I have utterly succumbed to reality television, and stupid radio.

I remember when I was in high school, surrounded by people with budding ideals.

“I don’t watch TV anymore,” declared the boy with a Super Nintendo and a pool table.

“I don’t eat things with faces, or starches, or…anything,” declared The Skinny Girl.

“Peace in the Middle East!” said everyone, wearing cheap peace symbols they bought at the mall. “No blood for oil!” they said, and tied yellow ribbons onto everything that was nailed down.

“Get out of the way!” I said to my little sister, who was standing in front of the television.

I was good to my brain for a while, like when I moved out of my parents’ house and didn’t have a television. I would only listen to scratchy records and German bands with names like *Die Toasterwuffen*. I was not politically active, or even active really, but at least I was using the library. I was keeping it real. My friends would come over and be impressed with my spartan lifestyle, which was identical to theirs since they were poor, too.

Now Mr. Husband and I have a solemn pact: six years ago we purchased a TV/VCR that is the size of your average computer monitor, and we refuse to hook up to cable. This makes TV more discouraging, especially with all of the mostly horrible sitcoms that showed throughout the 90s and the bunny ear-twiddling. Ah for the days of Married with Children. In those days the TV was just used for video rentals.

But now there is the sickening car wreck known as reality television. But I have an excuse (as always): I think that what I do in my spare time directly relates to what I do when I am busy. When I was in junior college, I used to paint and read Dickens when I wasn’t in school, because school wasn’t very taxing. Now that I am reading theory and plotting and planning and stretching my poor little wad of fluff all the time, I listen to the R&B station incessantly and watch Joe Millionaire.

It’s hard enough to take a stab at becoming an intellectual or scholar without the temptations of Nelly telling me to take off my clothes or watching twenty poorly-dressed, orangy women fighting over one dopey guy. What is a girl to do? How can one resist? I can’t think all the time, or even most of the time.

God Bless America. The land where fast food three meals a day is more affordable that buying good, organic food. The place where it is far, far easier to never think AT ALL than to crack a book or consider something. The place where, ironically, life is so convenient that information is every where but challenging yourself is an uphill battle.

I should go study now, but I will probably go blogrollin.

Sometimes you put two little girlies together, you get trouble. Fingers go into eyes, there is shoving, and screaming, and snack-coveting. If you’re lucky, though, you get a few minutes of peace.

Today was one of those good days. I went to my friend’s house and brought little Frannie with me. After lunch the she and my friend’s daughter disappeared and were playing quietly in another room. Together my friend and I entered into that special kind of denial that mothers go into when small children are quiet.

Her house is safe, so we weren’t really worried. We sat and idly chatted for about ten minutes uninterupted, a sin and a luxury on any day. Occassionally we could hear the toilet seat banging up and down and giggling.

“I’m afraid to see what they’re doing,” my friend confessed, finally.

I took a deep breath. “I’ll go,” I said, and went to find them.

I went to the bathroom and pushed open the door. It jammed, because there was a chair in front of the sink blocking the way. I could hear the water blasting full-force.

My Frannie was on the chair, and her friend Liki was in in the sink, naked. Frannie was squirting hand soap all over Liki, and there were bubbles everywhere.

“I giving Liki a bath, Mama!” she told me.

I almost fell down, I was laughing so hard.

In Other News

Thanks to all who responded to my survey! I love mining information for educational purposes. I am so lucky! I will submit the results tomorrow, sans identifying information, of course.

I am writing a report on ethical research this weekend. I’m not sure why I picked this assignment, since I will probably be fudging the results for a data report I have due this week.

We are supposed to find seven people we know well and ask them nosy questions of our choosing. It is based on an Australian study/campaign called “Life. Be in It.” and is all about leisure-time activities and encouraging Aussies to get off their butts bums, which evidently are almost as flabby as Americans’.

Anyway, who wants to take a survey? I would encourage anyone I know/regular commenters to apply. Twenty questions, all about juice and elevators n’ shit. Email the macrophobe.

Wug, wug, so school started yesterday, which I thought was going to make me a slap-happy pappy, but only resulted in the formation of a grumpy-chumpy.

As usual, (I should really know better by now) there were readings due the first day that were posted at the last possible minute on the class website. Nothing like that sinking feeling of walking into the den of lions unprepared.

The bus ride home was a thrill, however: a short dumpy woman with long, black (I am not making this up) feathered hair, wearing one of those sateen jackets that usually bears the logo of a tavern on it, and tight, stonewashed jeans chose to heckle me and a school acquaintance for the whole ride home.

I think she was drunk out of her mind at four in the afternoon, and chemically imbalanced besides. She was with a scruffy dude with one of those weirdy leg immobilizers on and a pair of crutches. He was drunkenly trying to “shoosh” her as she yelled at us.

“YOU GIRLS TALK TOO MUCH, DID YOU KNOW THAT?”

She was hello-loud but so was the rest of the bus, so I didn’t realize she was talking to us at first. My friend and I were speaking in a normal tone of voice, and laughing a little.

“BOCK BOCK BOCK! THEY SOUND JUST LIKE CHICKENS, DON’T THEY, ROGER? BOCK BOCK, I NEVER HEARD SO MUCH TALKING IN MY WHOLE LIFE.”

My friend and I glanced at her and went on talking.

“It seems too early to be that drunk, don’t you think?” I asked my friend.

“THEY NEVER SHUT UP, DO THEY, ROGER?”

All the time Roger was going, “Shh, be quiet now, be polite, honey, please?”

At one point she moved over to Roger’s side of the bus and was out of sight. I could hear more murmuring as Roger was talking to her.

“OH ALL RIGHT, ROGER. I’M SORRY! HEY, DO YOU HEAR ME? I’M SORRY.”

I wanted to tell the BI-otch I was sorry she was so crazy, but I don’t know my school friend well enough to stir the pot. My conservative policy nowadays is to not start fistfights in front of possible future networking contacts. Because that’s what people always remember, instead of an awesome presentation. We continued to ignore her.

Finally my stop came. I moved towards the front (“OH GOOD, ROGER, ONE OF THOSE CHICKENS IS GETTING OFF.”) and told my friend to be careful.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I can take her.”

The bus rolled away and the evil BI-otch looked back at me through the window, twisting her face up very unbecomingly. I gave her the two-fisted salute and the last thing I could see before the bus got too far away was her jumping up and down on Roger and flapping her dumpy little arms, trying to claw through the window to get at me.

In Other News:

During Xmas break I discovered the folly of my ways via this article. Why am I wasting my time in a library/info sci masters’ program when I could be learning this stuff on the streets, or whatever this ridiculous asshole is trying to say.

NO. The appellation “asshole” is too good for him. I am the Asshole. He is an infected splinter on a dog’s dick.

Seriously, maybe I am wasting my time. I mean, Advanced Due Date Stamping is hardly any harder than Intro to Due Date Stamping. And the waiting list to get into LIS 546, Bun Variations, is about a mile long. I doubt I’ll get in before I graduate even. Oh well. At least I have Intermediate Patron Shooshing to look forward to next quarter.

If I ever meet this guy in person I will step on his Scrabble bag in kitten heels.

In Other, Other News:

If Mr. Husband ever gets smushed by a random chunk of 747, this is the first place I will go to soothe my pain. I mean, if you don’t want to bathe with Jesus, I can’t help you. (via larisa)

Having a two-year-old is an experiment in staying sane, everyday. I get up in the morning sometimes and say to myself, maybe this is the day I will hear the word “why” for the gabillionth time and I will strip off my clothes and run down the street naked, yelling, “Woo, woo-hoo!” like one of those old Daffy Duck cartoons.

Maybe my brain will fry and I will leave her at the park or the grocery store. I will come home and suspect something’s missing, and will put a pot of something gloppy on the stove to reduce for hours, and that’s how the police will find me, talking to myself and wondering about all the glop-stains on the wall.

Me and my mama-friends talk about this stuff, the potential for insanity. We talk about little rooms with locking doors (for us or them), tropical vacations, and the possibility of our husbands correcting the things about themselves that really irk us (about the same as us correcting our bad habits, I guess).

And you’ve got your perfect-parenting books, magazines, and even Dr. Phil telling to praise the hell out of your little Morticia or Demonicus. So you get insanity from outside the house, as well as from the inside.

Some days I find myself saying things like, “Thanks for taking the crayon out of the cat’s butt! Good job!” or, “I am very proud of the way you stopped poking your friend in the eye.” Just so I can do something besides scold.

The other morning I realized that the positive-reinforcement thing is going a little too far.

I was so nutsy by 9:30 from being cooped up that I did a quick deck-swabbing instead of a full shower.

“We’re getting out of here, Frannie!” I said, as she stood under me and watched. She watches my every move, it’s like being someone’s personal movie, except the movie can potentially scar them for the rest of their lives.

“Why?” she said.

“Cause Mama’s going crazy. And don’t say ‘why’ again, please. Just because.”

“You washing your face Mama?”

“Yes.” I moved on to other parts.

“You washing your wulva, Mama?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s wonderful, Mama. Good job washing your wulva.”

Oh I will be sad when she can say her “v’s”.

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.