Part One: Minutiae

Man, I’ve been going to bed early lately, and getting up early, too. Part of me rebels against this, since it is something I associate with my mother. I always hated being greeted with, “I’ve been up for FIVE HOURS and I’ve cleaned the house, sorted all my recipe cards, and updated the address book. Woo!”

(I’m not sure why, but whenever my sister and I do my mom, we always throw a really dippy “woo!” on at the end. I think it’s because my mom is one of those people who gets crazily enthusiastic about the most inane stuff. I will have to ask my sister about that.)

But I digress….I was going on about how annoying it is to be greeted with someone’s accomplishments, when you know that all you’re going to do that day is get dressed, maybe. So now I am getting up at six-thirty, but I will never tell anyone how much research I did, or how many pages I wrote. Cause no one cares about my own goddam boring-ass minutiae like I do.

I am telling myself, so I don’t forget. Life is all about not driving people away…unless you want to, I guess.

Part Two: Pretty Princess SJ

It may be hard to tell from the blogathon photos, but my hair is getting so long and heavy that it is morphing, terrifyingly, into rocker hair. To be more precise, I think I am starting to look like one of those hesher girls. It’s the best in the morning when I wake up and I look all 1960’s B-movie actress, because it is so fried it sticks up without product.

In other words, Baby needs a haircut. So I’ve got these long layers that start past my chin and end up past my shoulders, and bangs that can be pulled down past my eyes. They have turned back into Eurobangs that I can do nothing with but clip back, or tolerate.

But the real point is what color eyes go with orange and pink hair? I am getting contacts in a couple of weeks and u betcha I’m going unnatural. Not Marilyn Manson stylee, just green or gray or purple, or maybe even brown. Not like the-ocean-threw-up blue that they are now.

I just had a thought…or maybe I could just start washing my hair at night, and wake up and throw on some Jackie O. glasses…. Combs are for suckers. SUCKERS!

Part Three: New Neighbors

I was brushing my teeth last night and talking to Mr. Husband.

“The new neighbors leave their shades open all day,” I said. The old neighbors had closed the shades that faced our house, and we often did too. It was too easy to see in to our houses.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I really realized it today when I was sitting on the couch, popping a zit on my chin. There was the neighbor lady, looking out her window and right at me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then she frowned and closed the shade!”

“Are you sure she frowned?” Mr. Husband asked.

“Well, if I could see that far, I bet I could have seen her frowning.”

“Hmmp.”

“Like she never popped a zit!” I said.

“She’s popped a zit,” Mr. Husband said, tiredly.

Lucky Mr. Husband! What a catch I am.

Mr. Husband is such a crank; I don

Yow! I hate chopping onions, don’t you? Can you think of any part of cooking that is more blowful? I can’t. And I love the Zen of chopping any other veggie.

I think I’m extra-sensitive to onion fumes, too. I can’t even see what I’m chopping, which is not very safe, to say the least.

So I had an idea today, while I was shredding carrots for a potato salad and was about to move on to the onions: why not shred them, too?

It’s so rad; I love it. It took about 20 seconds to do the whole onion. Of course, you have to not mind that you will end up with onion slaw, rather than onion chunks. I don’t. Another drawback is that I think you release even more onion fumes, so do it quick and then stick your head in the freezer. But an advantage is that the slaw will disguise the inevitable skin that comes off your thumb when you grate things.

(El Mendez: Of course I did not get any thumb-skin into the salad that I am bringing to your barbecue today.)

I’m sure I didn’t invent this, but I’m glad I figured it out.

Today: Yow! Thank you, Anonymous donor, for donating $10! You rock! Almost one-third there!

An Actual Entry:

I got desparate today and did some cleaning. I can tell it’s summer when I’m cleaning. Because I couldn’t actually go outdoors or anything. That would be “sporty.” I might accidentally get a tan.

I had some happy times outside during summer vacation–out in the street vandalizing things and playing kickball–but my best times were indoors, mutilating Barbies and mixing every beauty product in the house together in a big bucket. What would it be? A super-cleaning elixir? An explosion? Something that turned grey and smelled like old-lady perfume? Yes, the last one.

I also liked to rifle through my stepfather’s giant stack-o-porn. He had all the classic titles: Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler. They stopped around 1985, I believe, which was two years before I got to them. I got caught with one of his mags about a year later, and he yelled at me for looking through his stuff. How did he find it? Yes, he was looking through my stuff.

Nothing says “trust” and “family” like regular room searches. Another thing to put on my list of things not to do to Frannie.

In Other News

We went to the zoo yesterday with one of Mr. Husband’s friends who is visting from out of town. He brought his six-month-old and we had a stroller-fabulous time. Frannie hopped out of hers and pushed the baby around for a while.

The baby was sleeping and the friend wanted to go into the Nocturnal House, which doesn’t allow strollers. I volunteered to sit with his baby while he went in. I think I got the better deal, since I got to watch the wildilfe (fat Pacifc Northwesterners) in their natural environment.

It was about four-thirty, which is a rough time for little ones who have missed their naps because of a long day at the zoo. Frannie was getting whiny and “I-don’t-want-to-walk-y” so I bribed her by tucking a handful of Reese’s Pieces into her overall pockets (oooh, bad mom) and she went happily into the Nocturnal House. Sometimes a little sugar at the end of the day can get you home safely.

As I was sitting there, this family walked by who had been following us all over the zoo. There was a dumpy, haggard mom with that cute bob and giant khaki shorts that they all have. She had a little boy who looked about five, and the twenty-seventh incarnation of Satan, who was a little boy of about three.

The little Satan-boy was sreaming and hollering at his mom, and the older brother was staring off into space with the classic “I’m in a sunny meadow” look. I could tell he’d lived through this scene a million times before. Poor older brother; he looked like he deserved better.

“I DON’T WANT TO! I DON’T WANT TO!” Repeat times a million. I was waiting for the mom to lose her shit, but she kept talking to him quietly and I couldn’t her what she was saying until they inched closer. He was hanging off of his mother’s legs and stroller so their progress was very slow. I found out his name was “Chance.”

“Now, Chance, I really don’t like the way you’re behaving right now. Can you please get into the stroller for Mommy? Pretty please?”

Chance would scream back at her and if she tried to move faster than inching, he would throw himself on the ground and she would stop again, and start boo-boo babytalking him again. “C’mon, honey, we can’t go in to the Nocturnal House today if you’re going to scream like that. Please get into the stroller.”

She kept explaining things to him over and over and the kid just wasn’t hearing her. I’ve seen it; they get to that point where they are just feral and you have to make a decision. You can be that kind of hardass mom who walks away, and expects her kids to keep up. Or, if they are really nuts, you can just pick them up and strap them in. It helps to say something (loudly and firmly) like, “We can talk after you have cooled off.”

There is never a reason to sock a kid, though I admit I find myself involuntarily forming choke-o hands now and then. That is when I must sit in my office and stare at the wall. Frannie knows to be quiet when I start doing my breathing exercises.

Yelling doesn’t really help either, although my loud ass usually yells once a day and then feels stupid. I get tired of saying things twelve times, you know?

But what is perfectly okay is waiting to have that quiet, rational conversation with all of the explanations until after little Chance has had a nap. It’s okay to be the leader. Frannie screams for a minute, but knows she has a bad cop mom who will follow through. Most of the time she follows me around the house lately and hugs my legs and tells me she loves me. She askes permission to do things and argues and I stand firm. She is a secure kid and it will never take me motherfucking forty-five minutes to reach the gate of the zoo from the Nocturnal House, thank god.

In honor of Patrick Henry, I recount a story from a few days ago.

I was in the bathroom, minding my own goddam business, when Frannie busted in, banging the closed door wide open without knocking.

Frannie: “Hi, Momma! What are you doing?”

Me: *sigh*

Frannie, wrinkling her nose: “I don’t want to SMELL YOUR POOP, Mom!”

Me: “Then GET OUT! Sheesh.”

Out to dinner; more gyros and baklava at the place that looks like J.A.D. Ingres’ wet dream (nekkid harem women sold seperately). I was with the Frannie, Mr. Husband, and the raddest person I will never have sex with, my sister.

While we were eating, this skater dude left his cel phone on a seat, and had skated halfway down the street by the time I had run out of the restaurant. I am a good citizen when I don’t have PMS, so I turned it in at the front counter. He came back about fifteen minutes later, and was hunting around the table.

Me: “Looking for your cel phone? I turned it in at the front.”

Him: “Stupid ADD! Thank you!”

Poor sucker. At least he has a sense of humor.

Betrayal! Of the four little chicks I picked up this spring, two are roosters! And here I thought chicken sexing was 90% accurate. I want to be a chicken sexer; obviously it just involves pretending to work and making arbitrary decisions, something I excel at. Perhaps there is even on-the-job drinking.

Glen/Glenda and the neutrally-monikered Snowy started crowing as soon as school break started, and I was sleeping later and didn’t realize it. Mr. Husband told me last week that he thought they were crowing in the morning, but I thought he was tripping. He also said that they were having face-offs in which they were apparently fronting on each other and bumping chests. Sometimes I get so busy I don’t even know what’s going on around here.

So now I have two choices: I can eat them or I can give them away. I am more inclined to do the latter. Anybody want a couple of healthy roosters?

Stupid decisions abound during school break. It’s like I turn my brain off all together. After convocation on Friday night, I stayed at the pub so long I missed the last bus to my house. No problem, right? I would just walk home from the University District, to Crown Hill. (Mistake #1)

I got a gyros sandwich on the way and some baklava for later, which I stuck in my purse. (Mistake #2)

After I had walked about two miles, I decided it was time for baklava. I was so lit I also decided that it was time to run, which I had been doing for about a half a mile in flat, non-supportive shoes. I took the baklava out and started to eat it, and kept running and eating baklava until I got a stomachache.

But man, it was good baklava. I took the left over, honey-encrusted wrapper and put it in my purse, because I did not want to be a litterbug. The next morning everything in my purse was totally covered with honey dots.

After about four miles of walking, running, and eating, I gave up and flagged a cab, and enjoyed the cheepness of a six-dollar cab ride. Woo hoo! The real price, however, was having blisters in really odd places.

The later it got, the madder I got, because I realized that almost every house in Seattle looks the same: cute. Even the rundown ones. I am tired of cute.

More Dumb

Now I have recovered from Friday night, so I decided to start drinking again.

Last night I picked up some of those repellant Mint n Creme Oreos, ostensibly to “cure” my PMS. I was also drinking some pretty decent red wine with dinner which added to my problem.

Mr. Husband scooted downstairs to put the girlie in bed and I was left alone with the whole box of Oreos and a very loud Roy Orbison concert on PBS.

I got totally sick of them after about six, and decided all I wanted was the chalky black disks. I started peeling all the creme off and making it into a ball inside the package.

After denuding the entire package and making a large stack of the disks, I couldn’t resist: I picked up the entire creme ball and blended the green and white creme colors together. Urgh, it felt so good, squishing it through my hands, I can’t even tell you. And then I had a better idea….

When Mr. Husband came back upstairs I was wearing a mermaid bra of mint creme goo and singing “Blue Bayou” very loudly along with the TV. Let’s see Lil Kim top that!

“My God, I can’t even leave you alone for five minutes,” Mr. Husband said. After seven years of marriage, he no longer finds my “antics” amusing.

Epilogue

Don’t EVER do this to yourself. I still smell vaguely of vegetable oil and worse things, after two showers.

I was just finishing this up and Mr. Husband was picking up in the living room: “Here’s your minty nipple, honey.”

Oh, good, I was wondering where that went.

“Say you love me,” Mr. Husband said. He had been drinking vodka, the good kind, and had been menacing me all night. Earlier he was snapping me with a washcloth while folding clothes.

“You’re too hostile right now,” I said. “Leave me alone.” When the Girlie is in bed we don’t have to censor ourselves. I am nicer when she’s awake because I don’t think she would understand how we can be completely cross with each other one minute, and have it completely forgotten the next. Her little brow gets all frowny. I wonder if she will ever see this dimension of our relationship or if it will stay private, meaning it will be what she hears only when she is spying on us.

“Say you love me, right now.”

“Bleah,” I said, and stuck out my tongue. I am a sucky wife.

He leaned in and I could smell the spoiled boozy smell on him. He retains smells longer than I do; we can have the same garlicky meal and he will still smell like it twelve hours after I do.

He leaned on me and the book I was holding flipped out of my hands. I had been unsuccessfully trying to read all night and he had been interupting me to tell me that if Hillary Clinton ran for president he’d vote for her, and if Bill ran again he’d vote for him in a minute and was that even legal?

He opened his mouth and bit down on my neck, hard. If you hold still and let all the muscles and tendons relax it hurts less. He told me to say that I love him again, out of the corners of his mouth and through his teeth.

“Ow,” I said without much feeling. “You’re hurting me.”

“Ray oo rup mif,” he said, and tightened his jaw more.

“I don’t like this. You’re a menace.”

After another thirty seconds he gave up.

“Dammit,” he said.

“I would have let you bite all the way through before I said it.” My neck hurt but I was glad.

“I know,” he said. “You are so stubborn. It’s awesome.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s stupid.” I picked up my book and he went back to watching stupid Hillary Clinton get interviewed by stupid Barbara Walters.

It is almost one and I can’t sleep. I wonder how long it would take him to wake up if I tried to fill his nostrils with toothpaste?