Sunday Bloody Sunday

You people don't seem to like my photo clogs but on the weekends is when I get my David squish time (and also when we *test* the things that come in the mail) so this is what you get.

I do a lot of drive by's. In fact, probably 20% of the pictures I take are from a moving vehicle. Today we attempted to take pictures of The Ranch House, and peep into the back yard. We would do the same for The Cottage but people still live there and as far as I know people dont like it when you go tromping through their yard taking pictures, even though by putting it up for sale they're pretty much asking for it.

Only when we got to The Ranch House there were all these people there, and they were carting junk out from the yard to the curb. There were all these trucks and all these people, and if there's people you cant stop.

And technically, David, you shouldnt "hop the fence" to check out the back yard anyway.

Now, in the interest of not totally publishing where we might be moving to on the internet (not bloody likely) I'll show you bits and pieces of what I was able to capture via drive by shooting.

(and yes, by taking pictures of it I am now claiming ownership, which is wrong because something is going to fall through last minute and we wont get the house, but in the spirit of having nothing better to say, LOOK AT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!1!111!!!!!!!)

There. You shouldn't be able to piece together which house it is because these pictures are way different than the ones in the listing.

And now for something completely different.

Presley! What's not to love?

And now for Thunder Alley, which is wee little RC car racing. This actually has a pretty big following and is serious fucking business in the Beaumonts.

And just in case you were wondering, the garden is doing well.

Look! Hops!

Time to go. The neighbor has created a ping pong table by placing a door on an ironing board, and we are invited.

Cheers.

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty pt. 2 of 2

Kitty went to the vet today, but not first without a struggle. Actually, it wasn't at all what I was expecting, he was actually more sad than mad, but he was in a precarious position and therefore the video is...somewhat amusing, to say the least. I fall on my ass, I break the bed, and something about cactus. Plus bad poking stick time/cuddle time.

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty pt. 1 of 2

"So here's the deal...um...the cat needs to go to the vet and I wont be home."

"What happened to the cat?"

"The cat is an outdoor cat, he's 10 years old, not neutered, so he pretty much gets in fights and gets bit by snakes. King of the jungle kind of feline."

"Okay..."

"And see, he had this...thing...on his neck, for like a month. It never went away so we took him to the vet. And well, the vet jabbed this drain plug thing into the wound and...well here's where you come in, um...the cat needs to go back to the vet on Saturday to have it removed."

"Okay...so...I have to get him into the kitty carrier on my own?"

"Well yeah basically, which is...surprisingly hard. He's a strong cat you know, and he doesn't like to go into the crate, so what we will do to make it sort of easy on you is lock the cat in our bedroom with food and water and a litter box, that way you wont have to chase him down, but he is going to be pretty pissed off when you go in there. He's injured and like I said, he's not used to being indoors so he's going to probably jump up and claw at you the second you open the door, especially because he doesn't know you."

"Okay..."

"Yeah so um...here's how I usually do it, okay? The top part of the carrier comes off, so what I do is I take it off and then pick up the cat if he'll let me, then set him in the bottom half of the box and quickly snap the box back together. But you have to be quick because he's going to want to get out of there."

"Should I maybe offer the kitty some food? A bit of cheese?"

"Cats don't eat cheese."

"Sorry."

"Besides he's a hunter, so unless you can offer him a live gopher or maybe a nest of baby robins he's not going to eat anything you give him."

"Should I try to pet the cat?"

"Well...um...you can try, but he's probably not going to like that. Your best bet is to just get him into that box as quickly as possible. And then you need to drive him to the vet, but that's only a few blocks so even though he'll be quite upset in there you wont have to listen to it for long. I mean if the cat hurts himself while he's acting out there's...there's just nothing you can really do about that, but again it's a short trip so the vet will help him if that's the case."

"So I take him to the vet...and then they deal with his rage I assume?"

"They might ask for your help at first but they have pills that will hopefully sedate him long enough to get the tube out of his neck and possibly back into the box. Everything is paid for and I assume they wont be keeping him any longer than the time it takes to remove the plug but I mean if you luck out they'll have him stay overnight and we can pick him up on Monday. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise I'll be the one standing there with my hand in front of the crate opening it for him when I go to release him back at home."

"And he probably wont be happy, because like I said--"

"Yeah he's a pretty angry guy, I get it, and he doesn't like being stuffed into boxes and jabbed with things."

"Well that and his claws are razor sharp and he's kind of like a cage fighter with all of his alley cat skills. You're going to want to wear a sweater and maybe some gloves?"

"And a hockey mask?"

"Um...well...I could see how that could be useful...but be very careful when snapping the box back together, you don't want that cat flying out at you when you're driving. It could cause an accident. Good luck to you though."

"Yeah...okay..."

Somehow I think that maybe if I had a job people wouldn't pick me as the first available person to subdue their injured cats and cram them into boxes. I better get a fucking medal for this.

Will return with video footage of the struggle, which will most likely just be me getting pwned by a fucking cat. Animals are too much trouble, maybe I'll stick with birds. David says that one time his dog ate his mom's tampons out of the trash can and HE had to clean up the mess because she said it was his dog. I call bullshit. No boy should ever have to come in contact with his mother's half chewed used tampons. Then again, this is the pornfetti* woman we're talking about, so I guess it all goes along.

A cat will slash your fucking face for trying to give it medical attention. A dog will om nom nom your bled on things.

Why in the HELL did we ever domesticate these beasts?

Any ideas for getting the cat into the cage?

*Pornfetti= she found his porn "God" told her where he was hiding porno mags in his room and she not only Hulked out and destroyed the little shelf she found them on but shredded the porn into millions of tiny little pieces and presented it to him in a Ziploc bag in a valiant declaration of victory. He lol'd and we had sex later that night.

Wouldn't It Be Loverly?

It was getting pretty late and I knew he was going to be late but it was getting pretty late so I called to see when he was coming home.

"I'm just taking Megan home and then I'll be there."

"Oh okay," and that was the end of the call.

In the car, Megan turns to him and says "Is she mad?"

"No. Why would she be?"

"Because you have a girl in your car."

"...So?"

"Well I know I wouldn't let my boyfriend give another girl a ride home."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"It's a ride home, you're my co worker."

"Mr. Romania isn't allowed to work certain shifts anymore if certain girls work them."

"Oh you mean the barely legal teens? Yeah I heard his wife threw a fit."

"Yeah so like...I'm a barely legal teen...how come you told your wife you were taking a girl home and not make up a guy's name?"

"Because I don't have to. Seriously, I'm giving you a ride home. If I lied, well then I'd be hiding something, wouldn't I?"

These kids. And that guy who cant work with the barely legal teens anymore. HA! If I flipped out over David working with barely legal teens David wouldn't get to work, that's the end of it. You cannot stop the barely legal teens from getting jobs at pizza joints, it just goes together so well.

Sadly though you wouldn't believe how many old dudes are working there right now.

I'm reading that 800 page real estate text book right now. It was published in 2005 so it's going on about how great the economy is right now and blah blah blah, so I have to kind of cringe a little bit while making my way through. It's a textbook for a real estate class, so it goes into weirdly related things like California's climate and something about the gold rush. Reminds me of all those thick books I used to carry around in my back pack in high school. I learned nothing in 10th grade world history because the teacher was also my band teacher and he never made me do a lick of work. I got an A! I cant tell you the first thing about the Byzantine Empire or if that's even spelled right or related to World History. But I got an A!

I drove by the Ranch House and it's empty except for a bunch of crap in the yard like mirrors and broken chairs. Foreclosed, or just as well abandoned, I don't really know.

Is it the right time to buy a house? Is it? Well I can, see, so that's one thing. And another thing is that our rent is eating us alive. Why not pay less each month and have it actually go to something beside's those rat bastards down at the office's pocket? Sure I'll have to pay to fix my own toilet but it's not like the maintenance guys we have are the cream of the crop, I mean we've had our own horrible experiences with them but also Sally goes and shows me her phone which has a few texts pulled up onto the screen from one of the maintenance guys and the first one says "I'm droink rihgt now." The next one says "I cant stop thinkning about yuo." Followed up with "I'm sorry."

All sent at like 2:00 in the morning.

She's never dated him or anything. He's just texting her.

Perhaps as much as I love to hate that woman, it saddens me a little to hear her and her ex clomping up the stairs. The guy I used to call Jamie Heinemann because the resemblance is uncanny. We connected because he left her and her mascara was all running, and so she began to bribe me with her Romanian foods to come listen to her cry. And after everything she laid on my ears I'm just shaking my head. Hate her or not, she became part of the worn groves of the familiar for me. Her 10:00 PM pancakes. And how she dressed me for Victor's funeral because she didn't approve of anything I owned.

"Tattle tell," Jamie Heinemann calls from the balcony when I'm out getting the mail.

"Dude," I say.

"No, thank you, really," she cuts in. "I mean it, thank you."

"It was just creepy was all," I shrug.

"Oh yeah and staring out the peep hole isn't?"

"Hey!" I shout, and Thugsy McGee who painted the penis on my door starts staring at me from where him and his home boys are sitting, "I'll have you know that I was not staring out the door that time! I heard footsteps and then I saw your lit cigarette, and you were in her house--"

"Thank you," Sally says again. "I mean it. Thank you."

"You're welcome," I say as I pad away.

Now that he's back, I'm back to staring out the peep hole at them watching their various altercations on the front porch, usually making out and goosing each other. Everything's all lovey dovey, and I'm back to being the creepy neighbor girl.

And I don't even own that. I rent that title. If I'm going to be the creepy neighbor girl I want to be able to have something to show for it. Which is why we love that Ranch House so much. Think of all of the creepiness I could exert there.

Oh wouldn't it be loverly?

My horoscope says, "Yes, it is your turn, dear Sagittarius, so step up to the plate and take the initiative. Don't waste your time anymore waiting for someone else to take the lead. If you don't like the way things are going in a current situation, stand up and demand change. You have a refreshing new outlook on things that is healing, and in some ways very revolutionary. Validate this point of view and promote it to the people around you."

It's right you know, this is my god damned time in the spotlight. *stands on table* I've had all I can stands and I can stands no more! I am better than just being a creepy apartment dweller, I should be the self designated captain of the Neighborhood Watch program, even if it isn't in force yet. I will stand on planters, take pictures of mailboxes, and I'll owe it all to Radio Shack! You bastards will hand over what is mine!

*gets off of table*

Kay...I'm done now.

Wreck This Journal

Sally wouldn't tell me what the pills were, she just blew off the question and said thank you. She went inside. Later she was sitting on the balcony with him while he smoked. I guess everything turned out okay, because I asked her later when she took out the trash what he was doing at her apartment and why was he going through her things, and again she just blew off the question.

I don't know, she seemed pretty concerned when I called, and now she--the girl who will knock on my door six times a day to show me drunken texts from the maintenance guy or show me her hair--has nothing to say about the situation.

In this case, there's just nothing more to say.

But of course in other cases, some stuff just doesn't make the blog.

It's either insignificant but over 140 characters so it cant be Twittered, not really stretchable into an entire blog entry, a scrap of paper, a random thought, or just something I cant mention for my own protection.

I keep a paper journal. Well, several actually, as I jot down notes for my books in their respective journals but I also have a main journal where I keep records of strange and possibly prolific dreams, ancient history, shitty things that family members say that I'd rather not repeat here for sake of avoiding drama (hey I'll calls em as I see em and I do that here a lot but sometimes I'm just too lazy/anti social to make a big deal some times. But it still gets documented.)

I do not write in this every day. There are months where all I do is blog. I tape scraps of paper to the pages, like the paper I took the magazine's information down on, the shit that gets sent with poppets, post cards, doodles, etc. Police reports. Business cards.

I name names.

Real names.

Quotes and incomplete thoughts that randomly spike my brain, or a clever whatever that I feel like keeping. Not so much like "dear diary" like it is here, only "dear internets," more like a collection of all things. Things that, because this here is a "dear internet" format, wouldn't really match up if I posted that shit here. Or it's just to compromising to post here because my life would be in danger.

Yes. It has come to that a time or two.

I'm offering you fine folks an opportunity to see this shit go down anyway, and no, it does not involve a live web feed.

I am asking you to send me a blank journal. Any kind of journal. And I will fill it and mail it back to you.

Naturally, they'll all be different. Naturally, they'll contain entries from my original journal that I want to share with others.

Naturally it will be handwritten.

Naturally I'll try to keep it legible.

You'll need my address, and I will give it to most of you but of course if this is the first correspondence we've had I'll most likely decline your offer for a blank journal for me to fill. Email me and we will get this set up. Once I get the journal I'll start filling it with randoms or things and in September I'll mail it back for you to keep. The later you get it to me, the less likely it is to be filled with totally original content that only your journal will have since I'll have to copy off the others, and if I do that then the people who sent theirs early are getting the short end of the stick as well. But I'll lie to them if you really really cant get me a journal very soon.

Yes, send me a blank book full of pages to fill and I will wreck it for you. No charge, just the cost of the journal plus shipping.

My gift to you.

I have an 818 page book on California Real Estate Principles that was loaned to me just sitting on my coffee table. It's right next to my 400 page manuscript for Chelsea's Demon, which I'm leaving post-it notes in for my editor to explain some of my reasoning with parts of the story, since there's a book missing between this one and Bombshell. I'm not enjoying reading it though, I need to step away from it. I stepped away from Powdery Tattoo for a year, and in a journal entry from July of last year I said that the story lacked focus and therefore I lacked motivation to really do anything with it anytime soon.

Then the main character died IRL and suddenly I'm seeing it in a whole new light.

Essentially I keep a blog for the stories of my life, and a journal for notes to myself. But those can be wacky. Plus sometimes I paint pages with watercolor and attempt to draw shitty trees.

What you will know is that the journal I fill for you will never be worth anything, but wouldn't it be kick ass to have?

Self Destruction/Self Improvement

Clearly the package I signed for this morning for Sally was a bottle of pills.

This was a package that they previously tried to deliver but that she made sure to tell me was going to be redelivered so I could get it for her. Very important, according to her.

The package is covered in Chinese writing, and a slip on it says it went through customs. It came from Zhejiang, China, and she paid $26 in shipping. Shaking the package, it sounds like a box of Nerds candy.

Sally and her self destruction/self improvement.

The beach is good for you, and it's true that we don't go often but we intend to remedy this by going again next weekend. It's just that David is picky and afraid of water. My Mazda is all full of sand now but it's nothing that cant be vacuumed. And really, once you own the swimsuits, toys, and chairs the beach is a mostly free thing to do any and all weekends of the summer. For food our trick is just some snack sized bags of chips, moonpies, and going to Burger King and buying 10 or so Jr. Whoppers for $1 each.

Got that trick from my dad. I remember him going through the McDonald's drive thru and ordering 30 hamburgers for an outing at Yucaipa Lakes.

If only you could see the way that California beach sands glimmer.

Our boys are dirt boys so there is practically no better place to be for them than the beach.

And again, it's free. With our whole summer project thing going on with paying down debt and getting a house, I'm all about embracing what's free.

I am totally chomping at the bit waiting for summer to actually get here. I hate being hot but we're doing some life changing stuff in these next few months hopefully and I want to feel like I'm in the midst of it instead of staring at my little planner book and going "in two paychecks we start. Right after we pay rent, we start."

I'm thinking I can start plannering other things too like beach trips and maybe, just maybe, camping trips.

Real camping, with tents. Not electricity and running water in a trailer. That's cheating.

Our new house is called the Ranch House, since the Doll House looks to have been sold and, interestingly enough, has gone through a string of owners and short sales in the past few years according to a bum who rides his bike in that neighborhood. I'm thinking it's haunted, but that might be wishful thinking, and anyway our new house is the Ranch House. Hardwood floors, quiet street, adult trees, and just a few blocks thataway so we won't be moving far. David is actually rooting more for one in Cherry Valley but unless I get an orchard on my property I wouldn't want to move up there. Yes it is still Beaumont but anything past Brookside is policed by Riverside County Sheriff's, not Beaumont PD.

Optimistic me is checking the listings daily.

Me, being optimistic.

My self destruction/self improvement.

Make room at the bottom of the sea.

I heard someone come up the stairs and I thought maybe it was those no good punk ass kids who keep me from letting my kids play outside. I saw no one. But then when I went to water the plants I smelled the familiar dry aroma of cigarette smoke. A still lit cigarette sat in the ash tray on Sally's railing. Half smoked just as her ex-fiance always leaves them.

The guy who she's seeing again.

Because she loves him and she's "so stupid with mens," in her own words.

Self destruction, etc.

The guy who has done nothing but manipulate her, especially since she got this job as his supervisor. The guy who could easily get her into trouble at work since they're doing what they do and she's higher than him. The guy who made her quit her job when it was the other way around and he didn't want to get fired.

He has a key to her apartment and the door is slightly cracked open. As I water my hanging basket I see him in there rooting through her stuff, her paperwork stuff. He's got her digital camera in the pile. Her laptop is open.

I don't know what he's doing there. I don't know what he's looking for. He only ever stays the weekends and she's not home from work yet. Something about it makes me wonder if she knows he's there.

I text her to say that he's there, and "is this okay or not?"

Turns out? Is not.

White Sandy Beaches

We went to San Diego today. Specifically, the Stone Brewery in Escondito and Coronado beach. There are some real shockers in the pictures here including but not limited to obscene boobs and the kicking assest sand castle ever built. We didn't build it. But at least I own the obscene boobs.

So the Stone Brewery is also a garden, and we met this pretty lady there...

And there were all kinds of places to sit and hang out. In fact where we sat for a while was absolutely what I want done to my back yard someday. Canopies of vines, just...indescribable.

Stone makes beers such as the Arrogant Bastard Ale, because "yellow fizzy beer is for losers." We took the brewery tour, which looked something like this...

David tasted five of their brews, the Pale Ale (excellent,) the Smoked Porter (excellent but he made me try some and it tasted like liquid smoke and I got mad and went to the car,) the Ruination IPA (fucking awesome,) the Arrogant Bastard (David is not arrogant enough, but appreciates it nonetheless.) He also tried a Sublimely Self Righteous Ale which fucking wrecked his mouth because it was incredibly bitter and overpowering.

Enough of that boring shit, off to the beach!

The problem is that I had to buy a new bathing suit because my old one got too big (meaning I somehow got smaller) but it's hard to locate a suit for me because of my boobs. Oh it fit everything else, my vag and all were fine, but my boobs were...somewhat...obscene.

More where that came from in a minute. Obligatory pretty beach scenery time before I show you something amazing, and then two somethings amazings (boobs again, but amazing.)

"Tra la la!" Ty is airborne in this picture, look...



The Hotel Del Coronado







doh gorsh...



David got in the sand and said "Wade, bury my legs with sand" and Wade goes "Okay, I'm going to dump this whole scoop on your HEAD!" Also, baby butt crack...

And now for something amazing. Disclaimer: we did not make this.

I think the blobs look like little people. David says they're just blobs. What do you think?

And now for something completely different. Yes. Ukulele on the beach.

Yes I did really play it and yes, people actually stopped and watched me from afar, and they smiled at me. Of course it could have been a "there there" smile.

Pat pat pat.

But they smiled. Ukuleles make people smile. Or it could be because of my sweet boobs.

And now for the grand finale...

PS you fap you lose.

Self Portrait And Mrs. O

It actually came out pretty mediocre but everything I do is mediocre so whatev. I'm just glad I did it. I also like the lips and the peace sign, and I like working with "real" watercolors. I might just do it again for lulz.

Speaking of mediocre, it's another Hardcore Ukulele video! This one has a very special ending that I'll ask you to watch while trying not to smile. The video its self is the song Mrs O by the Dresden Dolls, and the very special ending starts at 4:50 if you want to fast forward. You will be pleased.

Canvas

I've got this crazy idea and it involves paint.

Not like the other crazy idea that involved paint that ended up with my bathroom blinding our guests and making their eyes water from the shock of the neon green walls.

I'm doing a 365 project, 365 self portraits in a year...give or take because I have forgotten and therefore skipped a few days, but that's a lot of pictures to take and hope will all look different. This picture here was simply a misfire, and there were actually clearer shots from the day, but I kept this one. I kept it for...I don't know. It reminds me of something.

And then I decided to paint it.

I am no painter, and my drawings are more like really elaborate stick figures, but this here is sort of like impressionism and I've decided that I can give it a try. I know nothing of the mediums I will be working with, but I'm going to do it anyway because that's how I roll. This could be a waste of $14 (the money spent on the canvas and the paint.)

I got watercolors, but not the kind that I am used to that come in a long strip of 12 colors made by Crayola and usually priced around $1 in the kids section. These are in tubes, and I'm not entirely sure how to use them. Googling should help. I have a palate, a nice sized canvas, and gumption. I've realized that to do a lot of things you need gumption.

So I'm painting a self portrait, more or less. And I just might hang it in my living room.

I've sketched it out on paper and colored it with crayons, just to demonstrate to myself that it can be done, and it can, so the next step is paint + canvas.

You know what this means though right?

Art night!

I got it done in two hours, but then like an idiot I "touched it up" aka RUINED IT! I wont show the final product, because I am replacing the final product with a better painting.

I told you I didnt know anything about watercolor, but I've learned quickly that a good rule of thumb is less paint more water.

And no, I'm not just being hard on myself, because Wade came out and asked why we had "this ugly thing" on our table.

It's art.

Failed art.

Luckily canvas is cheap.

Will return with final results.

Far Away From Sally

I'm going to need your help with this, internet. You'll have to guide me because the only two questions I can think to ask my realtor are "Is this place haunted/has anyone ever been dismembered in the basement?" and "Is there some assholes next door?"

Maybe slipping in something like "Is there a hot Romanian chick who will bring me pancakes at 9:00 at night and ask me where to buy whole dead lambs guts and all ANYWHERE in the vicinity?"

Because I kind of still want her.

I will miss Sally. In a hateful sort of way.

I'm afraid if I get a cat she wont come over...which is why I might get a cat.

With $128,000, which will probably drop to about $120,000 if interest rates go up, if our figures are right we can afford to use around $115,000 of it. Believe you me, we aren't signing any papers if we don't like the figures. We know exactly how much we can afford and we wont go over that. Remember when those guys at that car dealership (Metro Nissan of Redlands = Douchebags) cornered me and were waving keys in front of my face saying not to worry about insurance because it shouldn't be that much? And I kept telling them that I needed to make sure because if my insurance was too expensive then with the car payment they quoted me I wouldn't be able to afford it? And they're all like "Oh no no no, you'll be fine, just sign this" and they wouldn't let me out of the room and they had a big fat dude blocking my entrance? And I still didn't sign it?

Glad I didn't. Insurance on that car wouldn't have been under $160. On my Mazda I was paying $100 and now they've dropped it to $77.

Nissan dealers are bloodthirsty bitches, and I hear realtors are too. But I wont sign something if I don't have the money to back it up.

It's all set up. Phase one of our plan is ready to be executed. The loan lady man has us strategically tackling our debts to give us the highest boost in FICO scores because there really is a method to that madness. Turns out if you go and poke sticks at dead things, they become zombies, and they'll start up reporting again even though they haven't reported in years.

We're attacking the ones being reported in 09 that are between $100-$200. There are seven of them. And...if we can afford to pay them now, why didn't we just pay them in the first place? Because we've never had money like we have now. And we don't have money now, it's just that our cost of living is low. We're stable, does that make sense?

So when I added everything up and it came to about $650 in debts that we need to clear out over the next two months, I knew we could do it. That's simple. We've just never had a reason to up and attempt to do this, and now we do, so we're getting it done.

If it puts an end to Sally's streaked mascara and Indian Guys calling ME the weirdo, we can totally do it.

The way I planned it out is very flexible, I didn't do the down to the penny sort of budgeting I've done in the past, in fact I figured his income as lower than it really is, and there's lots of wiggle room. We could probably get it paid off before our currently planned date of August 6th, 2009. In fact, it would be better to because some of this shit can take a month to post. The lady man at the bank says to give her all of the letters they send saying we paid, and she'll make sure everything posts for us.

I love that this also gave me an excuse to buy a planner. I am obsessed with journals, notebooks, and little pocket calendars, they're my fetish. So this little $4 houndstooth 19 month planner with lime green spiral binding is as good as any bowl of ice cream topped with gummy bears and Oreos. And raspberry sauce. Well...maybe not the raspberry sauce, but I feel complete with it as I color code everything. It's like a coloring book from my youth but all growed up.

If it happens, this will be the first time since I've started blogging that we've lived somewhere else. We had an apartment before this one in Banning but it exploded. Well, not really. There was mold, the man in the space suit made us evacuate. We're looking at all of these houses in Cherry Valley (just a fancy term for "North Beaumont") even though they might be gone in three months. We're keeping our eyes peeled for our new home.

But maybe because you're new you don't know what our current home is.

Home is a second story two bedroom one bath apartment that measures nearly 700 square feet. There is a pool, but you can rarely use it because someone is always in it and the water is usually green by Wednesday (they clean it Monday.) There's a little playground, but a bunch of asshole teenagers hang out in it, and the laundry room is not only expensive to use but often the machines are broken in some way (dryers that don't dry, spin cycles that don't spin fast enough.)

Surprisingly this is not "the ghetto." For what we pay, which is just under $800 a month, you get to walk around the complex at night safely and despite the occasional naked teenaged pool party it's pretty quiet. And when it isn't quiet, the cops show up right away.

I have a small balcony that is about 14' x 3' and I share my front porch with the neighbor Sally. Downstairs there are two families, quiet families for the most part, and one time I got my car stolen from the parking lot here because there aren't any kind of security gates nor does management give a flying fuck about spending the money to get them despite several other cars also being stolen from here.

There is covered parking, but that's not really like a garage or anything.

We were pretty much convinced that this is all we would ever have for a very, very long time.

The program we're trying to get in with that pays our down says that if we stay in the house for 15 years the debt is forgiven.

In 15 years we will have been married for 20 years, Ty will be 20 and doing god knows what, I will be 40 and David will be 36.

Now THAT sounds adult. But I bet it will go by fast.

In 40 years, David and I will be like this:

Fences Were Made For Those Who Cannot Fly

They made a huge mistake.

Le cringe.

Some asswad fuckwit shit for brains hand job approved us for a $128,000 loan.

And we said, "hold that thought."

In August, the county of Riverside is getting some program going that will help people like us, and we're people like us mind you, that will pay 20% of our loan.

Our down.

And?

If we get our credit all ship shape, our interest will be lower, and the lady man at the bank is strategically telling us how to boost our FICO scores as high as we can before August comes.

Some of this crap just needs some letter writing, like when we had to abandon our old apartment due to the haz-mat team busting in and being all "YOU GONNA DIE HERE SON!" and the landlord renovated the building using the utilities which were still in our name because the city didn't do their job in turning the shit off quick enough. That can be solved with just a letter explaining the situation.

Or some of my older than old dead accounts from when I was all 18 in high school and unaware of what happens when you don't pay stuff on time. Older than old accounts that are about to fall off the face of the earth and be swept under the rug. Shhh, don't touch them, and they will vanish.

Well the' re still there but the lady man said to let sleeping dogs do they business.

Ladies and gentlemen, somehow, some fucking crazy ass other dimensional way, we're about to be homeowners.

Not tomorrow, not next month. But possibly by this time next year.

It's about bloody time.

And you know what this means don't you? Credit up? Responsible car payment maker up? Responsible home owner up? COWBOY UNIFORM UP! Like we get to prove to these people that we're adults and David will be rolling on the front lawn in a uniform, the gun accidentally going off and blowing off his right foot...maybe not rolling then...maybe just standing all puff-chessed.

One thing at a time.

House first, and then career.

We've always done things bass ackwards. This will be the same. We will be fine.

This is real.

The Doll House is no longer on the website.

Le pout.

Bygones.

The loan lady man said that with this loan, we cant buy anything under $91,000. But we also have another 10,000+ to play with as far as shopping goes in the other direction. I mean there are houses in the $70,000 that are great but...but...right. There's a reason they're priced that low. Granted, there are a ton of great little 3 bedroom houses for sale right now that I love and that two years ago would have been double what they're priced at now in the $90k's.

It's sick. I'm actually interested. I'm actually looking at calendars and making notes and highlighting credit reports.

I'm actually growing up.

You heard it here first.

And I can be so hard on myself.

I was trying to save face, and be blunt about the fact that we wouldn't get a loan for the life of us. But then there in lies the problem with honesty, sometimes it counters back just as brutally. Forgive my brutal honesty and pessimism, it's just my way of coping. Make enough money and put yourself out there, and everything will fall into place.

Except that something will fall through and we wont end up with a god damned thing in the end. You watch.

But then--they didn't tell us no.

Hell I'm as shocked as you are.

So where do we go from here? Essentially it's the summer of finance, which is weird because it's always been the summer of love, hasn't it? All of my relationships have started in the summer. The summer of love, the summer of kissing at the park and throwing down at the Brandin' Iron. The summer of car washes and Slurpees. The summer of blackberries and rushing creeks and blue eyed band boys.

Which of those sounds most romantic?

Sappy.

And now summer is a game where the prize is a house. If we win, we win, and if we lose...then why bother trying? Granted, we've been approved, we're just waiting so we can get that program to halp us out a bit and boost our FICO scores for better rates and what not. Then again, I still have doubts. CHP was never "in the bag" so to speak, but we acted like it was. Because we're stupid kids. But then like I said, homeownership = responsibility in the eyes of those background investigators.

I'd like to see the look on The Good Sergeant's face when David walks up to him in two years and goes, "Look what I did."

No...actually I'd never like to see that man again. He scared the PISS out of me. In a bad way, not like in a fun "Oh Officer" hair twirling gum snapping sort of way.

And plus like, who knows if he'll even give CHP a second chance. Yeah, I said it. And I meant it that way.

Why do I keep bringing up these fences though? Well it's pretty obvious, a fence is something that I don't have here at my apartment. I have railing, and...that woman next door. There's a yard, but it's shared and full of little bastards who throw shoes on the roof and rub a 5 year old's stuffed doggy in the mud just for lulz. I want to see actual borders here people, I want to tell some motherfucker to get off my land. I want a fence that I can grow grapevines on, and represent my obvious line in the sand where it's like "that's far enough" or "go ahead and cross it, you're my kind of people."

I will now attempt to build a fence, and if it begins to tilt I'll just knock it over and start rebuilding.

It's Just Like You To Paint Those Whiter Fences

This is NOT the doll house. I have no pictures of the doll house as of yet because taking pictures of it would put it in my mind that I already might own it, or have the chance to own it. This house is in Redlands and it is in better repair than the doll house, but it's what we would strive to make ours appear like.

With those twisty topiaries.

The adorable accent molding.

It's all a pack of lies.

Nothing will happen.

Oh and you're all "what's with the lack of confidence" and it's like, I have absolutely no reason to be confident. We wont get this, or any house.

Would I be a good messiah with my low self esteem?

If I don't believe in myself would it be blasphemy?

If I were a messiah anyway.

Right now I'm just apartment trash. Drivel. Typical, typical, typical.

I appreciate your support, I do. I appreciate your telling me that I'm worth something, I do. But want in one hand, shit in the other.

Everything I ever try will end up as a hand full of shit.

Should for some reason based on an error or sloppy misjudgment on the bank's behalf we end up with a home, for security reasons I wont be posting pictures of the outside of the house on the public internet until our dog Vice is full grown and ready to take a motherfucker down. Then you can see it. Inside pictures will go up though.

If I have a reason to take them.

The real estate lady says that once we get approved, we can go shopping. The loan officer lady man has all of our paperwork. Liz in Seattle (holla!) who is also a real estate type person put me in my place. She said, "fix your god damned credit." So our new project, regardless of the fact that we are staying here with Mustang Sally, is to do just this. Starting by reorganizing my file cabinet and cleaning out our safe. I had a bunch of stupid shit in my safe from like 2004 that I wouldn't give a fuck if it burned. Scary thing is that the only thing that's in there now is the kids' original birth certificates with their feet prints and my flash drive full of novels. We don't own anything important enough to save from a fire or that cant be replaced.

Thank you Flickr for hosting all of my photos.

Thank you Bank of America who will never give us a mortgage.

Pack of lies.

We cant own a home.

Two of my favorite folders in the file cabinet, besides the vital records, the car stuff, all of the things that we SHOULD file and do, is "David Being Creative" which contains a number of loose leaf yellow legal pad papers with drawings, poems, odd lists, and such; and "Dead People Stuff" which contains death certificates and stuff from funerals that I took. Pictures of Victor, obituaries, etc.

All the old CHP crap, it's staying. And all of David's odds and ends like Selective Service card and diploma are in one folder. I came across his baptism certificate and he yanked it from my hands and ripped it to shreds.

"That had your grandpa's name on it though."

"Doesn't matter. I'm unbaptising myself."

"I think you need a lot of goats blood to do that for real."

What all this filing has to do with fixing our credit, well, I had to use the "current project" folder which was still full of CHP stuff.

Whenever we do something big, we have a three-ring binder that we use. When we were trying to get the car we had paystubs and other crap like that in there. When I was painting the house it's where I kept the paint chip cards and notes on what we needed and stuff. Most recently it was used for the background investigation, so it still had our marriage certificate and his stuff in it.

Dust it off.

Now it contains a copy of David's credit report with the three lowest accounts highlighted.

It's our current project.

Tra la la, or whatever.

We'll never get this house.

Which is why I'm not taking any pictures.

The weird thing is that they're asking for contact information for our land lord. Liz, who is an expert at this real estate business thing, says that's kind of weird. The lady man at the bank's got our shit, and we'll never hear from her again. This is all a big waste of time. The debt to income ratio calculator thingy said "37%-42%: Not bad, but start paring debt now before you get in real trouble."

Paring...paying...paring...parting...idk.

I'm saving face.

CHP all over again.

Steppy thinks it will happen. I laughed in his face. "Shows how much you know." He's too damn optimistic with his "You'll get it Princess." His "I believe in you." Don't call me Princess, I have no throne. Except for this apartment.

"He's been with his jobs for a long time, you guys pay your rent and your car payment on time...I mean, if you've got the income to back it up, why not get a loan, right?"

"Wrong."

"How do you figure?"

"Wrong."

"You're right, you do figure wrong."

"Shut up."

"Princess..."

"Bleh."

Now, when it was the car, that was a need. That was something that we fought tooth and nail to get because we needed a car. House? We don't need a house. We want a house, but we have an apartment, and we're paying our shit right now as it is. We wont fight tooth and nail for a house. We'll just try to get a house, and then fail at it.

I wasn't going to say anything to Mustang Sally, but she caught me coming up the stairs after I got the mail and we got to talking. She told me all of her stuff and then asked how I've been.

I spilled the beans.

I hate telling her stuff like this because she will bother me until we have a yes or no answer, and then she will pity me. When we almost didn't get the car, when CHP dumped David, she makes a huge deal of it all.

As I'm sitting on the steps, the stray cat we've been feeding, "Six Dinner Sid" came up for pets and bologna. She's a mama and she's engorged, and she wanders around crying and mewing, so we think she lost her babies somehow.

The neighbor says, "That's my dead aunt."

"The cat?"

"Yeah. You know how they go into the body of a cat and then wait for to go to the next life?"

"...no?"

"Is evil spirit. I cant believe you are touching it."

"She's hungry."

"It should starve! Go away Elisabeta! Go away! Shoo!"

"Hey, dude, it's cool. We've been feeding her for a few nights."

Sally gasps and then closes her door when the cat walks toward her direction. "Oh hell no!" she says. "I do not want that spirit in my house. Once they cross door, you are fucked."

I like cats. I was looking forward to getting one when we moved.

Good thing we wont be moving.

Picket Fences

I've been debating all night whether I should mention this or not. I was kind of advised not to, but then this is my journal and I'll cry if I want to.

Not that I'm going to cry, I'm just going to write about how we're buying a house.

Or, like...trying to.

I know it's lulzy, it's lulzy to us too. In fact, we're only even seeing if we would qualify for the lulz at this point. That way if it doesn't work out, which it wont, it will be like "it doesn't matter, we did it for the lulz." And if something should happen and we end up signing a contract, it will be the best moment ever.

This will go nowhere though. We think.

Let me sort of explain the situation.

Houses right now are fucking cheap. Interest rates are fucking low. Our rent here is fucking high, I mean, compared to the $400 mortgage that we would be paying on a $80,000 house.

$80,000? For a house? I'm not trolling. It's true. And there's more than one of them.

In Beaumont right now there are a ton of short sale homes, most of which are tiny or ghetto or old or all three, but there are a few houses that would be absolutely perfect for us. And, we can afford them. And, we are tired of renting.

This is not going to happen for real, this is CHP all over again and we'll get almost through to the end before it turns out that we wont get a house after all, but thankfully we're doing this for lulz so we'll just make fun of ourselves for having such frivolous hopes and dreams. Pah, to hell with the Audacity Of Hope. We're fucked, you know?

By the time you get this message, we'll already have been denied about 45 loans from like 89 different lenders. Most of them just laughed at us or passed out while trying to pronounce our last name.

Dont have a stroke people, it's phonetic. Ter Will I Ger.

Without going into exact detail considering if we ended up actually moving into one of these houses and it would be particularly easy to find our potentially future address, I'll sort of describe our top two picks. Even though this is never going to happen because if I've learned something it's that Stater's will some how screw this whole thing up for us. I don't know what his old job as a bag boy/meat cutter has to do with us getting a house, but I didn't think it would have anything to do with being a cop either.

Yes, I am bitter.

And yes, I am really, really pessimistic this year. It's my new black.

So house number one is $85,000. Out front there are two big shady mulberry trees, and out back there are two big adult pecan trees, a pomegranate tree, a clementine tree, AND every fence is draped with grape vines. The house its self is 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, and it was built in 1928. Let's say the square footage is ballpark 1,300, and the whole lot is ball park 13,000. Meh neighborhood, not really dangerous but meh, quiet except for barking pit bulls. Problem? It's Dana's next door neighbor. I mean right next door. Dana, the creep. Dana, the sick fuck. Dana, my husband's philosophy spewing smartass. It's not THAT big of a deal, but living next door...you know...I can see how it might be.

House number two however, I am in love with it. I want to have its baby...or have babies in it...or...have babies and then put them in it...or something...never mind. Okay so house number two is entertaining offers as low as $80,000. It was built in 1913, it's a fucking DOLL HOUSE (perfect for me, no?) with two big oak trees out front, three bedrooms one bath, a two car garage (more like an enclosed car port,) a covered porch and covered back patio, and it has a basement. A BASEMENT! Also known as, A BREWERY! No more buckets of science in my closet because we have a BASEMENT! Okay so the rest of the stats on the house are that the house is ballpark 1,800 square feet and the lot is ballpark about the same as the fruit tree house.
In the neighborhood there is both a library AND a cemetery.

It makes me so happy that I just want to shit my pants.

This neighborhood is full of old folks, it's in a meh part of town in the sense that it's still okay, but then when the old people die who will move in? But for now it's a few blocks away from the so called "barrios" and it's more like "get a dog" instead of "get a gun."

House #2? The library house?

I want this house.

I wont get this house, but I want it.

David's going on about the library house, about putting up picket fences and planting daisies. I swear to god, he really said all that. About a white German Shepard named Edelweiss (pronounced Adel-Vice) that we would affectionately call "Weiss" (pronounced Vice.) About a basement brewery.

I'm already walking to the library and photo documenting every headstone in the cemetery.

We wont get it. It's bullshit. The lady has our application right now and she's, *snicker* trying to get us some *tee he he* LOANS! All these first time buyer programs, all these tax credits, all these cheap fucking houses, the sweet taste of homeownership will not be on our tongues.

But...we could get a dog.

Or better yet, as I suggested to David, a pet cop. You know, just until he transforms into one himself.

We would have that third bedroom.

"And I'll walk him EVERY DAY, and you'll never have to feed him or pick up his poop. I promise. I'll take good care of him."

"You're not giving him any baths," David tells me.

"I'll hose him off in the yard if he gets sprayed by a skunk or if he gets into the garbage."

But of course the chances of us obtaining a cop for a non anthropomorphized pet are about as good as our chances of getting a house anyway. I'll just keep spending my evenings on my balcony staring at the people who have sex in the pool, accepting the neighbor's random plates of cheese and pancakes, smiling as if your songs were good. Being apartment trash. Instead of sitting in a lawn chair on my front porch spraying my hose over the grass seed speckled dirt and drinking diet soda from a silvery can. You know, white trash.

Because this is never going to work. Not in a million years. Probably not even in 15.

Le frown.

Come On, Feel The Noise

It's May which of course means that it's hot...for a while, until June when it will be cold, and everyone will be confused.

I wasn't sure if I heard anything right this morning, I was kind of sleep-hallucinating as David told me something about "chance of thunderstorms" as he was leaving to go play disk golf.

I had a weird night last night. David always falls asleep before me, lucky bastard, and we just bought a new fan. It's just a small fan, but powerful. And for some strange reason, when I turned to my right side like I normally do, I heard very loud hard core heavy metal music. Drums, guitar, all of it. I mean, it was mixed in with the noise of the fan which was somewhere between a whir and a woosh, but I could not stop hearing this fucking infernal racket. I thought I was nuts. I probably am, except that I remember reading a blog one time, and sadly this blog has since closed and the girl has gone into hiding (identify yourself if you wish, friend) but the girl described the noises that her son's automatic baby swing was making one night as she was trying to go to sleep.

I remember clearly that the first night as the swing rocked its self, she distinctly heard it saying "how YOU doin' how YOU doin' how YOU doin'." Worst still, the second night it was whispering "I SEE you I SEE you I SEE you!"

Of course it's not a real like "OMG I NEED MEDS!" episode, it's just a weird trick being played on the ears.

I thought about that girl and her swing, and then all of the sudden, the demon voice of Barry White boomed straight out of hell to say: "I'M GONNA FUCK YOUUUUU!"

I sat up.

"BAW HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Oh my god.

"HA HA!"

Oh shit.

"BORK! BORK!"

Swedish Chef?

"BARK! BARK!"

Wait...

"BARK BARK BARK!"

It's a dog.

What the crap?

So needless to say I have no idea about anything that actually happened this morning before I ended up forcing myself out of bed. Steppy said he would be here early but there was no sign of him, and there still wasn't when it came time to take Ty to school, so I had to put him on the bus. But then when he did show he said that he overslept because one of his kids was up intermittently throughout the night, so he stayed up to deal with that while letting his wife sleep.

Daww.

And sorry about breakfast, but that's okay. Eating in the morning makes me pukie anyway.

There's not much to do here. He wanted to take Wade and his kids to the park but it's too hot, plus Peep is sick. His kids, Bo and Peep. I know that's a little Heaven's Gate but all the same, its the first names I could come up with. So we're sitting on the couch just kind of staring at each other with nothing to do. He's grinning at me.

"What would you like to do today Princess?"

"Well you got here late so now it's kind of dumb to do anything."

"We can just sit here then."

"Why just sit here when there's ukulele to be played?" and so I busted out "Come On, Feel The Noise." Not good enough for recording yet, but it made my pal here smile. His favorite one that I do is the Death Cab song, which I've gotten really good at and I don't have to look at the music anymore. It's weird not looking at music even if I think I know a song. I mean I don't know how many times we played First Suite in E-flat in band, with the solo from the Chaconne committing its self forever to my arm (I played trombone, it's all in the arms guys) but I'd always look at the music. Everyone looked at the music. Even if your music went missing one day you wouldn't dare wing it, even though it was burned into you.

Then in marching band you're made to commit it to memory, or else you can get off the fucking field.

Except for that one time after 9/11 when the band did a special tribute that involved playing America The Beautiful on such short notice at the next football game that we didn't know it. But Student Council was going out and raising a huge American flag made of butcher paper as we played, so it was good that we wouldn't be learning some stupid drill to march to. This was supposed to be somber and reverent, played while standing at attention. While the stadium stood with their hands over their hearts.

Only there weren't enough lyres (little clippy things that hold your music out in front of you when you clip it to your bell) to go around because Yucaipa is a poor school since they spend their funding on the shitty football team instead of the mediocre marching band. So some of the student council members were only there to hold music for the band members who didn't have lyres.

This was right after 9/11, that same week or maybe the week after. We were all scared and confused about this new world.

Yes, I'm mentioning 9/11, one of the two topics that I refuse to ever blog about. Because I'm remembering now. I just remembered this.

The boy from Student Council who held my music had green eyes and soft hands that remind me of freshly baked bread.

The boy who sits in front of me and my ukulele, encouraging me to bust out Sister Christian.

We never really spoke after 10th grade. Not after what happened. Maybe for a a handful of simple reasons or one really big one, a big one in a trench coat, I don't know. But of all the times I can recall even seeing this boy in high school, this one just snapped back to me like a rubber band stretched too tight. When you try too hard to remember something your memory can do that to you.

And I was never very good at trombone in the sense that I was special for it, but I knew enough to get the job done and do it right.

My part was very harmonious and broad, and actually played fairly well in tune considering it was so hard to hear everyone else around me since we were spaced 10 to 15 yards apart and there was all that paper cockblocking our sound. In fact the audience couldn't see the band members, but I know they could faintly hear us.

I wasn't looking at the music at all.

I shared a moment with that boy under the red butcher paper as he held up my music and I'd completely forgotten that he had goosebumps on his arms as I played the thing in his face. And when the song was over and the audience cheered and wept, he said, "your breath still comes out warm even after going through all of those pipes."

Come on, feel the noise.

I recognize those goosebumps when I can actually strum out a song full of pretty chords on my ukulele. I mean ukulele is silly, but it's actually very pretty as well. The trombone is like that too. I guess I just sort of match that category as far as instrumentation goes.

"Princess?" he asks.

"No my friend. Queen."

And then I played "Fat Bottomed Girls."

Mildly Aroused

It's in the 90's, sweltering disgusting heat, and I go, "I'm mildly aroused right now."

"Wait...what?"

"I think Miss is right. I am a badge bunny."

Behold my friends, my pick of the draw from the Yucaipa Iris Festival, which contains few irises and a whole lot of these guys...

And these guys...

It's like...hard for me to describe. I know that the military uniforms do little for me, or actually nothing. But I swear to god, cops and fire fighters are the epitome of boner for me, I cant stress this enough nor can I really explain it. It's like how David checks out preggos, he cant explain it, it just is what it is.

But I'm talking, not just eye candy, I'm talking physical biological reactions in that damn heat behind that damn camera. Swelling ding-ding, wet, the whole bit. Just from being around all that action.

Did I know that David wanted to be a cop way back when I started dating him? Well no, not at the start. I thought he was going to join the military because that's what our friend Sean said, but Sean was wrong. David goes, "I've known I was a cop since I was four." Good way to be man. Good way to be.

I don't know if this has been officially announced yet but David is taking the year off before applying to any other agencies. He's too young, and he needs to pay down his medical bills. This is him talking. Me, I see these youngins in they's uniforms and I go, "Why can't David be you?" Not that I want David to be someone else, but for him to be in their position, to finally be hired on. I know that's what he wants, but he drinks from his water bottle and goes, "I'm too young."

After all this time of waiting to turn 21 it still doesn't mean a thing.

Not everyone has the luxary of mommy and daddy paying for academy.

What I love though about David is at the Iris Festival they had "pie a deputy" and he did it, but felt extreme regret about it for the rest of the day.

"I feel so bad...I didn't even know the guy!"

"He was fundraising, honey, you did the right thing."

"But...right in the face...I didn't even know the guy...it would have been better if I had known him because then it's like 'this is for all the shit, Dan' *splat*"

Poor bastard, you know? And David's so sweet.

There were more fundraising cops when we came back to Beaumont tonight. They're camping out on the roof of Chili's and lowering down buckets. Say hello to the nice officers, internets...

I ate a huge RARE steak in their honor. I don't normally eat steak rare. Usually medium well. But those cops, they made me go all primal and shit and craving blood. Hungry like the wolf.

And I gave them money for their cause.

I'm being babysat tomorrow as well by the Peter Parker version of Officer Steppy. Plainclothesman. Something about breakfast and the park. Tonight David is bent on giving me alcohol, which I don't really like except for the raspberry Lambic which I can never drink more than one of because it's like $7 a bottle, and even though yes, I probably COULD drink a second one, I really can't afford to. The price is outrageous. And I'm saving for my camera.

He's gone out to get like ice cream and raspberries, something about a romantic dessert, which is intriguing to say the least.

Signing off tonight by saying, "Let's take your car, Officer."

Lick Of Sense

For a long time there, I had no friends. And I was becoming weird and cloistered. Then suddenly last summer, I swallowed my fear and made a phone call.

And then there was Steppy.

Later that week it seemed, or maybe within the month, the neighbor woman who I used to spy on through my peep hole as she would giggle and stumble up the stairs with her boyfriend groping her ass finally made me say hello to her. Then she came over to give me her Filthy Romanian Sex Novels, and then cry.

And then there was Mustang Sally.

Then I started getting these phone calls out of the blue from people I know. The Real Bombshell quit stripping and was living back at home now that she was no longer touring, and she wanted to see me.

Bombshell came back.

Lonely, lonely Greg called and said that making friends is hard, and like, we've known each other for ages, cant we still hang out?

And Greg came back.

Broken and blown-up Pico called, less militant than the last time I had seen him when he talked about wanting to rape Iraqi women, and told me he was lonely and bored and fairly disturbed these days in his big combat boots but not doing much combating, thank god.

So then Pico came back too.

Bloggers and blog readers were like, "you're all right, let's hang out," and that's when Liz in Seattle (you know what to do) started calling me and talking to me for hours. Dear Peggy, who has gone missing off the face of the internet would meet me for Starbucks, or Miss would meet me and David at Chuck E Cheese so that our kids could be some kids there. She even came over for free beer. And everyone else just fit into an email, or a comment, good lord I like talking to Stacey. She's smart, and I like surrounding myself with smart people.

Finally, I wasn't lonely anymore.

But then there is David, who genuinely needs friends, cant seem to really have any. Even my guy friends are not his friends, the bond is not there. I mean everyone's all good but Pico and Greg only ever call me (which is odd considering Pico started out as David's friend, I'm like totally a boyfriend stealer.) And when Steppy is over, it's weird to see their Alpha Wolf-Beta Wolf interactions. Suddenly Big Confident Miserable Pretty Boy puts his head down and asks if he can call me later, checks in to make sure that it's all right that he's sitting next to me while David sits alone on his tiny little computer on the other couch. Suddenly Steppy needs to ask permission to do the things that he doesn't even ask me permission for. And David, he waves it off with a "pfft...whatever."

David has two people who he really relates with, three if you count the rich coin collecting pizza boy. Which I don't, because they've never spoken outside of work. Cool guy and all, but they're really more like co-workers. David and David though, I mean DavidT and DavidTim (he goes by Tim to avoid creditors and also because there's another David) I think they're soul mates or something. They have a very Jessie-Steppy like relationship that baffles me because they're both dudes, but they like randomly start singing "SHOT THROUGH THE HEART! AND YOU'RE TO BLAME! DARLIN' YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME!" at work, or on the phone with each other.

See also: Livin' on a Prayer

See also: The Final Countdown

See also: Anything by Van Halen

It's literally like, "I'm buying a brand new flatscreen TV so when you come over to play X-BOX with me it will be the awesomest experience ever, and we can drink beer, and eat candy, and stay up ALL NIGHT LONG!"

I've never met DavidTim, but they have the kind of relationship where DavidTim will pull DavidT aside and say, "My tummy tum hurts."

I'm not exactly sure what DavidT's reaction was to that, but he claims it was nothing but Man-Talk.

Tummy tum.

And then there is Dana.

I don't much like Dana.

Dana is a drunk who recycles, who seems like a great guy and all but for one he's a fucking philosophy major and I HATE philosophy majors because they're fucking dicks to everybody including David who just ignores it, and two the guy's a pedo. Hot mom comes walking through the parking lot and David says, "whoa, check her out," or whatever guys say, and Dana will reply, "actually I was just admiring her daughter." Her daughter is maybe 10.

Sick fuck.

He also verbally attacked me one time in front of my kids, and I refuse to even let him apologize to me. But David calls him a friend. They both like the same things, and one of those things is disk golf.

For the record, disk golf is essentially Frisbee except that you're trying to throw it into a metal basket. Retardedest sport ever, but the only sports David is good at is retarded ones.

They go and do this some times, or they'll go to the beer supply store to get stuff for David to make his beer. There are disk golf courses set up in Yucaipa and Redlands for part of the year, so it's like, why not. But then David tells me, "hey, I want to go to La Mirada with Dana this weekend for disk golfing."

"La Mirada? With Dana? La Mirada is like over an hour away. He's not giving you gas money, and I get paranoid when you're far away and I'm stranded here without a car."

"Call your babysitter, he'll keep you company."

"He is NOT my babysitter! And that's not the point!"

"Okay, well what IS the point?"

"It's far!"

"So? If you wanted to go somewhere with Mustang Sally I wouldn't care!"

"I hate riding with her, she doesn't stop at red lights and she makes random u-turns. And this is FAR!"

"Fine then, you want to go to like LA or San Diego with Steppy, I wouldn't stand in your way. In fact maybe you should do that, go somewhere with him."

"Why cant you just go to Yucaipa? What's so special about La Mirada?"

"It's where the pros play!"

"What? There are professional disk golfers?"

He nods. "Look, you're getting a $500 camera, cant I just do this please?"

"...La Mirada? With Dana?"

"What bothers you more? That it's La Mirada or that it's Dana?"

"Wull...both."

"Okay, so we've established the fact that it's far--"

"Meaning you'll be gone for like five or six hours because of the drive and your playing time and traffic and I have to deal with the kids on my so called day off..."

"And we've established that you hate Dana. But you don't have to deal with him, I do."

"It's just that the dude is practically a stranger. He could kill you, you know."

"You go gallivanting in the hills with a guy who carries a loaded gun and you're worried about Dana the Silly Bum Alcoholic Philosopher Nut Job and I going to play disk golf?"

"Doesn't make a lick of sense."

"Doesn't make a Lick of Sense. I'll make arrangements so that you're not scared and alone when I go."

"You're hiring my babysitter."

"Exactly."

Ghetto Diffuser

I love my little red and black plaid pajama shorts. They lace up with a little black ribbon and I wear them with a little black tank with three little silvery stars in the bottom front left corner. No bra, naturally. Pajamas, more or less.

It's so nice out and I ask David to bring home pizza and soda. It's one of those nights.

My pretty mother's day flowers in their broken wine bottle began to wilt so I clipped the ones that were still nice and pressed them into the Grimm's Fairy Tales book, a book that Victor lent me 10 years ago and I never gave back. There are flowers in this book that Victor himself gave me. I've been pressing flowers a long time. I've always been crafty like that.

Except that I never actually go through and look at the flowers. It's weird.

I'm down on all fours, my right knee is tingling because of that nerve damage I got that time I slipped in the parking lot at Stater's. I still cant shave there. I pull out another long strip of scotch tape and fix it to the aluminum foil, then press it to the board.

"What are you doing?" David says when he walks in.

"Nothing."

"Okay, well why are you doing it?"

"Internet."

"Internet? Okay...it involves foil so can I assume it has to do with aliens?"

"No."

"What are you making."

"Give me that pizza box."

"It has pizza in it."

I look at him blankly. "Take the pizza out of the box, and then give it to me."

He doesn't question. He just follows orders. I hand him a little silvery shield, and he flips it over and says, "this was a soda box."

"Was a soda box."

"What is it now?"

"A ghetto diffuser."

"Okay, and what is that?"

"It's ghetto."

"And what does it do?"

"It diffuses light."

David stops asking questions as I tape foil to the pizza box, covering the grease stains, the cardboard still warm. And then upon completion, I stand up and present to him my creation, and I say "See?"

"Oh yes, that's a very nice ghetto deflector honey, very nice."

So then I demonstrate it.

I take it to the poppets on my bookshelf and say "No light?" and then I move the ghetto diffuser around a bit until a flash of light is reflected onto the little shelfy stage. "Light." I say.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH," he says, now finally understanding.

Behold in this following demonstration:

Reader Red Poppet in natural lighting (straight out of camera)

Reader Red Poppet with ghettoly diffused lighting (also straight out of camera, and I need to dust, I know.)

So as you can see, with the diffused light picture the shadow over the poppet's face is gone, and the color is richer. It also illuminates the books behind him, which isn't necessarily what I'm trying to do here, but you can see that it's like using a very soft flash. Because using a flash when you're doing macro, right, not such a good idea.

The whole reason why I built this was because when I'm out doing my pictures, or even in here just taking pictures of the poppets, lighting can be unpredictable. And, okay, here's a perfect example of where I could have used one of these...

When working with babies and children, there's not a whole lot of time to think. Also, I just fucking snap pictures like crazy and I do minimal posing. But most distractingly, babies, you know, you're cooing at them and trying to get them to look at you, so maybe I didn't pay so much attention to the lighting on this one. I was more concentrating on getting the cross and the flag in the background because Hillary requested it. I was alone on this shoot too, so it was a lot of shit going on. And the afternoon sun was totally working against me.

Hence, dark shadowy faces.

This picture would have been a million times better had I had a pizza box set up somewhere to illuminate their faces.

Also I'm building a baby kit that will include bubbles and squeaky things, because I've found that babies are really hard to not piss off when you're coming at them with a camera. The bubbles also might work for the teenagers as well.

What this all comes down to is my bills are paid, and I'm done chickening out. I'm buying my camera so that I can do bigger and greater things with my photography. David is earning the last little bit that we need with his tips, and he already earned half of the sum last night alone, so soon it will be mine.

And if he doesn't get enough tips, I'll see you at Club 215 on Saturday. I will be earning the damn tips meself.

Right...well...not really.

I figure, it took two years but my Powershot has now paid for its self. I've done enough gigs to have earned back my money on that. Or...David's money, because he bought it. I contribute nothing. I'm sort of like a really talkative ukulele playing slug. And with this one, the magazine paid for most of it. That's one gig. Plus there were others, and others still to come.

Right, so I'm putting everything I make back into the project but you know what else I pointed out to David? It gives us excuses to go places. I never would have gone with him to the brewery if I hadn't of had my camera with me, I have no interest in that stuff but if I can take pictures, hell yeah let's go!

I don't know, it's just very, very entertaining and cool and profitable. My books will never turn profit and I never want them to, they're not for that. Somehow my camera just seems to be a great tool for me because, face it, a picture is worth a thousand words. Not all of you have read my books, but you've seen my pictures, huh? JUST LOOK AT THEM DAMNIT! DAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA!

!!!

Open

There was kind of a thing in the last post's comments that made me finally come out and write this post.

Briefly, Steppy and his wife are just friends now. That is to say that they're mommy and daddy, they dont fight, they're great with each other's company, but there is no romantic love there (and if you ask me maybe there never was.) I know people who have less than that and they still function.

Interestingly enough, a question posed by my good friend Liz In Seattle (who will now rate this post 5 stars because I mentioned her) was "If you had to cancel one part of your relationship out completely, which would it be: sex or friendship?"

Hands down I'd toss the sex and keep the friendship, and I know that I speak for both David and I, I dont even have to ask him. Truth be told, David and I are friends too, very very good friends, but there is romantic love and actual sex going on.

With Steppy, not so much.

And if he romantically loves anyone, he tells me, it's me.

So here's where I got to needing to write a whole post. Liz P, who is not Liz in Seattle (10 stars bitch) said that his children will grow up confused because after they go to sleep he comes over and hangs out with me.

This is where I might go off on a rant here.

I read this book to review for Eden Fantasys and it is called Open by Jenny Block. I chose to review it, it did not choose me like that big huge black dong that I stuck to the neighbor's front door. I wanted to read it because I wanted to know what this "open marriage" concept was all about. And David read the book when I was finished with it. And David wanted to read it again.

We were both shocked in the sense that we both related to what the author was saying so well that we went, oh my god, this is us. That's not to say that we're out fucking other people or that we're going to actively pursue something like that, but let me explain what I mean here.

Let's start with the virgin/whore complex. I've highlighted this little quip from the book:

"We want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed," Usher sings to his tween and teen fans in his song "Yeah!" Notice that it has nothing to do with what she wants--just what he expects.

Do you see what's happening there in just that statement alone? Whatever is expected of people is absolutely a LEARNED response, whether Usher is singing it or a preacher is preaching it or your parents are living it. Now this next passage totally struck me hard, because after all of these years of trying to explain why I dont have a jealous fiber in my body, this fucking summed it up.

In their groundbreaking 1972 book Open Marriage, Nena and George O'Neill explain, "Jealousy is primarily a learned response, determined by cultural attitudes." We foster jealousy in ourselves by thinking we own someone, and that we can be everything in the world for that person. Then we become unhappy when we find that we cant." The entire idea of being sexually exclusive and wholly possessing our spouses, the O'Neill's point out, "breeds deep-rooted dependencies, infantile and childish emotions, and insecurities." What if, instead, we were to feel secure in our relationships and acknowledge our needs and our partner's needs? We would have greater security and acceptance in our relationships, and we would nurture trust and honesty instead of jealousy. As the saying goes, we reap what we sow.

How this relates to David and I is that we absolutely have nurtured very strong trust and honesty throughout our marriage, and never has jealousy been a factor. And it comes naturally. This isn't really about seeking other sexual partners, at the moment I mean, but our attitude has always been with each other like "just tell me, dont hide anything, just tell me."

I'll tell you something, early in our marriage David betrayed my trust. I kept finding evidence, and smelling evidence, that he was smoking. I confronted him on this many many times, and remember he was only 16 when we got married so of course it was also a matter of "who the hell is buying these for you?" But he wouldn't admit to it. After several months, finally he admitted it, and I was beyond pissed. Not only because I think it's a disgusting and selfish habit, but because he admitted that he was stealing them from Stater's where he worked at the time (he's already admitted this to the background investigator so I'm not exactly throwing him under the google-bus by mentioning this, it's no secret.) I was livid because he was putting his job on the line, and he was lying about it. This wasn't necessarily about fucking cigarettes, this was about betrayal and lying.

But he quit. Cold turkey. And he has never, ever lied like that again because he gets it now. He learned from his mistakes, and you know what, I learn from my mistakes too. I learned a very long time ago to just be honest because mistelling stories gets you nowhere fast. Just think about this, what if I never told David about Steppy trying to/successfully kissing me, or hitting on me, or letting him in on how physically close we are? I'd be hiding something, and hiding makes you guilty.

That one night when me and Steppy fell asleep on my bed, I mean fully clothed and innocent, do you think that I would have even risked doing something like that if I thought David was going to come home and rage, or worse, have hurt feelings about it?

And do you think that if any part of me and Steppy's friendship bothered David I would continue it?

I can still hear the echos in my head of my ex boyfriend accusing me of cheating with anyone I fucking talked to. Boys, girls, all of them. All of my friends, I was sleeping with them all. I was a whore, I was a liar, I was all that. I never wanted to have a relationship like that again, and so I told David very very early on, "just tell me, dont hide anything, just tell me."

The bottom line is that it's only cheating if it demands secrecy. In open relationships, people dont have to be repressed, and the people in the relationship dont have to disrespect one another by lying.

Now let's examine what all this has to do with me and Steppy, and Steppy and his wife, and Steppy and his kids.

This is beautiful, at the end of the book when the author says this in regards to her husband, who she loves but does not have a great sex life with because he's not nearly as horny as she is essentially, and her best friend/lover, who is a woman:

My marriage with Christopher and my relationship with Jemma are anything but mutually exclusive. They are perfect together. He is my rock and she is my sky. Never would we presume earth and air could fulfill our lives' differing needs in identical ways, and never would we expect to be able to live without one or the other. The same should be true of the people in our lives: Different people fulfill different wants and needs. It's not that complicated.

From his side of the spectrum it's easy to see that he needs intimacy with someone, and that someone is me. Sex aside, we're not talking about sex here, people can live without sex and more often than not they do. But he has his rock at home, a very good woman who he partners with well. But then between me and him, there could never be a partnership. Steppy has an air of superiority that I could never stomach as a full time job, where as with David, he's absolutely not intrigued by any kind of dominance or submission in real life or in bed because frankly it makes him nervous if I'm anything different than just his equal.

Cool huh?

Not always cool, but then again there's this big man who carries a gun and chews Trident and kicks me up the ass and tells me what to do on occasion. Maybe you've seen me on Twitter begging you to kick my ass and tell me to write 1,000 or more words on my manuscript. I need to be told what to do sometimes, and I hate asking for it, but I swear to god when Steppy called me and demanded that I finish writing Chelsea's Demon that night, I mean demanded it, I was done within an hour. The printed manuscript is being shipped to me as we speak.

David's more like, "do what makes you happy," tra la la la, which is awesome. But then books dont get finished. And I only started setting deadlines when Steppy started setting them for me.

I have serious daddy issues sometimes.

I think in a sense Steppy fulfills those. And yet, he can still be the loving, caring brother I should have had but didn't because I was born into douchebaggery. Except Robert, I love Robert. He's a good brother.

Steppy also fulfills something else for me though, and it's painstakingly obvious. He's attracted to me. And yes, it's shallow to need other people's attraction to us to prove our attractiveness to ourselves. But even though I'm fully aware of that fact, it's hard to forget it. Basically people, it feels god damned GREAT to be noticed and adored by someone.

And? When someone hits on David? I dont throw a nasty "back off my man!" stare, I look at them like "I know, right?"

And it's mutual, because Steppy will show up here in uniform on lunch just to do it. Not like he wiggles his butt in my face but he doesnt have to. He knows, and I know, that he would never do anything to disgrace the uniform. Oh but given the chance? I. would. disgrace. the. hell. out. of. that. uniform. And that, my friends, is why God invented strip clubs. Look but dont touch, and wowie wowzah!

I'm just a stay at home mom with a rockstar complex writing out books and charging $50 an hour for my photography skills. So many women in my position have to ask their husbands for permission to even go out with their friends, and case in point, when my ex's step mom invited me to go gambling with her she asked if my husband was willing to baby sit I said, "when he's their father it's called raising, not babysitting."

I'm happy to be the virgin and the whore, just like I had been before our marriage. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be both, as long as that urge comes from an authentic place and is not forced on you. I'm happy baking cookies--sometimes. I'm happy being dominant in bed--sometimes. Dealing with mixed messages and the shoulds and should nots surrounding relationships and sex is not about whether it works for the couple. I'm not talking about things that are quantifiably deviant, like bestiality or pedophilia or anything nonconsensual; I'm talking about two adults conducting their marriage honestly, in ways that are appropriate for them.

Is it sad that Steppy and his wife aren't in l-o-v-e? Yes, to me, but that's only because I want for my friend what I have. But what they do have works, and with the divorce rate the way it is, at least there's someone out there who figured out that it's not just about sex and love.

People look at marriage as the "right" choice, or alternately, as a moral or good choice, because it's assumed that human beings will be monogamous upon committing to this arrangement. Of course, more than ample proof exists that marriage does NOT enforce monogamy. Marriage was strictly about money until the last 100 or so years when "romantic love" was introduced into the equation. It wasn't about love or sex or finding "the one." It was about alliances and building labor force enough to run the farm.

I want to conclude with this though. Right, I told you all that to tell you this. Our children dont know what mommy and daddy do behind closed doors. We have a box full of things that would warp any child into their teen years, but we keep a lock on it. We dont hump on the kitchen counter at 3:00 in the afternoon with the kids running around. Sane people dont do that.

As for the argument that Steppy's kids will be warped because he goes and see's Jessie when they go to bed, again, how the hell will they know? We dont tell our kids everything, and they dont need to know everything. And for my kids at least, I hope that one day they'll be in a relationship that's solid enough that friendships can continue to go on even when "the one" is found.

Essentially, making all of this out to be taboo is only fanning the flames. There's nothing taboo going on here as of right now, Steppy and I aren't sleeping together, he isn't my "boyfriend" in the real sense of the word even though Liz in Seattle (15 stars, what now?) referred to him as my boyfriend once on the phone. I lol'd though, it's a made up title. If something were to ever, EVER, EVER happen, it would happen behind closed doors and it would have nothing to do with the kids. Why would they need to know?

Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Encroaching upon scandal in 3...2...1...

Chemical Reactions

I saw Don Quixote for the first time today in several weeks. I've missed his antics. David said he appeared from the bushes today playing with a dog...well, not a real dog, but you know how Mr. Quixote does.

I saw him sitting on the wall out in front of the Baloneytown apartments (because the only steak you can afford when you live there is baloney/bologna.) He sat upon the wall with his legs pretzeled like mine were yesterday on the balcony, and he had his hands covering his eyes.

See no evil.

Thinking about missiles and how it could have all been just a clever ruse I kind of make a stupid look and say fuck it all to hell, I dont care about any damn missiles. It's out of my control if they're there, and if they aren't there then yay for Steppy for respecting the "no means no" thing. They so rarely do.

To reiterate, he and I have no chemistry. David and I have the stuff that make the science buckets go glurg in my closet. Whatever thing Steppy and I have--which I guess is a thing because he's got it for me and I'm mostly unreceptive of it, it's all on the surface.

Total surface thing.

And

I need a brother more than I need a lover. Plus I dont love him.

Yesterday I bought socks.

The boys are getting all big and almost all of their jeans have blown out knees and I've had to turn them into cutoffs. The good news is that it's summer (here, anyway) and they basically wear the same size.

First stop: consignment store.

I've always said that consignment stores kick ass for kids clothes, especially in the summer. They were having a 50% off sale so the $2.50 shirts were $1.25. I never spent more than $2 on a pair of shorts. I rang up for $35 and ended up with a large bag full of shirts and shorts, and then the lady said that the store is closing next month.

That place has been there forever, and it's closing?

"I'm broke and I cant do it anymore," she tells me.

God damn.

Whatever will I do from now on?

And it was so stupid that I spend $35 to buy all of their clothes and then $50 at Target for their underwear and socks. Those are things that I wont buy from second hand stores, therefore you pay a shit load of markup to buy them new.

Plus I bought myself some argyles that were just begging to crawl up my calves.

And hats for them. One of them is a bright red Angels hat because FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!

David's family are Dodgers people and I could really care less, particularly since David's not really that into baseball. I dont know dick about baseball but I know that I like the red guys better than the blue guys. Anaheim Angels of Anaheim. I do know that if Wade happens to wear it over to his parent's house bricks will be shat and I'll just blink and be like "What?"

I respect the Broncos thing, that's an actual thing since they're from Denver and David is mildly interested in the sport, so it's not like I'd put the boys in Chargers hoodies or worse, Raiders, which has gang affiliations. "Putting your kids in Raiders clothes," David says, "is about as trashy as letting them wear wife beaters." And it has nothing to do with football.

The money, of course, is the money from the big magazine shoot. Yeah. I'm chickening out on spending that much on a camera. Even with all the extra money I'm feeling guilty about hoarding it, especially since it's summer clothes shopping time.

Le frown.

*tapping at window of camera store*

*camera sniffs my hand through the glass and licks me*

Wait, what?

David is promising me my camera soon. "Soon," he says. He suggested that since he has a sugar daddy who is buying his beer equipment, I should get Steppy to buy the camera since he already said he'd do it.

Well I dont like that idea either.

The difference here is that David's sugar daddy isn't going to ask for anything more than whole batches of beer and profit if he ever makes any. Steppy? Ever since he admitted that he loves me I've been really careful about not accepting things from him. I dont even like to go out to dinner with him anymore, and that's sad because he's a good friend. And sure, he mostly respects the boundaries but then again I had to say the word "mostly" just now.

Yes. I completely trust him, which is why I didn't protest when I saw that we were leaving civilization as we know it.

No. I'm not totally comfortable with how cheesy he is sometimes, in fact it bursts my bubble quite a bit.

I like my other guy friends, the ones who have no romantic interest in me nor I in them. My good friend Greg, who I've known since middle school, we've never had a thing. He's smarter than basically everyone else I know and he's who I went to for answers about the Lockheed thing. The one who told me about the warm cuddly airplanes.

Perhaps the problem here is that Steppy and I did have a thing at one time, a thing which I thought we both agreed failed miserably. Only to find out years later that when I said I felt nothing, he very much did.

And?

It's always been in the back of his mind. And sometimes the front.

MgO (base) + CO₂ (acid) → MgCO₃

CaO (base) + SiO₂ (acid) → CaSiO₃

NO₃^- (base) + S₂O₇^2- (acid) → NO₂⁺ + 2SO₄

And?

I know very little about science, but I'm pretty sure that both sides of the equation need to react in order for it to be real chemistry.

Or am I totally wrong and it's the base that can totally react on its own when it comes in contact with the acid, while the acid just does its part by being there?

I got the mac, you got the cheese.

As Sally would say, "is your pet." Is not. Or else I would make him buy that camera for me. I'm not like Sally, and I pride myself in that.

And this wouldn't have even become a big "thing" if it weren't for the fact that Drinne said no way no how those are missiles. Because then it's like the submarine races all over again, and like, why were we there?

Unless there really are submarine races out in the foothills, then I'm actually very interested. Even if it's cuddly airplanes I'm interested. And whatever those flat things really were, I'm ashamed but I am also very interested.

Where I Couldn't Take My Camera pt. 2

I push him away and say "Hey let's just keep it friendly." He doesn't fight back or persist or anything. "Don't make me empty the mace on YOU dude, you're the one who gave it to me. And why did you show me this anyway? Was this an excuse to get me to go out to the middle of nowhere with you? I mean, YOU'RE the government, you probably knew about those things! What is this? Like, watching the submarine races at the park or something?"

"No."

No explanation or anything, just no.

A friend of mine who I talk to on occasion later tells me that Lockheed also makes airplanes, and that it's entirely possible that the weird flat things with burms all around them contain cuddly airplanes. Cuddly fuzzy airplanes. Not cold violent missiles.

I needed more of an explanation for the missiles than I needed for my boy problems, I mean when he goes over like he's opening my door for me and then leans into me so that I'm leaning against the car and then "asks" if he can kiss me, I mean, I'm not stupid about that.

"If I let you kiss me then I know you'll just try to fuck me."

"I'm not trying to fuck you Jess I just like being alone with you. And kissing you."

I make a yuck face and then start making fake retching noises.

He backs off and walks away to his side of the car. Done and done.

We're on Pennsylvania Ave and I go "road head."

"Excuse me?"

"Road head."

"...What...you like...want to or--"

"No, road head," I point to the car in front of us. "He had a passenger a few seconds ago, now he doesn't. And he's driving awfully slow, dont you think?"

We see a shoulder bob up from the front center area but then it's gone again. The guy's going pretty slow and driving like maybe he's drunk or maybe someone's sucking his dick when he should be concentrating on operating his motor vehicle. A head pops up for a few seconds and looks around. It's a blonde woman. She's gone again and Steppy calls dispatch. Moments later we fall back so the cop can get between us, and I am thrilled to see blue and red lights.

I'm all about keeping my cards in view so I relay the night's events down to the last detail to David, and he laughs a little at the road head, he grins at what Steppy did, and he asks about these missile silos.

Boys.

We Google Earth it and found where he had taken me. For sure, there is a big mysterious building and those flat parts with burms. The satellite view, which is however many years old, shows cars in the parking lot. This is during the day time of course.

I always thought that stuff like that existed out farther in the desert, not in unincorporated Banning. And with all the dry brush, I mean...what if the big scary building catches fire? Fires happen out there all the time. And it's also weird because I thought that kind of stuff was just in Nebraska. The Googles dont turn anything up for its existence, maybe it's not even active anymore. But it's also not like this is incredibly well hidden because all it took was a hike to be able to find it. It all felt like a big scary secret and I hoped for warm fuzzy airplanes. If only for the fact that I dont know what to make of what I saw.

It's reasonable that they're there but I know it's supposed to be secret and I'm not supposed to know about it.

It's neat to know but I was probably better off not knowing.

I wear a big wooden peace sign on my neck and look down on missiles from a hill, it's just weird. Juxtaposed. I wished that he had taken me to the evidence room instead. Then again maybe I dont want to know what's in there either. It is what it is, I guess. I went to sit on my balcony.

To sit on the balcony is to regroup, I guess, so I sat there calmly and quietly and wondered why this had even bothered me as much as it did. Was I scared? I even pretzeled my legs in my chair almost meditatively. I dont think I wanted to see it but I saw it anyway. Like dead Victor's cold stiff hands holding that rose, laced with that rosary. I went because I didn't know what I would see when I got there.

And I went because I think it just gives me something to write about.

I still wish that I had my camera.

Where I Couldn't Take My Camera

I promise this wont only be made up of pictures. In fact, there's a story at the end that involves the middle of nowhere, a gun, possible radiation exposure, and secret government plots.

So anyways, look at the pretty house!

There are tons of homes like this in Redlands, which is where we went today. David wanted to take me on a photo excursion and even though we first had plotted a nature thing we ended up in Redlands. Which is fine because Redlands is really old and full of neat stuff. Like these houses. If you say that you're buying an old house in Redlands everyone's eyes light up and they ask if you're buying a Victorian home or a "gingerbread house." These things are the coolest. Look...

Aren't they cute as hell? I think so. There are literally hundreds of them, and they're all beautiful. The city is really old so there are also lots of old creepy churches, which I took pictures of, but I'm more proud of my picture of the Stardust Motel...

Back in the day there was a huge painting on the building that advertised XXX movies and hourly rates. Sadly that has been painted over. But all of Redlands has murals...

Basically it's a cool old town that banks on the fact that it's not Yucaipa. Bunch of rich snobby bitches there. Anyway, while we were out there we stopped in Mentone to visit the Hangar 24 Brewery, which is a brand new brewery that's literally on the Redlands Airport property. I collected some stunning pictures there as David tried samples of their delicious beers (or so I'm told they're delicious, I dont actually like beer so pah.)

And you know the guy in the bottom right corner...



Right out their front door, you see this...

So we pretty much called it an excursion and I came home and barraged my Flickr with all of my snaps, only for David to tell me "Hey I'm taking you to Oak Glen after we get Ty." That trip wasn't as fruitful, but I did get some.

I rarely sepia tone things...

So I upload those, and then I get this call.

"Hey so you're uploading all of these pictures to your Flickr account. Looks like you went everywhere today."

"Just about," I tell him.

"I'm taking you out tonight, but you can't bring your camera."

"Well why not?"

"It's private property, you can't take your camera. I want to show you this though, I've found something."

He said he found something.

And he wanted me to see it.

I asked if it was his prostate.

He said it wasn't his prostate.

I asked why we were out when it was dark and he said because of rattlesnakes and drunks, and he said not to worry because he had his off duty piece.

That doesn't exactly make me not worry.

I have to admit that I got a little nervous as we drove on the long road past civilization as we know it, I mean...where the hell were we going? It was the middle of nowhere, somewhere he says he's been a bunch of times but not to worry...that is until we get to the fence, and then I need to stay close.

I think he does these things so he has an excuse to make me walk next to him and be all Popeye to my Olive Oil.

"Do you trust me?" he says. Of course I trust him. You have to be able to trust someone if you're literally following them into the dark and they've got a gun and a mad boner for you.

"I've got my mace."

There are all of these dirt roads and then suddenly the one we're on forks.

The signs on the fence give warning about possible radiation poisoning or something and I ask if we're supposed to be there. He tells me yes, but that where we're about to go, maybe not so much.

This is why I can never show you his picture. It's either I show you his face and then never write about stuff like this or I write about stuff like this and tell you that the boy sure is dreamy. Le sigh.

He tells me that there used to be signs saying "Lockheed Property" but that the signs are gone now. We're on foot at this point following the fence up this hill at the foot of the mountain, and I ask if it has anything to do with Scientology's Gold Base which is in Hemet. He's pretty sure it's not related.

Just as the sun is going down we finally make it up to this point and he tells me to look down. There is a big building, and I mean big for being out in the middle of nowhere, no man's land, out in the boonies and the sticks and the whatever else you call a bunch of dry brush, rocks, and secrets.

I see these flattened out areas sort of like where they'd normally plop down a house but there are burms of dirt around them on three sides. There are maybe like 10 or 12. They're lined up sort of like tract housing, but they're clearly not for houses.

"What are they?" I ask.

"Those are fucking missile silos."

I ask him if he's sure, and he says he thinks so. And let's leave.

We didn't talk about it after that.

I wished I had my camera with me.

We get back down the hill and he casually just leans in for a kiss.

1,500 Pictures Later...

It's 1 AM and I've just finished touching up my photos from the day. I've not much to say. Just look.

I told Sally to look professional, less slutty. She said this was the only "good girl" outfit she could come up with. I think it worked well, but she should probably stick to her usual specialty. She kept throwing kissy faces at me.







My great nephew Aiden...













And Kat and Nina



And my favorite model of the day the teenlet, who was whiner than the two year old. But her pictures? Wow. I love these so much. Hope her mom does too.









My original plan was to fix her hair in this last one but David told me to leave it for some reason. It's one of my favorite shots of the whole day.



She will probably complain, but I hope that the princess can at least find one to settle on liking.

Feliz Dia Mama

I've started this entry three times and every time I just delete it.

I'm too dysfunctional to talk about this holiday really.

I had a smile all day yesterday from the broken wine bottle flowers though. I look at the jagged edges and it makes me smile. My family is different, and it's comfortable. I like it fine.

My big check from the magazine came yesterday, and it vexes me because when you deposit a check the bank will only immediately clear $100 of it for 24 hours, meaning that I missed the sale they had on the camera I want at Target. See, on the internet it's $525. At Staples it's $549. At Target it was $599 BUT it came with a $100 Target gift card, so it's like getting it for the cheapest plus the gift card is useful because I no longer shop at Wal Mart.

I mean, I can wait. It's not that big of a deal. It's not like I would want to use it on everyone's portraits tomorrow since I have no idea how. In fact I probably wont take it out to use it in the field as they say for a while. It's complicated and kind of a big deal.

It's not a mother's day gift though, I'm buying it for "work." Which for me is play, I guess.

I'm pretty lucky. And I'm pretty happy.

I cut off a hunk of my hair that felt weird and crunchy. The split ends, or whatever. And my nail polish on my toes is flaking so I should probably fix that. The question is whether I should do it myself or if I should actually go get them done. I haven't had it done in years. I think since I got married. I don't really know if I want to get it done since I have nobody to go with except David. And that's always kind of weird because the lady is talking bad about him in Chinese the whole time. His toenails are pretty thick.

That's all I'm going to write tonight, I'm really stuck on what to say. I'll quit while I'm behind. Go call your mom or worship the devil or something, I've got nothing today.

Ghetto Fabulous

I always stop to visit David before dropping Ty off at school. It was busy today, like three customers were there, and inside his shack on his podium I see a bunch of flowers...and they're...in a broken beer--no, wine bottle?

David doesn't even look at me.

Between customers he passes them through the open window of my car to me.

"They're in a broken wine bottle," I say.

"Yeah just...just be careful on that, it's sharp."

He bought me flowers, but had nothing to keep them in till I got there, so he went in his glass bin, broke the top off of a wine bottle, which he specifically chose over a Bud Light bottle or something, and stuck the flowers in.

Ghetto fabulous.

I'm actually surprised that he sprung for the store bought flowers, usually he comes home panting with a clutch of obviously picked from a yard pansies saying "I had to out run an old man with a cane but these are for you."

Or

"I saw these growing in a planter outside of the bank and it made me think of you. Oh and these fern looking things were outside of Wienerschnitzel."

Sometimes they still have roots attached to them.

Slick.

And I'm leaving the flowers in their vessel, even though I have vases. It really is the thought that counts, in this case. I don't know another person on the planet that would appreciate the sentiment behind flowers in a broken wine bottle.

The cop he went on his ride along with a few weeks ago said "You're too intelligent to be working at the recycling center and delivering pizzas." That's absolutely correct, he is too intelligent to be working those jobs but they're what he has for right now, and frankly, they're pretty easy money. Plus you get to fuck around like this.

And like that time that he made me a heart shaped pizza that spelled out "I want anal" in sausages for Valentines day.

By the way, David says that it's incredibly difficult to break a bottle like that. He practices getting in bar fights, you know, just in case some shit goes down and he needs to fight someone with the business end of a broken bottle. I mean he IS in a parking lot after all. Anyway, he says that to break a bottle and actually have it shatter in a way that it could be used as a weapon is a one in a million chance. It either bounces off the surface and hurts your hand from the shock absorption or it shatters and you're left with a mess to clean up.

So don't count on a broken bottle to save your life in a bar fight.

He happens to be an expert on this subject.

Recycling makes me smile.

The Ties That Bind (And Gag)

Pretty much the only time you can pet me is if I'm laying down. The rest of the time if you try to hug me or anything I get a little claustrophobic and I squirm away.

This is not news.

I walk past David in the hallway, who is wearing nothing but gray manpanties, and this is a small hallway especially with the bookshelf there.

"Hey," he says, "why are you avoiding me?" and he grabs my shoulders. I pull away.

"I have to pee."

"But you like, totally avoided me just now."

I turn around and look at him. "I always avoid you."

This is not news.

I'm pissing with the door open and David is standing there with his long face. Then he stiffens his upper lip and says "well if that's how it is," and then he turns the light off in the bathroom.

It's pitch dark. It went from shockingly fluorescent lime green to black. Fucker turned my light off.

"Hey! Wuh-g...God damnit!" I say as I flush and stumble my way through the darkness. He's got candles lit in the bedroom and the beer bottles in the closet clink at me. He's on the bed and he's laughing at me. "You turned my light off!"

"I had to do something!"

"Just never stop me when I'm trying to go pee and there wont be anymore misunderstandings or hurt feelings or dark bathrooms."

"Speaking of hurt feelings," he says, "a woman cried tonight when we gave her her pizzas."

"Cried?"

"She was sobbing."

"Why?"

"Well she ordered our pan pizzas, and I guess she thought they were deep dish...so when she opened the box and saw that they were square she screamed and then started sobbing and gagging a little. She's like 'That's not right, pizza is not supposed to be square!' It was fucking crazy."

"Did you give her her money back or something?"

"No, we were like 'that's what you ordered so...there...you...go..."

I lol'd.

I went to the store today and bought four pounds of strawberries for four dollars. Plus a bunch of eggs and breakfast stuff. David is like, "I want to do something special for you on Mother's Day," and I keep telling him that I'm fine basically. I don't need any more crap, flowers die, macaroni noodle cards are only cool when they're from kids, and I'm doing my photography thing. And I feel guilty asking for something like a poppet or whatever because I'm buying a really expensive camera soon.

He's saying that he's going to clean the house and cook but again, he already does those things on the weekends to give me a break anyway. That's not to say that I don't want a whole "Mother's Day" thing, I do. I guess I'm just not that hard to please anymore. I'm not really a jewelry person, I think last year I went clothes shopping...spent all of like $50.

I don't have a mom. David does, and he said she'll get a phone call or a head pat or something. His brother called him last week out of the blue, his mom's golden child (making David essentially a nippled sack of dough I guess?) and David thinks it might have been a ploy so that he can call back again on Mother's Day and "remind" David to call his mom.

Matt doesn't call otherwise.

He emailed some pictures of what he does for a living that I couldn't view for whatever reason, and David replied with the link to our Flickr and then zilch, nothing since then. Not that he expected anything more than that. It was weird enough that he called. It's like if one of my brothers just called me up out of the blue, I only really like one of them and he wouldn't call me because he's kind of busy and scatterbrained and I don't watch football. Nice guy though.

I have nothing in common with my relatives. It's something I have in common with David, who I would be convinced was found on a doorstep if not for the fact that he looks exactly like his parents.

He got to see his grandparents yesterday, they stopped by the cans for some reason. Grandpa is doing great, all spunky and boisterous. Grandma tried to shake David's hand and he had to say "no Grandma, hug." It could be also that he was filthy at the time, but he says he gets the slight feeling that she wasn't sure who he was entirely. I sure hope that's not the case, she's an all right gal. One of the nicest people I've ever met.

Jeez, I wish I had grandparents. I had a grandpa once. I told him I wanted to eat green beans with him forever. And I remember my sister pointing him out in line at Stater's and I said "That's not him, he's not smiling."

I guess what I want, and this cant really be packaged up or fried on a skillet, I want to have a mostly decent relationship with my kids and have a sane and functional home life so they're not all bitter and weird and unable to hug people like me. Right now Wade says he likes me because I let him do the dishes and because I give him money for the ice cream man. Ty says the same thing basically, I mean they're still too young to comprehend any of that stuff.

I like that Wade likes me because I let him do the dishes.

I like that they're finally old enough to be little slaves. And that they're naive enough to be Tom Sawyered into doing things they think are fun and I think are grueling and never ending.

I'm pretty much ready to accept that Mother Of The Year award if you'd just pass it this way.

Invisibility

I sometimes feel invisible which is because, well, mostly I am.

I'm totally the creepy left out girl standing five feet away from the stroller mommy clique after school. I mean, I like it in a way because it's not like I'm really looking for people to hang out with, plus I don't even really like females as friends. You see how I go back and forth with Sally, liking her and hating her.

But I did end up penciling her in for pictures Sunday morning. She was quite suspicious of my motives and didn't seem to grasp the concept of non fuck me face pictures. I don't know, like nice ones that she can put on a business card and present to people, a high class I just happen to be pretty but I'm talking serious business here face.

And if I just happen to get her to tromp through the cemetery for some vampire-glam pics I mean, pfft, I mean, like...you know. Whatevs.

But I want to clarify something I said yesterday. I wondered if she had an I want a stable man face. I want to clarify that I don't think everyone needs that or even wants that. Hell, a person could have premarital sex for the rest of their lives and I think that's actually pretty cool. The only reason why I suggest that maybe Sally try that face on for size is because it's what she pines for all the time.

"Oh I just want a man to love me for good."

But she keeps putting on her fuck me face in these pictures and not really conveying anything past a cigarette afterwards.

I'm not entirely sure that I'm doing the living life thing right or wrong but I do know that she's always got her mascara running and the urgent need to tell me that the guy who got her the job might be blackmailing her, etc.

Maybe it would just be easier. It would be less for her to deal with. Less for her to cry over. A nice picture, I thought, could be the start to that.

I'm meeting with the much saner Debi and her daughter in the evening on Sunday, by the way. Her daughter has braces and big Japanese cheeks and great hair. Plus Debi's always making hats and sticking her in them so I hope they'll bring a few along. Plus they might be able to rope in some extra teenagers, and my portfolio needs more teenagers. Debi is much better, healthier company anyway, but we never get together or anything. Even though she's like my cousin or my uncle or some far off twisted mangled wreck of family connections to where we're not really anything at all.

Which is basically how all of my family is.

I was eavesdropping on Sally last night...I was supposed to be writing but I couldn't get into it...plus she was out there on the porch with her ex.

Sometimes it's cool to be invisible.

And in my defense I was actually getting up to shut the window because he smokes and it makes my house smell.

She really lays the accent on thick when she's around him. I didn't know what she was saying. All the better, she doesn't discuss her ex with me right now so I assume he's being good. She only complains when he's doing something rotten which he usually is, and I don't really give a fuck what she's doing with him at the moment. I just figure when she comes knocking with mascara all streaming down her puffy face like how we met the first time, that first night after two years of being next door neighbors and sharing a wall when she signed her Romanian romance novels for me and then said, "I'm very sad today."

That was the day he left her with all of those wedding invitations with little starfish glued to them.

And when I started hanging out at her place.

When she said, "Who the cop is?" and said to stay away from the cop.

God, now I know why she said that.

And here she had me questioning my safety. No. It's because he's cute and she wanted to fuck me face him. Glad that never worked.

She tells me via email that she's never had a good picture taken outside of a studio. Right, and the more I look at studio pictures these days the more I think of how bland they are. I'm all elitist and junk. But you have to see those pictures Life Touch took of Ty, I cant post them because they're copyrighted but they're really, really terrible. And she goes and says something about my lack of studio, my lack of being LifeTouch or The Picture People or whoever lives at the mall with those backdrops. Sears. This is her refusing to actually eat anything at Thanksgiving because she didn't trust the American food all over again.

Her stupid pile of mashed potatoes that she picked at.

"What are the stuffings?"

Her booty call that sat with us because she flaked out and invited him over for sex when she knew she was supposed to be having dinner with us.

I'm invisible but it's probably best.

I like her fine but she irritates me. I'm not really a ladies girl. I don't do nail salons and I'm always refusing her perfume samples that she offers me. I'm trying though. I'm trying to learn. It's not laziness/bossiness if someone calls you a Princess about it. Well it still is, but at least it has a label. And you know what? We need labels for one important reason and that's because we need to know what the fuck things ARE.

Am I what I'm labeled?

And did I label myself as invisible?

Googling my name brings back 76,200 results.

Maybe I'm not so much invisible as I am just on the internet a lot.

I should probably cut back to an extent.

What I'd Rather Do For Mother's Day

So now it has come to the time of year where I once again switch focuses and go in the direction that I believe is most beneficial at the time. Right now it's the photography business. My books take second chair as far as advertising them and even, yeah, writing them. I'm so close to finishing one book that's already past the 90,000 word mark and I could have easily finished it last week but "the business" aka the one that's actually making money, got in the way.

I still have an unopened poppet that I cant "have" until I finish the book. Not to mention the immense satisfaction I get from actually finishing them, I mean not everyone can do it. But I decided to make some improvements to my photography website each night instead of finally closing that story out with the bittersweet shebang at the end.

I'm getting that digital rebel a lot sooner than I thought.

The thing is with my books is that I never planned to make money with them. If I were writing for money I certainly would have gone with an actual publisher, but I have bigger and better things in mind for my writing than just money.

I have bigger and better things in mind for my photography as well which is why we're going about doing the business in the way that we do and making our Flickrstream all Creative Commons.

Sometimes you do things because you like them.

Like David and all those clinking bottles of still fermenting beer in my closet. The bucket of science that glurgs at me when I go to get a shirt.

It's actually pretty satisfying to know that we're getting out there despite the lack of paid advertising, although I have asked David to look into the hows of the pizza box ad possibility. It's a thought, anyway. It will never earn a living wage, not even close, and we seem to be putting everything we earn right back into buying more cameras so it's still go nowhere at this point, but the customers are liking us very much and that is always a good thing.

I'm doing some cops...ur...uh...that is to say that...like...I offered free portraits for the cops who vouched for David to CHP...not the other kind of doing...really. Even though there's also a fireman involved. It's all about being all nice and everything. I just read a book about Evil Wal Mart and I'm all about being the good guy.

I've decided to do some free portraits on Mother's Day because I figure it's one of those nice things and also it's something that David and I like to do. I like doing what I like to do, and even though I'm probably going to get some kind of meal and a handpainted card from the kids and maybe some Starbucks, I would actually really enjoy spending the day doing portraits, or at least a small portion of it. Mother's day is kind of cheesy anyway I guess, like Valentines day. My kids aren't old enough to appreciate me and David loves the crap out of me. I'm pretty set.

I've offered to take some non-slutty pictures of Sally to give out since she's in such a High Position of Authority at her new job and the pictures she gave to the guy who is now her supervisor could potentially bite her in her well rounded ass...if he hasn't already.

I hate Sally and I'm still being nice to her.

Sally, she tells me to wait up last night when I was going down with laundry because she had some she needed to switch over. She goes and tells me this complicated story, her accent is back and really thick again and I think it's because the man she likes calls her Natasha and tells people she doesn't speak English, which I hear ends up being quite entertaining at the Applebee's on 6th. I wasn't even listening to her, or I tried for a little while but I couldn't understand what exactly had happened except that she cant trust someone and she needs to break into someone's computer to delete the pictures of her vagina that she sent.

This is why I don't photograph my vagina. You never know when something like this could happen.

I don't know how to help Sally, I don't even try anymore. Her fiance was here all last week and I just acted like I didn't see a thing. After what she said the other day which I mentioned on twitter, I'm kind of not in the mood for her antics. But she is very pleasing to the eye and after all we're neighbors, so free non-naked pictures are beneficial to her. And me because she prettys up my portfolio. Which is also why I'm offering the free portraits this Sunday.

Sometimes I think maybe she doesn't know better. I mean every picture she sends to these mens on the internet is either of her naked or her making a fuck me face. You all know the fuck me face. She cant have relationships with people that last because all she really presents is her fuck me face. What about the face that wants a stable man? If she even has that, I don't know. She seems like she'd do anything to have everything.

There was a knock just now and it sounded like it was on my door so I opened it. It was on her's. It was her ex. He asked how I was doing and I ducked back inside.

I never know what to do anymore with her. Except offer to take her picture...which of course is not entirely selfless since I intend to use them.

Call me nuts for actually offering to work (for free even) on the day that I'm supposed to be all appreciated and junk but this is what I'd rather do. It's fun. It's something that David and I enjoy doing together. Ty is making me something at school and Wade mostly just somersaults instead of walking places. David is looking into spas and I'm like "we should probably avoid public places because of Pig SARS or whatever," and he said something about cooking and cleaning and being really nice to me...which is pretty much what he does on the weekends anyway. I want to go out and have fun for cheap so this is what I do.

Whether Sally ends up getting involved, I don't know. Maybe I don't even care.

The Oceanless Beach

To the best of my knowledge, this is how it happened.

Once upon a time, there was a real estate related misunderstanding that led to a town being known for a beach that doesn't exist. Pictures for postcards and real estate ads were taken at such an angle of the Santa Ana River, which now is only ankle deep in most spots and littered with rocks and trash, that they looked like real waves crashing into rocky cliffs. The ads for the prime real estate boasted cheap beach front property in a little town called Mentone in Sunny Southern California, and who can pass up a deal like that?

Many people were duped into buying this property for a beach that you cant even really build a sand castle on because of all the pebbles.

But somehow the name stuck and people were charmed, so with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, the residents of this town which is a good 60 miles from any real ocean related beach renamed it Mentone Beach.

Please don't quote me, this could all just be legend. All I know is the place still goes by Mentone Beach even though the river is basically dried up.

Mentone Beach reminds me of home because I've always known it.

We went there today to collect rocks for the garden. We line the paths with them. People build their houses with these rocks and my sister built a rock wall with these rocks and her father built a wall with these rocks before her. It's like, if you need rocks you go to Mentone Beach, which is also known as Mill Creek if you go up the mountain past the ranger station.

It has all this native vegetation all by it and you can see where the hills have burned in past years. I'm writing an important scene in one of my novels that takes place here right now, and it was kind of cool to go there because I remember more when I actually go to places. And from the pictures it looks like some kind of desert oasis out in the middle of nowhere when actually we're no more than 50 feet from the main road. Over on the other side of the river from us is a truck parked while its driver fills up the bed with rocks for some project or maybe to sell.

People build dams in it, and this is the only thing that creates any sort of deep parts, if you can call them deep. They're really not, you cant even swim here anymore. You can sit in it and get your butt wet and feel kind of weird about it if you want to, or get your shoes all full of sandy water.

I'm pretty sure this will be gone some time in my life time, which is why I take the time to document it. This is also why I try to document the mountains every once in a while in case they burn, which they inevitably do. Our puny river, our creek, our beach, isn't going to help us put out any flames. It barely makes it through the various man made dams anymore. Sad really because I can remember almost getting swept away in it once.

Laundry tonight is all full of muddy wet socks and the shoes are all on the front porch drying. Except for mine. I don't like to get wet in it anymore. It makes me feel weird.

Sunburned

I halped today for real in the garden. I planted onion and chive seeds and artichoke seeds and four tomato plants. However the fact that I sat up top the hill in my Princess chair occasionally retrieving hammers and clippers and such is the reason why I am sunburned. The fucker of it is that I sat during the last part of the day when the sun was setting over toward the West, and yes, you guessed it, I only got burned on one side.

My whole left thigh and arm are on fire while the other side of me fairs well. I'm half a redneck. I'll have an uneven tan and I've got a lot of bitching to do. But David, David is not such a wuss. David redid some of the irrigation today because some of the sprayers were fail and he put the whole garden on drippers, only the first drippers he put in were fail so he did drippers twice today.

Here's David the hot garden boy climbing about in his trellis thing that he made for his hops...

He's growing out his mutton chops again, he said something about seeing a picture of Wolverine from X-Men on a pizza box and having a strange sexual attraction to him and now his goal is to emulate Wolverine by becoming all buff and having mutton chops. He's a sweet boy.

Behold our grapes:

And also yes to be loving our nectarine and avocado trees

Will close tonight with this humming bird that visited us in the ditch...

Have A Day

Because there aren't enough obscure unmailed letters in the world.

Dear RadioJustice1050@aim.com,

I bother not to filter your email from spam and potential harassment for you have plastered your email address on the back of your car in large, black, bold distracting letter stickers.

You must have gone to the address number and letter section of the hardware store and thought, yes, this is for me. This will do nicely. This will get the word out.

Your message, which you plastered over the back of your old shitty powder blue car says something to the effect of "share dollars," followed by some exclamation points, which even you thought was too many because you scratched some off. Good for you, sir.

I write to you today in good faith, as I was the one who was driving behind you on Wildwood Canyon Road in Yucaipa today.

Sir, aside from your overglorified and vague message that you have adorned your car with like a mobile billboard, I want to tell you two things, one of which you are probably already aware of.

1. Your car is lopsided. That is to say that the passenger side is significantly lower than the driver's side. Does this affect your alignment? I'm sure you know more about it than I do.

2. More importantly, your brakelights are out.

Keep on trucking soldier, spread your message far and wide for whatever reason you feel the need to.

Have a day.

Dear Mean Black Lady,

Yesterday when your son threw my son's shoe on the roof, I was not prepared to deal with your wrath. I admit that I'd of handed that kid's ass to him if it weren't for the fact that you are his mom. You frighten me in such a way that I cannot explain.

I thank you for offering insisting to go buy my son a new pair of shoes. I told you it wasn't a big deal and you assured me that it WAS a big deal and you demanded to know his shoe size. Right there on the spot. I didn't know it. I was scared. I gave you the number one but then suggested that maybe $10 would be fine, for the shoes were cheap anyhow. This wasn't good enough for you. It's not all right, you said, and you went right then to, Wal Mart I guess by the brand, and you brought Ty a brand new pair of running shoes. They were better than the ones he had before. They had no tag or box, and they were already laced.

I don't know exactly what happened in this situation, and how you assured me on the porch once again that it was not all right and that you were sorry for your son's behavior. I thank you for giving a shit, because so many parents wouldn't have. But you also scare the crap out of me. But I think you're a lovely, genuine person. And I'm pretty sure that your kid got that wrath I was fearing.

Have a day.

Dear Mustang Sally,

What you said yesterday was despicable. I don't find humor in racism or the fact that people are dying of this swine flu.

You go on to say that you wont get the flu because you got a shot for it when you were a baby. You seem to know so much about this. That's good for you. But perhaps doing some actual reading would do you good rather than just assuming things. People are dead. You will be too if you go around acting like you're immune from it because of a shot you got 30 years ago for a completely different strain. Seriously consider this. Or don't, but at least stop running your filthmouth at me.

Have a day.

Dear Steppy,

Take a god damned hint. If it's 2:00 in the morning and David is passed out on the couch, perhaps it's bedtime. I'm sorry for your insomnia, but please, please stop hanging out at my house until 2:00 in the morning.

Have a day.

Dear Lifetouch,

I hate your service. You screwed up on my son's kindergarten picture in the beginning of the year by taking a picture of him essentially growling at the camera, and now you've taken a picture of him with his face scrunched up, totally not smiling, with peanut butter all over his face from lunch.

Do your photographers not understand the concept of having the child smile? Or maybe pointing out that the child has food on their face?

Furthermore, I did not pay for your package, I don't know why I received one but I had better not be billed for it. There is a reason why I did not order your product and it's because your photography sucks.

Sorry for such an informal letter but I don't imagine you would care since you take such informal pictures.

Horrible pictures, honestly. I can understand that working with children in a situation like this can be frustrating but any idiot knows not to snap the picture when the kid isn't smiling.

Have a day.

Dear Wal Mart,

You are evil.

Have a day.

Dear David,

If I can figure out how to London this Broil, or the other way around, dinner will be ready at 11 when you get home. If you get sent to the res. at 10:55 and you're late, I will eat a sad, sad meal without you, because I cannot resist the call of big slabs of meat. I'm like a dog in that sense. And also I'm really sorry that you sent me a dirty text message that detailed all of these things you wanted to do to me, and I replied, "Grandma?" I tried to make a funny but I think instead it killed your boner. For that I deeply, deeply, apologize. I am a total douchebag sometimes.

Have a nice day.

Business Is Business And Business Runs In The Family

Right now Ty's school is having a fund raiser, and there was a huge banner up saying that if the kids raised $1,200, the principal would kiss a pig.

That banner mysteriously vanished a few days ago.

The school called us last night to say that no cases have been found in our district so all is well, and to keep sending your kids to school, but if they have the bloody plague don't you dare set foot near our campuses. Thank you and have a nice day.

In wonderful non swine flu related news...ur...I hope, because that will suck...I was abruptly scheduled for a photo shoot yesterday afternoon in the park.

Does the girl here look like the David? It's his cousin on the ol' T side. They're the same age.

It was an emergency photo session that couldn't wait until Sunday when both of us would be available because it's her mom's birthday and she forgot and so it was like "Oh hey, I should get pictures done!" Yes you should. And she did. And? Another very satisfied customer. She called me at 11:00 at night to tell me "They're beeeeeautifuuuulll!!!" I love that, so much. And thank god she let me use her photos for my site and promotional materials, they really did turn out pretty fab. And she has a baby and my portfolio contains very few babies. And? There was a dog. A one of these dogs. Her name is Wilma and I love her. One of those Budweiser dogs, the Target commercial dogs. So ugly that they're cute and such. I also love this because I didn't have enough dogs in my portfolio either.

Plus as it turns out we're booked again in two weeks, more family stuff but the pay is the same and hey, it's local. No driving out to Hesperia, which is in our area of business but GOD driving out there would be like, man. Glad I have my Mazda these days. Looks like business is booming.

Of course everything I'm making right now is going into my new camera fund.

I feel like I have an actual job for once now that it's picked up, and by that I mean the fact that we've done any work this year at all. The magazine is paying me, and they had no complaints about my work so I want to see which ones they end up using for the cover, I have my favorites but time will tell. The lady herself though scared the crap out of me and was like "These aren't good, I want a re-do" and all that. I thought she was upset with my pictures. No, turns out she was upset because her "clothes were all wrong" and "you were right, that necklace was too big." All stuff she chose even after I warned her about the necklace.

But the magazine got the final say and they didn't want to have to pay me twice so when it's published I will hopefully finagle a copy out of them and post pictures of it here.

I also kind of figured that I should redo my website and I did, so please to be checking that out. Also if you don't mind, try out my scheduler gadget thingy on the Contact Us page, tell me if that's easy to use for you. Just schedule the free consultation thing, that is unless you want portraits or something, then we need to talk. I'm hoping that this version looks a little more web 2.0 than the one I was hosting on Google Pages. Eventually I am going to have a blog up on the site so I can direct people that I randomly take pictures of to it instead of having to direct them to my Flickr stream which, let's face it, sometimes contains weird content.

The funny thing is that when it came time to edit the photos yesterday I wanted to do some things like you see in this picture here because the family is religious folk, and I know how to appeal to my clientele to an extent. Actually it was going to be bible verses but I couldn't think of any that weren't violent, and, here's the funny part, David said no.

His exact words, "I don't want our business associated with any kind of organized religion."

How's that saying go? You cant pick up a dead cat and swing it around by the tail without letting go of it and having it smack into the face of a religious Terwilliger.

I don't know if that's a real saying, I think one of my professors said something to that effect once.

Anyway, just by the name that we're using, the fact that we're branding the name Terwilliger all over the webs, means that we're associated with organized religion. Ask anyone in this area if they know a Terwilliger and they'll all mention the pastor.

I have no problem with it, obvi. I do not god and David doesn't either but he vehemently disapproved of me putting bible verses on a few of the photographs. David is very black and white on the subject, no means no, where as I find the gray area of at least respecting and acknowledging people these days for their choices. I just found it amusing that he was THAT upset about it.

Then I showed him the end result and told him how excited she was for her pictures and everything was fine. He did not have to rage or anything. Pleasing the customer means repeat customers and so on and so forth.

I leave you with teh cute: