I, Asshole

I have two things to tell you. One, after months of jonesing, I am finally listening to my very own Blossom Dearie CD. It’s really the little things. She makes my brane melt a little.

TWO my boss called me a bad swear today. My boss is the IRL version of Steve Carrell. I am quite sinsur. Also my coworker told me today she’s packing a heater. I don’t want to know these things. No I do not.

Three. (Bonus Round) I also got a Diana Krall CD of standards that I somehow missed in the last couple of years. There is something about her now. Something disconcertingly Sinatralike. I love Sinatra, but I don’t know if I need another one in my life.

Four. Mr. Klassy is coming back! He is laying eggs! MR. KLASSY COME HOME. ALL IS FORGIVEN. I am going to drive to his farmhome on Saturday and get her. Apparently she was a bit of a pariah. Polishes are really mellow birds, so I am not too surprised in hindsight. I offered my friends my dudlike Buttercups, but shockingly they declined. The Buttercups are laying now and they make smallish white eggs. Anyone want some fucking buttercups?

FIVE I had to work up to Franny’s bedtime, so I said hi to her when I came home. She went all babymush on me and stuck her arms out and said MAMA. I said, “Come on kid,” and she climbed into my bed, where she is snoring right now. She was at her dad’s for a week after Xmas and that makes her all weird.

Six. Speaking of weird, the threads continue to unravel. Have you ever put on an outfit that you are pretty sure is a bad idea, but you really want to wear it so you do it anyway? Dig if you will the picture, of pants too large and a top slightly too small and socks that keep falling down. You are fidgeting at your pants to keep them up and OH the socks are itchy and what’s this? The bastardy shirt flips up over your muffintop. This is bad. Did your bra strap just break? What the fuck?

I am feeling a little bit like that about life lately. I get one goo ball up and five more fall down. All this preamble is to tell you that I lost it a little in a sad fashion in the store I work in. I have this history with dogs. We’ve never gotten along too well. I realized recently, now that I have been running, that the feeling of unease I get when a dog is coming is fear. Problem: there are approximately 4.9 dogs to every human in Seattle. People in Seattle deem it appropriate to bring dogs into GROCERY STORES here. So of course people bring dogs into the store where I work.

It was all over the place, too. I felt totally trapped. Non-swearing boss asked me if I was okay, because apparently I turned white and started shaking. I had to step outside. The best part was that the dog was one of those floor sweepers that weighed about five pounds. I am now afraid of things that weigh less than my own head. I am officially crackers.

There, I said it. I just became a Larry David character. I predict that Kleenex box hands are about a year out. Spazzychow out.

Hey jerks. What is the haps? Nothing much to report here. I am trying to ease my way into the New Year. I had kind of a scary moment when I pissed off four people in the first two days of the year. Then I misplaced my keys on NYE, and today I realized I mislaid my work apron, which I was going to wash. The bummer of it is that I had a vintage brooch pinned to it from Phoenix when I was in college. I am losing and finding things like crazy, undoing and redoing them.

One thing I redid was my hair. I am realizing that it doesn’t seem to matter what I do. This is terrible after school special confessional tiem, but it seems like if I am doing my own thing, life seems to turn out for the best and I feel the happiest. I am not talking about being selfish or doing things at the expense of others. I just mean I am trying to follow and fit in where I belong, and it’s going okay so far.

Now I’m happier and feel more like myself. Improved mental state has to count for something, right? I am going to throw it into a bun the next time I get called to interview, take a deep breath, and be myself. Only with fewer swears. I can do that.

Happy New Year, Vague Chow Out.

ETA for Jendajen and other rubberneckers. Hee.

All I’m going to tell you is that when you need a job you’ll do things you didn’t quite expect. You know that I was an evictress, and that I worked retail in the past. When I first moved to Seattle I had a tiny bit of money and no prospects, unless you count getting mad booty, which always happens when you move to a new town. Unless it doesn’t. Condolences. Well, there was the Canadian corn salesman who kicked me out of his van after he discovered all I wanted was his hot, slightly butter-scented body. Ah, well.

I flipped through the want-ads daily in between moodily riding the bus making myself damn deaf listening to Rocket From the Crypt and Louder Than Bombs. One day there was an ad up for a “telephone interviewer.” HMM, curious. Was this telemarketing? Not quite. It was calling people up and asking them nosy questions twenty hours a week. One job was for King County Health or something and involved me asking people both how many times a week they ate vegetables (”Hmm, five.” LIES.) and how many firearms they had in their house (”NONE OF YOUR GOTDAM BIDNESS THIS ARE AMURICA COLD DEAD HANDS ETC.” oic.).

There was a man who got hired at the same time as me, my oh my I would look at him and drool would literally form in my mouth. He could not have been more my type had I drawn him myself. He was an artist and a recent transplant from the Midwest, and like me, needed a crappy job to tide him over until he found something more satisfying and fulltime. I followed him around. I hung on every word as he talked about his next project or painting. He found out I was 17 to his 25. WAH WAH WAAAAH, thank you for playing.

But I hung in there and we started hanging out together, having lunch or exploring Seattle together. I heard his sad story about his rilly terrible break up with his clingy anorexic girlfriend and how he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. Awesome, neither was I. He was with me the day I turned 18–we got a slice of chocolate cake together at a cafe that was where Rosebud is now. What was it called then? I had a glass of merlot courtesy of my fake ID.

A few weeks later, we were at Ileen’s. of all places (neither of us liked sports, but the beer flowed nicely there). It is important for you to know that I have always been the Sultana of Subtlety. Once when I seduced a man in a field I just basically peeled off all my clothes and stared at him until he did the same. I ensnared a high school fling by calling him up and saying, “Hey, come over, let’s have sex.” I KNOW, Smooth Operator was written about ME, right. Well, this artist guy and I were staring at each other across the table and I said, “Say, when’s the last time you had sex?” GOOOOAL!

But the one thing I really, really remember about that job was that there was a lifer there. Most telephone type people burn out quickly, but she was in it to win it. She placed one call after another like a robot, and hung up after rejections and moved on to the next call like it was all nothing. I felt bad about bothering people, though I did get the occasional “OH BOY I LOVE SURVEYS!”. She was terse and weird and had a long-ass I Dream of Jeanie ponytail, but muddy brown. And the kicker was that she kept a picture of Commander Data on her desk. Not Brent Spiner, Commander Data. It was kind of soft focus, too.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Wow, what’s going on in this blog? Hmm, looks like an Xmas.

Hey sister go sister gotta have some snow sister.

This is the aforefabled hat I got in BC.

Let’s talk about fucking Tweedle Beetles. When XmasEvers Fight it’s called a Xmas Seafood Battle.

This are snow, let me in. This is snow that caused kerploofie and a tranformer and a blackout.

How about Xmas, I hear you ask. I heard you liek bag zombies.

Lego tiems.

Did I mention that Strudel’s Dad made sofa buns? I think I did.

Happeh Xmas!

What’s up, Xmas humpers? Life is pretty good because my BFF is in town, and I may get to see her once or twice. She is a busy lady. I am on one of my cooking sprees, of course, due to being trapped in the house all holiday style. Yesterday I started drinking eggnog at about three NOM and it made me all sleepy by dinner, but my secret superpower is that I can take a wee tiny mininap where I just shut down, wake up in ten minutes, and can go five more hours. I do it a lot when I am flying or traveling. I jumped up and literally started doing high kicks, and then put the crab cakes in.

Xmas Eve means seafood. I have read that this is an Italian tradition, but for once when I was growing up they were out of the picture on Xmas eve. My stepfather was allergic to fish, but he would stay out getting tossed all Xmas eve, so my mom would serve it. Now I grow up and it is a happy tradition. Hell, it always was happy, because it meant he would be gone til the wee hours so I didn’t have to be mute and careful. I loved any meal where I was allowed to speak.

Years later it is no mystery why I hated holidays for years. I remember one year on his birthday, also December, we made a cake and wrapped his gifts and he didn’t show up. It got later and later and I was sent to bed. In the early morning he came home and my mom threw his cake at him. I slept through one of these messes, for once.

So I made crab cakes and quick boiled and chilled unpeeled shrimp to peel and eat with cocktail sauce and there was some funky rice mix thing and those fail carrots from the backyard. Also rolls that looked like little sofas. Tonight I am making Fucking Beef Wellington (scratch save the frozen puff pastry) and potatoes and trifle for dessert.

I used to make stock from scratch and everything from scratch, but I am taking shortcuts this year as I am not entertaining. Often that doesn’t matter, I will do it all from scratch anyway, but I am not quite fully in it this year. I’m really pretty happy right now (happy-ish…I could do with some more moneys) but I feel like I am in some kind of weird zen undead Bodhisattva Zombie Jesus phase where I am not quite here. I am one foot in the home and hearth, and one foot out in the world, and a mysterious third foot deep inside my head. The result of this is that my house is not very clean and the gravy is coming out of a jar, but this too shall pass. I will find my feet and know what I want to do again.

Speaking of moneys, I am officially hired for retail job, beyond Xmas. I think I can get forty hours, which means survival and a little beyond. There is this part of me that knows that I am competent and good with people face-to-face, and it turns out I can sell like a motherfucker (WHO KNEW?) so of course my boss pulled me out of the rest of the holiday rabble. There is this other part of me that is a little sad that this is what I am excelling at right now, but, you know, if I flunked out of my holiday job, that would be even worse for my self of steam.

Yesterday I applied for three more writing/editing positions. I see jobs I want, I see jobs I should be able to get, but I am sure they are being filled my ass kicking asskickers with like loads of experience on me. I am slumming it in retail and they are slumming it at my level. Craptacos.

“I can’t wait until Christmas Steve comes, Mom,” Franny said. “When does he come again?”

“Christmas Eve eve, remember? And only if you’ve been naughty enough.”

“Oh yeah,” she said.

“CHRISTMAS STEVE! YAY! I GOT A LAUNDRY SCOOP!” Strudel said.

“I hope I get road-marking tape again,” Franny said.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get some crap that breaks in the first day, from whatever place Steve hits before he gets here. Maybe you will luck out and he will break into a construction site again,” I said.

“That wasn’t CRAP! And it didn’t break in the first day. Remember, mom, we made tapey lines all over the house.”

Uh-huh, I remember.

“So, Franny, what else did you get for Christmas last year? Like from me and Strudel’s dad?”

“Umm….”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember,” she admitted.

“Strudel, what did you get for Christmas last year?”

“A LAUNDRY SCOOP!!”

Dear Jankateria,

Freddie Reynolds was staring at me by the senior locker bay today! I found a dollar on the ground! And my camera cable came! It’s been what, a month ffs?

In November, we made an Obama cake to celebrate. Pardon my ghetto non-cake professional skills, but here we be:

Here are the girls helping me make it. If I let Strudel continue, assuming she never got bored, it would have taken her FIVE HOURS to shred carrots. No lies.

Here is Hester Prynne all asplodie:

:’(

She is put back together now, but still no hard drive. Soon, soon.

The tail end of the fall harvest happened. Garden vs. Storebought. FIGHT!

We have a new layer, El Bandito! She makes wee eggs. Currently she is broody. Probably a good time for that, as it is cold as fuck.

Today alternates between dance party and snow

Also, my moar fight shirt came in the mail. MOAR FIGHT! I made this. By the power of Photoshop!

Speaking of dorky internet shit, I applied to be a community manager for a gaming software company. There are so many interesting jobs out there. I’ve decided to think of my relentless applying to jobs and interviewing as my hobby. I may continue this after I get a real job, even. I can now write a cover letter in 41 seconds.

ETA: I was all scattered a little and forgot to post a couple:

Frozen Calliope:

And the top of the Xmas ficus this year. Sorry your arms got cropped, Michelle! Blame US Weekly!

Fucking finally, some fucking decent fucking news. So, I confess to you that I’ve been keeping a secret from you. You are probably guessing that I was born with a dick or a tail, but NO, hold still and I will tell you. About a year and a half ago a (now) friend of mine, Krumpy, emailed me out of the blue and said she wanted to work with me to write and develop a treatment for a TV show. We worked on it for months and she still shops it around as a producer.

WELL. Krumpy got hooked up with a Hollywood movie producer type and he is going to read it soon. She is FedExing him the treatment of our show tomorrow and he was FRICKEN INTERESTED, like OH YEAH, gimmie some of that awesome sweet treatment you got. I bet my friend can elevator pitch like a motherfucker. So he could be looking at it to make a film, or a TV show, I dunno.

When I got off the phone with her, I was shaking. If she just made this whole thing up (which I am certain she did not) I would still throw myself under the bus for her, because it made my afternoon.

The cherry part is that he has produced one of my very favorite films of all time, which I will not say yet cause I ain’t one to gossip. Even if nothing comes of this, someone who made a movie I love to bits will be reading my words this week. If I could write for TV, seriously, I would probably have like 100 orgasms and then die of an aneurysm. We’re calling this good news WHATUP.

A moment of silence, friends. Your SJ has discovered something that peanut sauce does NOT taste good on: Nilla Wafers. I have been buying rather than making cookies lately, because sometimes you just want that fix, and tonight my eyes strayed to ye olde Nillas. The peanut sauce did not taste bad on them, per se, it just kind of obliterated the Nilla-ness of them and left them tasting kind of sweet. I scamper back to the standby, toast, as a vehicle for peanut saucey goodness.

More Nilla Wafer hilarity ensues as the box they come in assures me I can make something called a “tiramisu bowl” with Wafers, Jell-O, coffee, and cream cheese. GOOD CHRIST. No rum? This is not tiramisu, nor is it trifle, which is what it resembles all stacked up in the bowl like that. FAIL. I am going to give this trifle a shot for Xmas, which WL says is orsum. But probably I will cut it in half, since I am not entertaining in anyway for xmas, except in a schadenlulz one.

Today I am thinking about death. I was thinking about my kid and her recently-deceased grandmother, and how we are talking about her lately. I think I never told you about The Death of Monkeyhip, because I was on, ahem, my court-ordered “hiatus” then. We were living in that tragic apartment on Aurora Avenue where the dude got pasted while crossing the street, and Monkeyhip got all hamster ancient and expired. Franny happened to be with us and I found him cacked in his cage. I had to sit her down and tell her and she WAILED, and then got over it about four seconds later.

That afternoon we went out to lunch and happily ran into Kaijsa at Jai Thai, before it went all downhill.

“Hi Franny,” kaijsa said. “What’s new?”

Much to our surprise, Franny burst into song.

“Monkeyhip died and we PUUUT him INNN the DUMPSTER!” She did a jolly dance while singing dramatically. Kaijsa and her friends did not know what to say to that. I was silently shaking with laughter, but also embarrassment about being exposed about what we’d done. But it was winter and we lived in an apartment–what else could we do? I still felt pretty bad, though.

Tonight before dinner we were having a living room dance party to shake of the Mondayness of it all, and I put on Monkey hips and Rice and she flopped on the couch and started weeping. “This song reminds me of MONKEYHIP!” She had named him, after all.

This is like the non-deep thought of the century, but I was at the grocery store wheeling the cart past the giant line of perfect condiments, you know, and I was thinking what a shock the hamster’s death was to her, followed by her Nana a year ago, and her grandma last month. And how someday death becomes acceptable, expected, and even routine. How many hundreds of famous dead people have you heard about in your life? How many dead in wars and natural disasters? I hear over and over again about people who are very ill or old being ready to let go and die and it just made me think–does it get to the point where you know more dead people than actual living people? Do you feel like you grow accustomed to it until you are ready to cross over too? I feel less scared than I used to when I was younger, even of losing people I love. It’s amazing what we can recover from.

Oh lordy, the poor chickens. It is in the 20s here and the snow is not budging, surprisingly. The girls have been in and out all day and when they are in we peer at the chickens out the window and they peer back with a WHYYY? The Silkies are hiding in the broody box, Calliope and Veronica are walking around, and the Buttercups, which I understand are Mediterranean birds, are frantically trying to hide on/under each other. They don’t seem to have the clue that they could go in their house or to one of the many places in the yard without snow. Poor dumb bints. I am saving pictures up in my camera to show you from a month or whatever now. My USB cable is on the way!

Otherwise I am doing a short-term editing project that is pretty fun. Staying cozy until I have to pry myself out of my house to go to work. We sold so much useless crap yesterday that today has been declared “casual Sunday.” I am going to wear a dickie and a tube top.