Ir currently abhor my appearance. Continue reading “June D. Wattle”
Category: At Two With Nature
Boom
“Do you want to come downtown?” Marty Martin asked. He and Kayeeeeee were headed down for the 4th of July events all afternoon, along with 495593020404203 other people in town. Events that included “Find a Place to Park” and “Hey, it’s 90! Can YOU Live?” Continue reading “Boom”
She ran callin’ fireflies
Because the first thing they teach you in kitten school is How to be a Pain in the Ass, my cats all want to go out in the morning, but they all want to go out at different times. Each one saunters to the door, and even if the back door is open and it’s just the screen door, the girl cats mew piteously till I open it. Continue reading “She ran callin’ fireflies”
Pierce and Honeycutt
Dear Faithful Reader Paula:
You know that feeling you get when you wake up during the workweek, all on your own without the aid of your alarm, and you feel rested and you know OH FUCK, something is very wrong?
I foresee terrible trouble. And I stay here just the same.
Now that Edsel's dog brain has snapped and I have to literally go outside with him (as opposed to figuratively going outside with him, the way I used to. "I'm outside with you in spirit, Eds!"), I realize it's really one of my favorite parts of my day.
It's so pretty back there, with the sun coming in, and so warm at lunchtime. Edsel watches me while he pees now, to make sure I don't slip inside and deceive him. It's like when my father would make me dunk my head under water. "WATCH ME," I'd command. "WATCH ME AND SHOW ME THE DOLLAR."
He always, always had to bribe me to put my head underwater. And you may scoff at the dollar, but that was 3x my weekly salary, so.
Four times? If I made a quarter a week, and it was a dollar, it'd be four times, right?
All this bribery and head-dunking did a lot for my stellar career in finance and math professoring.
"What do you do?"
"Oh, I'm in finance and math professoring." I suppose somewhere out there is someone with that career going on, right? We'd have a lot to say to one another.
SPEAKING of finance, I got another freelance check in the mail yesterday and every penny of it went toward my
GODDAMN
credit card bill, so hey, financeteen. Yeah, we can't dance together. Yeah, we can't talk at all.
I heard another Steely Dan song in the car the other day, not just in my head or coming quietly from the basement to frighten me, and that song was FM, and it dawns on me that for someone who named her cat after a band, she's really not all that up on Steely Dan songs.
steelee resent. from bowel of hell, he resent.
Oh, hey, I should've warned you, but Steely Dan has been up to shenanigans. I know. Brace.
I came home last night to goings-on, for a change, and this time they're digging holes all over my neighborhood and doing things with big trucks, and that was probably the name of the project when they budgeted it. "We got the go-ahead to start in with Doing Things With Big Trucks, so let's commence digging the holes."
This goddamn…HOSE was in my driveway, and I drove right over it rebelliously. You put your hose in m'driveway, my car is running it over. Also, "put your hose in m'driveway" sounds vaguely dirty, and is sadly the most action I've had in a spell.
Dirty Work! That's a Steely Dan song? I LOVE that song! (Guess who got distracted and Googled?) (Which will also serve as my epitaph. June. She got distracted and Googled.)
The point is, I was marveling at the holes in the hood and the hose in m'drive, when I saw old SD leap straight into the underworld, from whence he came. This is probably how he gets outside, too: He just leaps back into hell and moseys about then leaps back out from hell once he's outside. It'd be just my luck that my house was built straight over hell, although really, is hell supposed to be underneath all of us or just, you know, straight outta Compton or Madrid or what? They've never given us the parameters. There's not a Google Under Earth to look it up, either.
There's a suburb near here, not that this place needs a suburb at all, and it's ironically called High Point. It's the most depressing place on earth for me. All that new construction, new strip malls, that kind of place. It is so not a high point. It is character-free point. If that's where hell is, it would not surprise me.
Oh my god, anyway. So the cat jumped in the hole, I called him to come out, I snapped his photo, made everyone come home for dinner after their long workday of manual labor, and that sums up that story.
You hunt 16 doves, whattaya get, another day older and deeper in det.
…wat be det?
I guess that's all my news, except the whole office is abuzz with how everyone's moving. Everyone. Is moving. So my place is being usurped by a new person, and I'm usurping a person, and it's very Faberge Organics with the "and so on." I have no idea what this is going to do for all of us, but we had another terrifying creature sighting yesterday in our "garden level," so I'm just excited to go up where fewer vermin are.
They told us yesterday to bring our chairs to the new spot–it's a BYOC situation. "How're we gonna get them upstairs?" I wondered aloud to my boss's boss, fmr. "I guess we could take the freight elevator. Did you ever see that old movie, or maybe it was just a TV show, where the woman–maybe a couple–murder a man, and the frieght elevator goes right past her living room, so they cover him with a sheet, I think, to get rid of him, but then his ghost keeps riding the freight elevator and sometimes you can see the sheet and hear the guy whistling?"
My boss's boss, fmr., waited for me to finish.
"This has something to do with our move, right?"
What is WRONG with him? Has me met my head? God.
I'd better go, so I can begin my linear, math-y day.
I am not kidding you, as I was preparing to get up from here, I just got this message from OK Cupid:
Maybe he needs help with his calculus.
Numerically,
June
Be cool, Edsel
You know how I hate for anyone to make a fuss, but my throat hurts. All I ask is that you stampede to your local Catholic church and light a candle. Or put one of those vague posts on social media about how you "need prayers" for some undisclosed or unknown-to-us person.
Dear God: For some reason, this person on Facebook needs prayers. Catch ya.
God's all, That was helpful. Like I don't have enough to do.
Anyway, none of this matters because what does is my throat hurts. My hairapist texted me Thursday that she needed prayers. No. She didn't. She texted me that she had a cold, and if I wanted to cancel that would be okay, but given how tough and no nonsense I am, I went anyway.
And now look at me. LOOK AT ME. There goes my tombstone. No name or anything. Just Look At Me. Or, Needs Prayers. At that point I guess it'd be too late.
So. My weekend.
I was determined to Stay Busy, as people tell you to do, but then I became obsessed with this other series on OJ, this many-parted documentary that Hulk told me about, and I always listen to Hulk. Oh my god it's riveting. And I was, like, into the third hour of it, the whole time going, Who is that WOMAN they keep talking to? What did she have to do with anything?
It was Marcia Clark. Hello, plastic surgery. She looks great. I mean, compared to the poodle/boxer mix look she had in the '90s. She def got the eye bags taken care of and for this I applaud her. Really, the longer I watch this documentary and the other one I saw, the more I'm like. Oh. I so get it, black people. I'd be pissed, too. I'd root for him too.
He still did it, of course. But I get what they're saying.
On Friday night, I decided I could not have one more fish stick, so I went to the store and got salmon, and little red potatoes, and salad things, and made an elaborate dinner for myself. I mean, elaborate for me, in that it did not involve slapping something frozen on a plate and microwaving it.
I asked the–what's he called? Chef? Barber? BUTCHER, god, the butcher to cut the skin off the back of the salmon, a thing my mother said I should do, but every time I ask for that, they act the way Steely Dan does around a coffee cup. In other words, appalled. They probably scratch around where I was standing, when I leave.
Speaking of SD, this morning I was putting one of my cowgirl band-aids on a blister, and one band-aid fell in the toilet.
This fascinated Steely ridiculous Dan. He spent the next 10 minutes trying to fish it out of there, sticking his head way in and sneezing when he hit water. When I finally had to leave the bathroom, I shut the lid lest he drown himself like Narcissus.
The reason I have a blister is that both days of this weekend I took Edsel on enormously long walks, longer than my dick, even. Here he is with his usual lack of cool, trying to befriend one of the neighborhood cats. Every day we encounter then, and every day he whines and wags his tail and wants to shake paws with them and drop off an Avon catalog, and every day all the cats say fuck off. Actually, there's one exceedingly mellow cat at Ava's house who is willing to walk right up to Eds, but then he gets too excited and the cat huffs off.
Edsel. Be cool.
On Saturday night I had a date, which you'll be surprised to hear I was "eh" about. HOW MANY DATES before I'm not "eh"? HOW MANY? What if I go the rest of my life not liking anyone but Ned, who will be married to a 26-year-old with zero hips? That's whom he's banging in my mind. She never has any hips at all. And he doesn't even like really skinny women.
We went to an Arthur Miller play, because cheerful, and then out for a drink, which turned into Let's order appetizers, which turned into me eating bacon cheese tater tots at 11 p.m., and why so chubby?
It also turned into me taking the leftovers home, and why so chubby again?
Sunday was a really pretty day, so Edsel and I got in the car to go to Country Park, which is where I used to take Tallulah every single evening back when I was a new dog owner and totally into it. I'd take her to day care all day, then for a long walk in the park followed by the dog park part where she'd run around for like an hour or two, and now it's all Edsel's lucky if I even feed him.
The point is, as soon as we got there I got sweaty. The place was teeming–teeming!!–with dogs, which, what did I expect with the beautiful day and all? We walked the loop all the way around the park, which was probably a 45-minute walk, and every few seconds there'd be another goddamn dog.
And?
He was fine. Oh, sure, there was one idiot I passed twice who had her Beagle on a retractable leash that was 400 feet out and that thing got right in our lane. Edsel knitted a very, very tall-eared pussy hat and took to the street shouting over that one, but other than that? He'd maybe whine a little if another dog made eye contact, but he never once barked and snarled and carried on as he usually does. I couldn't believe it. And he walked right next to me, even a little behind me, like a well-trained dog.
It wasn't till we were driving home that it hit me. Prozac. I think his Prozac kicked in!
The other thing to happen at that park was that I was down by the little lake when I heard my name. This woman way up on another trail was all, "JUNE! JUNE!" Waving frantically with both arms and all. "Hi, June!"
"Well, hi!" I said, waving frantically back.
I have no idea who it was. The woman used my real name, and I feel like a reader would say June even knowing my name is not June.
Unsolved Mysteries. Remember that show?
And the first person to say Hey, June, why didn't you also take your phone with you when you had Edsel on a leash and a bottle of water and no pockets? Why? Why didn't you take pictures? Why, June? Why? No pictures, June?
The first person to say that gets snarled at.
I did take my phone and go all the way next door, to Peg's because her tulip tree is blooming. Which doesn't always happen. And then half the time when it does bloom, there's a freeze and they all die. Tulip tree. A brilliant idea for this region, on someone's part.
Also, why?
I leave you now so I can go watch more of the OJ documentary, and I'm going to be sad when it's over and I can't think about Broncos and DNA and Ron Goldman's stoicism. Good lord. Go back to your barber shop quartet, dude. Sing about Daisy, Daisy giving you her answer, do.
I'll talk to you tomorrow if I'm still alive, what with dealing with this sore throat and all. Dear Mom: I already did. Warm salt water. Did it.
Throatily,
Juan
How many of them hormones you been takin’, honey?
Yesterday evening, after a very busy day that I'm sorry to inform you Ima tell you about, I headed to the grocery store to get cat food, because the cupboard was literally bare in the cat food department. I really have to look into that deliver-pet-food-regularly thing you guys keep telling me is out there on the world wide web. What is it, again? Is it on the Amazon? Because it feels like I'm at the store getting food or litter eleven times a week.
Anyway, while I was there, I got some of this really good chicken salad they sell from this deli in Wilmington, and it's the best goddamn chicken salad you have ever had in your life. I usually don't splurge on it, but goddammit, it sounded delicious.
I got home and dumped the cat food in the bin, put the chicken salad in the refridge, and commenced to doing some freelance work. All I could think of was that chicken salad. "Oh, go have a little," Rotten June said to me, who clearly has a much larger influence over me than Practical June.
"It's too late to be eating anything like chicken salad," Practical June said, her voice hoarse from lack of use.
So I didn't have any, and in the middle of the night I woke with a migraine, which makes sense given my very busy day that I am sorry to inform you Ima tell you about. I stumbled out of bed, got water from the refridge, took a pill and stumbled back to bed.
I woke up with no migraine, but when I got to the kitchen?
I hadn't shut the refridge door all the way. How hard are you gonna slap me for continuing to say "refridge"?
Everything was warm. I can't eat the chicken salad.
GOD
DAMMIT.
Practical June can go fuck herself.
Do you remember during my year abroad when I killed myself to make pumpkin chili and then we forgot to put it in the
refridge
and I had to throw it all away? I hate shit like that.
Anyway, m'weekend. [Everyone pulls chair closer with rapt attention. Or not.]
Faithful Reader Stacey sent me this photo she found of someone who is clearly related to me. First of all, we look alike, if I weren't currently 87, and second of all she has June Hair and eighth, she totally overdid it with the flowers and sparkly choker and so on, and that right there seals the deal. Distant relative.
"Oh, I know! I'll pair my ruffly Prince shirt with my very involved jacket with an entire bouquet of flowers thrown jauntily over my shoulder and pop some in m'hair as well and don't forget the sparkly choker!"
She would so like Hello Kitty.
Anyway. That happened, and I also got into the show Z on Amazon, which isn't that good but I am riveted by Zelda Fitzgerald so I just want to see what happens next. I've read books on her, so I sort of, you know, know, but I want to watch it on film.
Christina Ricci is totally miscast as Zelda, and then noticed Christina Ricci is the producer and right then I knew. Once I was getting a pedicure in my neighborhood and she and I were the only people in the place. I had to act like I hadn't noticed Christina Ricci and I were the only people in there who weren't employees, read my Glamor all casual like and so on.
The very next day, I was at the grocery store in my neighborhood probably buying fucking cat food, and there she was, in produce.
"Hi," we said to each other, half-heartedly. We both knew. She was probably texting her friends. "June Gardens is totally here at Paint Nail!"
I can't remember what my local pedicure place was called. Any friends who still read me in LA, help a sister out. It was on Rowena and Hyperion, right next to that store that had clothes and jewelry and incense and so on, which I also can't remember the name of.
NAIL STATION! I just Googled it. It looks like the store next door is gone and that Nail Station has taken over. You go, Nail Station may I hep you. That's always how they answered the phone. "Nail station may I hep you."
Their English is better than my Vietnamese, so maybe I could shut up now.
Oh my god I'm not even on Sunday yet.
So Sunday dawned and it was beautiful out. Sunny, breezy, in the 70s. It was like the perfect day, and my daffodils are just about to bloom. I had plans to see my friend Jo, but she took ill. "I hate feeling awful on a beautiful day," she said. I pointed out to her that there will be other pretty days, unless she dies from her illness, in which case she is shit out of luck.
You know what sounds good? Is some chicken salad.
Anyway, I lounged outside with my cats while I drank my 25% caffeinated coffee (that's going better than I thought it would, by the way).
Then I did my horrific high-intensity interval training that my horrific co-worker Austin horrifically told me I should do to lose weight, and if it weren't working I'd stop doing it but it is so I soldier on. After that I did Tracy Anderson arms, and then I showered and decided I should really get out of the house on such a nice day, so Edsel and I headed to a trail.
There are about a million parks and trails in this town, resulting in every middle-aged yahoo on dating sites wanting to find a woman who loves the outdoors and hiking and sweating and doing color runs and so on, and what I need to do is move to Ohio and find some nice man who enjoys sitting around and dive bars.
Everyone AND THEIR DOG was out on that trail, and you know how relaxing Edsel is when he sees another dog, so that was fun. We were about 40 minutes in when it occurred to me this trail was not a loop.
Son of a…
So we turned around, bright eyes, and my point is, after my horrific interval training and Tracy Anderson-ing and my 900-minute walk, I was what you might call hungry. Edsel was looking like a delicious duck dinner back there.
I dropped his punk ass off, and I'm totally picturing him letting himself in with his key and waving goodbye while I back out of the driveway. I went to the new park and got a chicken pita with hummus and a lemonade at the little Middle-Eastern stand that they will probably ban any minute. PITA BREAD IS A THREAT TO OUR NATION.
I offer you the world's least-flattering photo of myself wherein it looks like I'm elegantly mustached. It also looks here like absolutely no one else was at the park, like the whole thing was deserted and I'm Eleanor Rigby, but in fact it was crawling with people.
What I discovered, and this is important, is that that park is EXCELLENT for dog-watching. There's a little dog park there, and yesterday I saw two yellow dachshunds–and who knew they came in that color?–a brindled Whippet, a huge hound of some sort with long long earses, and?
And??
A baby German shepherd.
OH MY GOD, that baby German shepherd! HE WAS SO TOOOT! I LOVED HIM SO BAD!!! With his big floppy earses.
Hang on, I gotta take a moment to glare at Edsel.
Then I went to see La La Land, which I wasn't even that interested in but I like to see all the nominated movies before the Oscars, otherwise I get bored at the Oscars. I act like I'm going there with Cary Grant or something.
Man, was I all in after that. I was too tired to even watch another episode of Z after I did my freelance and debated chicken salad with myself. Some guy at work told me when he's getting over someone he keeps himself so busy that by the time he gets home all he can do is crawl into bed. So.
Hey, I wish I'd talk more. Ima go. Someone tell me about that get-food-delivered site. kthanxbye.
Currently,
June
P.S. (Mother of GOD, June.) I forgot to show you photos of Lily grooming Iris.
Wut?
Click here. You won’t believe what happens next.
The other day, I was doing some crucial cosmetics shopping with my equally deep friend Alex from work. (I ended up getting a color-correcting stick that makes me look like Kabuki theater, and a brown lipstick I thought would be delightfully nude but instead looks like I'm pooping straight out my mouth.)
I had to put on reading glasses to see any of the product info, and really, when it gets to that point, shouldn't you just give up on trying to look pretty? At this point I'm just the last part of Lola the Showgirl, with faded feathers in her hair. Now it's a disco. But not for Lola.
I watched 27-year-old Alex, or however the hell old she is, I just say in my mind that they're all 27 cause what's the difference. It's all the same from 20 to 34, for me anymore. Anyway, I watched her pick up mascara tubes and read the back like it was nothing. "How the hell can you do that?" I asked, reaching in my purse.
Out of the 39494958333204 reading glasses I own, the only ones in my purse were my tinted Miss Blankenship-from-Mad-Men ones they gave me at work.
Actual, unretouched photo of Miss Blankenship glasses. Miss Gardenship.
Youthful Alex was debating volumizing shampoos, a thing I could not help her with at all, but when she finally looked up at me, she interrupted herself in midsentence to say, "Wait. Why are you Bono now?"
I do not know why, but in these last few suicidal gaping maw days, that sentence creeps into my head and I giggle like an idiot.
I like how you can see a reflection of me in my Blankenspecs. It is a metaphor for my life.
In other news, Edsel is goofy.
Good job on making him sit first. I suppose most of you saw Eds's french fry face on Facebook, and hey, June, alliterate. But I wanted to be sure to share it with the masses. The tens of you who read me and aren't on Facebook. Basically any time I show you something on Facebook and then here the next day it's mostly because I know my mother hasn't seen it.
Of course, now my mother's going to say something like, "You can make french fries at home, yourself. Save money."
Yes. Let me just go purchase potatoes, purchase whatever the hell you need to make them that shape–would that be a knife?–purchase oil, salt and pepper and then boil them in said oil or whatever the hell you do. Sounds convenient.
Following is a list of things my mother has told me I could just make at home to save money:
- Those protein packs from Oscar Meyer, with the cheese, turkey cubes and nuts in it. Yes, after I've rustled up that turkey, I so could!
- Yogurt
- Rotisserie chicken
- Sandals
- Coal
- Brylcream
- Hamburgers
- Corkscrews
- Douche
- An ottoman
Okay, I got off track, but "ottoman" did remind me of some magnificent news. I know I've told you before I joined NextDoor (Big Book of June Events page 1337), a site where you and all your neighbors can speak electronically rather than in real life because face to face is horrifying. Anyway, you get to go on there to discuss when you all hear a siren or a scream because someone chopped off their own hand making homemade coal.
You also get to read about people "rehoming" their dogs, and I realize I rehomed one–47–of them just this year, but it was because they'd be so dead otherwise. ("You know, honey, you can make a dead dog at home. Saves money.") Anyway, despite all that, I get to sit in lofty judgment of all the "rehomers."
THE POINT IS, I saw a notice on Sunday that someone was getting rid of their ottoman because they're moving, and I got right in my car in my pajama top and got it.
Look! Look, look! Oh, see June's ottoman.
Ottoperson.
I loaded that big-ass motherfucker into my car all by myself. It was some feat. Also, the top opens so you can store stuff, but I haven't decided what needs storing. Maybe I'll just put the cats there till I need them.
Why the hell is that dog on the couch? June's Iron Fist Dog Discipline School. Branches are opening near you! Sign up now!
Anyway. Ima go. I'm wearing a skirt today. Though it might cheer me up to be able to bend over and look straight at m'cooch. You gotta get joy where you can find it these days.
Oh, before I go, I will show you this.
Every day at 3:00 at work, we take a walk in the park nearby. I took this photo yesterday and I love it. That's Austin's kid in front, there. She worked with us for awhile yesterday because Martin Luther King said she had to. I like that kid. I guess Austin can't show her she's in a world-famous blog (Serving 15 readers!) because I have just said "cooch" and "motherfucker" in the last minute and a half.
Catch you later, from down here in the Silence of the Lambs pit,
June
June’s weekend. With special guest stars: pet photos
My robe sleeves are wet (dishwasher and changing pet bowls) and now I have that pleasurable feeling of receiving teensy kisses from Satan every time I move m'arm.
I feel like I haven't talked to you in forever, so let's begin.
Friday
We knew we were getting a winter storm, which for here is like learning Godzilla is coming or something. Everyone rushes around and speaks Japanese but we dub them in English. I came back from lunch and my desk phone was lit. Not that it was drunk, all worried about the storm, but there was that increasingly elusive "you have a voice mail" light, which in five-plus years there has probably been lit four times, usually to tell me I have flowers.
Pfft. I'LL NEVER GET FLOWERS AGAIN.
"June, this is David at the fire department," the message began, and my heart leapt out of my chest on danced on the desk like that animated paper clip you used to get on Microsoft Word.
My heart/paper clip was dancing to the tune of "My pets are toast, my pets are toast, my pets are toast."
I mean, when something like that happens, you lose all logic. How, in six minutes of driving back to work, did my house burn, my pets char, the fire dept. get my work number and leave a message?
Turns out it was the fireman from where I had given them Violet.
If you just got here–and hey, welcome to blogs, person who never left 2006. Anyway, four years ago, someone left a puppy in my car and I ended up giving her to a local-ish volunteer fire department. The guy who became her dad, took her home with him and stuff, was who was calling.
Violet got suddenly and frighteningly ill. He'd taken her to the vet, and it didn't look good. The vet could do a test to see if Violet could even be saved (at the time they thought it was a twisted spleen), but the test was going to be hundreds of dollars.
It was terrible to hear that fireman cry. When he decided to get the test for her, I got online and asked for donations, and you all listened, and I thank you all so much. That was amazing.
Tests, emergency surgery, a transport to another facility all were for naught. They eventually told the fireman there was nothing he could do, and Violet was put to sleep that same night. She'd had an autoimmune deficiency, and I don't know more than that because I didn't want to pepper these obviously grieving people with a hundred questions. The point is, we've covered their vet bill and we helped to try to save her, even if it didn't work. There will be a memorial service for her at the station, and of course I will go.
So that was a terrible day.
We got out of work early that day, as soon as the first flake was in the sky, and no I did not go skydiving, Shekky Greene. I headed to the store, a thing no one else had thought of, holy cats. "It's not worth it," a man said to me, after I found a parking spot IN TIBET and walked in.
He was right. The line went all the way back to the produce section. I turned around and walked right out that store. On the way back to Tibet, I saw Ian, the coworker I spent Christmas with. "It's not worth it," I told him, the secret code for Grocery Storm Watch '17.
"We're gonna be snowed in. I don't have wine. FUCK THAT," Ian said, marching into the store with grim determination like he was about to storm Normandy. He's probably still there, in line.
The snow was just starting to cover the ground as I got home.
Saturday
When I woke up, I was more excited than I was at Christmas. I WHIPPED open a blind, then squealed.
Sa-NOWWWWW!!
And here's the part that made me sort of sad. How many years now have I been showing you the dogs frolicking in the snow? Here's poor Edsel, doing the lone frolicking.
He tried to get me to play with him, but I was pretty useless in the frolic department. I realize it's his fault, but I still feel bad for him, not having a playmate. Also, THAT SHED OH MY GOD. When you pull the doors now? They just fall in. Sheds are 8 million dollars, have you priced them? Really, I don't even need a damn shed. I could just have that thing taken away like Bernadette Peters' snails.
I guess if I didn't have a shed, where would I put the rake and the lawn mower and all that stuff? The living room?
Anyway, we went on a really long walk, Edsel and me, not Bernadette Peters and me, which I might have lead with. We watched kids sledding, and Edsel got his snout all snowy. Then we retired to my abode, which was fun till it wasn't and I got all FUCK THIS SNOW like Pa Ingalls in The Long Winter.
While it was still delightful.
The miracle of birth
wat da fuk dis eben bee?
I cleaned the house and talked to my old pal Alicia from LA, got the neighborhood gossip. If you remember Alicia, you'll be stunned to hear she got into a fight with one of the neighbors, who insisted he went to Harvard Law School and knew he was in the right.
"You may have pass by dere," she said in her accent, "but you never walk in. You see the outside of Harbard, you go home."
Oh my god I love talking to Alicia.
Sunday
"Want me to come over? We can do tarot cards and yoga," texted one of the Alexes, because the concept of "I'm holding a phone" is lost on millennials. "Aren't you scared to drive?" I texted–I text–back.
"Fuck that. I'm from Jersey," she said, showing up with dog food, as Eds was dangerously low.
So I read Alex's tarot cards for the upcoming year, and then we did something called yin yoga, where you hold the poses for three minutes, and mostly today my ankles hurt. I have no idea why.
Edsel was obsessed with our being on the floor. Every time I looked at him, he was doing dog yoga. The first hilarious person to make a downward-facing dog joke gets nama with my stayed.
Edsel achieved zen or whatever.
After Alex left, I decided I could do stuff I never get around to doing, like for instance I have this picture frame I've never filled. So I looked though photos to find just the right pictures that were also vertical.
This one did not make the cut, but I love it. It's my cousin Katie the lesbian and me at our OTHER cousin Katy's wedding in the '90s. The shoes are COMIN' off. Let's dance. They only name my cousins some form of the name Katie. I have 14 cousins. K8T, the last one, is pretty annoyed by this trend. As is my cousin Qué-Tea.
Eventually I settled on dad at the Smithsonian and mom, gramma and me at prom. I did not take my mom and grandma to prom, although if I had, they probably would not have said, "That's another dollar" when I ordered a refill on my Coke at dinner. My date was such a gentleman.
So that sums up the weekend, and today they're having us come in late, not that it will make any difference, because it's really cold so the roads will just stay icy. Yay.
It's still pretty out, though.
And my pets are not charred. So yay. Bright side.
Icily,
Juan
Eddie Rabbit
When it comes to my coffee cups ("We're riveted, June!"), I tend to grab the one closest to the front. But today I really wanted my Green Bean coffee mug–it's really my favorite, and as of today I haven't had sex in a month, so let me have the goddamn coffee mug I want.
Old picture/mug of now. It's solid. It feels nice in my hand. I like the train on it and the old-fashioned fonts. What more can a girl ask?
The point is, it wasn't in the front. I reached for it specifically, almost knocking over another mug, which I realized was a Christmas mug that had been Anne Frank-ing it way back in my cupboard.
"Oh, you belong upstairs," I told it, and right then I knew. I'm now calling my attic "upstairs." Hey, delusional. How's your second floor?
We won't even discuss the part where I'm chatting with coffee mugs.
In other news, there's a bunny head on my deck. All heads on deck!
When I came home to my two-story abode for lunch, I looked in the back yard to see what condition my rabbit-tion was in. (In case you're just tuning in, yesterday morning Edsel murdered a rabbit. Yes, I said Edsel.) I saw tufts of poor fur everywhere, but I didn't see poor Miss January, which is what I named the beleaguered bunny whose life ended so undignifiedly.
The Feast of St. Iris
So, I let Edsel out, and he was out there all of lunch, which is unusual as he tends to enjoy mooning at me all of lunch, till finally I had to get back to work, so I called him in.
Goddammit.
"DROP IT!" I commanded, because right here is someone you respect. Edsel will drop it if he has, you know, a sock, or a cat, but a wonderful dead bunny part?
"DROP IT!" I bellowed again, through the door.
Edzful pho not dropping diff, he said with his stupid mouth full.
"DROP.IT." I got my scary voice. He sighed and dropped it. Then last night he wanted out again, and I had to screech at him to drop it all over again, into the dark of night, my fishwife screams inevitably reaching the gaybors, who you know mark on their oft-darkened calendars whenever I do something insane.
He's back out there today, and I see he's chawing again, so I hope he won't quit while he's a head. I hope he finishes the deal. You know, whenever Mr. Horkheimer caught anything, he very efficiently ate the entire thing. I watched him do it once when he horrifyingly brought in a mouse in a teensy hearse, a whole lineup of mouse cars following him with their headlights on.
lilleee no trubble. get glasis off lillee. bitz.
I would just like to mention at this moment, my 5th anniversary with Lily, that Lily has gotten involved in this rabbit test nonce. She does not care, she does not wish to go out there like a jackal the way Iris did, the buzzards don't obsess her as they did Steely Dan. She's the only one holding back the years, over here.
Oh my god, I had completely forgotten that song till I just said that.
I hear this song, and I'm dating Marvin and working as a hostess at a restaurant. As opposed to a hostess at a cupcake.
That Simply Red guy has June hair.
I gotta go. I've wasted all my tears. Wasted all of those years.
Simply June
