Author Archives: iasshole

Lazy Crazy Days of Summer

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This morning I woke up and the sun was low. I worked for a while and then it popped its head up through the trees and started eating the mist in my yard, which was swirling around. The mist and air reminds me of being in the woods foraging for mushrooms. The temperature has just been perfect–not muggy-hot, but not cold, either. Cloudy and hazy in the morning and then it burns off by the afternoon.

I took the girls out last night and P. made a fruits basket while I was out.

IN OTHER NEWS

We celebrated my sister’s birthday on Saturday. She is 26. Can you believe that? She used to guest star on this joint as a high schooler. I remember when I was 26. I was in library school! I had pink hair then and chickens. So much has changed since the…uh.

We went on a harbor cruise and then to dinner on one of the piers. The theme of the day was photobombing.

“MOM MOM WE DON’T HAVE ARMS!!”

Rilly girls. The hits just keep coming from this comedy duo.

Franny: I will wear the crab hat for five dollars.

Strudel: I will wear it for NOTHING.

SOLD!!

In today’s matinee, the part of Sally Draper will be played by Franny, who was not only wearing this dress but then promptly ordered a “Roy Rogers.” That is her grandfather all over. She spent a week with him at the beginning of the summer at sailing camp, exploring her WASP roots.

Morgan strokes the hot lemon towels.

I took a quick shower before we left to meet Morgan and her fella and when I got home I washed my face and all this dirt just sheeted off it. Holy crap! Summer pollution ahoy. Soon the rains will come back and stick the pollutions to the ground again.

Subject: Unlinking required due to to Google Penguin unnatural links penalty, domain: iasshole.org

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So, I feel like it’s important to give people insight into what it’s like to be a fabulous, glamorous blogger. Hint: it’s a lot like being a normal person, except instead of just living your life, you pay for server space and make bad puns a lot. Also handy if you’re in court occasionally.

This morning lyricsbay.com, a site known to many as what you hit when you’re arguing about whether a 900 years old Weezer song is about meth or alcoholism, for example, or you realize you’re having an emo moment. “Yes,” you say, trying to look around the eye-searing blingee shit on the site, and ringtone offers. “This 10cc song has really captured the agony of my soul today.”

Once I linked to a page on lyricsbay. Once a long, long time ago. Or, as they put it, I have been affected by a blackhat SEO scheme. Apparently they are in trouble with an analytics thingie called Google Penguin, which is a thing I don’t care about because it’s related to SEO. They have also emailed my bloghost about this “violation.” I think it’s a funny look at what Google’s up to, anyway.

Well, I will let the email speak for itself:

Gentlemen,

We, lyricsbay.com, have received the following alert message for all services of our website in Google Webmaster Tools:

“We’ve reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in bad link schemes.”

Hence, we analyzed our backlinks to look for artificial or unnatural links from the sites that are linking to us. Unfortunately, your website falls under this category, unintentionally making Google consider us participating in fraudulent link schemes.

Below is the list of the pages of your website that we’d like to be unlinked from:

http://iasshole.org/?feed=rss2&cat=10
http://iasshole.org/?p=874
http://iasshole.org/?p=874&cpage=1
http://iasshole.org/?cat=10

Finally, please keep in mind that unlinking will be beneficial to both our and your/your client’s sites and do not offer paid unlinking since we never put these links ourselves. Apparently they are relults of blackhat SEO campaigns conducted by our competitors (unfortunately there appears to be no way to track and identify the abuser), and our both sites were involved 50/50% due to being vulnerable to such kind of attacks, which makes us believe that it will be fair if you or your client unlink from us free of charge, as courtesy.

Please note that in case we receive no positive response and you/your client will not unlink from lyricsbay.com we will have no choice but include the history of communication with your organization(s) into the reconsideration request we will submit to Google to lift the “unnatural backlinks” penalty. Thank you for understanding our position.
—
Best regards,
www.lyricsbay.com

I replied:

Dear lyricsbay.com,

cc’d: My blog host

Rest assured, I am a human being and a blogger. There are no blackhat violations here. I scoff to think that in all the history of blackhat violations, anyone has come in and sinisterly put a single link on a post about getting an IUD inserted (oh, this is probably a good time to mention I’m not a gentleman). If anything, it’s more of a jimmyhat violation. GET IT? Because VAGINA? Ok, that was awkward.

Point being, I don’t have ads. I don’t participate in SEO schemes. I used to do a little SEO work, so since you’re willing to let me unlink you “free of charge, as a courtesy,” I am willing to give you a little unsolicited advice, free of charge. You can improve your SEO ranking by sucking less. Look, I even found this journal article about how you can suck less: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-protect-your-site-and-recover-from-a-google-penguin-penalty/65292/ Hmm, wow. An online journal about SEO optimization. They don’t even have to pretend to be not about the SEO benjamins. That’s meta.

But I digress. Feel free to forward this communication on to Google as proof that I am not some kind of nefarious jimmyhat organization. I’m sure picking off one blogger at a time who was giving your site free clicks for no reason will really improve the your Google Penguin rankings.

No love,
SJ
http://iasshole.org

P.S. Get a PR person

P.P.S. Hi Google!

UPDATE:

Oh, they responded already!

On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 6:36 AM, wrote:
Hi SJ,

Please let me make myself clearer. Google banned our site blaming us in buying links, it’s 100% not your fault, and we are asking you to unlink as courtesy only because we have to play according to google’s rules. Removing that links would be much appreciated.
—
Taras

My reply:

Hi Taras,

You were quite clear. You’re asking me to remove a link to your site. You are welcome to submit the above correspondence to Google as evidence that you were not buying links at iasshole.org. I’d even be happy to speak to the Google myself if you want to set up a conference call. Alternately, you may paypal me ONE MILLION DOLLARS as a courtesy for unlinking you.

Have a nice day,
SJ

Attachment:

Dear MF Diary again

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Hello!!! Today’s headline from the weekend is as follows: GOETHE RETURNS.

I know, I know, I didn’t say she was gone. I was feeling super sad about the whole thing and was mourning her quietly and giving extra love to Mere and Matilda. She disappeared a couple of days after the Fourth. Incredibly and much to my relief, the cats don’t mind the fireworks AT ALL, it seems. This is their third year with them. Horace, however, was another story. He spent a few days before, when the extra amateur booms started, hiding under a chair in the corner and scooching under the bed at night on his belly instead of being the little spoon. I called the vet and got a tranquilizer and doped him up every night for three days. He was stumbling around like Courtney Love on a Tuesday until he would pass out. He seems to have forgotten about it now.

ANYWAY. Goethe was gone and gone and I called the pound every day, and was hoping she’d turn up since she’s a menace, chipped, and licensed. P. and I decided to tell ourselves that some old lady had kidnapped her and was smothering her with love and tuna. Even though she is an asshole and hates strangers outside the house and will claw them. Anyway, I knew what the reality probably was and it was a bummer.

Then on Saturday night I was laying in bed and I heard a distinct and annoying yowling! GOETHE RETURNS! She was skinny and demanded pettles for fifteen minutes, and then I gave her some turkey. She didn’t seem to be dehydrated, though, so that’s good. If only you could talk, Gertie. You would say: “Fuck you, gimmie some more turkey or I walk again!”

I also took Feral Dwarf to Dragon Fest, and she had a nice time. She likes eating rando dim sum samplers for $2 each. She also had a fish-shaped waffle with adzuki filling. She also became a dragon.

The yard berries are popping off. I made a blueberry buckle on Sunday but not out of my blueberries. I don’t have enough yet. Maybe in a couple of years.

But for now there is enough for a snack each day. Today Franny came back on the ferry. She had some interesting stories about her month over there, and I’m sure more will come out in the next couple of weeks while she’s here. Then she’s gone for two more weeks, and then back until school starts.

I am also up to my ass in bathroom fixture and tile ideas. It’s time to dig into the utility room. I’ll have some hideous “before” pictures soon, which will be followed by hideous “during” and “after” pictures, because you know my taste. I’m trying to keep it in the flavor of the house, so square tiles and chrome. What I do not want is a tiled countertop like all the surfaces upstairs. Too much work!

Revenge of Little Edie

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Strudel was standing over me as I was making a grocery list for blueberry buckle. I never have cow milk on hand–I only cook with it.

“I’m going to eat you, Mom. RAWR.”

“Uh, ok,” I said. I was only half-listening since I was staring at recipes and trying to remember what I needed.

“You have to take those earrings out, though.”

“Never.”

“Those are nice earrings,” she said. A pause. “Say, Mom, have you made your will yet?”

“Wait, what? Why are you asking me this?”

“I was just wondering.”

“I was thinking of having one drawn up now that we’re done being in court for your sister. Is just another clever attempt to get your hands on my jewelry?”

“Of course not. You just have to think about these things.”

“May you burst like a toad”

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Summer’s in full swing here now, a little earlier than some years. Some people say summer doesn’t start until July 5th. The yard is looking really beautiful, in spite of a medium amount of benign neglect. Not Grey Gardens level, just a little, though. The only real eyesore is the hedge. It’s been cut back about 6 feet at this point and the top is all level. I know 15 minutes from now it’s going to be UNIFORM WALL OF LAUREL but for now it’s…well. You can see for yourself. It’s providing lots of firewood, which we were using until about two weeks ago, ha.

I put up some pictures of the really amazing, mature rhododendrons that this house came with. That’s how they looked between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but this yard came with almost every shrub and tree that I love. There is a mature pieris. I planted a pieris when I lived in that busted-ass unending renovation project in Crown Hill ten years ago. It was very wee and I left it.

There is a forsythia here. There was a wild forsythia in my backyard as a kid. I say wild, but who knows, really? I was told the woods my parents built their house on was an old farm about a hundred years before we came along so who knows if it just popped up or was planted. Did rural Illinois Victorian-era farmers plant forsythias? I don’t know. We found chucked glass medicine bottles and cow bones in our yard. Forsythias remind me of being little. It was next to a gooseberry bush, and surrounded by many fierce wild blackberries. I was the only one who ate them. Why on earth these were not turned into pies or frozen or canned is beyond me. That is exactly what you do with wild blackberries.

There is a golden chain tree. They make terrible suckers but I love them. Our Swedish grandma neighbor had some when we lived by the Zoo. There is an Italian prune tree. There is a lavender rose that was already established here. I’ve planted one at every house. I never thought much about fir trees, but I do a lot now, because they are my view as I lay in my hammock now. I have wanted a hammock for years but I never really had a yard I wanted to lie around in.

So I have discovered I have plant nostalgia.

Speaking of which, I made Chicago dogs the other night. I crave them in the summer and I feel like it’s my duty to foist them upon the girls occasionally. They are not 100% authentic, but pretty close. I’ve discovered I prefer shredded peperoncini because they’re easier to eat. When I was a kid I thought it was normal to roll into a mall and buy one. I dyed the relish.

I knew something was off and I remembered later that I forgot the raw onions. It was still good though. It’s like a salad on a eyeballs and butthole tube! Ok ok, I buy the beef ones. Seriously, though, do not do this without celery salt. I have celery salt for one reason. I even use my Old Bay more.

I will interrupt this ramble to say What One Dish Of Any Meal Will Taste Like at My House, aka Spices and Herbs I Abuse Most:

1. Paprika
2. Dill
3. Paprika AND dill
4. Thyme
5. Chipotle chili powder

Since I am doing spring mental-barf housekeeping very late, I’ll say that, obviously, beekeeping did not come to pass this year. I swear I was just bone tired a good six months after we moved in here, for lots of reasons. I did pick up a couple of pullets this spring, though. I decided to try the lower-fuss method of getting them feathered out and ready for the yard. The advantages are obvious: they are ready to go in your coop the day you bring them home, no brooder box needed. The drawback is that they are much more skittish since they’re not being held multiple times a day from day one. Strudel can get them to eat out of her hand but I cannot.

However, these old gals are hoors for table scraps.

Chicken n waffles! I made banana-cashew waffles for four. I am still trying to adjust portions to account for Franny’s temporary absence. She eats as much as an adult, and often more.

So here’s the new babies:

The black one is a Jersey giant. I tried to get one before with my last batch when I acquired the Todd Nebula (boo) but the chick cacked it a day in, and my Australorp ended up being named Snooki which suits her very well. The new giant’s name is Fruit Loop. The speckled one is named Fred Burkle. She’s an Orloff. The white one is some utility breed, I think? The interesting thing about her is that she has one blue eye and one greenish one. She didn’t have a name at first but Franny bigfooted it and now her name is Roger Sterling.

To which I say:

I’ve had them for about a month now. Man, I have been busy. I’m trying to balance blogging among the house and work and life and writing! It’s not easy. But I miss it. I think I am over my writing mania period, as I expected would happen. I’m editing now, which is hard, hard, much harder than writing. Every day I do something is a day I feel I haven’t just racked up, uselessly. It’s good to pay the bills but there has to be more, as well. If nothing else I think the discipline of waking up early has done me a lot of good.

In a more timely fashion, here is that hole-plugger I mentioned for the fence.

Ugly!!

Have a nice F.U. England day!!

Poop Diamond and a Tiny Open P.S.

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An old friend of mine said something to me a few months ago that really resonated with me. Hard. She’s good about that sort of thing. She can see truths right through to their heart. I don’t think she would be friends with me if I was constantly delusional about everything, but once in a while she can give me a really good, loving shove that I need.

Sometimes I feel sorry for my friend (in a weird way), because I think 99% of the time she sees the truth of her own life so fricking clearly. Harsh-light-of-day clearly. I’ve never seen her let a bad relationship go on, or carry on lying to herself. She is her own Cassandra. Ok, maybe that’s a bad analogy, because she listens to herself. It’s better to have self-insight, I know, than the alternative.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to tell you what she said, but I had to shove that piece of coal up my ass for a while and see what came out. I was telling her about an unpleasant run-in I’d had with someone I used to know (I didn’t write about it–too much going on really). I was lamenting that I had let myself get into relationships in my twenties with a lot of people who were not so good for me, which, if I am being honest with myself, was a nice way of saying, “Were huge assholes who didn’t really respect or understand me.” I knew this was a pattern, and I’d had a nagging feeling there was a code I was not quite cracking there.

Some of the people I was attracted to were just not nice–one-sided relationships all the way. They would make me happy for a while. “Wow,” I’d tell myself. “They certainly have an interesting take on the world. Maybe I can learn how to be more assertive (or decisive, or less worried about what other people thought about me, or whatever) from them.” Oh, Narcissus, I could watch you watch yourself for hours! You really are the grooviest. I’d take in what they’d say and feel the little pings of red flags pop up. Then things would not go so well. That strong trait or traits they exhibited that I thought I could learn from would be turned on me once. Ouch. And then several more times. Well, we’re going to have to call it a day, then.

It made me nervous because I had seen my mother run through people like mad over the years–husbands, fiances, friends. Umm…her children. I thought maybe I didn’t really know how to be friends with people. Something was certainly wrong with me. Hadn’t I been told that over and over again growing up? And then again for years by my husband? I was “not funny.” I was “weird.” When I got up the courage to actually show my ex my writing it “did not make sense.” (Okay, that is certainly true sometimes.) Lucky for me I made some friends with people who were nice and not broken. These were also people I decided to pattern my grown-up self on as I moved through my twenties and beyond. And wow, I am still friends with most of them, in a pretty normal, mutually-accepting way.

So to get back to my friend and what she said–I was kind of lamenting the fact that this creep ex-friend had made a little pecking intrusion back into my life via an email, and why was I always so bad at relationships (present company I was moaning to excepted). Then she said it. “You know, SJ, I don’t want to pathologize you, but you really didn’t have the best examples for normal relationships growing up.”

Saying that this was a light bulb moment would be greatly oversimplifying things, but it rung, like a clear little bell, and then kept ringing and resonating. I’ve heard similar from other people, and I’ve told myself that, but that sentence was exactly what I needed to hear from that friend on that day. I kept getting into relationships with people who were like my mother: self-involved, mean, unaccepting. I tried to pull away from her multiple times in my teens and twenties only to have my ex really disapprove of that choice, because he was a mirror of her.

Reader, I married my mother.

For a long time I thought my ex was a sociopath, because of the lack of empathy and some of his interesting life and moral choices, but lately, after following one disjointed thought and coincidence and conversation scrap after another–you know that feeling where you are kind of chaining along to some kind of conclusion? Just me? I hope not. Anyway, I’ve been reading about narcissists and I think I may have a bingo there. Or the closest I’l get to a bingo, anyway. I could tell you dozens of anecdotes and how they relate to each symptom, and at some point I might, for my own entertainment.

Anyway, I tell you this because I like to say when I have realized things, even if I think I might reevaluate things later. But these feels pretty right; it feels like some information I was missing, or at least a label on things. The good news is that on my own over the years I’ve developed coping techniques that are pretty similar to what’s recommended for dealing with a narcissist. Keeping things very brief, like our last exchange before school let out, when he had to scold me one more time and I basically gave him no reaction.

His wife is now opening calling him a lazy asshole in front of the children. Girl, I am breaking the fourth wall, okay? If you can read this a) you are driving too close and b) you should probably read this. All of it. Good fuck’n luck comrade.

I do wonder how Franny’s doing over there for her month! P. sent her a care package and I’ve texted but it is silent. I’m hoping she’s tired and happy.

In Other News

“If you come in to this room without knocking I will make meatballs out of you.”

The Bad Neighbor

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I’ve moved five times in the past ten years, as I could afford something better, as we were outgrowing places, and so forth. Pretty standard for renters with young kids, I’d imagine.

As a result, I’ve had a lot of neighbors. Some places I didn’t know them at all, and some I knew all of them. I had a neighbor throw a two-day party under my bedroom window in the summer who later threatened to kill my indoors-only cat for pooping in his bushes (it was just Nietzsche, you see, who could go incorporeal at will, and not all the other outdoor cats in the neighborhood). This was probably the worst one. I had a sweet old Swedish grandma type. I had a Moonpants. I’ve tried to be a good neighbor when I could, and most people have done the same.

However, I am now, decidedly, The Bad Neighbor.

This is funny to me, because we moved to a neighborhood where you barely see your neighbors. This, no doubt, lent a hand in our immediate robbery after moving in. To this day I cannot get the neighbor across the street to even acknowledge my existence as his neighbor, in spite of directly greeting him multiple times and very obviously coming in and out of my fence. He does talk to P. so I suppose that’s something. Point being, it’s just not a very social street.

It took eight months, but I finally made contact recently with the lady next door. It turns out she’s the one who left an anonymous cake on our porch right before Christmas. I thought about going door-to-door and asking who was nice enough to leave us a “welcome cake” as the unsigned note said, but then it was Christmas and I didn’t want to bother anyone. I was weeding the front bed when she walked up.

“Hi, I’m the one who left you the cake on your porch for Christmas,” she said first thing.

“Oh, that was you. I wondered. Thanks!”

“Well, there was a note.”

“I’m sorry, it was unsigned. I wasn’t sure,” I said.

“Hmmph.”

Strike one: I was an Anonacake Ingrate.

She went on to ask about my cats and told me they were pooping in her flowerbeds.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I can give you some tips…” She interrupted me then and took her leave shortly thereafter, but not before she took in the giant gold vampire head on my porch and my children and me and my flaming red door. I got the picture we were not her first choice for neighbors.

On the border of our mildly conflicted nations there is a laurel hedge. P. has been working to cut it back over time since it was about eight feet wider than it needed to be to still provide a privacy hedge. I wasn’t thrilled with how it looked at first, especially as I saw holes appearing, but it has filled in quickly as they usually do. Then he moved on to another shrub and proudly showed me the bonafide face-height hole which exposed one of her windows. When we moved in you could not even see her house. I panicked.

“We have to go to the hardware store NOW!” I said.

“Wha? Why?” he asked.

“NO TIME TO EXPLAIN, GET IN THE CAR.”

As it turns out, there was time to explain, since the hardware store is five minutes away.

“We need a bamboo screen thingie or something,” I said.

“Okay, why?”

“Well, we’re looking at ten years here, probably. She’s not that old. She’s already mad about the anonacake and our cats. I think we should plug that hole.”

He got it and we did.

Then there is the matter of my address. I filled out the little form to change my address before moving, as you do. I filled out P’s at the same time, since address changes were on my to-do list for moving. I double checked the address before dropping them in the mail. They were both the same, and correct, and as neatly printed as my deformed-from-years-of-typing hand could make them. P. started getting mail, and I started getting *some* mail. At first I didn’t think I was missing anything, since I got the deluge of catalogs you get when your mortgage broker and real estate agency sells you out.

Within a couple of weeks, our letter carrier figured it out–all my mail was going a couple of blocks up the street. One number had been entered incorrectly at the post office. Of course the letter carrier told me I filled out the form wrong, to which I said nothing, because it doesn’t matter. She put in for a change and all my first class mail started being forwarded correctly. The poor neighbor whose house my mail was going to had dutifully bundled some of my mail and had passed it along to the letter carrier, along with an angry note scrawled in pencil, “Figure out your mail forwarding! I’m going to start sending this back!!” Actually I’d prefer that to the note and the puddle my mail had been dropped into. Then the sender would know the mail was going to the wrong place.

Because of this early mistake, apparently this neighbor is now doomed to get my junk mail for all time. I still get junk mail forwarded with angry pencil scrawl, which I recycle. I know my neighbor isn’t walking it up the street, because I have a locked mailbox. The letter carrier is “forwarding” these pieces up the street. I thought about dropping them a note letting the neighbor know what the situation is, but I am not sure I want someone who is this angry to know where I live. So I will keep recycling the junk.

This weekend I am going to finish up an application for a writing fellowship that’s due Monday. It’s drafted, I just need to make sure it’s perfect. And then I will enjoy this lovely rainy weather. Happy summer. :(

I Ran Over a Gummy Bear

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Nightmere is enjoying rolling in the girls’ chalk drawings.

First I will say I finished my next draft. It took me 32 days and in some places was barely more than a screenplay, but the story was there, bang. The first pass of editing added about 10K words. It’s hovering around 62K words now and is with my own personal Alma Hitchcock who is actually using red pen on it, which is excruciating to watch. I’m sure I mentioned it’s a murder mystery involving clones and shit. I don’t know what to do with it now. But I am going to start outlining the sequel. These characters aren’t done yet. I’m still editing my short story and am going to use it to apply for a fellowship that starts in September. I’ll keep you posted.

On Monday I left my mobile telephony device on my nightstand, as I do ocassionally. Shit happens! Usually I remember to email P. and tell him I’ve been a bubble head again. It’s no coincidence I get a lot more done on days when I’m not easily contactable though. Still, I have a duty to remain reachable because I have one that’s barf-at-any-moment age and another one who’s like Bella Swan but with a personality (read: clumsy but fun during a night on the town).

I left work at my usual time and walked up and down the street I usually park on. No car. Maybe I passed it…where was the car? I walked back and forth with the dog, who was delighted with the game and my increasing sense of urgency. Oh boy! Now we were powerwalking! How fast would we go! He watched me closely. Would we begin to…run??? HIS FAVORITE.

His hopes were dashed, though, because I went back into my office and called P. from my desk phone. I had to tell him the car had been stolen. Reception was bad wherever he was.

“Hello?” I said. “HELLO HELLO HELLO?”

Finally I heard him: “…at the hospital…”

OH GOD. The car’s been stolen AND he’s at the hospital? My brain turned off for a second. You know what white noise panic that shuts off your ears?

They clicked back on again. “…kid’s foot was run over by a rollerskate so she’s having an xray…” He didn’t even have to tell me which one it was. The small one gets scrapes and bruises, but the big one sprains, strains, jams, spindles, folds, mutilates, and pulls things. Fortunately she hasn’t actually broken anything. Yet.

Franny was okay, though, and nothing was broken. They couldn’t reach me so they called him. Or maybe they called him first, now that I think of it. I didn’t have any messages except from him. [He came and got the car since he couldn’t reach me.] I get why the school takes these things up to 11. I really do. Next time we are just going to take her home and see how she does. They try to use that pain scale on her and everything is a NINE, OMG. She’s sensitive.

Last Friday she played Lily St. Regis in Annie, Jr., which is an abridged version of Annie, not the child of the orphan and I dunno, her dog? Imagine a plucky bastard dog baby in a fro wig. That is Annie, Jr. Because I am a moron and cannot find the pictures I took of her (I believe I transferred them somewhere for processing, SIGH) all I have at the moment is this tweet from the night of. Okay, it’s way more 1940s than 30s but it worked with her evil hat and evil dress.

If you know the musical, which I didn’t, since I thought from a young age the movie looked terrible (we watched it after; it is, except for the villains), you will know the character of Rooster. Rooster was played by an adorable out lesbian who did a marvelous job. I cannot tell you how much it blows my fucking mind that my kid is in musicals with an out lesbian who is in a relationship with Miss Hannigan. Times have changed.

ANYWAY. Franny was great and is refusing to do the musical next year. What she cares about, besides loafing, eating popsicles, and reading Archie comics, is art and the Japanese language. This is okay with me. I took her out to Dilettante after and her Auntie Dave surprised us by treating. I was supposed to pay since I dragged a bunch of grown ass people out on Friday night to see my kid be in a middle school musical for ten seconds. But no!

She is about to leave for a month to go to her dad’s house after school on Friday. I promised to send her packages and bought her a bunch of books to take with, since the library where she’s going is closed, boo. Her dad came to the musical on Saturday when I was helping kid-wrangle and I looked up from my phone and saw some old guy with a bald spot in the audience next to Franny’s grandpa. And lo! it was you-know-who. Well, we are all getting older, aren’t we? Every minute.

Dear goddam princess slambook

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What’s happening now? It’s Juneuary, but more June than January at the moment. I am feeling pretty mellow.

I did hit kind of a surprising rake in the grass yesterday. I had some free-floating anxiety and ended up taking a personal day. I felt better once I knocked some stuff off my list then relaxed.

I guess it wasn’t totally free-floating though. I suspected it was fallout from court. I’ve lost twenty-five pounds in the past year. I guess I could lose a little more, but EH. Not really a priority.

The girls are looking forward to summer. Franny’s going to be gone for a month out of the gate. I’m hoping she can use some of that time to talk with her dad some and just have a normal, non-overladen-with-yuk-and-subtext-and-angst times.

I don’t know if I mentioned I’m going to the Twin Peaks fest with my sister this summer. I bought a chevron-patterned shirt to wear. I’m getting hyped up about it around myah. Franny and I went to a Kyle MacLachlan Q&A session that was part of him receiving an achievement award, which was followed by a screening of the Twin Peaks pilot. It was so awesome to watch her watching him. That sounds weird, doesn’t it?

We decided we’re having a MacLachlanfest this summer. The Hidden is going on the list (Mr. MacLachlan said: “It’s a good rental.”), for sure, The Flintstones, and maybe some selected eps of Sex and the City. I think it’s going to be THE MOST AMAZING SUMMER EVER.

Here are some jerks I live with: