This is my inaugural post on my new computer. Please note I received said new computer back in December, way back then, but it’s been Sisyphean hell trying to migrate all my old info into the current day. I worked harder on getting to the present day than that guy in Back to the Future.

I worked on getting to the present day harder than Dorothy Gale. Which works better?

How about neither, June.

So I’m on this new keyboard, and you know how when you zipped right out and bought the millennial version of Monopoly and that vellum money didn’t quite feel right? What do you mean I’m the only yahoo who went out and got millennium Monopoly?

You should see the current-looking cell phone they have, as one of the millennium-edition game pieces. I think the good folks at Monopoly should’ve thought harder about evergreen pieces.

An iron never goes out of style. Granted, that style of iron was last used by Mary Todd Lincoln, who because she was crazy thought it was a cell phone from the year 2000.

Poor Mary Todd Lincoln. She probably wasn’t crazy at all. Probably Abraham Lincoln was a love avoidant. THAT WILL MAKE ANY WOMAN SQUIRRELLY.

Abe was probably having outside intrigue with John Wilkes Booth, as part of his love avoidance issue; hence the drama in the theater. I wonder if the people at the theater got their money back?

I didn’t take any Ritalin today.

Come on, June. You can’t be serious. With this laser-sharp post?

No one names their kid Abraham anymore.

Before I spin into infinity, behold Roundest Raspberry, today’s Clinique Chubby Stick color. Yesterday I photographed Super Strawberry and slid it in, so to speak, at the bottom of yesterday’s post a few hours after I wrote you. So if you read first thing you missed that scintillating shot. You can still see it. A blog post is forever. By Judy Blume.

I’m sorry to tell you we have only two more lip colors to peruse: Voluptuous Violet, and what I really like is when people pronounce it “volumptuous.” THERE IS NO M IN THAT WORD.

And finally, Grand Mal Grape. No. Grandest Grape. I dearly wish I could see. Remember back when you could see? What the hell with that. You could see far away and up close, like it was normal. Now it’s Flight of the Bumble, over here, as I reach for the right glasses.

Anyway, as I was saying 472 paragraphs ago, it’s been Sisyphean trying to get this computer to take on the six years of endless stuff I did to the old machine. I have a total Baby New Year/Old Year situation going, and even when I was a kid, I never understood how a year, who was a year old, got so old in, you know, a year.

Did I ever tell you my favorite horrible thing I did? It was new year’s day, 2005, and Marvin and I were headed somewhere. On the corner was this poor old man, looking shoddy. And I said, “Oh, look! It’s 2004!”

This is why I’m single.

I also get bugged when they have movies set in some old time, like the Middle Ages, and everything looks old. Like, thatched roofs look old. THEY’D LOOK NEW. The Middle Ages weren’t the Middle Ages for the people living in them. They were RIGHT NOW. And their shit looked new. Their copy of The Power of Now was brand-new.

Say, June, what say you, oh, pop a Ritalin and come back in a few.

OH MY GOD MY POINT, is that last night, I got home from work and had half an hour of freedom before I had yet another call with AppleCare to set this computer up some more, and I feel like people think that a single woman with a full-time job, four pets she solely cares for, freelance work and allegedly an exercise regime has time to talk.

After I fended off 11teen texts and calls for that half an hour, I got on the horn with AppleCare. Our biggest problem was that the photos weren’t switching over. I explained to the latest AppleCare guy–they’re almost always guys–that I blogged, apologized for still blogging, then told him I took photos of my everyday life every day.

“About how many photos do you think you have on your computer, ma’am?”

I did some quick maths.

Oh, June.

Let’s see. I had this computer for six years, and there are 365 days in a year…

“About 3,000,” I announced.

Finally, we located my photos. They HAD transferred over, but they’d landed in a weird place. But there they were, and we opened the Photos app.

And: 32,300. That’s how many photos I had. 32,300.

“That’s, heh, not 3,000,” the AppleCare guy mansplained to me. LIKE I’M AN IDIOT WHO CAN’T DO MATH OR…oh.

The only downside is I seem to have lost any photo I took from December 30 to January 1, but hoooo care. Also, after we hung up last night, I started deleting photos. I don’t NEED to, as this new computer is OHMYGOD so fast, but it’s just the idea. It was bugging me, having that many blurry, dumb, needless photos.

Currently I have 29,931 photos. LOOK AT JUNE GO.

Laura Ingalls Wilder had seven photos her whole life. But okay.

“But June, in the show, she…” Oh, shut up. That goddamned show.

I’d better get to work. That task is back. Remember that task I had that made me miss the work Halloween party, and later the work Christmas party? It’s back. Maybe it’ll make me miss Martin Luther King Day. Last year, we, as usual, did not have the day off, and all the people of color called in sick. It was a very Norma Rae moment, and now this year we have MLK Day off.

I’ll see you tomorrow. I want you to be emotionally prepared for VoluMPTuous Violet Bicks.

“Oh, this old thing? Why, I only wear it when I don’t care WHAT I wear.”

Violet Bicks was probably raised by a Love Avoidant. Or maybe she was the granddaughter of Abraham Lincoln.

Linearly,

Juan

Yesterday at lunchtime, I stampeded across town to the damn dance store, which is its official name. Greensboro’s Damn Dance Store! We’re open stupid times!

When I got there, I realized I’d tensed up, in the worry that they’d be closed Mondays or some other similar irritating thing. But they were not! There they were, all open and shit.

I’d have taken photos, but it was really a small boutique kind of place, and there was one other person in there, a rather demanding-seeming woman over in the kids’ section. Which, by the way, seemed to dominate. And you know how I am. “Oooo, tiaras! …Oh. They’re for kids. Dammit.” “Oooo! Tote bags that read “ballet” in glitter! …Teensy, for kids. Dammit.”

A very helpful saleswoman got me m’shoes,

and also some yoga pants that I am delighted to report were kind of too big. Naturally, I cut the tags off them before trying them on, because that’s the kind of careful planning that’s resulted in the delicately elegant life I’ve created for myself.

When work ended, I checked the time and locale of my dance class; I’d already emailed the place to reserve a spot. It had been a lovely, warm and blowy–but not THAT kind of blowy–day, and I was happy to have a few minutes to come home and hang with the entourage, the four-legged entourage, my FURBABIES (sigh) before heading to my 7 o’clock class.

This sums up all of my quality time with Steely Dan.

But look. Here’s six seconds of autumnal calm, now with falling leaves!

Anyway. At 6:30. I left the house, got downtown–where I will not mention the mental status of any old men–found, like,  TV parking right outside the building, and sauntered into the “cultural” center.

I don’t know why I’m cynical about that. But you know what? I got in there, and it was pretty cool! It was so, you know, cultural. I turned into yogurt, it was so cultured.

I found the room where my class was to begin at 7:00, and?

Everyone was ballet-ing. Ballet-ing hard. Because the class had started 45 minutes before.

I WANTED Absolute Beginner, Ballet. I read the TIME for Absolute Beginner, Modern.

I needed an Absolut.

So, I sat on a comfy metal bench, right outside the class, and watched my coworker finish his ballet, just like my parents used to have to do when I took ballet from the winged-eyeliner lady circa 1973. I talked to another parent, who was doing her homework and was probably delighted to have to hear my plight about the wrong time and so on. Then I kibitzed with my coworker when he was done, and when I got back outside, after promising to come back AT THE RIGHT TIME next week?

Storm. Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky. Other than the fact that it’s 7:15 in October. Stormy weather, since that man and I ain’t together. It’s raining all the am I blue.

That was only funny if you know my Am I Blue/asking gramma for the lyrics to Stormy Weather story.

You know what I like? People who don’t scroll up. Like, we’ll have a big chain of comments going, here or on Facebook of June, and someone wanders on and asks something we addressed four comments ago. I adore that.

Anyway, here’s an unretouched photo of JOOON, having been caught in the RAAAAAIN on the way home from dance class where she didn’t DAAAAANCE. I have no idea why I’m talking like that.

It was scary rain, scary driving rain where driving is scary.

Oooo, also, while I was waiting for my coworker last night, I noticed a particularly lovely woman, who actually I’d noticed dancing before she was even milling around after class. She looked the way a ballerina should look, and then after class, she put on the best pair of multicolored chunky heels, and I was in great admiration.

After class, I drove through the driving rain to the grocery store, and guess who was there, over in the wine aisle. So I said, “Hey, I just saw you at that ballet class,” and we ended up talking for a long time, and said, “See you next week,” and soon she will be giving me those shoes, so enamored will she be of All Things June.

Speaking of which, yesterday in Facebook of June, I asked y’all all what the most stalky thing you’ve done was, regarding me and my unblog and my life, such as it is. I’d read this subject on a Reddit thread, titled, “How far is too far for stalking our blog reads” or something like that.

I figured you’d Zillowed my house or Googled my real name or what have you.

But wow!

You’ve researched Marvin’s girlfriends and found Ned’s place of employment. You figured out where TinyTown was and sought out that author I briefly went out with.

But my favorite, my very favorite, was the person who ended up sitting behind Ned and me at a play, after we’d been long broken up and there we were, holding hands. This was last year. I’d like to throw that caveat out there. Last year, before we officially reunited for six weeks or whatever it was.

Anyway, here we are, NOT KNOWING a reader was behind us, texting our scandalous photo.

It should be noted said reader’s spouse was appalled by her, and this is just how men are, and why they have to be so weird is beyond me. Because of COURSE she took a photo. I would have, too.

I gotta go. Since you’re all behind me right now, you know it’s late and I haven’t showered.

Luff,

Bestalked Juan