Author Archives: iasshole

Xmas for Jerks

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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.

OIC

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“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 MF Diary: Change Tastes Like Carrot Caek

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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!

I Guess I Can Get a What What After All

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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.

Monkey Hips and Peanut Sauce

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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.

Sunday Snowparty

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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.

Can I Get a WHAT WHAT, or Maybe Just a Erm, Well.

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What’s up, my dizzles? Nizzles? Frizzles? Whatever.

I am writing to report there is nothing much to report. Isn’t that the best? Maybe I am just checking in to say I have not hung myself in tiny pathetic despair yet. Today I met a man at the bank who asked me what I was listening to. “Those are some big headphones,” he said. I have the BEST answer to keep away guys who actually talk to me, especially when I am in my slightly punk rock but mostly retail bimbo mode (read: actual attempt at having…an appearance, there may be eyeshadow involved): JAZZ. Or hip hop. That dries things right up with Mr. No One Knows I Am Wearing Girl’s Pants. But Avast and Forsooth he took it to the next level.

“What kind?” he said.

At this point I was tempted to go all Candy Dulfer on his ass for lulz and victory, but I told the truth that I was listening to like 60s style stuff. And he was all, tell me moar, so I told him I was listening to Carumba by Lee Morgan. Then he was like, “OMFGBBQapocalypse” because he is all into the 60’s jazz trumpet as well.

Then I got quizzed, at which point a line was starting to form behind me.

“Do you have The Rajah?”

“Yes.”

“Last Sessions?”

“Yes.”

“Cornbread.”

“YES.”

“I think that one’s OUT OF PRINT.” A vein was bulging out in his forehead and I was kind of excited that there was bulletproof glass between us. He asked me if I use the internet to download music. Bitch, I downloaded YOUR MOM.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am notorious internet pirate.” It is important to start dropping articles when one speaks of these matters. He scribbled a website for me to get Blue Mitchell albums I am missing, and he invited me to come back many, many, many times. I am not kidding. And, duh, it’s my bank, so I think I will.

This seemed auspicious to me, because after drinking delicious godfathers and telling srcsmgrl that I would not be dating EVER AGAIN JUST LAST NIGHT, I decided to start dating again this morning. You don’t know me, I’m still a mystery to you. One thing I have discovered about my mysterious self is that, and this is not going to be what you expect, which is that as soon as I say one thing, I do the opposite–NO! This is to tell you that sometimes I wake up and I’ve just snapped. The switch goes off. Some people may call this behavior manic, and those people don’t know where their dog went or who keyed their car. Others call it DECISIVE, and those people have smoothly-surfaced autos and dogs that they can cherish in the right now, and not just the memory.

Meeting weird random man at the bank made me think that maybe I’m not a total leper and maybe I can have a conversation with someone. Because of my interests and likes (wine tastings, aforementioned Ye Olde Jazz, Broadway musicals, bed and breakfasts, reading socioeconomic analysis about China) sometimes I feel like my best match is probably a fifty-year-old gay man. Probably not going to happen. But, you know, it’s been like six months. W00t unassailable human spirit in the face of common sense and the actual possibility of me actually being happy! That’s cheerful. Yeaaah.

In other news, I was offered a fulltime job on the third shift, but I decided not to take it. I am already feeling fairly isolated as it is, and I think going graveyard will just up that. It pays less than retail job, so I think I will just stick out RJ since they are still threatening to make me fulltime there. I had a bubble tea today. GOTTDAM I LOVES THE MALL. Mall old friend I embrace thee. I will never leave you again, even if I get a better job, which I will soon.

P.S. It are snow here, let me out.

Your Frankly Vulgar Red Pullover

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Me: So, some people from grad school came into the store the other day, and they were all “OMG, what are you doing here?”
X: Yeah?
Me: Yeah, and I was like, “Working. Trying to get a professional contract.”
X: How was that?
Me: Weird. And then they sort of decided not to stay in the store at all and backed away and out slowly, with their eyes all wide. It felt bad. I’m just working.
X: Maybe they were thinking about how they could end up.

END UP! Have I “ended up”? Is it over? Does anyone, personally, think that they’ve ended up? Even if you use that term, you usually mean it like, “Now I am catching you up on the story of how I ended up working HR at a bank, ZZZ.”

My BFF has my back, though, about one of the women who were big-eying and backing away.

K: Wasn’t she phD FAIL and flailing for a good time there?
me: Yes, she got in and quit I think.
K: I rest my case.
me: Roffle
You have my back.
K: And I will cut a bitch.
me: Thanks
K: Don’t let the mean girls get you down.
me: I don’t think it needs to be awkward. I mean, I am prepared to run into people I know. It just felt like a scene out of Dickens all the sudden or something.
K: hee
me: People gotta work dude
K: Okay, I have a tiny cold and you made me snort snot down my face.
me: Master’s degree is not magic.

I know someday I’ll look back at this time, and I’ll say, A. if only I could have tricked someone into have sex with me and then to go home immediately after and B. why did I think that sweater looked good on me??

Tooodally at the Mall

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What is working at the mall like? I hear you wondering, you blessed three people who escaped this fate. It seems like young people who are not doing manual labor go one of two ways: restaurant or retail. I went retail, because although the work is dirty (in the sense of actual dirt) and the people are often jackasses, you don’t get food all over yourself. I did have a dalliance with coffee for a while, but it broked my carpals and made me smell like dairy barf. DAINTY.

1. My coworkers’ average age is 20. There are a couple of people who are near my age, but when I say things like NOOOO THEY TOOK MY BUCKET they just cock their heads and look at me funny. Don’t panic, I’m from the internet.

2. I am captive to whomever comes on off the street. I was alarmed the other night because someone came into the mall entrance and yelled, “LISTEN UP!” I was ready to hit the floor and crawl out the back, but then one of my coworkers said, “Oh, don’t worry, it’s a fraternity ritual.” He yelled his name or something and then walked out. We also had the meth heads who somehow got their mitts on a generic mall card that could be spent in any store. I guess nothing in our store looked resellable, because they left pretty quickly. This was a relief because though the girl was tiny (90 pounds, seriously) she smelled like she had shit her pants with a massive shit that you would imagine being produced by, say, John Goodman. Then there was the old letch who immediately upon coming in swooped up and put his arm around me. I backed away, but he kept touching me, until I almost bolted. I may look like a retail bimbo with my eyeliner and giant earrings, but don’t touch my bikini, doods.

3. There is a guy who works at the mall with a cool shiner. I am going to ask him if he will be my friend. I love shiners.

Mal Mots avec Frannie 12/08 Edition

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My kid came back from her dad’s today, and whoa was that enlightening. As I mentioned in my post before this one, he pretty much called bullshit on me and the stomachache thing. Franny remembers it differently.

“So, I want to talk to you about something serious, and any answer is okay. I just want you to say what’s in your mind and what’s the truth,” I said.

“Okay,” Franny said.

“I talked to your dad on Friday and he said you don’t have stomachaches at his house.”

Franny looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears.

“I get them ALL THE TIME, Mom.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I was kind of upset after I talked to him, because he pretty much said the stomachaches only happen at my house, and that they’re my fault, because of stuff that’s going on here with Strudel’s dad and stuff.” Franny gawped at this.

“That’s DUMB,” she said. She thought for a minute. “He makes it sound like a lot of things are your fault, Mom.”

We talked about gluten and what we’re trying to do and so forth, and I asked her if she felt like her dad could do it. “Probably not,” she said.

My point is not, surprisingly, to dog on SeaFed, but to just say, see what happens when you mate with someone 180 degrees different than you? My advice is to get a dog or hatch a child from an egg. Good luck.

FURTHER

We were coming back from the grocery store and she was talking about various shenanigans. I have conflicts with the devilry she gets up to, because from first grade on, from the time of the pants-wetting incident, I was an angry child who was not buying into the system.

“So they wanted to take me to get Santa pictures this weekend,” she said.

“Oh really?” I said.

“Yes, I waited until I had my dress on to tell them that I would not be doing Santa pictures.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah, and my stepmom got really mad. She yelled and told me to put my dress away. But later I saw Santa and he told me to sit on his lap.”

“And did you?”

“Yeaah, I felt like I had to. So I sat on his lap.”

“What did you ask for?” I said.

“Welll, I always ask for an American Girl doll. But you know what, Mom? I knew it was not Santa, because last year he asked me ‘which one’ and I said ‘Kaya,’ and this year he didn’t. So I knew it was just a creepy old man.”

“Oh my.”

“My stepmom was soooo mad. She made me talk to my dad on the phone.”

My child is angry, too. And I have a dent on my lower lip where I was biting it. Not because I was enjoying the fact that she is tormenting her weekend hosts, but because she is kicking and fighting. She’s alive.