Stop! Thief!

(You know what else is cool? The knitting site Ravelry is using the picture of the sweater that I made David for the pattern which was originally found on Knitty. Everyone's spreading my shit around and I love it!)

We were at Wal Mart today, which you know isn't my favorite place but we ended up there because the haircut place inside has the best price in town so David was getting all copped up before going to the CHP to schedule a ride along. The CHP by the way is located across the street from Wal Mart.

I wouldn't have gone except that I needed potatoes, celery, and Club crackers, and as I usually don't food shop all the way across town at the Wal Mart when I live a quarter mile fro Stater's, but like I said, the circumstances placed us there.

So while he was getting all fancied up at the beauty parlor, I wandered, I pet some yarn, the kids looked at some fish. Then I went to get the food that we needed. I'm making meatloaf, by the way, at 10:00 at night because he's going on that ride along and wont be back till then.

Yeah, so all of this is boring crap about shopping for a total of three items and a haircut, but you know that I wouldn't share a shopping story with you unless it was good.

And you also know that every damn time I go shopping something bloggable happens, and if not then I make it bloggable.

Okay, so what happened at the Wal Mart? It was uneventful until we were leaving. Now pay attention here, there's a lesson that I need to teach to you guys so you can be aware.

As we were leaving, about, I don't know, 20 feet from the exit, a man with a cell phone in his hand who looked quite nervous started walking after us. Now I didn't notice this, but David did. David grabbed my arm and told me to stop walking, because he's thinking the guy is going to either steal my purse or one of the kids, or follow us out and mug us. And if we stop walking, a regular person would have just kept going...but this guy stopped. He was up to something.

We were right by the alarm sensor things, you know, the "beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beepers" and the guy was just stopped behind us.

"Go ahead," David says, because something wasn't right.

"No man, it's cool," the guy insists, but David wouldn't budge. Seeing as his plan wouldn't work out as easily as he had planned, the guy ditches his plan and just bolts out the door, setting off the alarm. We're right at the beeper, not through it but right before it, so the geezer greeter comes hobbling over to us, because he didn't see the punk running out the door.

Now, here's the thing. It seems to me that the guys at the front door should be young and agile, able to run after punks. Don't take the geezer greeters away, just put them out in the store harassing people as they shop as a preventative measure.

So anyway, the greeter stopped us to search our one bag of celery, crackers, and potatoes for stolen goods, and of course there were none.

"It was that guy!" we said, and after making David and I walk through the thingy again, he was like "Oh, I guess it was."

Then the guy narrowed his eyes and told us all about the prices going up because of guys like that. He whistled while he talked and spit a little, and said something about the economy and tax returns at the end of the year, shrinkage and profit. But he didn't do anything about the theft. He didn't call security or anything. He just let whatever it was walk out the door.

My take on this, honestly, is that if you're going to steal from Wal Mart, whatever. But seriously, don't make me and my family look like the guilty party. Don't drag other people down with you. I've seen that family who lives at Wal Mart more times than a few, I've seen the girl doing her nail polish right in the aisle, another time I saw her with a guy eating some chips in a cart but buying nothing else, and I've seen the guy trying on socks. No really, he was trying on socks. And stealing them, but the point is that there are people who know how to work the system. They can work it like a Tijuana hooker without involving anyone else. This guy was just downright creepy and annoying.

And as for the lesson I wanted to teach today, it's be aware of the people around you in the store and when you are leaving. What if he was trying to take my kid? At least we knew something was up. Just pay attention, is all.

Rekanise, Bisches! *Updated*

When toying around with my Flickr Photo Stats, I came across something you will not believe.

Or maybe you will, because this isnt like that crazy, but for me, yeah, awesome.

Whoever is maintaining the Wikipedia page on Yucaipa California used FOUR of my photos for the article. INCLUDING the picture that I used for the cover of Golden Dawn. Recognize, trick ass hoes, recognize.

And no, I did not create the article. But these are the pictures that they used!

Clearly, my picture take bring all the boys Wikipedians to the yard web, and they're like, it's better than yours. Damn right it's better than yours, I could teach you, but I'd rather charge you for a photography session at the rate of $70 per hour ($35 for family and decent people who I deem worthy) and give you your beautiful photos on a disk! Or...

Like, I've been wikid. Or my photos have. I rock.

*I am not upset about this. I am happy that my pictures are being used for the Wiki about my home town. My Flickr photos are set to a Creative Commons License, which means people can use them as long as they arent making any money from them. Wiki articles are great examples. So no, I am not upset or being sarcastic about the use of my pictures in the article.*

Sharing An Internet

So I'm back online. My neighbor Mustang Sally the Romanian romance novelist gave me some of her private internets to use. It seems like ever since we talked last week about being writers, she's been really neighborly.

For example, I have this really cool plant holder on my front porch, and our porch landing is shared so I keep it in the middle of our doors. Well my porch is like a dead zone for plants because it doesn't get any sun all day until late afternoon, and then all of the sudden the sun just beats the fuck down on it, so I have to keep sturdy things there. I did have some lavender there for about a year, because lavender? You can toss the seeds on carpet and it will grow, it's sturdy. It's got an incredible will to live. But then it snowed, and my plants didn't like that so they died. Then I replaced them with freesias that I got for Mother's Day, and they died a horrible death within a week.

I tell you that to tell you this, because it's related to the lady giving me the password to her wireless network. I've been looking for a plant to put there for a few weeks, not really finding anything, and then one day David goes to take out the trash and he says "Come look outside." Mustang Sally boughted me a purdy flower and put it in my plant holder. Isn't that the sweetest?

Haves Jessie made friend me good?

We sat on our balconies last night on the internets together and talked. She has like four laptops that she uses all at once, like she has them all lined up, I don't know what that's about but we were like, you know, hanging out. This is good, this is real good. I think I owe her some cookies or an egg roll or something. I did offer up free pizza any time she wants because I know a guy, but she declined. I'll talk to the man of the house and see if he'll dig on that.

So aside from my neighbor lady turning out to be a pretty cool broad after all, what did I do on my four month vacation from stable internet connection? Mostly I was becoming a better writer. Perhaps it doesn't show in my blogs, or maybe it does, I don't know since I use a different voice to blog with than to do serious business with. But I've been waist deep in the theory that in order to be a good writer you must read for four hours a day and write for four hours a day. I've been working on what they call automatic writing, which is where you just let your mind blank out and let your hands do the typing, that gets some interesting results. Plus I've been working on plot development and research, and I ended up falling in love with the characters from Bombshell and turned it into a series, and I got part of the way through the second book in that series and decided I need more research done before I can move forward with it, so I started working on book three which is flowing nicely. Batshit backwards but whatever, it works. They'll be released in the right order.

That's the thing though, not having the internet around to distract me is what pushed me to constantly work on Bombshell to get it finished, then start another book after that, and another one after that! And I think I probably spent too much time on the internet before just watching videos and lurking 4chan. I wont give up my videos, especially Lonelygirl15 (which I am trying to catch up on, I've got like 150 videos to watch) and I wont stop reading blogs (though it seems the blogs are getting stale so get me some linkage people) but I will commit to writing as much as I did when there was nothing better to do.

It's funny, because Mustang Sally asked me why we didn't have our own internet connection, and I said it was because I've just always had an open network or two that I could use until recently when they all locked up or moved away. I said that we don't have a landline phone because nobody calls us but us so we just have the cell phones, and we got rid of our TV in November so there's no point in signing up for the forced dish company that the apartment complex is contracted with because it would just be a waste of money.

"So...you don't have internet, television, and you don't talk on the phone. So what do you do?"

"I write. And read. And knit sometimes."

"What about your husband? Doesn't he want to watch the ball game?"

"Not especially, and he's never home anyway. And when he is home he wants to spend time with us, not in front of the TV. We aren't like against TV or anything, we just have no real time for it right now. How am I supposed to get any work done if I'm watching the TV all the time?"

"Don't the kids like their cartoons though?"

"Actually my kids like Hotwheels cars and building forts."

So needless to say when she knocked on my door the next day and gave me the password to her network, I was surprised and thankful. That was pretty dang thoughtful. I will accept her free internets, even if they were given out of pity. I have very little shame, you know that.

Utterly Utterly Speechless

As a writer I try to paint a picture with words. Sometimes, I have to claim defeat and just show you the damn picture because there are no words to describe the situation, only words to explain it.

This is an example of Beaumorons at their finest. You Bitches Of Eastwick have got nothing on this shit, in fact I challenge Ms. Bitchford and Ms. Bitchmont to a Moron-Off to prove whose town is full of more fucktardery. Trust me Bitches, you just lost the game.

Okay, so guy lights a BBQ and walks away. (Right, and with an opening sentence like that you know this will be a good one.) The guy was gone for quite a while, 15 minutes I would guess, and meanwhile the unsupervised neighborhood children gathered 'round the flame and started throwing toys, leaves, plastic water bottles, foil, and batteries on it.

Because that's what happens when you leave fires unattended, right? Which is why they drill it into our heads that we aren't supposed to leave fires unattended.

I didnt take pictures of that part because children are innocent until proven guilty or something along those lines, but I did get pictures of what happened when the fire starters returned. Now, what happened just before I snapped this shot was the guy found a flaming glob of melted shit on his charcoal, so he used his tongs to flip it off and into the grass. Into the dry grass of Beaumont, California.

But it's like cool though because you can still cook. Right?



Oops! Forgot the burgers. I'll be right back honey.


La la la, I'm just going to casually walk by the fire, doo tee doo...



Dude! It's behind you!



No, dont look at me! Look at the fire you started! FIRE IN GRASS, IDIOT!



No! Dont start cooking, DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE FIRE!



THAT FIRE! RIGHT FUCKING THERE!



Oh for the love of CHRIST! ARE YOU THAT FUCKING STUPID?



And this lady is like "Um, seriously, you guys need to put out that fire, like before it starts a fire or something."



10 minutes later, "Oh, you say water will do the trick, um...okay, if you say so..."

It goes without saying that they didn't stick around to grill their shit. Im taking the pictures to management in the morning.

You tell 'em Smokey! Beat the shit out of them with that shovel like the bad ass that you are...though...you're like a bear, so I dont know why you wouldn't just maul them, but whatever. Shovel is funnier.

Hillary

I am going to share with you a short story that I wrote a very long time ago. In 10th grade I shared the story with my English teacher, Mrs. Ingraham, and she sent me to the councilor's office for this, because she thought I was warped or something.

The councilor? He laughed and asked if I had ever considered writing as a career.

This story is called Hillary.

Once upon a time there was a fairy princess and she was called Hillary. Hillary worked in an office with a rubber plant and a man whose name she had forgotten. And she lived with her mother, and her mother's father who was seventy six and deaf and who secretly ate dog food.

Although it wasn't really much of a secret.

Hillary never really liked people. Her only friend was a mouse called Linda, a present from her father before he ran away to Britain with a woman from the post office on Hillary's fifth birthday. The day after Hillary's fifth birthday, great lumps of Linda's fur fell out and she died. So Hillary wrote to her father, and her father sent her a replacement, and it had no fur at all, and if you wanted it to move you had to wind it up.

And even then it still had traction problems on carpet, but she was still Hillary's best friend.

And she was still better than people.

"You cant trust people!" said Hillary's mother. And Hillary agreed, and she didn't trust her mother either. So that night, Hillary laid in bed and dreamt of a life without people, a life with just her and Linda. A life on Mars. But being the practical girl that she was, she would just as well settle for two weeks in August in a quiet boarding house on the east coast watching cliffs fall into the sea while her grandfather suffered from heat exhaustion, and various shellfish disagreed with her mother.

Hillary's life was, frankly, rather dull.

"Do you know what your problem is?" said Hillary's grandfather, and Hillary ignored him because he was deaf, and he never really listened to anything anyone had to say even when he could hear anyway. "Your problem is that you're boring."

"Your breath smells like dog food."

"When I was your age, I lived life in the fast lane." And then he went on to tell her about all of the men he had fights with, the women he had lied to, and the diseases he had caught. And Hillary knew that her life wasn't in the fast lane.

Or for that matter, it wasn't in the slow lane either.

One day she met a man. And the next day she met him again. And the next day she didn't meet him because her grandfather had been found wandering up and down the dog food aisle of the grocery store for hours and she needed to go get him. But she met him the next day, and by the end of the week she had lost her appetite and started writing poetry in terrific potency and length. At the end of the month he proposed, and Hillary took him home to meet her mother.

And her mother was...somewhat hostile.

"I told you not to trust people!" she yelled. "Look at him! He doesn't love you, he just wants someone to make his dinner and clean his dirty underpants. Once your butt starts to sag he'll dump you for a cocktail waitress with bleached hair and pierced nipples."

And Hillary said, "I'm pregnant."

After they were married, she got fatter and fatter until she had a baby. It was rather fussy and clammy at first, but they kept it, and they lived together as a family in a house that Hillary said wasn't big enough. So, her husband built her an extension. And she said it still wasn't big enough so he extended the extension. And she said it still wasn't big enough and he said it is big enough and she said it isn't and he said why and she said I need more space and he said why, you don't do anything.

And Hillary started to cry. And he said sorry, and he built her another extension.

Hillary seemed to shrink as the house got bigger. She stopped going outside and would quietly whisper what sounded like obscenities. Some days she loved her family.

Other days, she didn't.

They were rude and evil and would say mean things about her behind her back. And one day when she was hiding from them at the bottom of her wardrobe, she found Linda. And she looked at Linda with her plastic whiskers and painted on eyes, and Linda said, "I thought we were going to Mars."

And Hillary said "Oh yes."

Book Review: The First 30 Days by Ariane de Bonvoisin

I was asked to review a book a while back by the same people who asked me to review The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan (which I thoroughly enjoyed.) I believe the official title of this book is The First 30 Days, but also on the cover it says Your Guide to Any Change and Loving Your Life More. This is a self help book for people who are going through any of life's changes (birth, death, divorce, relocation, or anything else) that intends to teach you to look at change in a positive light.

I have never read a self help book before (maybe that's what is wrong with me) so when I was asked to give my opinion on this book I was excited for the opportunity. After all, I myself will be going through a change pretty soon, since I intend to move with David to Sacramento when he leaves for CHP academy, and I expect it to be rather harsh and devastating when it comes time to face the fact that I will be leaving the only land I have ever known to be somewhere completely different.

The first thing we learn is how to change our view of change from something negative, like "I will never find another job," to something more along the lines of "this gives me the opportunity to look for a job that I like. Ariane then discusses "The Change Guarantee," which is simply that something good will come from any and all situations, no matter how bad.

The book uses a lot of key terms, like "The Change Muscle," which gets stronger with every change you go through, and "Change Demons," which are literally just your negative emotions that can hold you back or simply make the change harder. It literally gives you a "look on the bright side" perspective when you learn to recognize your negative outlook.

For example, my biggest quarrel with moving is that I love where I live and I don't ever want to be anywhere else because this is all I know. My writing reflects this too because every one of my novels takes place in the Inland Empire. If I move up North, even just for the six months of academy, I might discover a new setting to write about, meet new people that I can use for characters, and maybe even encounter a situation that inspires a new story.

Ariane's book teaches acceptance of the things you cant control, and how to use the things that you can (like what you say and how you think) to your advantage in order to get through the change. It is littered with inspirational quotes and "for example" stories from her own life changes and her friend's and family's life changes.

To be perfectly honest I didn't learn much from the book, but that is because I've always had the belief that things happen for a reason, good or bad, so it wasn't really anything new for me. But if you have trouble getting through the rough changes in life, even the heartbreaking ones, this book is helpful and enlightening.

Usurped By Crack Heads Part III

Yes, usurped by crack heads again, only this time we may have dodged a bullet.

Smashmouth performed in Beaumont tonight, a free two hour concert at the Stewart park. I was all set and ready to go, not because I particularly like the band, but because I would have liked to snap pictures of them, just to say "hey, I took some pictures of Smashmouth."

This is who I am talking about, in case you aren't familiar. You'll recognize it the second you hear it, I don't care how old you are.

Smashmouth is like masturbation. Every generation discovers it, and they're like "Wow...this is great!"

So you know, free Smashmouth concert, I'm like, "Sure, I'll go if it's free."

I was all set to go and everything. David even had the night off, so I was like "Oh the free concert gods want us to go!" But he came home from The Cans at 5:00 and shook his head as soon as he got in the door. "We're not going," he said sadly.

"WHY?" I demanded.

"I overheard some low lifes, I mean, real low lifes. Crack head low. Anyway, I overheard them today go I'm going to get aaaaaallllll of my friends, and we're going to drag my mom's couches to the park to watch Smashmouth.' Crack heads will be there hon, we just cant go to something like that."

"Shit."

"Plus, there's always people doing drugs at concerts, and this is Beaumont, and it's free. How bad do you think that would have been?"

"I can only imagine. But hey, Bo Bice is coming soon, and so is The Doodlebops!"

"What the fuck is a Doodlebop?"

"I don't know. They're colorful, I think they're like The Wiggles. You think people will be using drugs at a Doodlebops concert?"

"There will definitely be people dropping acid at a Doodlebops concert. It will probably be worse than Smashmouth."

Plus he ended up getting called in to work because another driver quit. So, yeah, crack heads and scum bags ruin everything, but we really may have dodged a bullet here. I mean, if we were talking free The Who or free anything-but-Smashmouth, I'd be more upset. But this is Smashmouth.

Pfft...you crack heads can have them.

*my finger and my thumb in the shape of an L on my forehead*

Somehow I've Gone From Author To Sex Therapist

Steppy calls me, and yeah he's Steppy again because the Dougie Howser thing just wasn't working for me, but anyway he says he wants to see me. I cant be certain but I think he has a thing for me, which, you know, more power to him but he's nuts if he thinks I'll meet him anywhere outside of a public setting like Starbucks or a restaurant. I am not a smart man Jenn-ay, but I do know what rape is.

David says to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I am pretty low on friends, so before I go accusing this guy of wanting to nail me, I should at least hear him out until he specifically says "yo baby I want to nail you," then I can tell him to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut without shame.

Only what happened Monday was not at all what I had expected. We're there on a date, for lack of a better word, and he gets all into this line of questioning. Here, let's look at it in almost instant replay (the transcribed version of the almost instant replay, anyhoo...)

"Let me get this straight Steppy...you're saying the cruisers don't have cup holders?"

"That's right. There's a spot for a bottle of water if you need it but no, there are no cup holders."

"That's just downright barbaric."

"Barbaric?"

"That's like...not having a bowl on the counter to put your keys in at home, or at the very least no hook to hang your coat."

"Barbaric."

"It is. And I had no idea you cops had it so rough, I mean, you poor man! You want me to make you a sammich?"

"You mean sandwich?"

"Uh, Officer I believe it is pronounced sammich."

"My apologies."

"God, no cup holders-"

"Could we talk about something else?"

"Sure, like what?"

"What I came to talk to you today for. That chapter I read."

"Was it too dirty? Did it offend you?"

"No, I liked it, like I said, I cant tell you how much I liked it. I really liked it."

"You fapped to it."

"Excuse me, fapped?"

"Yeah, like this book is so hot *fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap*"

He ignores me, or doesn't acknowledge the accusation anyway. "But uh...you know, reading that sort of made me...how do I say this? Desire to do that myself."

"You...don't mean with me, do you?"

"No no...it's my wife. Why am I telling you this? Ugh...okay, so I've gone, you know, downtown-"

"Whistled in the wheat fields?"

"Yes," he grins nervously. "Well I've tried it several times, but my wife has never had an..."

"Oh my god."

"I shouldn't have told you that."

"No, no...it's fine, I just didn't expect to hear that."

"Can I ask you a question since you seem to know about that, based on what you wrote?"

"This cant get any weirder, so why not. What's on your mind, Steppy?"

"I've tried it, and I want her to, but she just...doesn't. She gets bored and tells me to finish up, and I know that's not the way it's supposed to be. Is it me? Or is it her?"

"Well...that's a lot to think about, um...here, show me what you're doing on my wrist."

"You want me to give oral sex to your wrist?"

"Dude, trust me. If I was trying to seduce you I wouldn't be asking you to lick my wrist in a Starbucks of all places. Just show me."

"I cant do that!"

"Do it! Do you want help or not? I wont look at you or anything, just show me your technique."

We're sitting on a couch off to the side, and nobody's looking. So the guy makes love to my wrist with his mouth while I drink my tea and avert my eyes to a cute sweater on a lady that I would like to knit some time.

"Well there's your problem," I say. "Your technique is bad."

"No kidding?"

"You're all over the place! Look, you need to learn to concentrate, and don't be so god damned sloppy. I would get bored with that too."

"What am I going to do?"

"Best case scenario Steppy, it is you and your bad technique and the advice I give you here tonight fixes things right up. Worst case scenario, I'll have to talk to you about this again and go more in detail on how to fix this problem. Good news is that you don't have to make love to my arm again, I can council you over the phone if I have to."

"So how do I fix it?"

"First try this, and tell me if it works. When you're down there, practice writing the letters of the alphabet with the tip of your tongue. And don't stop at Z, just go right back to A and repeat as necessary. This should give you a little more control, something to concentrate on. It's a novice approach but you need to start at square one here, because what you did to my wrist was pretty bad."

"Is she going to know that I'm doing that?"

"She'll know you're doing something but hopefully she just wont care what as long as you keep going."

"Wait, I cant do that tonight. I just got done talking to you here, if I come home and suddenly I'm Casanova she'll think something's up."

"Nothing's up, I'm just giving you some advice. She can talk to me if she'd like, I didn't go to school for this but I've read all the same books, most of them anyway. And I actually read them, I don't just look at the pictures. Have her call me."

"No no no, I'll call you, that's better."

"But you might want to tell her that you've talked to me about this today because if you're calling another woman every time you're about to go down on her she's going to really think something's up."

"Well thanks Jessie, for what it's worth. I hope it works..."

"Don't thank me yet, get home and git-r-done and tell me how it works out."

"I will. You're my hero!"

"Yeah now go be her hero, get out of here ya mangy mutt!"

He stands up and starts to leave, but then he stops and takes my hand and kisses my wrist and whispers thank you, then skips of gleefully. God damnit Steppy, I salute you!

And do you see that? He came to me because of something I wrote. My literature is inspiring men to go home and try to bring their wives to orgasm. Either that or it was a huge ploy to lick my wrist because he has some sick fetish for wrist licking. Then again I suggested it so maybe I'm the freak here. Whatever, I halped, that's nice. Back to the manuscripts now...

Somebody Ate My Butter

For No One

I am: David's Doll

I think: success is in the eye of the beholder

I thank: everyone for the encouragement, even when it is negative

I know: all of the words to nearly every Beatles song ever written

I wish: that CHP's hiring process moved faster.

I hate: drug users, alcoholics, and people who refuse to help themselves

I miss: being 15

I feel: like I'm stuck in a rut, but it's not so bad down here once you get used to it

I shop: at Stater Bros, and have for the past 24 years

I hear: the gentle whirring and clicking of the ceiling fan

I crave: Mongolian BBQ, with egg drop soup and lamb and long noodles

I wonder: why I seem to be the center of attention lately and how long it will last

I dream: in black and white

I love: writing, reading, photography, knitting, and most of all these guys

I care: about the environment

I always: fantasize; it's a wonder I didn't try fiction writing sooner

I celebrate: my marriage, every day

I sing: really well but I wont let anyone else hear it, not even David

I cry: not very often

I don't always: have anything to blog about, but I do it anyway

I write: because it's in me and it has to get out

I pray: and I am heard

I lose: writing time when I nap so I just try to keep working even when I'm tired or sick

I listen: to The Cure while I clean the house

I am scared: of social situations

I dance-a the cha-cha with an old friend from high school who I affectionately refer to on my blog as Steppy

I need: a bit of good luck to come my way

I surf: the internets for lulz

I dread: leaving the Inland Empire and having to learn a new place

I anticipate: David's law enforcement career

I laugh: so much when David is home that my sides hurt for days

Crazy Talk

I'm usually the one to talk in my sleep. David tells me that most of the time I talk about car repair in my sleep, legitimate car repair, things that actually make sense. This is strange because when I walk into Autozone I say "Um...I need like a thingy. It's black, and it's like a hose, but it's not a hose." But one night I gave David step by step instructions on how to gap spark plugs, among other things. Don't mind me, I was a mechanic in my past life or something to that effect.

Well last night it was David who was doing the weird talking. I got in bed about 15 minutes after him because I took a shower, and when I got in I crawled over to his side and went to kiss him.

"What are you doing?" he exclaims.

"Uh...trying to kiss you?"

"Get off of me! You cant do that!" and he totally pushes me away from him.

Yeah, butt hurt Jessie is butt hurt at this point. So I roll over, fuck him then, he's an asshole.

He says, "I wonder what language it is."

"What?"

"The dots."

Oh shit. He's sleep talking. I could totally take advantage of this. I could make him into my zombie slave to do my bidding.

"Yeah so Stater's has that sale right now," he goes, "three of those 24 packs of water bottles for $9.99. They're Stater's brand, but water is water, amiright?"

"How old are you David?"

"26," he answers. Fun! Time travel!

"Where do you work?"

"I'm a cop," he says. Then he starts singing that song Sex and Candy. "Like double cherry pie yeah there she was, like disco superfly yeah there she was. I smell sex and candy, yeah. Who's that loungin' in my chair?"

"How many kids do you have?"

"Four."

"David what does your wife do?"

"She's got books," he says. "They're telling me I have to leave."

"Who? Where are you?"

"It's Ross." Ross is his spirit guide. "He said I went too far, I have to go back." He was quiet for a moment. "Like disco lemonade yeah there she was..."

"Where are you?"

"Why are you still here?" he asked me. "I thought I told you to leave me alone." Then he wakes up and says "Oh hi."

"David, what the fuck is going on? You totally pushed me off of you a few minutes ago, then you like went into the future, now you're telling me to leave."

"I dont know," he says. "I'm sorry."

So this morning after he left for work, he texted me and told me that he remembered why he pushed me away. He was dreaming that he was in CHP academy and he was studying, and this female cadet sat at the table with him and tried to kiss him. He remembers telling her to leave, and he remembers singing Sex and Candy intermittently throughout the night, but he doesn't remember telling me that he was a cop and 26 years old.

I love the subconscious mind, even when it's an asshole.

A Bit Of Luck, And Some Awkwardness

I'm at Wal Mart this morning buying Lysol because I intend to kill whatever microbacterial diseases are crawling in my home and car that are getting us sick and keeping us sick, and freaking Officer Two Step gets in line behind me.

"Oh!" I go, "Hi! Did you finish reading the manuscript?"

"Still working on it," he says.

"How far are you?"

"Well, I just got finished reading a really good chapter last night." Now he's blushing.

"Oh, you mean Fuck Mountain." He blushes brighter and says yeah. "Did you like it?"

"I cant tell you how much I liked it. Not here in public."

"Oh."

Fucker fapped to my story. Jessie for the win.

So I turn back around to start putting my stuff on the thingy, and I heard this noise, like, the sound of a gentle sniff. I whip around fast and he's leaned toward me and everything.

"Did...did you totally just smell my hair?"

"What? No...I was bending to pick up this magazine," he says. On the cover is Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. I have a feeling Steppy doesn't give a shit about Angelina or Brad. But I left without further incident.

Then I get to Staters, and Mr. Sexy is there. He's stocking butter.

"Hi," he says to me.

"Hello."

"Just so you know, I've been reading your blog for about a year now. It's really good, you're funny."

"Oh, well thank you."

"I bought your book, I cant wait to read it."

"You seriously bought my book? Thank you!"

People here in town are buying my book! And talking about it at the grocery store!

"Will you sign it for me?"

"Of course!"

"Can you make it out to Mr. Sexy Kielbasa Nova and can you write that you cant get enough of my sausage?"

"Buy a second one and I'll sign one of them that way."

"Awesome!"

"Hey Mr. Sexy? How many other people at this store read my blog?"

He smiles and says "None of the other ones who have nick names, and if they do, they aren't smart enough to have identified themselves yet."

"Thanks Sexy."

So then David is talking to one of his nice customers, a lady who always brings him water every time she comes, and she mentions the book that he's reading, which is part of the Lord Of The Rings series. She says she loves to read, so he mentioned that I wrote a book. Well she tells him that apparently Solara, which is a 55+ community here, has a library, and that I should go over and talk to the front desk people and do a signing there. "Old people love that sort of thing," she says.

So yay! I have a new venue to look into! Have any of you finished reading it yet? Did you like it?

And then get this. I was working on my balcony with my lap top, and my neighbor Mustang Sally asks what I do for a living, and I tell her I'm a writer. Turns out, she's a published author. She has two books out, both are romance novels, but they're written in Romanian, which is her native language. What the fuck? I had no idea. Anyway, we got to talking and I guess I inspired her because she said she was just going to go inside and try writing again. She says she hasn't written anything since she moved here because it's boring. Yeah it is, but it's a matter of entertaining yourself in a place like this, not necessarily being inspired.

But wow, interesting none the less, right? I'd read her stuff but my Romanian is real rusty.

Beaumont, I Demand The Following

Dear City of Beaumont, CA,

I am the official blogger/naysayer/internet ambassador of the city, and as such I would like to request the following businesses that I would like to see established in our fair city.

First, if I could make a few suggestions, I think we need to change the slogan of Beaumont to "Two cemeteries, no hospital. Drive safely!" I would also like to see more cops busting teenagers for being punks in general. That would be great.

So here are my suggestions to make this town even awesomer better.

• We need a Sam's Club. I'm tired of paying so much for bulk amounts of Crisco at my grocery store and/or Wal Mart.
• There is no book store in Beaumont. The only place to buy books in this town is Wal Mart, and their selection is poor at best. Also, as an author, I would like to be able to sell my books somewhere in town besides the internet! Let's petition Barnes and/or Noble and see if they want to come by.
• Craft supplies. We need freaking craft supplies. Again, Wal Mart does not fully provide. If I get the hankering to learn soap making, I don't want to have to drive to Redlands to buy the stuff. I want to take cake decorating classes and buy my paint by numbers and yarn in the same store. I think this clearly calls for a Michael's or a Jo-Ann's. You pick.
• A Bally Total Fitness with a pool. I'm not knocking Extreme Fitness over on 6th, but they don't have a pool, which is why I don't go there.
• Is there any way that we can put a Target across the street from Wal Mart? I am really sick of Wal Mart.
• We need more sit down restaurants. Let's call Outback and maybe Olive Garden. And in the realm of non sit down places, weren't we supposed to get an In-N-Out? What happened to that? Did it turn into Popeye's? Because as much as I love that chicken from Popeye's, I want an In-N-Out more, and I would be forever grateful for one.
• As you have noticed, there is nothing to really do in Beaumont. Okay, there's golf, and that has its place but I'm thinking of a bowling alley and a movie theater. Even Yucaipa has batting cages, couldn't we get a few water slides or an arcade or something along those lines?
• Last, if it isn't too much to ask, Beaumont needs a sex shop. This way the creepy people who fondle bras at Wal Mart will just go there instead. The perverts are getting bored, we need to entertain them before our crime rate goes up. This would be a preventative measure if anything.

Thank you so much for your time,

Jessie P. Terwilliger, Author and citizen of Beaumont, Ca.

That's Not Funny...But I Cant Stop Laughing!

We went to that CHP seminar tonight. Interesting stuff. I mean, most of it was old news since he's already been through part of the hiring process once and there were people there tonight who hadn't even put in their applications yet. There was like 15 guys and one other girl, and that girl for some reason was staring daggers at me. She was giving me the stink eye if I ever saw it, that is until it came out that I'm not an applicant, that's when she left me alone.

I am not a threat to the rest of the female population, just to remind you. I am not confirmed for brawl.

We learned some good things, like the fact that your benefits follow you through your life even into retirement, six figure incomes aren't unheard of, and they give you 90% of your pay at retirement, meaning that if you make $10,000 a month, you'll get $9,000 a month when you retire, and you don't even pay into it they just give it to you.

If you ever have time to go to the rec room and like watch the game or something, you're doing it wrong. There is no such thing as spare time in Academy.

We watched videos of the graduation, Schwartzenegger is there, he shakes your hand. And this old guy gets up on the podium and practically cries and tells you "save a life for me, officers, save a life for me." When you get there, they stress that "you chose us," but then when you graduate they say "we chose you," and "we are no longer above you, we stand next to you, you are our brothers and sisters."

They show you officers checking for dust in your rooms and going through your stuff. They didn't outright say it but there shouldn't be any pud-pulling while you're in academy, because they'll catch you, and how embarrassing would that be? (Seed slinging, baby barfing, weed whacking, Florida flogging, juice jostling, what have you.)

But my favorite part of the video was the part that I shouldn't be laughing at. Imagine this, if you will.

There's a line of cadets. An officer approaches with an industrial sized bottle of mace. The officer steps up in front of a cadet, and the cadet yells "CHP!" at the top of their lungs, and then the officer sprays the fucker in the face, and the kid screams and goes down.

Right. Now imagine the officer doing it to every one of those cadets.

"CHP!" pssht! "DAAAAAH!"

"CHP!" pssht! "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

And so on.

I don't know why it makes me laugh. They're going to do that to David, and I don't like to see David in pain, but god damn if that didn't make me smile on the inside.

But I'm not totally heartless, because next came the scene where there was four cadets in a squad car, and they looked pretty sad. Then all the sudden this green cloud rolls in and consumes them. We don't hear them scream but you know that shit wasn't cool. It was pretty sad.

They'll taze you, bro. And I hear they'll beat you with your stick too. They'll do everything short of blowing your face off. But they do it to show you what it feels like because you're going to be doing that to people, and also, people might do that to you.

Man, I could never be a cop. Not only because I'm blind and scared of guns, but seriously, someone's pointing a jug of mace at me, I am not going to be yelling "CHP!" I am going to be yelling "DO NOT WANT!" and running away.

David's a brave, brave boy.

Distant

By the way, Mrs. Flax told me that the Zicam people are being sued because, and I quote "bitch stole my sense of smell for like two days," and this is a fairly commen side effect. Interestingly enough, David took the Zicam, like two doses, and now he cant taste or smell. We had him lick every spice in my cupboard, and nothing. He dipped his tater tots in bbq sauce, hot mustard, cocktail sauce, and salad dressing and tasted nothing. Fuck Zicam!

I got a text message today from one of my long time internet friends, who was asking if I was mad at her.

I've gotten a few of these lately, so I'm addressing it now.

No! Of course I'm not mad at her, or anyone that I can think of, but I immediately knew what she meant. It's because I haven't been leaving a whole lot of comments on people's blogs, or swiftly responding to emails, or answering comments here very much. It is nothing personal toward anyone, not even YOU. It's just that I was forced to take a break from the internets due to my lack of stable connection, and I ended up liking the break enough to not jump into signing up for service and creating another bill when I have things like catastrophes to pay for.

This is well known, I have always relied on open networks for my internet access. This isn't unethical because the networks are open, meaning that they aren't password protected. Networks that aren't password protected are essentially like internet gang bang back door dog pile, and everyone including me is invited.

I will be back into the swing of things within a month or so, I too am getting tired of my forced break and my lack of blog reading. Not that I am completely not reading blogs, because I do check up on them on Sundays. But I miss my internets, and the Tubes, so soon I will make an effort to secure a connection in my very own home.

But the other thing is that I have become bitter, because I keep getting kind of screwed in life this year. So if I'm not sociable it's because you know, I never have been, and also because of things like freaking car threw a freaking rod. I just don't want to say the wrong thing to someone, I actually left a rather bitchy and self loving comment on someone's blog a few weeks after my car was stolen, because the girl had talked about her wallet getting stolen and her credit cards were used and such. I left this poor me comment along the lines of "my tragedy was worse" which is not how I'm trying to do things these days. When I'm bitter I turn a bit inverted, which is why I am strictly using my internet time for blogging and I am only blogging on one blog at the moment. Also I have been sick for like two months straight with back to back to back to back cold and flu viruses with a case of food poisoning in between.

I'm using this time to really perfect and hone in on my newly found fiction writing skills. Since not having an internet connection I have started four manuscripts and finished one. They're all really good, I just keep stopping in the middle because I have an idea for something else. So I guess, this is me time. But I am not a total bitch hermit so you can still hang out with me and watch my downward spiral progress. I am actually having a decently good time otherwise outside of the string of bad luck, in fact tomorrow the car is out of the shop and David and I are going to a CHP seminar, because "CHP is family" so they like to see you bring your spouse along to help you take notes. Shows how much you love and rely on your family or something. They like that. And when he goes to his next QAP interview they'll ask "did you go to a seminar?" and he will say "yes, and my lovely wife came along to help me take notes."

He's been advised to play up the family thing. True fact.

So to answer your question, no I am not avoiding you, I am not mad at you, I am not depressed or thinking about quitting my blog or anything like that.

To prove I am not bluffing, the phone lines are open. 951 345 2762. Go Go Go!

Don't Swallow Zicam's Bullshit Lies

This shit right here. David bought me this shit because for one, I am sick, and for two, in the seven years that we've known each other he still hasn't learned that I dont do cough syrup or any kind of medicine that I have to chew or dissolve in something. I will pop a pill but I will not swallow something colorful and cherry flavored that is all sticky and medicine tasting.

With the exception of Dimetapp. I will down a bottle of Dimetapp if you dont put it away after giving me my dosage. Dimetapp is the shit.

But this shit right here, this Zicam, it is not the shit, it is just plain shit. It says that it is multi symptom cold and flu, with a pain reliever, fever reducer, cough suppressant, and expectorant...which sort of contradicts the cough suppressant, but whatever. The thing that makes you want to buy this is that it boasts that it is virtually tasteless when added to any drink. Sounds good, right? Like you can wake up to a mimosa and take your meds all at the same time, and spend your day drunk and less sick, you lush. Right?

No. This is what Zicam wants you to believe. They want you to pour their crap on everything from pancakes to filet mignon, and have you believe that you wont taste a thing. LIARS!

David made me a glass of orange juice with a shot of this shit in it, and I was wary at first because I have a thing about chemicals that is borderline OCD. (It takes me months to decide before switching shampoos, I'm seriously paranoid.) But I drank it, and holy hot dicks from hell am I glad I was standing by the sink.

The following is a transcription of the string of obscenities that flowed from my mouth after spitting out the tentative sip that I took:

"Oh fuck! Why? Oh god fuck! FUCK! FUCK THAT! What the fuck? FUCK! Oh shit. Oh god damnit. Fuck! FUCK! Fuck that!"

If I can describe the taste to you in a way that you might understand, Zicam tastes like giving a blow job to a hospital, and the hospital had been drinking Bacardi rum all day. Seriously. I cant get any more spot on than that description. Like if these walls could talk? Only, if these sanitary walls drank a lot of crappy rum and demanded fellatio from you.

Rubber gloves. Bed pans. Afterbirth. That sickly sweet smell of whatever the hell cleanser hospitals use that makes you sort of think of death and pain and illness.

I implore my readers, my visitors who have misgoogled their porn, anyone who stops by to never EVER buy this product. And if you shamefully bought it for your child, and they cried after you gave it to them, take a swig of it and see for yourself. Don't make junior blow the drunk hospital, please, for the love of all things good, do not buy Zicam's "virtually tasteless" multi symptom cold and flu. It is bullshit, and dont fall for their poison.

This also goes for the numerous throat sprays and cough syrups on the market that create a warming sensation. Like the warming lubricants that scald your peach, these products are essentially heartburn in convenient pump spray form. Think about it...why would you want heat radiating in your esophagus? These are stupid products for stupid people, and god bless you if you give them a try anyway, you moron.

Furthermore, has anyone else noticed that even the good medicines, like Tylenol cold and Sudafed are no longer working? I actually have this theory (that may already be out there, but the point is that I thought this up on my own) that the common viruses, the cold, the flu, are mutating in order to beat the drugs. I believe that it is largely due to the people of the world who pop a pill every time they feel a sneeze coming on, and these little germs have to fight for survival as well, so they've evolved enough to fight all forms of medicine.

This is of course terrifying considering we still dont have a cure for the common cold, let alone cancer. Tricky tricky stuff.

So that's my crazy anti-medicinal batshit crazy psychobabble for the day. Remember, no Zicam, no wretching in the sink.

We Were Going To Go Bowling For Father's Day...

But that's pretty hard to do without a vehicle, so we decided to go to the pool instead.

Wade doesnt afraid of anything. He swims now.

It Gets Worser And Worser

Dazzling.

On Thursday, about an hour before picking Ty up from his last day of school, we filled the tank, and when he went to start the car we realized that it took a little longer for the engine to turn. Bad gas, maybe. What the hell do I know?

Car was fine otherwise, it started and that's all we really need it to do. So we drove it around, he took it to work at the pizza place. In fact, Friday night the car got better and started up again like a good little car should. He gets home, and I go out to do my internets, and just as I'm about to place an order with Lulu for several copies of Golden Dawn and a few coil bound manuscripts for Bombshell that I intended to distribute, the dang thing dies on me. So I thought, "Hmm. I better make sure this thing starts up again before I spend all this money on books."

Good news was that it started. Bad news was that when I hit the gas it killed it.

So I walked home, which was like 50 yards, because rather than drive to Starbucks down the road I just catch a signal from an adjacent apartment building. If you're wondering, yeah, I'm totally too lazy to call Verizon and get my own line, have been for years.

I had David go out and give it a try, and he came back and said "Something in it clunked."

Dazzling.

Well shit, sounds like he threw a rod. But no, he said "It's the starter I bet."

So this morning, we borrowed my sister's AAA card and had the thing towed up the street to this shop in Cherry Valley. Meanwhile, I have the dang flu. While he's at the mechanic, Ty entertained himself by coloring and Wade and I took a nap. While I was sleeping, I dreamt that the car was being pulled out of flood water. And then it hit me.

The windows? They leak. The old plates on the car? Had been expired since 2005. Every time I or the kids spend a lot of time in the car? We get sick. (David doesn't because he drives with the windows down.)

Yeah, I'm fairly convinced that we bought a Katrina car, and that it probably has some gawdawful mold growing in it that is making us sick, and I don't really know what to do about that. I read this article about salvaged Katrina cars ending up in Southern California for resale, and that it is something that we still have to look out for even now, a few years after the fact.

The mysterious electrical problem that shorted out the fog lights. The touch and go turn signals. The mysterious dirt clod that I kicked out of the bottom of the dash one day.

Dazzling.

I tell David this, and he says, "I was right, it was the starter, and they can do it in an hour." And magically, the total would come out to about $10 less than what we had in the account. But he had cash too, and with the car fixed he could get more cash by going to work tonight, so it was cool. We have groceries, no bills due, fine, great, we'll deal in cash this week.

Then he calls me back and says "Bad news. Starter went out because it threw a rod."

Dazzling.

What kind of fucking car throws a rod after only 110,000 miles? Fucking Oldsmobiles. Fucking Oldsmobiles salvaged from the flooded streets of New Orleans.

So the car is going to cost us what was going to be our stimulus check to fix. We called my brother Rob the Builder to see if he could do it for cheaper than the mechanic, and he's trying to track down Cousin Mike who can do it faster and better than him, and knowing this the mechanic who has the car right now suddenly "felt bad" for David and "gave him a break on the labor." Isn't it amazing how fast $1,800 goes down to $1,500 when they think they're losing business?

Well anyways, this is just dazzling, and I am off to research lemon laws for California. From what I understand it's a three strikes and it's a lemon rule, and with the starter, the engine, and the catalytic converter going bad not even six months after we bought it, we might could have a case here...but I don't know for sure, I need to actually look into it.

So yeah, have a beautiful fucking father's day. Buy my book or something, would'ja?

Yard Sales And Rice Cream

So exciting David's second day off was. We went a-yard sale'in. We don't really do a whole lot of that, I mean one time we stopped because this person had a Mo-Ped for sale, and it was only $20 but it turned out that it was disassembled and the guy wasn't sure if it even worked. But I just happened to be thumbing through the Penny Saver and I found the yard sale section, and there was an ad for one in Yucaipa that boasted "50 years of accumulated stuff." What the hell do we need to drag other people's stuff back to our house for? I don't know, so we can have a yard sale, right?

The place in Yucaipa had a bunch of crap, and a real no foolin' hot dog mobile. But it wasn't like the Oscar Mayer one, it was more like a carnie booth sort of thing, with a kitchen in it. Still, that's pretty cool when you think about it. Portable hot dogs and all. But they had books, so we stopped to look through the books. David is slowly collecting the Lord Of The Rings series and reading them as he finds the books for cheap/has them given to them, and he found the next book for 50 cents. I found a Dr. Ruth sex book from 1983, so I totally bought it. And I grabbed a pretty 50 cent crystal bowl, because I am fond of putting things in bowls, and this set of ceramic lighthouse tealight holder things that I originally picked up for David's mom but then they ended up growing on me and I am keeping them for my own selfish reasons.

Here's the funny part, which is probably only funny to me and like two other people, but I asked if there was any yarn because I kept seeing random knit things. The lady said "Oh yeah, a big big box of it!"

And the other lady goes, "It's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yep. Someone else came and got that."

This is funny. Because I know exactly what happened there. Some other knitter saw the yarn, probably didn't have any immediate use for the yarn, but had to buy it all just so that nobody else could have it. I get this. I probably would have done the same thing.

Then we went to another yard sale in Beaumont out in the canyon, and all the guy had was like boxes full of Oriental Trading crap, all wholesale made in Korea fucking bullshit. He had boxes upon boxes of airsoft guns that he was selling for $1 a piece, but David said they were crap, pure crap, and he's probably getting rid of that stuff at a yard sale because he couldn't even sell that shit to a novice airsofter. He also had a bunch of random knives, like a Bud K catalog vomited at his house. We bought nothing.

Having only spent $1.50, we decided to visit our favorite cherry farm on Lincoln street in Cherry Valley, where the cherries are fucking delicious and only $2 a pound. He gave us three pounds for $4 because it's the third time we've been by this week. We sat and ate the first three pounds, then David made a pie (which turned out decently except that the recipe called for tapioca and it didn't really need it because the filling was thick enough without it.) Today we decided to make cherry ice cream, not ice cream, but rice cream. We are both lovers of the rice milk, and adventurous when it comes to fucking with recipes to make them non dairy. This is particularly hard with ice cream, which is almost entirely dairy, but we winged it. We made it using non dairy creamer and rice milk, and it came out like soft serve.

Rice cream is not ice cream. But at least it wont kill me.

I've recently discovered that it isn't just the lactase enzyme that makes me sick, but the proteins in dairy that do it. And I think I am both allergic to dairy and lactose intolerant, which means that if my immune system doesn't get it, my digestive system will. It's like a double barrier. It is rather depressing. But thank god for Rice Dream. Boy...how many people can seriously look you in the blog and say that?

Also while we were out, I bought a baby name book with 100,000+ names. I like to go to baby name websites to find character names when I am writing, and since I'm working without a stable internet connection in my home still, I need to be able to get my work done anyway.

Check this out. I just flip to two random pages and get a name.

Kora Starling

Gary Royalle

Devon Ansley

Not that I would ever use those names, those are all terrible names, but do you see how easy the concept is?

Plus, it turns out that David was serious about wanting another kid. So yeah, baby name book now lives on my coffee table, and we randomly flip to names when we are bored. We found one name, I cant remember it, but the meaning was "the condor's vomit, indigestion." Who would name their kid something that means that? What if that was your name and you found out that is what it means later on in life?

There are some terrible names out there in the world. I intend not to use any of them.

I've Never Been "That Girl"

but now suddenly, I've become her.

I took David along with me on my shopping errands since he's on "vacation," or whatever, which he now gets to fully enjoy because the massage cured him. I don't know, something involving hot stones and oil, and I'm so proud to say that he neither farted nor got a boner. Anyway, I wanted to catch Target's sale on polos and shorts for David's father's day gift, and since he was there, you know, surprise. Pick your own stuff, I guess. Target is out in Redlands, so we were miles away from home, and in probably the snobbiest town in the area, and as soon as we get out he tells me that there were a few guys checking me out.

Which is weird, because I've been getting a lot of looks lately that I cant seem to place any reasoning to. And I thought it was just because maybe people are recognizing me from this blog now that it's becoming a little more popular here in town, but this was Redlands. Redlands!

I says, "Well, were they cute guys?"

"They were skin heads."

"Oh."

Just my luck. They were skin heads.

"Since when have I ever been a hot chick?"

"Since always!"

"David I've never been looked at by as many men in my life as I have been in the past month. I was an awkward and nerdy teen, and I've had two kids who have sorely abused my figure. I modeled once in college, and they totally airbrushed the crap out of the pictures. I am not the girl who gets checked out."

"You are now," he said. "You've grown up is all."

I blew it off, like I've been blowing it off for the most part when I happen to catch someone's glance. Then we get to the gas station and this dude in a Mustang was staring at me almost the entire time he was at the pump. When he was done, I saw him get in his car, then he revved the engine like eight or nine times. All the while he was looking into the rear view mirror at me.

You know what I think it is, is that I wear sunglasses now. When people wear sunglasses you automatically assume that they are cool, you know, if they're young anyway. That and maybe sometimes it's my car. I mean it's an Oldsmobile so it isn't really "hot" but it's certainly more eye catching than the Civic (sorry Tigger, I love you.)

It's just weird. And I've been noticing it more and more, ever since that checker asked me if I had work done. I know it's probably silly. But then David told me, "I want to knock you up again."

"Why, so this will stop?"

"No, but I think everyone else wants to as well. You're like the doe that all of the bucks are crashing their antlers over. It's a chemical thing."

Great. Now it's a chemical thing. And David wants a baby. So this is what it's like to be 24.

Kicking Off Summer Vacation

Tomorrow is Ty's last day of preschool. They had a pizza party today, and he has minimum day tomorrow so we have to take him to school in the morning instead of the afternoon. There isn't going to be a formal graduation, because I guess a lot of the friends aren't graduating. I know that they can retain in kindergarten, but I had no idea that they could retain preschoolers. Considering preschool is an option, and if anything is just a bootcamp for kinder, it really surprises me that not all of Ty's class is moving on.

Ty though, he writes his phone number and recites his address and spells Terwilliger and yells "this is an outrage!" when he has been wronged. He did develop better social skills, sort of, but he still has those transitional problems and stickers still freak him out. Smart and quirky is what the school psychologist said when they tested him for autism and it turned out that he has an IQ of 132, falling into the superior range, but he's not autistic. Sometimes though, I wonder how many times that will come up throughout his life.

And David has a vacation starting tomorrow as well. He's taking off from The Cans until Tuesday, using up the rest of his vacation days. His back is killing him because of an injury that he got at the pizza place, and he needs some time off to hopefully let it heal before it gets worse. In fact he's getting an early father's day present tomorrow; I'm sending him to get a massage, and hopefully it will work. I don't know how effective it will be, particularly if it's a serious medical thing or just a kink. I got a massage once, I didn't much enjoy it. I mean, it fixed my sciatic nerve, but I couldn't relax very much because I don't like people touching me, and here was this woman just like digging into every inch of me. I don't know why I paid $60 to be rubbed by a stranger, that is like my worst nightmare. I actually turned down a free one on mother's day because I'm still freaked out from the last one.

He says it hurts him bad in the mornings and at night the most, and that basically every time he stands up he feels like there's a badger clawing his way out of his back. And the badger is pretty pissed off. He was going to call off of the pizza place today, but his old manager is there for the week I guess. I was waiting in the car when he went inside his bins to call in, and then I hear him yell "DAVID!"

David and David are soul mates. David believes that David is the closest thing that he will ever have to a real brother, and I think they possibly connect on a romantic level in some ways, though I don't ask about it. David and this manager David have a secret handshake, they have a song (The Final Countdown,) and they've even invented a pizza together: The David & David. I'm not sure what all goes into it, but I know that they cover the crust entirely with salami before putting the cheese on.

And if you want a David & David Go Bananas, it means that you'll get the same pizza but with banana peppers.

And the David & David This Shit Is Bananas, it has not only banana peppers but a crap load of red peppers on it too, which will make it hurt when you poop. From what they excitedly tell me.

Needless to say, David has decided to go in to work at the pizza place this week since David will be there, and he will just take it easy.

This scene from the show Scrubs explains the "guy love" thing like David and David have. Enjoy.

Flash Your Tits For Free Hotwings

Like a cat trying to bury a turd on a marble floor, this is yet another pizza delivery story.

So David answers the phone at work, it's a customer who has never ordered before. Everything goes as usual, the guy orders pizza with the toppings of his choice, just like you do. But then he says, "Can I get like free hotwings or breadsticks or whatever?"

David says, "No, you'll have to pay for them."

"Well, I've got some girlies here, three fine girlies who are going to show you their titties, arent you girls?"

David hears the distinct shrill voices of what sounds like a Girls Gone Wild video. "Yeah pizza boy, we're gunna show you our titties!" they squeal seductively, then continue to shriek with random pants, screams, and moans.

Remember that David's seen quite a few things in his year at the pizza place. There was the time that the old cougar who tasted of rum greeted him on the porch with a sloppy drunk wet kiss. And the time a man wearing little more than leather chaps and a thong and a collar answered the door and nervously gave him the cash while somewhere in a back room a woman screamed at him "You give that man your money! He's a real man, nothing like the shit sucker you are. And bring me some god damned paper plates when you come back with my pizza!"

So hearing these girls in the throws of passion, he cups his hand over his mouth and stifles a laugh, and presses the phone up to another pizza boy's ear. That pizza boy was on the phone already at the time, but when he heard the commotion, he looked at David and his jaw dropped. "Okay, sorry, what was that ma'am? I couldnt hear you, there was a...loud noise on my end..."

Shortly after, the guy who called gets back on the line.

"So do we have a deal man? A free side or something?"

David tries to keep a straight face. "Can I get your address please?"

The guy gives him the address, and here's the fucker of it all, it's a Yucaipa address.

"Im sorry sir but we dont deliver to Yucaipa," David says a bit disappointed. "We have a Yucaipa store, would you like that number?"

And so David gave the man and the fine girlies the number to the other store, and nobody ever got to see how it turned out. Did the girlies really flash the lucky pizza boy? Did Yucaipa give them free hotwings? Would David had done the deal?

Actually, David says that he needs money more than titties right now, so he would have sold the opportunity to another driver.

The thing is, if tips were better, if gas wasnt so expensive, and if the car got better gas mileage, he would consider just keeping the job.

And again, things will only get more interesting when he's writing tickets.

Death

Get it? Isnt it clever?

Story Time

Chuck Palahniuk's Snuff

Life Themes

Interesting interesting stuff. Life themes, or the purpose of our life or the way that it is supposed to be, are interesting. In Sylvia Browne's The Other Side And Back, she lists the 44 life themes and their brief descriptions.

We have these themes, of course, to learn things. We're all just here to learn.

Now, we are set up with two themes. The primary theme is who we are, and the secondary theme is what we are here to work on. As I read through the themes, I wrote down anything that seemed to speak to me, then went back and reread them and crossed them off the list when I realized "yeah, that's not quite it.

I recognized David's right away. Who he is is definitely based on the Lawfulness theme.

Law enforcement and the practice of teaching law are among the professional expressions of the lawfulness theme; which revolves around a concern with safeguarding the line between legality and illegality. Elevated, those with this theme are devoted public servants who fiercely help to maintain order and balance in this world. If corrupted, and abusive of their power, they're an insult to the theme.

What is he here to work on? I don't really know. He'd have to read through these and figure it out on his own, but I know that his primary theme is Lawfulness. Not just because he wants to be a cop, but in other ways. In one quick example, he disassociates himself from people who do illegal things, like his brothers, particularly when it turns out that they're using drugs still/again. When he learns something like that, the first thing out of his mouth to me is "I am nothing like that person/those people." He tries to be the shining example of "lawful," and has no tolerance for "unlawful."

So my themes, I know for sure. Absolutely. Who I am is an Aesthetic Pursuitist.

A person with an aesthetic theme is driven by an innate need to create some form of artistic beauty- music, drama, writing, sculpture, painting, choreography, crafts, etc. The drive can lead to fame and privilege, which is enjoyable if the secondary theme is compatible, but tragic if the secondary theme is conflict. Judy Garland, Vincent van Gough, and Marilyn Monroe are examples of a primary "aesthetic pursuit" theme in unresolved conflict with a secondary theme.

Right. Because I've been writing books, even imaginary books, since I could talk. Remember when I talked about "narrating" what was going on in my head when I was very little? Plus I spent six years in music, I did three years of ceramics and pottery, I love photography and knitting. I'm artsy fartsy. I love artsy fartsy!

Ah but my secondary theme. You could have guessed this if I had just asked you to pick it out for me. Clear as a bell like my primary theme was.

Rejection is a theme that is extraordinarily difficult one, usually taking root with alienation or abandonment in early childhood and proceeding with those same patterns right on through school, adulthood, and relationships. Hard as it is, the challenge here is to recognize rejection not as a burden beyond your control but as a theme chosen specifically to learn that when the spirit is whole and self-reliant for its identity, it can no longer be held hostage by the acceptance or rejection of others.

What is the one question that I get asked time and again by people regarding my books? I always get asked, "What if you aren't successful?" Well, I've published two books, written four and two halves, I'd say that's more successful than most people who say that they want to write books. If nothing else, it's follow through.

And I always answer that question the same way, "Even if I'm not, I will continue to do what I want, when I want to do it."

Success lives in the spirit, nowhere else. I define myself with nothing other than integrity, activism, courage, depth, curiosity and compassion.

But I've still got a lot to learn.

When's The Last Time That I Just Told You About My Day?

No Liz P, I cant post a picture of Officer Steppy/Dougie Howser MD. He's got an alias on the blog to protect his job, so posting a picture wouldnt help his position. Maybe I'll camera phone Mr. Sexy Kielbasa Nova for you or something, will that suffice? And David, he's almost always in his underwear and has no shame.

A while back I talked about the funny little quirks David and I have noticed about each other, like how I touch my lips when I think something is clever, or how he grips and turns an imaginary steering wheel when he says the word "drive."

David also will put his pinky and thumb out on one hand like a phone and put it to his face when he says "talk on the phone," or "call him up" or "my dad called." Whenever he says anything about a phone, he's on his pinky receiver.

So I says to David I says, "What will be illegal in the state of California on July 1st?"

And he shakes his head and says "*Talking on the phone* while *driving*" and did both gestures accordingly. It was beautiful.

I bought circus peanuts at the store. Surprisingly nothing amazing happened at the store, which is where the majority of my strange experiences occur, like being teased about yogurt and have my guts squeezed out of my throat like a tube of tooth paste in a sport that I now refer to as "Extreme Hugging." It was weird, I went shopping and nothing happened. The boys even got balloons. What a world.

I decided on a whim today that our next son will be named Peter. Peter Wyatt Lee. I changed it from Lake because I realized that every fucking name I come up with has to do with water. Ty is "son of the waves," Wade is...wade. I want a girl named Brooke, plus a character in my first novel is Brooke, and the girl in Bombshell is Marina. So anyway, I like Peter. Not Pete or Peder, but Peter, with a hard T. David hates it, he says no biblical names. I forgot that Peter was in the bible...guess I should have read beyond Mark before giving up on the dang thing. And also it's the name of the character in the book I just read (Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult) who shoots up his school and kills 10 people. I don't know. I liked the name. What ever happened to naming your kid something normal?

And don't tell me that it's a name for a penis, because everything is a name for a penis. My dad's name was Dick.

I like Wyatt but not as a first name. Wyyyyyyyyut. It'd just sound like "White" after a while. And I just don't think Lake Terwilliger flows as well as Peter Terwilliger.

No I am not pregnant. At least I wasn't last week. And no, I am not wanting to be pregnant for quite some time. I'll have another baby when my kids stop being so batshit crazy.

Oh my god, I saw a guy today on his Rascal, or Hover-ound or whatever they call those electric riding toys for seniors that aren't quite wheelchairs but they're made for the lazy or weak, and he was on a busy street, just like crossing four lanes of traffic. He turned off of 6th street onto Highland Springs. Hell, I drive a car and I'm scared to exit any parking lots onto that street, it's dangerous! No cross walk for that dude, his thing had blinkers so he can obviously just do whatever he wants. I hate people who think they can do just whatever they want.

Like when David tells customers that he cant take any more glass or plastic because his bin is full, people say "Cant you just take this little bit?"

"No. I don't have any room."

They glare at him and put plastic and glass into the barrels anyway, like he's holding out on them. It's like, there is no more room! He cannot create room! But people think they have it all figured out. And I hate people who ruin shit for everyone, like the d-bags who have been dumping soap in the spa at night so that the thing overgrows with 10 foot high suds. It's the same group of kids doing it, and I was going to complain but I didn't know where they lived, and if you say "they're fat and Mexican" it doesn't really narrow any residents down here, but last night as the perps were still sitting in their soapy mess, the apartment manager caught them and yelled at them.

"Oh we didn't do it! We found it like this!!!"

I jazz-ran (10 points if you know what that is) barefoot and in my jammy pants all the way across the field to confirm that yes, they did do it, I saw them, and they've been doing it all week. This will be the fourth family I've evicted, plus I've gotten a manager fired.

I cant wait to move to Nor-Cal. I am getting too obsessed with this shit.

And before I go, I want to tell the following people that they have signed copies of Golden Dawn coming to them in the next few weeks: Stacey, Adena, Kristen, Connie and Chrissy. Lily, Adena and Stacey, I still owe you copies of my other book, and I haven't forgotten. Sorry, you'll get them soon.

Regarding getting YOUR copy signed, if you live far far away you can always mail it to me and I'll do it, and even make a little video of it for you to make it seem real and you'll get a free book mark. But if you're local don't bother because I'm working on doing an unofficial signing this summer where you will also be able to buy the books right off of me as well if you're not a net shopper yet (get with the times by the way,) just hang tight.

Also, because I almost had a security breech with sharing one of my manuscripts electronically (through the webs,) I will be asking for three test readers for Bombshell and you will be getting hard printed coil bound copies of the manuscript in the mail or personally hand delivered by me if you are close enough. First come first serve, so if you want to be a test reader with light editing duties, let me know now and I will get a copy to you. Anyone is welcome to do it, but obviously I prefer my more boisterous commenters.

Oh and I made spaghetti and talked to Liz in Seattle on the phone for hours.

Something's Changed

Okay, my sore throat is gone, but Im glad to know that I can rely on YOU for medical advice. And you all told me different things. I'll let you know if I ever think I have cancer or something.

Sorry about this flower here. I just wanted to jump on the Lakers bandwagon even though I dont want to drive around with Lakers flags all over my car like an ass. I dont even like football.

I cant place my damn finger on it, but something is different about me. I see it when I look in the mirror. Or maybe it's just because I'm freaked out because a checker at Stater's asked me if I had work done last week. But I feel like I look different.

I'm not doing anything different. I haven't changed soaps, I still don't wear makeup, my hair is the same. There's nothing different but there is.

Last night in the laundry room, this guy asked me about the two washers that I use, which are the only of their kind in the room. They're bigger, and they do the fabric softener for you so you don't have to run down to catch the rinse cycle. They're $.40 more, but I think they're worth it, and this is what I told the guy. He talked to me about those washers for a good three minutes or so. Then he goes, "Yeah, well I'm a single dad of four, so you know..."

No, I don't know. What does you being single have to do with washing machines...oh. I get it. You were striking up a conversation with me because you were hitting on me. Gotcha. You don't give a shit about large load washing machines, you were just being sneaky. Clever.

I left.

Then today in the parking lot I was spending time with David, and he was all jazzed up to see me for some reason. He starts pulling up his sleeves to show me his newly bulging muscles, and he's bouncing around like a boxer during a match. And he kept dropping to do push ups.

"I bet I look like a real douche bag right now," he tells me. "I'm like showing off my muscles and doing push ups in the parking lot for a girl. Why am I being such a douche bag?"

Later on I went to the store, and Dougie Howser was there off duty. You know, formerly known as Officer Two Step, now renamed by David as Dougie Howser for some unexplainable reason. I said hi, and went to shake his hand, because I'm trying to be more business professional these days, and he goes "No, I want the whole package, come here, you!" and he grabs my hand and yanks me into a massive bear hug. I am not a huggy person. I'm not what you know as touchy feely, even with a guy who I once made out with in the 10th grade, but before I knew what was happening, I was being squeezed to death.

I reciprocated with one of those uncomfortable pat on the back homophobic man hugs and tried not to fart until he let go of me.

"I'll see you around," he winked and went back to his business. People were looking at me. If I don't have tonsillitis I do now have a punctured lung. Fuck.

Okay, did my boobs get bigger? Do I look like a girl from a viral porn video on the interwebs? Is there something you people want to fucking tell me?

Let's Play Doctor

Internet, I have no health insurance, so I need you to diagnose me for free.

I have a lump in my throat, it's been there for days now. I just got over a cold, that included a nasty cough, and my throat hurts unbelievably bad in the morning. Throughout the day the swelling goes down, and by 11:00 at night it doesnt make my eyes prick with tears to swallow any longer. Of course, it happens again when the day starts over.

But like I said, I have a lump in my throat, only on one side, and it is about the size of a smallish gum ball. Is it possible that I have a swollen tonsil? It hurts right here...

Is that my tonsil? And if so, what do I do about it?

I have never had tonsillitis as far as I know, and the pain and lump is only on the one side. Give it to me straight. How long do I have to live?

Wha...what do you mean you need me to take off my shirt? The pain is on my neck...oh, okay, whatever you say. You're the doctor, right? Wait, what's that little camera in the corner for?

Too Many Drunks

I show up 20 minutes early to pick David up from work. That horrible little drunk of a troll Dana is always hanging around. I used to talk to Dana sometimes, but the last time I did he was drunk off his shit and he started yelling at me, with my kids in the car, about porn and snuff and real accusatory like he got in my face about ethics and oppression.

He apologized, to David. Nobody ever has the guts to apologize to me. David's brothers said their peace to him, but none of it came my way. I guess it's just sort of assumed that if you apologize to David that it counts as apologizing to me too. His parents pulled that shit too, and I don't stand for it. Tell me that you're sorry, show me that you're not afraid to own up to your actions...or actually don't, because you're drunk, and I'm just going to roll up my window now.

I show up 20 minutes early to pick David up from work because I like to spend time with him. He gets up before me, he strokes my foot and tells me goodbye as I'm still wrapped in the covers, and then I stop by his bins periodically throughout the day when I'm running errands. I do this because he's only here for 15 minutes after work before he goes to his next job, and then he isn't home till 11 or so at night. So I show up to pick him up early so we can talk.

Only that's impossible when Dana is hovering around, and I wont roll down my window.

I told David that he needs to ask him to leave. I don't show up 20 minutes early so I can sit there and read or knit in the car. I show up so we can hang out a little bit.

But David is a little bit shy, and he doesn't like to be rude to people. They'll beat that out of him when he's a cop, but I think it also might be a man thing. You know, shrugging off a guy to spend time with your wife.

Fuck that. Why does he have to prove himself to a 34 year old alcoholic on a bicycle? Bullshit.

And the thing is that David doesn't even like him that much anymore. A few days before the guy yelled at me, he was ranting and raving about how cops are nazis, and that David will be too if he becomes one of them. The dude is not right. We invited him over for Thanksgiving, back when he and David were friends, and he showed up and said that he already ate, and then he suckled from a box of wine all night until he randomly just left without saying goodbye.

It does worry me a little that he knows where we live.

You try to be nice to someone. You try to make friends with them. And they turn out to be totally batshit insane.

I show up early so David and I can hang out for a while, and I told David this. So David told him to leave yesterday, and walked over to show me a book that someone gave him to read. And Dana, totally not taking the hint, gets up behind David and is yelling into the window "I want to read your book!" to me. "Do you have a copy?" he yelled as I rolled the window back up. David ignored the guy and started bagging up his trash, and after a few minutes of staring at the ground it's possible that he got the hint that he wasn't wanted, and he rode off.

But he still keeps hanging around, even after I show up. Today David didn't say anything to him. I was peeved.

But you know who else was there, was the midget. There's this alcoholic midget stray cat who hangs around David's work asking "Do you have any like, extra cans or something? I need money to buy a beer." Or flat out he'll just ask David to buy him a beer. Even when he says no, the midget just hangs around, looking all forlorn. He whimpers a little, kicks a pile of crud on the ground.

So even with Dana gone I couldn't open my window.

Think it will get much better when he's a cop?

Bullet Monday

Wheeeeeee!

• We got up at 5:00 this morning to drop David off at the CHP for a ride along. I sat on the toilet, all bleary eyed, and my face was dripping with blood. Real no fooling blood. I had a bloody nose for a good 10 minutes, and I dont know why.
• While I've got the bloody balled up paper towel to my face, I totally threw up, right on the carpet. David didnt finish his Corn Flakes.
• I dont usually bleed and throw up on the carpet like that.
• I finished the book that I was asked to review Saturday morning, and went back to my alphabetical To Be Read list, and picked up Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, and have not put it down. On Saturday alone, I read the first 275 pages. Thank you Miss for telling me about this book.
• Ty asked if he could keep me even when he gets big, and I said yes. He said good. Then he asked if he could have a riding lawn mower like the maintenence guy at school when he gets big, and I said sure.
• I've completed writing 13 chapters for the sequel to Bombshell; the working title is A Little Drop Of Rain. I think I'm going to make this shit into a series, it's that good, you'll love it.
• Those of you who bought The Fight for Golden Dawn have collector's editions. Turns out I misnumbered the last few chapters, and there are two chapters numbered 41. Those of you who still need to buy it will have the correction. This sort of thing happens all the time, the book I was sent for review, which is a self-help book for getting through change has a part where it says "grocery story" instead of "grocery store." Revisions cost a lot of money.
• David is in love with CHP again. He's going to pass that interview this time. His recruiter, the guy he went on a ride along with, gave him some help, and also let him fill out some tickets and do stuff on the computer. The cop told him that if he gets hired at 21, he will have it made because he will retire at 51. Every car they went to, the cop excitedly introduced David as his cadet.
• Nothing exciting happened on the ride along, but a car did hit a mattress in the road and got stuck, and the mattress caught on fire. That is mega excitement.
• We recycled some cans at the place that bought my car's dead body and made $6. (He cant recycle at his own place.)
• We donated some toys and clothing to The Mormon Church, not because we like them, but because they take what is given to them and they dont tell you that they cant take certain items at that time because they dont have room. Plus their donation center is drive-thru.
• We picked up kindergarten enrolement forms. His school is brand new, still being built, and is farther away than the school that it is replacing, which was within walking distance. This one, not so close, but in a nice neighborhood.
• We paid $4.29 for gas, and David is looking for another job so he can quit the pizza place, so he put in an application with Big Yuppy Soccer Mom Clothing Store here in town. I figure the discount will be worth it at Christmas time, plus he has experience from back when he worked at Polo.
• I made breakfast for dinner, which is funny because I dont even make breakfast for breakfast.
• After the kids went to bed, David and I sort of had a tickle fight and there was a lot of hysterical laughter until Ty yelled at us to be quiet. "You're going to wake up my brother."
• The book we are reading together, Snuff, is getting to the good part.

That is all.

Strange Wilderness: Don't Bother

David and I just got done watching Strange Wilderness, a recommendation from some douche bag in the video store who said that it was as funny as Superbad and Walk Hard. Both of those movies were great, so of course we listened to him like idiots. As you can probably already guess by what I've said thus far, we thought it was lame.

It was half baked, unfunny, it lacked character development, character depth, and had more plot holes than Lonelygirl15.

What happened when the RV was seized and destroyed in Mexico?

How did they get out of the rain forest without being killed by the Pygmies?

It jumped around way too much. The plot stunk to hell. For a comedy, it was pretty fucking bad, and I am formally blogging my complaint to the people at Happy Madison productions. I was sorely disappointed with this movie, and seriously recommend it to no one.

The trailer is misleading. You think that the whole movie is funny, because the whole three minute trailer is funny. Let me tell you, the stuff they pulled together for the trailer was all the movie had that was even remotely laughable.

And video store douche bag, you can suck the crap out of my sweet ass. Thanks for wasting not only two hours of my life, but also the $4.50 rental fee by telling me that this movie was worth watching. I liked Sweeny Todd better than this movie, and I HATED Sweeny Todd.

If any one of you out there watched this movie and enjoyed it, well, I know that none of you did because I cant see how anyone could. Feel free to rage with or against me regarding this completely unfunny comedy.

Ok so the turkey scene was pretty f...no, not really. I mean kinda. It made me smile. Only because there was nothing better to smile about at the time.

It was worse than Orange County starring Jack Black. And that movie just sucked.

More reviews coming up this week, on like books and stuff. Tomorrow I am calling the people at Banquet to tell them that their frozen chicken patties gave my family food poisoning.

I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it.