Today my friend Alyson texted me and said that she had the urge to go back and read the fake LiveJournal I ghost-wrote for Henry. It was called MeHoover, because Hoover was his LJ nickname (he sucks the fun of out of everything). My LJ nickname was Ruby. I started “writing” this journal in 2004 after Henry and I had a huge political blow out and he called me uneducated. I was like I WILL SHOW YOU UNEDUCATED. Anyway, Alyson inspired me to go back and read some too and I was sitting at my desk, silently crying from the strain of stifling my laughter. So I was inspired to take advantage of Throwback Thursday and repost Hoover’s adventures at Magee Hospital one night while I was pregnant. Just a heads up, it gets a little TMI because that was Hoover’s m.o. back in 2006, I guess.

so this is what happened right – ruBY was standing in the kitchen on suNDAy and was like, “uh oh something happened” and she said a tiny bit of watery stuff leaked out of her u know what!!!! i was like “bitch we’s goin to the hospal” but she was all, “no way man my friend kara is comin over and i want to be hangin’ out with her, u no?”i was like “what if that bag of water inside your gut has breaked open?!” but ruBY was like “i am not concerned yo! go hang out with your kids” and she made me leave!!! i was so worried all day and i kept calling her cuz dude, i did not want to come home with blood all over my house and a giant 15 pound baby running all over the place, you no?

so then the next night ruBY went to class and she called and was like “HEY it happened again twice in a row” so i was like “bitch you better be coming home right now!” and I called the doctor cuz that is what a good boyfriend does. the doctor was all “you need to come in to the hospal so we can make sure youre WATER did not break!!” but RUBy was like “i dont think i is ready to be having this baby!” but i made her pack a bag anyway. she was crying and i was trying not to laugh cuz i love to see her in pain!

we got to the emergeny room and as soon as ruBY went to the treeage window and they seen that she is prego, they was like “COME BACK RIGHT NOW” and she left me in the waiting room with all these scary people!!

i was down there by myself for like a long time and some chick with a bleeding crotch was SMILING at me! i was like “bitch step off” i dont want to get more dieases!!

THEN some lady called down to the treeage (sp) place and told them my name and to send me up to the BIRTHING UNIT on the second floor! i was like “holy shit ruBY is having the baby!” but when i got there she was not popping out any bloody life forms. she was just sitting there. so i sat there with her.

we was sittin in this corner right and next to ruBY was a table with someones hospal food on it. It was wearin’ a cover, but damn did that shit stink!!! it was like mashed potatoes and some kind of meat. so This lady comes over and was like “is my food bothering you?” and rUBY of course was like, in shock since we was in the hospal so she did not use good judgment and said “NO the food is not bothering me” and then the lady left!!

she just walked away and left her food there!!!

we sat there for like two hours or maybe more and i Kept thinking “damn that RUby better not be having no diseases going on down there” she can not be trusted u no? she is likely to have sex with a gold fish if not watched properly!! i think maybe that is why i love her so much (but dont tell her).

so then there was these women sitting there cuz the one girl was in labor and they was like rilly funny. we was laughing and shit with them and they made rUBY feel better (i liked it better when she was all pale and nervous tho). so then the girls mommy came over and sat with us. she was like, “bitch i no this food aint gonna stay here and continue stinkin!” so she threwed it away!! me and rUBY was like “horray!” cuz remember i told you before that shit stank! so like right after she threwed it out, the lady came back for it!!! Our friend was like, “Girlfriend i threw that shit out, it stank” and the lady pointed at us and was like “YOU KNEW IT WAS MY FOOD” and stormed off! i was like “Bitch please, we gots more important things to worry about other than your stinky food” and i was hopin to get a “HELL YEAH” from that black lady but she ignored me. i do not think she liked me cuz of my bandanna – some times it makes people think i am like some confederite dude u know? she LIked RUby though and calmed her down.

so then it was our turn to go back to the room with a nurse. she told ruBY to take off ALL her clothes and then she started to pull back the curtain to give RUby privacy and i was like “Wait!!” cuz i had to get back there to. the Nurse was like, “what, she won’t let you stay with her while she undresses?” and i was like “bitch is you kidding me? she will yell!” and the nurse pointed to ruBy’s big fat prego belly and was like “then how did you –” and i said “that’s different” and she understood. mayBe she thought some other sad sack knocked her up.

OK and then another nurse came in and asked rUBY all kinds of questions and i sat there and read a magazine cuz I really dont care about this female shit right? but then she asked ruBY her weight and now i know how much she weighs as a prego girl and let me just tell you that vomit burned my throat!!!!! i was like so repulsed!!! so i sat there and kept starin at the girl in the OIL OF OLAY ad in the magazine and thought “damn i wish she was my lover” just like that sofie b hawkins song.

then the doctor came in and shoved that metal thing up RubY’s thingie and i was like “holy shit man this is gross” cuz i never seen one in person before!! anyway, it was a good thing ruBY went in cuz she has like one of those yeast infection things and did not no it!! so her water bag thing was not leakin, but while they had her hooked up to the monitor she had a contraction and now she is ONE CENTAMETER dilated, what ever the hell that means. that is gross that ruBY’s crotch has that bread bakin’ stuff in it. i will not be touchin her for a VERY long time. she is dirty.

but damn, did RUby do a LOT of whining. can u imagining how awful she is going to be when she is pushing my giant son out of her crotch?? god, all they was doing that nite was sticking her thingie with this metal thing that like, pryed her open, and you would havethought it was the end of the world! i rilly wanted to kill her, specially now that i know how much she weighs. i like wont even hold her hand in public anymore and when i kiss her i have to close my eyes and when i do that, i can see her weight number flashing!! maybe i should play that number.

then she made me buy her a goddamn candy bar since i made her go to the hospal and she was not even in labor. i was like “here’s 75 cents fat lard!” i do not even care any more. i here that lots of dudes leave there women after they have a baby cuz they get so fat and then they never loose it and next thing u no, they is not moving from the couch and eating them bonbons all the live long day. and here i thought i was cheatin’ life by bagging a young chick like ruBY. boy was i wrong.

It all started with an innocent trip to Eat n Park after work last week. I worked late shift that night, so it was already well past 8 by the time Henry, Chooch and I got there. I couldn’t help but notice that the room we were seated in was full of older couples on dates. I could tell it was a date, and not just a casual “I don’t feel like cooking, let’s go out to eat” because every older person seemed smitten with their older person companion. In fact, one of the older person couples even sat on the same side of the booth and shared a plate from the salad bar. Every so often, male older person would lean over and kiss female older person on her temple. It was all at once endearing and nauseating, and I struggled to take a picture of them, eventually managing a slick under-the-table shot.

Another older couple arrived right before we left, and thank god because otherwise I might have died not knowing the precise way the female older person orders her side of broccoli (a double serving, extra-steamed so the florets are on the threshold of disintegration).

I couldn’t stop giggling about this, all these old people hitting the town (well, Dormont anyway) after hours on a Thursday night.

“It’s like a Boz Scaggs concert just let out!” I texted to some friends, along with the pictures. The responses varied from “I don’t know who that is” to “Is that some old singer, I guess?” to “*radio silence*”.

Was my inner old person showing? Or WAS I JUST IMAGINING THAT BOZ SCAGGS EXISTS? I could hear myself saying his name. Boz Scaggs. Boz Scaggs. Bozzzzzz SCAGGsssss. It was sounding more and more foreign until eventually it just sounded like a frog ribbitting under water.

I tried to defend myself, plead my case by insisting that “if you’ve ever been in a grocery store, you’ve probably heard a Boz Scaggs tune at least once in your life” while willing myself to conjure up in my mind my mom’s Boz Scaggs record that I know I used to play in the basement of my parent’s house, didn’t I? DIDN’T I?! JOJO?!

I mean come on: “Lido Shuffle”? “Lowdown”? “LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO ME”!??!?! That was a staple on all of my soft rock mix tapes when I was in high school! BOZ SCAGGS IS REAL.

And then my music-loving friend Terri rescued me from my self-doubt, because she too, has a space in her heart for his smooth yacht rock tracks. Then after Janna and I went to see Birdman on Friday, I made her listen to Boz Scaggs songs on my phone until she finally exclaimed, “Oh, OK! Yeah, that guy. He’s real.” And then she wouldn’t stop singing “Lido Shuffle” which made Chooch irritable.

***

Sunday morning, I awoke to “Lowdown” playing on my bedroom radio. No joke, there it was, wafting out of the dusty speakers like it was no big deal, just another Boz Scaggs Top 40 hit to stuff a Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars sandwich. I’ve been listening to a variety-type station in my room lately because of my penchant for nostalgic earworms and soft rock’s natural ability to ease me into a sweet slumber, even if it means having to tolerate the occasional current pop hit. How else do you guys think I get to hear Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” approximately twice a week? (Seriously, that station LOVES to play that song for some reason.)

Anyway, I excitedly texted Janna and Terri that “Lowdown”  was on. And laying there in bed, taking in the jazzy trumpets and silky background vocals, I started to draw some comparisons to Steely Dan, another band I loved so much when I was growing up thanks to my step-dad, and even got to see them once about 15 years ago and it was amazing. (I had to choose between them and Yes! It was a hard choice.) So I spent a good chunk of my afternoon listening to Steely Dan, and then Emerson Lake and Palmer, and I really started to feel like I needed to grow a beard, put on a white leisure suit, and steal away into the night in my Chevy Van.

Somewhere during this time, Terri texted me and said that “Lido Shuffle” was on in the grocery store she was in! I started freaking out about this, and Henry was like, “Calm down. It’s not that exciting.” BUT IT FELT LIKE I WAS PSYCHICALLY WILLING BOZ SCAGGS TO SURFACE!

And then, this is the weirdest part, that evening Henry and I put on Breaking Bad. We’re way behind and only on season two so DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING. But in this particular episode, Walt is having breakfast with his family, and he starts talking about music with his son, and is appalled that his son has never heard of Steely Dan. I started laughing, since I had been revisiting Steely Dan earlier that day. Henry was like, “Whatever, not that big of a deal.” OK, just watch this:

 MY HEAD NEARLY SHORT-CIRCUITED. I literally jumped off the couch and was shouting, “REALLY? REALLY?!” and Henry mumbled, “OK that’s kind of weird.”

Anyway, this is all a really long-winded way to tell you that after looking through Boz Scaggs albums all weekend, my new Glenn Defacing Project involves Glennifying RECORD ALBUMS!

IT’S ALMOST LIKE BOZ SCAGGS POSED FOR THIS PICTURE PURPOSELY KNOWING THAT GLENN’S HEAD WOULD ONE DAY SO PERFECTLY REPLACE HIS OWN!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have the day off work, which I am now going to fill with more dreamy yacht rock until later tonight when Pierce the Veil blows my heart out of my chest. Don’t judge.

FRIDAY:

Janna and I walked down the street to the trusty Hollywood Theater, where we sat numbly through the incredible film Birdman. The whole time, I kept thinking, “Henry would fucking HATE this movie.” Goddamn was it fantastic, albeit emotionally draining. As we sat staring blankly at the closing credits, Janna said, “This movie made me feel so strange, the same way that—” and here I was thinking she’s going to say  Lost In Translation “—Lost in Translation made me feel.” Because I swear to god, I felt exactly the same. MOVIE TWINSIES.
Also, Michael Keaton all fucking day long. This might actually dethrone Mr. Mom as my favorite Michael Keaton movie of all time, and I REALLY LOVE MR. MOM.

But let me watch Mr. Mom again real quick and then I’ll tell you for sure.

Then we came back to my house and Chooch dressed up like a pretty, pretty princess for us.

Totally robbed my style.

SATURDAY:

I was so excited to have a mini-reunion with some old friends from high school, Sarah and Liz! (And Lisa too, but I see Lisa too often for any necessary reunions!) I actually became friends with Sarah and Liz through Lisa, and I’m pretty sure the first time we hung out was at a haunted house on a rainy night in October. The kind of nights where friendships are destined to be born! I stayed in touch with Sarah for quite some time after high school—she was even at my baby shower—but haven’t actually seen her in person since 2007. And I got back in touch with Liz through Facebook and even ran into her randomly when I was at McGinnis Sisters spending too much money on fancy cheese.

We had brunch at the Yard in Shadyside and it’s a good thing I made reservations, because moments after arrived, a flood of people in varying degrees of “Mumford & Sons fan” showed up. In otehr words, we could have played Hipster Beard Bingo.

I made the rookie mistake of feeling obligated to order from the brunch menu instead of just getting a gourmet grilled cheese like I originally planned, and subsequently suffered through some seriously underwhelming Johnny Cakes (if you know me and my Lizzie Borden obsession, you will understand why I order Johnny Cakes any time they’re on a menu!). However, the company and bottomless mimosas made up for the saliva-sucking, overcooked cakes.

(Quick side-note: I was thinking about this on the way there, but Sarah is actually the reason I started up a LiveJournal in 2001 and got into writing again, although those initial journal entries were a far cry from “writing.” So, thank you, Sarah! Look how many years I’ve been polluting the Internet with my misspelled words!)

It was such a pleasure to get to hang out with Liz and Sarah again. The conversation was easy, Liz still has disgustingly amazing curly hair, and just hearing Sarah laughing brought back so many great memories. Ugh, I love days like these.

The best part was drunkenly stumbling into Chooch’s piano lesson (after nearly falling out of the car because my purse strap was completely wrapped around my legs—don’t worry, Henry was driving) and then starting to nod off in his piano teacher’s living room armchair. A+ parenting, would drink bottomless mimosas again.

SUNDAY:

Henry spent most of Saturday tackling the landfill that is Chooch’s room, and by Sunday afternoon it looked like this:

I’d have taken a “before” picture, but it was bordering on hoarder status, and…. just no. I don’t understand where Chooch gets it from, but he clearly does not care at all if he can’t see the bottom of his bedroom floor. I however do care. Which is why I started tossing everything into garbage bags last weekend, whether it was garbage or not, while he just stood there smugly, with his arms crossed, sneering at me and saying, “I know you’re not really going to throw all this stuff out.”

And he was right, only because DUMB HENRY intercepted and made me go count to a billion in order to get the voices to stop screaming at me in rhyming couplets.

There was also an Ikea trip in here somewhere, which was OK except that the bedroom set I wanted to buy Chooch was out of stock and I had my heart set on it because I’m an eight-year-old! Seriously though, it’s a loft bed with a shit ton of storage and a desk attached and it’s just basically a dream come true for someone obsessed with maintaining order. That lump of furniture could solve a world of problems in Chooch’s room and I stalked one of the Ikea bitches until she wobbled over to her computer and printed out the info I need in order to repeatedly call and harass and the Ikea warehouse for a status update.

My bedroom was the shit when I lived at my mom’s house. All kids should have a fucking spectacular bedroom, and Chooch gets so pissed when I show him pictures of how fabulous and cozy my room was and I’m like, “PROVE TO ME THAT YOU WON’T LURE RATS INTO THIS SPACE AND THEN WE’LL TALK.” God.

And then, The Walking Dead. Because I love ending the weekend on a depressing note.

Corey and I try to swing by the Mattress Factory once or twice a year to stare studiously at Contemporary Art, but when my friend Sandy recently visited and reported back that there was a CIRCUS EXHIBIT, I quickly texted Corey because OK, we need to see this ASAP.

I didn’t know until we got there that it was INTERACTIVE. And there was a whole shelf of paper mache masks to wear while attempting to walk a tightrope and ride a tiny bicycle! (Corey spent the rest of the afternoon convinced that he had contracted ebola and/or measles because of the mask. And hey, why not!?)

Something close to 87 voices in my head told me that it would be a bad idea to try out the German hamster wheel, but when do I ever listen. The first time I tried it, I didn’t expect it to start tilting so far to the right so I screamed like Michael Jackson and jumped off with so much  momentum, that there was almost an Erin-shaped outline in the wall from where I crashed through when I was unable to stop running. Thank god I had an audience for this!

But then I saw Corey do it and he made it look so easy (“Look, you just have to Stretch Armstrong yourself so you’re super-tall like me and then it’s fine!”) so I decided to try once more, pretending like I don’t have T-Rex arms.

Except no. Now with my feet strapped in and my hands gripping the appropriate handles, I felt like I was being quartered! And then it started tipping but this time I had no momentum (I know this because every time Corey re-watched the video, he would laugh and say, “YOU HAD NO MOMENTUM! HAHA!”) so I just kind of hung there, wailing, “I’m stuck. I’M STUCK. I’M STUCCCCK” until Corey finally ran over to help me. It reminded me of the time I was four-years-old and our asshole neighbor left me in her tree house, knowing I was too afraid to climb the ladder to get down, and didn’t TELL ANYONE I NEEDED HELP. Her dad eventually came out and found me (in my mind, it was nighttime and I was shivering, but it probably was only around 30 minutes after the fact) and then people wondered why I bit that bitch on the face later. DON’T FUCK WITH ME, I HAVE TEETH.

(No joke, A-ron was just over here talking to Patrick and me and then he said, “OK, I’m going to leave you fine young cannibals…” and I’m like HOW DOES HE KNOW!?)

(My first impulse to this day is to lunge at Henry with bared teeth. I guess I never grew out of that phase.)

Ahem. So anyway. The same people were still watching and you know what? I DIDN’T CARE THAT THEY HEARD ME CRY LIKE A BABY. Oh god, did they laugh.

In addition to making an asshole of myself on the German hamster wheel, I also took it upon myself to straddle a tiny bicycle, which my audience explained that no one was able to ride it. Oh, I rode it alright. Almost straight into the side of the tent. Corey said it was his favorite moment of the day. I’M SURE.

Corey would be a much more graceful circus performer than me. I’d only be able to accidental laughs. STORY OF MY LIFE.

Then we left that part of the floor and realized there was a disclaimer outside of the exhibit, and for good reason!

“You know what would have made that even better?” I said to Corey in the next room. “IF JANNA HAD BEEN THERE TOO!” And then we started laughing at Janna, who wasn’t even there, but that’s OK. She’s used to it.

Incidentally, Janna couldn’t go with us because she was with her mom, buying an ACTUAL MATTRESS.

This room was cool. It had tiny buildings and circle things.

See?! I took pictures so that you too could try and figure out contemporary art. Quiz at the end.

A lot of these reminded me of the building I work in so that was kind of a killjoy, being reminded of work while playing.

So futuristic! Such mini!

I really enjoyed this room because it was fun to look at it and accessible. I didn’t feel the need to struggle to find the bigger picture or hidden meaning. Plus, everything was made from recycled objects!

Spots and Dots. Funny story about this jacket (OK, not really funny) but I was rooting around in the attic Saturday morning for photo shoot costumes, and found this old jacket that I haven’t worn in 15 years because Fat Happens. Out of curiosity, I shrugged it on and was pleasantly surprised to see that it (mostly) fits! And by mostly I mean “enough to wear it without feeling like Fat Man ->Tiny Blazer.” One of the docents there even complimented me on it and she definitely had that Slightly-Dirty Art Student look about her, so you know that’s a big deal. (Is it though?)

Anyway, a few days later, I was on the trolley and right before we headed into town, the man next to me said, “Excuse me.” NO ONE ever talks to each other on the trolley in the morning (thank god), so I thought he was signaling to me that he needed me to move so he could get off at the next stop. I started to rise, when he put his hand on my arm (and here is where I died a little) and asked, “Where did you get this jacket?”

So of course, I’m thinking, “Why the fuck does some middle-aged man care about where I got my jacket?” UNLESS this was the same coat his WIFE was wearing the night he caught her having an affair and now he was feeling the uncontrollable desire to shank me in the same manner he had shanked her.

But no, he was only inquiring because he felt that his daughter would love it.

OR SO HE SAYS.

What does it all mean!? I don’t know.  I always carry along the information sheet that you’re supposed to consult while eyeballing the art, but I rarely read it because I’m already so overstimulated. So then it’s hours later and I’m skimming it at home and realize that were certain things we were supposed to be looking for, etc. My attention span is not exactly museum-caliber.

Or, sometimes I start reading it but my mind is like OVERSTIMULATION! PUT PAPER DOWN AND TOUCH ART!

This needs to be tattooed on my fucking body, now.

This was an installation the basement, where mist was sprinkling down from the ceiling and a rainbow was projected through it. I was more interested in repeatedly shoving my fist through the droplets to actually read what was going on in there.

I bet Henry can relate to this.

Sometimes, I think it’s OK to not “understand” art. I barely understand my own “art.” But I sure love going to art galleries and museums and looking. It beats staring at a TV screen all day!

Leticia loved haunting the Appledale’s farmhouse. It always smelt of blueberry syrup and fresh linen, with a tiny tang of far-off manure to keep it real.

She loved watching the Appledale brothers dig for worms, and later, watching them stuff those worms down their sister Amelda’s cotton blouse.

Leticia loved bobbing invisibly behind Mother Appledale, watching as she darned Papa Appledale’s socks with a slightly arthritic hand.

Leticia knew that soon Mother Appledale would “accidentally” be tossed into the combine, but she didn’t try to warn her because it would be handy to have someone like Mother Appledale on the other side; on top of the darning, she made a mean chicken fried steak.

Papa Appledale. Big, overall’d Papa Appledale with the grass stains on his forearms and worn leather belt for whippin’. Leticia generally stayed away from him. He always moved within a flock of pernicious energy which often stunk of cabbaged flatulence.

While Papa Appledale was killing Mother Appledale, the boys were down by the train tracks playing with the box car children, Amelda was at her girlfriend’s house learning about Kegel, and Leticia cowered in the safety of the washing machine.

And that’s where she remained while Papa Appledale lumbered into the laundry room, peeled off his ensanguined murder uniform, and stuffed it into the washing machine, along with Leticia and a handful of sweaty socks unappreciatively marked by Mother Appledale’s handiwork.

“Hey Leticia,” one of her friends taunted back home.

“What happened, someone throw you in with the reds?” A bunch of them held their bellies and laughed till they wheezed, all a’shimmer in their God-given pearlescent suits.

“Yep. Something like that,” Leticia muttered, while waiting for Mother Appledale to ladle some gravy on her chicken fried steak.

———————

Pastel on canvas, 5×7.

Hello! Today is the day we pretend it’s show and tell in Kindergarten and I show you recent paintings I made and then possibly tell you about them too. (HEADS UP, COURTNEY, WINNER OF THE GIVEAWAY! Click away from this page if you still want your Robert Smith painting to be a surprise, because his picture is in this post!)

So here we have a custom goth portrait for an Etsy customer. I like painting cemeteries, so I was down with this one. I just asked Glenn if he wants me to paint one for him and his wife and he said, “Nope” without hesitation.

I painted this Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters/Nirvana fame; I have learned this week that he is not as widely known as I thought) for my Twitter friend Lizz while catching up on episodes of Hindsight. The “footos” in his hand is a tip of the hat to the Mentos parody they did for the Big Me video. I’m not a big Foo fan (however, Everlong4L) but this one was really fun to paint and I was so happy with it that I decided to have a few prints available on Etsy, and if you know me, you know that I don’t really do the whole print thing very often!

The aforementioned winner of my giveaway a weeks ago requested ROBERT SMITH for her painting and I was like, “Be still my heart!” because hello, he’s my #1. But then I panicked because I was so worried I would eff up his beautiful face. Robert Smith you guys. Sigh. I scanned this one too, because I wanted a copy to keep, haha! Also, I owe my pal Elaine one as an art trade!

Friends that know me on Facebook and Instagram, please accept my apologies because you’re probably gagging at the sight of this by now, but here is my Valentine’s gift to Henry:

LOLOLOL.

Anyway, the whole purpose here is that I’m always thinking of the next concert/music fest and he’s always thinking of whenever the fuck he’s going to finally be able to get some sleep. I like it because there’s room left to add future fests that we WILL (not MIGHT) attend.

I couldn’t wait any longer (like, a whole whopping 7 days, I know) to give it to him so I made him take it last night even though he had been previously dodging my present-giving advances because he wanted it to be a surprise on Valentine’s Day. But I had a really shitty day yesterday and he let me vent on him, so I decided it was a good time to present it.

HE’S ALMOST SMILING!

I know the popular opinion is that I’m like this huge shrew when it comes to my relationship with Henry—you know, because people shadow us 24/7 and clearly know that I’m not an “attentive housewife” — the only part of that which is true is the house wife part, because bitch please. But I do have my moments.

And because I feel bad for some of my older paintings, and because I have had donuts on the brain which is weird because I’m generally not a donut person but lately? BURY ME IN A COFFIN OF CRULLERS. So today I will put some of the spotlight back on some paintings I made when I was going through a weird donut phase last year around this time too (seasonal donut disorder?).

First, may I present to you good ol’ Anthropodonut, which is still up for grabs!:

And second, my favorite, Eat Shit:

My friend Alyson Hell speaks French and tells me that this is how you’d say “eat shit” while wearing a beret and eating a quiche.

I think I will take a break from faces and paint some more donuts this weekend. <3

Friday, June 6, 2008

Morning

Today I was looking for Chooch’s juice cup and thought perhaps he left it on the window sill. When I pulled back the curtains, something small and grayish in color hit the floor with a plop. I screamed and jumped back. A few seconds later, I saw it jump underneath the TV stand. I called Henry immediately and reported to him that we had in the house what I assumed was a toad. “It’s definitely something that makes a plopping sound when it hits the ground, so whatever that is, that’s what’s in the house.” Happy birthday, Henry!

Chooch stood by the TV for awhile, lining up some of his cars on the shelf. Looking at his bare legs and feet, I figured it was probably not the best idea for him to be standing so close to our house guest (whom I lost sight of). What if it wasn’t a toad at all? I entertained the idea of a brand new species hulking around back there in the corner, perhaps something with tentacles, venom, and red pubic hair. I pulled Chooch away from the TV and made him play somewhere safer, like near the basement steps, and continued flirting with that thought.

I kept my feet tucked underneath me on the couch for the rest of the morning.

Afternoon

Henry came home from work and pulled the TV back. “It’s a mouse, you retard.” Then he left to get sticky traps, because I was adamant about not killing it.

Evening

People at work have informed me that those sticky traps kill mice. “Sometimes a mouse will chew its own foot off to escape from those traps,” my boss said. I texted Henry: ABORT, ABORT. Henry says mouse removal is officially my responsibility.

“Tell me you’re not this worked up over a MOUSE,” Eleanore said disgustedly. I ate a good almond cookie.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Morning

Diary, it is 1:00 in the morning and the mouse is perched above the screen on the front window! He’s really cute; I’m talking to him and feeding him shredded cheese. I don’t know what his name is yet so I’m just calling him “Hey little buddy.”  It reminds me of when I was in elementary school and I taught a Praying Mantis how to count change. Henry said he’s a field mouse. “Like Secret of NIMH?” I asked. “Yeah, like Secret of NIMH,” he said, sounding a bit impatient. We’ve been watching it intently for fifteen minutes now. It just scratched himself and then stepped on the cheese I sprinkled. Every time Henry gets too close, the mouse tenses up and makes like he’s going to run — I’d get tense too if I saw a big bearded douchebag approaching me  — but when I approach, he is calm and we make casual eye contact.

I’m thinking of the cozy house I’m going to build for him, with a little chimney and fresh daisies in a tiny vase, but then Henry just tried to catch him with an empty iced tea canister, causing the mouse to attempt suicide by leaping to the floor. Look Diary, that mouse is cute and cuddly, sure, FROM AFAR. But I guarantee if that thing starts scampering around my feet, it’s going to get booted into the wall. Losing sight of it, I tug on Henry’s shirt and hug him from behind and I bet he wishes I was wearing a strap-on. Henry is mad now because he “could have had it” but he couldn’t bend down with me grabbing at him like that. He was all, “GO STAND OVER THERE,” and if he had it his way, “there” would be at the bottom of the ocean with a few cinder blocks and a chain.

The mouse ran back behind the TV.

Evening

Hey, I haven’t seen that mouse in awhile. I can only hope it’s off making hundreds of babies somewhere in my house.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Evening

A few minutes ago, I was treating my brain to some quality reality TV programming, as you do, when I heard a strangulated growl coming from the dining room. I looked up and saw Nicotina (aka Speck, Breakfast Nook, Pickles) with my little buddy IN HER MOUTH. At this point, I don’t know the mouse’s status (breathing, not breathing), but my rescue mode is activated and I start screaming bloody murder for Nicotina to release the damn mouse. Henry and Chooch are upstairs and probably think the house is on fire or there’s a hatchet lodged in my head with the way I’m flipping out. I yelled up to Henry what was going down and heard him mumble, “Jesus Christ.”

Cornering Nicotina on the back porch, I grabbed her just before Marcy came stalking through the kitchen to get a piece of the action. Marcy does NOT need to be involved in this. She scares me. Nicotina looked highly confused, her eyes said, “Is this not what I’m supposed to do?” I held my breath and snatched her, mouse and all, and keeping her at arm’s length, I ran with her to the front door. Before I had a chance to pull the door open, she spat the mouse out onto the couch and he scurried behind the pillows.

Henry and Chooch are downstairs at this point, and Chooch started crying; probably because he didn’t understand why Mommy was raving  with bugged-out eyes like a woman scorned. I ordered Henry to help and he reluctantly grabbed a diaper and held it open like a catcher’s mitt, muttering under his breath about how he should have just killed the fucker on Friday. I put aside my desire to donkey kick him and focus on making it through the night with no casualties. The mouse ran off the couch and fell into one of Chooch’s toy bins. “PICK IT UP AND TAKE IT OUTSIDE! WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE!” I screamed. Henry threw the bin on the front porch and said, “YOU go out there and YOU dump it out.”

So I did. And the mouse ran to freedom. Nicotina wouldn’t look at me for the rest of the night.

I was so amped up after that, that I couldn’t sit down. Fuck, Diary, I wish you could have seen it; it’s the most amazing feeling to save a life. I highly recommend it. I kept wanting to talk about it with Henry, but he was thoroughly unimpressed. “Normal people would have killed it, but not you.

You have to turn it into a Thing.” He won’t admit that I deserve to be knighted. I called Christina and she said the whole time I was telling her about it, she kept envisioning me as Dog the Bounty Hunter.

I think I want to do this for a living, this saving mice thing. I want to be on Animal Planet.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Evening

I’ve been telling everyone about my rescue success, about how valiant I am. Kim and Collin said something about me needing therapy, but I know they’re really just trying to downplay their awe.

 I showed Kim the picture of Frederick (that’s the mouse) and she admitted he was really fucking cute.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 TODAY

Morning

Chooch just pointed to the floor in the living room and innocently asked, “Whassat?” A dead mouse, that’s what. Shit, isn’t this chapter closed yet? I’m trying not to panic, trying not to wonder if it’s Frederick. Maybe he came back for more shredded cheese. All I know is that he wasn’t there five minutes ago when I walked across the room to the couch. I asked Chooch who put it there and he said Speck. That bitch.

I called Henry and yelled SOMETHING TERRIBLE JUST HAPPENED.

He told me to throw it outside, then hurried up and made sure I knew not to touch it with bare hands. So I wrapped it gingerly in a paper towel and placed it on the front porch.

Afternoon

THE MOUSE IS GONE. A FUCKING BIRD TOOK IT. I called Henry and, in quick-speak, relay to him the latest development. “….and so I had it on the porch so that you could bury it when you come home—” Henry interrupted me with genuine laughter. “–and now it’s GONE.” Henry gave me a talk about nature.

Evening

Bob told me there are probably a hundred more mice in my house.

I don’t want to do this for a living anymore.

————–

Today’s blog entry is brought to you by the numbers 2008 and the letters OLD, because I fear that if I try to write something new today, it will be in CAPSLOCK and possibly just the words “FUCK” and “DIE” typed in tandem with my twitching eyelids because HOW IS EVERYTHING SO ANNOYING TODAY? I got even less sleep than usual last night and now I am trapped inside my own self-created rage-vaccuum. G’day. 

Here is where I start to blog about how there aren’t enough hours in the day and then stop myself because am I really that cliché. But for real. I come home from work and I have all of these things I want to write about, but instead I dutifully eat my dinner and then exercise (Paul Eugene has a Funky Standing Abs workout that is equally funky and stand-y!) and then paint. And then it’s 11:30PM and I’m staring at the computer screen with glazed eyes, wishing there were more hours in the day. And then my fingers start typing that exact sentiment, and well, here we are. Back to that again.

Painting commissions are keeping me busy and I will never not be grateful for that, but something always must suffer and right now, that’s the blog.  So, I am going to post some pictures from my phone that I want to be remembering forever and always, even though they’re backed up to about 17 different social media sources and also that ominous cloud thing. It’s hard to believe that I was able to have a fucking baby pre-Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. (Don’t worry, I at least blogged the subject to death.) Literally only 8 years ago, I had a Motorola Razr and had to beg Henry to let me send the occasional text, which would send him into mustachioed rant about exorbitant data charges. This almost makes me want to have a do-over with another baby. I’m rambling; it’s late.

On  the last Wednesday of January, I went to Tana with Corey and Christy for an Ethiopian feeding-frenzy (oxymoron?) and some smooth jazz, which Corey will never let me live down for saying. IT WAS SMOOTH THOUGH, ALRIGHT? While we were there, Janna texted me because there was a shooting/standoff one street down from her parents house! It made me think about how suburbs are just as fucked up in their own right as the more urban areas. That town has seen a lot of domestic violence over the years and it’s pretty traumatic, really. I mean, for a town called Pleasant Hills.

Anyway, aside from that, it was nice evening of eating with our hands and reminiscing. A+, super fast shipping. (And by that I mean, Christy got me home in one piece.)

The ghost of this idiot kid is now walking around your house. Hey, you looked.

Chooch is still going strong with piano lessons! Cheryl has been teaching him some pop songs along with the traditional lessons, and I can hear him at night, practicing “Say Something” while quietly singing along. Also, it’s nice that Henry and I get an hour to tool around the east end of town while lessons are happening, but the last few times we’ve mostly just argued because WHY DOESN’T HE JUST KNOW WHAT I WANT?!!?

This made sense to me at the time.

SO MUCH ALASKA! ALL OVER MY TV! ET TU, MTV?!?!?! (Not shown in this picture but seriously MTV has a reality show called SLEDNECKS and it makes me want to walk into the Viacom headquarters and poop on their floors.

Trying on Henry’s glasses while wearing my contacts and then trying to take a selfie, that was fun.

Thanks for the heads up on a blog post from two years ago, modeljoanie! #smittyisstillacunttho

The surprise pictures I find on my phone.

I have the best customers! Even when Henry fucks up an order (seriously, probably less than 3 times since 20007…so, not flog-worthy, I guess), people still come back. I’m so proud of these babies.

Oh god, we ate dinner at Mendoza Express on Saturday and Chooch was all, “EXCUSE ME” every five minutes because he LOVES ASKING WAITERS QUESTIONS. One of his questions was, “Excuse me? I think the bathroom door is locked?” BECAUSE CHOOCH LOCKED IT ON HIS WAY OUT. Idiot. Then the waiter (see also: owner) tried to teach Chooch how to roll his r’s. It was not a success.

Back in the day, my friends would send me ridiculous photos and then I would write ridiculous flash fiction to go along with it, and I am dying to do that again, but then that brings us back, once again, to the whole hours/day quandary. Life is such a fucking Catch 22, which my friend Lisa had to write a paper on in high school and I think of her every time I say Catch 22, which is a lot, because life is one.

I can’t make you listen to the new Title Fight record that came out today, but I wish you would. #trust

Here is an old story I wrote in another life, called A Fine Day For Lemons. Please to enjoy while I continue to slowly go mad on this terrible Monday.

One plump lemon was thoughtfully procured by Eddie Orpik, whose live-in strumpet insisted that rubber ball gags tasted like her Uncle Herb’s sweaty taint.

Two lemons spotted with rot were unearthed from the bottom of the pile by Jamison Fitzshittery, who would eat them whole while sitting on the freshly covered graves of his recent slayings.

Three ripe lemons were chosen by Jorge Martinez’s shaking hands, who would squeeze them into his mother’s favorite summer cóctel, a wishful attempt to soften the blow when he later reveals that he’s el homo.

Four lemons were palmed by a paranoid window saleswoman, the curled rinds of which would be cautiously tucked inside the vents of her car to mask the lingering bouquet of marijuana.

Five lemons went into Mrs. Hunchsnatch’s basket, who was slowly luring her husband to his death bed with a panoply of meringue pies.

Six lemons were lazily chucked into Jack Hass’s shopping cart with the one birdbrained wheel, whose bawdy basket wife needed only three lemons for the homemade sex lotions she shilled on Sundays outside of the Church, but Jack did not know how to count.

Seven lemons were plucked by Sasha Eltsin, who would pair them with oranges to create sacks of didactic citrus to unleash on the gulag unrulies.

Eight lemons filled Mother Bonnie’s basket, who planned on turning the tart fruits into sugared delicacies in order to capture ragtag boxcar kids for her signature stew.

When the sun set, the proprietor gathered the remaining bushel and turned it into fresh ambrosia for his wife, whose decomposing body slumped in a supine pile on a Laura Ashley bedspread. She always did like lemons in her ambrosia.

Obligatory “wow it’s winter in Pittsburgh & it’s snowing can you believe it” sentiments.