Velvet Aboveground

I mentioned that when I got my bathroom painted and hung my latest velvet paintings I would publish my catalogue. Well! The bathroom is painted, but I still haven’t gotten my lil’ ponies up. But as it turns out you can photograph them anyway.

Jimi says it’s party time. But he always does. He comes into work every day hung over, but I can’t fire him. I know he’s got a bunch of bodyless babies to provide for.

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Y U SO SINSUR, Jimi?

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Dear Mr. AssShaw

Say, what’s happening in Assholeport? I have been keeping you all in the dark, no? Well, you’ll be DELIGHTED to know it’s the usual collection of domestic mishmash. ASSHOLES! They’re Just Like You (tee em)!

Tea Party!

Assholes have tea parties for their kids, just like YOU.

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Seriously, it was pretty cool. I gave the girls a five minute talk on the history of tea parties, because that’s how we roll up in the librarian’s hizzy, and they drank mint and hibiscus tea and et lil’ sandwiches, quiche, fruit salad, and something like cheesecake that was in mini puff pastries for dessert.

Companion did all the cooking and preparation, and I did the hostessing and place setting. We ducked into the scullery, aka behind the fridge, and they started doing stupid things like dipping their fruit into their tea. Led by my child, of course, who is a show-off in a crowd. Six- and seven-year-olds, my GAH.

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Weenie sandwiches with cream cheese filling. There was bacon flavor, chive flavor, and traditional cucumber with watercress. Companion denounced them as nasty. They were, kind of. If I had a tea party, I would serve taleggio, jalapeno poppers, and raw oysters. It would be something to write home about. Or maybe not, because you’d probably be in the bathroom for the rest of the afternoon.

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On Being Less Dressed, Or, Sans-Culottes

HAY WOW, it’s June. I just had to say that.

So, it’s warming up around this joint and I am busting out the tiny clothes.

I seem to be traveling in reverse, somehow. I think that when you’re young you’re supposed to wear the ho clothes, and then as you get older you’re supposed to get more respectable somehow, and grow some dignity, and buy some culottes or whatever. Especially post-spawning.

When I was nineteen I moved to Phoenix and lived there for three years. I had a whitey-white friend like me who was always hiding from the sun as well. We used to take the long way wherever we went at school so we could skim the edges of buildings and walls in order to take advantage of the shade there. I was a fairly religious applier or sunscreen and wore ballcaps and sunglasses. I wore long shorts cut off at the knee and voluminous rock tee shirts. My technique for beating the heat was to go the route of loose clothes that didn’t cling.

Of course, the side effect of this was that I looked like a slightly raggedy frat boy, especially since I cut all my hair off when I moved there. I look at pictures of myself at twenty and I realize I have seen cuter catheters. Depresso. I told myself I was being sensible in the face of really punishing weather, but I look back and realize I was hiding myself, too.

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How The Diaphragm Got Into The Jacket Pocket

Annika stood at the bus stop where they agreed to meet, tapping both of her feet, which she could never resist doing when she was wearing clicky shoes. She tried to avoid the puddles, but a little water had seeped into her heels anyway. They were probably not a very good choice for a day which involved public transit and some walking. But she was not ready to meet him in anything practical yet.

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Dear Gentle Reader

Dear SJ,

Letters published your blog to a nefarious group of people or the person standing in line in front of you at the bank are played. Just quit it. Don’t do it. No one wants to read some long-winded bullshit piece of bullcrap about what you should have said, if only you were fast enough. The next time you find someone else’s diaphragm in your vest pocket after a trip to the drycleaners, have it out right then and there. Don’t save it up for your ineffectual digital screed.

And why not let it out? Anger applied carefully can be a real aphrodisiac. One minute you could be chucking a slightly cracked birth control device at someone’s head, the next minute you’re hitting it on a box of chemicals. Admit it, you like your drycleaner’s mustache. You like it, even though you know it’s being non-rocked in a completely non-ironic fashion. And look over there, under the garment carousel…you’re all set if you’ve stopped routinely carrying condoms with you.

Don’t worry about the chemicals on the ‘phragm. Remember that they have a sterilizing effect. Perhaps they will neutralize the acids created when you were angry. No one likes an angry, acidy, baby barn. Sometimes I get so angry I think my tweeter could fry up hushpuppies. See, that’s what you should have said to the drycleaner.

Dearest SJ, you have to look at these incidents as life-bonuses. If things went your way all the time, you would become smug and self-satisfied, which would unravel like a house of cards the minute you got a crack in your windshield or rugburn while you were combing the carpet looking for errant crack crumbs.

In conclusion, just let it out. No one likes a martyr.

Sincerely,
SJ

Don’t Make Me Get The Butt Out

My neighbor’s parked in my driveway right now. This is the neighbor who had the two-day bachelor party last summer, right below my bedroom window. We’ve been on friendly-ish terms since he apologized for keeping us up so late.

It’s kind of a weird driveway–it’s one of those where it used to be a real driveway, but now it’s only a driveway nub that reaches to the sidewalk. I park there when the street is full, and no one else does. You feel kind of afraid to park there–like you’ll get ticketed for blocking the sidewalk or something.

It’s a really little thing. But it kind of makes me want to go over there and pee on his doorstep, right in the middle of the day. And I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee today, too. I think my backache is making me TESTY.

I’m about to go out to lunch with a friend, and I’m sure that due to the people who don’t want to pay to park at the Zoo, I will have lost my street spot when I come back. I will knock on his door then. I can look out my window and see that the parking lot behind his apartment building is almost empty.

AH URBAN LIVING.

Y U So Pretty?

I love it when people go blonde inappropriately, don’t you? It’s got to be one of my most favorite things ever. Especially with summer coming up and all.

Back in the old days, after the drug money, but before the hard-scrabble poverty that occurs when certain persons won’t get off the damn couch, and after I saved a sinking battleship full of kittens, but before I had my vestigial tail removed…wait, what?

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that at one point in my life, when I had only a little money, I used to run off to the drugstore monthly and buy something to fuck my hair up with. PMS does not discriminate. It does not care if you have one million dollars, or five dollars and nineteen cents. So back in the day I used to give myself bad art-school dropout haircuts and change my hair color at home. Now I have someone to do it for me, and very well.

What to do? Whose hair can I play with now?

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