Category Archives: Rantin

Such Things I Do Just To Make Myself More Attractive to You

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How are you? Yeah? Mmm hmm. See how I am acting interested, but I am just waiting for the follow up story on your rash? No? I can’t help you. Go down the hall and make a sharp left.

Franny is learning about the Holocaust. She is reading a book about some little child who fled Germany, and on Thursday she is hearing a Holocaust survivor speak. She didn’t really get the whole thing, why people were running here and there. Over their oatmeal I told them about LAMPS MADE FROM HUMAN SKIN and sewing pregnant women shut and whatnot. We talked about tattoos and armbands.There’s your context.

“…then they all formed together to make one super-robot, and the Jews flew to the moon. And that’s why your sister has a hairy butt,” I finished.

“Hum,” Franny said. “Ugh.”

“So be nice to this lady on Thursday, because she has probably seen some crazy shit and if you are quiet she might tell you,” I said.

In other news, apparently Ruby and I are going to the school auction this year! She was supposed to go out of town, and she is my only date I will go with, but her plans changed, so voila. Now I can wear my ridiculous-assed silver zebra shoes I got when I was in Canadia last month. Things are a lot better than when I was still running it. Now I can just show up and eat. Ruby is a former chair and makes a good date. Snark powers activate! Shape of: Bree Van de Camp.

As an “interesting” side note, I can trace that 2008 auction post I linked as The Last Time I Was Sane in 2008. I think I was still faking it for a while, though. Can you see the cracks? Or just a sailboat? I am glad 2008 is over. You know something? I hardly remember it. 2008, I mean. I know some stuff happened because there are pictures. It’s a good thing I have a goddam diary. Do you have faith in me, since I have proven I can endure? I am on the QT and not making weeping vagina noises here.

Last night I dreamt that some bad dudes were out to get me and Strudel. They developed a plane that was completely agile and almost soundless. There was a demonstration in the town square, which was the town square from Back to the Future, complete with broken clock tower.

The plane was bobbing around and it destroyed a tree. This was the demo. I hid Strudel in a house nearby, and one of the guys found me and was like “BRING THE PLANE HERE.” Really, a plane? You are in front of me, could you not just kill me, like, manually?

All I could think in the dream was “This is why we cannot have nice things!”

I have a portrait of the Lusitania on my back and when I flex it CRASHES.

This Weekend: Howard Hughes Level Hermiting with a Chance of FOAD

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1. Things, I have things to tell you. Strudel, who is on the couch with a fever, has a different sticker on her belly button than when she left for school this morning, pre-fever. “The sticky wore off,” she explained. She can do a trick where she can suck her belly button in and the sticker disappears, or she pooches her stomach waaaaaay out and then the sticker is there for all and sundry to see, or in this case, me and Taibas Jones. This is the four-year-old equivalent of being in the Navy and having a naked lady tattoo on your arm and making her dance.

2. Today I discovered that I do not like olive loaf. What is olive loaf, you may ask, if you are not from the ghetto and were raised by a cup of coffee like I was? It is a formed meat product that has pimento-stuffed green olives in, of course, and then is sliced for ultimate sandwich makery. I loved olive loaf when I was a kid and I bet I have not had it for fifteen years. Now that I think of it, I suspect olive loaf is one of those things that I asked my mom for and was determined to like, because it was different. When you are bored out of your mind and stranded in the middle of fucking almost nowhere, odd lunchmeat items are a form of escapism, especially if you are years off from discovering the stunning, singular headache that is a glue hangover. Your sandwich is fucking staring at you with green eyeballs with red pupils, dude. I bought it this week. It is being donated to the eggbags.

3. Speaking of the eggbags, Now We Are Three. That freaky egg I mentioned last time on our program contained only one yolk, so I am thinking there was some kind of cloacaplasty. Those eggs are squeezed, Louise. I feel badly that there are only three hens now. They stare at me expectantly, looking for answers: Do you have food? Are you bringing more food soon? What is this wet stuff coming from the sky, I don’t think it was like this yesterday? Are we getting carried off at some point like those other feathered ladies we cannot quite remember? Are YOU Food?

4. In completely unrelated news, I am trying to figure how I can transport my own shit up to a second story balcony intact, so it looks like I took a dump there.

5. Speaking of vaginas, I have been one upped. I read about this woman who got herself “vajazzled,” meaning she treated her mons like I treat cell phone cases. At first I was VERY IMPRESSED by the state of her mons, which crazy smooth. I get ingrowns if a waxer even looks at me. Then I realized it is an all-in-one procedure. You get yoinked and then immediately glued. This would look good on me for about fifteen minutes.

I find the writer a little disturbing, honestly. I wondered what turning your baby box into a rasp would do for your sex life. Would you make up for the friction burns on your lover by offering to grate a little parmesan onto your post-coital salad? You know, the traditional salad you always eat after you have sex? FUCKING JUST NOD YOUR HEAD OK.

“Tell me when, sweetie.” Cheese shreds issue from your pussoidal region. Awesome. Beat that, Slap Chop.

But wait! No lovers will be injured, because the author assures us she has been asexual since her child was decanted from her body, ensuring the integrity of her vagina…which she is not using. WHOA DUDE it is like a Zen koan. Also at no point does she refer to any of her business by its proper name. I suppose if you don’t know the proper terms for your anatomy, the safest way to stay unpregnant is to abstain via a series of clever traps.

It is important for you to know that since I have participated in natural childbirth twice, if I don’t remember to clench my v-spot, it fucking FALLS OUT and drags behind me. The bonus of this is that when birds swoop down to peck at it, I can capture them and then arrange their joints artfully in gelatin, just like those lizards that can poop their own guts out, except they don’t have access to jelly molds.

Retweet that, bitches: I am a whore with a vagina that can be worn like a hat.

Fool Me Once

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Yesterday SeaFed’s third child was decanted at some sort of modern medical institution. For those playing along at home, only one of those children is mine. For reasons of her own, Franny is in a bit of a funk about gaining a new sibling, and I will confess to you that the gleeful ebullience in the voicemail he left me yesterday made me slightly nauseated. This was followed by a picture of the new baby in my email which has the same giant pumpkin head as the other child. Is it less a case of Tiny Vagina, and more a case of what the medical community refers to as “casaba cabeza.”

I am dying to know if they still have lice, but not enough to, like, ask. You know? I guess I will find out when Franny comes back on Monday.

So things were a little wacky over here last night, and both of my girls ended up falling asleep in my bed while I stayed up and watched new Big Love. My girls are still fairly small and Franny is about as thin as a sheet of paper right now, so I slid in beside them with Strudel in the middle.

Of course Strudel spent half the night kicking me and the other half crowding me, with a little intermittant blanket hogging thrown in for variety. Feet up in my ribcage reminded me of being pregnant with her, when her primary occupations were kicking, drinking her own pee, and killing off the competition.

Finally, around 4:30, Strudel crept over to Franny’s side of the bed, which was immediately deemed COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. Sometimes Franny reminds me how much bullshit I put up with unquestioningly, and then I remember that Franny is a lot of the reason I learned how to put up with booshit. Twist.

“STRUDEL,” Franny stage-hissed. “MOVE OVER.” “STRU. DEL. MOOOOVE!”

Of course Strudel could sleep through a café full of Northface jacket-wearing Seattleites fighting over the last vegan, gluten-free, sustainably-sourced croissant in the pastry case.

“OW!” Strudel said finally, half-asleep.

“OUT FRANNY,” I said. Franny sniffled and stumped off to her own bed and Strudel oozed back over to my side of the bed, where she stayed until my alarm went off at six, leaving Nietzsche at least half of my queen-sized bed.

And no one learned ANYTHING.

In Other News

This fucking guy is cracking me up today. Do stick around for the comments section. I posted that I thought it was satire, and I want to believe, I do. Speaking of no one learned anything, all this young hombre is going to conclude from this little crusade is that The Internet is Mean. which, well, duh.

Really, I would run out of swears so I will skip them.

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Hello, Ladies.

LABIA LACKLUSTER? PUDENDUM PALE? VULVA un-VIVACIOUS? MEH MEAT CURTAINS?

Never fear, ladies, PUSSY DYE TO THE RESCUE.

From the FAQ:

Q. “Help! I’ve noticed I am turning a more brown color down there on my inside lips, is this normal”?

A. Yes, it’s perfectly normal and there are many factors that can contribute to this. Ethnicity is a big factor, also age, hormone change, surgeries, childbirth, sickness, health, diet and medications can all contribute to a change from “Pink” to “Brown” in a woman’s genital area.

Ah, yes, that pesky “ethnicity” problem.

Well, you can look at the webpage and be horrified yourself, but I ask you now, for lulz and victory:

Call before you come I need to shave my chocha.

Royal O’Reilly Tenenbaum (1932-2001) Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Remains Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship

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For the past few days I have had the (mis?)fortune of commuting with P., who will take up the entire bus ride with whatever his obsession of the moment is. I admire him a lot of the time, because he takes a more scientific and curious view of the natural and historical world, whereas I am usually hovering somewhere between shadenlulz and Machivellian on the What is SJ Up to Today? chart. Lately he is thinking about math. BARF OUT. Did I tell you I did 5 years in algebra with no time off for good behavior? In the end I knew the system. I was on light laundry duty and I even had copies of the keys. They had to let me out eventually, though.

So yesterday, on the bus.

“I was thinking about the quadratic equation,” P. said.

“Noooo,” I said. “Just no.”

“Well, what I was thinking was about how it originated, like how it was originally compiled and I…”

“Oh my GOD,” I interrupted. “I forgot to tell you. On the way home yesterday, I could not believe it, there was a BASKET OF KITTENS on the street!”

“What?”

“Yes, and the bus driver did not notice and he RAN THEM OVER,” I continued.

“WHAT?”

“YES! And most of them were squished and you could see their little guts in the road all pink and smashed, and kitty heads, and THE SCREAMING OH GOD THE SCREAMING and the worst part is that SOME WERE CUT IN HALF AND WERE STILL ALIVE OH GOD I CANNOT LOCK THESE CAPS ANY HIGHER!”

“Oh Jesus,” P. said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I feel sad and nauseated now.”

“Well, that is how I feel when you speak to me about math,” I said.

En D’Autres Nouvelles

I am going to see Binary Star with Ruby on the 17th! I got into them about a year ago and then sort of wandered off. I think they’re great, though. I am surprised they are not touring on an album. When I heard they were coming, I assumed this was Splashy Comeback, but maybe they are ramping up. I love their sound. They really should have blown up when they put their albums out ten years ago. They really have that Midwest/Detroit sound, which makes me think of Eminem when he was all ye olde rap battle guy, but in a good way–there’s something about the cadences and rhyming patterns. The best part is that it is walking distance to my house, woot. I’m certain it will be better than Warren G, because really, a poke in the eye will probably be better than Warren G. Ruby won a concert package for the whole year, so she is making me Official Hiphop Ambassador on her tour. (I am the best she can come up with, heh heh.)

So, I think she is launching a blog, which I will link here, but I am thinking about giving my take along with her. This might call for a new category.

Harlequin Books Can Lick My Ass

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Warning: Fictional description of a woman being raped (not super graphic).

For most people, the Harlequin imprint evokes the classic tattered bodice-ripper books you find in a free box or see at the drug store. Maybe some of you even buy them (I am NOT judging you). I am not anti-emotional porn. Hell, some people I really admire have even read Twilight.

I have my own escapist genre that I enjoy: the hard-boiled detective novel. The more shady the dame is, the more desperate the private dick is, and the more ridiculous the old-thymey slang is, the happier I am. Last fall, when I was feeling pretty hard luck myself, I ripped through a ton of Mickey Spillane and anything else I could get my hands on. It was nice to read on the bus and during my breaks when I was making barely more than minimum wage.

Recently I was at the drug store and I had to wait quite a while for a prescription, so I strolled over to the book rack, which always makes me laugh. Bio of scandalous person of the month, romance novel, stale airport-type fiction…and…what’s this? Something good on the shelf? It looked like an old old detective novel with the original cover painting. I had to pick it up. You Never Know with Women, the cover read. I read the blurb, which promised a caper, some double crossing, and a foxy dame. There was also a note about how Harlequin was celebrating their sixtieth anniversary by reissuing some of their early titles. Neat, I thought. Sold.

For the next couple of days I enjoyed it, and read bits of it on the bus or while dinner was in the oven. The detective was a clever guy who had seen a lot and was about to cash it in when someone made him a cherry offer to rob a safe. The story the detective was given about the contents of the safe and other details was totally fishy and our man knew it. I love a deal that is sour from the get-go–how will he get out of the noose and get away with the cash?

There was another hitch–he sprung the dame who was involved in the caper as well. She was a cutthroat, smoking-hot stripper. Eventually they went on the lam and hid out at a hotel suite. The characters had kissed consensually earlier in the book. Oho sexy tiems ahoy, I thought. Alas, this is where the needle ripped off the record.

“Don’t go shrill on me sweetheart,” I said.  “I’m not interested in business anymore tonight.  I want a little fun.”

“You’re not getting it from me like this!” she said through her clenched teeth and tried to break my hold, but she wasn’t the only one with steel in her wrists. “Let me go!” she went on furiously. “I’ll scream!”

“Go ahead,” I said, gripping her arms. “What’s a scream or two in this joint? Someone’s always screaming here, it’s part of the set up. Scream as much as you like, if you want to.”

“Let me go–damn you!”

She wrenched an arm free and I collected a punch in the jaw that jerked my head back. She kicked my shin and thumped my sore neck with her clenched fist, but she didn’t scream and her wriggling only seemed to bring her body closer to mine.

I’d been punched around plenty during the past twenty-four hours. I was supposed to be a tough guy, but up to now everyone had been using me as a door scraper. It was about time something went my way.

“This is how it is,” I said, leaning over her. “We’ve been suckers long enough. Now it’s our turn, Blue Eyes, to get what we want. This is what I want and I hope you’ll like it.”

“You beast!” she panted, struggling up and closer still.

I grabbed her shoulders. She tried to bite, but she didn’t try very hard. After a while her arms slid around my neck and she held on like she was scared of losing me. Her lips parted against mine. Her eyes were shining like two blue stars.

Like I said, women are funny animals.

This was a solid third in. So that happened, I told myself. Huh. This book was written in 1949. It is sixty years old, an artifact of another time in pop culture. Does it have historical value as an intact manuscript? Is it ever okay to depict people being forced into sex against their will? How old does a book or movie have to be to make this okay? Should Harlequin have edited this part of the book, which I’m sure they could have done quite handily with a ghost writer, into consensual sex? Does this mesh with other detective novels I’ve read from this time? No. In Spillane’s Mike Hammer stories grown women who are not “trash” or whores seem quite interested in knocking boots with him, with no consequences except for, I hope, orgasms, and bacon the next day. (True story. I think it is cute when Mike Hammer plays house with these women and they have little fry-ups the next morning before he goes off to shake down stool pigeons.)

In the end, that scene was the boner killer, right there. I read on to the next day, where she woke up and recoiled from him, and he locked her into the suite for the day “for her own good,” as she threw vases at his head. I had lost all faith in the protagonist and could not go on. I put the book down.

It’s more interesting to me that she is set up as a “bad girl”–she earns her living stripping and grifting. She talks tough and moves fast–she passionately kisses the protagonist the very first time they meet. As this bad girl character, she could have carte blanche to strip off and get jiggy with the detective. But she doesn’t want him–not then, not like that anyway, and maybe not at all. What was the point of this? Is he more sympathetic because he raped a “bad girl”? Why not just have her consent, as an author in this mindset? It is a puzzle.

So, nuts to this, I say. I am not picking up any more of these. Harlequin, get your head out of your ass and tidy up these depictions of women being raped, or kill the reissues. This is a fucking sloppy disgrace.

News I Have News Pay Attention OK

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I started a new group blog over at The Queen’s Scullery. Check it out, Victorian nerdery ahoy. You are invited, if you want to be.

Life without wheat is going okay. We made a run at this a year ago, and sort of backslid on it. In theory, Franny’s father is taking this more seriously now after the hospital thing. In reality, there are cracks in the system, of course. Franny saw pics of my English pudding that I made for Christmas, and she said she had some at her dad’s house, but said it did not look as nice as mine.

“Really? Pudding?” I said. “Did you get a stomach ache?”

“No,” she said.

“That’s good.”

“Oh, there’s something else though, Mom. The other day he was trying to talk me into eating this granola bar thing. He said, ‘Come on, a little won’t hurt.”

“Well,” P. said. “Every time anyone tries to talk you into eating wheat, offer to kick them in the nuts first, so they can be in pain with you.”

“If it is a lady, offer an eye poke,” I said.

Franny spends a fair amount of time now mourning her departure from gluten. She sighs over things she cannot eat, and we are finding the balance between making substitutes, like gluten-free scones (bleah) and just eating other things. She was bonkers over some shrimp and spaghetti squash I made, because it was “just like noodles” as if we do not have soba and rice noodles on the regular.

I am very excited to get back into our regular non-holiday routine tomorrow, which includes me being done working my second job. Yeah!

Cloudy with a 90% Chance of Inverted Umbrellas

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Is it really countdown? Is Christmas really almost here? This winter does not make any sense, really. I’m glad it’s the solstice, that’s for sure.

I am grateful for two things right now. One is all the kerfuffle at my house about Christmas Steve, who is COMING FOR SURE this year. Strudel flipped the fuck out the other night when she was overly tired and kicked the ladder to Franny’s loft bed from behind and it made a terrible cracking noise. Her father sighed and said he could fix it, but it is permanently attached now, apparently.

Strudel is very nervous and is making suggestions to stave him off. Perhaps if she is really good for the next couple of days he will not come?

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe there will be less naughty child stink waves coming from the house.”

Perhaps we could hang a sign on the door explaining that they hadn’t really been THAT naughty, and could he skip our house this year?

“I dunno, man. You cannot get between Steve and his sock beer,” I said, slightly apologetically.

Franny had more questions about him as we were out on errands last weekend.

“what does he DO?” Franny asked.

“Not much. He enjoys his beer in the summer, and scotch in the winter. He has a string of ex-wives all over the country and children he never sees, and he does not pay child support.”

“Mom,” Franny said quietly. “Is Christmas Steve my dad?”

“What? No, honey. No.”

What do I do with this?

As always, I am still trying to think of a present. I am considering something that might ooze through the wrapping and smell, like raw chicken breasts, but the girls enjoy having something, even if it is crappy, which it invariably is.

The other thing I am grateful for is that SeaFed called me on Friday night after getting Franny back and bumbled and did not make any sense, but eventually came around to the fact that he wanted to return Frannie a week early during Xmas break. Originally he told me he wanted to keep her from school ending through the return to school (the 3rd). My last correspondence with him in regards to that was that I objected to it, but at some point, what can you do? Could I go snatch her back? Have a screaming fit? I did not hear back.

Unfortunately, Franny has spent a month fretting about being away from me for so long, and not spending any part of Christmas with us, which I get. I am still encouraging her to advocate for herself, and she did speak to her dad about this more than once. With my help she came up with a plan to remind him we had always split breaks in the past. I save all my calendars showing how she is with us most of the time, and I offered to photocopy last Christmas for her, which she took to him.

So things have been changing since SeaFed abruptly called me a year and a half ago and told me he was moving away. Franny has settled with me. It is her place and we are her people. She refers to her father’s other children as her “half” siblings, but Strudel is her sister. Now that her stepmother is about to pop sprog again, Franny has asked me more than once, I am not planning on having any more children, RIGHT?

I feel conflicted about this. There is a part of me that wants to say, “Of course, victory, this was inevitable. Of course, I am her mother,” I think 75% of parenting is just showing up. The other 25% is the work, but man, that showing up goes a loooong way.

In other news, I have planned my Christmas meal. I bought many, many animals at Central Market yesterday. The checker watched a duck, a rabbit, some fish, and some beef suet go by.

“You have every member of the animal kingdom here,” he commented.

“You know what they say,” I said.

“No?”

“The cuter the face, the better the taste,” I said.

“I have never heard that,” he said.

“Well, that is because I made it up.”

“I’m blogging that,” he said.

“Okay, link me.”

Gracious What Fresh Rabbit Hole is This

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Hello! Thank you for your email inquiries regarding my new cooking blog thing. I appreciate the effort many of you have gone through to create a sort of “application,” which was not necessary, but very nice. We are always so busy I really do want this to be a fun and undaunting project. I will reply to you via email this week. Busy or not, I NEED this project. I am very excite.

I went to Vancouver last weekend. If Canada was a girl, I would take her behind the gym and get her ass pregnant.

In other news, I have a very sick child who has a gluten flare-up plus a flu bug. I spent all day at the Childrens’ Hospital yesterday getting tests and x-rays. Franny is fine, but I am looking forward to getting that final rubber stamp that says “X is wrong with your kid.” Not that it will stop grandparents from stuffing her full of sugar cookies late on a Sunday night. I am thinking of going with “ATTENTION WELL-MEANING FAMILY: Franny is allergic to wheat and will DROP DEAD if you give her a piece of chocolate cake.” The reality is that she misses school, I miss work, and I resent the fuck out of everyone who is not taking this shit seriously, you can die in a fucking fire while I sit up with my kid who is twisting and holding her guts at 2 a.m.

TL;DR: I am busy and you will be hearing from me shortly, all of you, if I do not combust.

xoxo, have a good day/fuck off and die (depending on who you are)

It Are December Post Some Fucking Lipton

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Do I sound bitter lately? Do I come here just to be bitter? I am not, I assure you. In the spirit of updating you on Creeps Bothering Me, this morning on the bus I was buried in Girl Genius #8 with my teal earbuds in (very noticeable) and this guy started talking to me. I kind of genuinely missed it, because I was Billie Holiday and Agatha Heterodyne and he POKED ME ON MY SHOULDER. Who does that? He got the frowny brows and I popped out an earbud.

“What kind of shoes are those? I have never seen shoes like those.”

“I dunno, it’s the guy who designs for Ed Hardy.”

“Huh, those are cool.”

YEAH YOUR MOM’S COOL.

Okay, I am going to Canada this weekend, but I am podcasting before I go. I posed this question to the FYCL Facebook group, but I will ask you here: If you are a lady, and you consider yourself a feminist, what is your feminist hypocrisy? What is the one thing (or more) you do/say/think/buy/feel that contradicts your identity as a feminist?

Also I am enjoying the pudding out of this today: