Liberace's piano, Take Two:

remember this post?

yeah. i gots proof.

check it out:


so i'm at my dad's house, snapping the piano,


dad's like, "what on earth are you doing?" after all, not like i haven't seen, lived with, and played a million pianos.


what i thought: "oh, you know, capturing your awesome flamboyantness for the entire world to look at online..."


what i said: "well, i have this blog, kinda like an online journal..."
dad just looked at me like i've lost my goddamned mind.
who knows, maybe he's right, but still

is that not liberace's piano, ladies and gentlemen, right there before your eyes?
eh? eh?

a bit belated, but whatever...

so a while back, i'm out on this date with a girl i have recently met.

we are like-minded souls - bipolar, crazy, screw both sexes unapolagetically types of girls. we've both recently moved to new orleans, and we're enjoying a night on the town, out in the quarter.

we are in jackson square. the reason we're in jackson square is that R has told me, as we were sitting at a bar, "hey, i may be totally off base here, but do you just want to get out of here and make out like a middle schooler?"
yes, yes i do.
so, we go to jackson square, plop down on a step, and make out, probably to the vague shock of the very old couple meandering around a few yards away.

all of a sudden, R's phone beeps, she checks it (she ALWAYS checks it) and starts hopping up and down, and screaming.
"what?" i say.

"healthcare bill passed!"
"Really?"
"REALLY!"

we hold hands, and jump up and down, going, "YES YES YES YES!"

"argh this is awesome, i just wanna.... skip or something!" i say.

so, we do.
we hold hands, and skip all around jackson square.

partially because we are dorks, partially because one day, i would like to go to the dentist again. and the eyedoctor. and also maybe pay for allergy meds. all of the above would be terrific.

and despite being a total cynic about pretty much everything (okay well i'm a realist but everyone thinks i'm a cynic), i do have hope that one day, america will get its ass in gear and take care of its people. we all deserve it.

you can blame my high school friends for this one

R: "i know what you need to be when you grow up..."

J: "what?"

R: "okay, first you have to go to gynecological college..."

J: "gyno- ... gyneco, gynecological college?"

me: "you can't even say it!!!"

R: "yeah. then, you need to go to Preacher college, and then buy a really big van..."

J: "keep going, i like this..."

R: "print on the side...

J. M.
Gynecologist/Preacher
Non-Denominational
Full Gospel

...and then go around..." ::pantomimes doing an exam::

J: "Oh Happy Day!!"

we all die laughing.

J: "yeah, well, you know how we could have prevented this. it sure wasn't jesus that came into you..."




ladies and gentlemen, i present a mere snippet of my 12th grade high school english class...that so happened to be written down in a random notebook.
(yes guys, you're welcome for not using your full names!)

Sigur Ros once saved my soul.

i so happen to have a nice case of bipolar disorder.
(actual diagnosis: Bipolar Type II Rapid Cycling, if it means something to ya...)
about this, i will no doubt expound, at a later time. suffice to say it's managed, mostly, and i mostly enjoy this.
mostly. : ]


::brief pause in today's blog topic::
whoa. i just saw a plastic bag floating by my porch, and it wigged me the fuck out, i am jumpy tonight. we are on the second story, so when i see something out of the corner of my eye at my open front door that looks kinda like it could be someone's head.. i take notice. especially at night.
it's been really windy today, we have foul weather rolling over us, but as yet it hasn't bothered to rain on us...
as many may know, there is a completely gigantic oil spill in the gulf of mexico right now. this is NOT GOOD. and it's probably a good thing the rain hasn't made it worse (yet), but we are due for like a week of rain sometime soon, and i really wish it would just get it over with, because it's muggier than shit outside and i am sick of it, and i don't want to turn on my air conditioner just yet...
::resume blog post::


so anyway, i went through this horrid, horrible, very bad, no good breakup once. (well okay, it's happened a few times.) this particular one was in winter, 2007/2008. since i am bipolar, even when i am medicated, i don't do so well with catastrophic life events. i tend to get volcanically upset. i am also, typically, manic in the winter. combine being manic with being violently upset about life, and well, fireworks fly.
especially when the person i'm in the process of breaking up with/getting back together with/breaking up with (repeating, ad nauseum, over the next year...) also lives in my house.

the event went something like this:
Boy: um, i know we're in an open relationship (so we wouldn't have to break up), and i've said "i love you" a bunch over this past year, but i'm gonna break up with you to chase this 21-year old virgin art student's tail.
Me: WTF ASSHOLEMOTHERFUCKER ::crycrycry:: GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! uh....SHIT.

it's just him, and me. we have no roommates to help us deal, nothing. we also are six months into a year-long lease, in possibly the best house i've ever lived in (that did not also house my parents). neither of us want to go anywhere, and both of us are very stubborn.

to this end, things got a bit nasty. i mean, we probably weren't trying to "get" each other intentionally, but behavior was all over the board - mine, especially.
2 days after he broke it off, we had "breakup sex," (so-called), after which he told me he loved me (WTF?). then he went off in the next week to try and get with his art student, who was understandably quite wary about all of this, considering that she knew exactly what was going on in our household, and to her credit had encouraged us to get back together.

but, Boy would go off and return back from jaunting around art student at 3 or 4 am or so, (yes, i WAS obsessively paying attention, i'm crazy, remember?) and i would be either awake on the couch, obsessively writing, or fucking off on the internet. or i would be sprinting toward the bathroom to hurl. when my emotions get the best of me, my stomach gets super-upset.
i also knew this bugged the hell out of Boy, and made him feel guilty - and at the particular mental state i was in, i was just fine with him feeling guilty for a while.

like i said...bad behavior on both ends.
i was living on the couch, because i didn't want to sleep alone in my bed, which doubly compounded all of my problems - if i'd been upstairs in my bedroom ignoring the world, it probably would have worked out better for the both of us - but i couldn't sleep (manic and panicky), and so i would stay out in the living room stubbornly - plus it was cold as hell upstairs - winter, you know.

what saved me from this horrible cycle, was music.
Boy had a large surround sound system, which i dearly loved. i had become stuck on a certain Sigur Ros song, svefn-g-englar. i was so in love with this song - i had it on all the time. (to listen/see video, go here)

to cope with my general craziness and my life, whenever i felt like i was really gonna start freaking out, i'd take a blanket off the couch, lay it on the floor, put svefn-g-englar on the stero, on repeat, turn it up loud enough to wake the neighbors, and curl up in the fetal position with my head against the speaker. i would listen to this song over and over, until i fell asleep.

this probably drove Boy crazy, but i wasn't doing it for that reason - i did it to drown out all the chatter in my head - and it worked! suddenly, i was able to get up off the couch, and go sleep upstairs, after getting groggy by the speaker.

to this day i regard this as the weirdest thing, but i'll tell you what - if your head won't shut up, loud music is key - just crank it, get really close, and play your favorite song a million times - preferably something fairly laid-back, not like Tool, which will amp you up - and chill. lie back, listen, and remember: you don't always have to deal with your crazy. sometimes you can make it shut up!

also, sometimes, you can go get laid on a random one-night stand, come back from portland covered in hickeys, and get snatched up by ex-Boy, with the result of awesome sex, guilty nights, more awesome sex, more guilty nights, and a whole bucketload of angst for both of you - involving awesome sex.

i probably wouldn't recommend it, though. ; ]

(i'm sorry, Boy, but in retrospect it's almost humorous, no? has enough time passed where it's funny yet?)
yes, we're still friends, and don't hate each other, and yes - i consider this a welcome miracle.

now, on the count of 42, go listen to loud music with your head on the speaker....
: ]

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. : ]

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

THE CORPORATE JOB starts tomorrow....

::shiver::

checklist:
high heels
skirt
office-appropriate cardigan
espresso maker PRIMED AND READY
intestinal fortitude....
and [ ] <-- that much excitement.


i plan on going to bed tonight by midnight, duly dosed on xanax and other smokables. see, my general plan is to stay up until the sun starts coming up, THEN go to bed. patently, this will not work if i'm trying to drag my ass up at 7:30 am. so.
this is when i duly praise my prescription for, and the wonderful sleepy properties of, xanax.

hail the almighty xanax!

so. since i don't own a brain before noon, i fully plan to lay out EVERY SINGLE THING i might possibly need for tomorrow tonight, since i'll no doubt be running out of the house like a bat outta hell come tomorrow morning.

this whole laying out the outfit the night before thing makes me feel variously like a small child, or completely OCD. especially when i've got my espresso beans already in the grinder, and my undies laid out, as if i am so brain dead i could possibly make an underwear mistake.

problem is, i AM that brain dead in the morning. i don't really do the breakfast thing, as my stomach's still asleep as well. it's all i can do to sleep-walk out of the door, having drunk FAR TOO MUCH CAFFEINE and wearing clothing.
looking awake at work is seriously hard.

so, to in no way conclude this post in a normal manner, these are some pictures of friday night, first night of PIRATE WEEK!




also: i managed to catch one of the members of the Revolving Cat Parade on my Porch!!! one of the six or so...

me + cats = exploding face

i have two favorite animals: horses, and cats.
both of which i am allergic to. naturally, i think this is vastly unfair.
this is one of my favorite activities:



allergies don't stop me from doing much other than breathing, though. i live with a cat, Roxy. it's not a good idea to let her near my bed or clothing though, so she lives mostly outdoors, and in the kitchen. or the living room, where we block every attempt at snuggling on the couch. i don't want my couch to make me sneeze.

we live in a shotgun style house, as is common in new orleans. thus, our place is basically a long hallway. you have to go through all the rooms in order to get into the kitchen, and our living room is on the opposite end.

naturally the cat (Roxy) knows this, and takes every opportunity to show up on the front porch, which means if we let her in (and she's really fucking persistent and whiny about it) then one of us has to chase/wrangle/carry her to the kitchen and shut the door, so she doesn't immediately make for, say, my closet, where she can rub her allergy-ness all over my clothing.

it's not a joke, it really happens. and sometimes, this happens, too:




she is the Fuzzbutt. and the Fuzzbutt is evil. and a bit confused, too.
she's the Matt's (see previous posts) cat. and she has been moved from Chicago, to Portland, and then all around the whole bloody city of Portland, then Pensacola, and now New Orleans. i think she loves it here, but it's hard to tell, really. she's a gypsy cat.
and evidently that's not just a saying. Roxy was given (note i didn't say chose, here) to the Matt by an ex of his, and he explained to me that she (the ex) was an actual gypsy, heritage-wise. so, by the very definition, Roxy is a gypsy cat. which at least is interesting, if not technically true. (i have no idea if it's true...not my cat).
so Fuzzbutt is somewhat like that kid that your friend ended up pregnant with by accident...not precisely planned (or wanted, up front) but loved, at least.

since we keep her mostly in the kitchen or kick her outside most of the time, i'm starting to think that she believes she's homeless.
this was our first indication that we might have a hobo cat:



i told the Matt we might want to get a cat bed or something, lest she start acting really homeless, and stop bathing herself. he said, "aw, fuck her," which i took to mean generally, "let her have the box, i am poor." or something to that effect.
thus Roxy has a box. probably best anyway or i'd have to start washing a cat bed frequently so as not to be allergic to my fucking kitchen. ridiculous.

during the night and early morning hours (most of which i'm awake for) we have a revolving cat parade on our porch, due to the food we leave out for Roxy so she (presumably and hopefully) won't bug the shit out of us every time she wants to eat three pieces of food and scamper back outdoors. i don't know if it'll make Fuzzbutt stop harassing us, but it does have the entertaining effect of drawing every cat on the street, most of which are vaguely socialized at best. i've tried to get pictures, but they run too damn fast.

naturally, Fuzzbutt protests this stealing of food, so we also get to watch her chase all the other cats. it's either that, or she ends up in the kitchen all night. it's been like that a lot recently, so that now every time i get up out of bed from reading to go to my bathroom, i see this:



ears go up like a periscope, she realizes "oh, it's just you," and she curls back up and ignores you.

either that, or she MUST have all of your attention. ALL OF IT. IMMEDIATELY.
in which case, no matter how badly you have to go, you can't pee until you shake the cat off your leg and sprint into the bathroom quickly, lest she decide she must sit on you while you're trying to shit or something.

to the end of destroying this behavior, i've come up with cat twaddling. goes like this:

walk into kitchen. Fuzzbutt perks up, and gives you THE LOOK which means PET ME NOW DUMB HUMAN, OR ELSE. i walk over, give her a two-handed scratch behind the ears really fast, and while she's basking in this, RUN LIKE HELL to the bathroom.
it seems to be working, so far.
the downside is, if you skip the cat twaddle, you get this look:



chilling.

PIRATE WEEK!

evidently, today marks the first of pirate week, in new orleans.
rock.

so i put on a corset, pirate pants and a skirt, my "bling" (that would be a matching set of coins for bellydancing, y'all), and a large black cloak. (see post one for picture.) and i went out.

out included many things: the french quarter, much rum (was had by all), and several friends. i brought my phone, and my id. i came back drunk, with $1.25.

definitively, I WIN.

so i'm not sober enough really to bother with the rest of the story (although i did show a drunken scotsman in kilt to pirate's alley - there, details), but long story short:

i (and friends) got LIBRARIAN SHUSHED out of pirate's alley, on a friday night, AT THE BEGINNING OF PIRATE WEEK.
IN THE FRENCH QUARTER.
IN NEW ORLEANS.

i didn't even know that was possible.

patently, we were made of WIN tonight.

i rest my case.

quote of the night: "well if she's not drunk, can I take her home?????

Liberace's piano

for as long as i've been alive, my dad has been an antiques dealer.
however. after my mom divorced him, he became just a tad more flamboyant.
or a lot.

this was my freshman year of college (that'd be 2003, y'all), and the first time i'd been to his bachelor pad. i was expecting antiques everywhere, as per usual. this was what i wasn't expecting: mannequins. everywhere. mannequins on pedestals, mannequins in the corner. and, the piece de resistance: Mitzie.

Mitzie was the only mannequin with a name. she reclined in a red evening dress and silver heels, on top of the grand piano. Mitzie had a periodically changing hairstyle - from red, to blonde, brunette and back again. she wore Mardi Gras beads, and green for St. Patty's, etcetera. she was also impossible to miss, from the moment you walked in the door.

my not so heterosexual ex-boyfriend took one step into dad's new house, and grabbed my hand, hissing, "omiGOD honey, your daddy's a fag."
"no he isn't," i responded. "he deals in antiques." which might explain some of the naked greek men in the house....but surely not all of them. to be fair, there were quite a few.
"a hundred bucks, he's a homo." ex-boy muttered. the bet was on.

it only took a few days to lose myself a hundred dollars. all the other evidence might have been questionable, but when i found the cosmogirl magazine with ashton kutcher on the cover in his nightstand drawer, next to the technicolor lifestyle condoms and lube, i knew i'd lost this one, and good.
"okay," i conceded. "my dad's a homo. this is going to be AWESOME!!!"

and it was. it was very awesome.

FACT: when coming out to your mother as a young college student, it always helps if your mom has just recently divorced your dad for being gay.
my mom's reaction, instead of being "get out of my house!" was more like, "oh god, not another one!"

it was as smooth as i could reasonably expect.

anyway, things have gone along more or less smoothly ever since, as smooth as a southern family with two non-heteros gets, really. dad's still trying to figure out how to be simultaneously christian and gay, but he's working on it (i know, i don't get it either).
dad has a revolving parade of boyfriends, mom remarried an AWESOME guy, my brother is mostly non-scarred, blah blah blah.
i am still the "black sheep" of the family, eschewing morals, sexual mores, and pretty much everything else. (how else am i supposed to have fun, here?)

heh, try this for fun: come out as gay....two years later, come out as not-quite-as-gay-as-previously-assumed, then come out as poly-amorous. date a married couple, and introduce them to the folks.
throw in a bit of odd paganism, and if your family doesn't spontaneously explode, pat yourself on the back, big time. you win the best family award! (i really do love my family...despite how it may appear in this blog...)

so anyway, back to regularly scheduled plot before side notes....

my personal favorite mannequin OF ALL TIME was this guy:



for the longest time, dad had him stuck into a pedestal with a piece of rebar up his ass. eventually i think one of the neighbors might have complained, and he removed the rebar and moved him into the back yard, as shown in the picture. (the cat is Roxy...more on her later. evil Fuzzbutt.)

since dad is selling that house (see previous post), i think my favorite mannequin man is finally leaving the show.

my dad's not giving up on the fabulous factor, however.
i sincerely apologize for not having a picture of this. it is AMAZING.

my dad now owns Liberace's piano.
the piano in question didn't used to be Liberace's. it used to be a perfectly normal black grand piano.

evidently dad was bored, though, and decided that what he really needed was to get a mirror cut for THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE GRAND PIANO.



see example piano. now imagine the top closed, and the entire damn thing covered in a huge mirrored top.
he then got these fantastic candlesticks that look a lot more like miniature chandeliers, and stuck them on top. the entire half of the living room fucking sparkles.
it's fantastic.
as soon as i get over to his house, i thusly promise to take pictures of this marvel.

people feel compelled to give me insanely random things.

my awesome house, before i moved in approximately 3 weeks ago:



what happened, after i moved in all of the shit i just hauled ACROSS THE ENTIRE CONTINENTAL U.S.:



to say so mildly, i am a packrat. i also own rats. they are awesome.



i call that one "two rats, one wheel." far more entertaining, believe me.

in spite of the fact that i have WAY MORE STUFF THAN A HUMAN BEING SHOULD REASONABLY OWN, people feel compelled to give me really weird stuff. they must. why else would i have been presented with the following things by one of my best friends the other night? all at THE SAME TIME?






okay, a pocket-size booklet of the Constitution. patently everyone needs one of these. feathery purse...well, it is funny enough to make me smile at my corporate hell-job. stockings, fair enough. but look at the first one. look at it!!!

why would my wonderful best friend, who has known me through a LOT of things, give me something that says "drug-FREE???" (if anything, it should say, "give me free DRUGS.") i can only imagine what was going through her mind. probably something like, "hehehe, the irony.... THE IRONY!!!!!"

my dad is moving from one house to the next. a smaller house, which poses a significant problem. the man is even more of a packrat than i am ( i don't even know how it's possible), and he is an antiques dealer, to boot. which may explain the following things:






that would be a random chunk of marble which i'm currently using on my coffee table as the BIGGEST COASTER IN THE WORLD, an awesome velvet pillbox hat, and...? go ahead, guess.

if you guessed "small bronze of napoleon on a horse," you win a gold star.

there are more things, like six bags of velvet drapes, and also a rockin' lamp to put underneath an art piece, but who knows where the hell all that stuff is.

(by the way, all of the above stuff was given to me IN ONE DAY.)

so my mom's offering was not as strange, certainly:



a plant, for the plant-killing daughter. i don't kill plants on purpose...it just happens. i love them. they evidently don't love me back. this one is a spider plant...we shall see. the last plant i had was a cactus...but my roommate Dave killed that.

the above friend in question, Mirror, is fond of strange presents. she gave me a small cabbage patch doll and an Ursula Le Guin book on tape for christmas, and i neither celebrate christmas, nor have a tape player. she is a strange creature:



she also gave me these:



because everyone needs roller skates you can strap to your converse.

my dad is also prone to strange gifts from different countries. he goes to israel, and brings me this:



an oil lamp, really? what i want to know is, can i find oil to burn in it, and can i use the olive oil in my kitchen? (random experiment for later...check.)

then, there's the random things i buy myself:



the guy who sold it to me said it was African (patently true, as he himself was also African), and it was for waving around to give good luck, for...well, something.

what i thought when i bought it (at a very reasonable price - it is made from horsehair, after all): BOYFRIEND SWATTER!!!!!!!!!!

now the boyfriend (that would be the Matt) lives in perpetual fear - not really - but it is a good threatening tool. see what i accomplished today!



an actual Matt, doing the dishes! that was my productive moment for today. i feel proud.