Welcome to Hell

Welcome to hell. Please take a number. Her Evilness will be with you when she damn well feels like it.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

it's disgusting, but you do it anyway... please stop.



(before you strain your eyes, the small print reads, "contemplate how to find a bag of marijuana lost in a field." yes, i did make the lighter. i collage all of my lighters. the other side is below...)

it's me, your lawful-abidin' citizen (cough), here to deliver a public service announcement.

i know a lot of potheads. hell, i was living in oregon for years. you get 20 people in a room, and maybe one or two of them don't smoke pot. obviously, i have no quarrel with pot smokers.  i'm one of them. 
: ]

LEGALIZE IT, FOLKS! A LOT OF PEOPLE WILL STOP BEING STRESSED OUT.
the rest of them will maybe be stressed because they get the munchies and need to go to the store, but really, knowing potheads as i do, that's about the worst of your worries: a ton of people driving 15 miles under the speed limit to stumble around the grocery store, buy a whole bunch of junk food, and beat it back home. whoo, SCARY.

anyway, i'm picking on the potheads, not for the pot, but for a pothead-specific habit that really bothers me. and trust me, every single person who has ever smoked pot in a pipe has done it, at least once. even me. and it irks me anyway.

this: the bowl is dead. fair enough. so you go to cash it (read: empty the ash). but, instead of putting the ash/resin into the ashtray that is sitting right in front of you, it goes more like this:

person taps ash into hand
person proceeds to, variously, wipe ash on clothing, and/or blow ash onto the couch/carpet/bare floor.

THIS IS DISGUSTING. makes everything smell like resin, which, as most of us know, smells like ass. there is a reason i keep everything pot-related in a metal tin - keeps the smell in.



or this one, this is even grosser: if the pipe starts getting clogged or pulling through (read: getting small pieces of resin in your mouth, which is really disgusting),

person:
clears pipe of resin with small metal utensil (safety pin, usually, unless you're fancy about it), then covers the carb (read: hole in other side of pipe from the mouth hole) and blows the resin out of the bowl of the pipe, usually onto the floor.

BLARGH! come on, guys! nasty. i understand the necessity of clean smoking utensils, but really, could this not be done outside, or at the very least, over the trash can??????

unfortunately, the majority of stoners is very, very lazy. (no, not all the time, because i know a lot of really intelligent and/or highly kinetic/ADD stoners (read: me). but definitely, when high, lazy. lazy, lazy, lazy, myself included.) this is why this gross shit happens. and it's really gross. y'all have to get some better habits in order here. preserve cleanliness, it's a dying art!!!

but i love you, potheads and stoners. most of you are my buddies, and you're good people, and most of you are generally pretty clean people. so, i'll show you some love, in the form of pictures of the PERFECTLY LEGAL TOBACCO SMOKING PIPE that my wonderful ex-roommate made for me. (snort)



it's made of pipe stone (which is a stone that the Natives have been using forever to make pipe bowls), a stone that doesn't get hot easily. the bottom is made of wood. (D, the ex-roommate, is a master woodworker.) it's also small, and fits perfectly into my little metal tin. he made it for me for Yule, to my specifications. if you see the little pencil-marks on the top there, he had originally intended to inlay malachite and silver in a nightshade-inspired design, but ran out of time.



i have good friends. : ]

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

if you don't know who the Merry Pranksters are, i suggest you do some research

so, my friend C calls me, and asks what i'm doing for the next month or so.

"nothing," says i, stupidly.

"awesome. you can be office organization for this music festival i've become involved with," says C.

"shit," says i.

that is how it started. one minute i was quasi-homeless, living rent free in portland, and the next, i was all of a sudden embroiled in a hippie festival.
"i'm just saying, you are STUPID to get involved with this," said my roommate. and oh, how right he was, except he didn't get to meet all the cool people i did, so there...i think.

keep in mind, i have no car, so once i get down to eugene, oregon, i am stuck there.

my first task: recruit as many of my out of work/nothing better to do friends as possible... this was easy. most of us were unemployed.

second task: go to bumfuck nowhere, the proposed site of the music festival, and begin clearing land. also, trying to figure out how to kill all the blackberry brambles, or at least enough to make a pathway through them to various sites to camp by a river...

at some point, there was unanimous voting by all participants that we take a breather, and go back to portland.
i agreed.
now, we had been eating mostly scavenged food, ie whatever was given to us, so probably some of us were hungry, some of us were malnourished (definitely me), and others were plain sick of it. so we headed back to portland, where some of us went home (me), and others lived with some organic farmers, re-balancing themselves.

this would be when i went to the hospital for dehydration, july 3rd, as a result of all this madness.

yes, part of it would be exertion, although it wasn't that hot, and i didn't hack that many blackberry brambles with a machete.
most of it was the imbalanced diet, and the fact that our water source was suspect, and i didn't drink nearly enough water. (well, i was also living in a tent, and it is much easier to just not drink as much, instead of having to go piss outdoors regularly...)
also, everything else may have been exaggerated by me doing a bit of ecstasy...
well, whoops. bad timing, i realize.

everything piled up into a mean case of dehydration, which the hospital ignored (instead, ordering stupid tests that had no bearing on my case)
and sent me home, sans-fluids, to get well on my own.

Note: if you are a person who generally eats a lot of salt (and i really am, i am a salt fiend), if you go without the salt for a while, your body may rebel furiously, putting you into the ER, and making you very ill.
after i came home from the ER, i continued to hurl up everything i ate, until one of my very smart friends asked me, "what were you not getting that you usually eat on the trip?" and i said... "salt, duh!"

i ate a handful of salt, and voila! suddenly i was capable of eating and not hurling it back up. this was a valuable lesson.
#1: if dehydrated, unless close to actual dying, don't bother to go to hospital,
#2: if dehydrated, eat some salt, you will feel better almost immediately.

after our brief stint in portland, we headed back down to eugene, and resumed the hippie life - this time, in the organizer's house, with a bunch of others, sleeping on the floor. actually, we set up our tent in the house, because it seemed expedient at the time. little did we know we'd get kicked out, eventually.

what i did for the music festival amounted to bullying, basically. for the hemp fest, i'd walk over, state i needed (X) amount of passes, both VIP and staff, and i'd generally get them. i was anygirl...they had no reason to believe me, but i did get things done. i'm awesome like that.
some pictures of the hemp fest...



behind the scenes backstage/sound, where all the awesome food is,



also, Further, the merry pranksters bus, was in attendence:



there are a lot of things i could say about this experience. probably i will add some of them later. right now i am slightly too drunk, and mostly too lazy to elaborate: however, know this:
music festivals are fun.
i am a hippie at heart, especially when compared to the entire South....
i should eat something to balance out the beer...
more pictures to follow, eventually.

Monday, April 19, 2010

revolving cat parade kitty, #3



i really like this one, actually. he's a sweet little guy.



he comes on the porch every day for food, and unlike the rest of them, he lets me pet him. i am thinking about slapping a collar on him, to see if he's someone else's cat or a stray...



may adopt, if the Matt is amenable, and if Fuzzbutt (Roxy) doesn't try to kill him. she's weird about other cats. some she likes, some she doesn't. i had to pull her off the porch the other day and stick her in the kitchen because she was yowling at him.

just so we're clear, here

...what i mean by "i'm not keen on monogamy" is that the Matt and i are in an open relationship (or, i practice polyamory, depending on how you like to word things), NOT that i'm into cheating on people.

i'm not into cheating on people. in fact, one of my really sweet exes called me last night and we were talking about how awesome we are, for never having cheated on anyone, EVER. (which, in my case, if i'm in a monogamous relationship is REALLY HARD, which is why i no longer do monogamy. no use promising something you already know you're really shitty at.)

and yes, i am incredibly happy and grateful to have found someone who accepts me, weird sides and all. especially when i'm chattering to him about how hot some woman is.

oh, never mind, he enjoys that part. ; ]

adventures in dubstep techno land, or why i'm not keen on monogamy, part 1



so this past summer (2009), i was embroiled in a music festival snarl, about which i'll talk a LOT more, all in good time.

for now, know this: i was part of a music festival, as in the planning/schmoozing musicians/camping out on other people's couches part of the festival, for OVER A MONTH.
learn from my mistakes; don't get involved in planning ANYTHING with hippies, unless they pay you. a lot. (and no, getting to go to the fest for free doesn't count.) it's sincerely like herding cats.

(don't look at me like that.) i was unemployed, and frankly, i didn't have anything better to do. and i did get to smoke other people's weed for free. so there.

(all of this nonsense also involved, in no particular order: getting hospitalized for dehydration, hacking blackberry brambles with a machete, moving festival locations in very short order, cleaning someone's house, and going a bit hungry, half the time. but like i said....more details on that later.)

some of the people we were dealing with, the FAR more sane ones, were the raver kids - not real kids, i don't mean, legal consenting adults, but seriously, if you look at a party of ravers dressed up in rainbow and fur and lollypops.... kids. kids for life.

my friend C (darling, i LOVE you for letting me experience all this crazy, but i will NEVER FORGIVE YOU for dragging me into this mess, and for the part where we slept in a tent in a CONCRETE PARKING LOT for a week. my back still hates you.) was good friends with some of the techno DJs that were putting on the DJ side of the music, so we spent a good deal of time over at their awesome house, where there was constant thumping beats from the time the first dj woke up, until the last fell asleep.

here, i found dubstep. and it was very, very good.

allow me to say here, that i'm not the hugest fan of techno. i like it, i always do, always have, but i loathe House for the most part, most mixes in gay clubs totally blow, and my exposure was pretty limited to prodigy and the crystal method, and the odd bit of daft punk, obviously.

so when i hit this house, it was a huge eye-opener. all of a sudden, i'm realizing that there are DIFFERENT genres of techno, holy shit! (no, i didn't really get that before - and while i was there, i enjoyed a treatise on all the different genres,and why they're different - sorry, never did grasp most of it - but at least now i can recognize dubstep and drum & bass and trance, go me!)

there's this amazing shit coming out of the speakers, and i want to dance, i HAVE to dance, i am totally dancing in their living room at 2 in the afternoon, and everyone is looking at me like i'm insane, and handing me a bong in the hopes i'll chill out and sit the fuck down. it didn't really work at the time.



however, i must be in the mood for dance music, and this is definitely true when i'm tired and cranky. look, if you slept on people's floors and couches for a month, you would also be sleep-deprived, and really cranky, as i was. and most of the time, it was the floor.

now, i am prematurely old (due to inherited back problems, a really bad neck problem from a bad accident when i was a kid, a bit of scoliosis, the fact that i've not been to the chiropractor in a year, and the odd bit of stripping here and there over the past few years), so sleeping on the floor kills me.
the only time i got an actual couch, was over in techno land. which is awesome.... in theory.

the only problem is, when it's 4am and you really want to sleep (on your couch), and there's a dubstep dj (or 3) in the room... you're not going to sleep.
at all.
not even close.
you are, however, going to be the bitchiest person in the room, maybe. and complain to the people who live in the house so profusely that they offer you a spot in their bed, which they're not using at the moment anyway, since they are too busy dancing in the living room you were trying to sleep in.



this little gambit may or may not get you laid. (ahem.)

this little gambit may or may not also guarantee you a spot in a bed, instead of a couch. (ahem.)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

your use of "ironic" fashion obligates me to hate you

1. MULLETS.
i don't care what your stylist said. i don't care if it's "in" again. we already suffered through this style in the eighties, and i don't know about you, but i was there for the eighties, and for the record, they SUCKED.

2. UBIQUITOUS USE OF PLAID.
plaid, if it's flannel plaid, is useful. useful for camping, and being a logger. (if you are in fact, a logger, you are totally excused, wear plaid always.) don't get me wrong, i don't hate plaid. i just hate that all of a sudden, you're wearing it EVERY DAY.

3. SANDALS AND SOCKS.
obviously if you need socks, it's too damn cold for sandals. and if it's warm enough for sandals, they don't need socks. come on, everyone. this is a basic concept. i learned it in middle school, through constructive ridicule.

4. CAMEL TOE.
is. not. sexy. please, for the sake of everyone, buy your pants/shorts a bit bigger. this goes for all you men, too. we don't need to see your balls divided, son. besides, aren't y'all just dying in those pants? (please, men - keep wearing skinny jeans - just not stranglingly tight, kay?)

5. HIGH WAISTS.
approximately 5% of the world's population looks good in a high waist; leave them to it. the rest of you...just because american apparel sells it, does NOT mean it will look good on you. and the mom jeans, well, name says it all. BELONG ON MOM. hell, even my mom won't wear them. go mom.

6. DORKY GLASSES WITHOUT LENSES.
some of us are cursed with shitty eyesight. we wear glasses or contacts. but you, without your lenses....please, go punch yourself. especially if you work at american apparel, and your frames are vintage eighties. you look like a tool. and hey, you won't even break your lenses!

7. TUBE TOPS.
should only be worn by strippers, and even then...still tacky. it is possible to be a non-tacky stripper, but it is not possible to not be tacky in a tube top.


THINGS THAT ROCK THE WORLD OF FASHION, AND ALWAYS WILL:
real vintage. if you buy it in a thrift store, go you. you are probably like me: poor, yet quasi-fashionable, and probably really quirky. (if you buy it in a thrift store to be "cool," we need to have a meeting. my foot, your ass. stop making my cheap clothes expensive, asshole.)

50's style dresses. not everyone can pull off the look, but if you can do it, you always look great doing it. keep doing it.

hippie skirts. i like hippies. i like their skirts. if you're not a hippie you might look silly in one, but who cares? peace and love, man! want some acid?

things that flatter your body. if in doubt... don't wear it. if you look fabulous, who cares if it's ten years old, you still look fabulous.

confidence is key, y'all. if you don't know if you like it, don't wear it. if it's a fad created by the hipsters, you probably really don't want to go there. if you like it, keep it. enjoy, have fun, and remember: spandex is a privilege, not a right.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

revolving cat parade kitty, #2



this one looks a lot like Fuzzbutt, aka Roxy. but is not Roxy.

life happens like this, sometimes

it's wednesday, i should have been to work three days in a row, by now.
instead, i got completely hammered on sunday, recovered on monday by doing absolutely nothing but lying on my couch, and reading and watching movies.

i also went out last night, in my new raver-kid hoodie,



to a gay bar with some of my queer friends. we decided we were way too old for the crowd, which was around 18 - 20 mostly, although the drag king show was pretty good.

i spent all of today fucking around on the internet, hosting my own personal dubstep techno party, since the Matt is at work (being a bartender/server) and my downstairs neighbor is gone on a trip.....i see this as an excuse for very loud music late at night, yay!

this is the reason for all this not-being-at-work:

last wednesday: begin job. job is awesome. realize how over my head i am, in this environment, which gives me a lot of power. like, "executive administrative assistant," aka "i hold power over your invoices" power. FUN! i like being able to tell others what they're doing wrong on their paperwork. it invokes the nerdy copy-editor side of me. that, and i only have to tell them what they're fucking up, not fix it. whew!

last thursday: bossman goes, "hey, want to make that nose ring a nose stud? i don't care, but the clients, ya know..." i say, "sure, not a problem, i'll get a stud."

last friday: bossman goes, "so, can you pass a drug test?" and i go, ::cough::, "Nofuckingway," and we have a slight, small problem. like the client having their panties in a wad, and wanting to test employees they don't technically employ. bossman, thankfully, doesn't give a shit.
i thank all the gods for the BEST BOSS EVER.

so, onto saturday: whereupon bossman calls, and says, "let's get drinks," and i say, "sure," since he's totally paying for said drinks.
whereupon i am informed, the client is a douchebag, and i won't be working for them anymore, since they got all uppity about a "rebel" (direct quote, y'all) working with their paperwork. so, awesome bossman is pulling me from that project, to work with another.
only catch: he'll be out of town for almost the rest of the entire month, leaving me to wonder: how the bloody hell am i supposed to pay my rent, in the meantime??

dilemma, y'all. but i take back every single bad thing i said about this job. i may have to pretend to be all corporate-y, but my boss is THE SHIT, which pretty makes up for everything. he went on this long diatribe about how shitty it is that people (especially in the south) are bigoted assholes, and i am so impressed.

this shit only happens to me.

so at any rate, i'm on hiatus, and able to kinda fuck off for part of the month, leaving me to wonder, what the hell am i supposed to do with all this free time??? keep in mind, i have NO money. none.

not even for April 20th celebratory awesomeness, which is part of the reason i am in this quandary.
(hell, i even told bossman i'd take out said nose ring, cry a bit about it, and take the damn test, if he could hold it off a bit... he said, "no, they're being bastards," and yanked me. ha, serves them right.)
at first, i thought i'd be missing all the April 20th celebratory awesomeness, which was a very, very saddening thought. however, now i'm good to go....if i had money. which there is none of. damnation!

part of the reason i'm so infernally broke is that i went shopping for work necessities, like black pants, and some other not-quite-so-necessary-but-i-really-wanted-it stuff, like below:



laptop bag. i straight REFUSE to carry some crappy looking computer bag, so i found one that has a cushioned space for a computer, but is also a messenger bag made of leather, making it look far more professional, and much more amazing, in general. not to mention matching all the other black things i wear.



beautiful skirt, light cotton, great for summers, also looks like i'm not a total greasy hippie (which in the south, really, i am).

oh crap, i was drinking a beer, and totally forgot all about it. ::resumes drinking delicious homebrew::
for great homebrew recipies, the Matt will eventually be posting them, over at his blog.

i should be doing a lot of things right now, instead of being on the internet, wasting my time. well, not wasting, i am assuming the 4 people who read this will at least be decently amused. but...procrastinating. on things like my dinner, and this:



(the laundry that is living on the foot of my bed)
it'll all get done, eventually, right? maybe it'll even do itself.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

my nice neighborhood

so i went to one of my friend's random cookout parties, and in the middle of getting pleasantly intoxicated and talking to his friends, they insisted i thusly blog about this incident:

a couple weeks ago, we got shut out of our damn street by the cops for hours.

see, we have this club down the street from us, and evidently its main clientele seems to be 18 year old wanna-be gangstas with guns. they get in spats, and then they run down our nice pleasant street (full of older neighbors who own their houses and younger renters), shooting the fucking place up. it's more than a tad bit annoying. there's a petition to shut down the club, i'm so signing it the next time i see it.

now most of the time they drive by on the bigger main street, but this time some little fuckers ran into our street, and shot back at the cops, who were pursuing them.

so, we come home at 10pm, i am eagerly awaiting dinner of some variety (night person, remember?), and the cops WON'T TELL ME WHY THEY WON'T LET ME IN MY FUCKING HOUSE.

bastards. NOPD cops are complete assholes when they feel like it. which is, far as i can tell, most of the time.

so we're standing on our corner, when our neighbor what owns the mustard-colored mansion on the corner walks out, and we ask him, "WTF is going on here?"

so he tells us what the hell is going on. i'm standing outside, a bit cold outside, and then another of our neighbors bikes up, like "WTF?" and we tell him, too.

turns out that neighbor is an award-winning musician with a hit song on a famous big network show. he is also awesome, and gave us some fantastic cd's of his. he lives a block from us, in a house his great-grandfather built.

anyway, the mustard-mansion guy (who has renovated the crap outta this amazing house) invites us in, and, because i am starving, cooks Matt and i eggs, and toast, which was really delicious, and shows us the first floor of the place. really nice exposed brick kitchen, and he left part of the fabulous old plaster moldings up, lest anyone who has more money than he ever get the nerve to try and recreate, someday.

i love people who restore history, btw. my dad does this, see. (i actually grew up in a pre-civil war brick plantation home, which was really awesome.)

so that's what happens, in my neighborhood.

when stupid people shoot up my street and lock me out of my own goddamn street for four hours, i meet my awesome neighbors, they cook me eggs and give me free cd's, and then other friends show up and take me to pizza.

life can be so awesome.

so, i'm a total heathen, and i don't celebrate easter.

i do celebrate the spring equinox, but that was a while back, y'all.

i was always one of those incredibly perverse kids who refused to believe in santa, the tooth fairy, and especially the easter bunny.
so while my brother was a convert, i was the one smeared with chocolate after i'd eaten the chocolate bunny's ears, screaming "he's not reeeeal!" at my brother.

i must have been the worst older sister, ever.

however, my mom still brings me an easter basket, so i figure i win. if i'd tried to believe in the easter bunny, maybe the candy baskets would have stopped with the belief... one never knows....

Saturday, April 3, 2010

so then, according to your study, i shouldn't exist...

i read a lot of other people's blogs (yes, eventually, i will create a methadone list for y'all of all the cool things i waste my time upon).
lately i've been reading mostly sex and feminist blogs, and i've been reading about these abstinence groups, and studies that the "hook-up culture" is flawed and will lead to dissatisfying relationships, blah blah blah. of course, i've also read studies that say that people who engage in casual hook-ups are no less emotionally stable than their monogamous or chaste peers.

frankly, i have to agree with the studies that say there is no difference. this is why:

the Matt and i met up in the first place in more of a hook-up atmosphere(ie, we met online...). i just asked Matt what he was looking for in the first place when we met, and he said, "female companionship, with either sex involved, or friendship." he wasn't looking for a Girlfriend, by any stretch of the imagination.

which was good, as he met ME, and i was interested in Sex, Sex, and possibly someone to hang out with, in that order.
true to my form, it only took 2 dates for the both of us to get laid, and to be fair, that was only because he left early on the first "date," (drinking beer at the pub), leaving me a bit miffed that there was no sex involved. i'd had high hopes. ; ]

Matt and i were regular fuck buddies after date two. our activities consisted of fucking, drinking beer, making beer (he, and now we, home brew beer, and also mead), watching movies on netflix, and more fucking. this continued for a long, long time.

(so HA to all you who think fuck buddies are a myth.)

now according to some of these studies, (and i question their scientific method), our activities should have lead to alienation, and deadening of emotions, and a lot of other things that didn't happen. instead, we kinda ended up in a relationship. granted, it wasn't what either of us would have predicted.

i don't have much of a point here, i just take exception to studies and people telling me how my behavior is going to make me feel, when patently THEY AREN'T ME and in actuality have NO FUCKING CLUE.

for example: how does the fact that i've had meaningless hookups regularly throughout my life somehow make me "damaged" or less likely to have meaningful relationships? for the record, most of the random hookups i've had in the last few years have actually led to real, wonderful friendships that lasted long after a few nights of random sex.

also: how can ANYONE be judged on how many sexual partners they have had in their lifetime? the ONLY thing i can say is the more people you have sex with over your life, the more statistically likely it is that you could be exposed to STI's.

HOWEVER. that doesn't mean anything, except that the more people you are with, the more diligent you should be regarding safe sex practices, getting tested regularly for STI's, asking partners if they have been tested recently, etcetera.

huh, our power just went out. i bet that's because there's a large fire in NOLA not too far away from us.

oh well, i can continue typing until i run out of battery.

my point is, it doesn't matter how many sexual partners anyone has had, and it doesn't matter if you engage in hooking up.
what matters, is that YOU and you alone are comfortable and happy with your sexual practices. and that is the ONLY opinion you should give a shit about.

i mean, i am not a hetero-normative soul, here. yes, i do sleep with men. i also sleep with women. the people i have slept with are roughly split in half, in regards to gender. i am also not a great fan of forced monogamous relationships.

now, if monogamy is what floats your boat, rock on. it doesn't float me. so even though i am in a relationship, and happy, doesn't mean i'm going to stay at home every night. right now i'm sorta seeing someone (female), we'll see where that goes.
i realize this isn't the usual, and i don't care. it's what makes me happy.

i say all this to point out that there is no normal. normal is what you want it to be.

i'm sick of misogynists, and the whole "slut-shaming" bullshit. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SLUT. there is such a thing as unhealthy behavior, but it still isn't your business if it isn't your body.

ergo:
mind your own business, y'all, and tend to your own enjoyment. do what makes you happy, and don't buy into all the sex-negative bullshit that's fed to so many people. and if you disagree, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

AHEM.

and now back to regularly scheduled humor blog.

edit: after two bars in the french quarter, my power is finally back on...yay!!!

things that make me irrationally angry

Verizon's "Big Red" commercial. the line "you'll watch youtube on a horse....when you use it!!!" gets stuck in my head like superglue, so every time this fucking commercial comes on, i shriek "MUTE IT, MUTE IT, MUTE IT!!!" until Matt grabs the remote.



Crumbs. FUCK YOU, CRUMBS. you are everywhere. all over my goddamn counter, even though i cleaned it just two days ago, since my mother came to town and she's a neat freak, and you're already BACK ON MY COUNTER! I HATE YOU!!!

Kitty litter. it's not the litter, it's the fact that the cat tracks the litter all over the fucking bathroom: into MY TUB, and MY SINK, and all over the tile where i have to put my BARE FEET at 4am when i'm half-awake and not looking where i'm stepping. fuck you, litter. or maybe, fuck you, Fuzzbutt.



Dirty dishes sitting in scummy, cold water. HURK! URGHHH! RUN!!! ::pant, pant:: this is why i cook dinner, in hopes that i can guilt the Matt into washing said dishes. and usually this works, which is why i love the Matt.

Coasters that stick to the bottom of a wet glass. well, technically this is Matt's irrational hatred, because he is a bit jumpy and every time he lifts a beer and a coaster comes clattering to the floor, he is very startled.

Bartenders who don't understand simple directions. look, if i come into your family restaurant, and i want a double bourbon, neat, in a highball, DO NOT GIVE ME WHISKEY, WITH ICE, IN A FUCKING PINT GLASS, YOU DIM TWAT. if i can do your job better than you AND I HAVE NO BARTENDING TRAINING, then come on, patently i need your job more than you.

Rabid Conservatives and/or Rabid Religious Types. no, wait, that's not irrational, never mind.

Sand on Hardwood floors. that gritty feeling...so damn creepy. actually, any sort of debris that i can feel on my feet on my floor. you'd think this would make me a clean freak...

Plants that die because i forget to water them. DAMN YOU, WHY DO YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO GUILTY???

Brick Weed. i just lived in Portland, Oregon for four years. DON'T GIVE ME THIS CRAP.... y'all growers can do better, AND I KNOW IT!

high fructose corn syrup. fucker, i am trying to avoid you. to be "healthy" and shit. WHY ARE YOU IN BLOODY EVERYTHING I LOVE?

all i can think of for now, although i am sure there are others.
like you wannabe "gangsta" motherfuckers, lookin' like a fool with your pants belted around your thighs. i don't care how big you think it is, YOUR DICK WON'T HOLD UP YOUR PANTS. and your underwear is fugly.

Friday, April 2, 2010

erm, so....

remember how i said wednesday was my first day of work??

...

turns out, he meant NEXT wednesday. whoops. guess i should have requested a date.
so i get there, in this rented office full of engineers in their rightful places, all heels and skirt and caffeinated energy, and one of the engineers has to call my boss who's like, "what are you doing there? i'm traveling..."

at least i wasn't a week late, eh? i told my friend Mirror, and she was all "now you are extra ready!" and recommended i go shadow some of the palm/tarot readers in jackson square. it was a thought, seeing as how i was completely wired, and tourists are generally entertaining.
instead, Matt and i decided to bike to Lake Ponchartrain, which is a not quite so convenient 15 mile round trip. or i should say, Matt decided he wanted to bike there, and see the UNO campus, and i went along, because i was JACKED UP ON CAFFEINE. definitely a difference in basic readiness and physical capability.

that is probably the first or second time i've ever ridden that far on a bike in my life. compare that with mr. "i rode a bike all over bleeding chicago", and i'm just grateful he didn't dust my ass.



his bike: 1967 Schwinn road bike, in good condition (the orange one).
my bike: 1969 or 70 Schwinn cruiser, which i found abandoned in a friend's yard, a little rusty. it has an internal hub on the back wheel, so that means 3 gears of my very own (green one).
at the time i gained ownership of the bike, it had a flat back tire, which rendered my riding of it a little difficult, so i didn't really. just loaded it into a vehicle and brought it back to my basement (i lived in portland, OR at the time...no, new orleans has NO basements whatsoever, for a really good reason.) i later fixed the sucker up, to be rideable - brought it to the sneering hipster at the bike shop, who fixed my back flat tube and supposedly fixed my shifter on the internal hub, which was wonky.

later on, down here in NOLA, i brought my bike to another bike shop to get an estimate for a tune-up, and they tweaked my shifter so it actually worked.
thus, i set out on my 15-mile journey with a working shifter....and a slipping chain.

granted, i didn't realize that until a few miles in, going uphill, across an intersection.
fun times.
i'll be back at the bike shop soon.

one other bad part of this plan: redheads (that's both of us) sunburn, even in march, when it comes to the south. so i came back a bit crispy, decided to nap on the couch, and promptly fell asleep, for the rest of the day AND night.

i felt more than a bit like a zombie when i got up today, lemmetellyou.

so today we perambulated the neighborhood a bit, playing the "if i were a billionaire, i would renovate that house" game. saw some fun houses, and a lot more terrible ones. we live in a good neighborhood, but this is also post-katrina land, and a lot of the houses around here look like this:



(but hey, check out all the orb action; pretty crazy, eh?)
or this:



so in all our walking glory, we got a crime treatise (regarding the street we were on) from a random neighbor, and also bought a chinese-style side table from a crackhead.



at first we just thought he was an alcoholic, but no. at first he said we could take the thing for free, so we went for the truck and when we came back, and loaded it and an armoire (which was broken, so we decided to take it for its wood, to build shelves) into the truck.



whereupon, mr. crackhead decides he really needs $10 for his crack rock or whatnot. so as we're ready to leave, he's all "you gonna give me what i asked for?"



Matt and i: ::?????????::



neither of us have any cash, so we decide to head to the bank.
and mr. crackhead duly climbs into the back of the truck and proceeds to rattle off this wholly unintelligible rant the entire time, while we visit two (yes, count 'em - first one was a right bastard about it all) ATM's to get his fucking ten dollars.

sorry the pictures are a little funny, but it's heavy, and i'm not moving it... (also, Matt must clean the crackhead's side table, as it is BEYOND FILTHY and i refused to have it in my house until further cleaning)

it's not a bad table, we would have willingly paid $10 in the first place, but to be TRICKED INTO GIVING SOMEONE CRACK MONEY is just ......wrong!!! it's $10 so it was more trouble than it was worth to argue the point but argh!

this kind of shit always happens to me.

but then, evidently the universe heard me grousing.

i'd been desirous of a coat rack lately, this to clean out my "closet(s)"




of some of my jackets, which are really in the way, and hampering my access to, well, everything.
(yes, i did use AN ENTIRE BEDROOM as a closet. since there are no real closets anywhere, we have an extra bedroom, and did i mention i'm a PACKRAT??)

and this evening Matt was standing by the front screen door, gazing into the street (which was reasonable, some of our neighbors being HIGHLY ENTERTAINING and screaming at each other) when he starts pointing, and goes, "what is that? what?"

and lo, and behold, standing in the streetlight beside a garbage can,
a coat rack.
a wonderful, functioning coat rack!!!



the coat gods are smiling at me, i just know it.