Scratchy called me up the other morning, ebullient with self-granted freedom.

“I’m playing hooky!” she sang. “Want to go to brunch?”

Brunch…indulgent. Leisurely. I looked down at myself and saw that I had showered and wasn’t covered with any byproducts from Mommy’s little cheeserancher. Phenomenal! She did hork on me this morning, though, as I was putting some dishes in the sink. I think I was accidentally squeezing her too hard after 45 minutes of boob nibbling.

“BLOORP! YARF!” Cheeseranched! Saliva, milk, and curds ran down my front and covered the cabinet I was standing closest to. This is glamorous, glamorous shit here, people. You should all get pregnant tomorrow. No…yesterday!

“Did you hold her over the sink?” my sister asked, later. I think my sister has good instincts. After all, we were raised by wolves by a woman who would attack you with her sock if you had a snotty backseat face-explosion, seeing-as-how there were no paper products in the car, despite the fact that we were out to fast food at least three times a week. And if that isn’t a run-on sentence, then I am the ghost of Lindsay Lohan’s missing breasts. R.I.P., dirty pillows, R.I.P.

So…brunch. “Yes!” I said. “Come on down!”

We ended up at this cafe I inexplicably love. I love it because it’s in Eastlake, the very first neighborhood in Seattle I lived in. I wasn’t even on the lease because I wasn’t 18 yet. After my first week in town I decided two things: one, to give up smoking, because cigarettes cost twice as much here, and good god, Seattle had hills on top of that, unlike most of B.F. Illinois. So I was wheezing in addition to being charged a boodle for my fix. Secondly, I decided to secure work within walking distance of my new house.

Well, the Eastlake cafe was hiring a dishwasher, and being SUPREMELY unskilled (unless you count being able to hit a bong, eat a taco, drink some Snapple, and shift into third all at the same time a skill, which frankly, I do, albeit an unmarketable one) I thought my best course of action was to apply for any crap job that would take me.

I got called for an interview at the cafe, put on some reasonable clothes, and showed up on time. The owner, who still lurks there, took me into the back and looked me over, arching her evil heavy black eyebrows at me.

“Hmm, nope,” she said. “I need someone stronger. I need someone who can lift fifty pounds. Can you lift fifty pounds?”

“My sister weighs fifty pounds,” I said. “I can lift her.” At the time, my sister was seven.

“No, this won’t work. I need a boy. Dismissed!” The interview ended.

I told Scratchy this story as we were waiting for our breakfasts.

“That’s sexist discrimination!” Scratchy said.

“It’s her,” I said, pointing to the petite, heavily-browed sexist terror swooping around her cafe.

“How’s everything?” Petite Terror asked, swooping past our table with a coffee pot.

“Fine,” we said, and smiled.

After we were finished, we paid up front. I was holding Strudel, who was snappily attired in her stretchy suit with the darker- and lighter-blue alternating stripes.

“Oh, he’s so cute,” blabbed Petite Terror. “How old is he?”

“She’s five months old,” I said, as Scratchy said as an aside, to me: “Still sexist, I see.” I ate a chortle that turned into an uncomfortable snort.

“Oh,” said Petite Terror. “The blue stripes had me fooled. Makes me think of that movie, that ‘O Where Are Thou Brother.'”

“Ah ha ha,” I managed.

We turned away and Scratchy tsked, “Sexist, and now calling your child a convict.”

“And yet I keep coming back,” I said.

Dear Revlon,

Your new, limited-edition nail enamel “Twilight” is utterly and completely off-the-hook. I get mad compliments on it wherever I go. I wore it to court the other day, and it works at night too. It is trashy in a very good way…this is my summer color. Also, this stuff is NOT chipping. My little girl and I think it totally rules!!! I feel just like Paris Hilton, except you know, without the millions of dollars, tiny chihuahua, and the lazy eye. Please keep making it!

Six Days Later:

Dear Ms. Asshole:

We have received your comments from the Revlon website and wish to thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding Nail Enamel Twilight.

We love to hear from our consumers, but more so when words are as kind as yours!

Thank you for sharing your observations about our product. We assure you that your comments have been noted and forwarded to the appropriate personnel.

Thank you for your interest in Revlon products. We hope to continue to serve your cosmetic needs.

Sincerely,
Rachel
Sr. Consumer Services Representative
Revlon Consumer Information

I think I love Ian Kerner. He rules. How can you not love someone who wrote the Cunnilinguist Manifesto? And, I’m sorry, but he’s kind of cute, too. Maybe his ideas are making him cute.

This interview in The Morning News is hilarious, and really shows the way he is being very careful with this issue. He uses humor, but is not mean-spirited. Dr. Kerner aknowledges the previous issues with feminism and sexual empowerment, but does not say women or men are superior; he just says that men and women are different (duh, I know, but I prefer this approach).

Father’s Day is coming…give the gift of cunnilingus tips!

Did I just write that? Yes, yes I did.

AIIIGHT, I am pretty much almost always thinking about my special fun box (SFB) and opportunities that are afforded with said SFB. Rzan left a comment in my last post referring to hers as a “hoohoo,” making me go “hoohoohoohoo” in my office for several minutes. Regular readers know that we at the offices of I, Asshole also refer to our SFB as a “No-No Place.” I am thinking about also adopting “my fhqwhgads,” but my poor companion has enough of a speech impediment.

I (very disrespectfully) used to call my baby’s daddy’s stabbin’ arm “Mr. Dickums,” which he hated. I was an awesome wife.

Anywho, what do you call your No-No Place?

Well! I had an interesting run-in tonight. I went into Trabant, a chai house in the University District that all the library school peeps have been yammering about. I wanted to give Frannie a snack of streamed soy milk, and get myself a mocha for the work I had to do after she went to bed.

“SJ!” said a voice behind me. I spun around and saw an oddly familiar man who seemed to really know who I was. “Hey, it’s Joshua.”

“Oh, hey!” I said, as if I knew exactly who he was. “How are you?” I was doing that thing that we’re all conditioned to do–smile, turn around, and flip through the mental Rolodex. Shit, writing center? Graduated library peep? Someone I used to work with? That party where I woke up in the bathtub with a ferret and my butt hurt?

Finally, he gave me a clue. “You’re a star,” he said. This was getting worse.

“What do you mean, a star?” I said, nervously.

“Your blog.” Oh, crap. Recognized from the blog. “I’m Joshua Norton,” he said, at last. Oh thank god.

So, that is how I happened to meet another blogger that I have tried to have coffee with on-and-off. He was really funny and very nice–much less caustic than in print. (I probably shouldn’t give that away.) He was probably thinking that I am dull-as-dirt in real life, but I never said otherwise. Trabant is a wireless cafe, so he was blogging, of course. Now I know how he is able to write reams and reams of interesting stuff; he is ever-diligent. And he has already posted our meeting in the form of a filthy pack of lies. If I ever need a PR rep, I will call him.

This happened a while ago too, when I was with Daymented of all people (by “all people,” I mean another blogger). I am like a minor celebrity of no consequence–Seattle’s answer to Paris Hilton!

Things to Do To-day!

1. Morning:
a. Fuck up muffins. Crappity tiny expensive grocery store does not have muffin tins, as companion was promised. Chuck exquisite, from-scratch muffin batter into loaf pan, because Mark Bittman Sayeth that All Muffin Batter is Quick Bread Batter Divided into 8-12 parts. Micromanage; disorganize.

b. Get grumpy whilst waiting for Giant Muffin Loaf to cook (1 hour, ten minutes). Kick dog (imaginary). Pinch companion in the tit, hard. Watch companion get distrustful and declare, “You need to eat something.” Go into warthog mode. Wrestle companion to the ground like a little bitch (also imaginary, companion always wins).

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On Friday night I was “cold chillin” at my companion’s friend’s new crash pad. He is on his own after being with one woman for ten years, which is all of his adult life. The friend and I have a lot in common right now, but I was the dumper and he is sort of a dumpee, so I represent the evil, be-boobed side of things. Needless to say, he is not very happy with his current situation; he seems to be crawling through the hell I was crawling through in January.

My companion popped into the bathroom and the friend and I got to talking about food and being a pig.

“I have totally gained weight since I hooked up with my companion,” I said. “He is always feeding me or something.” I have gained five pounds or so but I am trying to watch it since I bought almost a whole new wardrobe in February.

“Well, that’s not such a bad thing to gain weight,” the friend said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “When my mom got cancer, the doctor said it was really good she was overweight.”

“Oh,” I said.

“He said the fact that she was obese is what made her hang on for so long. When you get to a certain stage with cancer, your appetite goes away completely.”

“Hmm,” I said, unhelpfully.

“Yep.”

Later he said something about waking up in the morning by choking on a puddle of your own tears. It was funny, and then I felt like I was going to cry, and then it was funny again. I was kind of glad when Frannie scraped up her knee and I had to go home.

I nicked off this past week for a dirty weekend with my companion. I hadn’t realized that, true to the tradition of the d.w., I had sort of snuck away. I thought I had covered all my bases: I threw up a special voicemail and had told Frannie’s dad where I was going and who with. However, when I got back, my inbox was bursting with urgent emails from my thesis advisor, whom I had neglected to tell I was going away. Well, she knows now. Oops.

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Today was a day of (mostly) guilt-free screwing around, which is a relief because yesterday was a day of finishing class and serving divorce papers on my ex. The serving went fine, and now he has twenty days to reply to the summons. My friends and I were joking about sending him a variety case of liquor to ensure that he goes into default. I am so going to Hell.

A conversation I had with my mother recently made very clear to me that I’m usually not a guilt-free screwing-around type, but am usually bugging out on something. We were speculating on the odds of me getting married again ever (unlikely). I told her I was looking forward to living in filthy, filthy, disgusting sin.

“Oh, SJ,” she sighed. “Lots of people live together without being married. You are such a closet Catholic.” She made her “where-did-I-go-wrong?” face, which she trots out every chance she gets.

“No, Mom,” I said. “I mean, filthy FILTHY sin.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s different then.” The Shedonist knows all about filthy sin.

I am trying to relax a little. I think it’s finally happening. I know I’m getting back into the swing because I have returned to tormenting other peoples’ children when their parents are out of earshot. A little boy at the mall the other day was short at the ice cream place and I took unreasonable amounts of pleasure in giving him the smackdown.

“Lady, do you have ten cents?” he said, batting his big brown eyes at me. The ice-cream jerk was holding the little boy’s dripping mint chocolate chip cone hostage until he could pony up the dough.

“For you?” I said. “No.” I shook my head sadly and walked away. The clerk and her supervisor giggled uncomfortably, and a couple of minutes later I spotted the little boy walking with the cone that the clerk had just given over. What a sucker she was.

And then today my companion, Frannie, and I went to the beach. It was nice, but a little cloudy. We climbed the lifeguard tower and a little girl who was about four bratted over to where we were. She had one of those bitty blonde pixie cuts that are devastatingly cute on some children, and merely serve to increase the obnoxious quotient of other children.

“Haaaay, no fair,” she whined at us as I spotted Frannie’s climb up the lifeguard tower. “I’m not supposed to climb up that.”

“You should take that up with your mother,” I replied.

“My mother and father said I can’t climb it!”

“Maybe you should get some new parents,” I said. Her eyes got wide and she shook her head and walked away.

I climbed up behind Frannie and sat next to my companion, who was laughing with me. I am lucky that I have found someone who is indulgent of my assmittenry.

In Other News

Later, Frannie and I went to a small used bookstore in Wallingford and I bought her a copy of Dahl’s The Witches and trashy school break reading for myself.

Of course she had to poop, and I lucked out for once and picked a shop that has a customer bathroom. She was carrying a cheap little plastic horse and doll set that her dad bought her and didn’t know where to put them down. I decided not to wait and peed while she was dilly-dallying and staring at the dead flies trapped behind the plastic-covered, winterized window. I didn’t flush after I’d finished and told her it was her turn now.

“Where do I put my pony and my princess?”

“Just set them on the back of the toilet,” I said impatiently.

Ploop! The pony fell into the can as she reached over it.

“Dammit!” I said.

“Can you get it, Mom?” Frannie pleaded with me. I thought for a minute: should I reach into the Mystery Toilet, this toilet I have already peed in myself? To fish out some cheap plastic Barbie-related crap her dad bought her?

“No,” I said. “Just go poop. We are flushing that fucking pony.” It was pretty small, I reasoned.

Frannie pooped, sadly, mourning her pony, and I flushed. The water went swirling down, and the pony came bouncing back.

“Dammit!” I said. I reached in the toilet and pulled the wet, germy pony out, and threw it away. I washed my hands and thought about all the times I have been covered in shit, blood, or vomit in the last three years. Or just embarrassing public incidents in general.

I walked away from the sink to where Frannie was waiting for me.

“Where’s my pony?” she asked.

“He dead,” I said.

And tonight I am eating ice cream in my pajama pants and reading Bridget Jones’ Diary, which I snobbily avoided the first time around. I am the squirming little bitch of PMS today and I can’t do a damned thing about it.

In Other, Non-Poop-Related News

Yesterday’s hair experiment came off well and now I am back to orange and pink. It didn’t come off without a hitch, however. All that sizzling was the ends of my hair melting. Normally I have hair like steel, and this is the first time I’ve had loss or breakage from too much beauty parlor. I watched in horror as most of the little fried ends (and some chunks) went down the drain in the shower.

After I got my hair did I had the final meeting with my student organization before we officially turn the reins over to the new officers. I told my fellow officers that I was futzing with my hair on the bus ride down and was horrified that the ends were still coming off, and that this guy in a suit was staring at me the whole time.

“Oh,” said the treasurer. “You were the weirdo on the bus today.”

She was totally right; I was the weirdo on the bus.