Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Boobs!


I got a request for boobs. While I was in line for Star Tours. Not to see them, which is the normal form a request for boobs takes, or to play with them,  or whatever. You know what people like to do with boobs. But it was not about any of that, and that’s good, since the request was from my sister and I’m not up for intensive therapy right now.
So I’m going to talk about my boobs because I know them the best. Sorry, I’m straight. They’re good boobs overall, and they have gotten me some good stuff over the years, lots of free drinks,  some sex, and were possibly the deciding factor in my getting credit for a college course that I neglected to take. They’ve been the focal point of many Halloween costumes, including both bad/sexy/in heat kitty and dominatrix (it’s surprising how versatile a skintight vinyl jumpsuit is), as year after year I celebrated both the holiday and my right, nay my duty, to parade around in the sluttiest costume possible. The year I was a slutty genie, they saved me from a ticket for running a red light (on a dare), and from incarceration, because I was underage and drunk. Older, wiser, moving on.
But they’re not as young as they used to be. When they were as young as they used to be, older women hated me wherever I went. One place I went anyway. One time. But it was traumatic. I was sixteen and working retail, so obviously I was minding my own business and doing the bare minimum I needed to do not to get fired. Anyway, I was wearing this little black and white spandex dress (there’s no way I’m going to justify that with a decade), and this woman, I don’t remember if I was helping her or not, I hope not because she didn’t deserve help, except of the mental health variety because she was disturbed, asked me if I was wearing a bra. I’m not even going to get into why you shouldn’t ask minors about their undergarments, or lack thereof, I’m going to skip to the part that happened after I admitted that I was not wearing one. She said, “I hate you.” And she said it vehemently. Again, I was sixteen. I was a child. She had to have been at least fifty. And she told a poor little girl with big, perky boobs that she hated her for no good reason.  And that girl was baffled. I totally get it now. But there was no reason for her to be a bitch about it.
So although they are not sixteen anymore, the boobs probably could still get me free stuff if I were so inclined, but it doesn’t seem worth it anymore, it seems like a waste of time to hang  out with someone who would give me free stuff just because they like my boobs. And when did that happen? Seriously, when did I become that girl. Why would I want to do something for myself, if there’s a possibility that someone might do it for me? What the fuck is that about? It’s aggravating. And it’s not like I’m brilliantly self-sufficient. I’m barely self-sufficient. I’m kind of ineptly self-sufficient. We’re all alive here, and everyone has eaten today, but sometimes Napoleon eats my underwear and I don’t think that’s something that happens to people who really have everything together. Their underwear is safely in the hamper. But the electricity has stayed on all summer, thanks to my white knuckle bill paying (none of the money was earned with the help of my boobs), so we never went without air conditioning, which is important here because it's the desert.
The moral of the story is I used to have amazing boobs, and now I have the pride and self respect that come with buying my own drinks at the bar. Except I usually just drink at home, it’s more peaceful and I can keep an eye on Napoleon because he’s a fucking maniac. Oddly enough, I wouldn’t switch back. Not that it wasn’t great. So gather your rosebuds, and free Cuervo shots, and if you can get away without wearing a bra, don’t fucking wear one. See ya next week. 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

In Which I Participate in a Standoff and the Police are Less Than Appreciative


You know how police standoffs/shootouts with the neighbors always happen when you’re trying to do laundry?
My crazy neighbor (pretending that only one of them is crazy) had a standoff with the cops.  I was here for the entire thing, but I missed some of the specifics while I was on the phone relaying the action to my sister, contemplating the logistics of an evacuation, and making coffee.
I know most of this seems like normal activity, but I was totally losing my mind. And not in an appropriate, I’m really scared, why must we have senseless violence kind of way, but in an excited, this could not be a better Wednesday morning kind of way. I was actually giddy. Giddy. I think that was my third time.
People were bringing chairs and breakfast out onto their balconies to enjoy the show. I didn’t do that, but I don’t usually eat breakfast. The point is we are all idiots. There could be a burst of gunfire coming my way any second. This is not a good situation. Why am I gawking? Why? I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. But I continue to dart from window to window, keeping an eye on all aspects of the action. I’m practically dancing. By now there are at least six regular cops, a SWAT guy with a possible sniper rifle and a guy in a bowling shirt who seems important because since he’s arrived, all the other cops want to huddle with him. The last guy seems familiar, like maybe he arrested me when I was a teenager.
So the timer for my laundry goes off, and the problem is that if I leave it there someone is going to move it, because god forbid someone’s laundry should sit in the washer for more than a minute after the cycle is finished, and if someone does move my laundry I’m going to flip out because I don’t know where their hands have been and now they’re handling my underwear. So that’s my big problem right now, I can choose to leave my undies to the mercy of mysterious and possibly grubby fingers or I can risk getting shot. Sophie had it easy.
At this point I notice my white haired neighbor has gone to fetch her mail and who am I to be fainter of heart than a demure and fragile retiree, and yes I know older people can still do stuff and I’m sure when I’m really old I’ll object to young assholes speculating about my frailty, or incontinence, or dementia, but it’s just part of the cycle of life. Anyway, as I was saying, anything a ninety year old can do, I can do better, so I traipsed down to the laundry room and not only moved my wet things to the dryer, but audaciously started a brand new load as well. Here’s some foreshadowing for you: I was going to regret it.
So I’m back at my window and one of the cops with his rifle or shotgun or whatever catches my eye and waves me out. So I go trotting downstairs since I’m not getting much from the window at this point because the crazy guy is inside with the blinds drawn. So the cop tells me they are going to evacuate the building and asks if I’m alone. I say no, I have pets. He assures me that they’ll be fine. I assure him that there’s no way I’m leaving them. So he says I should go start getting everyone together. Now what I’m wondering as I trot obligingly back up the stairs is, if it is so dangerous that the building needs to be evacuated why would he motion me outside? Surely, I would have been safer inside, peeking out the window or not, than out in the open consorting with those who were surely seen as the enemy by the crazy man.
Now I’m in kind of a tizzy, because those pets I mentioned? There are five of them. Plus I need clothes, and my computer, and my brand-new-fucking-too-expensive-to-leave-in-case-the-shootout-leads-to-a-fire-bike, and my books. I know the books are impossible so I mentally let go of them pretty quickly, but I’m trying to imagine how I’ll  arrange everything else in my tiny car and what or who I’ll take out first. I’m afraid that if I take the things out first the cops won't let me come back in, and the pets will be stuck in a building with a madman. I’m afraid that if I take the pets out first I could be killed going back for the stuff and then they’ll be stuck in the car indefinitely because the cops are too focused on the crazy neighbor to care about animals. I mean they didn’t want me to even take them. It seems best to just stay here and hope for the best. If they come to drag me out I’ll end up with only the pets because I know if it comes to that I won’t get to make multiple trips, but fuck it. I’m also reluctant to leave my laundry and I can’t get the washer open until the cycle ends, and that’s not happening for another twenty-seven minutes or so.
When stuff starts happening downstairs I’m obviously pleased because if they get the shootout over with no one will have to evacuate. Unless the fire happens after all.
The crazy neighbor is messing around with the blinds on his sliding door which is one door over, below and across from me. Although technically that’s several degrees of separation, I can actually see him really well and the thing that I notice is that he has a walker. He’s not using it, he’s sitting, so I think that maybe he can’t get to the door like the cops have been demanding and maybe this is all a terrible, soon to be tragic misunderstanding because the poor guy can’t get up. When I see he’s in a wheelchair it seems like a good idea to make sure the cops have this valuable information. They were surprisingly unappreciative. Apparently they already knew.
Then the SWAT guy got tangled up in someone’s fake Halloween spider webs which was pretty fantastic. Nothing personal SWAT guy. I feel bad because (SPOILER ALERT) I laughed before I knew no one had died, but there’s not much I can do about the order of events. Although if we look at things from a quantum, time is an illusion kind of place, maybe I could do something about the order of events, but damn it Jim, this is not a science blog.
Time for the end. The cops decide to pop out a window to grab the unarmed, crazy wheelchair guy, but before they can, a shot rings out. I still have no idea where it came from. No one got shot. Maybe the crazy guy let one off inside his apartment; if I find out I’ll let you know.
Anyway, it went something like: Gunshot. Napoleon barks. I think crazy guy killed himself and I feel really bad for referring to him in my head as crazy guy, but then crazy guy manages to slide open his patio door. Cops start yelling  and advancing on crazy guy who is trying to wheel himself out the door while keeping his hands up which didn’t look as easy as it sounds. Then cops drag crazy guy out of his apartment and wheelchair, which looked gentler than it sounds.
The aftermath included handcuffs, a pat down, a search of the apartment and camaraderie between the cops themselves, which I get, and between the cops and the crazy guy, which I don’t.
So that is basically that. And between living it and writing about it, I’ve lost like three hours of my day, but luckily I saved the time I would have taken thinking up a blog topic for this week. And crap, now I’ve come right out and admitted I plan on doing one every week, so I’m panicking a little. I’m also worried that between this blog and the last one I am coming across as kind of a bitch, so let me just say that I like puppies. A lot. I’ll talk more about that next time. Not too much though, I don’t like puppies in ways I shouldn’t. Just in perfectly appropriate ways. I don’t know if that’s weird or quirky and adorable. The sentence, I mean. I’m leaving it because it’s supposed to be adorable. I have to stop now. Goodnight. It’s not night, but I already know I’m not accomplishing anything else today. That makes it time to drink.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Second, Do No Harm


I don’t like to share. I don’t like people to touch my fucking shit, I don’t like people to borrow my shit, I don’t even like people to see my shit. I want to be someone who likes to share, who says, “Oh here, take mine,” and really means it, because those are such nice people, except, that they actually make me feel shitty about myself, so maybe they’re bad people deep down. Maybe they shove their lending and their niceness down your throat so you feel horrible about the fact that you don’t want to loan your books out because you never get them back. Nobody gives books back. I don’t. Sometimes I do eventually, but not for a really long time. They sit on my bookshelves until they become emotionally attached to my books and then they can’t leave because it would be too traumatic for everyone.
Also, sometimes stuff gets broken or lost, which brings me to my next point, using the word “point” fairly loosely.
I spend every Thursday with my nephew. (It used to be Fridays, which is not relevant, but since I’m not going to lend you anything, I can at least give you accuracy where possible.) This started when he was six months old or so, I’m not really sure (where possible), let’s just say once a week for roughly three years. He’s irreplaceable. It took nine months and literal blood, sweat and tears to make him. I won’t let my autographed copy of American Gods leave the house and my sister lets me take her child. She doesn’t even instruct me. I mean, I’ve been doing it for a while now, but even the very first time she didn’t do much more than point out the formula. She didn’t tell me not to drop him on his head, which I imagined doing every time I carried him for like a year. At least. Not imagined in a wishful way, you understand, but in a nightmarish way. In my head, I would trip walking down the hallway, and the floors are tile so there would be nothing soft to drop the baby on and probably I would end up falling on top of him and crushing him anyway, so it wouldn’t really matter that the floors weren’t soft. But there was never a, “Don’t drop the baby,” or “Don’t leave him alone in the car/dryer/tub,” or even, “Don’t let him suck on a knife,” which, ok, any adult should know, but still. She just handed over her very best thing and trusted me. To me, that is amazing.
                You’re probably thinking, ‘Her sister lets her borrow a baby, a firstborn only son and she won’t let her borrow a fucking book?’ Well, I will let her borrow a fucking book. I often offer to lend her books. The fact that I have a copy of her house key and therefore the ability to repo any book at any time hardly crosses my mind. If you’re wondering why I suddenly got onto books it’s because all my favorite things are books or dogs…not that dogs are things, and not that I’d lend them. And not that my nephew is a thing either. Don’t make a big deal about the order there; it was a random train of thought.
It may be appropriate to put some trust of my own into the world to pay it forward, although I hated that movie and swore never to be nice to anyone after I saw it. Sometimes things strike me in ways that I’m sure were not intended. In spite of that, this is a call to put more trust in humanity, well some humanity, and I’ll see how it goes. Don’t worry, I’m only calling myself, unless you want to be called, it’s your decision. And for the record, I’m totally generous with my crappy stuff. 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Of Mice, Not Men

So I didn’t make big promises in my first post right? No great expectations going on out there that I should be aware of? Then let’s get started. The blog is orange now, which I kind of like, although I’m worried that it’s too bright. On to something else, because how neurotic can one person be? Although obviously, since this is written, I’ve had a chance to edit it and whatever neurosis are still on the page are intended to be. Or, I just didn’t notice them. But clearly I’ve noticed them; I mentioned them. Unless when I mentioned them I was thinking of one thing while the things that are apparent to others are entirely different issues of which I’m not even aware. I’ll lose a little sleep over that.
No more talk about the blog itself. Ok, limited talk about the blog itself. It’s new and I’m obsessed with it. Sorry. In six months I’ll probably be like, “Ugh. Fucking Blog. LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Since you’re still here, I’ll tell you about the mice. It’s not much as rewards go.
Once when I was little, we had mice. Not pet mice, mice in the house. Wild mice that sped across the floor, over toes, and under furniture with an abandon undeterred by the most hysterical shrieks, or any amount of scrambling for safety onto the aforementioned furniture by the humans of the house, namely my mother and I. I think it was the rapid and unpredictable movement that was so alarming; theirs, not ours.
After a while, the mice acquired names. All of course, cute mousy little names. The names were given by my mother, who could actually tell them apart. A mouse would go scurrying across the floor while my mother and I cowered on the couch with my dog Star, who was also terrified by the tiny invaders, and my mother would identify Mickey, or Minnie, or Mighty. I believe Mighty had the upturned nose.
I feel like there were at least two or three more, but my memory isn’t the best. That could be thanks to a few substances or it could be I’ve blanked the names out for emotional reasons. Maybe the ones I can’t remember were my favorites.
It was decided, at some level beyond my clearance, that living with a houseful of wild mice was not the thing. It wasn’t long before the bodies started turning up, and one by one Mighty, Minnie, Mickey, and the others were, by the shape of a nose or the quirk of a tail, gaily identified and disposed of.
And was strewing all that poison around when a dog and a child were in residence the best idea? Evidence of a simpler time, I guess. Before the days of pesky public service safety announcements, when one could still plausibly say, “Oh my god. I had no idea she would eat that. Who ever heard of a four year old putting something so inappropriate in her mouth?”
Somehow, Star and I made it through unscathed, physically at least, and to Mickey and company, I feel safe in saying that I’ll never forget you. I know. I’ve tried.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

To Blog or Not to Blog

      Perhaps I should start by asking forgiveness for my audacity. I'll mull that over for a bit. I mean the gall, the arrogance of me assuming anyone wants to know what goes on in here. I'm actually cringing as I write. But you don't have to read it. A blog is not a book. There's no story, no characters that are lovable or despicable, nothing I can claim is worth your time without feeling a bit megalomaniacal. But still, here I am, blogging my first blog and hoping.
     That's the whether, now the what. Maybe language I love, (thanks for the inspiration Shakespeare, if that's your real name). Perhaps on writing; I'm the proud new mamma of my first literary bundle of joy, surely that qualifies me to advise everyone else who's ever had a yen to put pen to paper. The trials and tribulations of a spanking new professional writer? That's sure to have wide appeal. 
     The problem is I don't even post on Facebook. I share and I like, but I almost never comment. When I do, it's something glib and inoffensive. To everyone except my mother. To me, there is something vulnerable about committing thoughts to paper, or to server, or to wherever these thoughts of mine will go to lurk patiently until it is time for me to run for office or accept my Nobel Prize, at which point they will come winging back through the space/time/internet continuum to bite me on the ass. 
     But, fear has no place in creativity. So to better serve my creativity, I will embrace the thing that scares me, I will pursue and practice until I no longer writhe with embarrassment at the thought of clicking the publish button.
     So, I'm not sure what I will blog, but I will blog.    
   
      If you didn't hate that too much, the link to the book (and yes, of course there is a book), is: www.iwenttopalmsprings.com.