Book of June

Wedding Alex is pregnant. I may have already mentioned this to you, because of course there was a tense few weeks where we worried I was the father, but we’ve gotten past that once we remembered I’m a girl. Who has never slept with Wedding Alex.

These times suck for everyone except maybe toilet paper-makers, but I feel particularly bad for people who have huge events planned, like a nice wedding, or one of the many babies I’ve sired is on its way.

W.Alex’s shower was to be this weekend, and of course we had to cancel it, which sucks cause I was ready to hand out cigars.

Every friend I’ve ever had who has had a baby, I’ve claimed to be the father. Every friend I’ve ever had who has had a baby doesn’t think it’s funny. I wish you guys had been around in aught nothing, when my Seattle friend Stacy expressed the wish I’d be there at the birth

—which, why? Would you want me at your birth?—

and I said, “Well, just call me and I’ll jump on a plane.”

And I fekkin’ DID. She called at like 4 a.m., I called the airlines, flew from Los Angeles to Seattle (not that far, really) and was there by the afternoon. I was completely useless the entire time. Ate all the baby’s-coming-celebratory-bagels, though. Delish.

My point is, I was talking to W.Alex about her gift registry, because we, the invitees, fmr., are being generous enough to send her gifts anyway even though we aren’t getting chicken wings and punch at a shower. That’s just who I am. I am a giving person to my core.

“What do you really really want on your registry?” I asked her. She’s Pregnant Spice.

“I guess who Whooobala or the Greee deee beeee dee,” she said, and I kept those mysterious items in my noggin for choosing the prezzy on payday. And by the way, even though there’s this virus

—there seems to be something going around, have you noticed?—

I had an astonishing $80 left over from my last paycheck. I was stunned cause this year I started putting a huge percentage of my check into my Four Oh Wonk, and you can see what a great idea that was. I’m the Gambler. Try my roaster’s chicken.

Anyway.

Oh! Before I press on about W.Alex’s pregnancy and make it about me, I checked in with Howard Stern this morning for the first time in months, and why didn’t I THINK of how he’d be reacting to all this the same way I am? Of COURSE he is. He’s all holed up in this bunker in his Hamptons house (this hood is a lot like the Hamptons). He made his wife sanitize every inch of the bunker after Sirius Radio people came in to set it up for his radio show. Then he didn’t go into it for five days so all the germs could die.

And the best part is, he’s talking to famous people and people on his staff who’ve already gotten coronavirus and asking if they threw up. HE’S ME. “I haven’t vomited since college,” I heard him say.

This is why I like Howard Stern. The anxiety in me sees the anxiety in him. Nervoustay.

Back to Alex. Who, by the way, is not an anxious person. Although this sitch isn’t making her calm as a cucumber, as my mother once said.

So I got on her registry last night, cause we got paid.

I used to be a (terrible) waitress, and the cook (whose name was Cheese) (what made his parents hold him at the hospital and say, “Oh, I know. Cheese! Doesn’t he just LOOK like a Cheese?”) used to always rap, “I just got paid with the money I already spent.”

That was 32 years ago. And the grate words of Cheese still live inside me. He was sharp. Seriously I think of that line all the time. Even though this pay period it wasn’t true. See above reference to a big 80 bucks.

SO I GET ON THE REGISTRY, which is conveniently located in one place now, then you click Buy This Gift and it inconveniently takes you to an actual store’s website, where it doesn’t automatically know Wedding Alex’s address.

But here’s the reason I’m telling you all this, because at this point you must be all, Oh my god why are you telling me all this. It’s possible you’ve been saying that since my first blog post in aught 6.

This reason I’m telling you all this is because I have no idea what baby needs are. I mean, don’t you just feed them and put them in a walnut shell to sleep or what have you? There were all sorts of things where I’m all, what the hell do you do with this?

There’s this big plastic thing that looks like maybe if you’re considering melting the baby, you can pour it into this plastic thing to remold it. Is this, like, the uvula mold? In case you decide to melt your baby to make it into an uvula shape? That’s probably it.

There’s this flat round thing. It looks like what photographers use, that thing they hold up and it …shines a light on the model, maybe? So maybe the flat round thing is for photographing your baby. Oooo, or maybe it’s a tanning blanket. I’ll bet that’s it. Does it reflect?

There are woodsy animals on it. Is it for, like, if you decide to leave your baby in the woods for someone else to find?

Okay, I’m gettin’ the hang of these things now. This is to make nipple-shaped toast. Cause it’s on your mind already, so you want your toast shaped like what your baby is eating. Got it.

Maxi pads. For baby’s first period.

Anyway, I gotta go. I gotta go work, and I’d tell you what I bought Wedding Alex’s baby, Baby Wedding, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise if W.Alex should read this hard-hitting piece.

I’m available for all baby showers and also baby births, as long as there are celebratory bagels.

Procreatively,
June

I’m waiting for work. And Godot. Once work gets here, it’s 10 hours’ worth. It’s not due today, thank goodness. I checked with the other copy editors and they don’t have work to share with me in the meantime, so I thought I’d get up on this and get up with you.

I guess one thing that’s good about having a pandemic right now is we have internet access. I’m aware not everyone does, but many working people do, and we can carry on with our jobs as necessary. I’ll bet nurses wish they could do their jobs online. Yeesch.

I would always have made a terrible nurse, as I am a nervous, unnurturing person. But if I were a nurse now, as my cousin Katie is, I’d just quit in a huff. This is why I am a terrible human who no one will mention fondly after I’ve shuffled off to Buffalo.

Why is that a phrase? “Shuffle off to Buffalo”? I mean, I know it’s a dance thing, but why? Why Buffalo?

At least I didn’t load my family into an RV and leave New York like that asshole influencer did. Did you see that? It was for her own “mental health” that she’s spreading New York City germs across America. They are headed “West.” So pretty much all of us from New York to “West” get to experience all seven of them shedding coronavirus across this great land. This land is your land, this land is my land. Now I’ve a fever, you fucking damp ham.

Speaking of travel, yesterday was a pretty exciting day where I got out and really lived life. I got in my car, while I was wearing a robe, and drove said car around the block so the battery wouldn’t die and the tires wouldn’t get flat. The last time I left my house to actually leave for anywhere was 20 days ago when I took Iris to the vet.

If these were normal times I’d be calling the vet about both Edsel and Iris. Eds is due for his six-month bad-heart checkup and I can tell his bad heart is progressing. Iris is seeming uncomfortable with her IBD, and I say this because she meows a lot, which she never did, and she wants to be either on me or sleeping on something of mine, like the laundry or my slippers.

I know vets are technically open for emergencies but neither of these seem like emergencies. Iris has been to the doctor 97 times and is getting medication and prescription food and the only thing left would be to biopsy her but I’m not doing that. The fact that she tested positive for pancreatitis is a good sign that she really does have IBD and not cancer, so. And I think it’s just uncomfortable for her, which breaks my heart.

And if Eds gets bad I WILL take him in as an emergency. But he’s got his medication, too, and his old man food. And his hip chews. Not that he literally chews hips.

Meanwhile, Milhous is a blur of young boy energy all the time and Lily is a gray lump. I don’t have to worry about either of them.

So tell me what life’s been like where you are. Is anyone reading anywhere where you AREN’T on lockdown? You know this blog is an international success. It’s the international blog of pancakes.

Speaking of which, I get my new grocery delivery today. I HAVE some food, really. I have cans of tuna and bread and Spaghetti-Os and Cream of Wheat and a whole mess of frozen blueberries. But you know what I am 100% sick of? Tuna and bread and Spaghetti-Os and Cream of Wheat and frozen blueberries. I bought too much of those things and do not ever want to see them again.

Someone mentioned they were less worried about their cat, I think it was, who had surgery and no appetite, because neither did I.

Maybe it was a dog, now that I’m thinking of it. Wasn’t it her child’s dog, and said child left it behind? Oh my god I’m a terrible listener. Anyway she saw that I had zero appetite after surgery and felt less worried about the cat or dog. THE POINT IS, appetite coming back. Unfortunately.

I was in need of mosquito spray (we already have fekking mosquitoes here) and scrubby things for the dishes and dairy products, so I got groceries. It’s been a few weeks since I last ordered, and now you can only get 2 of anything, which is good, stupid hoarders. And also, now there’s the option of “Leave groceries at door.”

I have a whole plan for when the groceries get here. Ima wear my rubber gloves since that’s all I’ve got. I will throw out all the grocery bags immediately. I will leave what I can outside for all the GERMS to die. The things I have to bring in I will wipe down with my wipes.

We’ve all become Howard Hughes. Without the cash.

I have to go nag Griff about what’s taking him so long to get this work to me. The highlight of my day is going to be nagging Griff.

Oh, before I go, two things: Did you see I found a feature where I can add a drop cap to my posts? Exciting. I think today if I have time I’ll play with a new template. This one screws up comments on the phone. At least I think it’s the template’s fault. The date crashes into the comment and Lu annoy.

The other thing is, did you see the Twitter thread where everyone is talking about how mean Ellen is? Just Google “Ellen mean.” I don’t want her to find this and kill me. Because apparently she meeeeeeen. My friend Gertrude’s kid used to say that. She’d screw up her face and say, “He meeeeeeeen.”

Anyway, I have always HAD an Ellen story. I figured it was an isolated incident. But perhaps not. Ellen used to date someone I knew secondhand, and when she, Ellen, met Portia, she basically came home and said, Get out. I’ve met someone else.

I always thought, well, I don’t know about their relationship. Maybe it had been bad for awhile. Or maybe all’s fair in love and war, and she was terrible about this because she was so in love with Portia. In other words, for decades I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt. She seems so likeable and does so many nice things!

But read that Twitter thread, y’all. Holy cats.

Okay, I have to do work. Get out. Shuffle off to Buffalo.

Juan

I’ve really tried to keep this top-secret, but exactly six weeks ago today I had surgery.

I just heard our entire nation gasp, “WHAT?” I know. I should work for the CIA, with my ability to keep secrets.

Anyway, six weeks ago today is but a blur. I hadda get up at 4:45 a.m. to be at the surgery center at 5:30, and that in and of itself was absurd. But then they WHISKED me off to surgery, and I awoke, sort of, in this little recovery room where I languished all day. Based on a text I sent my boss and HR

A TEXT I RECALL NOT AN IOTA

I headed home at around 6:30 that night.

I mean. Think of how terribly wrong that text could have gone, given how you know how I am and also how I was under the influence of surgery. Think of the myriad possibilities of things I could have sent that would have been SO WRONG to send to one’s boss and one’s HR.

But speaking of how I am, of the few snippets I recall from that day (another snippet is I asked for pot roast and pudding and got fish and broccoli WHAT THE HELL, WORLD?) is that when the nurse said I might could go home after all and not lay up overnight in the horsepital—as my gramma used to call it—she said, “If you do go home, remember, nothing in the vagina for six weeks.”

Well. Okay. Good to know.

Whenever I’d tell Marvin, my husband, fmr., something nag-ish, his response was always, “Good to know.”

“You shouldn’t kick off your shoes and leave them in the living room,” for example.

“Good to know.”

It was kind of his way of saying, “I have no response to this comment.”

Sometimes he’d embellish it:

“Marvin, no one wants to see black cords in the kitchen drawers.”

“Verrrry good. Good to know.”

Whatever, Marvin.

Anyway. The official word that I could go home had to come from my doctor, who eventually said, “Yeah, you can go home. Just, nothing in the vagina for six weeks.”

Verrrry good.

I had aftercare paperwork, paperwork I had CLEAN FORGOTTEN I TOOK WITH ME and is this what it was like to be Michael Jackson once he met propofol? Cause holy cats.

A day or two later I think my mother handed said paperwork to me, and right there in bold letters, it read, NOTHING IN THE VAGINA FOR SIX WEEKS.

Were they obsessed? What’s with the focus on the vagina? Are they all 7th-grade boys?

How often did they think I put stuff in there? Do they suppose I store my loose change up yonder? Do they imagine hoards of people are on their way in there like that lineup of cars at the end of Field of Dreams?

Honestly, it’s not even tourist season yet. Mostly it’s just a few wayward bats RN. Some hieroglyphics.

So today is the big day. The day I can officially lift more than 10 pounds [Disclaimer: Have been lifting Lily onto the dryer to eat for the last 4 weeks, and you know that heifer weighs at least 10 pounds]. I can also bathe, work out, and?

Something vaginal this way comes.

I’m IN ISOLATION, and have no mans in m’life with his intrusive man bits anyway. So all this freedom is for nothing.

I considered creating a poll, so to speak, asking what I should put in there now that I can, but I really didn’t want you all thinking about my girl parts that much, says the person who just wrote an entire blog post about her girl bits.

I think I might as well just leave it be. Leave it as empty as Al Capone’s vault. Save it for a special occasion, like a good bottle of champagne.

Oooo, maybe a bottle of champagne!

Riiiiiicola,
June. Who knows this piece is derivative, given Grace Kelly wrote something similar based on Rear Window.

Perhaps it feels like only yesterday-ish that we all voted on what to keep from my last StitchFix box. It really wasn’t that long ago.

But you may also recall, while you’re recalling things, that I got that box of clothes right after my

SURGERY

and asked the nice people of fixing stitches if they’d let me put off deciding on that particular batch, and they did. So a mere 3 weeks ago we voted on those clothes. Twenty-hundred people said, You can get that for six cents at Marshall’s, and that was how voting went.

Then this new box came, a new box of clothes to wear to the many places I’m going during this, my pandemic. I’m headed out to see and be seen. Maybe I can wear these to urgent care.

Anyway, today I tried them on, because what the hell else I got to do, and then I photographed myself in them, which by the way went swimmingly.

Behold my first attempt. Also, let’s talk about my hair. As you know, from your enormous book of June events, I have been growing out my roots. It’s been four months, I have two glorious inches of pretty much pure-white hair, and it turns out, I hate it.

I don’t know if you’ve put down your June events book long enough to notice that we are having a pandemic, and we’re not supposed to go anywhere, and I’m looking at you, people swarming Lowe’s, you

FEKKING ASSHOLES.

So that means I cannot FIX my hair, which further means you are stuck looking at my giant roots throughout this whole photo sesh, and yes I just said sesh. For that I am sorry.

Also, I’m writing this on a breezy Sunday evening on my patio, where I am being devoured by mosquitoes (IT’S MARCH), and someone is letting his or her child scream endlessly on my street. I got up to frown socially distantly at said screaming child, who by the way I did not find and now I’m hallucinating screams which, yay. But here’s my upbeat news of the day. Look!

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Anyway, let’s look at my clothes. And fucking roots.

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I know that when one looks like I do, it’s easy for others to assume I’ve spent my whole life modeling for various enterprises such as No Life magazine and even Sporks Illustrated. I have not. Instead I’ve spent my life in the pursuit of the arts, if by the arts we mean the Real Housewives.

I offer you this to explain that I don’t know what the hell these poses are.

Long ago, my friend Renee and I shared a masseuse who had been a DOCTOR in her country. She was great. The point is, she vacationed to her country—I forget where she was from—and when she returned asked if I wanted to see her pictures, back when you actually held pictures in your hand.

Dudes.

This woman, who before this moment was normal-seeming, did these ABSURD POSES in each shot. Her toes were pointed. Her arms would be up over her head. It was like she was a member of the Ice Capades or was auditioning for a lobotomy. I could not WAIT for Renee to check out our masseuseinist’s vacation shot contortions.

I think she was my muse for these poses today. In summation.

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Here it is again, in case you missed this hard-hitting pose. This little pose of mine. I’m gonna let it shine.

This shirt ties in the back. It has white roots in the front.

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That smile is sincere, for once, as I was laughing at the animals but I forget why now. It’s just a laugh riot over here what with being confined to my house for 6 weeks and all.

Once I looked this shirt’s description up on my invoice from the StitchFix, there, I saw it’s called a front-tie shirt, so I guess I should be tying it in the front and SUE ME.

Also, I am going to always offer the option of how cheap you can get this at Marshall’s just so I don’t have to hear it in the comments.

Moving on!

I love everything about this photo, from the look on Edsel’s face to Iris’s Deeetroit leanin’ to my catalog-model glance to the side. Everything other than this unflattering shirt. Also, the jeans are part of the StitchFix, so note them from here on and we’ll vote on them eventually.

I mean, is there a BEAVER over in that corner of the room? What’m I LOOKING at?

Here is a ruffly-sleeved back top with a keyhole neck, in case you want to walk into my collarbone with your key. I got a brand new pair of roller skates, you got a brand new keyhole.

Here’s the shirt, my jeans, my tortured cat and my apprehensive dog. Now with roots!

Let’s end by addressing the situation.

I can make dress jokes like this. For I know you are stuck at home and cannot escape my wrapth.

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Even Edsel’s like, “Wat wif dat poze?” And BY THE WAY, I would not wear these shoes with this dress, but I was so not in the mood to buckle a whole pair of shoes. I realize I should put more effort into this, my blog, but do you have any idea what a time-consuming pain in my ass these StitchFix posts are? I had to prop my phone up in my glasses cupboard, for feck’s sake.

That is all. I won’t give you the “buy everything” voting option, as I know I’m not getting the white “I’m a triangle” shirt.

Talk to you tomorrow, which marks six weeks since my

SURGERY

and a lifting of various prohibitions. For one thing, I can return to work!

…Oh. ….Wait.

Pandemically,
June

Do you want to know what I hate?

(Yes, June. Yes, we do. If there was ever a time for your hate, it’s now. Let’s all join hands, let’s do Hands Across America again, for it’s a good time for that too.

Did I ever tell you the first time Marvin and I slept together was the same day as Hands Across America? I always found that fitting. So to speak.)

Celebrities. I mean, I fawn over them like the next guy but oh my god, celebrities making videos on Instagram right now. First of all, they hold the phone WAY too close to their faces. I do not wish to see your un-made-up pores this closely, celebrity who always used to look hot. And isn’t that your ONE JOB? Continue to look hot. Don’t tell us to keep our spirits up if you look like hell.

I’m the pot calling the pan-demic black with my White Fang roots, over here. But I’m not a celebrity. I’m speaking to four people RN.

Anyway, not only do they hold the phone an inch from their faces, they also ALWAYS do this thing where when they’re talking to you, they roll their eyes to the side, like they need to consult the great wise elders over in the corner of the room. This is the thing that’s irking me.

That said, one celebrity who is a famous writer mentioned—while rolling her eyes to the side—to feel less discombobulated when you’re working from home, make your bed and get dressed. So today I did.

What I have found is I don’t have enough loungewear. I have one large comfy gray-blue zip-up sweatshirt I got at the beach last year, when I went with Lottie Blanco. I wear it constantly. When I wash it I’m like Calvin when they’d wash Hobbes. I eye the dryer nervously till I can get back to it.

I have like three pair of leggings and one of them’s red. So, hi, circus clown.

That’s it, other than workout leggings, which don’t really breathe. Does anyone have any good big roomy shirts they like and can link me to?

Speaking of clothes, I still have to try on my new StitchFixes. Work has been busy out my ass and at the end of my day, after my drive home

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Pandemic humor. Catch it!

I really don’t want to do anything else. Am so drained. But today. Today’s the day I’ll put on the StitchFix and then have to drive to the post office and touch the handle of the mailbox NO! NOOOO!

Also, guess what?! There is a bird making a nest somewhere around my front porchal area, as I keep seeing–oooo, there it went again! It’s flitting past my front porch, I think to maybe the awning or something. Oh, how exciting!

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Every time a bird builds a nest near me I say I wish I could call in sick to work for a month, and now here we have a golden opportunity to see a nest from start to finish.

Further reports as developments warrant. I just went around from window to window to see if I can see any nests happening but so far I do not. My face got all close to the birds like a celebrity on Instagram.

Anyway, that’s all I have to tell you, seeing as my life isn’t that full of act-shun.

I leave you with today’s Google Photos memory, which is of Iris during that, her convalescence, after the dogs ripped her apart, like Joe and I were ripped apart.

Name that movie.

Okay, I have to go, not because work is calling (why is it so quiet today? It’s been insane all week and now quiet today? Why? Is this like before a tornado?) but because I am actually hungry, which is good because since my

SURGERY

I have not been. Granted, I’ll go in there and make something and then go, “Ugh. Food.” Still. At least I THINK I’m hungry. Also? Not nearly as thin as I’d hoped.

Pandemically,
June

I keep meaning to write you–it’s not like I’m on the go. “Oh, sorry I didn’t write, I was at the Met! Followed by a quick jaunt to Turkey!”

But I started working again (from home, natch) and it’s really really King Kamehameha busy at work, so once I’m done I just sort of drain-ed-ly lie on the couch listlessly. And take my temperature. I like how I’m still taking my temperature. I’ve not left the house since God was a child. Where Ima get it? But still. And my, what a reliable thermometer. Sometimes it says 94.9, which means I’m Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.

Are all y’all who work working from home? How’s that going? Mostly my coworker Lily insists on being atop me, as she is a barnacle. She’s like Gazoo, from when the Flintstones jumped the shark. Although he sort of hovered, he didn’t clamber atop anyone, did he?

What made the writers of the Flintstones decide to add an alien to something prehistoric? The maryjane. That’s what made them do it. Although we don’t know. Maybe aliens came to visit during prehistoric times. Aren’t there, like, weird hieroglyphics that look alien-ish?

Who’s on the maryjane now?

Anyway, it’s kind of hard to type about what’s new since my whole world has been this 999-square-foot dwelling and a rapier-sharp accurate thermometer.

Faithful Reader Paula has been sending me hilarious cards from who knows where, and I have been most enjoying them. Given that I’ve not seen another human since God wore a onesie, it’s def not syphilis.

I guess technically I’ve SEEN people. I took a walk Sunday with my neighbor, R. I kept stopping because she’d get too close, but then when I stopped SHE’D stop and I kept saying, “You’re too close again” and she wouldn’t respond but she’d keep walking and then next thing you know she’s Gazoo again and OH MY GOD IT’S A LLAMA. You’re supposed to stay one llama away from people. Jesus.

Oddly, she hasn’t phoned me for a walk since. If there is a next time, I am literally bringing a llama.

So what’s everyone’s story? What are you all doing? I had to get off Facebook while this is all happening because in case you hadn’t known this about me I’m a trifle anxious about medical things and WHY ALL THE UNSUBSTANTIATED DOOM, people? Stick to the facts, not the “Here’s an article from some place I’ve never heard of saying each one of us is going to die forever” articles. Anyway, I had to get off there for the time being lest I crawl into a panicky ball.

I’d better go. I’m writing this during “lunch,” a thing I’ve only taken as of today. Before this I was working straight through, mindlessly eating as I plowed through work I was trying to get done while I simultaneously got endless “Are you done yet?” messages, which is excellent for your concentration. So today I decided to actually break and look what I did. More typing on the computer. What a break!

You know what I want? Mashed potatoes. I stocked up on all the spaghetti-Os in the world, and all the soy chicken nuggets, and all I want is mashed potatoes.

Isn’t that just the way it is?

Oh! And in exciting news, I got a new StitchFix box, so I will try the clothes on and we can vote on them, and everyone can say, You can get that same shirt for 17 cents at Marshall’s and I will ignore that and yay.

Talk to you tomorrow. Or whenever I post again.

Oh! I know I already said “Oh!” but what can I tell you about the splendor of me. If anyone you know has a small business and has gone online with it during this, our pandemic, list it below. My friend Kit’s store is online-only for now, and here are her vintage and locally made wares.

Okay, really going now.

Oh!

Just kidding. Splendor of me.

XO,
June “Was that a dry cough?” Gardens

I ask you this not because I wish to enjoy some phone fornication with you, but because here’s what I have on and we must discuss this travesty.

I’m sporting a floral pajama top that my Aunt Mary sent me for this, my convalescence, along with a DIFFERENT floral pajama bottom she sent to be worn during this, my—oh, you know the drill.

The point is, I’m dueling flowers, right now. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

I have had this outfit on all day. I haven’t showered. I’ve been in the yard with the pets. Soon I’ll be the house kids will dare each other to go up to.

Mostly I’ve showered each day since being homebound, and I always shave my legs. Which, why? The only people seeing me now are in fact not people, and have unshaven legs themselves.

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I guess if I do stop shaving my legs it means I’ve given up on the niceties in life, and we have approximately 7 niceties left at this juncture. So I cling to what I have: grooming.

I don’t know what you’ve been doing to pass the time but one thing I’m NOT doing is reading doomsday social media posts. If that’s how you handle things, go on witch yer bad self, gloom-shedder. I’m looking at the CDC once a day and going on with the day. Here in the house. But whatever.

Today I made biscuits. No, that was yesterday. Yesterday I made biscuits.

Today I made quiche. In my continuing trend of being oddly prepared for this sort of thing, my mother left a pie crust behind, as you do. So I used the eggs she also bought while she was here, along with the half and half she purchased to render her coffee as heart unhealthy as possible. Both items were nearing expiration, like her heart, so I wanted to use them.

I also had frozen broccoli on hand and also much cheese, so a quiche was born. Quiche. Soft as an easy chair.

ONNNNNNNE quiche that is shared by…no one.

Given that I have eaten in a restaurant not at all since early February, I have lost some pounds. Not, like, oh my good look how good I look pounds, but like five. Also, I have not raided the work vending machine, which was a daily habit that’s now gone. Also, too, the only drinks I have here are coffee and water. It’s like I’m at a conference each day.

Other than cook and work—which is nice to be doing again, actually—I’ve found a bunch of online classes from Harvard and Dartmouth and so on that you can take for free.

I signed up for Intro to Italian Opera, because my only knowledge of opera is Gayle King.

No.

My opera knowledge is the following: I’ve got the orange that rolls around and gets eyelashes

And also Bugs Bunny with the Barber of Seville.

And then finally both Cher and Julia Roberts being taken to the opera for the first time and finding it delightful and moving and WHY?

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That’s it. Mostly I’ve learned you must wear red lipstick to the opera.

So I started my first class tonight and have already learned a few things. One, Mozart lived in Austria but did Italian opera because that was the thing to do then. He followed some 1770s influencer on TakesALongTimeStagram and did what everyone else was doing. He saw cute Austrian lifestyles on Bayonet-terest.

Hey, you know, I started staying home in February and now you all are doing it. I’m totally an influenza-er. My staying at home thing went viral. I did it and it spread.

Okay, class. Back to Mozart. Don’t make me write names on the board.

The music Mozart wrote was for instruments we don’t use now and for voices that were trained differently. So probably his stuff sounded different then. Also also I learned that someone writes the libretto, and those are the words to the opera written by a liberal snowflake.

The words aren’t as important as the music. Turns out—according to my online professor with whom I plan to have a giant cyber affair and it will be scandalous and many operas will be written, mostly by Stedman—the music conveys the drama just as much or better than the words themselves. So you don’t need to know Italian to enjoy an Italian opera.

Next I’m going to learn close listening. …Did you just say something?

Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned thus far, and thank you for coming to my Sted Talk.

The other thing I’ve done is play with my Google Arts & Culture app. You know how I’m forever going on there and taking a selfie that they match with some art, and they always find some painting I allegedly resemble that’s some dude with June hair?

Turns out that app does all sorts of other cool things, too, like take you on virtual tours of museums and OH! Look at THIS!!

You can take paintings and project them onto anything you’re looking at through your camera! Here’s Edsel under Bild mit zoo rhinoplasty or whatever.

Oh, oh, oh, and here’s another thing the app will do! Take a picture of anything, and it will find art that matches the colors of your photo!

Okay, so I just aimed my camera randomly. And here’s the art it found that had these colors.

Let me do it again with this room. Hang on.

Oh my god, that’s so much fun. Okay, here’s what they found…

One more!

Squeee! Oh, that’s fun.

I’ll talk to you soon, when I will have more things to tell you about opera that you never wanted to hear. Now I must go do a lot of work, and check in with me later on whether I’m glad to be back.

Homebodily,
June il Vecchio

I was thinking having an operation would be a lot more fun than this.

I was convinced it would be done laparoscopically, despite the warnings that it might not. I thought I’d feel a little tired for a day or two and then I could enjoy my visit with my mother and then take an additional week off work and relax and get a pedicure and wooo, what fun.

Yeah.

I guess the one silver lining here is that in three weeks I have left the house four times. I picked a fine time to have to be tethered to the house, basically. And my mother has a different idea of being “almost out of” something than I do, so coincidentally she stocked me up with toilet paper. She also told me that I was “practically out of” toothpaste and I’m still using that tube that she told me I was practically out of. It’s been almost 3 weeks since she said that. But two new tubes await me.

Of course it’ll be just my luck that the four things I did—a house party, a trip to the garden store, a checkup at my OB/GYN and today’s visit to the vet—will somehow render me riddled with virus.

I probably got a virus with Iris.

Iris hasn’t been feeling up to snuff. It would appear she now has a chronic case of pancreatitis, and she also keeps getting a terrible upper respiratory thing, so now every six weeks she has been getting intranasal drops. You know how lately at the vet they take the pets away and do stuff to them and bring them back? This vet doesn’t do that. It turns out I’m not really good at watching them torture Iris with nose drops and shots. I sort of felt a little fainty. I was thinking of people with real human children who get sick. I don’t know how you guys stand to watch them undergo anything that upsets them.

We are trying a new prescription food on Iris, as she won’t eat the stuff I got her, so $200 later we’re home from the vet and she is lying on the chair exhausted and I myself don’t feel that great. I’m less shaky and cold than I have been when I actually venture out, but the whole pants rubbing against my incision thing is just a pain in the ass. Or more accurately a pain in the front.

I’m really trying to stay off my phone for myriad reasons. One, I’m already an anxious person. I’m pretty much isolating here as much as I can and I don’t want to read about this damn pandemic. It just makes me scared.

Two, I seem to have a problem with my phone and the fact that I’m home. Every time I look at my phone I’ve got 624 Facebook messages and some Instagram messages and a whole bunch of texts and a bunch of emails. I know people think I’m just sitting here dying to talk but I don’t really feel that talkative. I’ve been reading and, oh! Have you watched High Fidelity on Hulu? I just love it. I love all the music. And who doesn’t want to look at Zoe Kravitz? I have seen instances of two pretties making an ugly, but the two pretties Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz made a pretty, man.

Anyway, I figure it’s just a matter of time before I lose my mind being this isolated. So far I don’t really mind it other than it annoys me that I can’t do much without getting pain and nausea. My goal today, other than putting on pants and leaving the house as I already did, is to try to replace my doorknob. I bought a new doorknob for my front door before this, my convalescence, but I haven’t felt up to working on it. I think today maybe I can.

Is anyone making any changes out there yet? Are you working from home? Are you canceling plans? I wish everyone would just stay home for a few weeks and then maybe things will calm the hell down.

I just noticed Mr. Sympathy joined Iris. Oh my god, that is so sweet. He didn’t even TRY to kick her off that chair.

I guess I will go work on the doorknob. I know this is pretty exciting for us all. But really, I have this flimsy-ass gold doorknob on the front door and it’s been bugging me for a while. This is a great time to tackle all those “bugging me for a while” things. As long as they don’t cost. Or rub against my incision. Goddamnit.

Giving you a lot of hugs and intruding your personal space,

Typhoid June

I ordered more groceries to be delivered to me, because I still can’t lift more than 10 pounds. For the first time in my life, other than a few random “I’m having a party” or “I’m hosting Thanksgiving” situations, I had to move things around the cupboards to make room for all the food.

This was disconcerting to Milhous, who likes to leap into the corner cupboard that has a Lazy Susan in it. He jumps in there fast enough to make it spin and he rides around in it. However, now it is crammed full of canned goods. The can-cans mean he can’t-can’t.

I have so much damn food in this house I considered taking the books out of some of my kitchen cupboards.

So I guess we’re all planning to hunker down now. It won’t just be me. I look forward to what everyone else’s brain does, because I have thought of the stupidest things ever.

I did come up with an invention and tell me what you think. I thought of starting a website that would be kind of like one of those websites you go to to take a personality test? Only it’s about what kind of dog you should get. I don’t want to encourage people buying purebreds, so what I would do instead is work with some sort of dog expert to come up with a really involved personality test and the results would be “you’re a German Shepherd, boxer, pug.” It would be based on your temperament and your activity level and that sort of thing.

Then there would be other parts of the website where you could talk with other people who were the same type you were. You could show your dog and talk about how that dog did or did not work with your personality.

Am I having some sort of secluded-person mania or is that actually a cute idea?

Speaking of dogs, though, I had an upsetting experience last night. It was probably more upsetting for Edsel than me. As you know, he has the congestive heart failure. We are scheduled to go back in April for a checkup. Meanwhile, he’s been responding beautifully to his heart medication. When he first got diagnosed, I was too afraid to give him any exercise at all. I was just constantly on the lookout for him to fall over and die. Eventually, I got used to the idea and we started slowly doing exercise again. He loves to chase Blu, and you should’ve seen how tentatively I threw it for him. I would literally sort of roll it across the ground once and then go back inside.

Eventually, it got to the point where he would chase Blu for five minutes. He just is so happy when he does it and he loves it and he was acting just fine.

Then last night he came inside and collapsed. He got a really glassy look in his eyes, wouldn’t stop panting, and wouldn’t stop pacing. Then his legs just gave out from under him.

What surprised me was how calm I remained. I didn’t want him to panic, so I stayed really quiet and just held his head and whispered to him. After a few minutes he got up and was wobbly but OK.

Naturally, I made a vet appointment for him. We go Monday. I don’t think I’m going to throw Blu for him at all in the meantime.

Anyway, that sums me up. I took all those groceries into the kitchen and put them away, and then put away a load of laundry and started a new batch, but then I started to feel distinctly unwell and so now I’m just lying here talking to you.

Here’s an art shot of my pear tree. I’m deep, man. I’m an artist.

Talk to you soon, when I can carve out time in my busy go go go schedule.