Best Halloween Ever

Tonight was probably the best Halloween I've had EVER. EVER. It was so much fun, so many funny things happened, and everyone looked great. Let's start with the basics though.

Pumpkin carving 101 (and also, do you love how I've painted the kitchen?)

Sorry Wade isn't wearing clothes, he doesn't much care for them. But he had the CUTEST costume ever, and no it wasn't the raccoon as planned because he ended up being scared of his own costume, so we got this one instead...

Wade is the itsy bitsy spider. And he told everyone that. "I'm a bitsy itsy spidow."

And this is Sir Ty the knight...

He wasn't thrilled about the hat. He did not wear the hat. Oh now let's get to the funny stuff.

Okay, not only did David and my brother in law wear their costumes, but they also crashed a few Halloween parties. People stopped them and begged them to fight on their lawns, but of course the nerd rage set in when they had to admit that they couldn't fight for real because their sabers are made out of glass and are really really expensive.

This real dumb fella followed us for a while begging to know "how they worked" and "who was in the Vader suit." Then he begged for a fight and I got it on tape. You can hear the dumb fella in the background singing the Star Wars soundtrack music.

We lost Vader to heat exhaustion after about 20 minutes as it was in the 70's and his costume weighs 500 pounds at least, and also he is blind in it and needs someone to hold his hand in order to safely cross streets.

It got kind of weird though. See we went to Yucaipa to visit Peggy from Around Yucaipa (yes I troll other bloggers IRL) and while we were there this guy, or more like a crack head, who was dressed as a priest who was also on crutches for real asks David if he's a Jedi, and David of course brandished his saber in his face, as David brandished his saber just about every chance he got.

Dude goes OFF on him!

"I fucking HATE Jedi's!" he shouts. "You're not about peace! YOU ARE DESTROYING THE UNIVERSE AS WE KNOW IT!" Even the people at the house we were trick or treating were like "Dude shut up, you take this way too seriously." Then they proceeded to make fun of the crack head "uuurrr Star Trek is better urrrr." I loved it.

A group of mostly naked cheerleaders climbed all over David for a picture, in fact David ended up in a lot of people's pictures. He didn't crash as many parties without his Vader side kick, but he was still well respected.

One kid actually referred to my brother in law as Lord Vader. The dark side is in that one.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering? Radioactive House is still glowing strong.

Click to see Radioactive house circa December 2007...

Non-Costume Costume Ideas

So what is everyone doing for Halloween? Mustang Sally got invited to a Halloween party at the Playboy Mansion. No I'm not making that up or anything, she really did get invited by her lawyer who lives in Bel Air. And she declined because she said she had nothing to wear. I think that's the point, but whatev.

Seriously, how many people do you know who have been invited to the Playboy Mansion, and then declined the invitation?

Sorry Heff.

We're going trick or treating, of course. David has the night off from the Pizza Place, he asked for it a month in advance. My sister will be coming by for chicken and also to help us keep the kids from running out into the street and such. Her husband should probably come as well since he and David have matching official Star Wars costumes and REAL lightsabers. The amount of money spent on these costumes and sabers would pay my rent (we bought none of it.) This is serious business.

As for the kids, Wade is a racoon and Ty is a knight. I used to try to match up their costumes, like the infamous Lobster and Chef pair from 05, but that got too hard. I do worry about Wade sweating in his fur suit, it's been in the upper 90's, dipping into the 70's at night here. Nothing like trick or treating in June weather. It normally isn't this hot this late into the year,

Me? I'm the paparazzi. I just hang a camera from my neck and that's my costume. See also tourist, which is exactly like the paparazzi except wearing a Hard Rock Cafe shirt, Ugh boots, sunglasses, a hat, and waving a peace sign to everyone.

Some other costume ideas:

• Deal or No Deal Model: Wear a super hot short dress and heels and carry around a brief case. Open the brief case at random times to reveal a sign for only $5. Pout sweetly.
• Celebrity in hiding: Wear big sun glasses, a scarf over your hair, and wear "dressed down" clothes, but carry a $1,200 purse and/or small dog. Pout sweetly.
• Sarah Palin: Wear a fitted blazer, mauve lipstick, square frame glasses (pick them up at any pharmacy) and sweep up your hair into a high bun. Carry a riffle and/or stuffed moose. Act retarded even in cases of incest and rape.
• Black mail: Wear all black and cover yourself in postage. Pout sweetly.
• Cereal killer: Get a bunch of those boxes of mini cereals and stab them with plastic knives and pin them all over your sweater. Add fake blood and little Corn Pops dripping all over you for added effect. Pout sweetly.
• Devil in a blue dress: Self explanatory. Just go to the Dollar store to pick up the cheap set of devil horns and tail and wear a blue dress. Devil with a blue dress on! Pout sweetly.
• Spice rack: Steal one of your mama's bras and wear it over your clothes. Fill it with spices from your mama's cupboard. Hey!
• Lulzy cat: AKA Cheezburger Kitty, just buy cat ears and tail from the dollar store, buy some iron on letters and fix them to a shirt to make a lulzy phrase like "I can has cheezburger?" Meow a lot.

Remember that you can make any costume "sexy" by wearing fishnets and any costume "dead" by adding blood. Honey bee costume? Go as a sexy honey bee by wearing the fishnets. Or add blood to your facial area and say you're a bee that smacked into a windshield. See how this works? It's a no brainier.

Oh my god! If you have black hair you can be the cat from Looney Tunes that Pepe Le Pew always tries to rape! Just spray a stripe of white down the middle of your scalp and say "le purr, le sigh, le mew."

I've always wanted to be Jessica Rabbit. I have the red hair, and all I need is the red dress.

So what is everyone going as this year? OH! Another comment question for the day, what are you giving out? This year we bought a big bag of Reeces cups, Heath bars, Milk Duds, Whoppers, and Almond Joys which are now mysteriously missing from the bag *shifty eyes.* We also have popcorn balls. Last year we had pretty much the same mix along with some mini Play Doughs and glow stick necklaces.

Has anyone ever given you money? I got a dollar one time. And one of the kids in our group got a chocolate liquor bottle a few years back. I think David's parents want us to visit their house but I'm not sure if we will. If we do, we wont trick or treat in their park, they live where every crotchety old man at the pharmacy you've ever cringed at congregate on their golf carts and yell "10 miles an hour!" Plus old people only give out that taffy in the orange and black wrappers, and who wants that?

I gotta go, my kids are out playing at the park and the big dopey fellah who looks into my bedroom at night is trolling around them. I better go interfere...

Ride Sally Ride

Warning: This post contains nudity, specifically nipples (not mine.) Viewer discretion blah blah blah.

So I did a shoot with Sally again for the purpose of advertising a special with my photography business on "white hot" boudoir photos, which of course make great gifts for a special significant someone. It is amazing to me how willing this woman is to drop her drawers or slip some nip. And there is nothing, I mean nothing, like seeing your neighbor's bare boobies and photographing them. I felt like a star, but she looked like a porn star.

As a side note, I've never posted nudity to this blog, ever. You've seen me in my underwear and bra a few times but never have I posted nipples. But Sally, she puts it all out there. Want to see? Of course you do. If you don't because you are offended by boobies, please scroll through these pictures and go down to where there's words.

(God, David's dad and two of my pervy brothers read here. THIS should be interesting.)

Well?

Okay, put your dicks away.

Well?

David calls her "Romanian sex on a stick," and I have to agree. She does take a pretty picture. And she is on board with helping me with this boudoir photography thing, not only by modeling but by painting her bedroom red and black and letting me use it as a studio. Better yet, she has fur coats, feather boas, sexy little getups, props, knee high boots, and makeup know-how. So I've decided to give her half of my earnings for helping me out with these particular photos, as having David there would make a lot of girls uncomfortable I'm sure.

Plus, I asked her if she will lay on her Mustang in a bikini, and do you know what she said? She said she wants to wait till it snows and take the picture in the mountains. Oh and she's going to wear Ugh boots with the bikini.

I love her internet. I love her.

So, anyone interested in booking a session?

Painting Fun With Our Pal Steppy

I love that the poll is pretty much tied. There's no overwhelming response to any single answer, which probably just means that all three answers apply. Steppy is in love for me, he's just trying to halp, and he's a douchebag.

Liz in Seattle called me last week and said after reading Bombshell that it's pretty clear that he must think that I'm somehow the one who got away. Her suggestion was to divert his pervyness by saying things like "I'm really sorry that you aren't happy with Oh My God Lady, I don't know how to relate to that because I'm so happy with David and I wish for you guys to have what we have."

And she also suggested that I bring OMG Lady a pan of brownies or something when he's not there and talk to her alone. You know, act like I'm social or something. That's a whole nother blog though, I'll have to do it at some point and let you know how it goes.

I read an article in Psychology Today about whether men and women can be friends. It said some interesting things, like:

Platonic love does exist, and a study of 20 pairs of friends published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships lends credence to the notion. In it, Heidi Reeder, at Boise State University, confirmed that "friendship attraction" or a connection devoid of lust, is a bona fide type of bond that people experience. Distinguishing between romantic, sexual and friendly feelings, however, can be exceedingly difficult. "People don't know what feelings are appropriate toward the opposite sex, unless they're what our culture defines as appropriate," said O'Meara. "You know you love someone and enjoy them as a person, but not enough to date or marry them. What does this mean?"

The reality that sexual attraction could suddenly enter the equation of a cross-sex friendship uninvited is always lurking in the background. A simple, platonic hug could instantaneously take on a more amorous meaning. "You're trying to do a friend-friend thing," said O'Meara, "but the male-female parts of you get in the way." Unwelcome or not, the attraction is difficult to ignore.

In a study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Sapadin asked more than 150 professional men and women what they liked and disliked about their cross-sex friendships. Topping women's list of dislikes: sexual tension. Men, on the other hand, more frequently replied that sexual attraction was a prime reason for initiating a friendship, and that it could even deepen a friendship. Either way, 62 percent of all subjects reported that sexual tension was present in their cross-sex friendships.

Well, I figured I'd put our friend The Step to the test. Saturday night I called him up to ask him to help me move my fridge so I could paint in my kitchen. This was my figuring.

If he's in love for me he will do whatever I ask of him. If he's just trying to halp then he'll stay and actually help me paint. If he's a douchebag then he'll come over and try to bone me. Does this seem reasonable to you?

So I call him and I'm like "Pleeeeeease Steppy, pleeeeease come move my fridge? It's just that David works all the time and he doesn't really have the energy to help me do projects like this, and I feel kind of bad asking him sometimes. I want to surprise him by having it done, plus we want it all painted before the Sarge comes out here for the background investigations. Pleeeeeeeeeeease?"

So he said okay. Probably because he loves me and wants to have like a million of my babies (what's that from?)

When he arrived he was wearing sweat pants and had brought paint brushes, a drop cloth, and Diet DP. I was surprised. He said something about getting this party started and he totally moved my fridge and started helping me wash the walls and paint them. He's trying to halp, see? That is the theory anyway. I told him about how we found the picture out by the dumpster, and how that's where we also found the dining room table and the coffee table. I said "We're not bums. Free shit is free shit." He says yeah, you have to get furniture somehow.

I asked him if his wife would miss him, since he decided to stay.

"Well the kids are in bed so..."

"Yeah but around here when the kids are in bed, that's when we spend time together." I told him I didn't need his help painting if he needed to get home before she got mad or whatever, and he insisted that everything was fine. She was probably sleeping anyway. So whatever, he stayed and helped me paint the kitchen. And then it comes out.

Step? Used to be Mormon.

I? Did not know this.

OMG Lady? Still is Mormon.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.

He said a few years ago he'd of been painting my kitchen for God, now he's just doing it for me, for people. He says he likes to help people. Something about it being selfish when you do nice things for people just so it will help you in the end, and how he didn't find that rewarding, but he does like to help people who need help. He says "You need help publishing your book, so I'm helping. You also need help painting your kitchen, so here I am."

"Yeah but that kind of thing starts at home. You cant help other people unless everything is good at home, then you venture out and offer your cash to damsels in distress. I mean, did it ever occur to you that OMG is a damsel in distress?"

He said that it did occur to him, but that he cant really do anything for her until she accepts that he has left the church. He says that she keeps telling people that he's either at work or tired from work, and that she's convinced that he'll be back someday. "Besides," he tells me, "she wants me to spend more time with you."

Orly?

Yarly.

He said that she likes how well we relate to each other? Back to that article:

There are proven—and apparent—distinct differences between female friendship and male friendship. Women spend the majority of their time together discussing their thoughts and feelings, while men tend to be far more group-oriented. Males gather to play sports or travel or talk stock quotes; rarely do they share feelings or personal reflections. This may explain why they seem to get far more out of cross-sex friendship than their female counterparts.

In Sapadin's study, men rated cross-sex friendships as being much higher in overall quality, enjoyment and nurturance than their same-sex friendships. What they reported liking most was talking and relating to women—something they can't do with their buddies. Meanwhile, women rated their same-sex friendships higher on all these counts. They expect more emotional rewards from friendship than men do, explained Sapadin, so they're easily disappointed when they don't receive them. "Women confide in women," noted Blieszner. "Men confide in women."

I asked him if he was gay. He said it's not gay if balls don't touch. I laughed my ass off.

Ur um...you know, whatever. That wall is painted now and David and I would be able to spend quality time together because I wouldn't be pestering him for help. But here's where the story takes a hilarious turn.

We hear a knock at the door. I know who it is, he doesn't. He suggested under his breath that it was OMG Lady I think, but I open the door and Mustang Sally is there in all her glory holding two gallons of paint.

"Hi Sally, my friend Steppy here is helping me paint the kitchen," I tell her.

"I went to the Home Depot and bought paint too. Black and red for the bedroom. Well if you're done with him can you borrow me that man for to help me paint?"

Steppy is beat red. "Yeah Steppy, why don't you go help the nice neighbor lady paint her bedroom?"

"Uh...um...actually it's getting late...my wife-"

"Oh he's married now? Hey what chu doing here painting her kitchen this late? Go be wit chor wife dude, Jessie is mine. Unless you want to come over here and help me in the bedroom," she suggests.

"Yeah Steppy. Go over there. Go over there and help her paint her bedroom. Do it Steppy."

"I gotta go," he says. We would have continued teasing him but then David came home and was all "WHY IS THIS MAN IN MY HOUSE?" and I said he's painting your kitchen and he said "Aw that's cool man," and slapped him on the back as he left.

My life has become a really elaborate episode of Seinfeld.

A Postcard From 2001: My First Photography Gig

I spent a considerable amount of time updating the Terwilliger Photo website today as well as building a Myspace to go along with it. (Add me for epic win.)

I was reminded of my first ever photography gig back in high school. It was for the marching band's fund raiser Corvette show.

Now there was an official "band historian," and I wasn't it because that position was usually held by prissy little Mormon girls who take pictures of people holding hands and make entire pages glorifying the clarinet section while the tromboners have to share a page toward the back with the fat kid with pimples who plays the tuba. (David.) (David is no longer fat or pimply.) But I was the one who shoved a camera into everyone's face, maintained the band's official website (which is now run by 16 year old girls who love anime more than music) and so when the need arose for a photographer at the Corvette show, I was om-nom-nominated because of my skills.

My job was to take pretty pictures of the Corvettes that we could submit to the newspaper, use for the Corvette club's newsletter, the band's newsletter, and take pictures of the drivers with their cars and then sell them back to them at an outrageous price. It was a fund raiser, remember.

So I'm walking around in my band uniform with my camera (some $100 thingy I got from Comp USA, brand unknown) and asking drivers if they would like to have their pictures taken for a small fee. My assistant asked them if they wanted to buy cookies if they said no. They usually said yes to the pictures, but those who didn't at least said yes to the cookies. I was taking pictures of these fucking sweet cars, some sort of burly douchebag types flexing their muscles and such, and I approach a man with a brand new red Corvette.

"Hi," I said. "Would you like to have your picture taken with your car today?"

And he says, "Can I show you my Mr. Peepers?"

"Um...what?"

"Mr. Peepers! Can Mr. Peepers be in the picture too?"

I looked at my assistant Lani. She looked at me. "Um...what's a Mr. Peepers?"

And suddenly, out from behind the man's leg walked the tiniest wiener dog you've ever seen.

Oh that Mr. Peepers. I thought you were talking about exposing your penis to a couple of 17 year old girls. My mistake.

Anyway, I took so many pictures of that damn dog. He was so docile, so cute, so calm and a little bit scared and sad looking. He was no bigger than the guy's hand, not unlike the other Mr. Peepers I'm sure. That was an easy dog to photograph.

Presley? Not so much.

David's parents got a baby boxer. His name is Presley and he is adorable but rambunctious. They wanted me to take pictures of him, and it is really really hard to take a picture of a bouncing puppy. Presley is no Mr. Peepers. These were the best that I was able to get.

David loves this dog because his parents got rid of his boxer puppy because it chewed on things, and this makes David want to RAGE, but Presley makes him a little less pissed about it.

He's cuter than shit but fuck if you can't take a decent picture of him. The lighting wasn't so good either, but I'm not worried about it, I did the best I could considering the circumstances. I got on the floor to take a picture of him and he tried to swallow my lens cap.

Oh but he's cute. Boxers are mine and David's favorite. We want to get brothers and name them Gunner and Kingsley. We've been obsessing about that for years. I'm not jealous though, Wade is pretty much like having a dog.

Extreme Home Makeover: Sunflower Themed Living Room Edition

I have completed my living room makeover. :)

Wall color is "Bronze Glow" in satin Wal-Mart brand paint, leaf sconces $15 at Target, green sofa cover $20 at Wal Mart, clock $10 at Wal Mart, gold suede pillows $10 each at Target, thing in corner with printer on it is pre-existing, lamp table is pre-existing, table was found near the dumpster and spray painted black, picture frames were pre-existing but filled with sunflower photos on Flickr, basket on side table from Dollar Tree is filled with cinnamon pine cones and mini pumpkins, wooden pumpkin was pre existing, candle on ceramic maple leaf both from Dollar Tree, calendar pre-existing, yarn basket stolen from my sister's house, striped coasters are hand knit by me, CREATE letters found at Michael's for $1 each and painted black by me.

Love seat cover was $20 at Wal Mart, brown suede pillows $5 each at Wal Mart, book case is pre-existing as well as all of the items on it, basket with red and green still-being-knit blanket is pre existing, box, box, and basket stacked by couch are pre existing, laptop and podium obviously pre-existing, filing cabinet (seen covered here) was pre-existing but covered with a $7 table cloth from Wal Mart, a $2 place mat from Wal Mart, a butter fly frame found in garbage, a jar candle from Wal Mart ($5,) a lamp which was given to me by my sister because it's broken and wonky, and sunflowers I got for $3 at Fresh and Easy in a pre existing vase. Picture hanging above couch is a pre existing frame filled with sunflower pictures found on Flickr, small picture in corner from Dollar Tree, sunflower print above bookshelf found at Dollar Tree. Carpet still needs to be replaced.

This is above my breakfast bar...

Why create and inspire? Because this room is where I do most of my writing, crafting, doing, hanging about, and these words mean lots to me.

Next up: Extreme Kitchen Makeover that isnt so extreme because it's just brown paint and a picture we found by the dumpster this morning in a really really nice frame. Like really nice.

Do you love it?

Yard Fail

So I made $20 today, and had a $3 candle holder stolen by a Mexican kid in a van. I was mostly paid in nickels, and as promised to my friends at Freecycle the books were free, except for people who weren't from Freecycle who paid 25 cents.

I didn't price my junk to make money, I priced it to sell. I sold four scrapbooks and a photo album for $6. My god, what have I done?

I probably would have had a couple of extra bucks but that Mexican family showed up and talked me down on everything, and I was like yeah okay because I just wanted to see the shit gone, but then when it came time to pay they confused me with a clutch of nickels that equaled out to be $2.55 for $7 worth of stuff. Plus as they drove by they had their kid hang out the side of the van and swipe my big long candle holder thingy that I love but have no place for. Swiped it! Like a little bitch! Fucking kid fucking parents! Whatever, if you're that poor and desperate to steal shit from people's yard sales then take whatever you need if it gets you off my property faster. Fuck.

The highlight of the day was when Hard Core Granny bought up all five Metallica albums for a quarter each but left Paul McCartney alone. I'd be afraid to go to her house for cookies, Alice Cooper probably lives in her basement as a sex slave of some kind.

For grannies about to rock, I salute you. And thank you for your buck and a quarter.

I didn't sell my $5 wireless router which has no software but works fine, nor did I sell $5 Roomba who just needs a battery. I intend on holding it again tomorrow with hopes of catching the church traffic gridlock and unloading that fucking dresser with the broken drawer tracks on to some poor fucker. I packed it up at noon because I was haaaaaaat.

You know what else is haaat, apparently, is me in an apron. I wore David's old Stater's apron because it has the pockets in the front for money (never have a cash box, that shit will get stolen.) David tells me later that for some reason the apron was the hottest thing he's ever seen me wear in the six years that we've been together.

lolwut?

I was wearing jeans and a bright pink wife beater. Somehow this drove him absolutely insane with fuckrage. Part of me wants to laugh at him and the other part of me wants to order a bunch of aprons from this website. I didn't know about this fetish and he says he didn't either, but damn.

Then I go see him later on for lunch and he hears the distinct hissing sound coming from my vehicle's tire, making this the second valve stem to go bad on my car in the last three weeks that we've had it. Oh thank god the tires are good and Wal Mart does the valve stem for free. Plus I had to go to Wal Mart anyway for more paint now that I have moved on to the kitchen. But I had to wander around Wal Mart forever and I got really tired, because we actually stayed up till 2AM getting our yard sale affairs in order. My house is a stinking mess, I have a sink or four full of dishes because I made dinner and didn't bother to really clean it up afterwards because I was reorganizing the linen closet instead. Fuck it, you know?

But the house is still a mess because I'm beat from sitting in the hot sun, which I am not used to because I am a spoiled little bitch who sits in the A/C all day. Nor are any kitchen walls being painted, not even the trim.

Then to top things off, the guy from the Nissan dealership called me, the one who blocked my exits and wouldn't let me leave even though I said I couldn't make a deal until I researched the insurance rate but they wanted my damn signature. He's all like "How YOU doin?" and he accused me of buying a Versa from the other dealership in the area.

"Actually I bought a Mazda."

"Oh. Well...are you happy with it?"

"Ja, because you guys are a bunch of bitches over there, all high pressure, and I feel like you guys were trying to take advantage of me because I was a woman and I was alone."

"I'm sorry, high pressure? We aren't high pressure here at Metro Nissan" (located in Redlands, CA for the Google.)

"You called me three times that day asking if we had a deal, and I had only been gone from your dealership for a little over an hour. You called me when I was on my way down there twice to see if I was still coming. And the fact that you are calling me now, a month after the fact, just shows how batshit insane you are." And I really did call him batshit too, if you can believe it.

He apologized, and I said buh-bye.

I am full of piss and vinegar right now, and some other stuff too. Vomit I think. I am laughing my ass off that you guys are calling Steppy a douchebag in my sidebar poll, and I am probably going to go watch X-Tube or something just for the hell of it.

Straight Out Of The Camera

The other day, an anonymous person left a link to an image in my comments with a note that they had "Photo Shopped my picture." I looked at it. You can too. It took me a few minutes to figure out what they had done, but eventually I figured it out. They had undoubled my chin.

That's cool and everything, mad propz to that person's shooping skillz for realz, because it was very well done. I do like it and all, but that's not me. I'm okay with the way that I look in pictures, and I generally tend not to correct things with the exception of lighting, contrast, and the occasional pimple remover, though that last one has not been very much of a problem for the past few months. I like the picture, and if I do end up losing a chunk of weight and I look like that then I will be ecstatic, but for now, that's not me, so I politely declined use of the picture.

Plus, when you mess with your pictures too much on the internet, people don't recognize you when they meet you in person. Or they'll say "Wow she gained weight!" And that's worse than just showing people the real you on the internet. This is what Encyclopedia Dramatica refers to as "internet disease," also known as Myspace Voodoo and "the angles." It always leads to someone saying "You don't look like your picture."

So this anonymous person inspired my photo challenge pictures this week, because I wanted to show everyone just how little I mess with pictures, not only of myself but of everything, by showing you some shots straight out of the camera.

When I am truly me...

No cropping, no color adjustment, no straightening, nothing. This is just how I look. I took this on indoor mode so the color is pretty drab, as my walls and hair are way brighter than that, and I'm totally not that white. Well...yes I am, but the walls are brighter. It was suggested to me that this would actually make a nice dust jacket photo and I have agreed, so prepare to have this mug on the back of your copies of Bombshell come February.

This is an example of one that I have messed with:

The colors are brighter, you can tell that it is cropped due to its shape as opposed to the first one. This is about the extent to the touching up that I do. Also note the lack of makeup in all photos as well as all of my regular life.

This is a black and white straight out of the camera...

And a touched up black and white...

I just cropped, increased the shadows, and sharpened this one a little. I don't even bother with stray hairs, in photographs or otherwise. What you see is pretty much what you get. Sarcasm is just one of my free services, it's like an amenity.

In other news, I was Rick Roll'd at Fresh and Easy today. The song came blasting out over their chipper British Fresh and Easy radio station, and I did smile a little, but then I realized that everyone in the store under 30 who looked to be about as loserie as I am was singing along with it, including the employees. A man whose name tag literally read "The Donald" was over there with his "Never gonna give, never gonna give, give you up!" I later asked The Donald if it was some kind of joke, as I expect to come to Fresh and Easy and not be Rick Roll'd.

Though, "Never Gonna Give You Up" is my ring tone for text messages on my phone, so I guess I also bring these things on myself.

On the bright side, I did score four hormone free filet mignon steaks for $7. I bought a shit ton of meat today because I hit a bunch of deals, see also seven big thick juicy pork chops for $5. I mean besides all of the Rick Rolling, the store never ceases to amaze me. Last time I was there a school bus drove by and some 16 year old kid hung out the window and yelled "FRESH AND EASY! YEEEEEEEEAH!" with his devil signs and his tongue hanging out and all. Kids like it too!
Also I am mentioning Fresh and Easy a lot because last time I did they found my blog and gave me a coupon. This store is awesome. It's awesome for buying shit tons of good cheap meat.

Tomorrow I am having a yard sale, in which I intend to unload a bunch of crap on to strangers for pennies on the dollar. Though my last one raked in like $200, but I think I have less stuff this time. But hey, if you need shit tons of books, pots for plants, scrapbooking gear (including the scrapbooks themselves) come on down. There may even be porn there if David forgets to clean out those drawers like I've asked him to a million times. David and his porns, god bless him.

End Days

These blasted winds, I curse them. It's that time of year where the so called "Santa Anna's" kick up and make everyone's skin, as I believe another blogger called it, turn into lizard-paper. This is how fires get started. It's not always cigarettes flicked into the dry brush, sometimes it's just dry people sparking up spontaneously. I am convinced of it.

And yes, I wear dresses and skirts on windy days, I like a challenge.

I had to go to the pharmacy at Stater's today because David is complaining of flu like symptoms, and I am afraid for him to take anything that Mustang Sally doles out of her medicine cabinet. Half of it is expired vikodin and the other half is unmarked pills "that she got from Romania."

The pharmacist lady asks me what his symptoms are. Does he have a stuffy head? Does he have an upset stomach? Does he ache? All I wanted to know was what is the best non-drowsy formula for the flu. We stopped taking cold medication around here because it stopped working, part of the evidence for my theory that the common cold viruses are getting smarter and evolving in order to defeat our medications because too many fuckers out there pop cold meds the second they feel a sneeze coming on. Flu is different though. We don't really buy into flu shots around here either because honestly, if you never get sick then you'll forget that wonderful feeling that you get when you feel better. I don't want cancer or anything, but a little down time seems normal.

The pharmacist lady eventually tells me that he can take Tylenol or Ibuprofen for his pain (which we have at home) and Sudafed for his runny nose and cough. I ended up picking up a box of the generic stuff and she said that was fine. But then she starts piling shit on, like a $9 bottle of echinacea pills and a $8 box of Emergen-C. I only had a $20 on me. Dude, I love the Emergen-C, it's delicious and nutritious but shit! I know I can get it cheaper than $8. I ended up taking the stuff and then abandoning the echinacea pills and Emergen-C behind some ant poison bottles on Aisle 5. Sorry nice pharmacy lady. Sorry David's immune system.

After David getting all set up I drove home with a cop on my tail the whole way. Cops look at me in this car. They even lower their sunglasses to look at me. It's because the car looks like it's just going to take off and possibly crash into a bus full of nuns or something. We saw the spray paint they make especially for cars the other night, and David said he wanted to do up Miss Veruka with black racing stripes and black rims, but I'm like no. I get enough cops glaring at me already, thank you.

But just as you suspected, the cop was Steppy, and I figured that part out when he turned in to my complex with me, stopped behind my car when I parked, and waited till I got out to wave and then drive off. Where is my Sally when I need her? There was a little old lady sweeping the sidewalk, she's one of my neighbors from the next building over. She complimented Wade's hair and such, and then noted how nice it is to see the policemen patrolling in here more.

"Yes it certainly is comforting," I tell her. "I had my car stolen from that spot right there in January."

"YOU did? Heavens! Oh that's just terrible. You know, something that has been happening to me lately is that someone has tapped into my phone line."

"Really?"

"Yes. I don't know how they did it, but every month there is an extra $5 on my bill for phone calls that I didn't make."

"Oh wow, well you shouldn't have to pay for that," I tell her.

"Well, the phone company is finally coming out to fix it after all these months. You know what this means though dear, it means that we are living in the end days. The lord is coming, and He is coming soon. All of these terrible happenings are signs that the rapture is upon us."

Yes. Stolen cars and tapped phone lines = rapture. Grab your bibles.

I said "Maybe, maybe" and sighed.

"It's no maybe. When the Lord arrives (unintelligible...)"

Look, I'm not going to mock anyone's beliefs here, I know that a lot of people believe that their savior is coming, and that's fine. Perhaps he is. The problem that I have is with people who believe that we are living in the so called "end days." We've seen a lot of predictions for the end days before, and I just don't know why we think we are so special that this is going to happen within our particular life time. Furthermore, what does it have to do with hurricanes, global warming, or tapped phone lines? These things, god made or devil driven, they don't just add up to this being the end of the planet.

Remember Y2K? It's happening again with 2012. World will end in 2012 because the Mayans said so. I can't remember who I talked to about this recently but they said in regards to Y2K that it could have been much worse and it could have been what everyone had predicted if not for the panic and over preparedness that took place in order to correct the problem.

I think I have such a problem with "end days" people because they literally think that everything is up to God and that we can't do shit about it in the long run. Perhaps that is true, but look at Sarah Palin. She actually believes that Global Warming has nothing to do with us, that it's all part of "the plan" or whatever.

You know, there are things that I like about Sarah Palin, like the fact that when she was mayor of Wasilla she used to keep a jar on her desk that was filled with the names of all of the residents in Wasilla, and once a week she would draw a name from the jar and call them up and ask the person how the city was doing. I mean that's actually pretty cool, when you think about it. And she's pretty well accomplished for being a small town girl.

But to think that we aren't damaging the planet? That we aren't even a tiny bit responsible for the crap that looms over Los Angeles, and that crap isn't a tiny bit responsible for hotter summers and shorter winters? For more intense hurricanes? To continue to spray our aerosol cans and drive our Hummers like God's just going to take care of it one way or another is like pissing into an ocean of piss.

I guess if it ultimately isn't up to us that's one thing, but in the mean time we should try to do what we can. Sarah's sarcastic remark in her acceptance speech about Obama turning back the waters as if it's ridiculous to think that we should even try, I don't know, it just rubbed me wrong.

I mean, do we want to rush the rapture by destroying the world that we live in?

Dude...did you ever consider that Jesus might not be coming back? Of course not, that's what you believe and all...but what if? What if this is it?

But then again by saying that I am becoming one of the signs myself, as apparantly the mass amounts of ridiculers are supposed to rise, which only validates this whole rapture thing. Hey, I'm just glad I could help. But then again, what if he is coming, but not for another 200 years? Do we really want to make our planet worse to live in with hopes of rushing the end of it only to be stuck here for longer? Logically, even though you might buy a new car in five years, you should still get the oil changed on the one you have now so that it runs okay and lasts for the time that you need it.

Then again, people have been saying that it's the end times for centuries. Because we all think we are so special that it's going to happen during our time. There have always been natural disasters and civil unrest, there always will be! You just hear about them more now because we have internets, telephones, newspapers, and everything else. 200 years ago would you have known that there was a hurricane in Florida if you lived in Idaho? I'd guess you wouldn't.

Perhaps the secret to triggering this rapture thing is for everyone to NOT see an earthquake in China as some kind of sign and just deal with it for what it is.

You know what I think this is the end times of, it's the end times of religion. I think humanity will finally do away with superstitions and just live on spirituality rather than abiding by the rules of organized religions. I wonder if there are Christians out there who are insulted by the actions and words of those other Christians who think that tapped telephones mean that Jesus is coming.

The Sex Chamber

"You have huge boobs" Mustang Sally tells me over pumpkin pancakes. We're sitting at Carrows, as she has offered to take me to breakfast in exchange for keeping her company while her Mustang gets an oil change. Why she cant just fill up carts and leave them all over Wal Mart is beyond me. But free pancakes is free pancakes, so who am I to complain?

"You finish painting yet?" she asks.

"The living room, yes. I still have to go buy these sconces at Target but then it's done in there. I'm going to begin on the kitchen tonight, it's that same color I used for the trim in the living room, that 'spiced cocoa' color. The hallway will also be that color."

"And your carpet?"

"The carpet, I talked to the guy this morning, he said it would be a few months. I told him that I'd like it done before December because of the background investigator coming out. He said he'd see what he could do, but Sally I think you need to cook them more steaks. I can wait until the end of November if I have to since I'm still painting all the rooms, but I want my carpet Sally! I want it!"

"We'll get you your carpet, you wait and see."

Whether or not getting my carpet involves sex, steak, or Voodoo dolls or all three, I don't know and I don't really care.

"I'm so jealous of your painting," she says. "There is nothing else I want more than to paint my bedroom blood red."

"You mean your sex chamber."

"Shut up! I do not have sex chamber!"

"Sally, you have mirrors not only on the walls but on the ceiling. You went out and bought that black and red satin bed set. Your answer to everything decorating related is usually 'buy a dildo.' Hell, you offered to let me and David fuck in it, YOU have a sex chamber, and you want to paint it red."

"I guess I do come off as pervert."

"Yes you do. But that's why we love you."

"Okay then miss judgements, how do you paint your bedroom?"

"I'm thinking a dark teal color since we have brown and greenish bed stuff. I'm going to hang my pictures from Forest Falls."

"You have boring bedroom."

"Why?"

"Because it not sex chamber! You need sex chamber!"

"Why cant I decorate my bedroom to make it reminiscent of where David and I first fell in love? That to me says sex chamber 10 times more than red paint and leather straps and Crisco does."

"Well," she says, "I do love the color of your living room, I guess I cannot question your judging."

I also love the color of the living room. It looks like if you were to lick the walls, they would taste just like butterscotch. But I stopped licking walls when they stopped putting led in the paint. I'm going to paint the bathroom with that blue that I showed you but stencil with the lime green, and the kids room is going to have two red walls and two blue walls. Yes, they'll be dark and vibrant. Yes, it will be hard to paint over them, but do I seriously care? I don't. Really I don't. If I ever see a white wall in my house it will be too soon, I have decided that I shall forever more surround myself in color.

And also build an underground sex chamber at some point.

I looked up that Feng Shui shit and learned about colors. It says about yellow: "Yellow represents sunbeams, warmth, motion, cheerfulness and friendliness. However, according to a noted 'Color Feng Shui' consultant, prolonged exposure to large amounts of intense yellow can cause anxiety."

Anxious? Who's anxious? I'm not anxious, I just want some fucking carpet. Why wont they give me my carpet? I need new carpet! Give me my fucking carpet!!! Time to start burning things...

Shitting dicknipples. Either way, I intend to have this place finished over the coming two weeks. Every room will be painted in somewhat zany and yet eyecatching colors, and nobody will talk me down from my colorful high horse. I shall shock and impress you.

The Real Bombshell

It's been at least two years, but I told her that even if I had to drive to her house at midnight to see her I would, I've just missed her all this time and I had to see her. It ended up that she got done with work and school and stuff a little earlier than midnight, so we planned for me to meet her at her house at 10:00. I left David to put the rest of the living room back together after pinning the sofa cover in place, and headed out toward Calimesa.

She lives on a dark street, no lights or anything. It was hard to see which house was hers, but one house had an open garage and inside I saw a few people rolling out what looked like caution tape around what looked like the blood spattered outline of a body on the ground. I turned around and parked in the dirt by the mailbox.

"Hey!" she shouted as she ran up the driveway. "Hey! Oh my god! How are you!"

I held up the manuscript for Bombshell, which has a generic red cover with a picture of a smoking gun on it.

"Oh my god! That is SO cool!" she giggles with excitement. "Look, I lost a tooth," she says and smiles. One of her front teeth is missing. Says she bit into a pickle and it just fell out. "Dentist says it was ready to do that for a good long time. Come see our crime scene," she says and invites me in the gate. Her little Boston Terrier "Hero" was snorting like a pig and trying to smell my pants.

I walk into the garage and see her cousin Kayla cutting strips of caution tape and taping them to the black tarp that surrounds the walls of the garage. A guy who she introduces me as "Little Timmy" is messing with some fake blood in a squirt bottle. She tells her cousin to go get the evidence markers and the bullet shell casings from her dad's truck.

"See it's funny because Kayla and I are going to school to become Crime Scene Investigators, so for the party we have created our very own crime scene."

Indeed they had.

"Wait till you see the bathroom."

We walk through the house and she tells some animal scratching at the back door to be quiet. "I have a German Shepard puppy," she explains. "He's not allowed to have any kind of socialization from anyone except for me because I am training him to be my main attack dog."

Her main attack dog.

She shows me to the bathroom, which is covered in bloody handprints and more blood spatter than I had anticipated. "I'm going to leave it up all year," she tells me, and then offers me a caramel apple. I asked her if she's dancing anymore. Nope. Modeling? Nope. She says she hasnt stripped since last December, she got out of that life because she doesnt want it holding her back from getting hired on as a CSI. For a j-o-b these days she says her and her cousin work at the candy store, which explains the plethora of caramel apples, caramel corn, gummy worms, chocolate eyeballs, Ju Ju Bees and everything else that she has in a gigantic box in the living room. She went from stripper poles to taffy pulls. From crumpled dollar bills to chocolate coins.

She tells me, that son of a bitch James, she dumped him. After five years she just couldnt handle his narcisissm any longer and she broke it off, and now she's seeing a guy named Cord and he's good to her, sweet to her. Treats her right. He's really encouraging her with regards to her voluenteer work with the coroner's office, and really wants to see her succede.

She tells me about a body that her teacher autopsied in front of her. She says the guys face was pulled down and his tongue was hanging out, and it would jiggle every time they moved the body. She tells me about a case she affectionately calls "Betty in a Barrel" and another known as "Jack In The Box." She says that her teacher is the one who started the law that makes it mandatory for sexual offenders register in a public database, known as Megan's Law.

After we had been talking for a while, she tapped on my book and asked me to read some of it to her. By then Cord had showed up, so her and Cord and Kayla and Little Timmy gathered round on the carpet like so many kindergarteners to listen to Chapter Four. She was in hysterical laughter over some things, and in gasping shock over others. Everyone liked the chapter. She said she likes how I was able to take real events and turn them into a whole new story. She said she always knew I'd do something like this, it was no wonder with the kind of imagination I had growing up. Her and I used to play for hours with action figures, hell, I think we played with action figures until we were 12. We had a whole different world created with our imaginations that we lived in, it was something that I think we both cherish to this day. It was nice to escape back then, it still is now.

Finally her mom came out from her bedroom at about 1:30 in the morning and turned on a lamp on the coffee table by the paints, and sat down and started working on painting these tiny wooden angels with brushes finer than angel hair its self. Her mother had always been an artist. She used to, and still does, paint scenes from Disney movies, and does it so well that you'd think they were authentic Disney licensed paintings. I remember this one that she painted of Ariel the Little Mermaid and Flounder swimming near a sunken ship, I mean, I have no idea why this woman never got hired on with Disney.

Her mom is painting delicate little lines of detail on the wooden angels, and to add depth and shadow she dips one half of the brush in paint and the other half in water, and she slowly drags the bristles along the angel's robe. She tells me that she sells them for $10 a piece and will not only sell that batch but have orders for at least 30 more. Last year she says she painted tiny snowmen and made a grand. A grand. $1,000. Selling hand-painted Christmas ornaments. God I wish I had taken a picture. The rest of the year she paints rocks to look like animals. Prices start at around $20 for your average every day sized piece of gravel painted with incredible detail to look like a sleeping cat.

This woman isnt proud or happy that her daughter stripped for a few years to make ends meet, but she doesnt hold it against her. It's not like she aspired to be a stripper from the age of 16 or something, she simply went in to a nudie bar to apply for a waitressing job, and they said they were only hiring dancers.

"I thought you had to look like a Barbie Doll to be a stripper," she said. "But then I looked up at what was on stage and I said, oh...apparantly you dont, and that's how I got started." It's not something she intends to go back to, that part of her life is over. Cord says that he's morally opposed to it, and no matter how down on her luck a person is, nobody should have to lower themselves to that level.

"But I'm glad I did it because it gave you a story to write about, and you're showing the world that not every stripper actually wants to be a stripper. Your story will give hope to a lot of dancers out there. You're going to make a difference with that book, change some people's minds."

I was out until 4:00 and I'm dog tired but it was totally worth it to see her.

*wipes brow* Sheeeeew...

I painted my living room guys, just like I said I would! Yes, it's yellow...ish. Technically it's called "Bronze Glow" and I bought it while David was working so he couldn't talk me out of it. FYI, he does love it, but he would have talked me out of it at the store. He's just like everyone else. "Oh you cant paint with bright or dark colors Jessie! You'll never be able to paint over it!"

Yeah well call the cops. I don't give a fuck.

Are you as impressed with the color as I am? Oh boy. And the couch covers, they're throws, not really covers. Well they function as covers but they aren't form fitting because we have those t-cushion couches that you have to buy special (expensive) covers for. Yadda yadda yadda, these things were $20 a pop so I'm cool with it, and they look nice.

And if we didn't need to cover our couches before, we have to now because David spilled a whole tray of paint on the love seat. You can see a little bit there on the floor in front of it. Whoopsie doodle! *nervous laughter*

It's still a work in progress. We are finishing up the last wall, then we need to do the trim on that last wall, then cover the couch and we're set except for hanging the art. The art by the way? Got most of it at the Dollar Tree. Man, you can buy up a whole bunch of stuff to nail to your walls there at the Dollar Tree. The two little pictures hanging on the wall by my entry way in the first picture were a buck a piece. And so was the little picture you see hanging on the wall here.

That there by the way is my filing cabinet. I just covered it with a table cloth and stuck some crap on top. The butterfly is real, a guy who digs through the trash for cans found it in a dumpster somewhere and gave it to David. It's nice. And the lamp was my sisters but she didn't want it anymore because Wade roundhouse kicked it and now the top doesn't sit right. Whatever, it matches fine, just don't make any sudden movements by it or anything and it'll be fine.

We have a big sunflower picture that we got at the dollar store and I have a ton of frames that I need to fill as I have taken down my desert photos that I used to have up. I also found some frames in my front closet that I got for Christmas and never used. I went on to Flickr and searched Creative Commons licensed pictures for "sunflowers" and ended up making this lovely collage with one of my Christmas frames...

Also we spray painted that coffee table that we found behind the dumpster black. We figured since our book shelf is black, the table should be too. And David is being a great sport about this, he's all into it and wants to move on to the kitchen ASAP.

Total spent to extremely make over the living room? $100. Our house is going to look like it's from one of them magerzimes.

Now, I have a question for you internets, if that is your real name.

Bathroom?

Eh? Eeeeeehh?

Finding Zen

These are my photo challenge pictures for the week. The theme is "zen," and I've found that zen around here can be hard to come by. I had planned to take some pictures of these hills in Cherry Valley and Calimesa that look like a painting, but this morning when I left to take the pictures, the lower valleys out toward San Bernardino and LA was covered in a thick layer of smoke.

Le sigh.

But if nothing else, smoky and smogy skys make our sunsets interesting to look at. I think that if nothing else around here, I think zen can be found in a vibrant sunset.

Or even just the blue daytime sky...

Zen is books on a shelf, all lined up nicely and ready to be read...

You know what else I think is zen-like? When my knitting project looks all perfect in the basket, like it looks like anyone, even someone who has never knit before, could just pick it up and start working stitches.

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

...He's going to ask you for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he'll probably ask you for a straw. When he's finished, he'll ask for a napkin.

See how it snowballs? By the end of the book that damn mouse is getting haircuts and coloring pictures in Europe somewhere...or at least I think that's how it goes.

So it ended up being true, what Sally said. I went to the office and asked if my neighbor had talked to them about my carpet, and they said I'd be getting new carpet by next week. This is good because the good Sergeant is coming to the house in December so the house will look really nice.

But...the walls looks so drab, you know? Navajo white, it kind of sucks. I never painted because I never knew how long we'd be living here, and now that it's almost time for me to leave I'm getting my new carpet and noticing how much better my kitchen would look with blue trim and maybe some desert sand walls.

But what to paint the living room? It's so hard to match these damn couches. Maybe I need new couches. YES! These things are crap now, they were nice when we got them but the kids have thrown up on them, I've thrown up on them, David's farted on them, I've farted on them, they're stained and ripping, they're kind of saggy...

Maybe I need to have a yard sale so I can afford to go to another yard sale to buy new couches.

Right, because we have to clean our entire house and move everything out of our bedrooms and closets for the carpet to go down, so I'm sure we'll find things that we could sell. Oh yes, yes that will work out perfectly.

Then when I get my new couches I can decide what color to paint my living room. But then, if I'm painting the living room and kitchen I might as well paint the bathroom. Probably a nice light blue. Everything in there is lime green and blue, and as much as I'd like to paint a room lime green I somehow don't think I'll end up liking it too much. Maybe I'll just do the trim in there lime green. But lime green against blue walls...well I suppose I'll do it like that if I leave the walls white.

But then what about the hall way? Maybe I'll just put up border there.

Wait...this is turning into a thing. Free carpet is costing me new furniture and paint, plus time and a half. I better think of some kind of way to get money.

Aha! The camera! I can use THAT to make money.

*orders business cards*

*secures a dot com*

There. Terwilliger Photo is open for business. Now lets see...I only have to do one session to pay for the website and business cards and I already have one person scheduled for a session, and let's see...nope, I don't need a business license because I'm selling a service not a product (as the product is included free with the service) and I don't have an actual place of business since I rove. Score!

Now email the family guilt them into using our services...

Oh my god...a guy from Palm Desert has just emailed me to inquire about business portraits. Oh crap. Wow! That worked fast! Thank you Craigslist! Jeez...I make more money as a photographer than I do as a writer, and this is cheaper! Well, then if you figure in gas prices, but then again I have a more fuel efficient vehicle now. Then again that car has payments and higher insurance than my old one but I'll make that all back with my photography business.

Oh crap! Weddings are on Saturdays and David works Saturdays...but then again, at $50 an hour if we make them pre pay like three hours of work in advance, he can take the day off at The Cans and still be guaranteed to make what he would have with the down payment...plus he might get a paid day off...plus weddings usually last longer than three hours. Then I'll have enough to go buy a couch! And a loveseat! And a rug! And paint the walls! Oh but I still need to have a yard sale, I have too much crap.

I wont have this problem when David is a cop, no way. Money will be good then and I can just do the photo business to buy new cameras and yarn and totally be one of those professional hobbyists. So I have to make sure that my house looks nice when the good Sergeant comes by so David will get hired. Once the new carpet goes in, the place will look so much nicer.

But those Navajo White walls look so drab...

Guest Writer: A Ride With Mustang Sally

i spent the night at D's...shame on me,,,but it was fun

T its coming today,,,later around 4 ...shame on me twice....he is leaving tomorow afternoon and tomorow nite ill go to the movie with D...shame on me...triple...

i dont knw what im doing with my life....but this is wrong...

anyways,.,ill jump in the tub...had to get ready....

You wanted her to guest post on my blog. Only, Mustang Sally doesn't know what a blog is. I think she thinks that it's something that you can blot out with club soda. I think that's what I thought it was too up until a few weeks ago. (That's pretty bad, I've been at this for three years.)

Weeeeeell...so how about this as a compromise. A few clips of authentic Mustang Sally prose that I have had sitting in my Google Docs and email. Sound good?

But first I want to tell you why I wanted her to meet Steppy. Steppy is...obviously...in love for me, as Sally so eloquently put it. The thing is, I still need his help. I don't really have anyone else who is going to help me, and as of yet he's done nothing "wrong" per say, it's not like he's outright exposed his penor or asked me to lick on a popsicle while he takes pictures of it, so can I really just say no?

At this point? I cant. I know that if I tell him no thank you based on speculation, I'll regret it. Frankly I don't see anyone else offering me up wads of cash to fund my career. David would but he's as broke as I am...which...you know, I'm pretty broke.

So I sicked my vampire on him for a few reasons. One, she's brutal with men as you will read in the following excerpts, and I knew she wouldn't let him get away without feasting on his life nectar. I mean even David is kind of afraid of her. She's like your friend's pet snake. You aren't really sure if it's going to bite you, but you ask if you can take it out of its cage anyway. It wraps around your arm and starts constricting really tightly, and you don't want to piss it off because you know it will strike, but you don't want the damn thing on your arm anymore!

Or like, she's hot and it's a real blow to a guy's ego when she treats you like dirt.

And that's the other thing, Mustang Sally is hot. You know it. I know it. She just is. And what does that make me? Chopped liver? Yes exactly. I was using the ugly friend theory. You know, like if you like the hamburger you should try the steak? If you like the steak then you'll LOVE the filet mignon?

I mean, I don't want to throw out any wild or conceited accusations here, but by Steppy's actions that I've described here, of me and his wife who is he most likely to view as the steak?

And if I'm the steak, then the vile temptress Mustang Sally must be the bacon wrapped medium-rare filet mignon with crumbled gorgonzola that makes you more and more ravenous for it with every waking breath of wind.

It's the accent.

I used her as a safety device and a distraction. I was doing the responsible thing, using the buddy system to make sure nothing could go wrong. I wanted to see him get mauled. There, I said it.

Oh wow! Look! A gigantic pot of shit! I think I'll stir it around with this big spoon here...

And by the way, nobody was home when I dropped off his credit card, so I used my key to get in and I put it on the counter then left as quickly as possible.

So now on to Sally's writing. Remember that English is not her native tongue and she learned to speak it by watching movies with the subtitles on, so these are a little rough- in a charming way.

This one is part of a story that she sent me to ask me what I thought. She's drinking at a bar and there is a group of men "checking on her."

The whiskey was already taking control of her body. She start smiling and enjoying that feeling. She looked around again and all the people there seems to look different than 20 minutes ago. She smiled again. That’s why some people find consolation in alcohol. Funny…she never liked people who get addicted to stuff like that. But , maybe , from time to time is necessary. Images from that night came on her mind. She still had his taste on her lips, she could still feel his hands all over his body, pulling her hair not to strong but enough to give her pleasure. His strong body against her was something that she won’t forget soon. Strange sensations were going thru her mind. She really liked him and felt that connection between them, but of course everything had to end. She couldn’t stop wondering why he left her like that. What was so important? But then she was trying to convince herself that was probably his job. And she had no idea what his job is so its safer to assume that was just that. Asking for another drink she turn around. At a table not to far from where she was, three guys were checking on her. She smiled. A short smile, the type of smile that says I don’t need company, I’m just being polite.

And this one is an email she sent me after she met a man from the internet on a desolate road. Their plan was to meet there for a hug and a kiss. A "dissapointment noise" turns into something more and Sally is quote "back on the market."

so....we met n that Warren rd like i told him the other nite...and i got there...he was already there...i parked behind him and he called me...asked me if i wana talk on the phone for a sec before we get off the car...(that was nice)...but i said no..just get off...so he did. Big guy...6.2"...muscles...very short hair(different than the pic)....so i finaly got off my car too...and give him a hug...short one...i left my mood music on...and the lights...(bad idea)...so we start talking...he was behaving (unfortunatly)...

After almost 2 hours..the music stopped....i knew right a way its the battery...tried to start the car and of course didnt worked....So we locked my car and drove his car to the closest gas station....and bought jump cable...came back and charged my battery,,.he was very nice..trying to convince me that everything will b ok with my car...that i shouldnt worry...

Well...finaly my car start,.and i told him i should go...and we were just looking at each other...Then he asked me - should i say somethinn now? ..i said - probably.. so ...he sai d he had great time..in the middle of nowhere...and he likes me,..and likes my butt (i made a joke earlier when i saw him looking at my butt)....so i gave him a hug...longer than the first one...felt good...really good...him being muscular made me feel protected...then i kissed him...just short..very innocent kiss....and walk to my car....i heard a noise behind me...a dissapointment noise...but i was already in my car so he walked to his too...

Before he got in his car...i blinked my lights twice....and he turned and came to my car..at my window....so i said...just testing...wanted to see
if u would come......he smilled and walked back to his car....again before he got in the car i blinked my lights...twice.... He came back....and lean on my window...and i got close to him...pretending i will kiss him,.,.but when he was ready i changed my mind... But he was still there waiting....so after i played a little bit with him..i finnaly let him to kiss me....the position (me in the car , him leaning on my window) wasnt so good...but i liked his kiss...im sure it can get better....but for a first unconfortable position was alright...

He wanted to get more...but i let him wanted...and i left...I got home and i called him...told him that my battery died again and im on the 79...he said his comming in a min....i let him turning around and after i told him i was just jk... He said...he loved my kiss....and certain parts of his body reacted to it......he said he likes my taste...that he really like me....This morning he texted me....he cant stop thinking of me,..and to the "stuff" he would try with me...so i asked what kind of stuff....and here comes another message : like good us stuff.Smoochin, huggin, licking, touching, etc,..as far as physical goes"

So...the conclusion...even tho i was nervous that i wont be able to find hot guys or hot guys wont like....I STILL HAVE IT GIRL!Im still good...im back on the market!

And that's all she wrote.

In Love For You

Mustang Sally. A friend. A confidant. A guard dog...or more like attack vampire.

I needed Steppy to pay for a bulk amount of Golden Dawn books, as I intend to actually submit a few of them for a literary award contest. I told him that I couldn't come to him, he would have to come to me. Yes tonight! I have to post mark my books by the 30th and I'm fresh out!

Also, as you can guess, I decided to totally troll Steppy.

Knowing he would be coming within the hour, I knocked on Sally's door and asked if I could hang out and work on her puzzle or something. She said sure, like always. We do this a lot. The kids go to bed and I leave our front doors open so we can hear them if they get up. Nothing out of the ordinary. I told her that my friend was coming by with his credit card to pay for some books for me.

"Oh. Heem," she says.

We're talking, mostly about guys she's dating, her ex, the guy she's more serious about than others. She asks me, "What is mean when a guy's cum isn't white?" I said I didn't know. She asks me "How do you call that?" and points to the ceiling fan. "Ceiling fan," I tell her.

She's sitting on the table kind of like how the classic hot secretary sits on the desk when she's trying to seduce her boss in every naughty adult film you've ever seen. She's not trying so seduce me, she just does things like that because she's Sally. Hey, get this, she got her carpet cleaned for free the other day because she promised to make the maintenance guy a t-bone steak. I didn't believe her at first, but she did get her carpets cleaned the other day and she was down there barbecuing steaks while the maintainence people stood around and smiled.

I want to punch her lights out sometimes.

I said I wish I could get my carpets cleaned and she said "Oh no, you're getting new carpet. I talked to them and said you have the old gray one and they said you call to make appointment and they will replace for free. You're welcome."

She goes to bat for me, what can I say?

A few moments later I smell this smell, the kind that goes straight to my sinuses and gives me an instant headache. Steppy starts coming up the stairs, and for some reason he's wearing like way too fucking much cologne, not unlike a used car salesman.

I call out "I'm over here Steppy," and he looks in the door. Sally, she's still sitting on the table, she didn't jump up or anything when he arrived.

This is what I have been waiting for. I bit my lip to keep from laughing, but still unsure of just how ugly this could get.

She whips her head around to take a look at him, and she looks him up and down. She raises an eyebrow Transylvania style, and by that I mean when she raises her eyebrow it doesn't arch in the center, it comes to a point ^. I have no idea how she does it but it makes her look like a vampire even more. So she looks him up and down, raises her eyebrow, and gets down off the table and walks across the room. Would she go for his jugular? I had to find out.

He's standing there stunned in the doorway and she walks right past him and to the window and throws it open. She turns back around and says "Your smell makes me a headache."

Fatality.

I say, "Steppy, this is Mustang Sally. She writes erotica novels in Romanian, and she is my neighbor."

"Uh...hello Sally?"

The Romanian ice queen is over lighting candles. "I shake your hand but I already shower once today, I don't want to catch your smell."

I'm like "Okay Steppy thanks for bringing the card, I'll drop it by tomorrow, I just wanted to do this as soon as possible so I could get them sent out in time and all."

"Yeah okay, no problem. Don't worry about the total, just buy whatever you need, okay?"

"Oh my shit," Sally says. "I should not be lighting candles in here, his cologne catch this place on fire."

"Eeeeeeeee-I better go," he says.

"Good, you make the whole building sick" she says. I tell him bye, and he confusedly leaves back down the stairs.

"Sally, how come you're so cool?" I ask her.

"I have accent," she says. It's true. If she didn't speak broken English and have an accent, she'd just be a bitch. She says, "That guy is so in love for you."

I said I figured as much, and that's why I met him at her house.

"Guy wears that much cologne, he thinks he got a booty call." She says "Oh well. When he take off his pants, grab his wallet and then tell him you are on period. Then never ever give wallet back."

"Is that how you got your Mustang?"

"No that's how I got my first apartment and my BMW back in Romania. Mens are stupid mother fuckers."

Isn't she great?

How We Feed Us

Lazy? Yeah I got called lazy recently, granted it was by a car saleswoman who was overly cheerful at how "blessed" I am to not have to work when David is working two jobs to support us.

She said, "Sounds like he doesn't want you to work. That's hard to believe, I don't know any man who wants his wife to laze about the house all day."

The thing is that I am always doing something. I don't nap, I'm up by eight something and in bed by 12 something with no sleeping in between unless I am ill or something. There's dishes, meals, kids, laundry, budgeting, mail, and general purdy-ing up the place that has to be done, and that doesn't count grocery shopping or errands. I don't know. Maybe people have a hard time grasping the concept of that stuff since they work and get those things done too, and that's fine. But I'm not lazy.

I am clever when I knit. I make things for David to keep him warm at The Cans, and I'm working on Christmas gifts for my kids and a few other people. I knit less for myself and more for other folks. Granted it's not necessary when it comes to house work and such, but it sure is handy. I use it as a bartering tool and it has also brought in money.

Furthermore, you know, I write books. I'm not even 25 and I've written four and published two with another one coming this winter. It doesn't bring in much money, but seriously, have you ever written a book?

If no, then you have no idea how much work and time goes into one.

If yes, then good. You can appreciate how much work and time goes into one.

David and Steppy both say that it's about getting my name out there at this point. The keep on truckin' mentality.

Yeah, some might say that if I have time to write books and knit sweaters then I obviously don't have much real work to do at home. I disagree, because no matter how you crack it the dishes get used and cleaned over and over again, and food has to be cooked every night. I admit that we eat the occasional pizza for dinner because it's free, but we don't do take out anymore, it just got too expensive. Dinner, for the most part, is on the table every night at 11. I know it's not good to eat that late but it's also not good to not eat dinner with your spouse. If I had nothing but contempt for David I would just make him heat his own shit up when he got home for I will have been in bed for hours after eating my dinner.

To semi-quote the cabbie over at This Fare City, I work for a living. Rather, I do the work that allows David to work for our living. I take care of all of the behind the scenes stuff so that he doesn't have to worry about clean socks. We got a loan on our car because we pay our shit, because David's not too proud to work two jobs until he can get something better (like CHP.) The only government program we use is health care for the kids, but not for ourselves. In fact the only time that we relied on assistance was when David was hurt and unable to work for six weeks.

I bring this up because a reader asked me for help this morning. She told me that her husband was injured and will be out of work for 12 weeks, and she wanted to know how we survive. Specifically, she wanted to know how we feed us.

Look, I'm no life hacker or super frugal queen with tricks up my sleeve, we just get by is all. I've said recently that I wont cut our food budget because good food is important to our family, and really in order to do this we have to go without in other areas, such as not having a television therefore no cable bill, we don't eat out, we don't pay for our internet (currently I am using Mustang Sally's network with permission but previously used random unsecured networks that seeped into my apartment,) we don't have a totally awesome or brand new car (even when we were looking at 08's and 09's they were all base model econoboxes,) I don't get my hair done or treat myself to pedicures, my retail therapy stems from grocery shopping and $10 shirts at Target, and we don't really go anywhere. Some people might find that tough, going without the daily Starbucks and all, but we do it.

I told Gin, the reader in question, that you have to first start by cutting things out of your life that cost too much money. We were running fairly low on funds and we couldn't figure out what else to cut until we realized that it was our car that was causing us to be so damn broke. Not only spending money on repairing it, but it was a gas hog. You can not have a gas hog when you deliver pizzas, it doesn't work! We basically lost his tip income because of that car and that's the big perk to doing the job that he does (and free pizza.) Ultimately, we did the math and figured that we could make a bill on a more reliable and fuel efficient car every month, but there was no way that we could spend $30 a day just in gas for David to work. And frankly, when the car is out of commission, David cant work, so we lose money that way. And when you really think about it, we spend over $600 repairing it last month, and just before we sold it to the junk yard the ignition went out on it. That would have been another couple hundred dollars in repairs right there. The cycle never stopped.

Going into debt for a reliable car with a warranty was something that made a hell of a lot more sense.

Going into debt for Christmas? Does not make sense.

We live without a credit card. In fact, up until a few days ago we lived without a checking account. We use a Wired Plastic debit card for his paycheck from The Cans because that company mails out the paychecks and they would sometimes get lost in the mail or not come on pay day which is not good when you have rent to pay or something. We've pulled a few "Family HALP US!" loans in the past year, mostly for car repairs and the occasional "we just put $20 in the tank and it's gone already and he needs to get to work," but for the most part if we don't have the money we do without. For Christmas this year I am doing a lot of books and knit things and Ty is getting real nails, bricks, and wood. He's a builder. Trust me, my sister gave him a glop of wet cement to put in his "construction site" and he was ecstatic.

It also helps to learn a few tricks of the trade. David does the oil, brakes, tire rotation and small repairs on the car. David also sews and mends. Knitting isn't helpful in the summer time but when winter rolls around BAM! I am ready for action with 400 different hats and gloves that I have been knitting during the summer. See? It all worked out.

And oh yeah, we're going to have a yard sale soon to rid us of our crap and bring in some cash.

And oh yeah, we stopped enabling Wade to shit himself and we just quit buying diapers cold turkey. He's potty trained now!

According to our budget we have $120 to spend on food per week. So what do we buy?

For breakfast we do cereal, eggs, bacon, sausage, and smoothies. Actually, smoothies are the smartest way to spend your money on fresh produce. Buy strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and bananas, and freeze the berries so they'll last long enough for you to use them throughout the week. Just add orange juice and the banana and you're good to go, and they pack quite a nutritious punch.

For lunch, we do sandwiches, Ramen noodles with frozen vegetables and bits of meat mixed in, and leftovers. We generally keep lunch meat and peanut butter and jelly on hand for the sandwiches, FYI. Also Budget Gourmet makes a ziti parmesano that David seems to like, it's a decent portion and it costs about 60 cents when it goes on sale, otherwise a dollar, and who can complain about lunch for a dollar?

Snackage usually consists of fruit and nuts. I buy a big jar of cashews and we all grub on that. David eats tangerines, the kids eat apples and bananas, and I just usually snack on the nuts or have a smoothie. You can never have too much smoothie.

Dinner is easy around here too. I use my freezer. I buy big bags of frozen chicken and when hamburger meat is on sale I buy it all up and freeze it. I also buy big bags of frozen fish like tilapia and salmon. Oh here's a hack, buy a pork loin and ask your butcher to slice it thin. Billions of pork chops! And if the pork loins are buy one get one free? Trillions! I also buy dried beans, and some canned. Spaghetti noodles, and the big big jars of spaghetti sauce. I have frozen cooked shrimp, and Pasta-Roni for the occasional side. We also have several bags of frozen peas and corn, along with the fresh zucchini, potatoes, squash and broccoli we keep in the crisper.

So what do we eat? Spaghetti. Spaghetti is delicious and it creates leftovers which = lunch the next day. With our fish I make the Pasta Roni and this shrimp that I think I invented (click for recipe.) Bean soups. Throw a ham hock in there, and you've got a good meal plus some. Same thing goes for a simple stew made with whatever stew type of meat you can get your hands on, carrots, celery, chick peas and corn. Chili gets expensive, particularly if you buy organic beans and tomato sauce, but it also creates a whole bucket of leftovers.

Instead of steak we buy lamb shoulder chops, and actually I scored the other day at Fresh and Easy and got a rack of lamb for $7 because it was going to expire the next day. Never ever buy meat that isn't on sale, and always buy the stuff that has been marked down because you can take it home and freeze it.

If your family wont snack on apples and oranges, don't buy apples and oranges. Trust me, your money is better spent on berries for smoothies. Everyone likes smoothies. Don't waste your money on tons of microwavable shit as none of those are a good deal anyway, even the $1 Banquet meals because one is never enough to fill you and Hot Pockets are over priced.

Yes, I've seen the KFC commercial saying that you cant do a chicken dinner for under $10, but that doesn't mean you should head on over there. Technically you can do a chicken dinner for under $10 if you buy drumsticks as they are usually cheaper, and most people have things like flour, salt and pepper on hand for the battering. And honestly, KFC has put out some pretty questionable commercials in the past few years in regards to family meal time and moms giving in to their spoiled brats who demand fast food over a home cooked meal. Don't fall for it. They're jerks.

And finally, I have recently been informed that you can totally sex up lentils. If you're trying to eat cheap, those little fuckers are a gold mine for nutrition and value plus ease of use.

Basically you just have to be flexible and plan your meals around what's on sale. Be flexible like Wade. Wade is bar bet flexible. God damn.

PS. I get my financial advice and hacks from MSN Money and Wisebread. And Liz in Seattle. She's a dear.

Dishwasher Fish And The Problem With People Named David

Before I explain about the dishwasher fish dinner, let me side track for a minute and say that for some reason every October the drama llama comes and shits all over the David's Doll blog. I don't know why this is, but it has happened every year since I opened the blog in 2005 without fail. So I would like to ask all of you, particularly and especially IRL friends and family to read my disclaimer thoroughly. Even if you are stealth and trying not to let me know that you read here, read it. It will do you good.

If you have some kind of problem with my disclaimer and don't think it is good enough, please unsubscribe from my feed. Or don't, and quit being all butt hurt about it. The rules are clear, so stick to them or go fuck yourself. Either way.

Now, I cooked some tilapia in the dishwasher last night, and it was delicious. Technically it was poached, but the point is that yes, cooking with your dishwasher is entirely possible and a really really good idea, because you can even wash your dishes at the same time, and no you do not end up with soapy fish. That's what the foil is for, silly billy gumdrops.

Want to know how I did it? Check out my eHow article on how to poach fish in the dishwasher. Yeah, I'm writing for eHow now to earn some extra cash. I've got a few other articles there as well:

• How to commit to daily blogging- because it's not as hard as a lot of bloggers make it out to be, and no, you do not have to rely on quizzes and blog carnivals to do it.
• How to earn money by recycling- This has to do with David's job at The Cans.
• How to remove mildew smell from camping equipment- This was a requested article that I took the opportunity to fill because I know a thing or two about mildew and how to rid things of it. Helpful article, not just for tents and stuff, can work on anything you've got mildew on.

I'll be posting more how to articles to eHow, lots more. I am like a Jane of all trades so I know how to do a lot of shit. Plus, getting paid to write is kind of my thing...not that it pays well. Still, you've got to start somewhere.

David had an unexpected day off of work today, as he arrived at The Cans to find that the parking lot was closed so they could repave it. That's one of the perks of working in a parking lot, you're at the mercy of the repaving. It worked out though because he went to the post office for me, plus he needed to go get his food handlers license...which...it's kind of strange because he's been working without one for over a year now. I remember that I had to go get mine back when I worked at the produce market, which was retarded because I was a cashier and I didn't handle any food. David only missed one on the test because he's been working with food for almost two years if you count when he worked at Stater's in the meat department. I missed like 20 because I don't know what the fuck amount of sanitizing liquid I'm supposed to add to which fucking sink! That wasn't in my job description! I still think it was stupid that I had to go do that test. The health department is whack, yo.

He went to Stater's today to get a few things, and he says that they still call him David T. Something that I noticed is that everywhere he works, they always call him David, not Dave. Possibly because that's how he introduces himself, I don't know, but David is not a Dave. I've never called him Dave, it's a terrible name. He's always either called David at work or called some ridiculous nick name like T-Bag or Dirk Diggler. (Because Dirk Diggler sounds like Terwilliger.)

I bring this up because currently at the pizza place there are three Davids including him. They call the new one by his middle name, and the other one goes by Tim. Why Tim? Because he's trying to avoid creditors, and also because David gets to be the only David. This was true in school when he hung out with two other Davids, in fact one was named Other David and the other was Little David. David was David.

Why is this like a thing?

Whenever there was another Jessie (Jesse) it was usually a boy, so I was just girl Jessie. Or just Jessie. David runs into so many other Davids that I think they have a club or something. And David is the special kind of David who gets to keep his name while the others have to have some kind of adjective in front of their name, like Black David over at the Banning Stater's when he worked there, or change their name to Tim.

Then again David hates his name and wants to change it. Not that he ever will, because people will still call him David anyway. Plus he doesn't know what else to call himself.

Raise your hand if you know a David. Bonus points if you are one or you are married to one. Minus points if you named someone that.

I'm Not The One

We had a pretty predictable challenge for the Photo Challenge blog this week, "the colors of nature," specifically foliage. Everywhere the leaves are changing, even in Australia they're getting bright busts of color with it being spring there. (Doesn't that totally freak you out?)

The problem is that I live in Southern California, and we don't really get seasons so much as we get slightly cooler weather a few months of the year, and our trees aren't as cool in the fall. Well, they are, but not until at least November, so this challenge was set too early for me to really get anything cool as far as changing leaves goes. I know that in Beaumont not much is changing on our tree limbs, so I headed up the hill to Yucaipa to see if I could find anything there.

Well, most of what I found was on the ground. The few leaves that changed fell to the ground, and that's where I had to photograph them for the most part.

I had a hard time choosing one to submit as my best this week, but I am choosing this one simply because it had more Flickr views than my other favorite and because David liked it more.

It's fall, but it's neon fall, and I thought that was cool. This is a peach tree leaf that fell to the ground after turning all of these crazy colors, and you might be able to see that it is resting on a peach pit. I like it because it's so cheery and eye catching against all of that drab dirt. It's like "Here I am!" These leaves usually turn bright yellow like this one...

Yeah, I know they're not as exciting as the pictures of the whole tree changing color, but like I said that isn't happening here yet so I just have the few that changed then fell. Either way, it was good practice because you can see the vibrant colors as well as the detailed veins and textures of the leaves. (FYI, the edge of the leaf is called the "margin" according to the notes that I took in my high school floristry class.)

This is my other favorite. I like it because it reminds me of a mosaic, those pictures made up of thousands of different colored tiles or scraps of paper. Each little cell is a different shade of green or yellow with a little bit of brown and tan mixed in. You can even kind of make out the shape of a heart if you look close enough.

I like this one too, because the little twig looks like it's swooning all dramatically.

It's all "Oh the pain, the painofitall!"

On to other things now. I went back over to Steppy's this morning because I forgot my flash drive (conveniently, I know) and this time Oh My God lady was there. Even still, I used my key to open their front door, just in case she wasn't aware that I had the key. When I opened it Steppy was already half way to the door, and she was just sitting there grinning like a mad woman. I have to admit, she creeps me out. Like a robot or something.

"Just wanted to see if it worked," I said, and they welcomed me. She's all like "Oh my god" and all that, and Steppy made a big deal out of showing me to the office and everything. I told him that I was just there to get my MiniVault.

We get to the den and he says, "She knows you have a key. It was her idea."

I go, "Does she know that she drives you crazy and that you wanted to talk to me about your sex life?"

He pursed his lips.

I go, "Steppy," and I said this quietly, "I am not the person you need to talk about that stuff to. Even if you cant talk to her, you should maybe talk to a professional. I can email you later with a list of people in Beaumont if you're too lazy to research it yourself. I have no problem helping you find help."

"Why can't I talk to you?" he asked. And I said, "Because I'm not entirely sure that I can help you, but someone who went to school for it probably can. Besides, I'm just not comfortable with it, you're not that kind of friend."

"Okay, then what kind of friend am I?"

"Uh..." and I really had to think on this one. Just what kind of friend is Steppy anyhow? I decided just to give it to him straight. "You're an old friend from high school. I dated you once. We ended up moving to the same city as adults, a few blocks from each other, and we met up again. I wrote a book and ended up telling you about it because my husband thought you would make a good character base. Yeah, that was David's idea. Then you decided you liked it so much that you'd help me publish it and get it out there, gave me a wad of cash and cleared off a desk for me, and that really means a lot. You're the kind of friend that I care about and would house sit for or donate a kidney for even, and you're the kind of friend who I don't mind hanging out with on a regular basis when you're not freaking me out by talking about super private matters that you should only be talking about with your guy friends. But seriously Steppy, you shouldn't see me as the kind of friend who finds talking about that kind of stuff with a guy when I am married just okay and not out of the ordinary. Dude, we can shoot the shit all you want about your job or whatever else, and I do appreciate that you think highly enough of me that you'd share with me your secrets, but god damn. I just don't think it's right for you to be in here talking about that with me when you should be talking about that with her."

He said he tried to talk to her. He just wanted my opinion, he didn't mean anything by it. And he said he can't talk to his guy friends about it because it's like an admission of defeat, and none of them take it seriously anyways. Something about as a woman he thought I would be more about helping him understand without laughing at him or calling his wife a frigid bitch or something.

"Maybe so," I said, "but it's already one of those taboo things for guys and girls to be 'just friends' so why make it weirder by sharing intimate bedroom stuff with each other, you know? I wouldn't talk to you about that shit, why would you do that to me? Don't put me in a position where I have to even think about you having sex with ANYONE! Like I said, I'll help you find help and you have my number if you need a pint of blood or someone to water your houseplants for a week but I'm not the one who you need to come to about your marriage problems."

Then he pulled me in for a hug and said he was sorry. I squirmed away. I hate hugs. I said see ya later and Oh My God Lady bounced with me all the way to the front door like a puppy.

I think I handled matters well.

The Santa Anna Winds were blowing hard today, and it made me think of fall again. I got to work knitting a Tychus hat for Ty to wear at school, and David jumped into making unexpected pies.

Pie happens unexpectedly around here a lot.

He bought pie pumpkins, which are smaller and sweeter than the big ones, to make pumpkin pie with real pumpkin. Unexpected pumpkin pie of course leads to unexpected pumpkin seeds, which I actually enjoy more than the pie its self. I usually like to season the seeds with Magic Salt but I didn't have any on hand so we used Hot Salt instead. I think it made them too spicy, but they're still great. David also commandeered my bag of organic Granny Smiths to make Pennsylvania Dutch Apple pie. I am not that excited. Of all of the pies in the world, pumpkin and apple are the least of my faves. I don't really like apples to begin with, and I like everything pumpkin except the pie. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, all of that stuff is good, it's just that I don't like pumpkin pie. But see the thing is that I want to like it because who in their right mind doesn't like pumpkin pie? So I'll eat it. Because he made it. I love it when husbands get all creative and make things, and David is very good at this. From knit sweaters to unexpected pies, he's the king of creative sparks that lead to "Look, I made you something."

I thought I found $30 in the trunk of my Mazda, but it turned out that it fell out of Ty's fund raiser envelope. Also a Mustang tried to race me last night. People used to try to race me in my Civic all the time, particularly other Civics. They get up next to you at a stop light, like the one on Bryant and Oak Glen in Yucaipa, and they rock their cars back and fourth and rev their engines. That's what the Mustang was doing. I like to play along, so I rev my engine really high and flash an evil grin, then the light changes and they punch the gas and smoke their tires. I wait a second at the light, then I put it into gear and smoothly make my way through the intersection. Meanwhile the speed racer is either up over the horizon or pulled over by the bike cop that hides behind the church marquee board. Either way, I don't race, but I do laugh. I feel like I've already won.

One time a guy in an old Datsun truck tried to race me in my Toyota Tercel. I think he was just picking a fight he knew he could win.

I smoked his ass.

That's the only time I ever did that.

I'm cooking fish in my dishwasher tonight, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Lend Me Your Ear

I got back from Yucaipa just as it was getting dark. David tossed a pizza with a ball of dough that we bought from Fresh and Easy and we had a nice little pizza and teriyaki wing dinner. Then I gathered up my stuff and went on a journey that unexpectedly ended up at Starbucks.

Coffee actually makes me a little sick, and by sick I mean that it makes me shit, and I already process my foods way too fast as it is, so feeding my bullet train digestive system with liquid fiber and sugar is a pretty bad idea. When I do go to Starbucks, which isn't really a habit but more like one of those things that just sort of happens, I order a chai tea latte with soy and vanilla. Again, not that I particularly enjoy soy, but I am allergic and intolerant to milk so it's something I have to do if I want a drink from there. Also I am afraid to ask for something that I've never had there because I don't want to sound like an idiot while ordering (I made the mistake one time of ordering a medium...they about crapped their pants. Too much coffee, I think.)

My sister dry heaves at the smell of coffee. She says this has something to do with eating a shit load of coffee flavored Jelly Bellies when she was 10 and throwing them up. I personally like the smell of coffee, and will even buy coffee scented candles for my home even though I do not own a coffee machine. And on that note, the smell of coffee doesn't make me instantly crave it, like say, the smell of turkey at Thanksgiving or delicious, delicious In And Out burgers. But what the smell of coffee does to me is it makes me think of comfort.

Some of my most vividly remembered people and places from my past have smelled like coffee. My foster mother and father and the house that we lived in up near Idyllwild. My old band teacher Mr. Toms. That lesbian drama teacher at the high school who looked exactly like Billy Idol. David when he worked at Stater's.

And why is it that the smell of coffee becomes that much more comforting when it is sniffed off of a fat man? A nice plump man wearing a dress shirt who smells like coffee. Does John McCain drink coffee? If he does I'd like to hug him. I wont vote for the crazy ol' bastard but I will hug him if he is coffee scented.

Or perhaps I have a totally weird daddy issue that I will have to suppress as I will never resolve it.

You know who else smells like coffee? Cops do. Cops smell like coffee. I want to bury my face in their necks and snort. I might get tased but it'd be worth it.

But mark my words, mixing the smell of coffee with cigarettes turns it into a whole different thing. Coffee and cigarettes creates a stench that reminds me of my brother Jim, assholes who used to come through my line when I worked at the produce market, and just about every low life I've ever been forced to communicate with...like David's brothers. I'm sorry but Matt smells like ass. Yeah, I said it.

There's just something about holding a little paper cup with a lid on it, something that makes me want to order hot tea in the summer as opposed to the clear plastic cup for the iced version. It's not a status thing for me, carrying around the Starbucks logo on a paper cup, I could never get addicted or be seen as anything more than I am just because of how I present myself. Even when I tell people "Yeah I'm an author now" they treat me like "Yeah but you're still Jessie, and I'm going to send you an email and maybe even send you a box of old magazines."

The cardboard ring things that go around the cups, totally stupid and worthless and yet I leave them there and even shift them around with my fingers while I drink.

Bottom line is it's $.50 worth of product and materials sold for $3 and yet I am strangely compelled to keep one in my hand when I talk to grown ups who I want to take me seriously. They don't know it's not coffee in there. Perhaps I just want to appear the way to people that coffee smell makes people appear to me. Maybe it's because the writers and people who I aspire to be like have little paper coffee cups at their sides, or on their little round tables next to their cute little laptops in the local Starbucks, working on some storyline that probably equates to little more than pornography. Because seriously, sex sells. That's why I wrote some.

I don't always have to buy the muffin too.

Why was I writing at Starbucks instead of Steppy's den this evening? Because I was writing in Steppy's den originally, but then he came in asked me what I thought of Oh My God Lady, who was gone visiting her parents or something. I said, "Oh my god, she's so nice." He just about broke down in tears. He looked beaten down and downright tired. I asked him if everything was fine, and he said that he loves her but she drives him crazy. I ask if she's like that all the time, and he says yes, except. Yes except when she lays there like a lump in bed.

Oh.

"She wont do anything!" he says. "I tried to spice things up, and...nothing." He tells me she keeps the house clean, they get along well, she takes care of him, but she doesn't take care of him I guess.

He says "I did what you said, with the ABC writing thing. It didn't work."

I told him that was just a guideline on the mechanics of it and that it was more important to listen to her reactions.

"That's just it," he tells me, "she doesn't have any reactions. She doesn't make a sound."

I suggested that maybe she's afraid of waking up the kids?

"No. We haven't always had kids to wake up."

And then he tells me that he waited till his wedding night. And I called him an idiot. He said he knew he was an idiot. I told him that we test drove our Mazda before we bought it, the test drive is very important because even if you cant predict problems down the road you at least get to handle it and, you know, hear how the engine sounds when it's on and everything.

"Believe me. I wish I had taken a test drive. Long, long ago."

He left the den and shut the door behind him without another word. I wanted to comfort him but I didn't know how. I can comfort a female in that situation, I mean Sally's always over here talking about how bad someone was, and as I don't relate to that (thankfully) I can at least sympathize. But when a guy is telling me how bad he has it in the sack, it's time for me to skip out and hope that he has some kind of male role model to discuss this sort of thing with. I left a few minutes later, and he didn't pressure me to stay or anything.

So that's how I ended up writing at Starbucks. But then I came home because I felt like spending time with David. Most nights we stay up way past what bedtime should be to get talking time in, so his days off should really be spent together, and they usually are except when I feel inspiration coming on and I need to write with little to no distractions.

Wearing nothing more than underwear, David plops next to me on the couch and whispers "balls" as he digs a spoon into his ice cream. "I run two miles and eat three square meals a day, I work at least 16 of those hours per day, why cant I just lose this next 20 pounds?"

"Ice cream," I said and pointed to his bowl.

"I haven't had ice cream in a month," he counters. "We haven't had fast food in three months. We've been eating chicken and fish for dinner and I am still fat. Why am I still fat?"

"Hey," I say and point to myself, "You're not singing any new songs here, I know this one already."

"Balls," he says again.

"David I think you need to go hang out with Steppy. He's troubled."

"He's your friend. You talk to him."

"He wants to talk about sex."

"I'LL KILL HIM!"

"With his wife."

"Oh. Well go talk to him, or go talk to her or something, I don't know. I don't offer any advice, I just listen. You're a better talker."

"So I should just talk to him then?"

"As long as he's not sticking it in your pooper. Or the other hole. Or your mouth. The ear is fine."

"Shut up and eat your damn ice cream." I'm not going to let Steppy stick it in my ear. "Why doesn't this bother you? You're never bothered by any of this. It's me with the hang ups whenever Steppy does something weird."

"You taught me well," David says. "You never get mad or jealous of anything. The teenage girls at work tell me about how their boyfriends want to fuck them in the ass and I just listen, then I tell you and you're cool with it because you know that there's no harm done. Some of my friends at work? They tell their woman something like that, about how some chick told him about how she accidentally peed on her boyfriend when he was eating her out, and they get accused of all kinds of shit for no damn reason. You know me, girls tell me about their abortions and you know it means nothing. Steppy just wants to talk to you, and possibly fuck you in the ear."

"He doesn't want to fuck me in the ear."

"Well if he wants to fuck you anywhere else that's not cool. Just talk to him, he's helping you out with your book, you should at least be nice. You know, lend him your ear."

"David. No ear sex. What in the hell is the matter with you? Where did you even get that idea"

He takes a mournful bite. "Girl at work said her boyfriend tried it. Didn't work. That's why I said it's okay."

You've got to be fucking kidding me. The ear? For real?

Collection Of Words

We woke up to weather in the 50's this morning. We had to run the heater. Finally fall hits So Cal but who knows for how long, as it could be 90 on Monday for all I know.

Whenever the weather gets crisp like this, where I have to wear yoga pants and a sweater to do laundry, I am always inspired to write something profound. But then I think about how many people have already written about the vibrant colors of the leaves changing (which hasn't happened here yet) or the smells of cider and cinnamon and it all just seems so...futile. It has become cliche to write about fall, and that disappoints me because whenever the weather gets crisp like this I am always inspired to write something profound.

A little girl from Ty's class came knocking on our door at 9:00 this morning wondering if he could come out and play. I have no idea who her parents are or where she lives, all I know is that her name is Madison and she sits next to Ty on the bus when he rides it. I hate how people just kick their kids out of the house for the day here, I'm not one to do that. I often hear the kids say things like "My mom said I have to stay out here" and "Can we play at your house?" and the answer is always "No, we have to stay at the park." But I let them go because I can see the park from my house, and the sun isn't as harsh anymore. Besides, they closed the preschool so Wade needs to learn how to socialize with other kids somehow.

And those kids have been playing all day. I've been enjoying the quiet. I sit out on my balcony and look across the lawn at them, occasionally telling them to quit painting the wall with mud or for Wade to pull up his pants, but it's actually really nice. I'm supervising them without having to really do very much supervising because they're just enthralled in their playing. And what's interesting is how my boys play with their trucks in the mud and how they dig for treasure, and Madison uses the mud to make pancakes.

I got things done though, like I finally was able to mop the floors without the kids coming out and dancing all over them five minutes later. I did some dishes and two loads of laundry, and heated up some fried chicken that I bought at Fresh and Easy for me and David to have for lunch. The kids were supposed to eat then too but they didn't come in until way later.

It's like the kind of weather where if I had a fireplace I would most definitely be using it.

Every once in a while a boy or two will come trotting across the lawn to get something. I gave my two and the girl green apples and cups of orange juice, and they all come inside to use my sink to wash mud off their hands. There goes my clean bathroom. Madison, tired of playing with tractors and backhoes, goes back to her house in what looks like the next building over to retrieve a pink Corvette, no doubt Barbie's dream car. No doubt Barbie came with it. No doubt Wade will play with it, as he has a thing for dolls and things with hair.

I don't know where in the hell Mustang Sally or her Mustang are, all I know is Thursday night her ex-fiance who dumped her a month before the wedding was here and they were sitting out on the balcony talking quietly, then the next morning she came over to borrow 3/4 cup of milk. Ever since then she's been gone. I've missed her angries, and her classic quotes like "The man who bought me Mustang used to take me out on dates with helicopter." I sit in silence while the kids are out playing because now I have no one to talk to. It's Saturday, so the internet is dry and lonesome.

The fallish weather always inspires me to write, and I've got a smashing plot twist to finish up Chelsea's Demon with, and I would work on it now since it's quiet but part of my attention has to be on the kids down at the park. Like sleeping with one eye open. How do these parents just let their kids out to wander all day? I know it's daytime and we're talking mostly of the middle quadrant where there aren't any cars or anything, but I still don't see myself turning away for more than a bit while they're down there.

Our apartment is relatively large and clean and with a fair amount of natural light. I can see them off the balcony but I keep the front door open because the big window lets in way too much cold right where I sit. I'm all scrunched up on the couch trying to keep warm and drinking too sweet of tea while trying to come up with things to write about. I know that as an old woman days like this will haunt me still and I'll wish I had just sat and enjoyed the quiet while I had it. Maybe I'll make cranberry orange muffins from the mix that I bought at the organic market later, or something equally as crafty. Then maybe a few hours of writing tonight after the kids go to bed.

But then again, for all I know Madison could be spending the night. She used our bathroom earlier. It wouldn't surprise me if her parents didn't even know where she was. Ty offered for her to wipe her muddy hands off on his pants earlier. I couldn't believe that shit.

They're sitting on the porch, the three of them, and coloring pictures. Someone's coming up the steps...it's Steppy. He has given me a house key and a piece of paper with numbers to an alarm system written on it. "Just in case I'm not home when you come" he tells me.

I'm going to start warming up David's soup for dinner.

Steppy's Wife = Humming Bird On Crack

On my way back from dropping Ty off from school I passed by Steppy's house and he was outside messing with some weeds or bushes or something. I parked my happy ass in his drive way, because this time he didn't have a hose.

He stands up and looks at me kind of crookedly and makes his way over.

"I had no idea who just pulled into my driveway but then I looked inside and there you were. Where'd you get this?"

"It's my new car Steppy."

"Where's your Buick?"

"I had an Oldsmobile. Just the same, we doused it in gasoline and pushed it into Wildwood Canyon." Steppy just looked at me. "It's in a landfill somewhere, I dunno, not my prob."

He's eyeballing the car, kicking the tires, walking the length of it and all. "So you Terwilligers must be doing pretty well for yourselves then."

"Not really," I tell him. "It's used, it's got high interest but low payments. We just couldn't keep throwing money into the Buick."

"The Oldsmobile," he says.

"Right. So is this cool? I mean are you still going to buy me a book?"

"Yeah I'll still buy you a book, I'm not mad or anything, I mean you guys need a car. I'll buy you dinner too if you want."

"No, that's not necessary, but I will try to make it over to do some work once the edited manuscript gets here, I promise. You can make me dinner or something."

"How about we order pizza?"

"Yeah you didn't tip him last time, I don't think you'll ever get a hot one again."

"Didn't I? Damn, sorry. Double next time, I promise."

I offered to let him drive it but he said he couldn't drive stick, so I called him a pussy boy then started to back up. He says "Gee I hope nobody paints a dick on it or anything," and I pull back into the driveway.

"Was that? Was that a threat?"

"You watch out. I pulled over a car just like this for speeding the other day. Going 78 on Beaumont Ave."

"How do you know how fast he was going? Your car doesn't have radar."

Then he laughed and went back to his bushes. I still don't know what it means when he laughs dismissively like that. It's like he's playing some kind of game or something. I'm going to seriously do donuts on his lawn one morning. That'll teach him.

What?

Only before I could leave, his wife (the Oh My God Lady) came out. And Steppy? Looked a bit stunned.

"Oh my god look at your new car! Oh my god! Hi! How are you?"

"I'm great, yeah."

"Oh my god, did you buy this with book royalties?"

I started to laugh. Steppy stepped in. "Don't you love the color, honey? It's cute for a little Mazda huh?"

"Oh my god I want one! Oh my god, Jessie, are you here to use our office?"

"Uh...mostly I'm just here to give Step here a hard time, uh..."

"Oh my god, we were just thinking the other day, like, how awesome it would be if you wrote a book like in our house. Imagine the stories we could tell. Jessie Terwilliger wrote her third novel in our den. Oh please come in for coffee, oh my god! No! You don't like coffee! Tea! I will make you tea!"

"I've gotta go shopping Lady, I don't even have my computer on me."

"Use ours! Oh my god, then I'd get to read all of the spoilers now wouldn't I? Da HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!"

"Riiight. Well I thank you for doing that for me, giving me a place to work. I will be by to use it, I promise."

"Oh my god, do you know what I bought the other day? A jar of peanut butter with the jelly swirled in, just like in Golden Dawn, remember?"

"Yeah," I say kind of in awe of this woman.

"Oh my god, Steppy totally didn't get the symbolism but I totally got the symbolism with that. It was so like, you know, obvious, like whenever someone was trying to smooth something over like when things were bad the peanut butter and jelly jar gets mentioned."

She's the first person to ever make that connection.

"And in Bombshell? I love how you make the cabin a character its self, it's amazing how you do that."

"Thank you Lady, again, it's great to know someone's liking my stuff." By this time Steppy has gone back to work. The Oh My God Lady wishes me well and skips back inside.

Steppy's back to his bushes with his back to me and all, so I call out bye and he just sort of waves a little. I'm like, "Is everything cool?"

He says "Yeah, I'll see you later."

Perhaps Lady's humming bird like nature tires and annoys him. I'm impressed that she picked up on the things that she did in my books. But there's something strange going on at the Two Step house. Before I pulled away I told him I'd be by Sunday or Monday, and he said that was fine. I just left it at that. But as I was pulling away, he got up and came over to me. I rolled down my window and he goes, all quietly, "Come over when she's not here if you're going to work, or you will never get any work done. I will watch your kids for you if you want, just try to make it like Sunday morning while she's at church."

I told him he was creepy. And not as much of a pussy as I thought since his wife goes to church and he doesn't. I called him a heathen and a rebel and I beeped his nose.

I told David that Steppy wants me over there when his wife is gone because she's kind of a scatterbrained oh my god shouter, and David says "It's probably okay."

Probably okay. Don't worry about betting your life on it because it's probably okay. Probably okay, for serious.

You're Making Me Smash The Bread

I drove David out to Murietta today for his meeting with his background investigator. I drove because it's a 50 mile drive and unfamiliar to us, and with the way he's been killing Miss Veruka at stop signs and Chinese Fire Drilling it like a little bitch out of panic and frustration, it was better for me to just handle it.

Anyway, it wasn't what we thought. Turned out to be 20 on 2 instead of 1 on 1 (and I mean 20 applicants and two cops, not the other way around. Oh my god, if it was? Bricks would be shat. Could you imagine? "DAVID! CHRISTOPHER! WHY DIDN'T YOU FILL OUT FORMS 22C AND 32-ABX CORRECTLY? WHAT IS YOUR MALFUNCTIOOOOOOOON!?") Basically they just wanted him to verify some stuff like yeah he did graduate high school and not with a GED and some such stuff like that. Plus they asked him if he's ever had sex with an animal, that kind of normal every day thing.

What's happening now is the good Sergeant is coming to my house (!!!) in early December to go over paperwork like birth certificates and work history reports from Social Security and stuff. His class, meaning the people who are where he is at in the process right now, will be going to academy in May of next year. We thought it was sooner, and they did too, but essentially what happened was they underestimated the amount of applicants and they are short on background investigators. So we wait till May, but it is possible that he might go in February. The only thing he has working against him with regards to when he is invited to academy is his last name. Being a T-T-T-Terwilliger isn't always so great.

Thing is, while he was in there doing his thing I was tending the children in a foreign land. I ended up taking them to Del Taco because they had a play place there. We hung out there for a while, then I decided to lulz around at the Salvation Army next door where I picked up Wade's Halloween costume for like $4. He's going to be a raccoon. I bought him a fursuit. It has a bushy tail and everything. Hope it doesn't give him a complex. (Or a rash...I should wash it before he tries it on.)

Then the kids were tired and David still wasn't done so we just drove back to where he was and they slept in the car while I read the manual to my new Mazda. It says funny things like "You should never tow a trailer with your Mazda" and it has funny pictures like a guy randomly pouring a cup of something onto the stereo with a big X over it. Don't pour shit on your car!

What I did learn from reading the manual is that we have a six disk CD changer and we are equipped for Sirius Satellite Radio. Not sure how that works, other than I have to pay someone or something, which I am so not on board with.

Anyway, we got home, well first we went to his work to pick up his check which was huge. He wore his CHP outfit, which is just khaki pants and a tan polo with a black belt and black shoes because it looks similar to the uniform, and damn, he looked good. Plus his shoulders are all broad now and his arms are all Hulked out, I mean from far away he looks like a cop. Close up too.

We got home and the kids were half awake and whining for food because they had no idea what time it was or anything, so I tried to coax them back to sleep and he was in the kitchen making peanut butter sandwiches for them, and I swear to god. He looked like a cop. Holy shit he looked like a cop.

I did what any woman would do, I grabbed him by his shirt collar and planted one on him. Hard.

He goes, "You're making me smash the bread" all weak like.

Tee hee.

zoom-zoom

I has somethings to show you.

This is my new friend *Veruka.* She is a Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaazdah 3i.

She has a shopping cart handle so you can push her around I guess. See?

She's a 2005 and what you call a "base model," as there isn't any power windows or doors or remote trunk poppers or seat warmers or crap like that which will break. Even still, there are cool features like computerized key recognition disabling ejecting rejecting device thingy, and volume controls right on the steering wheel! Plus you can disable the passenger side airbag in case you get carjacked and you need to take your car straight into a brick wall in order to kill your captor. Or like, if you have to put a kid up there or something, I don't know.

And when you turn it on, it says "hello!" on the stereo display.

Veruka is a stick shift, which is really interesting because I haven't driven stick in six years and David? Well David had to learn pretty damn quick since he drove it home from the lot last night. And let me just say that I highly underestimated the Mazda's propensity to zoom-zoom.

It has a CD player and also a Mini Disk player, which I have no fucking clue why since who the hell even uses Mini Disks anyway? For 2005 I'd think that it might have been upgraded to the age of the MP3 player or something but I didn't design the car I just bought it.

And if you're wondering where the Oldsmo-fail is, it's in the junk yard for being a piece of junk. Because it was all in shambles after my brother in law tried to hot wire it to get it started the other night, I couldn't take it anywhere that would have given me real money for it so I sold it to the same guys who bought my Civic's carcass. Net worth? $200. Look I know that's lousy, but we don't have time or money to be fixing it up to try to sell it for more, and we just wanted to be done with it. Just, Beaumont readers, promise me you wont buy a bright ass red Alero from M&M. I just want to see them smash it into a little cube like they did to the Civic. There's no need for it to be driven around any longer, it's a hard core piece of shit salvaged flooded Damage-Mobile.

I know that it seems that we can't seem to get away from red cars, but this isn't quite as "Found At The Base Of A Penis" red as it is "Single Serving-Saccharin Packet Dripping-Red With Stripper Lipstick Kisses" red. It's a step up. At least she isn't hooking, just trying to feed her kids, you know? You can't tell in the pictures but the paint is really glittery, which is why I think the color is more stripper like than hooker like, as strippers are coated in a slick glittery substance like a snail.

Veruka's got a warranty on her, so she'd better last. Furthermore, David is driving her to go meet his background investigator tomorrow which is like 40 miles from here, so let's hope he doesn't get stuck on any hills. He's learning.

The 10 Things I Won't Give Up Just To Save Money

I planned a budget last night with David, which we haven't done in, well, ages. Usually we have it figured, you know? The last check of the month is for rent, the tips are for gas, the middle check is for taking care of our shit, yeah well it all worked out. But now we have a big expense to pay for, and we have to find a way to take care of that in order to prove the naysayers wrong. We buy little more than we need, and what we do end up buying that we don't need is inexpensive and not really going to set us back, like stuff to make an unplanned random pie or an evening picking apples in the mountains.

I saw this article on Wise Bread and it mentioned what the writer would never give up just to save money, and the things that she would never spend money on in the first place. I liked that list, so I decided to make my own.

The 10 things that I won't give up just to save money

1. Good food. I could totally feed my kids canned spaghetti, and I think I might have done that once or twice, but the real stuff is so much better. Fresh fruit, good meat, chocolate, tea, I am willing to spend money on that kind of thing. It will keep us healthy, which is a really good thing because we don't have health insurance (the kids do though) so we cant really afford cancer or anything at the moment. And oh my god, fresh bread and home made soups, fish and chicken dinners, all made without Hamburger Helper. Though I do admit to owning a few boxes of Pasta-Roni and Ramen for lunch. I loves me some Ramen. And I am all for buying the store brand if it's cheap unless the store brand tastes like crap. Sorry, but sometimes it does, particularly with cereal.
2. Books. Though I do try to get them on Amazon for cheap, like pennies even, I wont give up my need for replenishing my supply of stuff to read. Right now we don't have the money to buy books, but that is okay because some lady dropped off some bags of books at The Cans because she wanted to recycle them (WTF?) so we have a few more things to read now. David is currently reading the Army survival manual.
3. Diet Dr Pepper. Okay, so I can live on tea. It's not like impossible or anything, but DP is my vice, and with 0 calories you don't have anything to bitch about. I started buying the 24 packs from Wal Mart because they are cheap and they come with a coupon. Either way, I wont stop drinking them. Plus we just recycle the cans to get our CRV (cash refund value) back on them, so every few weeks I get about $7...that I turn around and spend on more soda.
4. Good skin care products. I'm not talking like good as in $40 a pop for a little cup of eye cream or anything, no, my needs are simple. See I don't wear makeup so I have to try to make my skin not look all gnarly. I buy Oil of Olay shower and body products, and even some kind of anti-aging face wash by them. We're talking like $5-$8 products here that I only have to replace every six weeks or so. Why am I using anti age stuff at 24? Because I do not want to look like you when I grow up. There, I said it.
5. My apartment. Look, for $763 a month, it's hard to find a better price. Oh yes, I could move into a one bedroom here which I think is like $695 or something, or even move to Banning or even that low income shit rag place down the street. I'd save money, but I wouldn't feel safe. Am I safe here? Well, I don't know. Safer, I guess. Plus our place is kind of nice, no fireplace or anything, but it sure beats living in some godawful trailer and taking a bath in the toilet-sink. We deserve to have a nice place, and a safe place to sleep at night.
6. Name brand laundry detergent and softener. I wont give that up. I want my clothes to smell nice and not feel like shit. Plus my boys spill things on themselves, and we need something tough to fight stains.
7. Kid's activities. Every once in a while we will do something for the kids. Not often, but sometimes. Trips to the mountains for apple picking (and picture time) and special trips to the pumpkin patch. I wont tell Ty he cant go on his field trips or not buy school pictures...not particularly because I like school pictures but because nobody ever bought mine and now I am sad. I just buy a cheap package, no biggie. I will also buy him a school spirit shirt from the PTA.
8. My job here at home. Essentially it would cost more for me to work, no joke. We only have one car so the switching off is one thing, plus the kids would need daycare and that costs a bundle. By me not working, David doesn't have to stress about what's going on at home, we don't have to fight over doing trivial things like dishes and cooking. He deals with his work thing and I deal with the home stuff, like taking the kids places and getting our shopping done. Plus, I am pretty much unemployable. I'm mouthy, and you cant put that behind a register. You don't want that representing your company. Besides, saving money is like an income all its own, and I don't require much to keep me happy.
9. Sunday trips to Yucaipa. We visit my sister not only because we kind of like her, but because the kids do, and for once they're not in our hair but in hers. Well, it's more than that. We like to visit, the kids like to play in a dirt mound she has called the "construction site" and hanging out with them is more fun than hanging around here. We don't even have a TV! What the hell can the two of us do here all day? It's a nice outing.
10. Extraneous energy costs for things that I like. I put up Halloween lights and plug them in at night, and Christmas lights too of course. I run the hot prewash option and heated dry on my dishwasher. I leave my light on in the kitchen at night and sometimes during dark days. I don't turn off my computer at night because it takes too long to boot up. And that's like...about it. Oh and those funny shaped lightbulbs? I haven't replaced my entire home with them simply because they are funny shaped and I am a creature of habit. Oddly shaped lightbulbs make me irrationally nervous.

Ten things I never bought in the first place

1. Tivo or HD. First, I don't have a TV. Second, I don't have cable...but I cant tell you that I never bought cable because I did buy it a long time ago, I just got sick of it. But one thing I never needed was the DVR recording shit, that's just a waste. I don't need to watch a show that bad, and if I do there is someone somewhere who will upload it to le' Tubes. Also with HD, um...right...I don't buy into needing that. Superior picture means little to me as I have poor vision anyway.
2. A larger car than I need on a day to day basis. I miss the crap out of my Civic. Let me tell you, when they were trying to approve us for a loan, the car dealers would come back and say "Oh you're approved for this Suburban/big truck/SUV thing." Why? Because nobody is buying them. Oh sure, I can go buy a 2007 Big Ass Vehicle for under $15k, but why would I? And frankly, I don't want anything that big. It will roll over and suck gas like a mofo. I like the econoboxes, they make sense to me. But then I like saving gas and all.
3. Private school tuition. Seriously, the only private schools around here are religious. Even if they weren't, I still wouldn't buy into it. We live in a decent area with good schools. Now if we were in LA or San Bernardino I might consider it. What I also might consider is the homeschool program, which is free, but if it turns out that public schools go south around here, I'll take care of it myself. The district has an excellent home study program, and that would be fine by me.
4. Extra shoes. I don't buy a whole lot of shoes, particularly for the kids. They have one pair till they outgrow it, then we buy a new pair. Ty does have school shoes and home shoes, but that does seem normal to me. I own like three pairs, David owns two. Shoes are cute and all, but they're expensive too. When you really add it all up, sometimes it turns out that you spent way too much on shoes that you never actually wear but with maybe one outfit, or not even that because you're waiting for the right outfit to come along. I am not opposed to wearing open toed sandals 12 months of the year and the same pair for several months at a time.
5. Rent on a bigger apartment or mortgage on a house. Seriously, we don't need much. Living in Redlands isn't all that it's cracked up to be, particularly since it isn't as safe as Beaumont. There are whole houses that you can rent out here for over $1,000 a month, closer to the $2,000 mark, and not only can we not afford it but seriously we don't need a house to live in that damn bad. We also wont be buying a house for several years. We intend to live how we live now for a while in order to save up.
6. Animals. I've owned critters, like bunnies and birds, but I would never spend hundreds of dollars on a rare lizard or a bunch of fish that I cant pet. Even if we could have dogs, I would adopt one instead of buying an expensive breed of puppy. Even then, the vet bills, the liability if they bite someone, the expensive foods, it's all just retarded. I'm sure David disagrees with me on this, but I wouldn't buy a dog. Adopt maybe, but not buy. I did want a bird a while back, one to keep me company, but I've decided against it. I've got too much shit to do, I cant sit there and teach it to talk. The parakeet I have is fine because I like to hear her chatter and tweet.
7. Entertainment. Movies are like way too expensive, they're so much better to rent, you know? And we don't go to bars or gamble or really do anything of the leaving-the-house nature. Our entertainment is like food shopping or driving somewhere around here to take pictures. Or we will just kick back on our free internet and watch some Tubes or something.
8. Vacations. Not that I'm against time off, but other than a day trip to San Diego or something there isn't much that I'd really like to spend my money on. Hotels are yucky and there's nothing exciting here anyway. I've been to Disneyland, I'm sick of it actually. The beach? Meh, it's a drive, gas prices are high, not really my thing. Local mountains are local and they don't cost much to get to them.
9. New wardrobe every season. I don't have fashion sense enough to be able to do this, I still have shirts that are several years old. I throw them out on occasion but its true just the same. I'm a jeans kind of girl, and by that I mean that I own one pair that I will recycle several times, and I wear skirts and neat shirts that I find at places like Target. My steppin' out clothes are nothing more than special shirts and skirts that I have designated for only wearing when I step out. Nothing special, but very practical.
10. Mommy groups and play groups. Gymboree? Yeah fuck it. Special clubs for moms that require a membership fee? Not my cuppa. My kids have fun at the park, and I am content with not having any friends as opposed to having to pay for them, and having to lose them if I cant afford my club dues. I shouldn't have to pay to fit in. Furthermore, my kids wont sit still for shit. We considered Ty for Karate because it's $7 a lesson, but we decided that he's still too wiggly for things like that. I have no problem with like soccer or whatever for older kids, but I don't need to pay for an hour-long "baby-sage" class to learn how to rub my newborn's back.

10 Things I am considering giving up or changing

1. The bus. I really go back and fourth on this. Ty really likes to ride it and everything, but I find it weird still. Especially after we got left one day because the guy came early because they switched the times and didn't notify the parents, I just feel like it's safer to just do it myself. But then I could probably save some gas money by not making the trip twice a day. I'm still thinking about it.
2. Going on a yarn-diet. The theory is that I cannot buy more yarn until I knit x amount of pounds of yarn from my stash. Yeah well, it's not like I buy a whole lot of yarn these days, just a few skeins here or there. And it's all for projects.
3. Unplanned trips to Target or Walmart. Sometimes I go just to go, and I buy useful things, but sometimes it's things that we don't need at the moment, like buying a bottle of shampoo when I already have a full one that I forgot about. Or perhaps I see a shirt that I throw into my cart because it's only $10. It adds up. I will only go now with cash, and I will only go for the things that I most need.
4. Turning back the A/C. Heat isn't so much of a problem for us because we are on the top floor so it's warmer up here, which of course creates a problem for the summer which is 9 months of the year in California. I keep mine at like 76 or 78, but the neighbor keeps hers at 82. How does she do it? She has a really good fan.
5. Christmas presents. Everyone gets Applebee's cards this year. Everyone. I am tired of spending money on shit that people don't appreciate. Don't like Applebee's? Go fuck yourself. And have a happy holiday.
6. Special meals at home. Every meal here is a special one, and the food is always good and at the table so sometimes we consider going out for variety. We don't do fast food anymore, but we have thought about sitting at Coco's or something. We don't need to do that, we have good food at home (because I refuse to spend less on food.)
7. More dried beans and rice. Canned stuff is not really my bag, but a bag of dried kidney beans is my bag. Especially if it's only $1 a bag. I also buy more bulk frozen meats like salmon and chicken which also comes in bags.
8. Making more stuff for the house as opposed to buying it. Decorations, oven mitts, art, this is all in the realm of things that I already know how to make. And I should make them. And I will. There's no reason for me not to.
9. Buying funny shaped bulbs. Yes, I know they're better for the environment, and eventually they do pay for themselves. They just really freak me out is all.
10. Hone in on money management skills. I mean really hone in on it. Not just by figuring out a budget, but by actually managing our money and start a savings account. I'll have to make it be like a game or else I wont try.

So these are my priorities. What are yours?

Seven Years Of Bad Luck

So what do you think, am I cursed? Possibly doomed to fail?

Perhaps it has something to do with that fortune cookie I got a long time ago, the one that said "bad luck will infest your pathetic soul for all eternity."

The car thing, yeah. You know it's hard to get a bank to lend to you when the bank is collapsing from the exact type of people they loaned to from the past. Our saving grace? David's income, his measly, weencie little paychecks. They're enough. For once in our marriage, they're enough, and actually they're just a smidge more than enough.

Finally, for the love of cheeses, we were approved for a loan. A high interest loan, but by golly we got us one. From Wachovia? They went all belly up didn't they? Look, I don't know, but if dead people can vote then dead banks can regurgitate money. Should we be thanking congress for passing the bailout?

But let me tell you what happened, because you wont believe what fucking happened. We got approved for a loan for about $7k, 24% 21% interest (they dropped it, it's still high but that's the price we have to pay for not having clean credit) with like $270 a month payments. Right, that comes out to about $13,000 with all of that interest, but the payments are so low that we can pay more on them and get it paid down and even chip more away at it at tax return time and all. We're going to make this work out, we have to be big people now. It's time to be big people. Especially when we are forced to become big people.

What happened was we ended up finding a car at Carmax. It's a 2005 Mazda3 i with 49k miles on it, and it's like $13k. Do you love it? I do, but it's Satan Red like the Oldsmo-fail, which ultimately lived up to its nick name and I'll tell you why in a sec. Anyway, Carmax is a cool place. They will buy your car, 100% guaranteed to buy your car no matter how shitty or Oldsmobile it is, and they will give you close to Blue Book for it. Plus they give you a three year warranty that covers bumper to bumper, and any repairs you have to make at all will cost you $75. You can take it to Joe Blow Mechanic, and he will bill Carmax the rest. Fuck yeah. Furthermore, warranty is free. Insurance? $89 full coverage from that awful gecko company. Fucking fuck.

Well, we made the mistake at stopping by his Dad's house to tell him the good news before heading out to pick up the car. Yippie skippy! We got a car! But of course he was all Debbie Downer and "baaaaaawwww I don't approve baaaawwwwww interest baaaaawwwwww" yeah well he's not the one getting this loan, he's not even remotely helping us, NOT EVEN REMOTELY! And I'll tell you why.

We go to get in the car. We go to start the car. The ignition would not turn to start the car. Now the key has always been tricky and wiggly and the ignition is much looser than your mother. (ooooooooooooh! Snap!) Anyway, it finally gave out...right when we were about to go sell the fucking piece of shit.

So the check for the down is in Yucaipa, about nine miles away. We are at his parent's house in Calimesa. The car is in Riverside.

"Dad, can you take me to the dealership to get my new car?"

"baaaaaaaawwww absolutely not."

"Dad, can you take me to Yucaipa to at least get the check?" David asks as his brother is trying to hot wire our Shitmobile, which never ended up working.

"baaaaaaaaaaawwwwwww no."

"Dad, can I borrow your truck to go get the check?"

"I hate you son. I want you to fail, and if you were on fire I'd go watch the game and have a beer. How's your clavicle these days? I don't give a fuck." (ya really.)

"Dad, halp!"

"Why?"

"Dad, please just-"

"No."

Mind you, he's not cosigning, or giving us any kind of financial help for this, he's just a stubborn old mule and for whatever reason he refused to believe that the car could not be started and wants the damn thing off his property in about an hour and three minutes or he's going to start charging US 21% interest rates for the inconvenience, cuz he's gotta get his trash cans right in that same exact spot tomorrow morning because the garbage guy wont know that there is cans to be picked up if they are moved two feet to the left.

Ya really.

Anyway, because we couldn't get a ride, and my sister was like "what the hell? I gotta give you money AND a ride?" and she couldn't make it here in time before Carmax closed.

BUT, hopefully Mustang Sally will give David a ride after work at The Cans tomorrow so we can go pick up our new car. Because our old car is going to the junk yard tomorrow for about $7 cash. That's what we expect to be paid. Fuck if we have to pay them to take it off our hands. It really is too bad because we would have had another thousand down on the car. And now? We have nothing. Not even a ride.

Wont you please, please help me, help me, help MEEEEE!

No you wont.

Have a day.

Look At The People

Hey, don't forget that at 8:00 Pacific time tonight I am doing a live reading of Golden Dawn via the internet so you should try to make it if you want to hear the part where Steven goes nuts and kidnaps his wife. More details at Jessie-Terwilliger.com

The Photo Challenge this week was "Portraiture," which is not just taking a picture of a person, but taking a picture of their personality. They suggested black and white, but Wade was my model this week and with that blazing red hair I always have to think twice about taking away his color.

You can start to see his freckles coming in, and also a lot of dirt. Wade almost always has a smudgy face, he cant help it. I want to submit this one to the challenge because he looks all cute and coy here, but he's really just planning to steal/burn/shatter something as soon as I look away. Red heads always seem to have that, don't they? They seem all cute and charming but then they bite the shit out of your arm. Luckily overall Wade does have a sweet disposition but he has the temper. But I did get a black and white of him that I think is really cute.

This one is freakin' cute, but it doesn't show off his personality as much as I was trying to get in the picture. It just shows how cute he is.

Let's take a look back at some of my favorite portraits that I have taken of my friends and family throughout my years of amateur photography...and by that of course I mean shoving a camera in people's faces.

I still love this picture of Mustang Sally, my crazy Romanian neighbor. Everything that comes out of her mouth is about sex in one way or another and that's just her culture. She told me the other day about a game she played as a kid called "password" where the boys would chase the girls because the girls knew the password, and the boys could do whatever they wanted to get the girls to tell them the password. "They'd kiss you, and other stuff," and this was a normal game! Like freeze tag! Holy shit!

"One boy," she said, "he was so ugly, and he always chase me. I always just told him password before he even got to me because I not want him to touch me."

Do you love it?

This is my niece Nina. I think Nina always looks good in pictures, I love to photograph her. I think it's her glasses.

For the record, I like her frame better than Palin's.

This is my blogger friend Miss. She let me take pictures of her in a park one day and I've always loved this picture of her.

Sometimes you get the best ones when they're not expecting it. This one is of David's parents, one that I shot off as a practice during a shoot we did for them for their 20th wedding anniversary.

This guy is my non brother, basically he's the child of the woman that my dad first married who was born after they divorced from a man who was not my dad which makes him Robert and Malissa's brother but not mine because they have a different mom but the same mom as Aaron...and his son.

My nieces, Jaqui and I forget the blond one's name (she's step, I've only met her this one time.)

My sister and brother Robert and Malissa...

My niece Ashley and her (and Nina's mom) Kathy

And finally, one of my favorite "lucky shots" that I ever took, a portrait of a stranger. I saw this guy outside of Dominoe's pizza and I was just bored, sitting in my car waiting for something. I took it from about 40 yards away across a parking lot. The quality isn't great, but this shot is very cool.

What makes it so amazing is that I got it at just the right time. This is what was really going on...

Moral of the story, always take pictures of unsuspecting strangers. Always.

The Dealership Fiasco

I came in with my PennySaver ad.

They had a 2009 Nissan Versa for $10,999. I wanted it.

Immediately I was swarmed by a handsome blackish dude who informed me that the PennySaver one was gone. So I was gone, or I would have been, except that they had one for $11,500. Perfect, amiright?

Well here's the thing. I was misinformed. Not by the dealer, but by my brother in law who was floating me this loan. Turns out his offer of $12,000 was cockblocked by my sister who said $5,000 and we need to finance the rest of it. This isn't what we wanted to do, we were under the impression that we could just have them buy the car, and then we make payments. My sister was having none of that. Giving up her savings? On a freakin' Versa?

You know it's not like I wouldn't have paid my shit, I do pay my shit these days. She fronted the money for the Alero and I paid her right back. She floated me the money for the engine for the Alero, and I paid her right back. I'll tell you, we had to spend an entire check to fix this damn car this month and we STILL made rent. But with that said, we weren't doing all of this math and research because we thought we were going to finance a car, oh no. We were doing all of this math because we thought we had a deal.

Well here's the thing, don't be mad at her, it turns out there's a good reason for the deal being broken and it's not what you think. I mean besides emptying the savings account to buy me a car, right. They have an expense coming up.

They're adopting a child. Or possibly children, as they put on the app that siblings were okay.

That? I did not know.

So I tell Mr. Nissan that I have $5,000 and I needs me up a Versa. He says yeah sure. I'm like all right. Weeeeelllll, except that my credit, she stinks. I haven't had any open credit since 2003 and what's on there from the short time that I decided that I was 18 and an adult and I could handle my finances isn't great. I mean it could be worse, no repos or bankruptcies or anything totally bad like that, just no accounts in good standing. And David, well, he's got a bunch of medical bills, which a lot of people who have no health insurance have.

So what happened was they told me no to the 09 and they tried to put me in an 04 Sentra with 66,000 miles on it! I'm like hell to the N-O! If I'm going to be spending a boat load of money, I want it to be an investment, not a desperate plea.

"Oh but you can just bring it back in a few months after you've established credit with us and trade up!"

Right, but I'm not going to trade up I just want a car that I can keep. Fuck you and your crappy Sentra (which they wanted $10,000 for, which only books at like $6,000.) But I did look at the car, it was not unlike my old Tercel. In fact, it was exactly like my old Tercel.

So I started to walk out.

"Okay!" they say, "We can get you in a used 08 Versa with 21,000 miles on it for 12k."

"Uh...why in the hell would I do that when I can get the 09 for cheaper with NO miles on it?"

"Well see here's the thing," they say. "With your income? We know you can afford it, that's not the thing. The thing is that the bank is the one who is giving you the loan, and they want 80% down. See, once you drive it off the lot it loses value, so there's nothing in it for them."

"Right, except for my enormous down payment that I'm giving you." So I get up.

"Well now hold on, hold on," he says, and he gets his manager now. "We will try to swing it, try to get you into this car tonight. Re-establish your credit, and I'm telling you, this is the way to do it. We cant get you the 09 but we can get you something just as nice for less, I promise you. The 08 with 21k miles on it would be perfect."

"Nah." And I walk out.

Then corporate guy, he comes out. He promises to find a way to make the 09 happen. Promises.

I tell you people, when I walked in, ALONE by the way, my sister and brother in law were at home with my kids, they must have had just one thing on their minds. I was a weak, vulnerable female with a huge amount of cash, and they would get it from me. One way or another.

They sat there making deals with me for like three hours. I'm saying, hey, I cant be spending a shit load of cash on a payment and insurance every month, I gotta see what my insurance quote is before I sign any papers. The blackish guy, he tells me "Well the numbers you're looking at," which I was trying to keep both the payment and the insurance in the ball park of the low 300's, "I just don't think that's reasonable. I mean, I pay $600 a month total with insurance and payment."

"Right, but you make a lot more money than me don't you?"

"It still comes out of my pocket!"

"But it wont be coming out of my pocket. At the end of the day when I'm struggling to buy groceries after making my car payment, you're going home to your $800,000 house. Later dudes."

"Whoa woah wait, hold on there." Corporate guy pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't want you to leave here without a car tonight, I know how bad your Oldsmobile is. But the down payment..."

"I will put $7,000 down. Hows about that?"

They were not expecting the other $2,000 to come out of left field. They crunch numbers, they get their shit figured. They tell me $275 a month will get me this car. I'm like yeah, that's all well and good but I gotta insure it, and I want to go home and find a good quote. Finally, the dude is like sweating, tears in his eyes.

Who's raping who here?

Anyway, he says "$275 a month for payment. I will insure it for $75 a month. Will you take this deal?" lolwut? Full coverage insurance for $75 a month? Okay, it's worth it just for that. I'm not greedy, I just gave him some honest numbers. We could afford more, but $350 is what I'd like to pay. Anyway I tell him no and start to leave, and they're like blocking my exits with chairs and shit.

"WHY? WHY?" they cry.

"Because I just realized that if my sister has $7,000 to put down on a car, she has $7,000 to fix my old one and I wont have to fuck with my insurance or anything right now."

"No payments for three months, interest free."

"Do it."

Right. They call the bank? Turns out Mr. Corporate made a whole lot of promises he cant keep. The bank, not surprisingly, turned down the loan. It is not a good time to buy a car, not for us, not for a lot of people.

So it's back to me and my Oldsmo-fail. I gotta figure out what's wrong with it and fix it somehow. Ty was sad, he wanted a new car and asked why we didn't get one. I told him that cars are expensive, and I'd rather spend our money on Christmas presents instead. Maybe we'll try again when David gets into CHP.

What a wild ride. I totally raped those guys. They were even going to give me floor mats and free oil changes. All because I had a wad of cash.

I think I did well, even if I didn't end up getting it.

Vulgar

*sigh*

Ring ring

"Hello?"

"Hi Steppy."

"Hi Jessie, how's it going?"

"*disgusted sigh* I gotta Lorena Bobbit my door."

"You gotta who the what now?"

"My door. It has a penis. I have to get rid of it."

*silence*

"Does your phone accept picture texts?"

"Yeah."

"Kay hold on."

*he calls back*

"Someone spray painted a penis on your door Jessie."

"Ja, I know it."

"Why would somebody do that?"

"Because I called yous guys last night about a fight that Thugs McBrute-Force was starting below my balcony, and he overheard the call and they stopped the fight because of it so no officer ended up coming out, but it didn't stop him from coming back later and spray painting a penis on my front door."

"You know it was him?"

"He's the only one who hates me this much right now, and he was out thugging around last night around the time that it happened. Hey I was on my balcony talking to Mustang Sally from like 8:30 to 9:30 and he was out there, then I go inside, David comes home at 11 and says 'hey there's a penis spray painted on our door.'"

"That's terrible. I'm really sorry Jessie, did you tell your management about it?"

"Do ducks shit in the water? Of course I told them!"

"Okay. Well what would you like me to do about it?"

"Kick his ass Steppy, kick his AAAAASSSS!"

"You know I can't do that."

"*disgusted sigh* You're not going to do anything are you?"

"Look, you don't have proof, you live on private property, my hands are tied. I'm really sorry, all I can do is request more patrols for your complex."

"You're an asshole. Do your job asshole. I pay your salary."

"Well now we know why you get penises painted on your door."

"You shut up! You shut up and do your job! And I will continue to file my issues and complaints with you because I have access to you and you have access to a gun."

"I told you, I can't shoot people for you. But I'm really sorry that this happened and I hope they get your door repainted quick, and there aren't any more Halloween pranks."

"Halloween? More like Cocktober. Get me some god damned units patrolling this joint Steppy."

"Okay, I will do that."

"And stop drawing your picture on my door, I told you I'm not interested."

"Ha ha very funny."

I go out and pound on Sally's door like she always does to me. She comes out all shocked like what must I be thinking to pound on her door like that? I curl my finger, the universal sign for "come here," and then I point to my door.

"Oh my got," she says, "somebody draw scissors on your door."

"It's a penis Sally."

"Oh my got! What is wrong with someone? Why did they do this to you? Why did not they steal our Halloween decorates?"

"They weren't here to steal our Halloween decorates Sally they were here to draw a penis on my door."

"Are you sure it is not David trying to tell you something?"

"Ha ha very funny."

So then I drop the kids off at Grandma's and drive down to Super Burrito to meet my brother in law Matt, whose friend finally came through with a car option.

"Hi Matt. Someone drew a cock on my door."

"Wow, tough. So anyway this is Matt."

"Hi Matt. You got a car for me?"

"Someone drew a cock on your door?"

"Yeah, like I told Matt. Anyway Matt where's my car?"

And Matt continued to dick me around for about two hours as he tutored two young girls in tennis. All of this "Oh I gotta wait for the guy to call back," and "Oh well if you wait till next weekend I know I can get you a better deal" and blah blah fuckity blah. Dude, I cannot WAIT until next weekend I waited until this previous weekend and you're obviously not delivering. I need a car and I need it now.

Eventually he gives me the address of the warehouse or whatever, and I'm trying to get my brother in law to go along. The guy's like "No you can go alone." Im like "I dont want to go alone I want to go with Matt." This guy's like "Dude, you can go there by yourself, Matt don't know dick about cars," and I'm like "Matt, come with me."

Serious douchebag.

He tells me "If you see Gary there at the warehouse, ignore Gary, Gary's an ass. Basically what it comes down to is he's my cousin, I got into some trouble, long story short I owe him about $500,000."

lolwut?

So we get to the warehouse and they're like "$12k? Want a BMW?"

"No, I do not want a BMW."

"Okay well we don't really have any Hondas or Mazdas or what you're looking for in your price range, but we have BMW's and there's a Jag over there with 79,000 miles on it for $11k."

"...Right, well I'm looking for something with less mileage, something in a nice Japanese body."

"Not going to get that for $12k, sorry. But there's a lovely 05 Sentra with 34,000 miles on it at our lot in Mentone."

So they send me to the lot, Matt doesn't come with me. The Sentra was bullshit, even for $10k.
My money is better spent somewhere else.

Tomorrow Matt is picking me up and we're going to go slap a wad of cash on someone's table and I am going to get a fucking car. I've had it. I've had all I can stands and I can stands no more.

I feel like spray painting a cock on that douchebag's door for wasting my time.

It's contagious, I guess.

Magic Tricks

So it looks like I will be buying my car this Sunday, most likely. I was hoping for sooner but this way David can help. I just hope the Oldsmo-fail lasts that long, right now it's driving like a Suburban with a trailer attached, know what I mean? Super heavy and sluggish and getting like nine MPG. And this guy, this guy who is supposed to be getting us a deal, yeah that guy ain't doing shit, so I've begun to take the reins on this one.

You want some shit done right you get to googling, bitches.

So what am I looking at? Well the PennySaver had an ad yesterday for a dealership that had some very nice 06 and 07 Nissan Sentras for like 10k. But then I've been thinking, if I can swing a new car I'll get a warranty, and that might just pay for its self, ammiright? The problem is that there isnt much in my price range that is new, which is why I have to get the neighbor to cast voodoo spells do my homework. I've never done this before so if any of you can help me out, I'd love you for it.

Right now I am really interested in two 08 cars (08's are going slightly cheaper because the 09's just rolled out.) The first is the Mazda3. A dealer in Redlands has an Ice Blue one for $16,425, but now here's the magic part. I know after researching through several sites (Edmunds, KBB, Cars Direct, Yahoo and My Ride) that the MSRP on this car is just $13,995. Take into consideration the invoice price, which is $13,315.

But here's the real magic. I emailed the dealer, and I go "hey, what's the best price you can give me on this car?" See what I did there? I didn't give him a price, I asked him what he can do for me. Already he responded and dropped the price to $14,495. I know he can do better than that, so I told him I'd keep looking. lol. Then he writes back and says "Oh my dear sweet lady, if I have gone too high please to be telling me so, I won't let a few hundred dollars ruin a deal.

XOXO

-Mazda dude."

My plan is working.

The other car I'm digging is the Honda Fit. Do you love it? It's one of those mind boggling things where it looks really small but a bunch of 6'3" guys leave reviews for it saying it's the roomiest car they've ever driven. I swear, the Japanese peoples are god damned geniuses. And I am cool with small, I mean it gets 30+ MPG, one guy said he gets 79 MPG on it but there are no hills where he drives, but many people say that it gets better mileage than listed. You know what else was small was my Tercel. That little thing rocked, it was like driving a go-cart! With a lawnmower engine! And they seat five, so it's not like I'll have to strap a kid to the roof or anything.

Anyway, the Fit is at a Honda dealership around here for $14,750, and I'm like cha, joo know vhat? Uh-uh. MSRP is $13,950 and the invoice is $13,468. That's not too big of a window, but remember that I've also learned about things like advertising fees, rent fees, all of the stuff they should be forcing the suckers who are buying 09's to pay for, not me. I am smart like a fox. You can totally get them to wave those fees, I'm not an asshole.

Ive done some reading and I've learned some tricks...some magic tricks. When it comes to dealing with these guys, there are tricks. I found this site, among others, to be very helpful. One cool trick I learned is the one that I'm using on the Mazda guy. Contact them through email, then act uninterested. All I told him was that I'd let him know by the weekend and he already offered to knock off a few hundred bucks. I have him where I want him. See, because now what I'll do is LIE (like they do) and say that another dealership has the same car for cheaper.

Ah but what if he says pics or it didn't happen? (Because remember, this is the interbutts we are dealing on here.) Simple. "Nah, you know I don't really want to deal with it, I mean if I tell you how much they have it for you'll just undercut them by $50, then I'll go to them and they'll undercut you by $50, and I'd really just rather have you make me another offer. If it's better than their's, I'll consider it."

I learned that they'll say things like "I've only been selling cars for a few weeks." Lie. Or "You're killin' me! I've got two kids to feed." You say, "I have kids too, and if you cant feed yours then maybe you should get another job so that wont be a problem." Turn the tables.

And by not giving out numbers or saying that you have cash or are in any kind of desperation you'll make them do the haggling for you.

And if you're still not happy, walk away. Just walk away. And Connie told me not to give them my keys because she got held hostage by a dealership one time I guess for hours.

I think my brother in law is kind of impressed that I've been crunching all of these numbers and such considering he did my math homework from 8th grade on. I'm not a total badass yet, I still don't have a grasp on warranties but I'm getting there.

By the way, do you think that it helps or hurts to wear a low cut shirt when dealing with these guys? Because the Sparklet's water man who came to my door was quite intimidated by my tits-a-poppin and I'm wondering if these babies can get me some floormats or something. Leave a comment.

For Crapping Out Loud...

"The guy's mom broke her leg," my brother in law tells me. "He's been with her at the hospital all day, and he hasn't called me to tell me about the cars."

"Is this bullshit?"

"No, I've confirmed that it's a true story and all."

"But Matt, I need a car. I needed a car last week. This guy sounds like he's full of shit."

"Well yeah, I know. Like I said he's pretty much like your brother so this could all fall through."

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Okay, I'm going to start shopping online at the local dealerships, and I will find myself a fucking car. If you hear from him tonight or tomorrow, great. Otherwise, I'm doing this myself."

"Yeah okay. I'll call you if he calls me."

In other news, guess who I saw today? My old principal from high school, and she hugged me. Whoa. She called me a big grown up person with kids. She was hanging out with Principal McCuddleson and told him that seeing me makes her feel old because here I am with a kindergartner.

I should have said "No you're not old, I just start young," but that might have been inappropriate.

She knows me best as the student who wrote a long letter to the school district regarding the sexual deviant she hired as a band teacher without so much as googling his name, because when you do google his name, you will see that he was disciplined and suspended from teaching for the exact same things that he was doing to me and several other girls.

But she hugged me and wished me well, and asked me if I like Beaumont. I said I like it fine.

In other news, get a load of Mustang Sally's impotent rage via email (I usually get about 5-10 of these a day plus she comes over and pounds on my door at least three times a day to yell about something that someone did.)

i officialy hate that couple with the van and toyota...i was cleaning my trunk and they came ...toyota was parked next to me...and both of them spiled water or juice next to their car...and i had bags with cloths down and that liquid got in my bags...what the fuck...i was so pissed...i told her...beside taking my parking spot now u get my bags wet too...u knw ur not supposed to throw it here?

she just looked at me like a retard and got in the car and left

i am fucking so pissed...im calling the office

i called the office...fucking idiots,..she said she will talk to them!

i am soooooooooo pissed

This is of course regarding the people who park in her non existent parking spot. For Christmas I am buying her a "Mustang parking only" sign.

In other news,

California Highway Patrol officers are cleaning up a sticky situation that has closed all of eastbound Interstate 10 in Cherry Valley and Beaumont.

A load of glue spilled across the freeway and police have traffic stopped to clean up the gooey mess. A Riverside County Fire Department hazardous materials crew is en route.

Later on...

Authorities have mopped up a load of glue that shut down eastbound Interstate 10 in Cherry Valley and Beaumont.

The driver of a pickup went into diabetic shock due to lack of insulin and rammed into two other vehicles on the road, spilling several drums of glue on the road, California Highway Patrol Officer Chris Blondon said.

Traffic was stuck in the sticky substance for about 45 minutes as a Riverside County Fire Department cleaned up the adhesive from the freeway. The road was reopened about 3:15 p.m. at Cherry Valley Avenue.

See the fun that David has to look forward to? Glue, people! On the dang freeway! And there was a bear in Fontana this morning!

Yeah so I have my own impotent rage. I need to go back to the hugbox with Sally.