Story Time!

This is my 1,000th post on Blogger! Plus I have an estimated 400 entries over on my old blog (link in sidebar below archives.) I don't know exactly how many entries there are because only Blogger has the post counter, but there's a little over a year from when I first started at this still over there.

I asked you for story topics, and you suggested a few. I toiled over whether I should write these or make a series of videos, but I've decided to go ahead and write them out. I kind of lost my wind this weekend and didn't even go to Starbucks, but I think I can pull this off. But it will be LONG.

Let's do this thing.

No Hell Below Us, Above Us Only Sky

Miss asked me about what I know of hypnosis and spirit guides. Well my interest in hypnosis oddly enough started with my crazy brother who believes in aliens and thinks he's a king or that he's Jesus, I don't know anymore, I haven't spoken to him in three years and I'm happy with that arrangement. Anyway, before he was totally nuts, but after he was released from prison, there was a brief period of time that we were, dare I say, friends. There was a time when he was nice and he wouldn't interrupt you to spout off Alex Jones quotes or something about the Freemasons. He was smart and he could actually hold a halfway decent conversation.

He lived in our other brother's garage at the time, basically just smoking weed and playing on the computer all day. He invited Victor and I (yes this pre-dates David) to come over, I think because he was possibly faking a seizure or something and needed our "help." In other words he wanted free weed and Victor knew how to get it.

So what all this has to do with hypnosis is he was talking about how he could do it, and Victor offered himself up. Victor was a strong willed guy who would call people on their bullshit left and right. He was in fact what I'd like to call an evil genius. So if Victor could be hypnotized, perhaps there was less delusion to this than I had first thought. Sure enough as my brother walked him through the steps, which involved a well in the middle of a field and being 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 feet up in the air and floating back down to 40, 30, 20, 10 feet above it until you gently float down inside it. Once through the well you are in your house. And by the way Victor's eyelids were twitching, his breathing slowing, and his verbal responses taking longer than usual, I knew this wasn't just some shit.

I went home and did a lot of research on it before deciding that this was real and it was something I could do, and I use this same induction today as it seems to be the most reliable for me. In band the leaders actually did mass hypnosis on all of us by having us lay on the floor and they would tell us to go to our "cabins," which is not unlike the house in the well. Your house, or cabin, is decorated how you want. There are pictures of your family, or friends, the furniture is how you want, etc. There is an attic and a basement and the only person I know who wasn't afraid to go into the basement was Victor, but then he screamed and wanted to go back up. Yeah, seriously. I think later he said he saw spiders. But when we did the cabin hypnosis in band I had this great little cabin in the middle of a meadow, it was so pretty, it's what I would like to own someday. The weird thing is that it went even further and I had this husband guy there and I knew that I wasn't in 1999, more like 1899. I had oil lamps and candles and there was a little girl picking flowers in my meadow. Except I see this black man coming in the distance, and as I squinted I saw that it was Quincy who was laying right next to me. Fucking Quincy. You know what he did? He torched my cabin and it burned to the ground and he laughed the whole time. When they woke us up Quincy was still laughing in real life. I was never able to go to my cabin again. Fucking Quincy.

I've put a handful of people under, like maybe 10. There are two people who I could not put under and that is my Marine friend and my cop friend. I think the gubment scrambled their brainwaves, plus they've been reprogrammed to take control of other people psychologically so it sort of makes sense that they go "this isn't working at all," and "I cant be hypnotized."

By the way, everyone says they cant be hypnotized, and besides those two rare cases, they all go.

David is easy to put under and I can even put him out using the handshake method, where I shake his hand and every time he blinks I just raise his arm a little higher until his body associates closing his eyes with me raising his arm, then I yank on it and he's passed out. But that one isn't as fun because I think the house in the well is the most comfortable for people.

What I like about it is that I learn so much about the afterlife by talking to people when they're under. I don't know if there is a god, I'm not all that interested in knowing that. I have no proof of it either way and I've seen no evidence. But what I do know is that we are not alone as individuals on this planet, and you do not only live once. Everyone I've put under, including the neighbor, has spoken of a person in their house who they say is their spirit guide. There's a person with them, in fact in David's case he noticed that the lights were on up in his attic and he heard somebody vacuuming (because you should keep your house clear of cobwebs, which it will be full of if you don't clean it out as often by visiting it, even through self hypnosis.) That's when he met Ross.

They're there with you from the time you're in the womb until the time you're dead. You know how people say that their life flashes before their eyes when they have a near death experience? When you die, your guide shows you sort of like a movie play back of your life, kind of like a clip show or a highlights reel. That night that I had that weird flashback of Victor could have been his reel flipping through, as his dad tells me that the day before he died he looked very tired and ready to go, he could see it in his eyes. Why it flashed over for me I don't know. I don't have great communication with my guide and I only ever see her in dreams, but I've learned to listen for the thoughts that contain the right answer. "Should I just swallow my fear and just go to lunch with this friend?" Usually the answer is yes and that I need to stop being such an anti-social pussy.

I actually have great control of my dreams and oh, by the way, I saw Steve again in a dream the other night. He was playing the saxophone and I asked him why he was there, but the answer he gave me didn't make any sense. Victor made an appearance too, a spooky one. I was watching all of these graduates in their caps and gowns and they were passing me, and then one of them looked at me and it was him. Scared the fuck out of me. We exchanged no words. I haven't had a dream with him in it in about six years.

When people walk around in their house they see these pictures, meet their guides. My ex friend Sara always had this weird kid following her around her house. My ex friend Kristie met the "imaginary friend" that she played with as a child and would tell her parents had "died a very long time ago in a fire." Sally has a strong older man named Elias. Furthermore, Sally's picture frames were all full of men wearing those colonial white wigs like George Washington, and when she went into one of the rooms a man in a white wig and a Civil War period uniform was down on his knees in front of her begging for forgiveness. In real life, an actual tear fell from the corner of her eye. Later she would tell me that she didn't know what he was sorry about, but all she knew was that it made her very, very sad to even look at him. Sally's got some issues. Deep seeded wig wearing issues.

Sometimes I tell people to go back 10 years. Where are you? Go back 15 years, where are you? One time I asked David to go back like 18 years when he was only 19, and he couldn't talk. Later when I woke him up he said he was sitting in a high chair eating green beans. But what if you make a person go back to before they were born? That's when things get interesting.

David is afraid of the ocean, which is why we never go to the beach. But why he is afraid may be linked to the fact that when I brought him back 50 years one time, he said that he was a sailor. He said he had fallen in love with his best friend's wife, and his best friend was on the ship with him. I told him to fast forward to the day of his death. That's when he told me that his friend stabbed him and then threw him overboard but he was still alive, bleeding and floating in the middle of the ocean by himself. He says he still doesn't know what happens next.

Interesting still is that David can remember this life in the 1800's, this cabin he has with oil lamps and candles in the middle of a meadow. He has a wife and a little girl who likes to pick flowers in the meadow.

Seems we've done this before.

I see proof of these things when people who are under, without any other prompting than me just asking questions like "what do you see?" tell me all the same story. They have spirit guides, they have memories of lives they know they lived but that aren't of their current selves.

I don't know about creation or evolution, it doesn't interest me. What interests me is that there is another side and we all go there. It's not based on whether you accept someone as your savior or never covet your neighbor's wife, it's based on the fact that if there is a god, he's not nearly as angry and vengeful and selfish as the god of the bible is portrayed as. We all go there, and the ones you've lost are not only waiting, but they're hanging out with you. And it is beautiful there.

One last thing, I haven't told you this yet as I've tried to keep this as a silent nod of understanding, but it further proved that they're never really gone. They send us little signs, they tend to say hello, I mean everyone has had at least one "ghost" sighting or one weirdly creepy moment that reminds them of their grandmother, something they cant really explain. Some are weirder than others. Sometimes they just send us signs, or little reminders. Sometimes your mom's perfume will fill the air even though she's been dead for years.

When I walked out of the funeral parlor to my car it was raining and cold. I heard a piercing screech, and when I looked up there was a huge, huge, HUGE red tailed hawk circling less than 10 feet above my head. It followed me to my car. It perched on a lamp post and watched me leave. I drove to Victor's grandma's house for the reception, which is about two miles from the funeral parlor. After I slunk out of there since it was so weird and kind of uncomfortable, even though Alex had met me and was fairly nice to me, I walked outside and again I heard the screech, and again that same bird was circling right above my head. Hawks don't normally circle that low. It flew to a lamp post above my car, and I watched in my mirror as I pulled away. Once I was going down the street, he took off and flew over my car, really low, and then went nose up into the sky. He was gone.

A sign from god would seem less personal to me. When things like this happen, I chalk them up to being from exactly who I think they're from. Exactly who I used to go hawk watching with.

On Being Pregnant Teenagers

Things don't always turn out like how you plan. When I started gaining a little weight I thought maybe I was diabetic. After all, I was on the pill so it couldn't be THAT. Cha, think again. And? I was seven months along. I don't know what happened, I had been bleeding every month and I sure didn't look like I was about to have a baby. It seems that I don't show until I'm about nine months along, so that was not a good indicator. There was only one thing for me to do, and that was to poop out this baby.

When I told my sister, she asked who the father was, and it was David. I don't think she liked that. After all, David was that 15 year old kid I had been probably too close to for the past several months. I was 19. But when it all started we were 18 and 14. How did that even happen?

You have to understand that in band you are not segregated by grades and ages, you are segregated by instruments. And it is not at all like a normal class where you see each other exclusively during class and maybe you call each other on the weekends. No, band is like a second family. You eat together, you go on long trips together, you practice together, you get in trouble together, and between giving the performances of your lives in front of judges, there is quite a bit of down time. Down time which lets you get to know each other.

I didn't like David at first. He was Nick's cousin and I hated Nick. David must have been the same...only as it turned out, he wasn't. He was way different than Nick, and hey, why aren't you in any of my classes? How come I never see you on campus?

What do you mean you're a FRESHMAN? You're like 17 right?

Oh.

He was mature for his age, and smart as a whip. Other than being purposely silly for the sake of entertainment, which is how I roll as well, I totally thought he was older.

Well anyway, we were still friends, in fact we got along throughout the year. What I liked about David was that he wasn't above making himself look like an ass to make people laugh, and that is basically how I got by in life so I had a bit of a soft spot for him. We ended up dating later, we ended up falling in love, we ended up pregnant.

There was just one thing I had to do before I figured out what I was going to do. I had to give David the option. I told him, "If you don't want anything to do with this baby I understand, and I will never look for you or bother you again after today. I will drop you off at your house and you never have to say anything about this to anyone. But if you want to stay, I am holding you to your word and I expect you to stay. The choice is yours."

He chose to stay.

Note to my teenage fanbase: It's not typical that they stay, so don't push your luck. Don't try to find a David because they don't bloody exist, okay?

His parents were somewhat hostile, which confused me because they were fully aware that David and I were having sexual relations. The day they found out that we were having sex because his brother ratted him out like a sniveling little bitch, they let us go to the movies. That's right, what Matt pulled was a bitch move. And for the record, they never told him to practice "safe sex," even though we were. I still don't know what happened to this day, other than it was a birth control pill failure and the failure was not on my part because I was still taking the damn things until I found out that somewhere along the line they stopped working.

The problem is that my inlaws are very disingenuous people. His mother especially. As soon as she knew there was a baby she turned on me quick, and she would say things to David like "don't let her put our name on the birth certificate" because they were convinced that I was going to sue them for child support. They were convinced that I was a slut and that the baby wasn't even David's. They were mean old assholes and they said a lot of nasty things to me. They said I was an adult, LOL! Being 18 does not make you an adult! Sure, legally it does but honestly what 18 year old do you know can always make the right decision, can fully support themselves, and can act like a so called adult? The only adults in the situation were them, who did not put an end to letting their son go out with me even though they knew exactly what was going on. Not that I'm claiming stupidity here, of course it was my fault and of course it was David's fault too. My point is that they turned on me and made me feel like I had something to prove to them, which I didn't. I saw what awful people they could be and I started to understand why David was allowed out of the house so much. I also started to respect David a great deal more because that apple fell pretty far from that tree, even rolling down a hill and getting caught in a river. If he didn't look exactly like them I'd swear he was switched at birth.

They also blamed me for David denouncing his religion. I remember his mom yelling at us that he was too young to have his own opinion. Would you believe that he figured out the god myth at eight but was too afraid to say anything? I mean he had his bouts of "I have to be good, I have to believe, I have to be good," which I now call "pulling a Steppy." You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. Unless you are Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make him drink. Seriously.

When Ty was born I lived with my sister and David lived with his parents. David came over after school every day to help me with the baby, and then go home at night. On the weekends I would sleep there with the baby and he would take over the night feedings and changings. We were financially being supported by my sister for the most part. I ran out of formula one time and I asked his dad for $20 and he said no, so I had to drive out to San Bernardino to get money from my sister while she was at work. I still don't think they believe that David is Ty's father, they wanted DNA testing when he was born and I was just rather insulted by it. I was exclusively seeing David and had been since June, there's nobody else even in the picture to consider because I wasn't fucking anyone else. It's that simple! That's how science works! But perhaps they don't believe that I'm not a slut. It's not really up to them to decide that though. I learned that.

What it came down to with the way we were living life was that it was just too bothersome to have to leech, and we needed to be able to try to do this on our own. We wanted to get away from the poison that his family would pour into his ear about me, and I was tired of being ridiculed anyway. Thems were some bitches, or alcoholics rather. It's all the same when I go about making decisions about how we're going to raise our child and his mom tells him "You don't EVER make a decision with HER, you always come to ME and WE will decide TOGETHER." We had to start doing this on our own, so David took a special test that allowed him to graduate high school two years early and he put in an application at Stater's.

No, we did not financially support ourselves entirely for quite some time. There was no way that we could, he was making $127 a week at Stater's and making 80 mile round trips to get there because he had been hired at the one in Rialto. His parents and my sister basically paid our rent for I don't know how long, but we were trying, and with trying comes trial and error, and we were learning. Most importantly, we were happy. Very very happy.

Now we have money and we're a lot better off, I've learned to tell people to rotate on my middle digit if they've got a problem with me, and David is healthy as a horse. And we're still very very happy.

Favorite Memories

Kelly asked me what my favorite memory and my worst memory is, and I've decided that the only way I can give a proper answer is to divide this up into sections of my life.

Elementary school:

Best: My sister told me that if I kept my room clean all week she would let me come over to her house for dinner on Friday. I did it, and she picked me up and I was as excited as Ty is when she says she's taking him somewhere. I don't remember what we ate, but I do know that there were Goldfish crackers that were just for me and I could have as many as I wanted. She lived in a trailer and I think she was working at the daycare center and going to college.

Worst: Being picked on by Kim Bergeon (PS that name has been googled because I saw the hit come in, so I hope she reads every word of this.) She picked on me because my dad was dead and she found that hilarious. He'd only been in the ground a few months when third grade started. She was mean to me, she rode my bus and was at my stop. I swear to god I hope that awful little bitch gets AIDS or something, I mean if she was that bad as a kid she must have grown up into a scumbag of a human. But I think my sister knew that I was being picked on at the bus stop so sometimes she would drive by when I was walking to it and pick me up. One time she even gave me some My Little Ponies because I said that all of my friends had them but I didn't. That was way better than riding the bus.

Middle school:

Best: Making up songs about chickens and laughing so hard that I was drooling. I had so many friends, Amanda was my best friend. We had so few cares at that time in our lives and we didn't give a shit what the student body thought of us.

Worst: Being the only girl with boobs and being called "Shamu" because of that. I had C's in 7th grade and even though I was rail thin people were always making fun of how tall I was and how big my boobs were.

Jr. High:

Best: Going to Six Flags Magic Mountain with the band and getting to hang out with Stephanie all day even though her mom had banned us from being friends. We ate candy all day and went on Viper six times. I still have pictures.

Worst: The bitchy band teacher making me cry. Her name was Miss Sotello and she chastised me in front of the entire band CONSTANTLY. She was mean and I heard that she was sleeping with a high school student. I don't know if that was true but she was vicious and she would humiliate students by making an example of them. I had just bought a trombone with the money my dad left me when he died and she told me that if I was going to continue to play as bad as I was (which I really wasn't THAT bad) then my dad would be spinning in his grave over the money I had spent on it. I fucking lost it. That's when I met Bill.

High school:

Best: The whole beginning of my sophomore year. I had just gotten with Victor and he was still awesome at that point, except for a few things that I couldn't see but everyone else could, which now brings me to the conclusion that Victor and I should have stayed friends but never, ever dated. I wore my hair different every single day and it was bright yellow with orange and red streaks. We had to take this dance class in PE and I ended up sneaking off to a cowboy dance bar with this gentleman. I had the time of my fucking life.

Worst: My band friends breaking into my house at 4:00 in the morning for the traditional breakfast kidnapping and me having to tell them that I couldn't go. I made up some lie about being sick but really Victor just didn't want me doing things like that. I also couldn't go on the overnight trips or go to anyone's house, and I really regret the fun times that I know I missed out on because I let him convince me that his happiness depended on how I behaved.

First few years after graduation:

Best: Driving on this mountain road after the rain with David, and everything was all golden. He put his hand on my thigh and I knew that we were in love.

Worst: Back labor. My god. They couldn't get me the epidural right away and I was dilated to eight before they were able to help me out. Then I pushed for two hours.

Recent:

Best: David and me walking through the snow on top of Mt. San Jacinto, alone and holding hands and trying not to fall in.

Worst: It's a cross between picking David up off the side of the road with his broken collar bone and seeing how much pain he was in and the Civic being stolen and stripped a few weeks after that.

How's About Wade?

Wade is great. He's 3 1/2, he's potty trained, and covered in freckles. We think he's cut out for football because he just randomly surprise attacks his brother by just knocking into him and then tackling him and holding him down on the ground all while laughing. He talks and he plays on the floor for hours with little cars and figurines and does the little voices for them and everything just like I used to do. I cant get him to stop stealing things like crackers and smashing them into the carpet in his room though, it happens all the time. I've had to stop buying crackers because of this.

He still cant drink milk, but we give him a little cheese and he seems to be fine, but sometimes he says his stomach hurts. A little pizza now and then seems to be okay for him.

He's very sweet and loveable but he can pitch a red headed fit like none other if he's tired or really upset. He plays outside with Ty and his friends and the other day he came stomping up the stairs and said "Mama, somebody called me a baby!" and I told him to tell them to stop calling him a baby. He returned a while later and said "Mama, somebody called me Wade!" I told him that was his name. He said oh, and went back down to play. He looks exactly like David.

As for Ty even though you didn't ask, his teacher called me the other day to tell me how awesome he is and how mature he is acting in class. Furthermore, he got another report card full of 4's (A+'s) and this is what is written in the notes: "WOW! Perfect attendance! Ty is an amazing student. He shows great attention to detail and is quite observant. He is meeting and exceeding the grade level standards. Ty enjoys playing with his friends and doing excellent work."

He mostly plays with girls at school and has had perfect attendance since the beginning of the year. His favorite food is pizza (of course) and he's tired of his Cars backpack. He asked where babies come from and I gave him a vague yet satisfying and age appropriate answer and he also asked how the first people got here. I asked him how he thought that the first people got here, because I don't know for sure and neither do any of you, even though you might have an idea. I want Ty to find his own answers.

We go to Lowes and Home Depot for their free kids workshops where we build bird houses and rain gages and cars and stuff using real wood and real nails and real hammers every weekend that they have them.

Ty keeps a blog that he writes by himself right here.

Is She Really Going Out With Him?

The last thing I remember was waking up to David patting my butt and saying, "I fucked you good last night," and then getting up. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

That's when I had this dream.

In the dream I got up so I thought of course that this was IRL, and it was 4:00 in the morning and David was missing. The neighbor was leaving for work so I asked her where he was and she said she didn't know. Eventually I saw him walking across the lawn and I wanted to know what the hell was going on, so he comes in and he's like "promise you wont be mad at me if I tell you."

Right, so he tells me that he'd been working at some battered womens shelter in Ventura county for some reason, and that he was going to be moving out there whether I came with him or not. I demanded an explanation, I wanted to know what ever happened to him being a cop and he said he didn't have that calling anymore. He was going to work at this shelter. Then these middle schoolers came crawling into our windows like monkeys and one of them asked if I was a Jew and I slapped him across the face.

That's about the time that Ty came in the room and woke me up in real life to say, "Wade drew all over himself with a marker."

I got up and saw that it was past 9:30, which is fine because it's spring break, and I came out to the living room. David was on the couch with his little dinky computer open, a calculator and all of these diagrams on graph paper. Good old David. I asked him what was up and he said that my sister gave him permission to grow hops in her ditch and he was designing a trellis, and in order to do that he had to use the Pythagorean theorem to figure out the hypotenuse of a right triangle or something, I don't know.

Good old David.

Sally must be troubled because the car parked next to the Mustang all night is the one that belongs to her ex. The one who broke her heart and left her a month before the wedding, the one she's always having drama with, the one she blew through the $10,000 her parents gave her for the wedding in a month with, the one who calls her names and hurts her feelings and all this other stuff. Thing is, this is the third guy she's been with in three days besides the Indian in the Smart Car and the guy in the ditch. I've never seen her so slutty, in fact, she's never really been slutty. She does a lot of shit that I don't do but I can count the number of mens she's had at her apartment since we've been friends on one hand. She has a lot of mens but few actually get to have her.

But him? Her ex? THAT guy? The guy who she had just said the day before that she wanted to cut the balls off of?

She was in a robe this morning drinking coffee on the porch. "Sally, why?"

"He found out that I am higher than him at work now and I could have him fired. He called me six times yesterday."

"So you slept with him?"

"He is kissing my ass, literally."

"Sally..."

"Listen, I learn to keep your enemies closer than your friends, make him to think that everything is okay and then BAM! They get hit so fast they don't know what was hitting them."

"Don't you feel like you're lowering yourself a little?"

"I have plan."

"Yeah but plans don't always work out!" She of all people should know this. "You've got a lot of dirt on him, make your life a lot easier by just tossing him out on his ass and throwing him under the bus at work."

"Yeah but then what I would then have to play with?"

Somehow I have a feeling that this was all a part of an elaborate sex tape scheme and he's going to end up getting HER fired. Somehow I don't think it's in her best interest to be playing with these mens. Somehow I don't think she knows this or cares.

Somehow I think she's just making up for Steppy's rejection.

Her vagina and what she does it is none of my concern but I feel bad for her. After all I think we're still friends. Despite all this.

I needed to go to the grocery store today, the one in Yucaipa because I'm tired of running into her at the store along with everyone else I know here, and a dancing taco wearing a sombrero made me hungry for empanadas so I was pleased to find that Fresh and Easy sells them frozen. I also found aerosol pancakes which I thought would make a clever video. I cant explain, you'll just have to see it to believe it. I bought cauliflower and garlic so that maybe I'd have an excuse to let her feel superior to me by cooking me something that I don't know how to make, I know that makes her happy, and like I said when it comes to her competitive cooking I'm all for it.

Sometimes I want to shake her by the shoulders but I think she would probably roundhouse kick me. I'm not prepared for that, she probably fights like a warrior princess.

U-G-L-I YOU AINT GOT NO ALIBI

Remember the old days when David and I used to buy weird crossbred fruits and make videos of us eating them? I found something called an Ugli Fruit at Stater's and bought it. This is what it looks like:

I have to warn you not to eat or drink anything while watching this video, it's actually the best eating stuff video we've ever done, and probably the funniest video I've ever made, possibly even better than the belly dancing video. Of course that's a matter of opinion and all, but I actually made this a few weeks ago and then rewatched it tonight and almost choked to death on some marshmallow Peeps.

Nightmare mode: watch the entire video without cracking the slightest of smiles. Don't forget to rate it below with the little stars, I want to know what you guys think of my ugliness.

Sally And Her Wham-Bam Thank You Ma'am

I love freaking people the fuck out with our bathroom.

Miss came over last night and when she used our atomic lime green bathroom she was blinded. She couldn't see a thing. Except for GREEEN! Glorious GLORIOUS GREEN!

David handcuffed her and modeled a strange contraption that we are supposed to review for the sex toy site (not something I picked, I didn't even know what it was when I accepted the assignment.) She drank our beer (and liked it!) and I gave her a box of condoms because I owed her one. I love Miss, there's something about her. Problem is that she's closer to LA than to wherever I am out here in the middle of nowhere, so it's not like we hang often. But the good times roll, still.

I think we must have been discussing vaginal tearing when we heard keys jingle and then the click click click of heels on the front porch. I got up, jumped over Miss's legs and ran to the door to stick my face through the peep hole, which I totally forgot is covered up with an Easter decoration right now, which I'm going to have to move. Miss came tumbling after and I threw open the door. Miss had specific instructions to lay low if Sally came knocking because Sally wont say her shit with people around.

I guess this is a form of exploitation but she's anonymous here. I have no defense, really.

With Miss hiding behind the door I asked Sally where she was going. "To have sex," she answered casually as if she were just going to get the mail. I love you Sally.

"With who?" I ask, because she had just emailed me saying that she let the Indian guy kiss her "lips." I'll get back to that in a minute.

"That guy who lives over there," she points.

"Oh the one with the Jacuzzi?" confirming that it was the guy in the houses by us as I had suspected. Indeed he was. David tried to hand her a beer over my head and I told him to back off because she was leaving. When Sally left, Miss went on our balcony looking for her, but of course she was around the building by then.

"I think we can see her from my room?" I said and we all three dashed to my bedroom window to look out at her as she got into the infamous Mustang.

"You guys are fucking crazy," Miss says, "You went all running out of here like the place was on fire!"

Um, hello, shut up, goodbye Miss...Sally is THE most interesting woman in the world. Me, I'm not that interesting, but a lot of shit happens around me that make it seem crazier than it is. I've never just gone off to have sex like her...which could be because I'm not a slut but even still. She's worth running through the house for.

Miss stayed way late and there was a quick lived barrage of sex toys and I stole the neighbor's ash tray for her to use because she's a filthy smoker. Sally isn't a smoker but her mens sometimes are. Most of her mens are I should say.

Then today I went to go do lunch with David and there she was parked by his bins. David excitedly tells me that she's cooking Romanian food (no surprise, and it's the cabbage/pork dish that takes all day long to make just as I suspected, remember? I fucking called that shit, I knew she was going to get back at me for the Steppy thing, even though her revenge is a dish best served with all of the deliciously spicy juices spilling out the sides onto the plate with a slice of bread to soak it all up. She can be pissed all she wants.) She comes up and is all friendly. I asked her how her date went.

"Oh fine. He has a big party with his friends, with a big fire thingy on his driveway. We hang out and then go behind into the field, wham-bam thank you ma'am," she says and claps her hands then snaps a finger.

"You did it in a field?"

"Well you know where the water should be going through?"

Oh she's talking about the wash. The one that the cop jumped out at me and asked if I had drugs or warrants.

"You're crazy."

"He says if I'm using him, and I say, 'you have any complaints?' and he said no, so good right?"

"What about the Indian guy?"

"I let him go down there. I figure this, he is old so not everything for him works anymore." The guy is like in his 50's. "So he has been to practicing with the oral sex for a long time. So I figure he was good at it and worth it and I was right! He tried to asked me for blow job but I didn't."

Well I don't see why not.

It's a beautiful spring day. The birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, and Sally is fucking people in fields late at night.

Miss left sometime after midnight and I don't think Sally was home by then. All I know is she's all golden skinned today wearing her usual all black garb and I can smell pork and spices in my own kitchen through the walls. And I just know that when David is home she'll bring over a plate and hold it just below her cleavage, pout sweetly and make him take the plate from her hands so that she can accidentally move and brush her boobs against them, and then tickle his chin with her acrylic nails.

I'm thinking of inviting her for a pedicure this weekend before we go to Starbucks to write so that I can watch the creature in her natural habitat.

Barrista girl by the way wont make eye contact with me in the laundry room so no blossoming friendship there. Will report any changes.

PS Still looking for stories to share for my 1,000th post (this is post 997.) Any stories you want me to tell, suggest them below.

Hardcore Ukulele Volume V: Santeria by Sublime

There were cops EVERYWHERE today! That's because of these guys...

THOUSANDS of them. Bicycles. And I don't give a shit about bicycles but I got stopped at the intersection on my street for like 10 minutes and I just happened to have my camera, so I just happened to snap some pictures.

Kay, enough bikes, it can be this time now?



Those guys are from Palm Springs. I love them like broccoli kitten loves broccoli.

Right, so I wore a rather low cut shirt to try to get some attention. Makin' cops thirsty for milk ALL OVER THIS TOWN!

And I'm making you thirsty for milk for my new ukulele challenge, "Santeria" by Sublime. If you know this song, you'll notice that the uke version is a bit different. If you don't know this song, believe me when I say that I've got something for your punk ass.

Plus interruption bloopers! Including me getting Rickroll'd right in the middle of the song and a warm and welcome knock at the door from...you'll see.

PS: My 1,000th post on Blogger is coming up in a few days and I want to do story time. Please suggest stories that you would like me to tell. Sort of like the ask me posts but this will require more detail on my part.

Social Enemies

It's 11:00 and Steppy calls me. He's eating something crunchy.

*crunch crunch crunch* "You okay?" *crunch crunch crunch*

"Yeah um...I guess so, why?"

*crunch crunch* "You're on Twitter saying your vagina is hurting." *crunch crunch*

"Aren't you working right now?"

*crunch crunch crunch* "Yeah. I'm bored. Saw on my Crackberry that you're on Twitter saying your vagina is hurting." *crunch crunch*

"That's why you called?"

*crunch crunch crunch crunch* "Yeah." *crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch* "Are you pregnant?" *crunch crunch crunch*

"Uh, I don't think so."

*crunch crunch crunch* "But it's possible, right?" *crunch crunch*

"Well sure it's possible, we haven't used any kind of birth control in years and we do it like pretty much all the time."

...pause...*crunch*...pause...*crunch crunch* "You could be having a miscarriage." *crunch crunch crunch crunch*

"There's no blood or anything, it just really hurts for some reason. It hurts when I walk. Actually it hurts when I open my legs, and that sucks because I need to be able to open my legs. It's how I get by in life!"

...pause...*crunch crunch*...pause...

"Well anyway, I'm not pregnant but thank you for asking and taking so much interest in my vagina."

*crunch crunch* "Oh I'm always interested in your vagina, but if you start bleeding go to the emergency room, okay?" *crunch*

"I don't have insurance."

*crunch crunch crunch crunch* "Don't let that keep you from going, if you need medical attention you need to go get it, okay?" *crunch crunch*

"What in the hell are you eating?"

*crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch* "Fritos." *crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch* " 'N bean dip." *crunch*

"Bring me some?"

*crunch crunch* "Why? Are you craving Fritos and bean dip?" *crunch crunch*

"I'm not pregnant."

*crunch crunch* "Well if you are, I'm just saying IF, uh...yeah, go to the ER if that pain persists." *crunch crunch*

"I'm not pregnant. I'm pretty sure something's wrong with me anyway. Or one of us. Seriously, this defies logic because looking at our track record I should have been knocked up at least twice by now."

*crunch crunch crunch* "Well I'm Mormon so I could give it a go just to rule out whether it's David who has the problem or not." *crunch crunch*

"Did you seriously just offer to impregnate me with your Mormon seed?"

...pause...*crunch* "I have to go back to work now. *crunch*

"Yeah, do that. Toodle-ooh."

"Bye-eee!" *crunch crunch click*

Look, I don't know what's going on but all I do know is things aint been quite right since that doctor fisted me. You don't know weird until you look down and there is a man up to his elbow in your poon-tiggity-tang-tong. Mopping out your insides with a handful of terrycloth rags. I don't know but ever since then things aint been quite right. Of course I haven't had my vagina looked at in almost four years like you're supposed to. I've decided that I need medical insurance so we're going to bite the bullet and get it through David's work next time they offer it up. The kids are already taken care of through the state but for some reason we're on a weird income cusp where we qualify for Medi-Cal for the kids but we make too much for him and I to be covered.

I know, you shouldn't mess around when bad things are going on with your cooter but I figure I'm relatively healthy. I'm 25 and I've never had a yeast infection, plus I'm not out whoring around so I'm not at risk for STD's or anything. Unless David were whoring around but if David were whoring around he would tell me.

I know everyone says that, but knowing what you know about me and David, do you think he would tell me?

It's the way that I talk that keeps me from signing up for a ride-along. There's no guarantee that I'd get Steppy and I know I'd just say something bad in front of the cop because you know how I get all nervous and start talking all dysfunctional like and I know it would just end up with the cop driving up to Idyllwild and opening my door and saying "This is the part of the evening where you get out." He'd be abandoning me in the forest and saying "Run girl, you're free now. Get out of here! I don't want you no more, GET!" and if I try to get back in the car he would shoot at my feet.

The weirdest part was that it felt like my bones down there were all shifting, you know how they do when you're getting ready to squat out a person or right after you've done such an act. David was only mildly interested in my problems because he's got pains of his own, plus we're both sick right now. I had trouble sleeping because every way I laid it hurt.

This morning it is better though, but something still seems off. Not significantly off, like "maybe it's cancer" off but then again I'm also wondering if it could have been gas or something. I know that sounds weird but sometimes if I have milk I get horrible horrible pains in the whole general region down there. The neighbor by the way is not convinced of my allergy, and she will often bring me a bowl of ice cream or a pudding pie that she's made.

"Eat this."

"Hello? Sally? Milk allergy!"

"Oh sorry, I forget. You sure you don't want this?" and she looks at me suspiciously.

"No Sally."

"You sure it's just not my cooking you don't like?"

"Sally, it's ice cream. You scooped this from a bucket in your freezer."

"But if you do not eat it I will, and I will not want to be fat."

"Then stop buying ice cream! And stop bringing me ice cream!"

"Okay," she starts to pad off. "You sure you cant have just some?"

"No Sally."

"Whatever."

This is like when she goes to Walgreens and brings back an "extra" mascara or the eyeshadow was buy one get one free. "I thought you could use, and look, is in your color!"

My color is not her color, so how it just so happened that she bought shades meant for redheaded freckle girls is just BEYOND me. She pulled this little stunt this morning. She's been messing with me lately.

"I don't wear makeup Sally."

"Oh that is right. Well maybe, I could put on you? Show how how? You know?"

"I'm good, thanks."

"But you would look so pretty."

"That's okay, David and Steppy both think I'm pretty already."

She's over the fact that she cant have David, but she's still all burned up about Steppy. She tells me to have a good day and then practically slams the door on me. I lol'd.

The neighbor is not someone I would go to with my vagina problems. I know that going to the internet isn't great, and the whole scenario with the Step shoving corn chips down his pie hole while advising me to seek medical help isn't quite right, but going to Sally would be worse. She has all these pills that she would insist that I take and I don't know what all of them are. Or she would cast a spell. Voodoo-ise me. The neighbor and her fucking Voo-doo shit. The last thing I need is Voo-doo Vagina and Sally asking all the time if it worked. Then again she hasn't cast any Vagina Voo-doo to lure in the cute cop boy. In fact at this point I think she has resorted to covering herself with leaves in hopes that he will fall in. And slamming the door on my face when I remind her that ha ha, bitch doesn't HAVE IT NO MO!

It's wrong, but it's still kind of funny. I'm not even sure if Sally and I are friends or just rivals. She brings coffee cake over to my husband and says "Oh I made it all by myself, is good?" and bats her eyelashes, and yeah, when I'm saying goodbye to Steppy and she is out, I lay it on all thick and hug him and tell him to call me. Whisper something in his ear that makes him smile or blush, then when he tries to leave I pull him back to me again and whisper something else. Usually it's just like "she's so fucking pissed right now that I'm even touching you. Look at her. Now smile a little bit and act like I said something really naughty."

And he does it.

Unless perhaps Sally is behind the vagina pains, like maybe she's got a little doll of me and is stabbing it right in the yeah as punishment for being in the spa with Steppy.

I guarantee she'll bring over some kind of stewed meat tonight, and it will only be one plate and she'll ask me to save it for David to try.

Le sigh, who am I kidding? I'm on my way to the store to buy cauliflower so she'll make some conopida up in here.

Social enemies is more like it.

When You Say Nothing At All

The Starbucks barrista girl who moved into my building was out talking to a sergeant when I left the house. She's thin and young and she's got a baby on her hip. He's in an SUV and he's parked behind some people's cars but not behind mine. I look at Barrista girl and she looks at me, and I wonder if she recognizes me. She's still wearing a plastic flower in her hair.

"It's just so hard for a woman, you know?" she says to the sergeant.

I think she's a single mom, and I think what is happening here is he took that empty "keep an eye on the place for me" she flashed to him when I was there literally, and he's here to keep an eye on the place for her.

The more the merrier.

I wonder if she and I could become friends.

Then again I wonder about her drama and what that would entail in a friendship.

There's another girl who lives in a top story apartment that's right on the left side of me, Sally occupying the right. She has a little newborn and she moved here when she was pregnant. I never see anyone over except who I assume could be the baby daddy, and she looks about my age. Her balcony is adorable with a chair and a pillow and on her little table she's got a big thick book and a bottle of wine, which could be empty and she might not be reading the book but I was also impressed this weekend when she tacked up some lattice and started a jasmine vine on it. This inspired/pissed off David and he marched down to Home Depot to pick up raspberry and honeysuckle vines that he wants to grow along the front of our railing. He will not be outdone.

He actually wanted to do the exact same thing that she had done but I begged him not to. "I dont want to look like a copy cat," which of course only matters if we ever start up a conversation. Because it could start like "Why did you copy me?" and that's almost as bad as Sally greeting me with "What you are doing?" like she did. Scaring the crap out of me. But at least she wasn't hostile or accusing me of anything. Plus if I tack up lattice where she did, I couldn't talk across the stairway to Sally from our balconies. It's romantic.

I talked to Kelly Kelly Kelly on the phone last night and she said that I am lucky. Lucky? Yeah, she said I'm lucky. Something about having a great husband and a guy best friend. I admit that it's awesome that David turned out to not be a douchebag but I think I knew that before we were even dating. Then again, you all know how Victor went so sour, so things can happen. You think you know a person, then they show you where they scratched the word PAIN on their arm and said that you had done it to them.

And I'm lucky to live next door to a blog fodder machine, because she has saved my ass from having nothing but lame ass shit to post. Then again, my guy best friend and my neighbor come over here with their dysfunctions and their drama, and they want my advice but they seldom take it.

If you want a good therapist talk to David. David doesn't say anything, he just lets you talk at him until you talk yourself into an explanation and come to your own conclusion. And he just nods. It's amazing. Me, I'll give it to you straight and I think sometimes that hurts people's feelings. But honestly if you wanted people to lie about you and agree with you when you do bad things, then I probably dont even want your friendship.

I guess Steppy had something happen to him at work, I dont know what and even if I did I couldn't tell you because the whole secrecy thing. All I know was he came in and said he needed a hug. "For a while." He's always troubled, but he looked like extra disheveled this time. He said he didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted to cuddle. I didn't ask, I just did as I was told. I could tell that this wasn't an "I'm trying to have sex with you" situation, the guy was genuinely hurting. But after a while I was like, "Um...shouldn't you be going to your wife with this?"

He said, "I dont need a wife right now I need a friend."

He said, "She'll force me to talk about it and I just kind of want to think about it until it passes."

I said okay.

I dont really know what's in that guy's head sometimes. He tells me that there are things that David will just not be able to tell me when he's a cop, as much as he might want to. He says sometimes there aren't words. He says sometimes it's just too exhausting to get it out and sometimes I just wont want to know. That's fine. I enjoy being blissfully unaware in some situations.

At the same time it really sucks to see someone hurting so much and you have no flipping clue why.

Sometimes this guy just stares off at something that I dont think I could see if I tried.

Kelly says I'm lucky. Lucky how? I cant make eye contact with people, and I've actually outright rejected hugs. Do you know how bad that sucks? To have to tell someone that you've known since grade school who is standing in front of you with their arms open that "Um, I dont really do hugs," and try to slink back against the wall? Or to even get all crawly-skinned on occasion when it's just your husband trying to kiss you goodbye before leaving for work? Yeah David knows I get in my moods and that I cant really control them but it still sucks because he gets all sad and rejected. I'm lucky because I haven't been feeling that way as of late, but what I wouldn't give to not have those days at all. Or have to reject people at all.

I think I'm just lucky that I'm able to deal with it as well as I do.

But if wellness is this what in hell's name is sickness?

After cuddle time we were sitting on my balcony and I started lining up little poppets on the table next to him so that they were staring up at him. I dont know how those little things help so much but they do. Kelly says she has no idea why she likes them so much and I just chalk it up to my little escape when I was a child which was playing with little tiny figurines or occasionally keeping caterpillars as pets. No matter what the hell was going on in my house, be it my mom setting the curtains on fire or my dad going to the hospital again, I had my own little things that I could escape to.

"Poppet loves you," I said and handed him the red one. The red one is the ambassador. He asked if there was a Steppy poppet and I said not yet so he bought me a poppet and then said he was ready to go home. He told me he loved me and he kissed me on the forehead and I said "bleh," because I'm weird like that. I cant just have a moment. But it's cool I guess.

Kelly also said that my blog is like a trainwreck. I dont see how, it's not like I'm bottlefeeding a severed head in my lap.

I'm just kind of lucky that I have nothing to prove.

Pizza And Beer

It's absolutely magical, this brewing thing. David's first brew, an English pale ale, turned out good! Well, that is to say that he thinks it's good and Steppy thinks it's good, and his parents haven't given us the verdict yet but they'll probably lie even if they hate it. And if they lie I'll know because they're not hard to read. I tasted it and it tasted like beer, so that much I know. He says it's a little watered down because he didn't add enough of the wort or something, I dont know the science behind it. All I know is he's giving away free beer so if you live in the area and you want some you need to get here quick because it will be gone soon and you'll have to wait for the next batch which should be ready in a month.

Yes, we made more.

The bucket of science is blurbing away in the closet as I type this.

I'm all about taking interest in your significant other's interests. No I dont like beer but I think it's neat that he made some. It was fizzy and everything. For what it's worth he's excited about it. And I dont know what all the tubes and things do and I dont really get much about the scientific process but when he invited me to go to the beer store with him to buy the supplies to make another batch, I said I'd go.

He kept telling me "Oh it smells like candy in there!" and made me sniff a bucket when he had first brought home the equipment. I didn't know what he was talking about, nor do I still because it just smelled like a feed store to me. But the guy working there was very friendly and had a lot of answers, and I am fond of places with knowledgeable and friendly staff people who dont make you feel like a douchebag for asking questions. Plus the guy who owns the store is a retired cop so there were patches from every local agency under the counter.

Everything we do we try to do together. I wanted to learn to knit, so he learned first and taught me. He started studying butterflies so I bought a nice camera. I wanted to write books and he wanted to read them. I wanted to learn the ukulele and he was like, "that's fucking awesome," and he got one too.

I help him bottle it, that's about all I do. And invite people over to drink it. Sally emails me and says, "Hey I can come try the beers now?" and I said "Well I have a boy over."

"Which boy?"

"Steppy, of course."

There was a delay, but her next message said "No that's okay, some other time then. I'm so tired, in bed already. Thank you."

So now we're playing this game again. Usually this is when she would cleverly disguise her need for him to see her naked by asking me "does these pictures make me look so fat?" and of course she's wearing nothing but a feather boa and a smile, but I think she's genuinely running away with her tail between her legs.

Steppy only took like two sips of his beer because for one he drove here alone and for another he gets a little grabby and weepy when he's liquored up. I end up having to smack his hand like an unruly toddler reaching for a cookie. Which is essentially what it is anyhow. Plus he's trying to be a good little Mormon boy. Once upon a time before he went back to his religion (which to me is like breaking back in to Alcatraz but he's doing it in the name of saving his marriage so whatevs) I drove us to the casino and that's where I found out the above gem. The bright flashing lights and bleeps and bloops of the game music only made him sadder and grabbier.

Being a miserable pretty boy is kind of sweetly endearing but a sad and desperate pretty boy is depressing like a dog that wont play fetch. They'll lick your hand and wag their tail when you come home but they just wont go get the damn stick. Then you pull out a brand new tennis ball and they just turn their head and sulk on their front paws.

Broken is okay but there's a point where it's like, "hey, maybe you should start making some better decisions. Now lets you and me sit up and I'll lean against your back and you just go ahead and lean right on back on mine so we dont got to sleep with our heads in the mud."

Pizza is fantastic to order, particularly with beer and with mass discountage. This whole beer making business is quite the little excuse to be social, and I think I need that right now. Just hanging out with Steppy is not enough, David being here and us all kind of being a group is what I like best. I've found new comfort in hanging at Starbucks and adding Sally to that little scene is my best way to have her. Try as she might she's still going to end up mentioning her vagina and who wants to be in it at least three times, even in public, so it's still fun and it's the best way to be with her...even if she does distract me from my work. David distracts me from my work too and makes me laugh like a jackal. He wrote a song on the uke, video coming soon.

Social gatherings centering around beer are good for the soul. And a brighter picture of crotch and hairy arms for the sidebar. Do you love it?

I write this down because someday I wont be 25 anymore and I'll wonder what in the hell I was doing. Or in case I wake up dead tomorrow. The few people I know in the real world will see that I do appreciate them being 'round.

Crimefighting At The Starbucks

Reporting live from Starbucks today. I'm here to attempt to finish Chelsea's Demon because yesterday I finally swallowed my bile and just wrote that bad bad part that I was dreading. I couldn't just leave it out, it's a great fucking twist. Now the story must push through to the end, and my goal today is to take it there, so I could be here at Starbucks for hours. That's my goal, anyway. It's rainy and cold out and David and the kids are building bird houses and wooden cars and airplanes and such. Sally should be joining me at some point, I invited her.

She's a swell bird, as much as I hate her.

My usual spot has been taken by the Mathaletes of Beaumont today, I swear to god. They're over there with pie graphs and shit! They're taking up that entire half of the store. So today I'm in the couch corner sitting by an outlet all alone...except for the Asian man who just joined me.

"Morning."

The problem is that my view of the rest of the shop is blocked by this here slantways wall. But I can see the rain coming down and the wind blowing the flaps of the umbrellas. I'm parked outside the Mexican food place like normal so I can see my car from here. I can also see people fucking with their drinks to make them to their liking by adding sugar and little splashes of cinnamon and milk. That would be cool if I fucking cared. I'd rather see the cops parade in for their joe. I guess if they like sugar in their coffee I'll get to gawk at them while they linger over by me. The price they must pay for their sugar.

I am getting creepier every god damned time I come here.

But maybe with less distractions I'll be able to get some work done. I can just look at my slantways wall with it's big contemporary Starbucks art, cutesy drawn coffee cups and mauve and purple shades. Little crayon drawn coffee beans. Crazy fucking patterns.

And now I am joined by a blonde lady with glasses texting someone on her cell phone. Work time now.

Oh hey, wheelchair boy and his gal pal just wheeled/walked in! But where the hell is Sally? I've been here an hour. Don't tell me she's gussying up to come to fucking Starbucks. Okay so I wore a low cut tank under my hoodie to allow for a window of cleavage and I wore my best fitting jeans, but she's been straightening her hair and painting her face for an hour now. Fuck, now I'll get a headache from the perfume she's no doubt bathing in.

They're playing a lot of oldies today. If you call my name, I'll be there in a hurry, you dont have to worry. It's 11:58 AM.

A red Mustang pulls up, but it's not THE red Mustang.

Oh my god, fucking fucking fucking fucking teenagers. "Yo dude, you're splitting that sandwich," he says to his friend. He's got one of those gigantic picnic sandwiches from Stater's. "Let me have the roast beef side of that bitch."

Oh there's Sally. She's wearing her ex's Army jacket and she still looks stunning. She tells me she went to church this morning, a Mexican church, the whole sermon in Spanish which is like her fourth or fifth language aside from English, Romanian, German, and Arabic. She says they all held hands and hugged at the end. I asked her why she went and she said "I needed to. I felt that need." I dont know what she means because I've never had the need. She's actually a very religious girl believe it or not, and she hates gays and believes the Earth is 6,000 years old.

I love to hate her.

I bet you a billion dollars that these boys are going to hit on her.

The boys are all covered in body jewelry. You cant pierce a personality into yourself. Without all that shit clanking around you're just a douchebag with a big sandwich spilling bits of meat on the floor as you cut it with your plastic knife that the Starbucks girl gave you.

OH SHIT!

Two women from Stater's wearing the maroon Stater's deli aprons come in and say, "did you guys pay for that sandwich?"

Oh no they didn't.

"Dont you EVER come back into that store again, or we will have you arrested," and then one of them rips the sandwiches from their hands. Breadcrumbs go flying. They storm off and Starbucks girl comes over with a broom and some paper towels. "Hi guys! Because you're so smart YOU get to clean up your own mess!" She's so cute and bubbly. The boys kind of just look at each other. One starts sweeping up the mess, and wheelchair boy says "Dude dont be a dork, help your friend, you did it too."

His pretty gal pal says "You guys should be ashamed of yourselves."

Little fuckers think it's funny, and trying to save face they make jokes about it. "Bitch took our fucking sandwich!"

"Actually you took THEIR fucking sandwich," I correct the little punk. He scoffs.

"Dude let's get out of here, let's go back to Stater's."

"No dude, we could get arrested right now."

They start to leave.

"Do you guys realize--" the pretty gal pal starts, but wheelchair boy hushes her.

"Dont, dont, it's not worth it."

Little shits. Punks. I get my phone.

"Steeeeeeppy my love," I say. "You bored sweetie pants? Schnookem pie? Baby doodle muffin head?"

"Whatcha got?"

"Punks in the Stater's parking lot. They stole a sandwich from Stater's and made a big, big ol' mess at Starbucks. Wanna come rough 'em up a bit?"

"Love to."

If you call my name, I'll be there in a hurry, you dont have to worry.

So I got my rocks off totally watching him cruise through the parking lot looking for the punks, but they were gone. He said to call me if they come back. Just as he's leaving I see them behind the Mexican food place. I call him back.

"Behind La Mariachi!"

I see him flip a bitch in the cruiser and zoom over to where they are. I'm smiling like a dolphin. He's there and parked before they even realize what's happening. They freeze and he plays cop with them. I've got a wall of windows and Sally's not even bothering to turn her head. "Indian guy wants to kiss my lips, you know, down there," she continues. "Was on his knees begging to see my boobs, so I showed him one...most of it anyway." I'm full body clenched as Steppy's giving them a stern talking to, and my fingers are tented.

"Yessss my pet," I say maniacally.

"Are you even listen to me?" She turns around and see's Steppy out there with the kids. "God, he is your pet. He will to do anything you say! And you wont do a thing for him back."

"Steppy's clear on what the rules of this game are."

She shoots me a dirty look. "Most people get dog, not cop for pet."

"I'm not most people."

I know he wont arrest them, but he's scaring the shit out of them anyway.

After the whole ordeal the punks walk away with their heads down and the smiles wiped off their fucking face. Steppy glances towards me and gives a slight nod before getting back in his car.

Then a little old man in a beanie comes in and sits by us. There are girls on the couches now, it's 12:59, and the old man says hello to all us girls. Those two and Sally answer and I only glance at him then go back to my writing.

"See, you are weirdo. You dont even say hi to him," she says.

"I'm anti social, and busy," I say.

"You never know who is he. He could be your angel," she says and wags a manicured finger at me. Her English is getting a little better and her accent isn't as thick.

"Should I show him most of one of my boobs?" I ask, and she rolls her eyes in response.

I tell her I'll see her later and I order David an americano with three pumps of hazelnut like he likes on the way out. Then I go to Staters to pick up soda and one of those big sandwiches that those kids stole. It looked delicious.

Birthdays And Backstabbers And Blow Jobs

I had completely forgotten that it was Steppy's birthday, and that was the reason why he wanted to be here on Saturday night. With my husband gone.

He knows he'll never get anywhere but it's like he likes to pretend or something.

I asked him why he wasn't celebrating with his wife and he said he did, they went out to dinner and then she attempted to blow him. And by attempt I mean that it was actually in her mouth which is a huge, huge step for her. He said she didn't cringe or stop and complain about it, but her jaw did get tired five minutes into it and once again Mr. Steppy had to sugar his own churro.

I think Mr. Steppy sugars his churro in my bathroom sometimes.

Ah to be a kid again.

So I wanted to know what the hell was up with him and Sally. Things obviously seem to be looking up with him and OMG so I really tend to think that maybe he didn't do it with her for real. Still, all this secret stuff was driving me batshit, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

Now I am not above being a cocktease. That's not to say that I'd remove any clothes or wiggle on any laps, I'm not that kind of cock tease, but okay...let's just call it manipulation of the male mind. When you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, their minds are very one track. Get them in the spa, and you're already 10 steps ahead of the game.

So I start talking about the hot cops at Starbucks, and how I call it my strip club because it's just pretending to write/gawking time. Instead of the clunking of heels on a stage and the Eagles blasting too loud, there's soft adult contemporary music and the jingle of all that shit on their belts. Cops are totally my fetish. My dream, for true, is to be totally gang raped by a hoard of cops. Cops in black uniforms. Bad, bad cops. Soooooo many cops.

He he...yeah. So what did you and Sally talk about behind my back?

He gets all frustrated and goes to the other side of the spa. "I told you I cant talk about it!"

"Why? What are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding anything."

"Then tell me."

"No!"

"Steppy..."

"Let's go back to that other stuff you were talking about, about your State Trooper fetish."

"No, you've got it all wrong. CHP is reserved only for romance novel love scenes. City cops are for gang bangs and back door dog piles." I put my hand on his thigh. "Let's...let's just talk about what's going on between you and Sally..."

"I said no!"

"Why?" I ask kindof sadly, not so much pushy or intimidatingly. And then here's where I do the real magic. The trick is to give the same kind of eye contact that you give while you're giving head. The doe eyes. The "I'm submissive but I'm in control of you" look. It's the girl version of the puppy dog eyes. Men recognize it but they don't know from where, even if they've never seen YOU give them that look, they'll recognize it from their favorite porno or favorite BJ. They just subconsciously know.

And it worked, because he sighed. "You cant tell her that you know."

Oh god, here it is. "I promise Steppy, I would never ever betray your trust." Keep the doe eyes going or else he might change his mind.

"She's enrolling in POST."

...

"And...there's a good chance that when she's done she could...end up--"

"Bullshit! She's too old!"

"But she's got a degree in criminal justice, and she speaks five languages. She's a prime candidate."

Now I'm just mad. Reasonable Jessie snapped and went all apeshit on him. "So the girl who sleeps her way to the top wherever she is, the girl who got asked on a date by the painter guy yesterday, the girl who gets every god damned thing she wants in life is now trying to do something that is MY husband's dream...and you're helping her with that?"

"David wants to be CHP, she's going for something completely different."

"Where was all this help when David was looking into POST, huh?"

"David couldn't do POST, you and I both know that. His best bet is CHP and that's what he should go for anyway! See, this is why we didn't tell you."

"WHAT is why you didn't tell me?"

"This! We knew you'd be all upset about David, and look, I understand, you are a very loyal wife to him and you didn't like seeing him get turned down--"

"You know why? Because the guys they chose over him all had better perks than him, enough stuff to fall back on that they could overlook a discrepancy. David has nothing, he is what he is and he does not have anything. He doesn't have a rocking body and wind whipped hair and knowledge of all these languages, military experience or background with anything. He's just a good guy and that means sweet fuck nothing. Did you know that she slept with one of her professors?"

"I--"

"And that she went to ITT Tech?"

He closes his mouth.

"Did you know that she's completely racist and ignorant and that she's fallen for three separate 419 scams? Did you know that she was over here a few weeks ago asking me to pee in a cup because she was being drug tested and she knew she wouldn't pass? Fuck her and her prime candidacy! Here's me and David trying to play life by the rules and do as best as we can, stay out of trouble and all that so he can get a good job, and then what? He got dumped. He got fucking dumped because he's still just a stupid kid with no experience, and I know for a fact that people with experience get their mistakes overlooked. David's made no mistakes and he still cant get hired on. Then Sally walks in with her T&A and you offer to help her get her badge."

He starts biting his thumbnail and looking at the water.

"Her goal in life is to be the best, and to be better than anybody else. She sees a challenge and she instinctively tries to overcome that challenge by becoming better than it. She's tried to get pregnant at least three times that I know of since she's been my friend because she says she wants kids like mine. When she heard about CHP and David, she applied, and got shot down because she's not a citizen yet. When I knit her a scarf for Christmas, she whipped one up just like it and then started selling them at her work. She will do anything to be in the spotlight Steppy, anything. And if I know her as well as I think I do, she wants to be in YOUR spotlight. I don't know, maybe she does want to be a cop, but there are certainly more ways she could have gone about it without clinging to you for help. You weren't even David's reference for CHP. He did it without you, why does she need you?"

He didn't say anything.

"Because you're pretty, and you like me. That's the only reason she's even trying to get your attention"

If you're thinking I'm self absorbed you're totally right, but at the same time all of the above is true. "I want kids like yours" and "Look I made a scarf just like the one you gave me and now I'm selling them," and you can even scan my archives for when she had first moved here two years ago and chastised me for my early putting up of the Halloween decorations, then two hours later she had a full on balls to the wall Halloween display to end all Halloween displays, and then did the same thing at Christmas.

She has been competing with everything I do, making food and then emailing me and saying "I only made it because you said I made it better than you."

She's Mustang Fucking Sally, and she does not want to be a cop.

"And if she did want to be a cop, she'd of told you that the United States Government doesn't recognize her Romanian high school diploma and she will be forced to take the GED before she can even think about any of this stuff. Did she tell you of any plans to enroll in the adult school?"

"No. She never told me any of this stuff."

"Because she just wanted your attention for whatever you would give it to her for. Her pretending to want to be a cop was perfect, because it worked."

"Well how do you know she wont follow through?"

"She wont follow through. She just interviewed for a job making $20 that she is guaranteed to get because the boss man is putting jobs on the line if they don't hire her. She wouldn't leave that for shit, especially not going back to school, especially since she's already too old and she'll be even older by the time she's done with all of her schooling and POST."

"Okay...so she's a liar."

"And you're a fucking asshole for hiding that from me!"

"I was protecting you and David's feelings."

"Protecting us from SHIT! You're an asshole."

"It's my birthday..."

"You're the birthday asshole!"

Then he starts giving me the doe eyes, or the puppy dog eyes, rather.

"Oh no. No no no no no, you're not pulling that shit on me."

I do it back to him. We're just looking at each other like anime characters with too huge of eyes. It doesn't work when they start doing it back.

"STOP IT!"

"Why?" he asks all puppy dog eyed. Fucking jerk.

"Because I'm trying to manipulate you and I cant do it when you're doing that." It's not fair. He's trained how to psychologically fuck with people's shit, he's not fucking with my shit.

"Fine, I'll do my cop stare."

"No don't do your cop stare!"

You know how they can watch a crack head get all cracked out while keeping a straight face. How they can get you to knock off your bullshit. But nothing beats out the voice from behind him saying "Oh Steppy, you look so mad at her, like maybe you would EAT her!"

Sally.

This is why I love her.

"You want you and me to make out to make him to turned on? I'll come get in with you..." she suggests to me.

If it's not one of them trying to make out with me it's the other one.

"Cat's out of the bag Sally, he told me about the POST thing, and no, I'm not mad."

"You're not mad about it? Not even a little?"

"No, it's cool, I wish you luck. When are you starting school?"

You could see that she's a little caught off guard, and she fumbles for an answer. "Actually I got that job, the one I wanted at the casino that starts at $20 an hour, is less work and I get to travel so...you know now I think maybe not so much for the police, you know?"

Steppy's got that dumbfounded look on his face now. "It's Steppy's birthday today."

"Yeah what, you think you're a man now? Pfft," and she walks away. THIS is why I love her. She turns back around and says "Hey, then should we give him show, no?"

"I'm not making out with you Sally."

"Whatever," she says. Only how she says it it sounds like "Whaataverr."

Then he asks me for a birthday kiss and I'm like "I'm sure David would kiss you if you asked, he's a crazy sonofabitch like that." Then he asks me if maybe I'd like to go to the Brandin' Iron and I'm like NO. And this conversation is over. I get out and get my towel.

"Does Sally have fake boobs?" he asks.

"She swears they're real but I'm pretty sure she's had work done."

"Yours are much nicer--"

"Kay birthday asshole, I think it's time you get home to your wife."

"Can I pick a prize from the prize box?"

"...If it's something that we can fully sanitize...what did you want to borrow?"

And by borrow I meant keep because I don't want the shit back. But I have lots of stuff that I was sent for review that I don't like or use. I offered to just buy him something with my discount and he said he needed it tonight. This is what he selected. Psst...I think they're going ALL THE WAY tonight!

The moral of the story is that I think it's better to just accept your friends for the crazy, dysfunctional, sons of bitches that they are so long as nobody gets hurt at the end of the day. I'm obviously not without my faults. Obviously. But Sally keeps me guessing and Steppy's my kind of bastard. It is what it is.

Peculiar Little Girl And Some Dreams I've Been Having

I hear the painter guy who is painting Sally's door ask her out.

Later when I'm at The Cans, George who is this trashdigger/meth head, tells her she has a nice car and she says "Just the car?" And he talks to her for the next 20 minutes in the parking lot. And then talks to David about her for another 30.

Our doors are both open because the painter guy said her door needed to dry for a few hours, and mine is open because the kids are out playing.

A man starts coming up the stairs. My immediate reaction is to jump up and see who it is. Could be the mail man, could be Steppy, could be someone telling me that my kids broke a fucking window.

"What's up?" I go.

It's this old Indian guy. "Um...nothing, just," and he points to Sally's door.

Later she tells me that he asked her, "is the neighbor lady a weirdo?"

I'm not even dressed like a weirdo today. He has the nerve to think I'm a weirdo for wanting to know who is on my stairs?

"She is totally," Sally tells him, and I shout HEY in defense. "Well you are, I mean...total freak."

"What the fuck?"

"Oh you're my friend but you have your weird things."

You're seeing a man 30 years older than you and I'm weird? I ought to spit on you like a gypsy!

"Nobody talks that way to him, he is important. So you said whats up and he was confused."

Then maybe the fucker doesn't need to be on my stairs.

Not more than a little while later a small voice says, "excuse me?"

I get up and see that it's a little black girl. She just moved in with her family in an adjacent building. "Oh, hello," I say.

"I wrote you a check."

"Huh?"

And she gives me a paper with scribbles all over it.

"This is for letting me play with your son."

"Um...thanks?"

She lingers, kicks her feet a little and then looks up at me, "I just don't understand that boy."

"Ty?"

"That's your son?"

"Yeah?"

"He's crazy."

"How old are you?"

"I'm six years old, how old are you?"

"Seriously?"

"He's down there saying that his brother took a piss and it went all over the toilet, that true?"

"Um..."

"So let me make a deal with you. How about, he come over to my house, then when it gets dark, you just come pick him up?"

WTF?

"Uh, no. Ty needs to come home for dinner now."

"Okay well how about this then, how about my mama feeds him then sends him back over to you?"

"I don't think so, not today all right?"

"Suit yourself then, jeez, thought you'd like a little time for your own."

What in the hell is this girl talking about? And why is she 30 years old? David comes walking up the stairs.

"That your husband?"

"Yeah?"

She looks him up and down. "Thought so. All right, you folks have a nice evening."

I have no idea what the hell is going on and I don't think Ty is old enough to play with her, because he's like, you know, still five and not thirty.

But that's not what's really bothering me. See if you can help me figure this out, okay, so let's discuss my other ex boyfriend (who is still alive) Stephen. We dated for six months when I was a freshman and he was a junior. We were band geeks and he played the alto sax. How that all ended up was he lived a few blocks from me and the band was having a car wash fundraiser at the 76 Station on Bryant, so he walked to my house to "pick me up" so we could walk together. He ended up asking me out. We tried to keep it on the down low for a while but blabbermouth Stephanie told everyone. Our first date was walking from the car wash to next door at the 7-11 for Slurpees.

I took this picture the other day on my way through Yucaipa. Right where this couple is, that's where it all first started. The boy looks a lot like Steve with his long blonde hair. I think mine was green and white at the time, I don't remember. I've done a lot of crazy shit to my hair.

Anyway obviously things didn't work out, blah blah, I slapped him hard when he told me he liked Sara (yes THAT Sara) and he tried to throw a chair at me, but then I followed the round muffled tones of what I knew was Nick Terwilliger's trombone to the practice room where they were coming from and I went and hung out with him for a while. It was one of the nice moments between me and Nick because we weren't fighting, and he was nice to me. I still don't know why I went to go hang out with him and let off steam at him, but I'm glad he wasn't a total bitch to me.

So the reason I bring him up is because I've had four dreams in the past week where Steve is walking around in the background. He never does anything significant or says anything, but he hangs around and it's bothering me. Weirdly enough people come to me in my dreams, or I'll just think about a person and then in a few days they'll just magically appear. Or neater, I'll write about an event and it will happen.

Like my friend the real Bombshell finally ditching that asshole guy she was with for so long and finding love with a rather decent fellow, just like in the book, for one example.

The conundrum I'm having is that Victor had been in a coma for months before he died, and the night before he died I had that weird...memory...of him just randomly flash in my mind, I told you on video what that was but it will go without saying here. His family contacted me when he died for their sake I'm sure, and believe me I wasn't significant enough in Steve's life for his family to even bother to contact me if something happened to him. It wasn't like with Victor at all, this was small beans but it was still there.

My point, if I have one, and I'm not sure that I do, is that after what I went through with Victor's death, I'm all wigged out at the possibilities as to why Steve is haunting me. And I'm thinking about dropping him a line (via Myspace) just to be like "Hey, so you're good right? No problems? How's ya? Kay, audi." But then that could be weird, and I'd obviously not mention the fact that I'm only paranoid because Victor died. Victor who, I'll admit here and now for the first time, was the one who scratched the word PRICK into the hood of Steve's car. Yeah, I said it. And I wouldn't be all "I've been dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaming about you STEVIE!!!!!11!!!!!!!1!!" I'd just say hi.

Or is that wrong of me?

He's got a bride and a baby, and I've dealt with the brides of ex boyfriends lately and I really don't want to cause any trouble for anyone, at the same time I don't want to look desperate or pathetic because I'm not, I'm just concerned for him. And somewhat traumatized.

Steve's also a very emotional kind of guy who gets attached to things. When I was with him he was pining over some vampire girl that he had a crush on before he got with me, and after me when he dated Sara she told me that he was still writing poems about me, one of which I guess was titled "I Once Owned An Angel."

Me? Angelic? lol.

I think I'm just freaked out because when Victor died I felt for a really long time like a whole piece of my past had been erased, and I still sort of feel that way. Obviously if Steve died then it's like six months of my life is erased and it wouldn't be a bad six months to erase to be honest with you, but then I worry about ridiculous things like maybe that I'm cursed and all of the people I ever had a relationship with, insignificant as they may be, will start dying off. I've got my grip around David pretty tight so the curse cant get him.

Then again, there's this whole part of the Steppy story that I was asked not to talk about, nothing recent but 10 years ago I mean.

If Steve dies, Steppy could die too.

And I will have to write a book about it or something because that's kind of weirdly interesting. *makes note in writing journal*

I mean, even if they aren't going to die and it's just that the food I'm eating is causing me to dream up weird things, a string of dead boyfriends is kind of like Rogue from X-Men in a way but not as supernatural and mutant related.

But I always listen to my dreams and I almost always jot down ideas from a dream I had the night before in my writing journal in the morning. I've gotten scenes from my books from dreams.

So should I say hi or should I just start watching the obituaries and panicking slightly?

Hardcore Ukulele Volume IV: Wind Of Change by Scorpions

Well happy birthday Steppy, here's the song you requested. I fucking nailed it considering I had just picked up the song about 45 minutes before I recorded this video.

Did you ever think that we would be so close like brothers?

Did I just play Scorpions on the ukulele? Oh yes I did. WHAT NOW, BITCHES?

Spring

The poppets have discovered a wonderful springtime treat!



But perhaps the poppets should choose a healthier snack.



Wait a minute, who is this new poppet?



Oh that's just Poppet Kelly. She was sent over from Kelly's poppet hoard as a gift to our hoard. Poppet Jessie is thankful for her new friend Poppet Kelly.



Officer Poppet called a town meeting today and explained to the poppets that today is the first day of spring, and that spring is a wonderful time of year.



Spring is the time for flowers...



And playing music...



And kite flying.



Oh Poppet Ty, he's always so inventive. What's that key for on your kite string?



Well I get that it's science but what is the key for? Are you hoping to catch electricity?



Dead Boyfriend Poppet suggests that the electricity is indoors since that's where all the lights and computers are on. Come on, group shot time...

Something Is Amiss

I'm leaving out my front door this morning to take Ty to school and Sally's door opens.

Steppy emerges. He's leaving too.

It's 9:45.

I shat bricks.

He says hey he'll see me later and hugs me around the shoulders. He makes his way down the stairs faster than me and I go, "You didn't."

"No, I didn't."

"Then why are you here?"

"Just stuff, don't worry about it."

"...is she giving you her crazy Romanian pills?"

"No nothing like that, just don't worry about it okay?"

Not okay.

He practically sprinted to his car I guess because he was leaving just as I was getting out to my car. He waves at me and takes off. The Mustang is parked in Sally's usual spot, and it's past the time that she's supposed to be working, so I wonder to myself what the hell is going on, but it would have to wait until I got Ty dropped off and everything.

When all that was said and done, I was knocking on Sally's door. She wasn't wearing her blue contacts like she does when she's banging a guy, and she was in jammy pants and a sweater, HER sweater, where as usually when she comes knocking on my door asking for eggs or milk and there's a guy waiting in her kitchen she's wearing a robe. So maybe they didn't.

"Hey so I saw your car, I was wondering why you're not at your white person's job or whatever."

"Oh, I have interview today for something else there, so I have the day off."

"I heard you leave last night in your heels," her weapon of choice, "where'd you go?"

"Out."

"Out?"

"Yah stupid, like always I'm out."

"Who were you out with?"

She looked at me square in the eye. "You sawed him leave didn't you?"

"Yeah, what the fuck is going on Sally? Are you sleeping with him? Because that's not okay! Steppy is trying to fix his marriage and if you're seriously over here seducing him I will kick both of your asses!"

"No, isn't--"

"Is it the butt balls? Is that why he's coming to you?"

"You don't even listen to me, okay? Is not what you're thinking. It was not date like how you are thinking."

"Did he spend the night?"

"No, he came by this morning to give me something, it just don't matter okay?"

Suddenly I feel very very betrayed. He hates her from what he's told me, but then he's out on a date with her and...well possibly maybe fucking her? And she? She would put me in this position where my only two friends in the world are having an illicit affair or some shit? This is like the time that my real brother fucked my best friend and then we couldn't be best friends after that because she was ashamed of her one night stand and he kept telling me how he spit on his dick to lube it up before sticking it in her ass. Steppy is my brother, I still need him here and I still need him to not be fucking the Romanian sex goddess. Otherwise I'll just look at him and see butt balls, rubber pink butt balls. And that's fine if they're his butt balls in fact I'm always educating him about things like butt balls because up until recently he didn't know what all that stuff was for. But if she uses her butt balls on him I'll never be able to forgive either one of them.

"Sally if you--"

"If I sleeped with him I would tell you, okay? He doesn't even like me like that he likes you like that."

"Well then what is going on?"

"You cant know yet, okay?"

"Why? What is so damn important? Where did you go on your date? Did you kiss him?"

"Is not like that, I told you. We just went to Carrow's, I had liver and onions, he had steak. We just talked."

"What did you talk about?"

"You...and some other stuff. Just don't ask me right now, you cant know yet, okay?"

And now I'm even more hurt that A, he didn't come to me and B she wont tell me. They're hiding something behind my back. This is high school all over again.

"Is it a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Good, sort of, just, let's not talk anymore about it please?"

So I call Steppy, and he's too friendly to me. I mean he's usually kept a constant of not being too sexual or too friendly to send any major warning signals, but not being so distant that I didn't at least entertain the idea, but today he was sort of like how my cats would be when I came home from school growing up. If we weren't on the phone he might have been purring and weaving in and out of my legs. I pawed right back, too.

"So you're not working today, does that mean you'll come see me tonight?"

"How about we shoot for Saturday night?"

"You know David doesn't get home till 1:00 on Saturdays."

"Yeah I know, so...can I come over then?"

"Depends. Will you tell me what happened on your date with Sally?"

He was quiet. "I cant."

"Did you sleep with her?"

"NO! You know I wouldn't do that, I was just there to drop off some papers this morning."

"What kind of papers?"

"I cant tell you, and you don't need to know."

"Is Sally in some kind of legal trouble?"

"Something along those lines, kind of, not really, but you cant know so please stop asking."

"Where did you guys go?"

"Carrow's."

Hmm. Story checks out. Maybe there is something going on here but it's not sex. And maybe this really is none of my business.

"So I thought you didn't like Sally," I said.

"Not when she's trying to put her butt balls in me but just talking to her is all right. She's really interesting actually."

"Yeah she is."

"You could put your butt balls in me though."

"Can I take pictures and put them in my blog?"

"...No."

"I wont show your face."

"...No."

"Well good, because I don't have butt balls anyway."

"Borrow the neighbor's."

"So I can has pictures?"

"No...just...bye, okay?"

Well it's good that they're probably not sleeping together but I'm still extremely curious as to what is going on. What do you think it is?

Ten Minutes Of My Day

If you look at the antennas on a few of the cars that drive around Beaumont you'll be able to tell which ones are really cops. So far I've identified a gold Impala and a gold SUV, both of which have regular plates and everything, but they still have those antennas.

It was grocery store day today, and of course the only fucking check stand open was that which was being run by Mr. Sexy Kielbasa Nova, aka my Stater's boyfriend. As it turns out Staters folk read my blog and he identified himself last time I mentioned him. There was some awkwardness involving some yogurt which I do not want to discuss at this time, but let's just say that I don't even attempt to make eye contact with Mr. Sexy.

With the economy tanking, I've noticed a lot more 40, 50, 60 year old men pushing around mops wearing the green apron. The green apron is of course the bottom of the barrel, the new hires, the shitlings of the store that David was for two years before being promoted to the plastic red apron in the meat department.

It's plastic because of all the bloodspatter. A sick fuck could masturbate to all of that bloodspatter with only a little patience and if he doesn't mind the smell. David microwaved many a lobster until they had little lobster seizures and died on the turntable wearing that apron.

Usually only cute bubbly teens and Staring Girls wear the green aprons. David's been asked three times this week by men way older than him if The Cans is hiring. No, they're not. They were going to be but CHP wants David to wait a few years I guess. Two more too hot summers, two more cold ass god damned winters.

There are two cop cars, a cop SUV, and that gold undercover cop SUV outside the store when I walk out. I don't know what's going on, but I do know that the other Stater's over on Highland Springs got robbed not too long ago. Whatever it is I just go, I don't make eyes at the cops or rubberneck or anything, I just get the hell back to my Mazda.

I always park by The Cans so that David can help me pack the trunk and then close up for five minutes so he can come home with me and take up all the bags and then drive himself back to work so I don't have to pick him up at lunch. Neither one of us know what's going on at the store but I figure I'd find out later anyway. A miserable pretty bird always tells me.

I bought a lot of instant wanton soup today because it is a delicious alternative to ramen and I got a pot roast that was about to expire so I knew I would have to throw it into the crock right away, especially if we wanted to have it for dinner tonight. With my groceries and David in tow, I made my way through the parking lot. I just happened to be leaving at the same time as all those cops, and turning the same way too. Most of the cops went straight but the first cop, a young gent with a stocky build, he's pulled over by the wash where the skateboarders like to hang out and vandalize fences. I'm just about to pass him and he's climbing over the white fence to go into the wash.

What is it with cops in ditches here? Remember the cop that literally jumped up out of the underworld to ask me if I had any drugs or warrants when I was getting caterpillar food?

That guy was all dusty like maybe he had been in that hole all day. Or rolling around in the dirt for the lulz. Or like they had thrown him out of the car.

I pass the cop and he's reaching for his gun, then he takes it out of its holster. David calls it a safety precaution since they don't really know what or who is waiting for them in that hole.

Plus it totally scares the crap out of teenagers who probably stole snacks from Staters and who are now hiding in that hole.

I do my blinker and turn at the light. Whatever is going on is none of my concern. I just have to get inside and start that roast.

Sally, My Dear

Mustang Sally comes out of her apartment as I'm coming up the steps. No makeup or anything but you know how she's always so pretty, and like maybe you can squeeze warm soapy water out of her skin. She looks at me with sincerity and says, "How are you?"

"...The same, I guess?" I say, avoiding eye contact like usual.

"How is your books?"

"Going well...lots of sales, people are interested."

"Good," she says. "So I'm working nine to five now, like white person's schedule!"

These Romanians and their racism.

"That's good! No more having that guy pay your rent."

"Well maybe," she says. "But you know...I see this other guy," who I'll call Hot Tub Dan here, "and you know him, the guy who was at my house that time and I send him away without making the loving to him, and he said from the sidewalk like 'you sure you don't want me to take advantage of you?'"

"Yeah I remember that guy."

"I sleep with him once, now I don't want to see him ever again...and it's not that I don't want to see him, it's just that I'd rather stay home, no games to play, you know? I'm so sick and tired of this, I want more, I want to settle down."

No Sally, don't become a reclusive like me, just go out there and do it. You've got such a winning smile and every guy melts for you. If I ever had to be single I would want to be you, I'd even take my English skills down a few notches and sometimes starve myself the way you do. But your personality is overbearing and no matter how cool you are for painting your bedroom black and red and taking all those naked pictures of yourself, it's hard to tell you just what a twat you really can be to some of these guys just by trying to be so damn perfect for them.

"Don't do anything you don't want to do Sally."

"I know, but is hard. I was going to buy diet pills from Walgreens but I ended up buying chocolate ice cream instead. And that night I made all those pancakes, you don't want to know how many I really ate."

Those delicious chocolate chip pancakes. God bless her.

"I will be so fat," she concluded.

I know the song was written for a dog but sometimes I want to tell her "Hold your head up you silly girl, look what you've done! When you find yourself in the thick of it, help yourself to a little of what's all around you, silly girl!"

She's the kind of girl who I could see swallowing a bottle of pills over a guy. She's so strong and so stupid and so very amazing.

"You're not fat," I say.

"Really?" she asks and turns to her side and puts her hands on her stomach and back. "I did lose three pounds since last week."

I'd like to punch her.

"Have you eaten anything leading up to the chocolate ice cream?"

"The cups of noodles, you know like you buy. I haven't wanted to eat much lately. Until I bought the ice cream."

"Don't be so hard on yourself Sally, make some Romanian food, I'll eat it with you."

Her eyes lit up. "You will hang out with me? So we can talk?"

"Of course," I tell her. "Whenever you're not working your white person's job or whatever."

"Good! So where's your cop? He can come too?"

Sally wont accept that Steppy doesn't like her. He's the kind of guy she'd like to settle with...or possibly blow through on her way to finding a guy she'd like to settle with. I don't see why she's so interested, her famous "is cute but still is boy" words still ring true, even if he does have a stable job and a pretty face. He'll be 25 soon and she's hitting amongst the 40+ year olds, what does she want him for?

Because just as I somewhat envy the girl for her life full of petty love problems and endearing accent, Sally envies me for Steppy's puppy love of me. Here I am, the weird saggy tummy girl with no social skills next door and my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. She knows it's better than hers. Damn right it's better than hers, and I could teach her but I'd have to charge.

Sally wants anything that she cannot have.

"He's trying to spend less time over here, but he texts me like every few hours."

"Tell him I make sarmale if he comes, I miss him too."

After the stunt she pulled with the chicken livers he's not at all into eating her food.

"Yeah...okay Sally, I'll see."

"No really," she says in all seriousness, "make him to come. Either make him to come or I will make him to come."

I'm not entirely sure what she means. Perhaps I do not need to know.

Wild

I went to bed last night feeling all like shit after eating a pile of cottage cheese from the buffet at the casino. I keep up with this stupid theory that "maybe I'm not really allergic to milk, maybe it wont do anything just this once," which of course it does. Some time after I got back from Starbucks after drinking that big huge sweet drink I was all woosy and I needed a tubby. (Jessie talk for bath.) I ended up falling asleep naked on the bed with David rubbing my back.

I was still sick when I woke up, and I remember swallowing the sour taste of vomit burps through the night. When he gets up he ties back the curtains to let in sunlight which lets me know that it's time to get up. I'm like a bird, if you throw a blanket over my cage I'll fall asleep. I walked Ty to the bus stop because David was having the car worked on then came back home and sulked. I hoped that I would feel better because I had plans.

Sally told me I had packages on my balcony which I was unaware of. That Sally, she's a keeper. I knocked on her door last night to invite her to Starbucks but she wasn't home. That's probably good though, she can be a pill. In the packages were books and poppets. These are a few of my favorite things.

Taking pictures of the wee little poppets made me forget about my troubles and by the time it was time to get Ty from the bus, because David still wasn't home, I was all right. The fucker of it is just that David didn't get home until 3:00, why? Because of this clicking noise that the car has been making since we got it, which we took it in for twice in the first 30 days, then once again last week, and for some reason their incompetent mechanics couldn't figure out what it was. Last week they rotated our tires and charged us $50 only for the noise to OF COURSE not be gone because it's not the fucking tires. I had David call corporate and yada yada yada we got our $50 back and they did a thorough inspection of the car and whaddayaknow, it was the brakes! Like I've been saying this whole time! Turns out they didn't even have shoes, which is like, yeah, a safety thing so we're never going back to them again for repairs.

But since he was home and Ty had done his homework, I said let's go.

And so we went.

There's a wildflower trial that opens up for a few weeks in the spring at Diamond Valley Lake, which is over in Hemet. Fun fact: Diamond Valley Lake is the largest man made lake in the world. Hemet's just over yonder, and it contains a lot of crop lands, Scientology's Gold Base, and cows. That's not very exciting, but the trail we took was. Some highlights:

Of course you can see the rest over at my Flickr if you're into that kind of thing. I know I am.

Tonight David fixed my vacuum, promised to finish the trim in the bedroom, and drank two beers. Then of course after taking a shower I discover that I'm out of Diet Dr Pepper and I'm upset, and he offers to walk to the store for me since he cant drive there. I'd go but my hair is all wet. I worry for his safety and I told him to take a steak knife, but he said he'd be okay. I insisted that he at least take a big stick but then I remembered that he was going to be going into Staters.

"Nah it's cool, people leave their sticks out side of Staters all the time."

He's probably right.

I told him not to worry about the soda, it's not worth dying over, and he was like "It's upper Beaumont!" and I'm like "Yeah but it's 10:00 at night!"

Then he said he was going to get the stuff to make lemon meringue pie because we have all these lemons from my sister's tree just to make the trip totally worth while.

It better be. And he better not die.

So that's basically it.

The Starbucks Thought Process

Another night sitting at Starbucks trying to get some work done. I got here before the shift change so I don't expect any police related interruptions unless there's of course some kind of problem that requires their presence. But those haughty bastards wont be in here with their uniforms and their thick exposed necks and their guns and their broad shoulders and their aroma. So this will not be a semi-horny Starbucks visit, this is serious business time.

Tonight I am joined by wheelchair boy, college girl, and piercings and baseball hat guy on the couch. Piercings and baseball hat guy on the couch keeps making eyes at me, but then again he might be looking past me. Wheelchair boy and college girl are having an intense discussion. I'm turning to page 18 tonight of my manuscript, which has been impressively rewritten all the way up to 28 pages. It's almost 8:00 and David is home watching movies, possibly drinking a beer and crying/masturbating in the bedroom. I don't know why he would be doing that.

I've got two hours, I'm going to use them.

Doh fiddlesticks. I didn't account for fire fighters. Tall, bronzed, playful, fire fighters. A whole brood of them. All with their smirks. Smirky McSmirkensons over there with his stupid smriky face. I'd take a picture of this but it might titillate them and cause them to come over here. I don't want any harm, fellows, I just want to do my work and stare at your crotch. I love you.

Wait, don't leave me...oh wait...you're not leaving, you're sitting at my table. Yes I do mind. Ah ha ha ha ha, yeah, I was totally kidding, sit the fuck down anyway.

God this is not good.

Heh heh...hellooooo...

Yeah, novel. Uh huh, I'm an author. You're a dude man in a thingyform with a yeah. Kay. Busy. Have deadline, please not to be speaking to me anymore, okay? Just drink your milk there skippy. I'm wearing a thermal, no cleavage tonight so you have NO REASON TO STAY!

Oh don't you wink at me you fucker, your mustache is gross and hairy. Kay, bye.

Lucky fucking bastard. I'm wearing slippers tonight so kicking him in the balls would have just yielded a soft plushy feeling to his nards, which he may have enjoyed.

Back to work. I like this song. *dances slightly*

College girl is cold and puts on her sweater. Piercings and baseball hat on the couch guy is on the phone. Wheelchair boy is wheeling away.

Back to work.

Shit. Teenagers. And a little girl with her mom. It's a school night, why isn't she in bed? Christ.

15 minutes later, I'm the only one left in here. And I've only rewritten a page.

Uh oh. Barrista bitch tells me she's shutting my shit down. It's only 9:00! What the fucking fuck kind of deal is this anyway? Fine. I don't need your tables anyway. I'll go home and watch David cry/masturbate.

Tomato Girl

I write in my bedroom at night. I don't have a proper desk in there, though I'd like to get a bistro table or something set up so it can double as my workspace and also mommy-daddy-dinner/breakfast-alone space. I would write out in the living room but out here all I have is my laptop podium and it isn't big enough to hold the papers that I'm writing from since I'm working from my prewritten manuscript. I need space for both things, and as the kitchen is sometimes okay for that since the table has plenty of room, I always seem to hear the crunch of cereal if I put my foot down on the floor. Even if I sweep, there's always spilled something.

I don't want my bedroom to look like a workspace, which is why I decided not to buy a writing desk or anything, and why I'd rather get the bistro table set. But I still need to work so I drag in a chair from the kitchen table and my laptop podium and just set my papers on my bed. It's not entirely effective, it's not comfortable, but it's better than having to scour the kitchen before I can even get any work done.

I was working last night for a while, a few pages done, but I decided to stop. I wanted to finish the book I was reading more than I wanted to finish the book I was writing.

I am not one to sit and read a book, I usually only read in the bathroom and in the car when I'm waiting to get Ty after school, and of course I take my book with me when I'm waiting at the doctor's office or something. My sister will actually read a book in a day because she is the type that will turn off the TV and close all the windows and just read. Granted she reads juvenile fiction but still.

But there was something about Tomato Girl that called to me and made me want to finish it. That something is that I wanted to know this girl's messed up childhood because I've blocked so much of my own.

Brief synopsis, Ellie is 11 years old and her mama has something wrong with her mind. She has these dark moods where she sometimes hurts herself and says mean things. She cant remember to bathe herself or do the laundry, so Ellie has to take care of a lot of things on her own. Ellie also has to make sure that the house stays quiet and if anyone comes to the door selling something she has to send them away, because her mom could just suddenly fly off the handle and yell at someone or try to hurt them.

Where is dad in all of this? He's fucking the tomato girl.

The tomato girl comes in to her daddy's store with tomatoes that she grows herself. She's very pretty and she's also only a teenager, but that doesn't stop her dad from taking up with her while Ellie's mom is in the hospital after a bad fall which Ellie feels responsible for because her mom asked her to get an onion from the cellar before she left and Ellie just raced off to help her dad at the store. Ellie promises God that she'll never ever be selfish again if he just lets her mom and her mom's unborn baby live.

But her daddy isn't concerned about the mom or the baby or even Ellie, all of his attention is on this tomato girl. In fact the tomato girl moves into their house to help out with the chores, and her dad always wants to spend time with her instead of helping Ellie with her mom, even when her mom has her horrible psychotic episodes.

To give you an idea of just how crazy her mom is, she had a miscarriage and now keeps the fetus in a jar. Not only that, but she hears the baby crying all night and even tries to breast feed it.

Basically, with her father too distracted by the jailbait tomato girl, who is epileptic and was sexually abused by the way, Ellie is taking care of this mess all on her own. Keeping secrets, telling lies, looking at the ground when people speak to her about her home life and trying to help her mom with Baby Tom.

The book is told from Ellie's point of view, and a lot of the metaphors and analogies are written as such. One of my favorite lines was when she said that something bad rose up in her like a black balloon.

Here's just a random paragraph from the book. Turning to page 138:

Daddy didn't tell Tess he'd given Mama a shot to make her sleep through the night. He put his arm around Tess and said, "Don't worry. I'll stay right here with you."

The three of us slept in my bed.

Tess wore her pink baby doll night gown and curled up against my father who'd taken off his clothes down to his white boxers. Sleeping in bed beside Daddy and Tess felt wrong, like wearing someone else's underwear. I scooted to the bed's edge and faced the wall. I tried to pretend they weren't there, but it was useless. The ointment that Daddy had rubbed on Tess's shoulders mixed with her honeysuckle perfume and made a thick, sickening smell. The sour whiskey on Daddy's breath tinted the air, and each time he moved I smelled sweat from his body.

It's a story where the adults are doing selfish things, which is something I can totally relate to. I remember sitting in the laundry room where my mom had been living for two years since it was the only room in the house without windows and she thought that people in the trees wearing leaf suits and silent invisible helicopters were spying on her, and I remember my mom smoking some pot and as she blew the smoke from her mouth she said "you know that God loves you, right?"

I had a little pink bible which had my name on the cover in gold print but it was spelled wrong. The man who gave me that bible is also the man who touched my crotch once. Some guy who wasn't really my uncle, but who I was told to call my uncle.

I said "um...yeah."

She said good.

Really I thought he was a bully and a tyrant and I still think that to this day about the God of the bible. Love me or I'm going to punish the crap out of you. Right. I've been in a relationship like that before, and I got the hell out of it. Fear and love are not the same, and have absolutely nothing to do with one another in any way. Yet when I answered that um yeah, I know God loves me, I did it because I was empty and void of emotion and I had little left to lose.

Ellie helps her mom with Baby Tom and helps her dad keep his secret tomato girlfriend out of love. When I answered my mom I didn't say it out of love, I said it because it was what she was hoping I'd say, and frankly I didn't want to stand there all day and discuss God with my mother, who I never actually remember liking anyway.

I remember the principal showing up to my house because I hadn't been in school for a while after my dad died, and I remember fainting a lot in kindergarten because nobody fed me breakfast. My brother Robert started bringing over groceries but they'd be gone a day later because my mom's crackhead friends would come get their munchies from my cereal bowl. Then I'd have no cereal.

Ellie resorts to eating hamster food for lunch at school one time because she didn't have anything to bring from home.

My mom never kept a dead baby in a jar, but she did keep a bong in the fridge and she did have a telescope installed on our roof so that she could make sure nobody was watching her. Her and her paranoid delusions. Me and my lice that I got from a bum that slept in my bed when I was at school.

And this woman had the sheer audacity to stand there and argue with me when I was 14 that yes, she did take care of her kids, and that no, she never abandoned us. Ask my brother Richard and he will say the same exact thing. She loved us. She did the best she could.

Well her best was pretty shitty, and her best doesn't make Jessie's childhood one that she wants to remember. So reading Jayne Pupek's novel was torturous and yet I had to blow through the last 100 pages, lying on my bed with my head propped on a pillow, so unlike how I'd normally finish a book.

There's something called the victim mentality, and it's where, for example, rape victims blame everything that is wrong with them on that rape. In that sense, the rapist is still winning because it's still the source of all of your problems. Me, I know I had a shitty childhood, and yes I do know that because of some of the things that happened when I was little I have developed issues from it. I've got a daddy complex I cant shake, I don't handle rejection well, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But there's something to be said for just acknowledging all of this stuff and then just working around it.

This is why I write.

In the written word, I can recognize all the things wrong with me and figure out how to change them. In the moment that it's happening it's painful and you cant seem to get over it, but when you go back to write about it later you can start to see all the wheels spinning and you start to piece shit together.

That uncle John guy touched my crotch through my bathing suit and he probably would have done a whole lot more to me if he hadn't tried to hug me when he did it. I didnt know that the other thing he was doing was bad, all I knew was that I hated hugs then as much as I hate them now, and I squirmed away and I ran the hell out of that room. Whatever he did to his daughter when I walked back home is a mystery to me, all I know is he apologized by giving us bibles with our names printed on them in gold ink, but mine was spelled wrong. I saw right through his bullshit and now instead of being flattered but spoken for whenever some Christian tries to share with me the gift of everlasting life I'm reminded that people do sick fucking horrible things and then try to smooth it over by using God like a trowel when laying their bricks of fake fucking love and happy smiles.

Coked out pot smoking moms and their laundry rooms.

Daddy's and their tomato girls.

There are religious undertones in this book but it's clear what their meaning is to me, because I relate to them so damn much. And I'm reminded that sometimes your sad, broken childhood might make a good book someday if you can just force yourself to remember it all.

Then again I try not to remember it all, because I don't dwell on that part of my life. I've moved on from being the victim, and I'm a hell of a lot happier because of it. I saw everything that was wrong when I was a kid and knew that I couldn't put my kids through that, so I've vowed to make their lives better than mine, and I've also vowed to make my adulthood better than my childhood. In doing this, I've got this great husband and a clean house and maybe we don't really have a lot of stuff or money or anything we're more functional than a lot of people who do have those things. And I got the hell out of dodge when my boyfriend became an abusive tyrant. I wont be anyone's victim, not even my own.

I probably shouldn't publish this. But then if I dont, I'm just trapped in my own mind, which is what I try not to go for.

Good night, and may god be less.

Hardcore Ukulele Volume III: Me And The Minibar by Amanda Palmer

But first, a small unrelated rant about laundry.

{rant}

I just don't understand why it's always the same god damned family that's there hogging all 14 washers whenever I drag my stuff down there to wash. It's a community laundry room right here in the middle of our community for our community to share, so what the fuck gives ANYONE the right to take up 14 fucking washers at once?

Their unapologetic stares as I walk down the row of washers looking to see if there's an open one, or perhaps one with only a few minutes left on it to wait by make me want to turn around and fucking roundhouse kick the old grandmother woman, the one that I think may be the leader of the pack. But of course I cant do that because the whole damn family is down there with her just loitering about the laundry room for no other reason than to make this a whole family event! I'm not even sure if all of them live here! How can they cram THAT many adults into a two bedroom apartment? There are seven people here, and only two of them appear to be between the ages of 15-18, the others all seem to be 30-70.

Okay, and then? There just happens to be one fucking washer open and I'm putting my money in the machine that puts the money on the laundry cards and their bestest bestie or some shit comes in and they say something in Spanish and bitch takes my washer. Bitch takes my washer! I go over there and the lady gets all bitchy like "Oh well you were here first so I GUESS you can have it, I'll just WAIT!"

Damn right you'll just have to wait, tell your fucking friends not to use so many damn washers and we can make this a whole lot easier.

Then the people say something in Spanish about me. I know it was about me because I understand Spanish. I cant speak it but when it is spoken to me I understand it. And they were pissed that I took the damn washer. But now instead of getting my three loads done at once I've got to go one at a fucking time by emptying the washer into a dryer and immediately filling it back up with another load before someone takes it. And the family of course sits there with four big huge garbage bags full of things they still intend to wash.

I think what happened here was that they were about to use that washer but they were going to let their friend use it to be nice. Then I had to go and get in the way.

But then it comes time to dry my load and all 14 of the fucking dryers are taken. The grandmother woman looks at me like I'm stupid for even being there. So I just stand there by my washer with a basket full of dirty clothes because I have nowhere to put them because I cant empty my washer.

And then for some reason, she takes pity on me.

She goes over to one of her dryers that has 10 minutes left and opens it up. She removes a rug and three or four shirts. She smiles at me and tells me to have the dryer in her own language. And I'm just pissed that ALL she was drying was a fucking rug and a couple shirts. That is a waste of energy, of a dollar ten, of a fucking dryer. They're industrial sized for a reason, you know, so you can DO LAUNDRY in them, not fluff up your damn bath towels on a whim.

I think it's unfair that they're obviously trucking in other people's laundry to do here when actual residents need to use them. Furthermore, I think it's bullshit that they do half loads. Yeah! That's the reason why they have to take up so many machines, I've seen their loads! They fill the washer half way for whatever god damned reason. And they're down there EVERY GOD DAMNED TIME I go to do laundry.

EVERY GOD DAMNED TIME.

{/rant}

And now for something completely different. It's ukulele time!

I recorded this last night while waiting for my laundry to finish. I've been playing for about a month now and the skin covering my blisters is starting to peel off. I can be all like "I'VE GOT BLISTAS ON MY FINGAS!" and really mean it. Ukulele is so badass. Anyway, I had to read the chord changes off the computer screen so I don't look into the camera and act all sincere like on this one, but it's the best one yet.

Oh and I'm taking requests now. Help me build my to-be-uked list.

Don't Look In The Box Kids, You'll Only Traumatize Yourselves

Yay! Photo blog time!

So the most important task of the day was to put a lock on the fun box. Do you recall the fun box?



Riiight...and you remember how I'm doing that review program for the sex toy website? Riiiight...it's not like they make me return the stuff, you know. And it all has to go somewhere. Which is why we have a box. Except that the boys are very curious about the box, they want to know what is in the box.

The kids do not need to know what is inside the box.

So my task today was to put a lock on the box.



I didn't really know how I was going to do it, but I bought a big padlock last week and figured "Oh David will figure it out" except that David is more interested in staring at the sediments at the bottom of his bottles of home made beer than helping me put a padlock on the sex toys. So I just grabbed a bunch of tools and figured it out on my own. I even used the Dremel all by myself!



I figured yeah, it's electric, but I probably wont cut my face off with it. Plus I needed to make holes for the "screw eyes." Says that right on the package, for real. Anyway, it worked out so now we have this here...



It's not totally fool proof but it is kid proof. That's all I care about. The only fools around here are us, and we can just use keys. This way the kids wont find out about Daddy's butt plugs till they're old enough to pick locks.

And now for something completely different:

My sister and I took the kids to this creepy puppet show that I got a flyer for from Ty's school. It was a free performance, and I'm all about that. Plus Ty is at a really cool age where all that stuff is real to him and it's still silly, plus he claps along to the music and has a good time. The cool thing is that it actually ended up being a really cool show!



It was hard to get good pictures due to the lighting and the movement of the marionettes, but I snapped a few that I think are decent.












The marionettes interacted with the audience of kids seated on the floor.





My favoritest was also the saddest and creepiest. The sad clown. He started by blowing up a balloon....



Then he flew around with his balloon



Of course the balloon popped and the sad clown was sad, but I can't show you those pictures. They're too sad. Just look at this creepy face!



The guy's name was Scott Land...which is...neat...but he was actually really good. He makes all the marionettes himself.



I thought there would be more traumatized children in the audience. Only one screamed and it was because of the hillbilly. Here's Cousin Victor singing in Ty and Wade's faces...



I'm glad they enjoyed it, because at first Wade didn't even realize where he was supposed to be looking.



I still like my creepy puppets better.



Taste test video of the Ugli fruit coming soon. In the mean time, here's a video of Scott Land that I found on Youtube.

David's Run In With The Heat

David walks to work in the mornings since it's just down the street. And he's got a pretty boring job most of the day so he brings a backpack with him full of books, snacks, and random things to keep him busy. He walks at the same time every morning to the same place all bundled up in his company jacket and company beanie. He's a man who is off to work. He's worked there for two and a half years.

So this cop pulls up beside him.

Beaumont cops are generally about 22 years old, cute, maybe freckly, maybe giggly. There's a bunny-faced little gum chewing girl on the force, and a whole lot of guys who I graduated with.

Like Mustang Sally would say, "Is cute but still is boy."

So this cop pulls up beside him.

Lowers his shades.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school son?"

The cop is chubby cheeked and clean shaven, spiked hair and a soft reedy voice. Is cute but still is boy.

"No sir," David answers in his deep dark baritone voice and scratches at his stubble. "I'm on my way to work right now actually. I know I look like a kid with this backpack but really, I'm just going to work."

"Um...oh..." the officer fumbles, realizing that they both probably feel like jerks at the moment. "It's just that we had a kid walk off of campus at the high school, we're looking for him right now. Um...so where you coming from?"

David tells him where we live.

"And where do you work?"

David tells him The Cans.

"Oh you're that guy. Sorry to bother you sir."

"Have a good one," David waves.

At least the cop didn't think he was a bum.

Though there was that whole fiasco with that kid at the high school a few years ago who looks like an exact replica of David, I shit you not. He was on the football team or something and David would get a lot of slaps on the back from people saying "Great job at the game last night," and he'd have no idea what they were talking about. I saw that kid one time at Staters, he seriously looks like David. I started walking up to him thinking it was David and I was confused as to why he was looking right past me like I didn't exist or like he didn't recognize his family, the kids hanging off the cart.

And then you know what? It wasn't him. And I was astonished.

The creepy thing is that they share the same birthday. December 28th. Though the kid was born in like 92 or something, David is older, but we know this because he came and recycled one day. And David kept staring at him and the kid just kept staring off into space.

"We look alike," David mentions.

"Huh? Oh yeah..." the kid goes and kind of spaces out again. So David tells him that he needs to check his ID, because with orders over $50 you have to write down their license plate number or their drivers license number. He didn't have that much stuff but the kid didn't look bright enough to protest, and he wasn't because he willingly whipped out his wallet. And that's when David found out that they have the same birthday.

I mean, wouldn't it creep YOU out if you found YOUR clone?

And wouldn't you be insulted that it couldn't even hold up its end of the conversation when you discover that it's your clone?

Later on I'm on my way to pick Ty up from school and I stop at The Cans. I always hang out with David for a little while when I'm out. We make snide comments about anyone who shows up during our alone time, or "alone in the parking lot time" as it were. We see this guy walking our direction wearing a hoodie and his shorts are halfway down his ass. He's got his hand on his chest and he's all looking around. I nod at his direction to point him out to David.

"Crack head," I tell him. "What's he holding himself like that for?" I ask.

"He stole something from Walgreens," David says without missing a beat.

Sure enough we hear some kind of box or something rip open behind the bins, then a few seconds later we see Crackhead walking by us eating a donut or something. He flashes us a gang sign or a peace sign with a "wussup" nod.

"Good call honey," I say. David tells me that he saw the guy in Walgreens, and it's not hard to read him. He's walking through the parking lot holding himself weird and he's looking around. It's probably the damn kid from the high school that escaped.

After getting Ty I go to pick David up so he can just drop us off at home and drive himself home at lunch. A cop pulls up, a different cop, but the cop eyeballs David as he's getting into the car. "That cop's gonna want to talk to me," he says. "That kid did steal something. He ditched all the evidence behind my bins."

I cant tell you what all was said, other than David telling the cop "he went thataway."

This is pretty much the extent of the crime in Beaumont, kids escaping their school and crackheads stealing from Walgreens. The gangs arent old enough to buy guns yet and they haven't really migrated from the other side of the tracks, although we did have a 12 year old shoot another 12 year old in the face and killed him the other day. He didn't know the gun was loaded, but he sure knew where daddy kept the guns, huh?

Two things scare the crap out of me enough to not let my kids ever spend the night at someone else's house. One is creepy child molesting uncles who sleep on couches and the other is daddy not putting away the guns.

Crack heads and neglectful parents. That explains the gang problem too.

Probably also explains why a kid escaped the high school.

All I know is I think David's found a free age defying beauty tip. Want to look 10 years younger? Wear a backpack and walk around Beaumont. Fair warning, you may get stopped by the cops a few times. Just giggle and say something clever like "Dont hate me because I'm beautiful" or "Maybe it's Maybeline." Bat your eyes too.

If you pull it off right there's an even chance you'll get a number.

The Sun Shines Down On My Street Too

It's all pretty right now with it being spring, and I'm feeling much better.

It's been a long, cold, lonely winter.

The house is all done as far as painting and decorating goes, plus they just finished painting our building today so I was able to hang my windchimes back up and straighten out my porch. I stopped caring for a while there when I got all into being holed up in my living room ignoring anything that didn't need my immediate attention and I let some plants die. And all those damn pieces of drift wood that David dragged home to carve and sand with his Dremel were just all scattered in the outside closet, plus the Christmas tree was falling out of the box and the whole closet was just a mess so I did that whole spring cleaning thing, I guess. Moved stuff around, like that.

Then I got more into it and moved the paint cans from our indoor utility closet to out there, making room for the beer making supplies which have just been sitting over by my hanging fruit baskets with David scratching his head saying "why cant we just leave them there?"

Because it's a huge plastic white bucket with "BEER BEER AND MORE BEER" written all over it and you're collecting too many Coors boxes to hold your finished product and it makes us look like drunks and also this kitchen is supposed to be cafe themed not beer themed? Not cardboard box themed? Not white trash themed?

Maybe that's it.

I asked him to do this, but I rearranged the pantry and the utility closet and made room for his beer stuff to be put away, and it made my day. I even went so far as to post the pots from the dead plants, some clothes the boys have grown out of, and a big stack of cookbooks on Freecycle. It feels good to get rid of crap. A lady up the street came and got it all and it's no longer my problem. The beer stuff is though, which is fine, because...whatever. It justified a poppet. The adorable little lush. We bottled the beer the other night, he's hoping that it turns out all right.

Now the big bucket of science in my closet has been replaced with a milk crate of beer bottles that clink if I step too hard.

I go water my fern and they're all *clink*

Better than the creepy bucket of science that was all *glurg*

I like that the lady that came to pick up my crap asked me to leave the stuff outside so she didn't have to knock.

Sounds like something I'd say.

She lives on my street.

The porch looks all nice now and my birds are happy that the windchimes are up again. My balcony railing is blue now and I'm hoping to set up out there to work on my novel...oh, except that it's windy and the pages I'm working from aren't bound or anything. All I need is for Beaumont to be littered with hundreds of out of context manuscript pages with only one of them baring my name, only one of them actually linking back to me.

A bum found a bunch of DVD's in the garbage and gave them to David, and they're all yucky boring movies that I don't want to watch so this just translates to several guilt-free hours at Starbucks for me while he watches his flicks. It's a nice trade off, and nobody gets bored. I don't have to sit through his movie and he doesn't have to sit here all bored if I leave for a while.

I read two novels last week, Band Geek Love which was good and cute and reminiscent of my high school days and 69 Thing To Do With A Dead Princess which was stupid and horrible and just this girl having sex with this old man and his ventriloquist's dummy for two paragraphs and then two paragraphs of what the old man thinks about certain literature. Throughout it's 100-some-odd pages. That's not an exaggeration. It really is like that. And it completely blows except that it did contain one good line. "He says that books are erotic to him. They make him want to shit his pants."

Fantastic.

Now I'm reading Tomato Girl and I love everything about it, what with the little girl's batshit crazy mom who tries to breastfeed a dead baby that she keeps in a jar and all. I'm only 40 or so pages in, though it will probably be more by the end of the night. I sit on a wooden chair in the hallway in front of the kid's open door and read till they go to sleep so they don't get up and screw around. They read too, it's a family affair. The neighbor wants me to read her still being written sex novel which is just cluttered and broken English. She's been giving David rides to work and brining me pancakes every night because she wants us all to hang out again.

I tell her we just got busy.

It's not her fault that I got all off my rocker for a few months there.

I don't want anyone's feelings to be hurt.

She tells me through email that she's working steady now so she can afford her rent again. A man paid it for her a few times. I don't know who that man is, all I know is she sends the nude pictures she intends to send to him to me first for my approval, and I always give a thumbs up. Naked Sally is Naked Sally.

She tells me, "In Romania we have cute phrase. In English I think is 'the sun shines down on my street too,' which means I have good fortunes happen for me."

Good thing me and Sally live on the same street...in the same box...sharing the same walls.

And I say, it's all right.

Writing In Public Is For Attention Seeking Primadonna Whores

David had to take the car in this morning to have this clicking noise looked at, and since Carmax has a kids area with toys and movies I begged him to take Wade with him. Please. I'll give you a cookie, I'll be your best friend, I'll play with you at recess, the whole bit. He's all "but it will be like hours" and I remind him that I often take both kids to the doctors where it will be like hours and I take them to the store and basically every fucking where I go. That worked better than the whole "I'll play with you at recess" thing.

Guilt beats bribery 9 times out of 10.

Except when there are blow jobs and sandwiches at stake.

They left at nine and I walked Ty to the bus at 10, and then I walked to Starbucks. I wasn't all indecisive about it this time either, I just went. It was a little cold out but I've got my thermals and I'm okay. I saw a book lying in the gutter on the way there, and it made me sad. I would have rescued it but I didn't want to hop over the fence, so I just left it there. Kinda depressing when you think about it. Maybe even poetic.

I don't write at Starbucks much anymore. I used to, and the staff used to know me here. Kind of. They wrote "Jessica" on my cups and I just never corrected them. I usually go off on a whole thing about how I was named after my grandfather Jesse so there's no "kuh" at the end of it but whatever, it's probably better if these people don't know me. Fuck them.

The other thing is that cops come in and out of here like the coffee is free, and from what I hear it is. Cops are distracting, they're just so damn pretty in their uniforms and I get all drooly you know.

PS David is saving himself for CHP. Yeah. He decided that he's not ready, frankly, and the two years will give him time to get ready. Plus, he doesn't want to settle for another agency, he wants what he wants and he wants the best. I cant blame him.

More cans, more pizza.

More me going to Starbucks to stare at cops.

Black uniforms are awesome because they command respect. However, the khaki that CHP wears is like, "We're so badass we don't even need to command your respect. We'll just take it."

Black is like "Don't resist us."

Khaki is like "Resist us. We like it. Come on motherfucker..."

So I'm sitting at Starbucks with the weird Starbucks music and my manuscript for A Powdery Tattoo which is my young adult novel. Everyone here seems to know each other, not just the friendly baristas that greet everyone by name, but the patrons all seem to know each other. And then there are those who keep to themselves, like me and the other guy who seems to also be writing a novel on his computer. To tell you the truth I'm only here because sitting at home I have to deal with the painters and making my own foods and drinks, where as here they all do it for me. Plus the cool photo opportunities. But I dont normally bring my camera.

Although I suppose I should try to get some actual work done, but blogging is healthy as well. It helps me to reflect.

God if anyone tries to talk to me I swear I'll splash hot soy chai vanilla latte on their stupid friendly little face.

I'm a bit hostile.

I'm admittedly paranoid about someone trying to steal my stuff. I love my camera and I need my computer. I will seriously choke a bitch, I have not saved my manuscript folder to my minivault in four chapters. Stupid old man, stop looking at me. Nothing gives you that right, nothing.

"Good thing there's divorce," the barista says to a black man, and the black man goes "No no no, marriage is a contract. That's everlasting."

I like that man.

There's a woman sitting outside at one of the little tables smoking. With each word she says to her track suit dressed friend a puff of smoke comes out of her mouth. It's a cool trick but I'd never talk to her.

The barista tells a cop that she's moving in to our complex and asks him to keep an eye on the place. And then she says that she's moving into my building. There are eight apartments in our building, four are vacant. Now only three. I shout "Hey, I'm your neighbor!" and so now I have a new cute little bleach blonde 20-something year old friend who is all like "totally" and "seriously" and "good thing there's divorce." She wears a black plastic flower in her hair and she's probably got one of those little tramp stamp tattoos on her lower back. Maybe even pierced nipples. Naked and shadowed she'd be the rose petal covered and splayed out body on the cover of saucy book where maybe someone gets murdered.

I shall call her Barista, because I am not creative.

This is a small fucking town.

And then a shoulder rub happens and I freak and then scowl up at uniformed Officer Two Step. He mostly ignores me while he's in here but he's got this stupid grin on his face the whole time he's waiting for his drink. Like he knows I'm looking at him, but I'm not. I'm hiding behind my computer screen. I only know he's smiling because I know that he's a smug bastard. I hate that he has that gun. Then he comes over and reads a few words from my screen and I tell him "don't you have a city to serve and protect?"

I'm sure anyone who heard it thought I was being rude. I kind of wished that I could blow smoke from my mouth when I talked.

He's not flirty with the barista girls, but they're all over him. He tries to stay quiet and just get his coffee. They're asking him about this guy who came in earlier's report of kids breaking into all the garages in his neighborhood, and he says like "oh yeah," and says the area. "Real problem." He doesn't go into detail. He leaves out the same door he came, which is the door I'm by, and he pats me on the back and calls me Mrs. Terwilliger.

This is why I don't write at Starbucks.

Then Mr. Terwilliger calls me and tells me that those fucking fuckers at the fucking Carmax didn't do a fucking thing to fix the fucking noise, and I tell him to call corporate and then pick me up at Starbucks. More cops show up, must be the new shift coming on. I snap a stealth picture of a detective and pray to jebus that he doesn't smash my camera.

I'm convinced that one day someone of authority is going to smash my camera.

This is also why I don't usually bring my camera.

The good news is that writing from my already typed manuscript I added enough detail and extra stuff that I turned one typed page into three. I was productive and that was my goal. Writing here is still distracting but the distractions aren't the same old "I'm thirsty-he hit me-I want some crackers-I'm bored let's go somewhere" distractions that I'm used to. Now it's all these new distractions and somehow, some way, that helps me think.

It's Just Like Hanging Out With Us!

If you've ever wanted to hang out with us here's your chance! Pull up a couch while David severely violates the ukulele with his rendition of "I Touch Myself" while I eat a bowl of Shredded Wheat! Bring your own jar of marshmallow cream and/or water based lubricant. This gon' get wiiild.

Books Are Important

The school district had a book fair today and all the books were buy one get one free so I had my sis come along with us to go check it out. My kids are actually quite a bit of a handful, so when we go do the free Saturday projects at Lowes and Home Depot (which is where they nail together birdhouses and cars and stuff for free) she usually accompanies us since David works.

I'm all about getting Ty books. Ty reads. Ty reads second grader books. Ty reads the names of the meat at the store and then asks me what they're made from...then asks if any of the meat is made from dead people and I say no, and he says, "but that one said 'Family Pack.'"

Kind of like how girl scout cookies are made from real girl scouts.

Both of them read in bed at night, and Wade will crash with the book over his face. Ty's school is doing a read-a-thon and he's got these sheets to track all the books he's read, and in three days he filled all 20 lines of it, with repeating only one book.

People ask, "So if you don't watch TV then what do you do?"

Simple. We read. We're teaching the kids this as well. I keep buying books because I figure once I'm done reading the whole stack I'll die.

There is one TV in the house but it's in the kids room but we don't have television service or anything, it's just so they can watch movies, which they can only watch if their room is clean and they've been good enough to earn movie-popcorn time.

So we walked to the book fair since it was close and my sis tells me that when the schools do the buy one get one on the book fairs the school doesn't make any money. When it's regular priced they get a 40% profit on each book, but with buy one get one they basically make nothing. Luckily there was all this other crap there, all these organizations hawking their wares and what not so the schools made money for sure. There was a hell of a lot of people there.

Of course the other advantage of having my sis there was she could help recommend books to us, plus pick up a few of her own. For some reason her favorite genre is 12 year old boys with magical powers and/or dysfunctional family lives who somehow overcome their hardships through discovering mythical creatures who take them far far away.

See also: Harry Potter

See also: James and the Giant Peach

We ended up with 13 books for only $27, plus we got to make some artwork for free and make Fruit Loop necklaces which, by the way, the district photographer lady who was documenting the event pulled my kids aside and got their pictures with their Fruit Loop necklaces and I guess they're going to end up on the district website. If I hear back from her, I'll link you to it.

We are Seuss fans here and the majority of the kid's books we own are Seuss but there wasn't any Seuss books at the fair. We need Cat in the Hat, it's the one really big important book we don't have of his for some reason, but all they had was the Spanish version, you guessed it: El Gato en el Sombrero.

We got a book about what our bodies look like on the inside, because Ty is always asking what shape his stomach is and if his liver has eyes. Plus we got some basic storybooks, Wade was just grabbing things off the shelf. We tried to narrow it down for him. Ty's actually sitting there and reading them before he buys them to make sure he'll like them.

I cant remember not knowing how to read, David cant either. The kids have their own bookshelf that we're slowly filling because, lets face it, you can put 10 kids books together on a shelf and only have taken up the same amount of space that a 250 page novel would take up.

Comment question of the day: What's your favorite kid's book?

Mine is Six Dinner Sid.

It's A Great Day

On this great day, Raymond Lee Oyler of Beaumont, CA was found guilty on all charges of arson and murder stemming from the day that he started the infamous Esperanza Fire back on October 26th, 2006. The jury held him responsible for the murders of five fire fighters, including Jess McLean.

I knew him, Horatio!

I knew him not well, and only met him a handful of times when I was young. We used to play Nintendo 64 and drink diet Pepsi and avoid eye contact. Jess is my sister in law's nephew, which I guess to me makes him very little, especially since she's no longer my sister in law due to divorce, but on this great day the man responsible for his death was found guilty, and for that I am beyond happy.

The day improved even more when I went to drop David off after lunch and I spotted me some girl scouts selling them up some cookies outside of Stater's. I grabbed one of the girl scouts and shook her violently until a bunch of cookies fell out and then I gathered my stash and galloped back to the car and proceeded to deepthroat an entire sleeve of Thin Mints. I didn't even chew them, I just sort of pushed them down my throat and worked my neck muscles like a goose does to get them into my stomach.

I do the same thing with floutas.

I fucking love floutas.

Oh and don't worry about the little girl, she's fine I'm sure.

And then I saw all of these motorcycle cops and cop cars with their sirens on, flashing their lights and all while making their way up Beaumont Ave. A chase perhaps?

No.

Behind the barrage of SUV and motorcycle cops was a team of about 30 bicyclists whizzing up the road.

I love Beaumont sometimes.

Here, I'm pretty sure you'd find a policeman directing traffic around some baby ducks who were crossing the street, and the fire fighters really do rescue kittens from trees.

It's sunny but there are dark clouds so all the green trees have a golden glow. The air is cool but not crisp, and the wind is down to an acceptable breeze for once rather than the wind tunnel effect. I'm in love with this town on certain days, especially with the fields all full of yellow fiddleneck and a homeless person on the roof of Stater's smoking a cigarette like he belongs there, just waving down at people. I wonder how long until they catch him. Seems that all the cops are busy, so he could just end up claiming Stater's as his fort. "I got all my supplies downstairs..."

A cute painter boy climbed up onto my balcony and I watched him purely for my own amusement. Plus it's awesome that they're painting this place and making it look so nice. And, did I mention that painter boy was cute?

I won't tell you about the part where there was a painter guy on a ladder outside my bedroom window and Wade had opened up that mysterious box in my room and just left it open like a little prick and the painter guy was looking in my window and he looked at me and I looked at him and he looked at the box full of bright pink silicone and golden plastic and all those strappy things and I just walked over and shut the box and hid in the livingroom. I won't tell you about that part. That'd ruin it.

We've gotta put a lock on that box.

It was a great fucking day today. The Big Wet Rainstorm is over for me I think and tonight I'll write and play the ukulele until one of my blisters decides to break open all over the strings or something. I'm hardcore like that.

Everything's great. How are you?

Hardcore Ukulele Volule II: Creep by Radiohead

Here is another mediocre ukulele performance, this time of the song Creep by Radiohead.

Fair warning, I can't sing high notes, in fact I have very little control of my non existent upper range, but I do it anyway in this song. But it's only during the run-run-run-uhn-uhn-uhn part. The rest of it is my usual mellow range that I'm decent with, but again, singing is a lot harder when you're also playing an instrument as I have learned.

And three cheers for me who took this all in one take! No clever editing needed!

Furthermore, David and I are working on a duet, so you might see that soon. And it's a song that I Imagine everyone knows.

A Zombie Cannot Tell A Lie

I'm standing on a chair hanging some candle holders that I bought at Ross and I hear a whistle come from outside. I turn around and Mustang Sally is down on the sidewalk waving at me.

"Hey," I go.

"What you are doing?"

"Decorating," I go.

"Your new bedroom? You could be to hang more mirrors?"

"These are candle holders," I go, and I point out that they are surrounding the round mirror set that I got at Target for $20 (for Liz in Seattle because she asked.)

I like the way my room is coming together with such a small amount of money being spent. The candle holders I put up around the round mirror sets were only $7 for the whole dang set. Ross is actually the place to fucking go when you need to decorate a room.

Next thing I know she brings me a stack of Romanian pancakes, which I think are just a form of crepes, and she emails me six nude pictures of herself.

I think we're talking again.

Not that we weren't talking, it's just that I've been really anti social...with her anyway. Since like December. She loaned me clothes for the funeral and I didn't even have the desire to bring them back to her. She only got them back because no joke, she specifically needed the necklace I borrowed so she could take "some pictures."

Some pictures.

I tell her, "Your vagina is hanging out in this one," in response to the barrage of nudies she sent.

"You think the guy I send them to will likes them?"

"I'm sure he wont be offended," I tell her, and then go back to my room to finish what I was doing. And the big bucket of beer wort in the closet glugs at me.

Aside from the candles I also picked up two metal tiles to hang by my metal butterflies (the butterflies were $20 at Target, metal tiles were $3 at Ross, and PS those candle holders you see over to the right are from Wal Mart for $10.) We also needed a bigger box because I was running out of room in the small box on my nightstand for whatever it is that I keep in there *shifty eyes* so I got this hyacinth reed one for $20 at Ross to put at the foot of our bed. I wont need a bigger box for quite some time, unless Eden Fantasy's sends me a crap load of jumbo sized products to review.

There's one on there called "Eleven" and...yeah, okay well anyways, next time you come over just look in the box. Dare you to.

So anyway, I'm trying to mount those little metal tiles so that they're perfectly even with each other, as I already kind of feel like those candle holders look a little half baked. (Do they? Be honest. I mean David likes them but do you think they kind of suck? Y or N)

Then I get this text message. And it's from an internet friend who lives in Florida.

WTF??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Um...okay...it's like 10:00 at night here so it's like the middle of the night there, so why is she texting me? And why is she being vague? So I ask what the WTF is in regards to.

You are bbeatiful.

WTF is right, so I call Cricky, and I hear what sounds like a struggle, or like someone rolling around in the blankets, and I hear a grunt.

"Hey why are you texting me?"

"Murrrrph?"

"What the hell is going on?"

"You...must have the...wrong...person" this male voice says all crack head like. I realized that it wasn't my friend, and that someone must have gotten a hold of her phone, either because they stole it or maybe there was a drunken house guest playing pranks. I hung up the phone and went back to work. Five minutes later I get another message.

You wrrite good books

Yeah, all fucked up and crackheady like that, so I got a little worried, because whoever this is they KNOW who I am, AND they think I'm beautiful? WTF???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I respond by saying "Is that so?" to kind of play it cool.

Jusmt thouhgt. I would compliment them.

I stopped responding at this point. Something was wrong. I fired off an email to Cricky to let her know that some fool was playing on her phone, and if it was her, I don't appreciate being trolled at 10:00 at night. Look I'm the first to drop whatever it is that I'm doing to talk to a friend on the phone, and an occasional trolling is cute and funny, but it's awfully late and this is getting awfully cryptic and oh wait another text.

Good to u.

I'm having all these visions of Cricky and her husband falling mugu to some 419 scam and now Barrister William Sheraton is in her house taking her money and her cell phones and trying to get me to take a cashier's cheque in exchange for a great fortune. And Cricky is dead. And I am next.

This morning the real Cricky emails back and says that she had no idea that any of this was happening, and that it was actually her husband's phone that was sending the texts. So she calls her husband and asks him to check his text log.

Dude was sleep texting. He has no memory whatsoever of sending these texts.

The cool thing is that he thinks I'm beautiful and he likes my books, and zombies cant lie, people. David actually time travels in his sleep and I can ask him about future events, which is how I know that he IS in fact going to be a cop within the next few years because the Zombie David told me. One time though I was asking him about the future and the Zombie David told me that "they closed the book and wont let me read anymore of it." Yeah, zombies are creepy, especially fortune telling zombies. I also dabble in hypnosis so I'm familiar with talking to people's subconscious minds. The neighbor by the way, she's got some fucking issues involving people wearing Colonial clothing and white powdered wigs. And I wont get into it at the moment but spirit guides? Exist. For everyone. No joke.

Regardless, this texting is actually a form of a phenomenon known as z-mailing, or "zombie mailing," where people get up and start emailing people in the middle of the night with no memory of it the next day.

When I talk in my sleep, David says I do this once every few weeks, but he says I'll talk about rebuilding old cars from like the 1940's in rich detail, like when you watch those shows, which I don't. One time I even told him that the problem with my sister's lawnmower was that she needed to gap the spark plugs. I don't know what the fuck that even means when I'm awake, but in my dreams I'm rebuilding engines from cars that I owned in past lives.

I'm flattered that the Zombie Joe thinks so highly of me. I don't even talk to him or Cricky that often.

The fermenting bucket blurps and then glugs at me.

Oh and by the way, it doesn't make the clothes smell like beer. It actually smells like candy, so I actually smell like I just came from a nice family friendly taffy pull. You will to enjoy. Good to u.

SCIENCE!

It was the first step in the beer making process; boiling down all the stuff in a big big pot and essentially waiting for the science to happen.

There really is science to it. And there's a lot a lot a lot of steps that you have to follow or else you'll end up with a bucket of germy water with a bunch nasty shit in it.

Which is basically what beer is anyway, but whatevs.

You get your startup kit, which is some buckets and tubes and thermometers and hydrometers and more tubes and spatulas and things, and then you buy a beer ingredient kit. The kit contains the hops and barley and corn sugar and yeast and all that stuff, and it's only about $20, maybe $30 for other kinds. Bottles are expensive, so we just recycle old ones and sanitize them and remove the labels. We have a thingy that puts caps on, and friends to help us with this new frontier.

It's not that David really asks for much. He's an easy husband. I was mostly annoyed before because I was in a sour mood for no particular reason other than I was just in a sour mood, and really, science is fun for everyone.

I thought that Step 1 would be more of a group activity or at least exciting as hell to watch, so Steppy and OMG came over to take part in the science, but as it turns out it was mostly just me being a rabid unstoppable jester using my best comedy material while David cooked us up some beer, or wort rather, because it's not beer yet and it wont be for a few weeks.

A 12 oz bottle of beer costs about $0.53 to make. The first batch will all be given away to get people hooked on Terwilliger Home Brew, then we start charging $1. Bums will flock from all across the land to taste our brew, and if it got fucked up this time, we'll try again until we figure it out, because that equipment cost too much to just let it sit in a box somewhere.

There will be beer. At some point. Hopefully this batch came out okay.

Bootlegging is fun.

I don't know what I'm smelling in this picture here, I think it's cracked barley. I just heard crack and went "let me smell!" He says it's the malt.

Beer science smells like cereal.

It wasn't much of a group activity, but the house smelled all fruity and it kept getting warm and so we would have to open the windows. There were foamy bubbles and there was stirring, and there was me like "So anyway, today I watched a video of an autistic adult fucking his blow up doll...wait, you don't want to know that...but it wasn't like I was searching for it at any rate, I just came across it."

His fault for uploading a video like that to the internet.

But there was laughter, and actually hanging out was a lot of fun, so in two weeks when we have to bottle this stuff, we can have them come back and help us and have this be a big fun group thing. Not as fun as other things we could all be doing as a group, but I'm not really down with that anyway.

I got to halp though by pouring the big pot of wort into the big fermenting bucket while David strained it a little with his rubber spatula. That's how I halped. Beer making is a group effort. Like beer drinking, which will be fun for me to watch, anyway. Until he starts making raspberry beer. Then I'll think about partaking in the festivities.

Today there is a huge bucket of fermenting wort in my closet. And we know that it is fermenting because we can see water bubbles going glug glug glug out of the water plug he has on the top of the bucket. A closet full of beer. I open my closet to get a shirt and there's beer.

My mom grew pot.

There's beer in the closet and David tells me that we have to keep the curtains closed so light doesn't get in and damage the wort.

In two weeks after we bottle this stuff it sits again and this is how you get carbonation. I enjoy the hell out of carbonation because it makes things delicious!

David tasted the wort, said the bitter hops hit him first, then a wheat taste, but the fruity aftertaste won out all.

I open my closet and the big bucket glugs at me.

"It's fermenting! Science is happening and I MADE IT HAPPEN!" David screams all maniacally. "It's happening here IN OUR HOUSE!"

I'm told that we cant move the fermenting bucket but he parked it right in front of my laundry basket. Not that I can complain. There are five places in this house that have stashed yarn in them that I haven't even looked at in three months. Plus the two spots out in the living room that are out in the open...but at least I'm working on two of those visible projects.

Science glugs its fermenting bucket at me in response.

Science takes up space but it's an excuse to hang out and in a few weeks, voila! Science gives you beer.

History never gave you beer before. Nor did geology or trig or PE.

Science is your friend.

Science for the win.

Trading Spaces Part 2: Our Room

I have company coming over (!!!) and hopefully I will have some head-down/crotch only shots to share later for we are making beer, but I wanted to show you real quick that we finished our room.

Oh no, a sexy man!



A better look at the color in the daylight (and guess what's in the box...)







And our view (window is dirty on the outside, sorry)

Trading Spaces Part 1: The Kid's Room

So like I said the other day, the maintenance guy came by and said that if we switched bedrooms with the kids, because the kids are loud and annoying and bothering the neighbors (although those guys are ALSO loud and annoying and stompy so I'm not exactly apologetic about it) they would resurface our countertops. I'm down with that, even though we just painted and I'm a little upset about losing our pretty green. On the bright side, we never finished painting the kid's old room/our new room so repainting it isn't that big of a deal, and the pretty green goes just fine for a boys room.

Mustang Sally was like, "Why they make you switching? If the kids bother then tell THOSE guys to switching, not YOU. YOU painted."

Well anyway, our room is still being worked on because we had to stop to de-louse the kids. Yes. They had lice all the sudden, and this is why I like boys because we shaved their heads and gave them the treatment and combed them and it's not that big of a deal. I could imagine if I had a girl, things would not be so easy. It's the downside of sending your kids to school, is they come home with germs and fucking headlice.

But, we got their room all set up. BEHOLD!

Check out the new spiffy bedspreads heh?

I think they go great with the walls. Oh, and yeah, fucking Power Mac running Mac OS 9.1 BABY!

Thing's got KidPix and Oregon Trail and Reader Rabbit, you name it. Just a little gem my sis picked up for me when her school upgraded to new Macs. It's not THAT old, I used one just like it in 6th grade. Of course that was like 15 years ago, but whatevs. No internet but it's not like they need it. Boys grow up too fast with the internet around.

I will be back with our bedroom pics whenever I can. Imagine the deepest forest green you can imagine on a little paint chip card but magnified by 1000 and put on our walls.

Sweet.

brb.