How to Make a Couch; Or, I Am My Own Sweatshop

On Saturday, we went to the second-happiest place on Earth, IKEA, and ate meatballs and spent More Money Than Was Comfortable, because we have woken up to the fact that we have basically moved into a house, and not a tiny one, either. There are beautiful wood floors as far as the eye can see, so we had to get rugs. And we decided to fulfill my boring dream of owning a couch. We wanted to choose a sofa that was comfy, but within our budget, so we chose the Lund Bjuv. Unlike some IKEA couches, which come pre-assembled, the Bjuv comes in four boxes. We were a little daunted by this, but decided to look at it as a money-saving adventure, or something irritatingly optimistic like that.

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The Lavender “S”

Friday, at Strudel bathtime.

Me: Hey, you’re using my towel on the baby.

Companion: Sorry. It was white, so I thought it was hers.

Me: Are you saying I can’t use a white towel?

C: I don’t know, I just saw the towel and thought, “white…virginal baby color.”

Me: So filthy whores can’t use the white towels?

C: Um….

Me: Fine, I’ll use the lavender towel. Can you associate me with lavender?

C: Sure, lavender’s a slutty color.

Come Sit Over at the Mean Table

1) Explanation/Apology?

Hey jerks, what’s poppin? Oh, me? I moved, and it almost destroyed my will to live. It turns out that A.) twelve Diet Cokes a day is actually not the same as exercising, and B) we have more stuff now than when we moved in. Actually, I’m just kidding. I’m only drinking EIGHT Cokes a day. And I thought that taking vigorous walks with the baby strapped to my back would be enough to help me move our cryogenic chamber and my great-grandfather’s tomb, which I should really stop moving and just throw up on ebay, but whatevs. I were so tired and busy chasing my little fuzz-muncher that it took days just to get the computers plugged back in. Now I can go back to my very important work as the Vice-President of the Leifettes.

Anyway, can I tell you that I just had an erotic dream about a squash instructor? I was talking to my friend yesterday about being in goo-goo teenager love with someone, which made me think about making out with people, which lead to my brain forcing me to make out with an incredibly hot squash instructor on a layover in Scranton. My brain’s pretty good to me, except when it says, “Hey. Are you sure you locked that door? Maybe you should check again. How about one more time? If you check seven times you can be sure it will be locked.” Or, “You should probably make the lead singer of that Spanish heavy metal band give you head, even though he looks scared of you.” THANKS a LOT, BRAIN.

B) Capitalist Freakout

So now we are having fun buying things to fill up the empty spaces here. Strudel eats it seventy-thousand times a day on the wooden floors, so buying a rug for the living room is a top priority.

Yesterday:

Me: “So I’m at Fred Meyer, and I know we said that we were going to IKEA this weekend, but I found a rug here, and it’s the perfect size and color, and it will fill up the space really well, and it has a cowboy lassooing a steer on it…”

Companion: “NO.”

Me: “Man, I have no bars in here. I don’t think you heard me. There’s a cowboy rug….”

Companion: “NO.”

Me: “DAAAAMNIT.”

I need to charge first and ask questions later. The cowboy rug could have had fights with my black velvet bandito painting and I just know that if I go back there today it will be snapped up. WEEP!

C. And Now She’s a MILF, Am I Right?

Franny’s dad, the vainglorious and ignoble Seattle Federline, has brought forth another spawn unto this poor world to carry on his legacy. It’s another girl, which is kind of a shame, because the most current research shows that sociopathy is carried through women.

One of the moms at Franny’s school dropped by my house (I now live so close to her school that this is freaking Wisteria Lane) and told me that That Poor Woman took one look at the whelp and declared that it was a “Frances.” SeaFed claimed that they had never considered that name, and that he had never thought of it before.

“That’s funny,” I replied. “Frances was on the short list to be “Franny’s” name.” The mom got a kick out of that. The fact that “Frances” was a contender for “Franny’s” name is the reason I call her Franny when I write about her. Ah, well. When I was married to him, he couldn’t remember what he had had for lunch by eight o’clock. Sometimes I wish had the gift of forgetfulness. You may absolve yourself of your own sins through the Power of Bumbling.

I sent Franny a bunch of tulips to congratulate her, and she sounded pleased. She said she’s keeping them on her dresser.

D) Destroy All Humans!

Finally, big ups to my companion, who insisted I go downstairs and WRITE SOMETHING, and even brought me eggs and hot tea. Strudel is standing at the top of the stairs shouting at me, because she can hear me clickity clicking. WUV companion, who can sense what needs to be done so that my brain doesn’t melt, turning me into a momomaton.

OH HELL NAW

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Britney Spears has been used as the inspiration for this anti-bear-life statue, by the sculptor Daniel Edwards, which is soon to go on display at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn, New York.

“The artist wishes to convey a hatred for bears which could be interpreted to extend to all wild animals,” stated the gallery’s co-director, Lincoln Capla.

From Edwards’s artist statement: “Using this piece of synthetic, washed-up pop trash is my way of metaphorically shitting on nature and the rights animals have to life. Plus, it gave me a chance to sculpt some wide-open beaver. How often does an artist get to do that and call it art? Take that, Andres Serrano. Who’s edgy now? DAYUM, I hate bears.”

A representative for Ms. Spears would only comment: “Britney is delighted with this likeness of herself, but would like her fans to know she does not actually have struts protruding from her body.”

Aside to Dunhill: If you don’t go take pictures of this when you get back home, I will hunt you down and pinch you.

Remixzao!

Okay, so I know I am a little late on this since Kevin Federline‘s second smokin’ hot single has already hella drizzopped (yo), but I bring to you the Popozao remixes!

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These are best enjoyed while listening to the original masterpiece. You should also pour out a fotie for our dead rap homies, who(to paraphrase Ernest Borgnine), “if they were alive, they’d be rolling over in their graves.”

Hey, Kevin approves! He’s singing along, too! Should you be driving that stoned without your baby on your lap, Kevin? It’s like Crazy World, man.

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Totally In Hate

Grr grr grr! The building managers called again this morning. “Can we show the apartment at two and five and five-thirty?” I don’t know. Can you get a fucking clue that you are invading our privacy and right to notice? It’s weird, I feel like I’m too upset about this, but I have always hated having my rights stompled. I am also frustrated because my companion talked to them yesterday and they told him we could say no, but they were going to keep asking. I wish I would have known when they called this morning. My feeling is that they shouldn’t be asking. What are the odds they’re going to rent this place with clothes and boxes everywhere? I am not trying to keep it messy, it’s just moving mess.

Yaaar, HAAATE. Thank god we’re going out to dinner tonight. I need to get out of here. I am having to redo everything seven times because Strudel is following after me and unpacking things and dumping things. I am afraid she’s going to foil my scheme to get rid of Frannie’s broken plastic crap while she’s at school. I twirl my giant moustache as I throw out plastic ponies with broken legs.

If I ever become a member of the landed gentry, I resolve to give people fair notice or have a set open house day. With notice.

I think there are little tweetie birds flapping around my head right now….

The State of the Union is on Fire

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Today I am hitting the packing pretty hard. That is, when I’m not goofing around making movies and writing on the internets. I have about three more days of packing and everything should be done–I think there’s enough time for all this. I won’t be posting this weekend because they will be shutting off the internet on Friday sometime. I sincerely hope that one of my friends (hint hint) will call me on Saturday and catch me up on the doings and whereabouts of Kevin Federline and give me the update on Katie Holmes’s clambaby.

Off to have 4,000 Diet Cokes with Lime and packity packity pack! I will be just like that girl in the hilarious old meth ads. “I don’t sleep and I don’t eat! I’ve got the cleanest house on the street!” Except, you know, with a Diet Coke. So I will only be up until 11, instead of until, like Tuesday.

Does anyone remember that ad? I found someone discussing it, but not a link. I was in college and working at the time, and was really crunched. It made me think, man, I’ve gotta get my hands on some meth. Hee.

Update! 7:49 PM: Joshua Norton, Protector of Wales, found the meth commercial. It’s just as sweet as I remembered! Thanks, Joshua! You librarian-pnwed me like a little bitch!

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Kicking Out the Freaks: Update on the Orange-1

Just yesterday my sister was wondering if I was going to go out and take pictures of or write about the changes at the A-1 Motel. I seem to be turning into the informal documenter of the changes made now that there is new ownership there.

“Nah,” I said. “I’m about to move. I need to stop fussing with it.”

But then, much to my delight, I got an email from an employee there who stumbled across I, Asshole and some of the pictures I have posted, while looking for historical pictures of the A-1. They read that I noticed it was being cleaned up, and that every light seemed to have a light bulb in it. I will make every attempt to keep them anonymous, because I wouldn’t want them in any kind of trouble with their boss, but this email is too good not to share.

“i was searching online for some old photos of this building back in the 50’s and came across your site. It’s nice to know that the peeps in da hood are seeing the changes. i spent the first night here in a motel room the night before the property changed hands.YA i was scared to say the least……but alas things have changed…….ill tell ya it was no small feat kickin out the freaks but i think weve done it!…….”

This email was signed “Diligent Lightbulb Replacer.” I replied and asked about the new orange color and got another reply:

“the place just looked scary. [The owner] said she didnt want scary anymore. plus i think it makes a statement…..what that statement is i dont really know. its a business that has to have attention drawn to it. i think its hypnotic! an easy landmark…….and can be seen from space!”

It is hypnotic. While I was out walking today I noticed it from the other side of Aurora.

Thanks for the email, Diligent Lightbulb Replacer! If you don’t want to protect your identity so much, you may leave a comment and your URL. (I found your domain with your photographs, through your email address. Very nice!)

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The painters carefully wrapped the cars on the street below in plastic.

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Behold the Orange-1!

In Other News

We are some moving motherfuckers. Finally, Strudel is well enough and unclingy enough for me to pack more and call utilities. The building managers here have been really wonderful for our whole tenancy, but now they are stressing us out a little. We have been getting calls to show the apartment at the last minute, with an hour or two’s notice, which often coincides with bedtime or naptime, or the house generally smelling funky because of diaper explosions.

I suspect that they don’t realize that in Seattle, tenants are entitled to a full twenty-four hour notice before your residence can be shown. They also gave us a not-so-helpful move out sheet, that itemizes all the cleaning we can be charged for, above and beyond our cleaning fee. Basically, the owners are pocketing the $125 cleaning fee, plus they will charge us for blind cleaning, if they are not clean ($12 a blind); general cleaning, $25 an hour; painting, $25 an hour; replacement of burner drip pans, $4 per.

I’m not sure about the drip pans, but this seems wrong to me. I don’t want to fight the man here. I just want our deposit back. I hate being a renter.

Update! 1:28 pm: Well, we just talked to the building managers. It turns out they know they law, and they…don’t care. Bummer.

Shutting Down the Boobranch

So, some people were wondering how I closed the milk bar over here at Casa Asshole. The first time, Franny was eight months old and I was frantically trying to finish my bachelor’s degree. It was summer quarter and I had a morning class and an evening class. Normally I came home in the space in between, to have lunch and nurse her and do my studying at home, before having an early dinner and then heading back to school. One day, I told her father, Seattle Federline, that I was not coming home during my long break. That was cold turkey. I brought a flannel shirt with me that morning, because I knew it would be a chilly summer evening. I studied and noodled around during my ten-hour break, and by the time my evening class started, I was feeling feverish and light-headed, but I was a real Tracy Flick in those days, so it didn’t even occur to me to go home. I sat in the back as usual and watched the pretty colors on the slides and pretended to take notes.

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In Which I Award Myself One Free Purse Dog

Oh my god, you guys, I almost died this week. Okay, so that’s a total, total lie. Maybe what I wanted to say was that I wanted to die this week. Anyway, we had weaning problems followed by some kind of Strudelly intestinal flu. But we are getting better.

Weaning totally kicked my ass. Or I was perhaps kicked in the taco. Or, as I finally implored my companion to stop calling them, my “lady nuts.” Boy, have I ever been so sorry that I coined a term around here? Perhaps not.

Today I got that manic injection of energy that you get after weaning. The one that makes you go, “I have SO much energy as a normal, non-pregnant, non-nursing civilian. Why did I want to have children? Maybe I imagined that two years of tiredness. Maybe I don’t have children at all. Santa, is that you? Nice rack. I can see Mexico from here. Maybe if I run for it?”

ANYWAY, people, I think if the urge to procreate strikes again I’ll just get myself a purse dog. Because if you get tired of those, you can get yourself one of those new badger-chinchilla hybrids, at least that’s what PARIS does. I’m just saying.

So I am just writing you, MF diary, to tell you that I have:

1. Lost ten pounds in water weight this week. I have peed oceans, now that it’s not shooting out of my boobies.

2. Become a little psycho now that my energy’s come back. There may be, at some point in the near future, some mosaicing, or some appliqueing, or some gold-leafing. Soon coherence will return.

3. Bought two pairs of cute sandals at Nordstrom today. One of the labels may have said Jessica Simpson on them. I AM GOING TO HELL. I will miss you.

I think I was deeply high when I bought these. Who buys shoes like these? Oh, it’s me. Disco gladiator? I don’t know. How do you make the strings stay up?

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Also, Strudel with her new sock monster, a birthday gift from Supa. She loves it!

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