Simon *Hearts* Singer

I am sure you've seen or heard about that nice Scottish Susan Boyle woman with the simple life and the stunning voice. While her lovely voice and sweet story makes me all teary eyed, this is the bit I love:



He fucking looks like he's imagining how her heart would taste coated in breadcrumbs and sauteed in butter.

Annnnddd . . . We're Back!

I haven’t written. Again.

I have parted ways with Corporate Happy Fun Job, and I find that the decompression caused my brain to get all . . . fluffy . . . Not to mention, the sudden dearth of day-to-day contact with douchebags and morons has left me at a loss for things to write about. It seems that without someone actually in my presence being a dickwad, I can’t work up the necessary amount of irritation to write about anything.

Which means that my writing is like a pearl--an un-grammatical, profane pearl. Letters are the nacre I use to lessen the irritating grit that is Other People’s Bullshit. Or something. Doesn’t that sound nice? I think it sounds nice.

The intervening weeks have also seen me take a much needed trip to visit The Esteemed Liquor Fairy in her coastal lair; as well as winter entering its final death throes (even if it is supposed to snow tomorrow, which really? Fuck a bunch of that). April might be the cruelest month, but March turned into a most eventful one.

Now that I’m getting settled, more or less, in the new job and the new season I find that I’m somewhat more inspired to write and participate. Also, although the new job—CHFJ.2, if you will—is in no way as idiotic as the last, working for a living still pretty much sucks.* My new bosses are not either of them swaggering dildos, although the one does have that unfortunate spray tan addiction that makes one look all sweet potato-y. I see in my future many exciting days of self-control followed by evenings of profane venting.

*Currently accepting applications for a patron. Contact me through this blog.

Musing on a Sunday, Not At the Office

The lingering winter and my steadily deteriorating work situation have worked in concert to lobotomize me. My brain is mired. I am completely uncreative, totally uninspired, and borderline unable to interact with people. My life has, in essence, turned me back into me at 13, but without the urge to write truly awful poetry.

I mistakenly believed that things wouldn’t ever get as bad at Corporate Happy Fun Job as they did last year at this time. I can only attribute that ridiculous assumption to optimism born of desperation—to have believed otherwise would have melted my soul and destroyed me. Now, in the throes of misery, I’m too close to it to reflect upon it. There is only the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other forced death march, interspersed with momentary speculation about how much my manager resembles a swaggering dildo frat boy.

That explains a lot, actually. That whole swaggering dildo thing.

As works sucks up more and more of my time, the rest of my life concomitantly begins to ravel around the edges. Things like socks and clean panties sort of fall by the wayside, and let’s not even talk about the whole damn dust situation.

And winter. . .winter. I am so done with winter. Rather than becoming more accepting of the entire season situation as years go by, I fight it more and more. I feel like I have done my time and paid my dues, and should no longer have to suffer the indignities of winter. Unfortunately, February is only beginning. Spring is at least a six weeks away, and the days when we can be confident there will be no frost are longer still.

The madness, he is lurking.

On the bright side, the dark and hopeless days of the Bush administration are finally, fabulously, behind us. President Obama (*swoon*) has impressed me incredibly during his first two weeks in office. Further, I don’t believe I’m impressed solely by the contrast between Obama and his idiotic predecessor, but rather by his determination to do right; to be a statesman and a leader rather than a politician.

When he signed the Executive Order to close Gitmo, I sat there sort of dumbfounded, thinking to myself, “Huh. He can just do that. Just . . . make good things happen. Because he’s the president. Fuckin’-A right.” And then he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, and I almost wept, because suddenly I no longer felt so much like I had a target painted on my ass and a sign around my neck that said “Fucking Sucker” in letters 3 inches high.

Hand to god, I would likely hump the President’s leg, but it would upset Michelle and his kids and the Secret Service would wallop my ass. The Boy, though, would understand because I am a woman of serious and sudden wants and, as my husband, he knows and accepts this about me.

Too Dumb To Teach

Ok. Seriously?

If you’re so stupid that you:

1. Spend $1100 on a laptop to write papers –and-

2. Buy said laptop with an operating system you’ve never heard of –and-

3. When you prove unable to successfully operate said OS you’ve never heard of, you respond by dropping out of school rather than finding someone who can help you at, say, the computer lab . . .

THEN one can reasonably assume that your school career was not on an upward trajectory anyway.

Getting Here From There

A few weeks ago for shits and giggles, I decided to add a Stat Counter to this blog. I have it invisible because 1. I don't really care for them much on pages, and 2. I have some dignity and don't need anyone to see how paltry the visit count is, and 3. I don't want any of my two or three regular readers to realize how un-fucking cool I really am and be scared back into the ether.

I get a few hits from places I recognize as belonging to people I know. I also get a lot of shit from, like, India--I suppose most of those kind souls are concerned about the size of my penis and would like to help me enlarge it.

My favorite, though, are the random search strings. A couple folks arrived here after searching for "Bommarito Nissan." Hi guys! If you found this after googling Bommarito Nissan, all I can say is FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY DO NOT DO THAT TO YOURSELF. Life is too short, and frankly, you'd be better off walking--which now that I think about it is what you're likely in for if you go to them for service. Just saying.

The other common theme I'm finding is people who are searching for answers to various grammatical questions. God help them if they find it here. While I can as needed deploy a heaping helping of Queen's English in the service of good, here I mostly don't concern myself with many of the niceties of grammar. Whatever poor bastard takes his or her writing tips from this blog is in a world of fucking hurt. Vulgar, nasty, ill-willed fucking hurt to be exact.

The True Meaning of Christmas

Christmas is not about celebrating the birth of our savior.



It is not about a quiet contemplation of the year, or a celebration with friends and loved ones.



It's not the about the bustle, or the songs, or the foods that evoke history and home.



It's not even about running around unto exhaustion so that you can suffer through the racist, homophobic garbage spewed by your in-laws. Garbage that is interspersed with "Why don't we see more of you?" guilt trips that you are forced to endure without the sweet blessing of a cocktail.

No. Christmas is about none of those things. Instead? Christmas is about this:



Jason and I received this as a present. I, literally, don't know what to say. The generosity leaves me speechless.

Car Sales 301

Lessons In Selling Cars To People Who Hate You

1. If I contact you by email, it is because I don't want to talk to you. I don't really want to talk to anyone. I am a curmudgeon, and people annoy me.

If I have sent you an email with a fucking question in it, and did not include a phone number, you can rest assured it's not because I don't know how to fill out a phone. Answer the question. Make me hate you less, and I will call YOU. Promise. Kisses.

2. If I am talking to you, you better not be a complete moron. If I ask you a question, come up with an answer. Today, some idiot who finally annoyed me into calling him by not answering my question via e-mail, I finally broke down called him because I didn't think I wanted this car after all, and just wanted someone to answer some questions so I could be sure. When the figures he was giving me were much higher than his closest competitor--the same car, basically, by a different maker--I told him so. He proceeded to ask me what incentives the other manufacturer was offering.

Fuck. I don't know. I don't give a shit. I care about the end numbers, not the ones in the middle. I spend my workweek babysitting salespeople. Why the fuck am I going to do it for me. And besides, isn't it your job as a dancing sales monkey to know what you're closest competitors are offering.

I now have new insight as to why the domestic automakers are made of fail.

3. If I come into the dealer, I am not interested in having a big cock waving contest with you. I don't get off on negotiation. I don't get off on listening to your shit. Talking to you does not make me feel good. It's a shitty fucking chore. The BEST way to make me happy is to reduce the amount of time we have to spend together. I spend 40 hours a week with douchey salespeople yammering at me, I sure as hell don't want to spend my off hours around it. Let's just wrap this up so I can get to the bar.

4. And finally, most importantly, do NOT insult my intelligence. The tits are mere accessories, and do not negatively impact my higher faculties. I'm spending my precious free time and will soon be spending my hard-earned money. Don't jerk me around and dodge answers to my questions and expect I won't notice.

Tonight, I was standing in a dealership, having just finished test driving the last vehicle I was interested in. I enjoyed the drive, whatever that means, I let the salesman know that I was deciding between this car and one from their close competitor that is comparably priced. So, yes. Price. What will you sell me this car for, Mr. Man? Impress me.

So he goes off to do whatever it is that they do before they come back with a number. I assume he took a good, healthy dump. And he gives me a figure which I know was a bit high, but whatevs. Then he goes on about how the number can come down, based on inventory, etc, and that if I wanted to buy tonight he was sure he could a car much closer to their invoice price.

Hrm. Okay then. I'm not signing on a car tonight. BUT! I intend to make a choice this week. I am BUYING A CAR. So. What's the price? What is the price, you fine crapping, dancing, sales monkey man?

Well, it depends on inventory, volume, etc.

I look around the showroom. The Boy and I were the only beating hearts in the joint not on the payroll.

*cricket*cricket*cricket*

Thanks, for your time.

Maybe I should have mentioned to him that the internet guy said they had surfeit of that model. That they were working to move them, that he would beat any written deal I brought him. And that the fucking piece of shit he'd just brought me was a full $800 above what I knew those things sold for.

Nah. Fuck it.

The Quest For Project Shitheap 3.0

Somewhere below "gynecological examination" and "root canal" on my List of Things I Enjoy is car shopping.

However, the Nissan? It is dead. Fuck that fucking car in its fucking carhole. I'm still pissed because I can't even come to a decision about how to get its carcass out from in front of my house. It is, theoretically, still worth money. I guess. But it needs work and I am sure as shit not investing another dime in it.

If it weren't so cold I'd go outside and hit it with a stick.

Anyway, so without the Nissan we have only Ophelia the Saturn. This is a great little car, however, it has over 156,000 miles on it. I'm WAY too big of a chickenshit for this to be our sole source of transportation. That means that we either move someplace warm and walkable, or I gird my loins and shop for cars. If we had a traditionally gendered distribution of labor Chez Nous, I could dump this particular shit chore on The Boy. Alas, though, that's not how we roll.

Fortunately, I have good and generous friends who are willing to help with their knowledge and encouragement. So far, I've only been moderately annoyed with dealership minions, and I have yet to truly want to call someone a motherfucker. I am, to my mind, doing ok.

My sort of unique perspective as a car buyer in the current economy does not escape me. I can't walk by a radio and not hear something about the proposed domestic auto bailout, and I really, really know why the domestic car companies are doing so poorly.

Even now, after all this time, the domestic automakers are building shit. Seriously, there are hardly any domestic cars that I can even convince myself to test drive, and the one that is remotely tempting is basically a Toyota. Seriously. I was looking at a used car online that had less than 15,000 miles and was priced almost 50% less than the new cars I'm looking at, and I still am not sure I want to even test drive the damn thing. If it were a used version of one of the imports I am looking at, it would probably already be in the fucking driveway. Detroit has finally managed to build cars so unappealing that they practically can't give them away.

I say that my car is just a tool, a toaster on wheels, but seriously? I would never buy a toaster that fucking ugly.

Yuletide Dread

I've decided that my ongoing not posting is really me just doing what I can to seize a little bit of control in world of chaos. Like the way a toddler or a Republican will regress and insist on a binkie or resume pooping his diapers when things don't go his way.

Whatever. Fine. Damn.

Thanksgiving welcomed the return of the holiday season last week. The holidays are always kind of fraught for me. On the one hand, you have food, booze, friends and tradition. Generally, I'm pro all of those things. On the other hand, you have the fact that it's cold; it's dead; dark at 5:00 pm; and my family is all giddybonkers batshit insane. Normally, I can deal with my immediate family's particularly flavorful crazy blend. However, chuck in a couple of hours with the broader circle of the people to whom I'm related by blood or by unfortunate matrimonial choice (not mine, obvy), and in the best of years I'm ready to just stay the hell at home and extract tinsel from my cat's ass rather than face any more goddamn cheer.

This year, however, I'm just...really...adverse to the shenanigans. I know what it is that has brought this all to a head, I have finally come to the point in my life where I have virtually no hesitation telling people what I think or what I feel. Unless I'm actually on the fucking clock, I no longer choose to suffer fools gladly. Hell, even at the office I've stopped gluing glitter and flowers to the shit I say to people. I. Just. Don't. Fucking. Care.

I would like very much to avoid the cousin et al entirely, and I'm sure that by her my presence would not be missed. My grandmother, however, feels differently. For Thanksgiving, I attempted to avoid the situation by visiting Grandma on Friday, but due to the fact that that branch of the family tree lives in a veritable white trash compound, my aunt AND my cousin and some largish percentage of the brood all showed up at one point or another.

The fact that The Boy did not leave me is a testament to his faithfulness and his good heart. I would have probably dumped me for sure.

Even when not present, the cousin and her problems were a constant presence. Grandma, who is old and has earned break, mostly worries in the way of the old who can do nothing to aver the crisis that 1. she knows is coming, and 2. she feels keenly on behalf of the individual too stupid to see it for herself. In this as in pretty much all things, my grandma gets a pass.

However my aunt and the cousin herself have finally managed after 32 years to work their way all the way around to my last nerve. I'm about ready to give them my speech entitled Embrace the Truth for no other reason than that I can no longer Tolerate the Bullshit.

By this time, there are certainly those among you who might be wondering what could be so bad about this cousin. The reasons, alas, are too numerous for me to want to go into tonight. Also, and I admit this freely, some of the car wreck would not trouble you the reader as they do me--the poor fucker who shares, I dunno, a quarter helix or something.

Thirty-two

Here follows 32 things I know, in no particular order:

1. I know how to make a mean pie crust, a nummy cheesecake, and wicked spaghetti sauce and all its derivatives.

2. I know that yelling is probably not worth it.

3. I know that sometimes I'm going to yell anyway.

4. I know that there is no trait more despicable than cowardice.

5. I know how to fit in at a fancy cocktail party and a dive bar.

6. I know that Coco Chanel is right, generally, you should get ready and then take off one thing.

7. I know now that I quite like gimlets. Hooray for new cocktails.

8. I know that I have a glorious bosom. No really, trust me.

9. I know that sometimes, the evening calls for big hair.

10. I know I will land on my feet, even if I do hit all the branches on the way down.

11. I know that when in doubt it either most likely needs more garlic or more salt. Or both.

12. I know how to walk in heels. Even when drunk. I can even do the knee-on-knee-back drunk in heels propped stand. It’s what separates the women from the girls.

13. I know I’m no longer cute. Attractive, pretty, maybe even sexy—I’ll leave that up to someone else to determine—but not cute. Not sure I ever was, but I’ve outgrown it.

14. I know that, for the most part, I don’t give a shit.

15. That said, I know I don’t make enough to vote Republican. Don’t much expect I ever will.

16. I know that I prefer most animals to most people. Animals have purer motives, and are more likely to repay kindness with kindnesss.

17. I know that right now I’m underpaid and undervalued at work, but that’s okay because one day, when the economy picks up, I know they’ll be looking around like, “Why don’t she write?”

18. I know what it’s like to swim alone in the ocean at midnight. In March.

19. I know who my friends are.

20. I know that I’m incredibly, ridiculously, undeservedly lucky in having the friends I do.

21. I know, now, that’d I’d rather eat my own hair than break bread with someone I don’t like.

22. I know what boys like. I know what guys want.

23. I know I don’t give much of a shit what guys—or girls—want. I used to, but I quit.

24. I know I have lucked right the fuck out in finding The Boy.

25. I know that my family might be crazy, but any or all of them would eat through a room of assholes if that’s what it took to save me, and I know I’m lucky.

26. I know that if having a perfect body requires I surrender ice cream, then fuck a bunch of that.

27. I know how to cut in a wall, window, or baseboard when painting, without tape.

28. I know that I’ve made pretty fucking stupid mistakes, but I’m still here, and no one has died, so I better get over it.

29. I know that that having my heart broken has made me a better person.

30. I know that there is little better than sitting up too late with friends talking and laughing and drinking too much.

31. I know that just because someone likes to have sex with women, doesn’t mean he actually likes them.

32. I know that while wine and chocolate won’t solve my problems, they will in fact turn down the volume.

And, as a bonus, I know that I’m a year older, and arguably no wiser, but I’m looking forward to learning some new shit in year 33.

A Quick Post About Nothing

I should write about something.

I could, I suppose, write about the surprising failure of the mortgage bailout and what it means for our economy. Other people are already doing that, though. I can't really add anything to the hue and cry that hasn't already been said. Spending my days around shallow thinking armchair pseudo economist fucktards has pretty much sapped my desire to consider the matter further at this time. Suffice it to say that I'm not surprised it didn't pass. At this point, frankly, I'm really fucking hard to surprise.

I could write something happy; I could write about the wedding. It was a beautiful, wonderful day that was more fantastic than I could have hoped or had any right to wish for. At the same time, though. Wow. Those were some of the craziest, busiest, most exhausting and wonderful days ever. Frankly, just thinking about writing it all out exhausts me anew. I will get there eventually. Or I won't. Unless an editor wants to contact me and offer me money for my take on things, folks is just gonna have to wait.

I suppose I could talk more about my job. Let's see. I'm now up to 4 forms and 2 audits per each file, plus all the work that has to be done so I can complete all 4 forms and get to both audits. The fact is this, I've died and fucking gone to Office Space. I'm trying to embrace the notion that the universe is trying to shape me using the blunt skulls of my co-workers. Of course, what the universe is really doing is making me drink more and eat a lot of ice cream.

Meh. I'm in the doldrums, I think. Sort of this in-between place while I try to figure out what happens next. I guess I'll know what it crashes through the roof or bursts into flames in my driveway.

Car? Fail. Shitty TV FTW

So.

My car tags are expired. They have been expired for some time--such niceties often escape my notice. However, now that they've caught the notice of the PoPo, it finally merits attention. I figure if I don't do something about it quickly, I'm going to jail. And, unlike The Boy, I don't think that I'm bound for "Sexy Jail." I will just plan to continue doing all my underpants pillow fighting on chick date night while the menfolk game.

Now, the Bitchin' Sentra is not a bad little car. She starts. She runs. She blows hot or cool air on me per my request. She has never abandoned me by the side of the road. In short, she's 1000 times better than my previous boyfriends AND my ex-husband. That said, though, she's won't pass inspection. She didn't two years ago, she won't know. Stubborn bitch.

Short story long, there's a fucked up censor. Or not. The bloody thing has been replaced twice, that's not really what the problem is, and frankly I don't give a tinker's damn anyway. I really don't want to go $1000 in the hole to fix a problem on A CAR THAT RUNS.

Today? Computer fiddling, drive cycle following, blah blah blah. It's fucking JULY, and TOO HOT TO BE DRIVING AIMLESSLY IN TRAFFIC. And I still didn't pass.

Hot, tired, and cranky--I arrived home. Where there is a big tramp on Wife Swamp, and I'm waiting for SuperNanny to start. I don't have cable; I watch terrible television. I have come to like terrible television. I like to feel superior to people with their fucking functional, legal cars. Bastards.

The Weekend In Review

Not much going on, really, on the personal front.

Good weekend on the home front. Friday night was a quiet evening in, during which the boy and I finally devoted ourselves to our wedding contract. Despite the fact that The Boy and I are agnostic goyim, we decided to make a brit ahuvim part of our marriage. Oddly, two articulate and open people can actually have a pretty hard time saying "I expect this from you and from me in our marriage." We do, however, finally have it well in hand.

Saturday, baby shower of a family friend and his lovely wife. We attended their wedding last year, and now they're expecting. It's wild, really, he and I used to play Star Wars together--hell, our moms were pregnant together. Now he's going to be a DAD. How the FUCK does that happen?

Saturday night? Birthday party for T-Del and Bunny. A glorious night, October in July. Friends, good beer, yummy snacks. Bourbon slush, which is TOO TASTY and a damn shame I'd never heard of it before. Nothing like drunken chit-chat and just random, happy time.

Sunday? Couching. Not much of one anyway.

This is all a good thing, as it took the edge of the idiocy of today, and the week ahead.

Secretary of Japanese Game Shows

So, today Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson explained the mortgage crisis to people. Here, for your enjoyment, my literary interpretation.

"Because people are dumb, and bankers are greedy, there are a lot of motherfuckers who have houses they cannot afford. You know why? Because no damn money, divided by 12, equals BROKE. They are going to lose their houses. Can't help'em. Bummer. Thanks for coming, cocktails will not be served on the promenade deck."

On a lighter note, the best show in America is now on television. The Japanese really embrace the strengths of the medium of television--that is--the purveying of bright, loud, annoying shit. It would actually be better if we weren't burdened with the stupid mixing in of typical American reality show garbage. I'd rather just see flummoxed Americans getting yelled at in Japanese. That would be better than CANDY.

Wednesday

What happened today:

I learned that the impression I've been harboring is, in fact, correct. It's not a good idea until SOMEONE ELSE comes up with it. Good to know; takes the pressure off.
I need to just stop thinking--everyone else is happier that way.

I learned that my boss at CHFJ, while nice enough, has the attention span of the average slow-witted six-year-old. She wears this weird multi-colored ring, though, which distracts me when I talk to her. It's like I'm a bird or something. On the bright side, I find that if I only half pay attention to our conversations, they're less one-sided.

I went to the gym and did not desire to vomit. I call it progress.

I got shoes! For the wedding! They are fucking adorable! I danced about the house! Jessica Simpson is a talentless pop tart, but wow. She slaps her name on some cute ass shoes.

I absolutely aborted this recipe from Gourmet. I don't even know why I bother with recipes for anything except baked goods, anyway. It's like a have a constitutional inability to follow them, or even remember to buy the right goddmamn ingredients. Which is how I wound up with "crushed tomatoes" (what I would call fucking tomato sauce, if I hadn't bought the organic shit) instead of diced tomatoes, and wound up substituting gin for vermouth. I knew I didn't have the right liquor at the house, and I thought about stopping to buy it. Thank god I didn't though, because I remembered the recipe as reading sherry. Which, yeah. Not the same. The gin was fine, though. I guess. Next time I'm going to just ignore the fucking recipe entirely.

Two minutes for the garlic? My undulating right buttock.

And finally? Oven rebellion. As we were wrapping up dinner--an entirely stove-top affair I might add--the oven began to beep in a truly annoying manner. And the oven latch which is put in place for the self cleaning function had decided to engage itself. So, basically, my oven locked itself in its room like a petulant teenager.
Meanwhile, the shitty LED display showed some error code, a quick Google of which indicated that it is some kind of error having to do with, you guessed it, the door latch.

We finally unplugged it to make the beeping stop. It's like The Boy says, "It's the fucking appendix of the oven." I have used that self-cleaning "feature" exactly once, right when bought the house. I don't really get the point. I don't frequently spill grease and shit in my oven, so it I guess I don't feel it's that dirty. Further, it's regularly hot as hell because it is a goddamn oven after all, so I figure it's already reasonably sterile. If I had need of a kiln I might have an opportunity to put this to use. As it is, this is sizing up to be a plot to make me part with money on something lame. Like a new lock sensor or some horseshit.

*sigh*

I'm going to bed.

Plays Well With Others

So yeah. I was totally going to look over the initial version of my annual review tonight, but decided instead that I would rather not spend the evening all pissed off. I mean, I'm sure the review is probably fine, but I'm equally sure that it doesn't say that I "have demonstrated competence at walking on water." Since at this point I think that's a fair assessment of my skills, both the performing of miracles AND the constant dying for sins of others,I know I'm just going to be disappointed.

Further, I figured out today that even if I got a 10% raise (a patent impossibility, don't you think), I would still consider myself underpaid by many thousands of dollars. This made me laugh out loud in my cube in a manner that frightened my co-workers. As far as I'm concerned the entire exercise is pointless, but whatever. The boss people have to do that so that they in turn can be pointlessly reviewed and unfairly compensated in the future. It's the circle of life.

I do know that says is that I need to work on remaining more positive on the floor. I suppose that means it's time to up my medication and start douching with rainbows. JOY!

Oh, Christmas Tree . . .!

Despite what The Boy might say, we didn’t actually steal the Christmas tree.

Last weekend, Saturday December 15th to be exact, Jason and I went to two different Christmas tree lots in an ultimately failed attempt to obtain a Festive Holiday Tree. It’s not that they didn’t have trees I wanted, or that the trees were too pricey, it’s that there were no trees. None. Zero. Negatory on the trees.

At that point, I should have continued slaloming around the greater NoCo area and obtained a freaking tree. However, it was snowing and I wanted to get home and commence the Christmas Cookiepalooza I had planned.

This is me, though, and nothing can ever be simple. I didn’t go out on Sunday to get a tree. And Monday I had to work late, and The Boy was Christmas shopping and I wanted to go with him. Tuesday I didn’t feel good, and didn’t want to go out in the cold. This brings us to Wednesday, December 19th.

Now, I get that the 19th is, as The Liquor Fairy insists, a wee bit late in the season to go out shopping for Festive Holiday Trees. However, I assert that that’s just fucking stupid. People regularly used to put their trees up on Christmas Eve, and if capitalism was working as it should, there would be sufficient trees to meet the demand right up until Christmas. This is yet another failure I will lay at the feet of 7 years of a semi-literate Republican president and our ineffectual Congress, but I digress.

The first lot I went to did have trees, but they were a bit too mangy even for my taste. I understand that, when shopping less than a week before Christmas, some arboreal aesthetic compromises might have to be made. I do not hate on the little ugly trees, I just don’t care to put one up in my home. Plus, I don’t do long needles, which rules out at least half of the trees on any given lot from the word go.

We went then to the second lot, where in 2005 I got my tree like, three days before the damn holiday. Whatever. No trees. Not one.

By this point, I was threatening to start banging my upper body and head repeatedly back against my car seat like an emotionally disturbed child, a threat singularly terrifying to The Boy because he knows that I’m likely to actually do it. However, continuing up the road, we come to the Florissant Jaycee’s Tree Lot. As we get close I can see from the tree that they have veritable shit ton of trees, so I get to feeling pretty sassy.

Then we pull up and there is no one there. Empty trailer. Wet trees lit only by the sickly glow of the sign of the nearby Kmart. The hours on the trailer said that they should be open, but they weren’t.

I suggest we get out and look around. The Boy, anxious not to see his girlfriend have yet another meltdown, agrees, thinking that perhaps we can find a tree and return for it later.

“Fuck this,” I say. “If we find something, I’ll slide a check through the window.”

Nervous laughter.

“You think I’m kidding?”

“No. No, I really don’t.”

Which is why I love the man.

They did have a tree, full with short needles. It smelled of pine, and did not rain a shower of needles when shaken. It was, in short, good e-fucking-nough. “Let me get my checkbook,” I said, turning back to the car.

The Boy proceeds to follow with the tree. “No! We have to put it through the thingie!” I said, pointing the Tree Binding Plastic Netting.

The best part of this story, I think, is not the “buying” of a tree from an unattended dark tree lot, but the fact that we couldn’t get the tree through the damn tree netting thing.

First, he tries to shove it in wrong end first, which I think explains a lot about our sex life. Then, he refuses to apply sufficient force for the job at hand. Then we manage to stuff it through--directly through—leaving the tree unencumbered by netting, which is kind of the point.

I am almost no help because I am laughing hysterically the entire time. Finally, we get the tree bound up, and then we hacked through the plastic net with my keys since neither of us had anything better. Finally, I stuck the check through the mail slot, along with a note written on the tree’s tag telling what I had done and advising the Jaycees contact me at the number on the check in case there was some kind of issue.

I figure I won’t hear from them. They were probably at the bar.

Tuesday Redux

Tonight was a quiet evening. I got out of work in a pretty good mood, mostly because I'm off tomorrow and don't think there is much my co-workers can do to fuck up too badly while I'm gone. After admonishing them to try not to do anything irritating in my absence, I left for home.

In the car, I heard a Christmas song about a dude standing in line behind a kid buying shoes for his dying mother. The kid wanted his mother could look nice if she met Jesus on Christmas eve. A Christmas song about shoes, dead moms, and standing in line. Fun. Wish I wrote that.

I came home to meet The Boy. We were going to go get a Christmas tree, but it is rainy and crappy outside, so instead we went out to forage for food. I embraced the shame and we went for buffalo shrimp, which in the Lou is a fraught experience involving a trip to Hooters that I don't want to talk about but have to admit before The Boy snitches my ass out. There were buffalo shrimp, and the place was almost devoid of other customers, which was pretty much all I had hoped for.

On the way home, the car began making a new and distinct noise. My car health philosophy is exactly the same as my personal health philosophy--wait to see if it gets better. It didn't get better; it actually got worse. The Boy and I decided that it sounded like dragging. The good news is it's not a bum. The bad news is that it will require actual repair requiring something other than zip ties. I'm hoping a half-assed tack weld will do the trick. I'm willing to let the guy at Meineke look at my boobs or something if that will help. I'm not proud.

Speaking of not proud, after we retired to the house, we shared some valuable time vegging out in front of our laptops, where I found this, and had a big snotting, sobbing cry.

Yeah. D'you have a pet growing up? Yeah? Grab a tissue. Grab the BOX.

Tonight, On PBS

So, tonight Le Boy and I were watched a documentary about a lunatic Frenchman exploring the most dangerous place on Earth. Oddly enough, it was not a visitor's guide to Detroit, but a film about a dude in a submarine exploring the bottom of the ocean.

One of the shots was of all these phosphorescent jellyfish, blooping and floating through the sea. Watching their aimless, mindless, actions all I could think of was my co-workers. And calamari.

Which leads, logically, to the next thing, I want to corner the market on the aquatic beasties that inhabit the darkest depths of the ocean--floating around in super-heated toxic water, blind and thoughtless. I want to gather them up, raise them out of the depths. The lack of pressure will cause them to swell to many times their normal size and I will SELL them to snooty gastronomes and the Japanese for thousands of dollars a pound, never mind the fact that their flesh stinks of sulfur and tastes of briny rotten eggs.

Think about it.

More Excuses

I have been remiss about posting of late.

"No shit, woman," you say. "That is perfectly obvious from the utter lack of anything new on this crappy excuse for a blog for better'n two weeks."

Well. Yeah. Fine.

The funny thing about this blogging thing is that, when I go a bit without doing it, I feel vaguely guilty and unsatisfied. Because, right now, this is the only outlet I have that I share with other people. When I neglect it for any length of time, I feel uneasy. So, while I have been neglecting the blog, I've also been neglecting the attention whore, love-me-love-me, part of me.

The fact is this. I've had very little I've wanted to write about. I'm sick of blogging about job ennui. There is nothing remotely interesting the fact that I have been hating my job of late. Most people hate their jobs all the time, and it's not interesting. Politics remain screwed. My personal life is, blissfully, uneventful and boring in the best way.

That's all neither here nor there.

The fact is, there are a few reasons I haven't been blogging. One is that summer is ending; and the space between seasons, any seasons, makes me odd. The other is that I think I've been lying fallow, preparing to do other things.

Tonight, though, outside feels like the beginning of fall--it's glorious. So, while we'll have to wait and see, I think I'll be writing more.