HEY FUCKERS For a week now I have been trying to think of a way to tell you what happened when I was in Portland in a way that is PG-13 or lower and will not be used against me in court. I cannot. You will have to look at the pictures in my set and try to piece it together yourself. Suffice it to say that THAT happened and Franny’s former teacher and my friend, Hazel, was a fabulous hostess.

I can tell you one thing: Franny was in fine form. I realized recently that I am going through a thing where I am in love with Franny right now. She is becoming so freaking hilarious at times I get disabled with laughter and cannot move. I am not saying I am some kind of comedic genius, but I have decided that I am going to teach her everything I know about being funny. That will be an awkward twenty minutes.

YES YOU DO want to hear something shallow about me and Franny, and that thing is that when she was a wee parasite my biggest fear was that she would turn out to be some fugly stick terror (keep it classy, twenty-one-year-old self), which is ridiculous because SeaFed was handsome and my genes get drunk sometimes but mostly sit quietly and get overwritten. And now that she is so pretty I feel like I need to give her more.

I act like I have one ounce of control over any of this, but I will not allow her to be The Pretty One. Franny and Strudel were playing Nancy Drool the other day (Caroline Keene I will drive a stake through your hateful undead heart) and Franny asked Strudel if she wanted to be “The Pretty One” or “The Funny One,” because you bet your fucksocks Franny was going to be Nancy.
Can girls be the pretty one AND the funny one? Unsurprisingly, I guess, encouraging this is my hobby now, since Franny shows such an aptitude for it. I prefer this to my mother’s program, which was a major in Disordered Eating (Breakout Session: There Is Nothing Worse Than Being Fat: T/T?) with a minor in “Good Luck With That One, Kid.” (Seminar: Walk It Off, Pussy).

So Franny has taken on a new personality all of her own doing, and that personality is Hobo. Hobo refers to (himself?) in the third person and is quite FYCL* vociferous on the subject of Cheetos, Doritos, beer, and public urination. [Sample Dialogue: “HOBO LIKES EATING CHEETOS, DORITOS, DRANKIN BEER AND PEEING INTO BOTTLES.” I dunno man.] When Hobo goes away and Franny is sweet again Poodle comes out. Poodle liek you. YOU LIEK POODLE?

Traveling alone with Franny made me remember how much I like traveling. P. and I and the girls used to all travel together in a clump just like a real family (guilt and fights over stupid inconsequential shit sold separately) and it was HELL. Traveling with P. is like traveling with a Jack Russell on meth. You could practically see his face pressed up against the window by the time we got to Sodo, clawing like an abandoned dog in a hot car. By the time we got to Tacoma? FORGET IT, it is not printable. If he was driving he would swear like Christmas Steve on a malt beverage bender. Who doesn’t like driving, I ask you? Oh. Now I know.

Plans for Fuck Off England Day? Yes, I have some. I bought some books at the OG Powell’s in Portland. I have been reading the “biography” of Betty Crocker, which is a funny thing, since she is a fabricated brand, of course. The book contains a selection of letters of the thousands that were written to “Betty” during wartime and beyond. On one hand it marries stuff I enjoy, American history, domestical history of Ladees, and insanely awesome marketing schemes. On the other, it is sad to read these desperate letters to a corporation: “How can I cook a meal to keep my husband?”

IN CONCLUSION, it is making me want to make an orange chiffon cake, the recipe for which was apparently kept under lock and key for twenty years until the originator sold it to General Mills. I also found a recipe I copied down for Any Fruit Cobbler from Fanny Farmer last summer when I was on vacation. I am remembering through the vacation haze of sangria and I FOUND THESE PILLS AND I EATED THEM that the cobbler was pretty dope. I’ll tell you what, Ima find some any fruit and bung it in.

I am reading other books right now…women and Islam (The Caged Virgin) and Victorian Era courtesans. I guess I am in new mode right now. I also have new music: new Mos Def, which is SO GROOD, and Kidz in the Hall. Mr. Lif and new K-Os did not rip over to my MP3 correctly, but I am getting there. There seems to be a stampede at Pirate Bay at the moment as it changes hands.

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