My poor girlie. I am totally in that mode of man, I love you, but get the fuck away from me. Someone let this poor child watch the Pokemon movie on Saturday, and now all she says is “Tikka? Tikka?” and “Pikka? Pikka?” I am told that these sounds, which are now the sounds I consider to be the worst in the English language, have something to do with the movie.

She walks around the house doing this non-fucking-stop. I am usually a big fan of ignoring these behaviors, but I cracked after so many waking hours together between Sunday morning and now. I got four hours of sleep last night (okay, that was my fault) and I am about to lose it. If this keeps up, I am going to stab myself and the creators of the Pokemon movie in our respective heads.

Things I currently would rather hear than “Tikka/Pikka”:

1. Many cats being gently lowered into a woodchipper tail first.

2. My dentist: “I thought it would be best to get all five of the root canals over with today.”

3. My doctor: “Wow, SJ! I’ve never seen that STD inside a person’s mouth before!”

4. Celine Dion, following me around and “soulfully” singing the contents of my fridge and the ingredients of all my food. Actually, if she did the chest beating it would be kind of cool.

5. A shaved-n-greased Corey Feldman and Carrottop begging me to have a three-way with them for six hours. (The begging lasting for six hours, I mean.)

I need some housewife drugs, pronto. I know you can get Valium over the Internet, but why don’t they deliver fucking voddy martinis?

Thank you fascist U.S. government…I haven’t been this flush since I was sucking dick for drug money. Okay, so I wasn’t sucking dick, but I do seem to remember some drug money. I have made a vow never to marry anyone else with a record.

ANYWAY, went to KMartha yesterday and dropped a good deal of fall financial aid on extremely sexy pots and pans. No more compromising…no more buying the absolute cheapest thing, because now I don’t have to. Today I am off to buy sheets in the foo-foo girliest color I want…or not. I decide. I did not totally understand what the lawyer was saying about my Baby’s Daddy being “voluntarily underemployed” until it occurred to me I can now buy food whenever I wish. No more waiting twelve hours with a grumbly tummy until the taxi money comes home (or not), because between loans and my job I am finally bringing in a Seattle-livable wage.

Is it wrong to want to hump your housewares, just because they are yours, all yours? What will I sleep with first, my new spatula? Or perhaps I will curl up in a pile of my new bath towels. I love you, ergonomic potato peeler. Kiss me, cast-iron skillet. Goodnight, toilet brush.

After 7 years of family dooooty, I am giving myself this Thanksgiving off. Mr. Husband’s family got their acts together late this year, so I already said yes to another invite.

I am going to go over to my very delightful friend’s house and drink alarming quantities of raspberry-vodka punch. Then I am going to lay on her couch and talk to people I am not related to via marriage.

Tonight I am going to write my first draft of my CV, because I asked the first professor on my list to write me a recommendation for the PhDude program and he said “yes,” with no reservations…he just needs my CV.

Also, currently, the U’s Human Subjects Division likes me and my research application, so I may just get passed my Xmas. Best xmas present ever! I am going to frame that letter.

Booze+first drafts+Human Subjects love= Happy SJ

Happy Fangsgiving to you, too.

Have you ever heard a chicken screaming? If you are sleeping deeply it almost sounds like a person. As soon as I woke up, I knew it was the Girls. Poor Girls.

Tragedy struck last night, in the form of a Raccoon of Mass Destruction (RMD). I lost Phoebe, Penny, and The Duchess. Phoebe was one of my first chickens, and both of her sisters were already long gone. The Duchess was also acquired in the first year I got chickens and was half grown. She raised up Penny and Marzipan this spring after they got too big for the broody box.

I ran out into the yard and saw it, lurking by the skeletonized sunflowers. I picked up one of Frannie’s backyard buckets and hurled it at the foul creature, and somehow I hit it. Marzipan was running around freaking out, and immediately plumped herself into the corner of the yard next to the fence. Chickens have good instincts at night; they will make a lot of noise and then disappear suddenly, making themselves very small.

Mr. Husband was right behind me with the flashlight. He did a sweep of the yard and found Penny and The Duchess, with their throats ripped out. Phoebe is still MIA, but was so tiny that I’m sure she’s long gone. We were too bitter to let the raccoon take the bodies of the Girls, so Mr. Husband dug a quick hole and we gave them a proper send-off. I eulogized while Mr. Husband dug.

“Oh, Penny,” I said. “She was such a good chicken. She actually had a personality. She ate out of my hand. She let me carry her around. She followed me all over the yard.” I had peeped into the chookhouse a couple of minutes earlier when I picked up Marzipan, the shy chicken, and popped her in. I shone the light and saw that only Jeckle was left in there, tiny and cowering. That meant Heckle was also missing. “Now I am left with only a shy chicken and a personality-less chicken,” I lamented to Mr. Husband.

“Perhaps they will grow personalities to fill the vacuum,” said Mr. Husband.

I could see the raccoon hanging on the neighbor’s fence, just feet away, as I was holding the funeral. He was watching what we were doing with a great deal of interest.

“If I had a gun I would shoot it,” I said. “I’ve never had the desire to shoot anything before, not really.”

“I would shoot him, too,” said Mr. Husband.

A couple of hours later my alarm went off. The sun came up and I heard a surprising sound: BOCK BOCK BOCK, right outside my window. It was Heckle, standing all alone in the yard, wondering where her homies were and why she had been locked out while everyone else had been locked in.

I was very glad to see her. I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous to have a Jeckle without a Heckle. It’s like salt without pepper…or hot tubs without jiggly bikini girls. It just shouldn’t happen. I unlocked the chookhouse door and Heckle called Marzipan and Jeckle out. It will take a while for their poor chookie brains to get over this one, so they will probably be rattled…until about noon tomorrow or so.

For my last couple of hours of sleep I kept having the same dream about the Girls freaking out, and I would run out the back door only to discover that the raccoon was there, large and vicious, and I couldn’t shut the door on it. Yuck.

Last night was the best night it could have been. Frannie passed out on the couch at the amazing hour of 7:30 and we got to put her in bed early. I took a nap around 8 on the couch and woke up just in time for “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” on Frontline at 9. Mr. Husband dreads watching anything related to JFK with me because I divide my time between shouting at the TV and mouthing the words whenever they play an audioclip of Oswald’s TV appearances or of a statement by the Warren Commission.

“Nooo, honey, nooo, haven’t you seen everything related to Oswald already?” Mr. Husband implored.

“Well, there’s a show about just JFK on the History Channel. And there’s a show about Jackie Kennedy on E!, so you pick.”

“Ugh,” said Mr. Husband. He hates it when the anniversary of JFK’s death comes around. I flipped to Frontline.

Reporter: “Did you shoot the president?”

Me: “I’m just a patsy!”

Oswald: “I’m just a patsy!”

Mr. Husband: “Oh lordy.”

Fortunately for Mr. Husband, I fell asleep again around 10. And when I woke up, I was surprised to see the special was still on.

“Hey, did you know he tried to kill a retired general in the Dallas area?” Mr. Husband asked. “And that he was in Russia at the same time that American U-2 went down? Why was that street fight with the Anti-Castroite in New Orleans filmed? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said.

I knew I could get him sucked in.

In Other News

It snowed again last night. We don’t usually get snow like this until January. The chickens were picking their way around in it this morning and eating some. I could see little toots of vapor coming out of their beak-nostrils. I put out some fresh water since theirs had frozen.

I know they are just dumb clucks, but I feel so bad for them living in the yard. I just keep telling myself that they have their nice warm hen house and lots of feathers, not to mention the fact that they are outdoor animals. Anyway, it’s pretty funny to watch a chook chowing snow.

Yeah! It is fucking raining, raining, raining, with no end in sight. We gave ourselves the best gift you can gift yourself with without taking your pantses off: Cable TV! Senor Cheepypants was very surprised to learn that non-utterly-basic cable is now $40 a month. I say, “welcome to the amazing year 1997, Mr. Husband.” Next we are going to work on getting him an email account that doesn’t get disabled in three months due to disuse. Maybe someday he’ll even turn on the Interneck and read my blog. Like, maybe when Paris Hilton emerges fully formed from my asshole.

So, goodbye bunny ears! No more tuning, twiddling, cursing, throwing the antenna across the room! No more late video fees, because between Bitchbuster prices and fees, we were paying the equivalent of monthly cable, I think. No more desperate flipping between our five channels: “Okay honey, here’s our choices: Elimidate. An early episode of Just Shoot Me. Blind Date. A later episode of Just Shoot Me. That Canadian alien, Leslie Miller, on FUKS news. Hey, it’s Elimidate again.” Also, no more reading on Friday nights! Erm…uh-oh.

Anyhow, with all the wonders of our modern world, there is always something to watch. The other night I saw a woman wearing SEVEN RINGS on one hand on the shopping channel. Why don’t I own a four-carat CZ? Why? Why? I have also watched What Not To Wear 78 times since Friday, because I love to hate those fashion bitches. I have seen Steve Irwin on seven separate channels in one night, each time with those fucking teeny shorts on. How many pairs of those do you think he has? Are you seeing a closet with nothing but teeny shorts like I am? He was on Conan saying that you can’t say “fanny pack” in Australia, because “fanny” is slang for a woman’s No-No Place, which I think I have heard before. But he did not say, “A fanny is slang for a woman’s No-No Place.” He said, “A fanny is slang for a woman’s…Front Bottom.”

Front Bottom! New band name! I am going to start dropping that one all over the place.

“Kiss my Front Bottom!”

“I can pick up a bottle of Coca-Cola with my Front Bottom.”

“My Front Bottom is itchy because I filled it with jawbreakers.”

Bottom line, or should I say FRONT BOTTOM line, cable TV=1, Reading=0. I will survive this rainy-ass weather yet.

S’up, fools? I am FUCKED UP. Out of my mind. Seeing pink and purple and blue elephants that are likewise eliminating similarly-colored bricks.

I have briefly emerged from my TheraFlu-induced haze to say that many of you have sent me emails regarding my sticky Christmas wicket. Many of you hate Christmas, so much that you cannot even write out “Christmas,” but instead must write “Xmas.” Some of you like Christmas. You are sick. Thank you for all of your emails and stories.

Many of you believe the answer is alcohol. I will be back with official results when I am out of my stupor. I actually feel like I got run over by a bonafide bus. Damn you flu season!

The good part is that I’ve been having some crazy flu dreams. You were there, and you, and you. I have flown without a plane three times. I ate my own organs, they were like cake, just like in that Tom Petty video. Frannie was my mother, and then she was my dog. I drowned in a pool of Pert Plus. I have had sex with every member of Congress.

I dreamt that Monkeyhip the Hamster was travelling via hamster tube all over my bedroom and over my head and Mr. Husband told me later that Monkeyhip had escaped (again) and was crawling on my head. I dreamt that we had delicious chocolate chip cookies and when I woke up this morning there was a bowl with cookie batter in it, soaking in the sink. Some things really happen!

And now I am ready to get well and have some normal dreams. And wondering: why do I have a job that is easier for me to show up at than to call in to? Does that make sense? I mean, I have a meeting with the undergraduate tutors that I couldn’t postpone, and an office hour this morning, and I get to pick up my paycheck today. Sometimes it is easier to show up than to reschedule, you know?

I just hope I don’t take my shirt off or start crying or something. Either could happen; I could declare myself the Anti-Christ or the Hottentot of Twat.

Okay, I am in a pickle. A giant pickle garnished with the dill of confusion and dripping with the vinegar of dread. I need you guys. I want everyone to play amateur advice columnist here, because the last straw has already crippled the camel, and I am standing over its head with a sharp-edged shovel.

Ahem.

According to television, advertising, and store displays, Christmas is coming. For various reasons, I find this the least wonderful time of the year. Like many of us, I had the evil holiday-ruining stepfather from five years old on up, and a yearly glut of random presents from my middle class/rich relatives who said “I love you” with a bunch of tacky shit you don’t want. I am not religious, and I just don’t care to celebrate Christmas as an adult. I feel this way about Christmas: meh.

I spent the first Christmas after I left home totally solo, in an ecstatic state of godless communism. My cuckoo roommate was visiting her family. It was me, the cat, and my paints and canvas. I was blissfully happy and obligation-free that year. My boyfriend (the future Mr. Husband) invited me to his parents’ Christmas Eve celebration and I got to say “No, thanks.”

Fast-forward to now: I have been married for almost eight years and am approaching my seventh Christmas with Mr. Husband’s family, and I am already dreading it. Mr. Husband’s family likes Christmas, especially my father-in-law, and they like to drag it out until I want to throw myself on a broom handle. There are seven adults and two little kids that make up our core “Christmas morning” family. Mr. Husband’s family likes to open one present at a time. Present opening has taken 4-plus hours in the past, lasting until we were all quite insensible. I get this feeling after a couple of hours like I’m going to have a panic attack…any…second….

Finally, in recent years, Mr. Husband’s sister Auntie Jaguar and his grandmother have said, “Hey, let’s cut it down to one present apiece.” We are all adults and just want to spend time together, not go all capitalism krazy. My father-in-law agreed, but broke the agreement by inundating us with presents anyway.

I don’t know what Auntie Jaguar does after Christmas, but I spend at least two weeks getting rid of 99% of the useless crap they give me. I would be more forgiving of these quirks if it seemed like time and care went into the selection process, but…my mother- and father-in-law didn’t even wrap our presents last year; they just gave us giant plastic “gift bags” (garbage-sized bags, appropriately, but the kind that are meant for tot bikes or oversized stuffed animals) with all of the crap dumped into it for each of us. They forget presents in random closets, and we will receive Christmas presents in July with an, “Oh, hey, we forgot to give this to you last year.”

This year, Mr. Husband tried to get everyone to agree to make one thoughtful present for everyone, so it would mean more. Mr. Father-In-Law sent out an email last week saying that it wasn’t going to work, because Auntie Jaguar and Grandma balked at this idea. I responded by emailing the idea of just spending time together, and focusing the present deluge on my and Auntie Jaguar’s little girl. This was also rejected, and the response from Mr. Father-In-Law was, “I think everyone should have to think about getting a present for everyone else.”

We are now in the process of negotiating a drawing and a white elephant exchange, but I think that will be shot down.

I must disclose that I have not told any other family member about how much I dislike Christmas, because I don’t want to openly be a wet blanket and ruin it for other people. I don’t really want it to be all about me…I just want to be happy in the process. Also, I feel like it is not totally my place to bring the giant Christmas smackdown, since they were perfectly happy til I came along. For the past four years I have been considering nicking off somewhere and spending Christmas by myself, like my first one when I was 18. I have discussed this idea with Mr. Husband and he said he would be embarrassed if I wasn’t there. I tried talking Mr. Husband into taking a trip with me out-of-town so we could have a tiny Christmas, but he wants to see Auntie Jaguar.

So, Dear Reader. Has anyone else conquered a similar situation? What is the solution to this sticky wicket? Do I steel myself for twenty more years of this unsane Hell on Earth? Do I go hide in a B&B in Sequim for three days? I have also considered doing something altruistic on Christmas, like volunteering somewhere for the day, which wouldn�t really be altruistic because I’d be doing it to get away. I have thought about visiting someone, but I really have no one to visit. My grandparents are too crazy to visit. I could tell Mr. Husband’s family I was spending Christmas with my mother, but I don’t think they’d believe that one.

If you are going to respond, and I wish you would, please email me. I am being very selfish and trying to avoid me-tooism in my comments. I will post all replies later this week, anonymously if you wish, because maybe they will help someone else.

I know I sound cranky and ungrateful here; if you have concerns about this, please refer to the giant title at the top of the page.

It has been mentioned in the past that Monkeyhip the Crappity, Fucking Hamster is prone to nighttime wanderings. The little dude pulls himself out of his cage from atop the bookcase and flings himself six feet to the floor, at least four times a week. The cats are no concern; they no longer chase rodents, chickens, or even dust motes. In fact, Monkeyhip got outside once, and our tuxedo cat Hank brought him back in through the cat flap and deposited him in the kitchen. We knew old M. had been outside because his tiny paws were wet and cold, and he had a minute twig stuck to his back. Way to go, Hank!

My very clever and sexy friends always say, “Hey jerk! Why dontcha just get a lid for the cage? Dumbass.” I think the answer lies in my current and ongoing Marital Grudgematch. Mr. Husband, aka Senor Cheapypants, thinks that the lid shouldn’t cost as much as the cage. (They are both ten dollars. Cheap!) Also, a lid requires another trip to SavOnPets or whatever, and who has time for that?

Secretly, I think it’s funny to see him ambling around the house. He disappears for two days, and then, POOF! there he is behind the speaker, with cobwebs stuck to his whiskers. I pull him out and give him a drink of water, and pop him into his cage. He eats and takes a nap, and starts over again. Hell, it’s probably more fun than being tothandled by a crazed three-year-old, or wandering around in his smelly hamster bubble. Sometimes I find him, give him some water and a snack, and set him free again. Our house couldn’t be more squalorous anyhow, and he spends most of his time in the walls.

You may think that rodents are stupid (well, they are, really), but Monkeyhip is perhaps not as dumb as we thought. Last night he got found on purpose. Mr. Husband was sleeping peacefully in bed…when he felt something crawling up his leg.

“I said to myself, that better be fucking Monkeyhip, and not something else,” Mr. Husband said as he told me the story this morning. Mr. Husband turned the light on to the sight of the Hipster sitting on his stomach, staring at Mr. Husband expectantly. Mr. Husband put him back in his cage.

A few hours later, Mr. Hip was at it again, crawling up Mr. Husband’s stomach and demanding readmission to hamster land. I could not stop laughing. POOOOR Mr. Husband. Well, perhaps he is almost ready to make that trip to SavOnPets.

Hooray for me, the heavy, heavy sleeper. I never have to feed noisy cats, put my wayward Boo back into her little bed, or rehouse Monkeyhip. I win!

And here I am, foolin’ around at Casa del Daymented.

I share a birthday with Auntie Jaguar, Mr. Husband’s sister (Frannie named her, not me). I cannot stop myself from saying rude things to her. I’m sure she thinks I’m the rudest, most immature twat who ever drew breath. I have a theory that we all have this person. The person who never sees us being smart and warm and funny (without being scathing, anyway). The person who wasn’t there when we spent all night with our crying friend who just got dumped. They will always think you are the Devil and a two-year-old rolled into one ugly package. It is even worse if you are married to a member of their family.

We were out at Wasabi! last night, eating sushi, and I was on my third foo-foo drink, a mango kamakaze, when Mr. Husband’s father pulled his cell phone out. Finally, it came around to me after everyone else had talked to her, and I wished Auntie Jaguar “happy birthday” and she did the same in return. She tried to launch into conversation with me and I brought her up short. The restaurant was noisy and I just felt like a tool.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m going to have to talk to you later. I feel like a jerk talking on a cell phone in a restaurant.” And then I said goodbye and handed the phone back to Mr. Father-in-Law.

“Hmm,” Mr. Father-in-Law said into the phone. “I guess we are being rude.” He wrapped it up after that and dinner went on just fine.

Only I could wreck a thirty-second telephone call with Auntie Jaguar. We take three steps forward and two steps back every time we talk.