Early-Morning Smash Up

Posted on February 4, 2006 by iasshole

Around 7:30 this morning there was another smash up on Aurora Avenue in front of our building. A silver SUV ripped over the sidewalks and the objects on the sidewalk. The SUV took out a couple of signposts and a fireplug, which flooded the street with water. I was in the shower myself, but my companion said the crash sounded like a giant ocean wave, and that it looked like the driver was okay.

There are so many crashes in front of our house, it makes me wonder how many there are all up and down Aurora, which is a divided highway with a speed limit the ranges between 30 and 55 MPH. Recently my sister’s friend’s sister got hit by a car up in Shoreline while crossing at a designated crosswalk. I don’t think that crosswalks are a good idea on highways. I much prefer the pedestrian overpass.

Left view: The offending SUV, which has come to rest in front of the Park Motel.

Center view: A police car amidst the wreckage.

Right view: An officer surveys the scene where the fireplug was hella tore up.

Last summer’s hit and run.

$30 Dollars In My Pocket, and Stupid Crap Tears on My Face

Posted on February 2, 2006 by iasshole

My biggie baby in January.

Today I used the very active and popular Seattle-flavor craigslist to unload some baby furniture that has been responsible for a displeasing amount of shin-barkage and dust-collection. I posted the pieces at 2:30, and the furniture was claimed by 5:30. That’s great service, man.

My companion carried the jumparoo down to the car of the lady who wanted it. Strudel can no longer be contained in it–she prefers to do her jumping on the couch or in her crib now, and she crawls fast enough to follow me all over the house. If the jumparoo’s so useless, why was I so sad to see him carrying it out the door? GODDAM hormones making me weepy over stupid piece of plastic crap.

My littley baby in August.

When you have to start selling their little baby jails, you know it means they’re getting big enough to run away from you. At least I have my companion hobbled…by ~~lust~~ delicious home cooking.

PNW’ed: Behind the Scenes

Posted on February 1, 2006 by iasshole

Just the other week, one of my favorite perps I went to library school with, BossTweed, asked me how I make PNW’ed.

“A request: one day can you regale your loyal readership with a tale about how PNW’ed is produced? Quickly or slowly? With the aid of Ripple wine or Twinkies? On paper and then scanned or is it bR0N DiGita1? Inquiring minds want to know.”

Your wish is granted! BOOONGG!

Back in the early days, before PNW’ed (TM) was a multi-million dollar empire, I drew every comic by hand. Ha ha! How inefficient! Today, PNW’ed is produced my award-winning studio, comprised of the finest artists that I don’t have to pay. We’re like a family!

But don’t worry, Wallingford’s Favorite Comic Strip (assuming that there are no other comic artists living in Wallingford) is still given the loving attention it has always had.

You’re in luck, because today is the day that our staff artists do the actual drawings! Normally today is lettering day, but our letterer is out with the rickets.

Let’s take a peek into the production studio!

Figure 1: Our head staff artist attempts to finish today’s quota before the rats make off with her bread and water.

Figure 2: For some reason, the staff seems to get weepy when they are made to draw until their fingers bleed.

Figure 3: Enjoy that bread and water, because breaktime is almost over, you.

Figure 4: When morale gets low, I like to bring out the PNW’ed Studios mascot, Broomy.

Figure 5: When the workday ends, the diligent workers are forced back into their closet. See you tomorrow, ladies!

Now you’ve had an exclusive peek into the production studios of PNW’ed. Thanks for visiting!

Continue reading →

A Weekend of Medium-Righteousness;

Posted on January 30, 2006 by iasshole

Or, The Weekend in Literal Review, Using a Cat-butt Rating System.

Hell-O bad. The cat has vomited on you while you sleep.
So-so. The cat tripped you while you were carrying a plastic bucket of salsa, the salsa asplode, and now your whole house smells like cilantro.
Pretty good. The cat came and sat in your lap, and did not freak out and start biting you like a little bitch.
Awesome! The cat is sleeping next to your head like a fetching and stylish hat and is purring in a soothing fashion.

1. Friday Night

Friday night sucked donkey balls. Franny and I were quarrelling about dumbness, as we pretty much did all weekend. Franny is always exhausted by Friday and acts like a pill. She flipped out about something and declared herself “stupid” and ran to her room. This always bums me out, because we try not to do any name-calling around here. My modus operandi is usually to say you are being sassy, rude, mean, etc., and here’s how you can fix your behavior. But sometimes when she gets really upset she just freaks out and starts calling herself names. She doesn’t fit in a jar, and the postage to China is too expensive, so what can you do?

Also, my companion and I were supposed to have a date night, but Strudel has been teething so we just couldn’t leave. The children were drugged and put to bed early, and then my companion made me a vodka and POB and I was drugged and went to bed early as well.

Friday night:
Children and their sassy and/or teething moufs:

2. Saturday

Saturday was better, but busy. I escaped to breakfast with my friend Halo, who is a librarian about town these days, because she works for multiple schools/systems. We braved the labyrinthine neighborhood Queen Anne, which freaks my fragile inner compass out, to go to the 5-Spot, part of the local Chow Foods chain. Halo and I joked about hitting all of them in the next couple of months but quickly dismissed this idea after realizing that Jitterbug has gone down the tubes in the past couple of years and that after standing at the door of the 5-Spot for ten minutes no one seated or even acknowledged us. So we split to another neighborhood for a different restaurant entirely.

Then I came home and the dryer broke. And you know, you don’t find out that the dryer’s broken until you try to use it, so we hung up our clothes all over the house until they dried. And then panicked, because we have two small children, one of whom is prone to nosebleeds and vomiting, and we could have a laundry crisis at ANY MINUTE. The building manager promised that she would have a repairperson out today or tomorrow, so I am trying to remain calm.

Chow Foods chain:
Driving around with Halo:
Fucking Dryer: and a *~3

3. Sunday

…made up for a lot of the other nonsense. We took Franny to see Narnia, which was a treat for everyone, and apparently Strudel behaved just fine (drugged up before we left). Children are much more tolerable when they’re in a drug-induced stupor. I believe those Victorians were on to something, with all their laudanum and whatnot. Actually, no, they weren’t, because they believed that women’s uteruses floated around their bodies and strangled people during full moons or something. But they were right about drugs, anyway.

The awesome part was that my stalwart companion hung up a curtain and rod that separates our room into two parts, so that Strudel won’t stand up in her crib and scream while staring at us at three in the morning. She’s not stupid; she knows we’re back…she just can’t make eye contact with us anymore.

Figures 1 and 2: The thin line between sanity and unsanity.

It’s helping a lot so far. She can’t see us and we can pretend that we don’t have a baby two feet away from us. So last night, for the first time in over a month, we were able to “fight crime” in our own comfy bed. Take that, bad guys. Also, we had sex.

Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia:
The Thin Line Bewtween Love and Hate (by IKEA):
The Victorians’ contributions to medical science:

Method of Modern Mullet; Or, Strudel Smile

Posted on January 27, 2006 by iasshole

…Because I couldn’t decide, that’s why.

Ah, The Baby. You are so twee, so confectionary. I get lost in the aroma of your stinky stinky baby feet, a fragance more intoxicating than one thousand baking cakes.

Look how ickle you are.

But what is this, The Baby? What new development is this? Yes, you are at that awkward early-toddler hair stage. I will not cut that little goldie-brown swirl, just because you’re starting to look like Hall AND Oates.

But what does it remind me of? Think think think.

Oh yes.

Continue reading →

P.S. I Hate You

Posted on January 25, 2006 by iasshole

1. You there, with the new blonde highlights, who manages the office at my daughter’s school. Hold still. You asked me to write a procurement letter for the school’s auction, which I did happily. I drafted it up from scratch and it was perfect, I tells you. Don’t tell me that you are going to make edits for the letter’s audience and then MOVE MY FUCKING COMMAS AROUND. Is your “audience” a bunch of seventh graders from Portugal? Because perhaps they would not notice how ESL-riffic you made my mechanically-perfect letter.

2. Hey, dickhole. Yes, you, downstairs neighbor. You may think it’s super off-the-chain that your bass and amp sounds like a medium-sized jet taking off. We’ve also noticed that you’ve scheduled some late-night flights recently, if you know what I mean. We are still sleeping in the living room so when you practice the vibrations go right into our skulls as we are trying to sleep. Last Friday night you practiced so loudly you scrambled my precious brain cells that were desperately holding onto the twelves timetables and most of the names of the Thundercats. Thank Fuck I can still remember Cheetara.

But that’s all right. Because your bedroom is right below the room my baby sleeps in. We all wake up NICE AND EARLY around here. And tomorrow I am going to teach Franny how to play Mary Poppins, which I used to play when I was five. Grab your umbrella, Baby Cat, because the bed’s the roof and the floor’s the street. Mary Poppins floats down from the sky at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. Repeatedly.

3. Before I forget…you, Princess, with the new baby in my favorite neighborhood restaurant. God your baby is so fucking cute. I have to admit that my last one looked a little bit like a baloney loaf for the first month or so, but yours is a looker. But not when she’s fucking crying all through lunch. I know cries. Infants kind of all sound the same, in the beginning. That wasn’t a hunger cry or a pain cry. Jiggling your baby around in her little baby bucket and shaking an electronic doodad in her face is not going to placate her.

Do you know why she’s crying? DO YOU? ALLOW ME TO BUY YOU A VOWEL HERE. Get ready…babies LIKE TO BE HELD. She is crying because she wants to be picked up and held. I know, WHAT? Human beings crave contact and comfort from their mothers? They don’t want to spend their infancy in those plastic baby bucket car seats? I KNOW, NEWS FLASH FOR REALS. You may email me the Nobel Peace Prize for making this startling discovery.

This is not rocket science, people. This is not even the Chemistry for Fucking Morons class they forced me to take in high school because I can’t even add with a calculator. If you have a baby, hold it. It’s not a fucking purse dog. Maybe you should have gotten a fucking purse dog. The woman who was sitting across from you, who I presume was your mother-in-law, who was white-knuckling the table because her granddaughter needed to be picked up called. She says you should have gotten a purse dog instead.

PNW’ed 9!

Posted on January 24, 2006 by iasshole

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Bad Advice: Free, Good Advice: One Bucket of Kettle Corn

Posted on January 23, 2006 by iasshole

I got an email over the weekend, which said, in part:

So, lately I read your post “Tuesday October 30, 2001, In Which I Eat Something Else That Doesn’t Agree With Me” and it was kind of a shock/revelation to me.

If it’s ok to ask, can you please answer the following:

a) Was this topic of yours true or false?
b) What do you think is the reason for you to do this?
c) Are you still doing it or with time this habit gone?
d) Have you ever had any problems after swallowing something?

A) Yes, this is a true story.

B) The reason I was swallowing things is complicated. When I was little, there wasn’t a lot of thought involved. It was like scratching an itch. As I got older I became very interested in the notion of “circus freaks” and people who could do tricks such as swallowing lightbulbs or goldfish and bringing them back up again. I had an idea that I would train myself to do this, to swallow larger and larger things until I was swallowing things that I had to bring back up. I was also interested in the idea of sword-swallowing. Growing up as an outsider in my community (which is another story all together), I felt like I would probably end up in a circus or jail or something. It’s probably better that I went to college instead.

When I got older (teens) I realized that it was more like compulsive behaviors I have read about. My brain would simply “itch” until I had swallowed the penny or rock or bug or god-knows-what. I felt better–until next time. I hit a figurative wall when I was seventeen. My coworkers and I were chatting at work, and we were kind of a foolish, punky crowd so I made a bet with someone that I could swallow one of those sticky security tags that you find on the back of CD cases or electronics (about the size of a stick of gum). I don’t remember how the bet came about, but knowing me I’m sure I initiated it. We were also curious to see if a security tag would go off if it was inside your body. (Imagine the shoplifting possibilities there!)

There were two results: the first was that security tags don’t go off if they are inside your body. The second was that when I thought about what I had done, which was to swallow a sharp piece of plastic encasing a sharp piece of metal, I realized I could get myself into some serious trouble. I realized that I needed to take it to the next level, and get some serious training for my hobby, or I needed to step down.

So, C) I stopped. It was hard, but I quit it like I’ve quit everything else: cold turkey. I have days when I’m only halfway aware and I’ll start fixating on some little object, and then I’ll snap out of it and control myself. It’s not like smoking, which can bring one a lot of pleasure and is still marginally socially acceptable. I didn’t want to drive people away or cut my guts open.

In fact, smoking, which I started doing heavily around the same time, helped a lot. I don’t recommend this as a cure, of course. I quit smoking regularly in ’95, picked it up again during my divorce in ’03, and quit again sometime in ’04. That is also a different story, though.

D) I have never had physical problems that I’ve been aware of as a result of compulsive swallowing. You touched on the issue of swallowing foreign objects and sexual satisfaction as well. There was no connection there for me. I don’t know if all the objects came out, either. Maybe stuff is still jingling around in there, like those sharks that swallow boots and such. I don’t know.

I hope this helps in some way. Good luck.

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Shatner

Posted on January 22, 2006 by iasshole

I am NOT afraid to tell you that I am getting increasingly interested in William Shatner. I think it started a few years ago when he was spouting poetry on those Priceline commercials. I guess I just admire anyone who is so blatantly, moxiously ridiculous. Tonight I ran across his 1978 rendition of Elton John’s “Rocketman.”

It may be viewed here: Mars Ain’t the Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids.

The spoken-word delivery. The Who-the-Fuck-Are-You, Sartre? cigarette. And oh sweet baby Jesus’s barber’s dog, the toupee. Then, when it just can’t get any worse, a giant, more animated Shatner mitosises off of the original Shatner, dwarfing him.

Figure 1: “Lookin’ good, Shatner.” “Right back atcha, dawg.”

Me, on the way to the can: “William Shatner makes me hot.”

Companion, sincerely: “That makes me really happy.”

What could be better on a Sunday night?

Social Capital

Posted on January 22, 2006 by iasshole

Here is a picture of Halo and I when we were in our last torturous year of grad school. Believe it or not, we actually used this picture for a class presentation. We were doing a librarianish community analysis of nearby Lake Forest Park. As we looked for signs of life and community interaction there, we became part of the community ourselves, for a little while. We couldn’t resist.

I am on the left. R.I.P., emo bangs, R.I.P.

Here is how I look today. Kind of out of it on no coffee. Goddam you, No Coffee. Also, it has been so long since I messed up my hair that it is getting curly again. I guess I’m going to have to cut up my punk rock card. LE SIGH.