitting fourth row, talking directly to Edwin McCain and Richard Marx in the absolutely breathtakingly restored historic Fox theatre‘ well, I was very glad that I went. Even if Marx played every song in his repetoire EXCEPT ‘Hold Onto The Nights’ and even if it meant that I didn’t get to sleep that night until very very late.

And so the week has gone. I’ve stayed up late every night for one reason or other, the sleep debt accumulating behind the closed door of my brain until I found myself with a headache and what I suspect were wakeful dreams yesterday. I took my lunch hour at the end of the day so that I could leave early, went home, stripping my clothes off as I walked through the house, and immediately crashed beneath my down comforter. Apparently Esteban came in but I was sleeping so soundly that he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt my dreams. And there were dreams. Hot randy sex dreams about people I work with, people with online diaries (yes, probably you) and weird flirting teenage comedies involving Andrew McCarthy and Alan Ruck and directed by John Hughes. I slept for three hours, got up and sat in the living room watching CSI in High Definition (something I would not recommend even though it seems as though you can reach through and grab hold of Treasure Island, you can also reach through and grab the glistening heart sitting in the metal coroner’s tray) while eating my dinner of Special K Red Berries (thanks to the wonders of CSI, now looked like I was eating a bowl full of scabs), and then drudged back through the house and collapsed into bed once more. Apparently there was a huge thunderstorm in the night that kept Esteban up, but I only vaguely heard it and commented to Esteban that the British were coming. And coming hard, according to Hugh Grant and Rupert Everett frolicking in my subconscious.

What’s with me and the slash recently? Weird. I was thisclose to buying a pair of funky Converse All Stars until someone pointed out that it was the Official Shoe of Fag Haggery. And not that I’m against Fag Haggery and in fact, would gleefully play the part of funny fat fag hag to some delightfully clever lucky gay man, but I would rather have these details about my personality left a bit camouflaged, something for a new friend to uncover, like so many pearls in a bed of oysters. Anyway, I would much rather wear my goofy Eddie Bauer ‘I drive a Range Rover and drink Dewars at my weekend place at the lake’ sneakers instead. Mostly because I’m not any of those things (note to mysterious benefactors: I sure wouldn’t turn down either one!)

On that note, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the things we do to show the world who we are. For instance, I know someone who likes Disney. A lot. To the extent that she wears a lot of Winnie the Pooh t-shirts and the Mouse staples all of her important memos. What is she trying to tell everyone? Why this urge to be categorized, to identify oneself as a member of a tribe of some sort, even if it’s the Emo Glasses Wearing VW Bug Driving Death Cab For Cutie Listening tribe.

There was more here but I decided that it sounded whiny, so it’s gone now. Instead, pictures.