I Want to Be in Playboy

I was at work the other day sitting in the swivel chair, putting painter's tape over the naughty bits in March's issue of Playboy.

Not because I have some sort of repressed sexuality or am a feminazi but as a joke to send to my friend Kelly. However, I'm not especially interested at casually looking at naked pictures of women because, well, I have what they have and can just look down my shirt or pants or get in the shower or whatever. If I want to get really elaborate, I can put on some lingerie and roll around on my bed. I'm a photographer I can take pictures of myself and look at them and still get the same reaction. Well, not the same. I would actually be creeped out that I just did that and then looked at them, trying to turn myself on by looking at pornographic pictures of myself. You get the point. These girls don't have anything I don't see everyday except some help from a team of makeup artists, an airbrush, the most expensive camera system ever and let's not forget the power of Photoshop. Yeah, I have that too. Tits, hips, vagina, beautiful hair, Photoshop. All beautiful things.

But I digress.

It took me my whole shift to put the tape on the girlies when I could have done it in like an hour (we get customers in there who like to paw things and then leave, saying they'll come back. If I were more sensitive I would cry that they didn't buy the $450 vaporizer, but mostly I just turn on my cynicism there and save my cupcake sweetness for when I'm out the door) because I really was reading the articles. I got sucked in. Just like when you are packing to move and you're wrapping your dishes in newspaper and you start reading the comics or old articles and it takes you hours to pack your kitchen.

I have decided two things. 1) I am going to consider subscribing to Playboy and then reading the articles. Once I am done I will give the magazine to my guy friends, rotating fairly amongst them. Or just giving it to whomever I deem deserves it the most. OR pitting them against each other. Although if they really wanted it, they could just buy it and possibly they already have a subscription but I know my neighbors like my Rolling Stone that I hate so I would just give it to them. They are down the hall and plus it would be fun to roll it up and leave it between the jam and the doorknob. Ahh porn in public. Either way, I would pass on the nudity to someone who would love it more than I. 2) I am definitely going to find a way to weasel my way into getting my writing into Playboy. This is one of my new goals. It joins the old goals of finding a pair of yellow galoshes, eating fish and chips on a waterfront in England, meeting Andrew Bird, feeding a tangerine to a crow and drinking milk directly from a chrome milk truck.

I have unconciously developed a habit of taking pictures at concerts I go to lately and then posting them on the bands' Myspace. Mostly they are abstract unless I get a really good one of the band, which is hard because of the damn crowd and you know, security who gets pissed. I'm trying to be grassroots and I think if I go these odd routes I will find my foot in some surprising door. I'm starting to get into galleries and I'm a medium fish in a fairly small pond right now, which I'm very proud of. If you'd told me a year ago this is what I would be doing now, I would have told you to stop drinking so much rubbing alcohol. However, as I danced my ass off one night in a fake mustache, I realized that, sure I've got some things going on that need to be dealt with, but for the most part I'm the happiest I've ever been. The other things that still need to come along like yellow galoshes and my own big time gallery show, well, they'll show up when they are supposed to.

For now, I want to be in Playboy.

Interview with my Amazing Mom Edition I

Annie, as she is known to her friends, or Mom, Zom, Zorm, Zimbo, Zimbot, Zelnorm, or whatever variation I feel like of the letter Z on Mom on a given day, is 62 but looks twenty years younger. Mainly due to her hyberbaric chamber. Oh, and her penchant for Salvatore Ferragamo glasses which she inadvertently buys and has become a damn hipster. But she looks good! She isn't retarded in the traditional or politically incorrect sense of the word, but I torture her with Borat references constantly and if you have seen the movie, you'll remember the scene where a man says to Borat that he is retired and Borat thinks he says he is retarded. So now, the joke around our little world is that my Mom is retarded. Which is okay because most the time either one or both of us act like we need a helmet anyway.



One of the many interesting things about her is that well, she was alive before like, iPods, television, copy machines, ranch dressing, before burritos were popular with Americans, cell phones, email, dial phones, dial-up, Myspace, rolling luggage, Starbucks, any lighter other than Zippo brand, Tom Hanks, underground sprinklers, before women could wear pants and not get sent to a nunnery, pantyhose, Target, before Hummers were compensations for small genitalia and only used for military purposes, electric knives, couples on television slept in the same bed or couples of the same sex were allowed on television, Disneyland, Disneyworld, EuroDisney (are they STILL there?) and YOU. Basically, a lot of stuff. Which means she's seen some shit.

Being her daughter and someone who is around her a lot, I've noticed a certain quality which I find charming. In conversation, she tends to pop off with random odd stories within normal everyday chit chat say about what to have for lunch or songs on the radio. I don't know what triggers them but I always relish them when they appear. So I thought I would give you a taste of what I get to enjoy on an almost daily basis. Just don't ask if you can buy a sack of tomatoes. She'll never, never remember that conversation.

Mom, let's start off with a greeting to the readers.

Huzzah!

Ok. Thank you. So, you used to be a hippie. A real one. What do you think the kids today who think they are hippies should call themselves?

The wannabes? They wouldn't know a hippie if it blew smoke in their face. I'm the real deal. A hippie can never be again. The heart of a hippie is always "being." To imitate hippies is nonsense. Being a hippie is in your heart it's not in what you wear or what you look like, it's in your heart and in your spirit. It's also comfortable clothes that flow and airy sandals. A flower in your hair might help, too.

I remember when I was in high school you were arrested. Tell us about that because that helped form some of my ideals. In a good way.

(Laughter) Let's see, initially I was pulled over for a broken tail light. This is the beginning of a lot of people's sagas with the Law. It's the old "tail light" trick. After a discussion about the validity of my insurance and me, of course, wondering why, in fact, insurance, was needed for tail lights, the visibly peeved officer suggested I might be more serious or something like that about my plight. Later on, after my meeting with the judge in court, I was assigned community service to atone for my infraction against society. I, however, did not feel a tail light deemed it necessary that I clean chicken coops nor would stacking the wood of an old fart farmer help my insurance situation. I adamantly felt the need to protest the whole situation so I did not show up for the golf course raking. Thus, I was summoned to court again and told I would be a guest in the county gray bar hotel for five days to atone for my decision to protest the situation. But that's another show.

I have an Uncle Marshall who you are very close to in age and heart. As children you got up to quite the shenanigans. What was your favorite memory of mischief, if you can manage to pick one?

Taping my Mother's Bridge club! (This is a new one to me! See what I mean!) We had a primitive tape recorder that my brother Marshall horked from school so that we could record the gossip we were certain would come out from the ladies at the Bridge party which would be about three tables worth. Thus, allowing us to write a newspaper. We hid the tape recorder under one of the tables where we were certain to get some juicy bits. Then we hid around the corner in the kitchen, supposedly eating cookies and milk. As it turned out, our efforts were wasted. All we heard were rumblings of feminine voices with the horrendous sounds of the cards being shuffled. We couldn't believe our ears! (My Mom is making the sound effect right now. It's pretty horrendous)

When did you see your first burrito?

In Salt Lake City, Utah when I was 19. It was at Bill & Nada's Cafe. Don't ask me who they were but it was a good hang out spot. Since I hadn't anticipated the importance of the burrito, it didn't have a premiere or anything, I just thought it was something different to eat besides chiliburgers. Kind of like navajo tacos. I still don't know what the hell that is. I don't think the burritos were very authentic. Not at that place. They still had Elvis tunes on the flip juke boxes at the tables. They weren't served with salsa. Just Wolf brand chili.

What was the first thing you watched on television?

A Tums commercial. That was the day we got our television after spending three hours on the roof trying to put up the antenna. I'm surprised we got any television out in the middle of anywhere in an oil camp (Rangely, CO).

What did you think of pants when you got to wear them?

Oh I thought they were wonderful! They facilitated the end of the girdle and stockings. Yay! Woo-ha!

You were once kidnapped. Do tell!

Oh my God. My friend and co-worker, Deanne, decided to take a vacation from Utah to visit her parents in Los Angeles. Anticipation was high. We took Deanne's blue Corvair, therefore we set off across the Nevada desert toward California. Outside of St. George, Utah, the aforementioned Corvair overheated to the point of not moving forward anymore. Oh shit. Anticipation was low. Along came a large truck big enough to hold the Corvair driven by a tall blonde guy from St. George whom we assumed was a nice Mormon boy sworn to help gals in need lest he be thrown from the Temple by Joseph Smith in a flaming opiate hallucination. Wrong.

First, he "helped" us situate the Corvair on a low railroad overpass and pushed the car into the back of his truck and offered to carry us and his truck to Deanne's parents house, our destination by the ocean. Sidenote: He was going there because he had to pick up some bees from his grandfather to take back to St. George.

Three of us in the cab of his truck had a merry trip to L.A., even being let out for bathroom breaks and snacks. He was hatching his plot as we drove west. When we hit the city, we told him where we needed to go. He said, "I'm sorry, I'm not letting you out of the truck until you agree to come with me to (some) Club." He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't let us out. We threatened to throw ourselves into traffic on the freeway in L.A. Plus he had our car! We kept casting aspersions on his breath and whatever. He wasn't smart he just wouldn't stop. This is after three hours of driving in L.A. in seedy neighborhoods to boot. He wasn't mean, he just wouldn't stop. So finally we hatched a scheme to meet him at the seedy club later if he would give us our car and drop us in the parking lot and we would consume beers with him later *wink wink* and he thought we were reliable so he agreed...har har snort snort. So he agreed to put the car down in Ralph's Supermarket at a high point and gave us the address of the club. We assured him we would be there. We waved him off into the sunset, ran like hell to the nearest pay phone and called her parents to come pick us up. We never told them the true story.

How did it come to be that I was named Wendy and not Becky?

Because your Dad overruled me and I liked Wendy better. It fit you. It must have made sense. At the end of the day I thought it was a beautiful name.

You studied French for 6 years. Tell us how to curse in French.

Alons enfant du la parie le jour et arrive

Mom, I don't think my French speaking friends would appreciate you using the French National anthem as a cursing reference. But since I suspect you just may have not remembered any good curse words and happen to know you like marching bands and stirring music, I'll let it pass.

Since your attention is waning and you're getting your boring authors mixed up and acting drunk, we'll try to keep this short. Who do you think would have won in a fight against a kangaroo? Granddad or Grandberta?

Probably Grandberta. Both could have but I would say her first. I wonder if they really box? I'd really like to see that.

How long did it take for you to learn how to turn a computer on?

Well...after about fifteen minutes I asked my boss how. And I remember, now what's a C prompt probably forty times.

You've come a long way and seen technology pretty much be born. What's your favorite piece of technology?

I don't enjoy using it but my cell phone. It's wonderful not having to have an answering machine. I like the accesibility and it's one of the more understandable ones to me. I do like my computer though. The internet. The email. Being able to order books and Fiesta Ware. Except that Pet Groomer from television that put me in touch with thousands of people from India who tell me I've won prizes and make me pound the phone on the table.

Have you ever stolen anything? Don't lie. I know the truth.

Yes. But it wasn't in the spirit of stealing. I borrowed. After a drunken revelry at Wally's Restaurant (in our hometown) (my mom is not a thief, she happened to be married to a jerkoff who thought it was funny to do stupid shit on a regular basis. she has since divorced his ass and he is alone and will most likely die that way), walking out the backdoor to go home, my ex-husband spied a small bag of groceries sitting outside on the ground. He thought it would be funny to steal it and take it home. We opened it up and it was not even food we liked our would ever use. The contents were as follows:

*One loaf of Wonder Bread

*One small jar of Evil Sandwich Spread whose base is Miracle Whip and tired pickles

*One package bologna (generic)

*One box Mac n Cheese (generic)

To this day I rue the day I was a part of that act of theft. Mea Culpa.

I forgive you, Mom. I verbally beat you that night so you're good. One last question. How cool is it that my brother not only makes beautiful saddles and has done so for most of his life but now he also works at Costco and we have free memberships and can snack on the wonderland of samples until we puke? Basically, how proud are you of my brother?

Oh, where can I start? I love my kids so much! I remember he started with a leather project at 4-H and never stopped creating. I am so proud of his accomplishments. It IS wonderful that he works at Costco. He enjoys his job and his company. He enjoys his life in general, has many friends and a special lady.I love the person he has become. I'm proud of him. I agree! He's much improved since the days when he lassoed me and gave me the Butthook of the Year Award, which he claims not to remember fashioning out of a piece of wood shaped like a butt and putting a fishing hook, which all know he had on him, into the butt part and presenting to me by the stream where the beavers lived. I don't know why I remember the part about the beavers. He seemed to always be talking about them chewing on the wood. I think that's where he got the wood. He's pretty handy with a pocket knife, especially when not using it for evil. I love him! PS. One of his best projects ever, even better than his saddles was a leather Superman that I made him move around (fly) the wall when I was 2 years old! To this day, this is his masterpiece. Besides teaching me to walk. Good job, hoser, I'm a klutz!

Thank you for your cooperation, Mom. That applies to my entire life. I love you.

The Electric Hat's 48 Hours Out

Today is the day of the rest of my life. Wait. No. Strike that. I'm sure that's true but it doesn't apply here. I was thinking about some poster I saw about quitting smoking in my doctor's office. I don't smoke so of course I thought longer about it and wondered how they actually knew this and wasn't it a bit presumptious? I could get hit by a bus on the way out, even if I smoked.

What does apply here is that today is the day I had 24 electrodes super-glued to my head with an air compressor gun. Hopefully not for the rest of my life. They tell me I get them taken off on the 26th in the morning! It took an hour and basically felt like I was getting 24 tiny noogies on my head. I've had similar EEG's before so I knew the drill or the glue gun rather. When I was thirteen, I had this same type of EEG done for 24 hours. I don't remember anything about it though. No on really talked to me about it or the results. A few years ago, I had a week long EEG done at Swedish Hospital in Denver. Basically it's the same thing but I was tethered to a five foot radius because the electrode leads were hooked into the wall. I looked a lot like John Travolta in that Scientology movie. The problem with this is that it's not my daily routine to be denied medication and chill in a hospital bed watching TNT and the Cartoon Network or walk around in a 5 foot area. This one was a total waste of time, not to mention my Mom's time because she came up everyday to see me. They didn't catch much to write home about because, again, I don't normally tie myself with a 5 five foot lead to a wall/bed and watch bazillions of reruns of Law and Order, read the meal menu carefully and deliberate what I want for the next day, carefully circling my choices, and lean my head out the door of the bathroom while I pee because the loo was barely out of the five foot radius and had to rely on my camping bathrooming skills to make it through. No, normally I do this all with much more of a radius to work with.

The 48 hour ambulatory EEG, or my Electric Hat, has worked well so far. They let me wear my beloved Eddie Bauer sun hat on top (I just have to record in my journal in which I keep track of my activities every half hour that I am wearing my hat so they know why there is pressure on my head instead of guessing--small child? Laundry basket? Bowling ball? Panini press? Oh. It's just a hat) so when I go out on public the staring is kept to a minimum. I find old women, who one would expect good manners from, have the worst manners in the respect of those with large amounts of rainbow colored cords coming from underneath their hats and attaching to what appears to be a ginormous square fanny pack.



Sidenote: I don't know how I managed to make this look awesome. But I really did. I'm going to email the Epilepsy Foundation and ask if they want a spokesperson.



One lady at the Cracker Barrel, where the old women were staring, named Shauna, (an employee), came up to me and was having a delightful conversation about my Electric Hat. At one point she said, "Well! At least you're still here!" To which I responded, "Yeah, I love the Cracker Barrel! I haven't even made it to the vintage toy part of the gift shop!" She laughed and said, "I like your sense of humor!" She later demonstrated the Weasel Ball for my Mom because I couldn't figure out how to turn it on for her and I insisted she had to see it go nuts. Mom bought me a Gumby action figure for being awesome at the Sleep Clinic. I also ate an egg that looked really happy!



The big rule with this whole thing, besides playing "Capture the Seizure," was that I was not allowed to be left alone. It was basically decided between my Mom and I that I would camp out at her house for the duration. While she was taking care of her little German lady from 5-7, my friend Ryan agreed to hang out with me. The first night of the EEG, he came over and technically his girlfriend Amy was on that shift but was stuck in Denver so he was the pinch hitter. Well, I already had a miniature tea set out our friend Darcie gave me for my birthday that you paint and bake to seal for that night's activity. When Ryan walked in, I told him to grab a paint brush. Being a painter himself, I thought he would be into it, but he was very reticent. In fact, he shook his head and said, in response to my comment that he was a painter, "I don't do that." Eventually he painted two teacups.

Later, our friend Kristen arrived and by then only the sugar jar needed painted so she jumped in and fashioned a unicorn upon it. Or Tea-Corn. It went very nice with the cow patterned creamer. Then Amy finally arrived! By then it was a full on awesome party. Ryan and I had been watching reruns of "Dukes of Hazzard" before everyone arrived. As people drifted in, things just got better with "The Wonder Years," and "Who's the Boss." Then my Mom ordered pizza when she got home from Irma, the German lady's house. A big pot of coffee was made and it was the coolest pizza party ever. We baked the tea set and everyone was excited to see it turn out. After forty minutes, I set it back out on the coffee table for all to admire their handiwork. All in all, after a day of running errands, a pizza party and getting used to not being able to blink, I was pretty tuckered.

I still hadn't had any seizures yet, though. However, I knew one thing. Usually when I stay up late and fall asleep sitting up, I will have seizures in my sleep that wake me up. Especially if I am working on my writing. So I did exactly that. I would be damned if I was going through all this and not capturing seizures.

It worked. More than I thought it would. I had more than what I call my "alarm clock" seizures which just are you're basic limb jerking "wake up" seizures. I had two full on, "earthquake" seizures where I have found if I hold on to a bookcase, I can shake the entire piece of furniture and its contents and my teeth chatter. These are the types where I tense my teeth and bear down and stare straight ahead while my body shakes, apparently emitting a strong tremor. The only time I've figured out the strength of the tremor was when I happened to grab a bookcase to steady myself and ended up being scared as shit when I realized I couldn't tell the difference between a major earthquake and the tremors I was feeding this inanimate object. Literally. Not Figuratively. Literally. That is, had I not known better.
The second day, after we went to the EEG/Sleep Clinic to adjust my electrodes and leads and all that, we stopped off at Borders so I could get some books and a copy of The Big Lebowski. They had a bargain table outside and it was hotter than Hades out. I stood outside for about five minutes in the heat and chose two books. After I went outside, I went to the restroom and nearly had a major seizure in there because of being so easily overheated. It irritates me that I can't stand outside for five or ten minutes and look at books without this sort of thing happening. I had to click my little button three times in two minutes that marks on the EEG that I was having an "event" because I was having auras which are tiny seizures that warn you of an oncoming larger seizure. I stayed in the restroom, splashing cold water on my face and fanning myself, counting by threes and describing everything around me until finally, fifteen minutes later I felt well enough to go sit on the bench by my Mom in front of the magazine section where she was looking at house decoration magazines. I paced back and forth for a bit in front of a rack of writing references nearby and then settled down for a few minutes. We captured five seizures already so I wasn't too worried about additional specimens.
Although I was to have one more the next morning when I woke up, things went well for the rest of the EEG and I didn't have any more "earthquakes."

We're almost done getting the Superglue out of my hair. I've had my hair soaked in conditioner for a half hour at a time and then picked through with a fine tooth comb like I have lice. My hair is very soft right now, though! There's a light at the end of the tunnel...things are getting normal again.

Even better, this is one small step for, well it's not even a small step, it's one big step toward getting my robot part! Before you know it, I'll have funnel boobs and a sexy silver lame skirt to match my knee high moon boots!

My Russian Cleaning Lady is More Productive in a Blizzard Than I Am

Once again, I am in amazement at the habits and ambitions of Lilia, my Russian cleaning lady.

What I was doing during the Holiday Blizzard of 2006:

I was snowed in at my friend Ryan's house with friends Amy and Anthony, watching superhero movies, almost setting my face on fire and actually setting a few of my hairs on fire (they curled up just even a little more!) by doing a trick one of the other showed me (holding down the lever on a lighter and sucking in the butane, letting it go, holding the butane in your mouth, lighting the lighter, then blowing. It's harder than it sounds to get some fire. Also you might blow your face off and/or catch a few hairs on fire. If you're lucky. I have banned myself from this trick. Other activities included getting into an argument over my bean soup which, despite being shoveled down at a fast pace, was touted as "warmed up salsa" (not true at all!), getting drunk off of the rest of my Glenlivet (which Amy and I hiked through the snow with Christmas presents like tiny reindeer when it was still barely hikeable)that equaled out to about six shots that went down like melted butter, making lists of things that really seemed important to rank as important in the universe, eating wheat pancakes, playing "Caps" which I am somehow really good at. This game, if you've never heard of it is basically forming two teams and each team has one or two glasses of beer in front of them. The point is to sink your bottle caps into the beer. You get two tries per turn. If you sink the bottle cap, they have to drink the whole beer. These guys scare me because they don't remove the caps before they drink and Ryan has a story about this guy he used to know who got a cap stuck in his throat and he was the one who ended up getting it out or something while everyone else just watched. Or this was something that happened to his friend Jon I think. I think this would have scared the shit out of Ryan enough to take the damn cap out of his beer if it had happened to him.

At one point, 24 hours later, the guys decide to form a two-man brigade to go dig out all of our cars by Anthony's because, at the time, his was not running and had not been for quite awhile. Some time passes and Amy and I are hanging out talking about stuff and all that when we get a phone call from Ryan.

Instructions: Get our shoes or boots on, meet him at the end of the alley because whilst digging his car out, they met up with Gabe and Chris from our favorite hangout, Roma's, who were digging other people's cars out and while Roma's was obviously closed, we've been invited to go have a beer there anyway with the Car Dig-out Crew which later turned out was close to the entire staff.

Amy and I slide down the alley, giggling scarves flying behind us, holding hands like a couple of schoolgirls so we don't fall and pile into the car. Ryan slowly makes his way down the street to Roma's where he finds some spot to park. I can't remember where. It was a decent spot. When we go inside Roma's, we find a game of King's Cup in progress. Yet another drinking game to add to our Blizzard repertoir. This time, though, it's high stakes because, at Roma's, it's not cans of PBR. It's approximately 32 oz of Easy Street Wheat and when you have to do a Waterfall, well...oh God. The beer was disappearing pretty fast and that's a lot of beer. Once again, I was pretty drunk. Plus they were making weird pizzas. But I was happy. Friends were around and my feet were dry, thanks to my forethought in buying the most amazing snow boots ever.

Love was all around.

At some point, we made it back to Ryan's. This part was a little hazy. That night, I was starting to get the cabin fever. I was drunk but coming off the "Love is all around" thing and I was starting to stink. I hadn't showered since the day before, not knowing I would be quarantined. My hair looked like a mental patient styled it and I was really wanting to sleep in my own bed.

By this time the roads were at a point where if you had a military vehicle or some equivalent you could probably make it somewhere. Somehow one of our other friends made it over and was ready to party, despite Amy now having developed a toothache, Ryan being drunk and tired and my being, drunk, tired and crabby and Anthony out playing touch football in the damn snow. Word arrived our friend Darcie was showing up with her sister. I was not into a party but was always glad to see Darcie. I would hunker down and just nod off if need be but I was getting the Fear that I would never make it back out of the alley again.

Darcie sure did show up with her sister and her sister drove a crazy Jeep that could bitch slap the roads. I hopped in that thing so fast and pointed toward my apartment I was a blur with hair like a Brillo pad. I didn't care that I was tossed around the back seat so hard I wanted to cry because I was a sissy and I was going to have bruises on my sit upon the next morning. I was going home! I was going to shower! I was going to change clothes! I was not going to eat warmed up salsa (it really isn't!)!

What Lilia Did During the Holiday Blizzard of 2006:

What you're looking at here is the Queen Tower sold at Playful Pet Products, the side business thought up during the blizzard by Lilia and her husband.

This tower is actually standing in my living room right now. I would show you my picture of my cats on it but my memory card is again, having technical difficulties. It's a little over 6 feet tall.

You should check it out for yourself.

There's even a story in there about the blizzard and how they came up with the idea and then just built one. Why not? I read it and was like if I didn't have some things going for me, I'd staple my face to the carpet. I did read it and think back to the time she told me out of the blue how she wanted to own an airplane.

I really don't doubt she will.

She has the drive of ten thousand Ferraris.

I Love Thee Sidewok Cafe

I love driving in new places and seeing the businesses that line the streets. It's one of the best parts of getting out of town. A lot of them can be really creative, especially in small towns. However, my favorite one as of late happens to exist in a suburb of Denver, Lakewood. When I first saw it, I was also trying to navigate directionally and so I was looking to turn left on Sheridan off of Colfax (notorious for being one of the longest streets in America...although the hookers aren't as obvious as people like to the say they are. In fact local favorites like the Denver Diner and other such post concert and last stop, after late night drinking, eateries also populate its lineup. However it's also lined with oddly named hotels and "saunas" and there are normal things like car dealerships and liquor stores too. So it's not all seedy) and almost wrecked my car laughing when I saw none other than the Sidewok Cafe.



Upon arriving to my location, I swore up and down that the Shuffle Inn was located directly across the street from it. I was informed, to my dismay, the Shuffle Inn was actually just down the street and was actually a bar, not a seedy by the hour motel and has been closed for some time. When I left Lakewood, I realized this was true. It was still a little cool though that the Sidewok Cafe was by the Shuffle Inn. I still wanted it to be a seedy motel across the street from my beloved Sidewok Cafe. If it had been, I would have definitely made someone take a series of pictures of me "shuffling" into the Sidewok Cafe from the Shuffle Inn.

Not that there isn't a string of priceless no tell motels along this part of Colfax or any part of Colfax. They are hilarious. The decor is great too. Seriously. If I wasn't afraid of getting poked in the ass with a used needle or finding a hooker sewn into a mattress or the fact that I know of the existence of Luminol and occasionally think of it and what it reveals when I stay away from home, I might stay in one of these places on a lark and go eat at the Sidewok Cafe. Also they are all just around the corner from a perfectly clean place to stay that is home to a Sleep Number mattress which I delight in clicking down to a five on one side so it practically dumps you out onto the floor. There certainly is an ass crater in the morning and I tend to slide down to the bottom of the bed so I'm thinking of upping the number. There's a reason they have that commercial with the couple who likes to experiment though. You have to figure these things out. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was your sleep number. I'm also pretty sure I haven't heard any hookers screaming as I mess with the remote and squash the shit out of the mattress.

The Sidewok Cafe is a source of fascination for me. I pass by it constantly and I'm disappointed they don't have breakfast or just a snack bar. It's always bad timing. I admit I kind of want to put my hand out the window and reach my hand out and reach toward it in an effort to connect in some way. Does it know how loved it is? I'm a little nervous people don't appreciate it like I do. I've never even eaten there but I just know it's fantastic. It's most certainly dim and weird. All the Myspace surveys I've taken invariably ask if I believe in love in first sight. I always say no, that it takes time to cultivate love. In this case I have to recant my answer. I loved the Sidewoke Cafe from the moment I nearly swerved into oncoming traffic at the sight of it.

I'm damn well making a point to eat there next week the night before I leave for the mountains.

Sidewok Cafe, it won't be long before you and I are together. Stay strong.

Sketched Out Etch-a-Sketch: Meet Estephanie!

Originally I had a picture above to illustrate what I was describing below. Since I'm just learning how to put pictures in blogs and ripped off the original picture illustrating the ensuing actions from a fellow blogger, Corn is Delicious (do check out his blog), I'm still working out glitches and it just left some red dot of a blog zit and not the uber cool picture. You can catch the cool picture under his blog entitled "For Shame." Just click "Corn is Delicious" under my friends...somewhere. Or in the zillion comments he's left for me to gather joy from. Who knows what I did wrong with the original picture. Maybe this picture of a Muppet type thing in a cornfield will suffice. Let's try that.


I'm super excited. Apparently some dude with a full tank of gas and a heart full of unicorns let the cops chase him through this particular corn field until he either ran out of gas or was satisfied with the cool ass pattern he made.

Now, I'm not a proponent of coke. Unless it's icy cold in a bottle. However, I have to admire this guy's style. Look at that pattern. Can you imagine how fun it was freewheeling through that field like you were in the world's biggest Etch-a Sketch? Man, I want to feel that! Sans the coke. Well, I would have a cooler full of Coke in glass bottles, tipping them back and shrieking, "This is how you live!" I might possibly be telling the plants to fuck off. Normally I don't do that because I love plants but when you're driving like a bat out of hell in crazy patterns in a field and are all hopped up on a) coke or b) Coke, you're out of your mind on how beautiful life is. At that moment, you're doing something most people would never dare get out of their LA-Z-Boy to do. No, they wouldn't push themselves back from the table and say, "That's enough meatloaf for me, ma! I'm 29 and it's time I go buckwild in a field with my car, knock back some ice cold Coca-Cola and then go make some sweet sweet love. Because who won't want to make sweet, sweet love to me once I do the thing that makes me the one person in a fifty mile radius that chooses to LIVE, man, LIVE?!"

It's this kind of stuff I love. Not the cocaine. But the fact that this guy chose to whiz around a cornfield instead of just sit on his couch and say weird shit to his cats. Sure, he was on coke, but he went out and did something that made him feel like life was awesome, with the wind in his hair and the world in the palm of his hand. I'm sure he'll have to pay some hefty reparations but that's what comes with life being beautiful sometimes. You have to accept that. I'm sure whoever owns that field isn't going to see his philosophy or admire it, especially since it was coke induced. You never know though.

This world is a crazy ass place and I love it.

Oh wait!

Here is the picture of what actually happened!! Woweee!

Squatters' Rights

Happy July 4th.

Every year, Greeley has the distinct privilege of holding the Greeley Independence Stampede, which includes the craptacular carnival of fried shit (there's something new in the stamped down grassy area that doubles as the food court's repertoire every year. My friends who, this year, oddly went twice, told me it was Oreos this year. So now they can do candy bars, Oreos, rattlesnake (?) and other various items I'm sure I've missed since I last went eons ago), rides smelling of urine and hoodlums cruising around with their pants under their asses, mysteriously staying up while they ogle future or freshly initiated thirteen year old gang members with caked on makeup cracking under their smarmy sneers and the worst carousel ever that plays....rap music. Last time I went I rode the mechanical bull they have every year. So I've done the only cool thing I think I can do there. The rest I've done, including the fried Snickers and really it grosses me out after thirteen years of residence and knowing I'm moving to Denver several months from now just makes me want to stay as far away as possible.

However, here in Greeley, on the actual day of the 4th, the highlight of the whole shebang, or should I say the orgasm, is the parade. Even Denver's leading news team makes it down every year to broadcast the majority of it for shut-ins, people who are fans of air conditioning or people who enjoy watching the president when he is on every channel. I happen to live on the parade route which, around here is like owning all the utilities or railroads in Monopoly. People want to sit on your lawn. The thing is they aren't allowed to stake out their spots with blankets on your lawn or put up tents or throw down tarps with rocks a week ahead of time. They have to stick to the public grass along the sidewalks. There's some sort of honor system around here that miraculously works like some sort of homesteader race. "Oh no, Hon, there's a quilt there. We'll have to look further." It's kind of cool. My friend Bernadette and I were actually marveling at it as we drove down 10^th Avenue, said parade route, yesterday and thought it was nice how people didn't steal each others' blankets or resort to Anarchy.

That is, until you are sitting on your lawn and the honor system fails and Anarchy takes over. Apparently people start failing to realize that your lawn is not open game for their entire fucking family to sit on. It was not accidentally overlooked in the Great Race for good spots. No. It's private property. The tenants who live in the building pay rent there and part of the perks of being a tenant there is that you get to yawn and get out of bed when you hear the crowd start warming up, grab your camp chair and set up your spot with your water and your bowl of cereal or bagel or whatever and enjoy the parade. If you would like this same damn privilege than move into the fucking building or buy or lease a house on the damn parade route. Don't assume that you can stroll onto the damn lawn and set up camp with your sixty children who are throwing their plastic ball at my head and then look confused when I say that this area is for tenants only. As far as I know there is not some sort of "Grapes of Wrath" parade clause where squatters' rights are invoked.

What you're doing is called trespassing.

I wish I had the addresses of these jerks. I would go and take my camp chair and at about 7:30 in the morning, with my cooler, my big foam finger and a ridiculous hat, set up my crap on their lawn. Yup. Heard there was going to be a parade. Oh, I can't sit here? Why not? I do it every year. Oh? This is YOUR lawn? You OWN this property? You PAY to live here? Well I just...you know, no one is here yet. If there isn't enough room when the parade starts, I'll move over to um...let me look in my notebook...yes, the Andersons'. Their lawn is bigger. OH! Look! The parade is starting! Here comes a blue car!! Look at that windshield! Mmmm mmm mmm mm. Rush hour should be starting pretty soon. Yes sir. It doesn't get better tha- what? The police? Well when you were on my lawn the police didn't care that you and your jerk wad kids sat there. We asked, remember? They even sat on the corner of my lawn, too, eating ice cream. They won't mind! Hell, I have another chair! Tell them to bring some beer! Yeah! Hey, tell them to pick up a half gallon of Ginger Bee from the Crabtree Brewery. That would be great!

Yes I would love to do that. By the time the parade started, there was nothing I could do. Jerk wads everywhere on my lawn. If there is any trash on my lawn when I return home from work, I'm calling my landlords and the city. I will complain that Officer Lazy and Officer Ice Cream Wrapper didn't observe the fact that the other people in my building maybe wanted to have some room to sit on their lawn they pay for the privilege to sit on. The first lady I politely explained trespassing to immediately threw a fit and said, "You know, I'm done! I'm done! Every house up and down the street does this! So people from out of town can't sit there and enjoy the parade!" Her husband obviously thinking back to his wedding day when his best man said, "Are you REALLY sure? Because she's back there bitching out the caterer for putting too much mustard on the table..." is creeping between us as I am just listening with my eyebrows raised and then glancing at her children who all have their hand crossed across their heads, a habit developed I'm sure to block out the constant screaming. When she is done, I reply, "Well, I understand what you're saying, but you are trespassing you know and there are people who live in this building who pay for the right to use this area. It's kind of one of the perks of living on the parade route. Also the reason this happens all up and down the street is because people own those houses and well, they get to do whatever they want with their property. It's kind of how it works when you own something." To which she screeches, "Do you live here???!!!" I pause, wondering how insane I would be to try to throw her off a lawn I didn't belong to and then answered, "Yes I do. So-" Then she screeched "Well we'll just go ask the officers over there!" I sighed...

I wasn't sure if she was thinking of asking the officers if I lived there or what but I was pretty sure trespassing was illegal. I didn't want to be in a fight and was trying to be calm about the whole thing but she had started screeching like a howler monkey as soon as I opened my mouth. Really, though part of the honor system and more importantly, the law is you don't camp out on other peoples' lawn. I'm sure she would love it if I came and stretched out on her lawn. Honestly if she had maybe asked politely like some of the other people it wouldn't have irritated me so much. Courtesy goes a long way with me. I'm a hospitable person. However, this, as we came to call her, bitcharoo, acted like she was the owner of the entire parade. For some time I actually thought the cops told her and her Odd Squad to relocate because as I was quietly applying some sun block, so as not to have my pasty skin burst into flames, she strolled by and threw her arms up in the air in some sort of "bring it" gesture. I was a little confused as I was not agitating her that I knew of. Did she want my sun block as well? It wouldn't have surprised me as she seemed to think she was entitled to and owed everything everyone else had. I just turned to my Mom and laughed really hard. What an odd thing to do. A few moments it was even odder because I noticed no one had made her move. So why was she so upset? She was settled into my damn grass pretty comfortably it appeared. If I were her, I would be happy as a clam, enjoying some ice cream from the Zacatecas vendor. I know I was. I love their rice milk bars sprinkled with cinnamon. We just laughed and wished her husband luck with being chained to her for the rest of his life. The poor guy looked horribly disconcerted.

When the fire trucks came along finally, announcing the end of the parade, there was a family lunching near the front steps of my apartment building and I just sighed.

It's not that I don't like sharing, it's just that I wish people would somehow have some courtesy and not just automatically think it's okay to trespass. I mean I saw some people from my building come out; appearing to want to watch the parade on the property they live on, see the Woodstock-esque crowd that had formed on our lawn and take off across the street. This is what I mean. This is their place to live, which includes watching the parade. I feel that since they pay rent they should get first dibs. After that, the jackasses could ask politely if they may sit down.

One of my friends spotted me and asked if he could use my bathroom instead of waiting a zillion hours in line. I said sure and tossed him the keys to my apartment. When he came back, he told me he was talking to someone the other day about my building, which is in the historical district (we have a plaque!) and the person he was speaking to said the building used to be a whore house.

I almost wet myself laughing.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

A Miracle is Spots Turning to Squares

About eight years ago, I was disowned by my Dad.

Not that our relationship had been stellar throughout my lifetime. It had basically come to a head and, I can't speak for him, but I remember just completely being at a loss as to what to do anymore. It was like ramming dead horses into a brick wall at the point. I didn't feel like he had ever known me, much less like he had ever wanted to know me. There had been things said that made me feel he didn't feel I would or could be successful with my passions and that I should just go to business school and well, make my life a living hell so I could make a few bucks and die early. I never knew what was going on with me because he would never talk to me. The most we spoke was in the form of idle chit chat. A lot of it was awkward.

So I connected all ties with my paternal side of the family which means I also stopped speaking to my sister. I had good reason for this as well but I won't go into it. It isn't the point right now.

I never celebrate Father's Day because, well, I had pretty much let him go into some great beyond and accepted the loss. However, last week I was thinking about a lot of things. For instance, I was starting to get hit by the fact that I was finally doing all the things I wanted to do. I'd gotten my own art show. I'd been entering juried art shows in Denver at various galleries and actually getting into some of the shows. Furthermore, I've been evolving my work, the mark of any good artist, into more mediums and really expressing my life in more and more ways. I am getting my Vagus Nerve Stimulator for my Epilepsy which has been and well, continues to be a long road (though there is a destination in sight now) and this summer my Grandfather died.

I started thinking that no matter who my Dad was, surely he would want to know his child was doing okay. Even if we didn't renew our relationship. I was scared he would think I was bugging him for back child support again or wanting money or to tell him off because, in the past that's kind of how it went.

It was easier to find him than I thought.

I had a starting place in that we had received a letter from him from Phoenix several years ago. So I called information there. His number was listed in the suburb of Mesa. In the past few years I'd visited Mesa five or six times and knew he was possibly close by but wasn't ready to find him.

What I didn't know is that he'd been trying to find me for several years.

When he called back the next day, it was a different man who called. Sure it was the guy who I referred to above. But it wasn't my Father, it was my Dad. There's a difference. He was so happy I called and he said, "And on Father's Day weekend..." That's when I realized that it was indeed that time of year. How fortuitous. We spoke for quite awhile and he wanted to see my art, read my writing. He wanted to meet me. He told me about how he almost died and was laying in a hospital bed thinking about me. I could hear the changes in his voice and it made me so happy. Wounds that had been there since I was a small girl began to heal instantly. The Dad that played Janis Joplin and Pink Floyd tapes while we bumped along the country road by our old schoolhouse home was on the other end of the line telling me about the music he listened to. I couldn't believe it. Talking about music with my Dad! He even recommended an artist to me. Everyone go look up Sarah Brightman because my Dad says she has a beautiful voice. We talked about movies a bit too and how my Aunt Linda has a zillion of them. He and my Uncle have become quite close. He works for him and my Dad "has tried to take most of the stress out of my life." If you only knew what a 180 that is for him, you would know why I know miracles really exist.

I told him it isn't everyday things like this happen. I never thought it would. Truly in my head I thought he would die lonely and alone. Thus, I told him what a big person it took to change their life completely and own up to their mistakes and basically apologize for what amounts to a lot of things that affected a lot of my life. However, the words "I'm sorry" go a long, long way in this instance.

He has developed respect for me and an interest in me as a person. For the first time in my life, I truly feel like he means it when he says he loves me.

Maybe everyone takes theirs for granted but I never really had one, even when I was a kid.

But now I have a Dad.

I Wish I Had a Kite

It's times like the last few days when I wish I had a kite.

Surely, sending something decorative and beautiful kissed with a wish (though I'm having a bit of trouble believing in them right now) soaring up to meet the clouds could be a medicine for my soul.
I want to take a jar and my heart and soul inside of it, tightening the lid so they don't escape. I would place it on the grass next to me as I watched the big giant kite float about in the sky. Nothing would be inside me as I watched the kite and I could just...be.

Being emotionally exhausted, I can't decide whether or not to sleep. I don't want to but my body has to. There are repercussions for not sleeping. Severe ones. I have, in the last few days, gained my father back, thus repairing my heart in many ways, lost a chance at something wonderful and gotten insulted in hindsight, smashing the shit out of my heart in many other ways, which is a bit counter productive. I didn't get into the art show I really wanted to get into. It was really important to me and the man on the phone forgot to email me. When I called, he was very nonchalant about the whole thing, asking me to describe my work and said, "No, I don't see it i the show." It's a very prestigious gallery and they didn't even have a list of names so I had to rely on his guesstimate. On top of that my headphones broke when all I wanted to do was wallow in my music. Finally, today I found my iPod earbuds in my car after I fell out of the rolley chair at work and found out that one of my co-workers just decided to cross a shitload of my shifts off the calendar and take them for her own. Thanks. That's nice. Take money out of my fucking pocket, you bitch. You have two jobs. That's what I survive on when I'm not banking on people to maybe buy my art. Christ.

If this bitch takes my money, I can't buy a kite.

What is with people stealing from me? Ironically the only person who has given to me lately is the person who stole practically my entire life from me. It means a lot he is back but it is still stealing emotional energy from me.

Why won't the nurse for the epileptologist just return my call? I need to go through a consult with her so I can have a consult with my surgeon and get onto the table for my VNS implant. Please. Please. Someone just stop robbing me.

There is no wind anyway. So I can't fly a kite.

I don't know what to do.

Mexican Prank Calls

What does this number mean? 410-210-9898

I have had phone calls from this number on two separate occasions.

I pick up the phone and some man rapid fires a very long speech in Spanish and then hangs up. My inadequate skills with the Spanish language do not allow me to keep up with what he is saying. I catch the words "solo" and "aqui" which I know mean, respectively, "alone" and "here." He is speaking too rapidly for me to even attempt to understand him or his intentions, though, and I am left, saying, "Que? Que?" after his prattle is over. But no, he is gone.

I am, as I write this, going to call the number back. I don't know what state this man is calling from or why he is calling me. He says something different every time. Okay, hold on. I will, of course blather on about what I find out.

I'm back.

I dialed the number and this is what I get. In English. "All circuits are busy now. Please try back later."

What is going on?! Did one of my weirdo friends sign me up for some Mexican Prank Call of the Month service during a drunken stupor? Why did the message woman answer in English? What sort of circuits are these? People screaming in Spanish in the ears of poor, unsuspecting girls just trying to enjoy a nice cloudy evening? This is a business that does this? Is this like in Punch Drunk Love where they are running a porn service out of a mattress store? I never called a porn line, especially not one run in Spanish. Is Phillip Seymour Hoffman going to send his goons to beat the shit out of me because I called the number back and am now blogging about the phone calls I have received?

Wait a tic! How did they even get my number? It's a private cell phone number. When I bought my new phone, I also made sure to change numbers so I could start fresh.

Why is it that I, of all people, am the brunt of Mexican Prank Calls? Not just one but multiple Mexican Prank Calls. I would think it was Neil and Adam calling me from Mexico because I did give them a partially used phone card to take with them on their vacation in case their debauchery landed them in some trouble and they needed to call home, but a)they don't know enough Spanish to pull off this level of prattling and b)they are safely back in Colorful Colorado and not in some sort of 410 area code. I know this because I just saw them and they both have classes and/or jobs to go to, as hilarious as they think this would be to pull off. Also they probably would do it to our friend Anthony, who did not get his passport in time to join them in Mexico, and not me. On their end, I am the brunt of Borat and pimp imitations, respectively.

All I know, is they had better have said something really good. If I am getting Mexican Prank Calls, then I don't want some lame-o telling me he wants me to get out of his dreams and into his car. If you are going to do it, do it right. At least waste my time with something that would make me want to punch you with a brick and pull your mustache under your crotch. I would at least respect your creativity.

Then I would ask you how much you make because that's a pretty awesome job.

Tall Drink of Water

the trees near my house grow like wheat
sweeping the clouds
shopkeepers waving cumulus kids away
dropping seed pod penny candies
for sparrow children to gulp down gullets

neighborhood favorite featherheads.

my heart curls up on the ledge and
beats itself in time
with the thunder, dropping beats
for the rain to catch and carry away
aquatic vibrations through your faucet

please drink me up at 2 a.m. in the in between

clinging like tiny girl gymnasts to your lips
dripping from your tongue
and warming myself on that moist land i wonder
about when i dream of you on white sheets
turned on side, one foot out and waking only

at the sound of the sun hitting the ground.

you do what you do and you have no idea
you have done well
i want to take your hands and place them
in a bowl of my cool cleansing kisses
as you place your lips on my surface

drinking me all the way in.

Terror Bat (Erik Loves Terror Bat So He Can HAVE Terror Bat!)

"Vamanos," Chris said, carrying a blue laundry hamper, as I unlocked the front of my building and he, Ryan and I headed up the stairway to the second floor to lucky apartment number 7. Apartment number 7: my residence. Apartment number 7: the location of Terror Bat.

Earlier that evening, I had finally arrived home, ready for bed. It had been a hard week. I finally got my art samples and application in to secure a spot for a covered booth at the Arts Picnic this summer. I set up a display at Chase Bank for Rozene's Festival of Art Festival samples, arguing with one if the tellers over whether or not you could put thumb tacks into stone pillars. I was "against." I think there were other things like my head almost exploding with stress concerning various things like jam bands being played at high volume at work and getting pissy responses when I asked my coworker to turn the radio down or to quit being loud because i couldn't hear the people on the phone or the customers asking me for synthetic urine. These were just the little things. And just Friday. So the rest of the week, which I won't eve go into, was just this vice grip on my patience and by Friday you could put a fork in me because I was done.

Back to me finally going home after a nice dinner of pan seared Tilapia soft tacos on corn tortillas and a cup of delicious coffee and ice cold water. Man, I like having coffee again. Even if it's just in small amounts. After that, I stopped at the corner of historical downtown and had my cards read by this amazing lady and end up talking to her for awhile and am beginning to relax. She has these dogs and they aren't annoying and always has popcorn around, which she puts fresh herbed butter on it. Possibly lavender? I'm not sure. Either way, it's always comforting to chat with her. It's about a block from home and when I finally left, I walked to my car amongst drunken booze hounds fondling each other and drooling margaritas on the sidewalk and I am glad I am not them. I remember when I was younger how much more cool it seemed. Now they just seem like runny, gross paintings of hustlers and whores, really. They don't seem to care about anything except holding each other up and getting a paw full of flesh while they're at it, mistaking it for affection.

Once I get home I'm too tired to do anything but fall into bed. I have my shawl around me and I'm about to reach over and turn out the light when: what I first think what was a bird came nonchalantly flap flap flapping into my bedroom, circling once and then landing on my curtain rod, right above the end of my bed.

I believe, "WHAT THE FUCK?" came out of my mouth as I jumped up into a huddled squatting position, looking at my cats who seemed mildly interested, almost as though a blob of potato salad had been thrown at the wall. Nothing too exciting to them. They stared for a moment and then apparently decided there was a better time to be had curled up in the clawfoot bathtub; that, in fact, this bat was nowhere, man. I yelled at them, "Come kill it!" This was, however, before I had determined it was a bat. I still thought it was a fat bird. It is spring, you know. So, I was on the phone with my Mom telling her there was a bird in my room because I thought she would think it was funny when I noticed the bird was hanging upside down.

I screeched, "It's a bat! It's a fucking bat! I have to call...I don't know, like someone. It can't be here! I gotta go!"

Next, I dial Ryan. He answers a mild-mannered hello and I continue in screech mode, "There is a BAT in my bedroom!"

Ryan, I can see his face sort of go blank as he says, "No there isn't."

I say, "There sure as FUCK is."

So now Ryan is getting a little bit more weirded out, which is ironic because he loves Spiderman and Spiderman got his powers from a radioactive spider. Ryan, is, however, practical and he started rattling off crap he was going to gather and told me to come pick him up. He asked if I had a net. I said, no, but I would make some calls.

On the way over to pick Ryan up, I called Chris who well, has this great focus. He's also very dependable if you can break him away from his hardcore blinder induced routine. Which a Terror Bat will do. It turns out Chris does not have a net. He asks if I have a hamper. I do not. I also do not have time to explain to Chris about how sometimes my house and I go to battle and currently the house is winning. He tells me to call him if we don't get the bat because "he thinks he could take the bat."

Will do.

When I pick Ryan up, he has added a fire extinguisher to the mix. This excites me as I wonder what this will do to the bat. However, I do not want the bat flying around. I do not want bat hell to break loose. I also do not want the bat to fly up into the top of my closet where it could possibly just make a home and be a Terror Bat guano sprinkler and we could not get at it. There's this tiny attic-like spot with a tiny entrance in the top of my closet where I store a bean bag chair. I do not want Terror Bat discovering that potential Bat Cave and taking a clever gadget-building butler up there and building a crime fighting division and stinking things up. I will burn that closet down.

Ryan also informs me that his plan is to hit the bat, knock it out and then throw it outside.

I look at him and say, "That's it? That's not going to work. You're just going to piss it off or you're going to stain my wall with bat stain."

Finally, I realize, I am going to be no good, as much as I like to think I am a badass. I can be but not with bats or snakes. Or large oversized goldfish. Or super large insects, especially Junebugs (oh so gross). Thus, I realize it's time to call Chris in.

I tell Ryan this and I think his manhood is a little insulted. But I inform him he's just going to yell at me and we'll be here all night. Which, it turns out later, is kind of what he wanted. He was so bored he was kind of excited about the bat and was hoping for a good two hour Scooby-Doo adventure.

When Chris gets there with his hamper, there is this slow motion moment where I am imagining the Bionic Man theme as he leaps up onto my bed in his soccer shoes and, without a flinch traps Terror Bat. I hear a little squeak, Chris tells me to throw the painter's cloth over the hamper, he tells Ryan to secure the edges and hold onto the sides because there are those little holes in hampers and then we all, in slow motion, Reservoir Dog style, it seems, take the hamper outside.

Chris said, "He's weirded out, man"

I chimed in, "Ditto."

When we got outside, I saw a side of Chris I have never seen. He had turned off the uber blinder focus guy and he was carefully turning the hamper onto the dewy grass and he shook out the painter's cloth. He looked into the grass and then up into the trees.

"There he goes. He's gone," he said, softly.

Ryan received a high five and I, a hug. Then off into the night with his light blue hamper, same as he ever was. Layers, like an onion.

You never know certain things about yourself or the people you know until you meet the Terror Bat.

My Friend Neil and Adam Ate These in Mexico and Made Them For Me!

See, this isn't an exact recipe and you can certainly tweak it how you want. That's sort of how it goes, I guess. Here's what was going on when I arrived at Neil's house, expecting some blackened hot dogs and ruffled chips (I didn't care, I was hungry and even asked if I needed to stop and get some potato salad).

When I got there, Neil's lady friend, Hallie, who I think is fabulous, had her entorouge (sp?) mashing up guacamole, Neil's housemate, Chris had a friend Javier who was just finishing up some cactus salsa, which delighted me because I'd not run into anyone my age who would eat cactus unless under my duress. This salsa was wonderful. These guys work at their other housemate's (not present) restaurant, The Wing Shack and had procured a stash of hot sauce from said establishment. There was queso, made by one of Hallie's gals. I helped Neil wrap the hot dogs with bacon (pay attention, this is a key point--which I will repeat, lucky you) but we later agreed he should have wrapped them with the pre-cooked bacon you can buy in packages. Although I think it turned out fine. I"m not sure what he was worried about and frankly, I don't think they have pre-cooked bacon in Mexico, or at least where Adam and Neil went. Then I carmelized some rings of onions. As Neil went to grill the dogs, we got out the mayonnaise and the sour cream. Yes, I said mayonnaise. So, following is how you basically put together a Mexican Hot Dog:

Bun

Mayo and Sour Cream (I skipped the sour cream but the mayo is a must...that's how they make them...unless you are the Cadillac of Stephanies. Then skip this step and stick to sour cream)

Carmelized Onions

Bacon Wrapped Grilled Hot Dog with the yummy grilled hot dog black crap

Guacamole

Queso

Salsa (I highly recommend making a homemade salsa such as the cactus one. i have a recipe for pumpkin seed salsa that would have done well also. I DON"T reccomend crappy run of the mill salsa as this is not a run of the mill hot dog)

If you have the stomach and mouth lining, try the hot sauce. Apparently, you can't do this unless it is HOT sauce. I can't do this. I enjoy tasting my food and not burning my lips off.

Note: I heard the term "stacking" being thrown about. I think this refers to eating two of these guys in one go. This brings you mucho respect from other guys, I guess. Or people around you.

Enjoy. Seriously, I'm a hot dog buff. I know a lot about them, have once owned a PBS video on the making of them and I collect Weinermobiles. This is what happens when someone nicknames you Weiner. Plus I just really enjoy them and have fond memories of them. This is just one more.

Enjoy!

Scrabbulous

Hey! It's one of those nights where I just don't sleep. It's not that I really mind them because I get writing done and I usually find something amusing in my attempts to entertain myself.

I should point out that these nights usually occur after I have driven myself NUTS with activity and doing things. These past two weeks would definitely qualify. I almost had a mental breakdown (not literally, folks, it's cool) yesterday, trying to cram eleventy billion things in the universe into the span of about eight hours. I finally had to start eliminating things that just weren't physically possible if the festival was going to happen and I was going to remain free from women's prison on several counts of homicide. I don't think women's prison is as sexy as guys think and I'm just not into butch chicks who want to trade cigarettes for sex, so I'm glad I just did what I could. I might point out, that I am also not into trading men things for sex either. One of my neighbors who was drunk once demanded that I life up my shirt when my friend and I were rough housing. I don't know him that well but I used to wait on him several years ago at a small restaurant and he kept saying stuff about never knowing his waitress was "like this." Ummmm. Your waitress? Okay. So, to cap, I don't trade women cigarettes in prison or out of prison for sexual favors and I don't lift my shirt for drunken neighbors or the male type.

Believe it or not I am getting to my point, which is, after leaving a bunch of annoying comments on my friends' pages, I was trolling around from Internet site to site looking at stupid shit because I knew if I got up and started reading I would just stare at the same page for seven hours. Just because I"m up doesn't mean I'm at a level of comprehension I am at during the day when I've had sleep. At this time, I was looking for some internet radio stations to listen to, which is sort of hard to sort through all the shit, and found what was possibly the most ridiculous piece of bizarro ever. It is www.freesoothingmusic.com. When you see it in the google list, you think..."Ahhh...that sounds nice, maybe it will help lull me to sleep."

Not only is it hideous music but some of the titles include the following:

Just Came Home? Cheer Up!"
"Memories of Those Lonely Days"
"We Say Wow Wow"
"Sadness"

And the "soothing" hits just keep coming!

There were some different links to click on such as: Sleeping Music, Dinner Music, etc. However, these are not additional playlists. If you click on them, they are just google links to sites where you can buy motorcycles and soothing crap like that. Possibly the funniest part or the most fucked up part was a little scrolling box saying these soothing sounds were just the start of this wonderful site! Soon to come were other genres, too like rap! And southern fried rock! They take requests, too and if it is available on the internet (cross your fingers) they will try and add it! Don't get your hopes up, though. I can never download music from the Internet. Nobody does that. That's like saying you can upload photos and post them on your friend's Myspace. Whatever. I'm just going to get on my hoverboard and zip on over to Michael J. Fox's house.

From there, I thought, maybe I would like to play an Internet game. I'm not into role playing....games. I hate solitaire because it's boring and I'm not good at cards anyway, except my brother is trying to long distance train me at Texas Hold 'Em and that's going alright. I found this Scrabble site, though, and was stoked because I love this wooden tiled game and generally whoop ass at it. Apparently, these people take it up a thousand notches and have quit their jobs to play Scrabble online day and night. I played one or two good games but they have you on this timer and this freaks me out. Scrabble is not a timed game. Bobby Fisher? We don't care where he went. At one point, I was playing some Australian who was giving me another reason to want to release the snakes again (the reasons just keep stacking up, man). This nerdalicious jerk went by the handle of scrabblesid and I had like 24 seconds left and I was trying to get my word together in time so I could earn some more seconds and points. scrabblesid chooses this point to become talkative in the little chat thinger and is thanking me profusely for giving him the highest score of his lifetime! Well, you have to answer or these dorks get pissed and ban you from the tables (gasp) so I am like, "you're welcome, whatever, blah blah" and he JUST KEEPS thanking me, emphasizing his thanks, trying, I think not to sound like a jerk but sounding like one and being a poor sport who is coming off like some sporto who just thanked me for the best blow job he ever had. I was thinking, in my head, "Quit sucking your own cock, asshole, I have 10 seconds to get the word hug up on the board!" I almost won against this chick with a really bad ranking but I lost by five points because she came up with a real humdinger that I really thought she made up. However, the site doesn't let you do that, so apparently it was a word. Although, I thought worl was a word. I guess not. I swear it is, but I am going to look it up. I swear they go against some regular Scrabble rules. So I call Shenaningans on this site on some accounts.

Retroactive Travel Blog: Tangible Destruction of My Childhood

Note: I realize this is dated in May. There are reasons I'm posting it HERE in July. If you are one of the 1.5 people who read my blog and you don't already read it on Myspace, then enjoy the newness. Otherwise, skip this one, dude.

May 4, 2007

We stay overnight at the Comfort Inn in downtown Denver so I can attend the Regina Spektor concert with Amy and Ryan (a birthday present from them) before we leave for Idaho the next morning and Mom can ogle the room service waiters who she suspects are pinch-hitting for their lazy, pot-addicted sons who skip out on work as they look more like mountain climbers with wind-blown hair and sun-kissed cheeks, bearing chicken and andouille sausage quesadillas on fancy trays with tiny jars of condiments and linen-covered trays.

Upon my arrival to the Comfort Inn later that night after the concert, or the big fancy building the Comfort Inn sign appeared to be attached to, I am confused, as are Ryan and Amy who had kindly escorted me the block and a half from the Paramount Theatre. This is not the Comfort Inn of my childhood years: the scummy surfaced pool and sweaty night clerk wearing a wife-beater with yellow stains along the arm seams who, surely as a budding adolescent, I could have dated and started my drinking career early on. However, the Comfort Inn we were standing in, or should I say the marble floor we were standing on, was full of smarmy hipsters, a fireplace, ridiculous amounts of lily arrangements, carefully groomed valets (whom I immediately suspected were having anal sex in the back of the cars because I once knew a guy who was a valet and told me stories about the seamy side of the valet world which included such activities) and conveniently, an all-night room service menu which adjusted its offerings according to the time of day it was. 3 pm? Sandwiches with potato salad and an appetizer menu with dessert offerings at the bottom. 2 am? Burgers and appetizers. Lots of fried items. Coffee. Very perceptive. One item was consistenly available, though: the 1/3 pound American Kobe Beef Burger. Kobe Beef was a meat I had only encountered on the Japanese version of Iron Chef. I immediately ordered it, despite its $14.00 price tag. However, an assortment of nuts was priced at $8.00 so I felt justified. This was also American Kobe Beef and not knowing if that was a type of cow that lived primarily in Japan and maybe they imported just to this Comfort Inn and fed it lilies, I just went ahead and ordered it. Iron Chef! It was delicious and also came with little jars of condiments that must have just been born in a condiment nursery. They had a complimentary piece of tape across the lids, which I appreciated, much like I appreciate the strap of paper across the toilet in hotels. Yet, at 4 a.m. the Comfort Inn became "This Kobe Beef is coming out one of two ends" Inn and I was so tired I fell asleep in the bathroom, wakin gup a half hour feeling somewhat better, but I decide to take a Zantac to cover my bases anyway.

Cinco de Mayo

The alarm goes off and we get our wake up call. At the same time. This is possibly the most annoying thing I have ever heard aside from an air horn at a sporting event, which is one of the reasons I avoid sporting events. That, and sports.

And so it begins.

I load up on my sedatives per doctor's orders to prevent the panic attacks/stress freakouts that tend to cause seizures. I am travellng to a town, population 400 and change with no emergency medical service. No hospital. And, in the worst situation, no mortuary. Upon rearrangement of my carry-on tote bag with the clouds and crow (homemade and pinned on) on it I find that: a) I have neglected to pack my journal; b) the headphones I grabbed to replace my lost iPod earbuds do not fit what I thought was a universal headphone hole, but no, Apple makes their earphone hole slightly larger than others; and c) I have brilliantly left my camera's memory card stuck neatly in the side of my laptop, which is sitting neatly on my coffeetable, two fucking hours away. To top things off, when we arrive at the airport, we are informed we are four minutes late for check-in and to try the skycap who is a nice man who helps us out, but upon arrival in Boise we find our luggage has been lost anyway. However, some guy who got there an hour and a half early lost his luggage, too so it wasn't the skycap guy's fault. He really did try. We also almost miss our flight to Boise because, as skycap guy says, "the gate is about a mile down the concourse." No shit! We are hyperspeeding down the concourse and down into what appears to be Middle Earth. I do think I see a Hobbit running a Starbucks kiosk as we whiz by and I simultaneously shout over my shoulder to my Mom as I see her nemesis, the escalator with no stair option approaching, "Just run down it like stairs!" because we have zero, literally, zero time for her tendency to hold onto the handles and flatten out to a horizontal position, tapping her foot on the metal lip of the edge of the escalator for like an hour. I can actually hear our names being paged for final boarding as a final warning shot so I book it to the gate so they don't close the doors on us, breathlessly gasping, "THAT'S US! THAT'S US!" to the rotund woman in a skin-tight United uniform who does not look amused. My Mom finally catches up and the woman scans our tickets and we blaze down the jetway ramp of Arctic air, only to be greeted by our flight attendant who waves us through nonchalantly.

We are seats 7A and 7B. That means window for me so I don't puke monster everywhere and as we huff and puff up to them, we find some laze bag stretched out across them. I suppose he thought it was safe to make himself a little napping site but he must have seen the look in my eye that said, "Look, man, I don't have much left to lose but my teeth. So if you want to fuck with me then fucking do it or move." Now," because he scampered back to 9B and immediately sat upright and began flipping through a Skymall magazine.

I should mention we have not had time to eat yet and I was ready to eat the laze bag alive. Our flight traded the snack service for a few extra rounds of trash collection because we apparently caught the Hobo Roundabout Flight to Idaho. You also cannot have souvenir plastic wing pins with weakling fasteners. The FAA banned them after the whole 9/11 debacle because apparently some hobo might make a weapon out of a can of Snap-E-Tom and said wing pin, splashing the tomato juice in laze bag's eyes, causing partial temporary blindness, allowing him or her time to jan the bendy wind fastener pin into his fatty man boob and cause a slight sting, rendering the flight...inconvenient. Thinking about how I tried to get one of these pins on another trip, I decide to see if this is indeed the case. The flight attendant seems amiable. She is youngish, my age or so and maybe a mother or could want children some day.

So I invent a child. Her name is Mabel. She is bi-lingual. I base her father off a friend of mine because I can't think of a fake guy. My Mom is wondering why I have to have all these details. I tell her women like to talk about children and I have to know these things in case she wants to chat me up. So Mabel is five years old. Her father manages a restaurant and plays on two travelling soccer teams and speaks fluent Spanish as a second language. He majors in International Studies at CSU and has been teaching her both languages since she was born. Mabel also adores kites. Thus, she has decided she wants to be a pilot and travel all over the world and I promised I would try and get a wing pin for her. Her favorite color is blue. Like a pilot's hat. She attends a.m. kindergarten and enjoys show and tell because I take her to thrift stores on Saturdays and let her pick two things with her allowance. She is taking cello lessons. Right now, she only likes to wear overalls, shorts and pants types. Her favorite bird is the sparrow. Mabel's middle name is Annie because both her father and I love that name. That is my mother's name and that is his favorite sister's name.

I enjoyed having a daughter for five minutes. The duration of the beverage service. That was really all I had the attention span for. The flight attendant did not have the wings but the daughter scam got me some inside info, which I intend to use in the future. Thanks Mabel Annie...whatever your last name is.

I decide to remember how Ben tries to end things on a good note. My flight has been interspersed with a few of those rainfall tear leakings. So I think in my head I am grateful for the book "Catcher in the Rye" and that I am finally reading it. It's amazing. I love Holden Caulfield's name. My uncle plays the mandolin, the guitar, the piano and the fiddle. I will get to hear one of those during my trip or more. Maybe while saying hello to my grandparents where they sleep in the mountains with the trees growing over them while sipping on one of my aunt's ever present Diet Cokes.

After my uncle Marshall, aka Marshall, picks us up, he thoughtfully whizzes us over to Best Buy so I can get ear phones for the iPod and a camera memory card. There is paper to be had at the Market Basket in Fairfield, where we are going. We stop at a Burger King and I am so hungry I actually eat there. I have a chicken sandwich and a Coke or something like that. My Mom gets a kid's meal and an awesome Spiderman toy which she hands over to me because she doesn't get who Sandman is or why it's so funny that he is a spinning top.

May 6, 2007

I have been dreaming so vividly during this trip. I think people have been visiting me in my dreams. Although the only person I can remember is Ben, though there have been others. I think my friend Andrea has been there, too. I dreamed Ben was describing Egrets for hours to me and I was fascinated and puzzled as well. There is a dream for each night. I wish I could remember them all. I think my grandparents are coming to me as well. They are like a second life or a second part of the day and so real and intense and they mean things.

Today there has been a lot of sleeping. We are just very relaxed as though we are calming down. For me, I think I am resting up for the next day when I know I am going to Granddad's house for the last time. When I am not sleeping, I am trying to keep busy. There is a lot of talk about the new house my Mom is building and I want to keep on the perimeter of that, which of course, I feel guilty about, but I can only make peace with one thing at a time. It is a hard thing to hear when I am dealing with the destruction of my tangible childhood. Thinking about all the textures, smells, sights, cold tiles on my toes, everything I could count on coming "home" to becoming a pile of dirt and rubble. I equate the job of bulldozing this house over to the job of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. I can't imagine who would climb in the seat of that machine in that town. I went to the Market Basket to get ingredients for hummus. It was a bit difficult as I believe it is mainly run by local teenagers who don't know what pitas are. I had to use dried minced garlic which didn't ruin it too much. I located some original flavored Sun Chips that would suffice. This is a place that has Trapper Keepers but no garlic. They have "Elk Heat" for attracting sexy elk but no chammomile tea. I tried to go to the coffee shop very early in the morning to get some writing done because I knew my family would be meeting up there but I underestimated my Mom and Aunt's getting up early abilities. I had five minutes of alone time in the coffee shop before they came in. This is a great coffee shop and I sat in the same chair, I realized, that I had when I wrote my Granddad's eulogy the morning of his funeral.

After coffee, we went back up to my aunt and uncle's house, officially known as the Red Ant Rancho. I showed my cousin Jeff some of my pictures and discovered he had a Myspace, which delighted me because now I can keep in better touch with him. Plus I saw him curse on here, so I feel comfortable in keeping in my normal course of existence on Myspace. Which is stupid that I wouldn't feel comfortable, but you know, it's my first family "friend."

May 7, 2007

My trip now seems like a dream. Surreal. It seems alternately magical and nightmarish. I have discovered the rest of the family still thinks I am moving to Idaho when my Mom does. This is all my fault. I guess, being sort of selfish and living in my bit of independence where it is hard for me to let people in on my thoughts and I forget to tell them things I think "I need to tell so and so this" and then just assume I told them. So, then, just being so anxious, afraid, sad, teary, full of dread and mourning concerning this trip, I just projected the idea that I suppose they just knew. Maybe my Mom was talking to my aunt and it came up. I don't know. I just thought they knew. They didn't. So, as a result, several awkward moments came up where I was forced into revealing not only that fact, but also that I was not returning until the new house was built. I had a quiet conversation later with my aunt Barbara, my uncle's wife, as opposed to his sister Barb, about why I could not stand to see any sort of rubble or blank spot or skeleton of the new house in the place where 209 Camas Avenue once stood with the name O.M. Ralph was burned into a wooden plaque on the front of the house. As I was gathering things I wanted, my last chance to peruse what I might want from the estate, like my Grandmother's chenille blanket I slept under as a child and my Granddad's director's chair, amongst other things, my Mom was in the kitchen cleaning for some fucking reason, what they were going to turn into a pile of dirt anyway. Yes, it makes me angry because it's ridiculous because they are pre-wiping away my first and favorite kitchen. They took away the exploding peaches, the frozen, unwrapped peaches. All these things my Granddad was keeping for memories. It was like they were his refrigerated scrapbook. They cleaned out the fridge which we are throwing out anyway. I stood outside taking pictures of everything, including the white clapboard church next door that no one ever used and I was always fascinated by, and I thought, "Why don't they just take what they want out of it, the furniture, the cabinets, etc. and when they're done, just control burn it?" At least there would be some ceremony to it. I would return for that. Not for a pile of memory rubble. As they continue cleaning the kitchen, I am in and out asking if anyone has claimed the records or this or that and no one is listening to me and if they are, my Mom is admonishing me that I cannot take this on the plane and that everytime we come I do this. I take all these things. This breaks my heart because she is so caught up in her building that she has forgotten that this is my breaking down, my undoing of the only home sweet home I have ever known. This is the last chance I have to gather. That, there are mailboxes and kind relatives who will store things for me. Jeff must have heard this and seen the look on my face when I came back in the living room because he said, seamlessly, "Hey, put aside the records you want and I'll make sure they get where they need to." I thank him and turn back quietly to stacking some pillows my tiny child head slept on ona chair I want eventually when I will sleep facing someone who will count as my adult family. I get a lump in my throat as I touch the pillows and the chenille blanket as I think to myself that even if I never get this and I never have this, because for certain I will never have children, that at least I will have the comfort of the chenille and the pillows. Then I cannot breathe and I picture the whole house caving in and I am still in it and it crumbles like carboard and glass is folding in and the Burpee's seed clock is falling toward me, along with the bookcase full of every documentation of my childhood, the only place where pictures of me as a child exist, displayed proudly. It is all falling to dust and the attic is falling in and the bats in the attic are flapping everywhere and I am screaming. I don't want them in my hair but they are flying away but the whole attic is filled with guano and it's coming down to me and everything is literally shit. All I can hear outside is cheers for the new house. I am crushed. So is the house and no one knows I am inside and those monkey masks are in the kitchen which they cleaned but all the beautiful bottles they never touched are broken and the cat magnets have been pressed into the Earth and the wood stove is bent and stooped like an old man.

I take a deep breath and look at Jeff. He is reading a book on the shelf. I go outside. I turn the bell on the middle of the door as I always do as I leave and walk down the steps. One time someone carved me a duck, or that's what they said it was, as we all sat on the steps and watched the fireworks in the park.

Jeff and I both take what seems like thousands of photos of the hose and the endless textures of it. He finds a perfectly preserved squirrel in the wood stove in the living room and we pose it with an acorn and look into having the high school principle preserve it. Apparently, he has a background in taxidermy. We name it Andy, as in "Take your pal Andy with you!" We venture into the shed and I also find, literally, a 40 year old beer. It's top is bulging but it has somehow survived the elements and seasons all these years. I don't even think they make this beer anymore. The top is encrusted with dust and ant carcasses. I will bring it to my friend Ryan. It surives the airplane ride as well. That's a hearty beer.

Intermittently, there are heart-wrenchingly wonderful moments. My family surprises me with champagne, a cake with Clifford the Big Red Dog on it (who we bud the Hysterectomy Dog because I was on the peds ward at the hospital when I had the hysterectomy and received a stuffed Clifford dog from one of the nurses when they were donated to the unit by Kohl's. It sits on my bed to this day) and a present of a strange carbonated espresso drink called Bibicaffe in tribute to my brief stint as an employee of Starbucks. We then watched old home movies from my Mom and her siblings' childhood on the 8mm projector, which I took photos of, and I saw my Grandmother in color and in motion for the first time ever. I shot what seemed like a thousand photos from those three reels and, as the trip goes on I am finding more and more ways to hold onto and preserve my childhood home in small artifacts of my own making, including a small stuffed weiner dog you are supposed to autograph but I have drawn and written poetry on its every crevice regarding my goodbye. It is wearing the last of my Granddad's ties.

The first morning we were here I broke down in tears and explained to my Mom why I was having such a hard time. I told her I was trying to respect her space and her new era, her rebuilding but I feel very alone in my loss and so it' s terrifying. Although I know she has not forgotten this, she is understandably caught up in all the building and planning ideas and the strange sniping pattern we have temporarily developed and has been popping up more and more frequently. I refuse to fight in front of my family but I am sure I will eventually put my foot down and we will have to rock the boat. That's the way you do it.

I hate this.

I am leaving tomorrow. Leaving this town indefinitely. Leaving my family indefinitely. I cannot bear to come until something is in the old house's place with good energy. Still, though, I feel on the outside. My Mom goes back and forth from "This room will always be your room" to making a comment one day to "This isn't YOUR room." Where do I belong then? My home, my only real home base will be gone soon. As I sit and finish this up, I look at the suitcase still sitting in my living room, mostly packed. After all, who really cares if it sits there until I wear all the clothes in it? I had a place to go in my life where ultimately things mattered. People made ham and cheese eggs in the morning. Scrabble tournaments broke out.

Nut bread was made.

Not anymore.

I have to make all that on my own now. As Granddad would have said, "Tie on your apron strings." While incredibly sexist, it says a lot about my life right now. How do I do this though? I'm not a round peg that fits in the round hole.

I suppose I need to know how to open the door Ryan made for me. The hardest door ever. As he says, "It's not always the most obvious way in." This door does not even have a knob and it's roughed up. At least it's tangerine colored. But how the fuck do I get in?

May 8, 2007

I'm home. I'm tired.

For Philatelists' Eyes Only (Unless You Really Mail Things)

NEWSFLASH: (along the lines of things that anger me like time zones)

WASHINGTON (May 11) - It will cost a bit more to mail letters and parcels starting Monday. A first-class letter will go up 2 cents to 41 cents.
But there is also some good news - folks will be able to buy "forever" stamps that remain valid regardless of any future increase. Forever stamps? Is this like rent controlled apartments? So I could use my grandmother's stamps and they would be okay with that? Maybe they are trying to just clear out the excess stamps from all the desks, which would be nice because I ALMOST bought a bunch of stamps to send out the artcards to people yesterday and I would have had a little bit of a jipfuck on my hands, especially with the ones going to Japan. What are forever stamps? Why would I buy the more expensive stamp if I could just have the cheaper stamp that would stay at the same value "forever." The general stamp buying public such as myself does not generally understand much about stamps so the forever stamp is juts going to stymie us further. If you put a picture of a bomb on it or Iraq with flames coming off it or maybe a tank, you could just trick a bunch of shitheads into buying it no questions asked. Or, OR! if you put like a pink ribbon on it or something for the soccer moms, that would probably work. But don't call it a forever stamp. No one really gets what forever means. Mostly we just hear an echoey sound effect with it in our heads and get confused or sad or if you're dating someone for three days you start doodling the word forever on a notebook with their name and your name on it.

While the new rates take effect Monday, most post offices are closed on Sunday so officials say items dropped in a box that won't be collected until Monday should have the higher postage on them. How do we GET the higher postage if we miss this tidbit of info and happen to drop a bunch of mail into the post box after the pickup time thinking it's still .39? What happens then? Where are my forever stamps? How much are those? Is there a flat rate? What's the deal here? Is is just a card you swipe that counts as one stamp FOREVER? Can I pass it down to well, like other people's children? Or my nieces and nephews? Here, Billy, you're at the age where I want you to have my forever stamp. I can't write anymore and there's no one here to take my mail to the post box so you take the forever stamp and write some nice girl and get a dog or a cat or a snail. You'll make a nice life with your forever stamp, won't you, Billy? Won't you? And could you go buy your Aunt Wendy some milk? My bones are so brittle.

On the other hand, when rates change the agency usually allows a little leeway, and it doesn't plan a rash of returns for insufficient postage. Gee, that's big of them. Since they still haven't told us what the fuck a forever stamp is and they're springing this two cent hike on us. I know they're excited but it's not like I get a raise at my job everytime the stamps go up or garbanzo beans are raised six cents a can. You know? Maybe they could make a forever bean, too. That would help the world out a lot more.

Postmaster General John Potter has said that even with the higher prices the agency expects a deficit this year as it struggles to compete in a swiftly changing communications market. Yeah. Because it's free to email and text. We all love getting mail but let's see if I mail one letter to each of my Myspace friends (I'm using you all hypothetically because I'm too lazy to count the people I see everyday and really I see some of you everyday but then I would have to decide if I would send this person a letter or are they just a well-wisher...so I'll just do Myspace friends since it's just a calculating thing) at .41 times 86...that equals out to $35.26. That's just one letter each, assuming I don't need extra postage and that you live in the United States, which you all don't. So, tacking on and extra coupla dollars for the UK and Japan, well that's like $40. So if I sent you each one letter a month, that would be more than my light bill. Not that I would mind and frankly I could cut out a couple of bands, Bill Murray (not that I want to cut him out, he just won't give me his address), one celebrity and a couple people I just plain wouldn't write to anyway. We could get it down to half I think. I would still write to you. Which is cool, so if you want, I've found that it's fun to write in those Blue Book Examination Books and then mail them to people. Last night I wrote a little story in one at my local coffee shop while talking to my friend Ambrette. Who wants it? I'm going to keep buying them. They're like a quarter.


For most people, the first-class rate has the greatest impact, covering cards and letters. USPS, you are ruining my life. What I really want is just an acknowledgement that you are spending all of these pennies on Fudgesicles or possibly Chipotle. It's fine. I just want you to admit it. I resisted Chipotle as well. For awhile. Then I was forced to go one day and I found out they had barbacoa and I could get it in a rice bowl. I never resisted Fudgesicles. All I want is for you to say it. Just own up to your actions. Put the men in government.