Tricky, tricky body. Some people say that weird things start to happen to your body when you’re in your twenties, others say it’s your thirties. I am in-between, and I can tell you it’s now.

I have this theory that whenever one hole in my body closes up, another one opens. When I was eighteen this hole formed in the roof of my mouth. I went to an oral surgeon who thought it was an exploded salivary gland.

“What can you do for me?” I asked, after his diagnosis.

“Well. I don’t like the looks of it.” He had a beard, which he of course slapped a medical mask over. Is there nothing creepier than that? That’s like realizing your old auntie is wearing a swimsuit that becomes sheer when wet, and all the sudden you can see her No-No Place through it. Doctors should be required to be clean-shaven, it oughta be a law.

“I think we should cut it out, and biopsy it.”

“You mean you’re going to cut my hole out, and replace it with an even bigger one?”

“Ahhh,” he said, for I cracked his Zen riddle. There was nothing else to say after that, so he rubbed his mask over his beard, thoughtfully, and it made that hideous scratching sound that only a beard and a surgical mask can make.

Recently, the hole closed up. No more hole that I had to lie about and say it “didn’t hurt a bit” when the dentist would probe it with his little pick. No more shooting, tickly feeling that traveled up to my ear when I licked it. It took seven years to close up, and now I kind of miss it.

It got to be reassuring, the way your little toes are: don’t need ’em, but would miss ’em if they were gone.

But the pendulum swung the other way, as it is wont to do. Now I have a giant hole on my shoulder blade that won’t close up. It’s not cancer or anything. It’s the most giant zit ever.

Buried, three miles below SJ’s surface. Deeper than the Titanic. It lived as a slightly ouchy lump for months, waiting, waiting, for my mouth-hole to close up, I am convinced.

Now it is the Zit That Won’t Go Away. I squeeze it, it refills itself fast as a drink in a Chinese restaurant. I ignore it, it lurks, waiting. The victimized pore is now large enough to act as a rain gauge, should I choose to lie in the yard topless.

Me vs. My Body. Who will win? Where will the next hole appear?

As we look back on the glorious year that was 2002, we must not forget an important (and free) activity that people often turn to in times of economic turmoil: humping.

Once, there were fabulous songsmiths who could weave spellbinding tunes that were worthy of the act itself. I am referring to, of course, persons such as Barry White, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green. They made music that was called “soul” music, and crafted lyrics that said things such as “ooh baby, I’m going to give you all of my sweet lovin’,” which, roughly translated, meant: “Girl, hold still, cause I’m gonna stick my thing in you.”

Alas, “soul” (the genre title implying “humping is good for your soul”) is dead. In these modern times, we have instead the genre known as “R&B.” I cannot back this up, but I’m pretty sure the “R” stands for “Ready” and the “B” stands for “Boning,” as in “The Ready For Boning” genre.

It is also important to note that today’s youth have no interest in the tedious subtlety of the previous “soul” generation. We want our humping NOW, and in lieu of that, we want it described to us using in the MOST GRAPHIC TERMS POSSIBLE, and instead of real instruments we want a backbeat that goes “um-tss, tss, tss, BOOM!” Turn up that bass, BI-otch, cause it’s time to get it OOOONNN!

We in the offices of I, Asshole have worked hard to provide you with a list of Musical Hi-lites of 2002, and proudly present: SONGS ABOUT HUMPING (2002).

First, a call for female equality. In her song “Work It,” Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot demands the same treatment as her male counterparts, except instead of requesting “let me stick it in you,” she suggests that you stick it in her. (Important: this is the defining difference between today’s male and female hiphop artistes.)

Missy Elliot, “Work It” (snippet)

“Call before you come, I need to shave my chocha,
You do or you don

Well. Yesterday my sister and I were walking into QFC, a.k.a. “The Quality Food Center,” or as Mr. Husband and I like to say, “Quick Fast Crap.”

A man on his way out was walking towards us, middle-aged, bald, buck teeth–just your typical “dude aound town” that you pass all day long. What was different about this fellow is what he said to us.

“Boy!” he said, slowing down as he passed us. “You two sure need a trip to the beauty parlor!”

Now, I never said I was gorgeous, but my roots are under control right now and we were both decently dressed. The absolutely outrageous part of this was how unattractive the man himself was.

We didn’t say anything, because we are good atheists and know to turn the other cheek, but we thought of some stuff later that would have been so cherry:

Stoopid Man: “You two sure need a trip to the beauty parlor!”

Me: “Well, you need a trip to the manners parlor!”

My Sister: “You need a trip to the shut-up store!”

Mr. Husband, on being told the story later: “He needs a trip to the fist parlor!”

I think the last is my favorite.

In Other News:

Went up to the feed store in Lynnwood today (Lynnwood motto: “Where mullets lack ironic value, for they are still ubiquitous”) to get some more poultry chow.

And wouldn’t you know it, they had more orphaned chickens. Damn, I am such a sucker for orphan chickens. People dump chickens at this store when they are half-grown and are the mutty results of chook cross-breeding. Not so pleasant to look at to some, but I think all mutts very sweet; they automatically get underdog points with me. Chooks are like tattoos–can’t have just one. (Or four.)

I “adopted” two more today, and on the way home one was bocking like a normal chicken and one was trilling like a songbird, though they look very similar. You just never know.

Some people become crazy Lesbionic Cat Ladies, other collect a passel of dogs that drag them up and down the block during walks. Not me. I am starting to receive chicken-related gifts from friends, so I guess I have become The Chicken Lady. That’s cool.

The drive to Olympia (where Mr. Husband’s aunt and uncle live, people I would contend are the only sane members of the family) is usually mercifully short–an hour tops. You leave Seattle, get to see a gob of pine trees, play “who would you rather sleep with?” for a while, and then BAM you’re there. Good stuff.

Not on Xmas Eve, however. The drive was a two-and-a-half hour extravaganza of festive brake lights and jolly middle fingers. The rain blatted down onto the windshield, causing me to fret about my poor wet chickens, who would not get their coop door closed against this mess, and my leather yard clogs which I had forgotten on the back porch again.

Needless to say, things got a little weird in the car. The subject of Mr. Husband’s family came up in regards to the Santa picture question.

“Why don’t you just check with me first, in regards to your sister’s ideas,” I said, trying desperately to sound casual.

“I don’t know what your deal with my sister is. You two always get so tense.”

“Well,” I said. This is the point at which I usually just give a feeble “well” or “aherm” or change the subject entirely. Not today though. I blame the feelings of car-claustrophobia that happen after an hour of gridlock.

“Well,” I said again. “I just don’t like your sister.” Crap. I can’t believe after seven years of biting my tongue I just blurted that out in the car.

He was quiet for a moment.

“You don’t like my sister?”

“No, and she doesn’t like me either. It’s pretty obvious, honey, and it’s been going on for years.”

“I like your sister,” he said, as if this was any sort of valid argument whatsoever.

But my sister is nice, I thought. This time, I didn’t say anything.

We got there and we were pretty wasted from the drive and the discussion (except for Frannie, who slept the whole way). Mr. Husband’s sister was all ready there, having left earlier with their parents. I grabbed the first glass of wine I saw, and some how got caught up in a discussion about where Frannie would attend preschool. We are looking into a school that is run by one of Mr. Husband’s childhood friends, and a few other private schools.

“What’s wrong with public schools?” asked The Sister, a public school teacher.

I thought for a minute, took a breath. My first instinct in any situation like this is to formulate a polite answer and change the subject. Did I have to do that anymore? Wasn’t our mutual hatred practically out in the open now, now that Mr. Husband knew what everyone else had for forever?

“Really? The real reason?” She nodded her head. “Riff-raff, overcrowding, and underfunding. You know, the typical stuff.”

“Riff-raff,” she repeated. She didn’t say anything else to me, and got up a short time later and walked away.

She was ready for me to give her a stupid opinion so I gave her one. She is such an emotional person that she’s never taken complex, subtle arguments well when she thinks she’s right, which is most of the time. There are a billion reasons I don’t want public school; I have tried explaining them to her in the past and she just won’t hear me. So my new tactic is to piss her off so completely with my apparent stupidity that she will leave me the fuck alone. Whatever works, right?

Since Xmas is out-of-control, and I am out-of-control (as usual), I have decided to make this a week all about player hating, and HATE in general. Around this time of year, I always think of the old Doug Allen comic, Steven. Steven was this little kid who would run around yelling, “I HATE!” I can really relate to that. I see this blog as a respite from Xmas cheer, so today I will continue to player-hate on my sister-in-law.

When I was about twenty, my sister-in-law decided she was going to get married to her long-time beau, Mountain Man. Mountain Man is a nice fellow, a big fan of skiing and large dogs and the outdoors in general. He met The Sister while they were in college, and though The Sister was raised in the big city like Mr. Husband, she was soon converted to Mountain Man’s unholy outdoorsy ways.

SO, after a five-year engagement, they were finally set to be married. She was going to have her storybook Barbie Princess wedding on some old docked ferry boat that could be rented out for parties. She was going to wear a white dress, though she and Mountain Man were in their late twenties and had been living together for at least four years. Fine. (Am I a better person because I eloped and we paid for our own damn wedding? Probably, but that’s another story.)

The Sister and I never got along well (we had a vicious argument during a small family vacation in New Mexico about how booty/non-booty public schools are the previous spring, and I am always suspicious of someone who can so whole-heartedly defend public schools) so the stage was set for future tension.

Then we get the wedding “itinerary” in the mail a couple of weeks before the glorious event. Mr. Husband is slated to play “The Wedding March” on his saxophone and to provide ambient music beforehand, while the guests are milling around. Oh good, he says. He is happy to do this for her. Then I see my name…I am set to read some crappy poem. Talk about sending a message: You are as irrelevant as a monk’s penis.

This immediately causes my inner pirate to emerge.

“YARR! I’LL NEVER BE READING FOR THAT SCURVY WENCH!”

How dare she write me into the itinerary without asking me first? I don’t like her well enough to be in her stupid wedding! I was fuming, like the giant idiot I am.
She called a week later to arrange some other stuff with Mr. Husband and she got me first. She is a very emotional person, but I could not allow this infraction to stand.

“Oh, hi,” I said, as nonchalantly as possible. “About your wedding, listen, I just don’t feel comfortable participating in it.” It was diplomatic (for me), but true. I was actually pretty proud of myself.

“WHAT?” she shrieked, after what I said had sunk in a bit. “WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN MY WEDDING? Let me talk to my brother.” I could hear her sobbing on the phone as Mr. Husband tried to calm her down.

We flew up to Seattle a week or so later, and needless to say there was a lot of tension in the pre-wedding get-togethers. I do not appear in any of the group wedding pictures, but after the ceremony the photographer followed me around taking pictures (because I was the only one there who did not look like a J. Crew ad) until I got too shitfaced and I think he figured it would be unseemly to continue.

Glamourously, and in typical younger-SJ fashion, I drank so many glasses of wine I ended up vomiting over the side of the gently-swaying ferry boat. I am told (I don’t remember) that the Wedding Princess and Mountain Man were swept off after the reception in a little speedboat, and Mr. Husband was allowed to use their SUV. Which I also vomited in.

I slept in the car until two in the morning, in our hotel’s garage. Mr. Husband sat with me, since I am a giant sack of potatoes and could not be carried up to our room.

The Sister, Mountain Man, and the Ugliest Baby are driving in from Idaho tonight for Xmas. During their last visit in August, she stirred the pot and convinced Mr. Husband he was unhappy and should change his life around. That he had to do things for himself.

Hello? Family=sacrifices. Which she should know about, since she has one, as well as a crappy job teaching public school that keeps her away on weekends, preparing material and grading papers, etc. Freud called, he wants his theory about projecting back.

So Mr. Husband quits his taxi job and loses his cherry schedule, which means I have to arrange for my friend to watch little Frannie twice a week while I’m in school. And he starts school himself which is a good thing, but then OH SURPRISE, discovers that he doesn’t have any more time than he did before, and that things are actually more stressful now.

I can’t wait to see his sister and tell her how beautifully her plans for her brother went. If she tries to meddle again, I’m going to talk to her in a way that her grade school-teaching ass can understand: KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR OWN GODDAMN PAPER. DO NOT DISTURB YOUR NEIGHBOR.

Can’t wait to see her.

Subtitled: The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

Well, everything’s falling apart over here, as usual. Out to dinner with Mr. Husband and his family last night and he casually mentions that he’s going to let his sister take my precious wee little Frenchy and her daughter and put them on some strange man’s lap and let a random photographer immortalize their fear and misery.

It was her idea, of course (Mr. Husband would never be that organized), but he is such a chicken that he only mentions it in the presence of his parents and in a restaurant where I can’t TEAR OUT HIS LIVER and eat it in front of him. I am very touchy about subjects regarding The Sister ever since she accused me of trying to ruin her wedding four years ago. I, Asshole have the memory of an elephant, as they say.

The Sister is not doing her daughter any favors with this stunt, either, since the child all ready looks like a Troll Doll on a good day. Put her next to Franny, who is frankly WB-ready, and some old guy dressed up as Santa, and KAPOW! the camera will crack with all the visual contradictions.

Mr. Husband’s sister is a big fan of the Importance of Traditions. I have seen the hallowed family album that features Mr. Husband and Sister on Santa’s lap, first as embryos and then as people old enough to put away a fifth of vodka apiece and remain standing. We must get together every year and BE HAPPY and CELEBRATE XMAS, which involves breaking the bank on escalatingly-extravagant gifts which everyone must open ONE AT A TIME, taking a minimum of four hours.

(Last year Mr. Husband and I tried to buck tradition and rip and shred and rejoice quickly, the way it’s meant to be. We were greeted with a cavalcade of dirty looks and everyone else just opened their presents extra slowly, to make up for our ridiculousness.)

The thing that is most worrisome is that Mr. Husband seems to be getting subsumed into all of this Hoo-hah. He says things like, “I don’t really care what happens, or what we do,” but I see him getting this dopey look on his face when his family makes sappy Christmas plans around him. This year he had the nerve to suggest that we purchase a Christmas tree.

“Hmm,” I said, as if I was actually considering it. “That’s sounds okay. I’ll make a list. Let’s see. A good tree will probably set us back…fifty. A tree that will be up for a couple of weeks. And we will need some ornaments. And some lights, and a tree topper. I don’t want an angel, so my vote is for a picture of Ayn Rand or Nietzsche. I’ll let you pick that one.

“We need something to hold up the tree, and to finish it off we need a tree skirt. I bet we can get away with spending about $150 or so.”

I smirked with satisfaction as Mr. Husband’s eyes bulged out.

“Huh. Maybe another time, then,” he conceded and went off to practice his horn.

I have learned that I never have to veto something outright, all I have to do is estimate the cost involved. Works every time.

“If you want that piney smell, burn some freaking candles,” my sister says.

Word to that.

Surreal Moment #4,627:

1:50, this morning: I had a cigarette while taking a little spin around Ballard. Obstensibly, I was out to buy cat food, but I wanted to finish my cig before I got out of ol’ Jerome.

I drove up Holman Road, which was looking hyper-real due to my recent insomnia. I can’t figure it out–it’s usually anxiety, but my head has been so full of fluff since school let out I should be sleeping like a corpse.

There was nothing but red and white Christmas lights strung up on the trees lining the road. I flipped on the NPR station that plays jazz at night, and it was Stephanie Grappeli, who I normally don’t enjoy at all. But hey, he was playing “Ain’t Misbehavin” and even he couldn’t fuck that one up.

Sometimes, when you’re out at two a.m., and there are Christmas lights and a cigarette, and no sounds except your wheels going “shush” and a weird fiddle version of a Cole Porter classic, you can squint your eyes and pretend you’re someplace else. Someplace nice. And then you can sleep.

Am I special? You bet your fucking webbed toes I am.

I was thinking today that all we are can be summed up by our likes and dislikes. Isn’t that it? You can’t tell what’s cranking around in a person’s brain until they start reacting, right? I don’t want to hear about DNA or brain scans. What’s imporant is all the shit you should talk about on a first date, but don’t cause you’re scared that if you say “well, I happen to LIKE the taste of my own semen” you won’t get to see that person’s no-no place. These are not easy things, these are hard things.

What I Totally Get:

• Ripping scabs off. Repeatedly.
• Plucking eyebrows until you look attitudinal, even while smiling.
• Spanking naked butts, any age or gender.
• Eating the seeds of everything. I will not be one of those suckers standing around, spitting out watermelon seeds.
• Cat fuzz therapy.
• The pleasures of smashing and destroying something that took hours to create.

Things I Don’t Get:

• Why Rob Schneider is not an international superstar, since he is so damned sexy. Oh, wait. Am I the only one who has a thing for short, weird-looking men who star in horrible movies? Come on, you know that fake-leg part in Deuce Bigalow was money. Heather Mills be damned, I say, fake parts are funny.
• GIANT dildoes with REALISTIC veins, and OMG hair.
• People who are so repressed that the first time you see them drunk, they tell you a bunch of depressing shit about their lives. Our post-finals pub night comes to mind here. NEVER get drunk with a bunch of forty-something future librarians. NEVER. Let it out when you’re sober, people.
• Speaking of, why do I always fall prey to the Fast Food Fairy when I’m drunk and out and about. Why? Why? Last week I had three lemondrops and a beer, and there I was at Taco Bell, all queued up and ready to hurl. The Bell gave me and my sober friend food poisoning. Will I go back? YES.
• Staying up late and then complaining about it. This was supposed to be a list about other people’s stupidity, but once again, it’s all about ME. Me tired, me no go to bed. Me stay up and write in blog and google “giant dildo with veins.” Me have no life.
• People who don’t have lives, and then talk smack about others. God I wanted to link someone else here, but I can’t think of her url. She was from Canada and so annoying and horrible…would whine about not being linked on your blog and then not link you. Also posted a picture of herself with a giant zit on her nose once. That was pretty cool.

Ah, me. Time for bed.

Ah, me. X-mas is truly upon us. How do I know? Today I experienced the ultimate pleasure known as the Annual X-mas Fight with Mr. Husband.

“My grandma called today,” Mr. Husband said nonchalantly. This is the woman who still calls Japanese persons “Japs” and has told me I’d be “much prettier if I only could lose ten pounds and if I’d take all that stuff out of my face,” referring to my piercings.

“Ah-hah,” I said.

“She’s emailing a recipe for potatoes that we’re supposed to make for Christmas dinner,” he said, his voice getting that note of tension that would be hidden from other people but is easy for me to distinguish after all the mess we