There are two kinds of people during a snowstorm: Junes and Neds.

When I found out we were getting a foot of snow, I was delighted. I got a bunch of stuff to make pumpkin chili, and some white grape juice because I have a white grape juice ISSUE, and also some orange Milanos that are mysteriously gone already.

I stayed up late looking for the first snowflake, then slept only six hours because I was too excited to sleep. I LEAPED out of bed and squealed at our 11 inches, and stop already, seventh-grader. Then I made a list of things I wanted to get accomplished since I was snowbound, and I did them.

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(Inside-out dresses mean less cat fur when I finally put them on. What I am is appealing.)

I wrote my Christmas cards.

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I also frolicked with my dog, who apparently has zero Husky in him because he is not appreciating falling through the ground with every icy step. Also, when he tried to drop anchor (TM LaUral), he had serious difficulty. Everywhere he went was icy. 

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I’ve figured out why his tooth isn’t falling out. I’ve been observing it. When he eats or plays with Blu, those bottom teeth stick out so far that he doesn’t really use them. So there’s nothing to make that tooth go. And if I try to touch it he writes his Congressman.

Anyway, I kept self busy all day and was DELIGHTED when I heard more snow and ice are coming. Like, for me, this is as good as it gets. No one expects me to do a damn thing. I can hole up here and eat chili all I want.

Then there’s Ned. And the people like Ned.

“I wish I’d ridden my bicycle Saturday, knowing this storm was coming,” kvetched Ned, in his first of 47 calls to me yesterday. “Maybe I’ll go out and take a walk in this.”

Take a walk. In the foot of snow with its icy layer for added crunch. For HER pleasure.

And you know what he did? He took a walk.

“I actually just did some work,” Ned said, in call number 104. Meanwhile, whenever the phone rang I was all WHAT, because I could not have been more content in my cozy home with my books (finished one, started another) and my Christmas cards and my organizing. I even started my end-of-the-year blog video!

Today no one has to go to work, but now with stupid technology we all have to “work from home.” I have two meetings this morning and I already looked at some bluelines.

That doesn’t mean I just stared at a blue line. It’s when something is at the printer and it’s REALLY DONE and REALLY SUPER READY to be printed, so I get one more look at you, as Kris Kristofferson would say, before it goes to print and if I find a mistake it’s like $50 per mistake we have to pay and guess what?

Just like Kris Kristofferson, when I take one more look at you, I find a flaw. Always. Every time. It’s like my psychology is different once it’s a blueline and I find something I didn’t see before. They should just lie to me and tell me the first round is a blueline and I’d find everything wrong straight away.

I think if Sir Leslie Ward, up there, is so bored, he could teach himself how NOT to take an old-man selfie. A grumpie. A curmudgeonlie.

Anyway, I just got something to review and WHY CAN’T WE HAVE A REAL SNOW DAY? Would that be so bad? God. I gotta move somewhere like Spain where they never do anything but drink wine and have bullfights and sleep for three hours in the afternoon. Step one: Learn Spanish. Step two: Develop a taste for olives. Don’t they eat a lot of olives in Spain?

I’ll talk to you later. I’ll talk to Ned before I talk to all of you, though, I’ll bet.

Contentedly,
Snow June

It’s snowing here.

Depending on what weather app you look at, we’re going to get anywhere from 8 to 194 inches. They’re telling us to stay home, because while this is just a day in March in Michigan, here they don’t know what to do with themselves and fall over in a panic.

So I made a list of shit I want to do during the storm while I’m homebound. While I’m a shut-in. Which, let’s face it, is just a day in March for me. But because I HAVE to stay in, I made a to-do list. First on that list is Morris Chestnut.

I also put down “do all laundry,” and I’m just washing my very last load as we speak.

Then I have my Christmas cards ready to write out next. If I’d taken my Adderall I’d be done with the cards by now, but just a moment ago I saw two wadded-up hang-to-dry shirts on the washer, their hangers three inches away. Apparently, the siren song of Anything Else called me away before I could take those 17 seconds and actually hang my hang-to-drys.

But the point of me writing you today, why I’ve gathered you all here, is that another thing on my Adderall-free snowed-in list is to finally figure out what the

FUCK

to do with my shoes. I’m hoping some of you more organized folk can offer advice. Yes, I just asked for advice.

Here’s the setup: This house has 1,000 square feet, and some cool jazzy feet, as well. Bah. No, really. Small 1932 house. It has one weird useless closet in the bedroom where I store my laundry basket because it’s the only place to hide said basket.

There are two giant closets in the den

which have rendered the room mostly useless because the walls are closets. In this closet are all my winter coats, and sweaters and shirts for winter. On the floor are things like a fan, throw pillows I don’t use, my luggage and other odds and ends.

I have pants, summer shirts and dresses AND SHOES in this closet below. The space in the middle I use for sheets and bedspreads. This is the only place I could think of for my shoes, which I have dumped out to show you.

The weird useless closet in my bedroom really needs to hide my laundry basket and Morris Chestnut. IN MY MIND. But really, if I don’t put it there you see the laundry basket in my room and that’s depressing for the tens of men who are in there.

Here is all the other storage space in the house…

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There’s also my hope chest in the den; it holds heavy blankets and it’s a pain in the ass to get into and I find myself not getting the blankets out because pain in the ass.

So, my MAIN GOAL is to find somewhere to put my shoes where they’re not just piled up like drunk sorority girls at night’s end. But if you can think of ways to organize where I have everything in a better way, let me know that too.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I have to go write Xmas cards now, and go out to my yard with a yardstick like some sort of nincompoop. Last time I was out there, we’d gotten seven inches. I hope we get Morris Chestnut 12 inches, which is what he has going

IN MY MIND.

Keep June’s mind occupied. Give her some hints on where to put all her stuff.

Snowily,
All work and no play make June a dull girl

Update: I cleared out some of the bedroom drawers and put the sheets in there. I also moved the socks that are in the living room into the bedroom. So now my bedroom has the joy of socks. And the pièce de résistance? I used that middle thing for shoes!

Every year, at Christmas, my workplace has its annual holiday party.

How much do you hate me for that redundant-ass sentence up there? I should really write a book.

Last night was my workplace Christmas party, and yes they call it “Christmas party,” as opposed to when I lived in LA and it was the annual gathering of winter or something we could all agree on.

They let us go at 3:00, because the party started at 5:00 at the country club, which by the way is fancy. It’s one of the fancy country clubs, not the dodgy country clubs you go to.

The point is, we were allowed to leave early so we could get our families ready and so on, and I know you’re wondering right now how does June do it all, with the high-powered executive career and her many children who are always turned out in their Christmas finery on the regular. Annually. At Christmas. Every year.

The first thing I did after work was scream over to the glasses store, because my new not-worm-color glasses were in, which 15 times now I typed “gasses.”

Do you know what annoys me? On Instagram, when you read the comments, and someone comments about how they either misread something or thought a celebrity was their friend.

“I misread that as dick ass!”

“I thought this photo of Clark Gable was you, @myfriendisanasshole!”

Who gives a FUCK what you thought if it was wrong. Other than you and old Clark Lookalike, your close friend, who probably didn’t want to be tagged.

Merry Christmas!

After I got my glasses, my gasses, I was in my old neighborhood, where everything seems so nice and not sketchy-neigborhood-y now, so I went to my old grocery store and got supplies. We’re allegedly getting like 52 inches of snow this weekend, a fact that delights and thrills me, except that my old boyfriend from high school will be in another part of the state and that will shoot any get-together plans all to hell.

“I knew when I heard 13″ were coming that you were on your way,” I texted him, and the hilarity never stops over at Text of June.

But here’s the thing. It’s a snowstorm in the South. TRY FINDING AN ONION. Because not only does everyone buy up the goddamn bread and milk, they also all make chili, as I was doing. I had to buy a white onion and I can only hope my chili survives.

So I got home right at 4:00, because the line at the grocery store was like the line for the end of time. You know how THOSE lines are.

When I got home, my Chewy box had come, not that I chewed the box. So I had to open cat-food bags and dump them in the cat-food tin, lug litter, and generally curse the animals. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Then I had the groceries to put away.

And everyone had to get fed.

I took The Poet as my date, and it’s like this whole event was set up to convenience us. First of all, we both live five minutes from work. She probably lives three minutes from work, as it took me two minutes to drive the mile to her apartment.

She invited me in and I admired her brains.

Anyway, then we got in the car, drove across the street, and we were at the country club. I’m not even making this up. It was one minute to her house, one minute to the club, and you’d think we’d both be avid members and all, it being so close.

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The first person we saw was Boss, crnt.

The food was delicious, and someone noted that I selected all the options for children, such as the macaroni and cheese and the chicken tenders. Look, they were excellent chicken tenders.

At the end of the evening I saw The Poet putting rolls in her purse. I mean, I AM out of bread. And a storm IS coming. Apparently, you need bread. “I wish I had some kind of napkin to put them in,” I kvetched.

And that’s when The Poet whipped out 79 country club napkins, just for taking home rolls. Then when we searched our purses for our coat check tickets, we had to remove said rolls and did not at all look like doddering old ladies. Which, come on. How far off are we?

Anyway, it was a good time, did I mention? And I always like to see everyone in their finery. I wish I’d taken a photo of Wedding Alex’s sparkly skirt. You’d have all died and then who would read me.

When I got home, I put the rolls on the counter, and Edsel promptly ate them. Then I took him to the all night euthanasia drive-thru. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want.

Mostly I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want because someone asked me what I want. Mostly up till then I was just trying to go to work and keep up with my hand-washables. I hadn’t stopped to consider. And when I got asked, I was all, hunh. I wonder what I want.

This summer I traipsed to a new therapist, one of 87 in a line of the many many therapists I’ve seen in this lifetime, and I told her how I’d been married, but that being married annoyed me.

Then I told her that a year after my husband left I met a man and fell stupidly in love, stupid stupid stupid gaze-at-him in love, but he was not the marrying kind and that broke my heart so we broke up. Mostly. Sort of. I told her how he keeps coming around even though he doesn’t want to commit. That it’s been 7 years now of breaking up and him coming back, like a clog in your drain.

“Well, what do you want?” she asked. “Being married annoyed you, but being with someone who didn’t want to get married was unfulfilling, too.”

Hunh.

“Also, it sounds kind of like you really like living alone. Do you?”

Oh my god, yes. I adore living alone. I told her how much I enjoy walking into an empty house, if you count 16 other legs there as “empty.”

Not including fleas.

If you count 4,974 legs there as “empty.”

“Not everyone does, you know,” she said. “Not everyone likes living alone.”

God, really? I consider it one of my luxuries, like other women might consider a bath and an Almond Roca. I adore living alone. Have I said that yet?

But I don’t know if I want to be relationship-less. However, I’ve also put in like 3% effort into finding another person this year. I sometimes vaguely turned on my dating profile here and there. Barely answered anyone because they were always the type who’d wear sunglasses on their baseball cap.

And I’ve never done that before. Since 8th grade I’ve pretty much dedicated myself full time to finding a boyfriend and then when my commitment light came on in my late 20s, to finding a husband.

Then when I was single again in my mid-40s, I went back to trying to find a boyfriend.

Now the whole idea of a relationship sounds like too much work. Do you have any idea how many books there are to read? Not to mention we’re in some sort of creative peak with TV shows, although Dear TV Maker People: Stop fucking thinking 8 episodes are a season. Fuck you. Fuck you totally. For sure. (That was only funny if you loved Valley Girl.)

Books never sext another woman.

TV shows don’t get annoyed because you don’t want to go on a hike.

My whole life, asshole-y smug types who’ve been married since 7th grade have always told me, You have to be happy just being alone. Then they go home to their 14 kids.

So, okay, I did it. I got happy being alone. Maybe a little too happy. I don’t feel lonely at all. If anything, I’ve got too many people wanting me to actually leave the house and do things, when most of the time I’m content to be home with the 4,974 legs.

But what if I turn into some sort of weird loner with fleas? What if I’m Lola the Showgirl 30 years later looking for Tony?

Is anyone else feeling the same way? Are you feelin’, feelin’ that way too? Or am I just, am I just a fool?

Journey-ly,
June

Would you like to know what annoys me?

“Overdramatic.”

You’re dramatic. That’s enough. It already means what you think “overdramatic” means. Stop it.

People are also seeming to have trouble with their prepositions. I love the Long Island Medium, I’m sorry but I do, but in every episode, she says, “Before I begin I like to talk on how I read and receive messages…”

About. You like to talk ABOUT how you read and receive messages. Every time she says that I get the shivers. “I like to talk on…” STOP.

I realize “about” is an adverb. LEAVE IT. LEEEEAVE IT. Good reader. 

Speaking of which, this morning I was playing Two Blu with Edsel in the backyard. He won’t fucking fetch. You throw Blu and he runs around joyfully–he smiles on how he receives Blu–but he won’t give it back. He runs up to me and then runs away. But one day I discovered if I have BOTH Blus, I can throw one and when he runs back, I throw the other, and then we’re golden. Two Blu is an excellent game.

Edsel fekking loves Two Blu. It’s the happiest he is all day.

Today?

I threw Blu into the neighbor’s yard. I felt weird about TRAIPSING into the guy’s yard unannounced, and even weirder about knocking on his door before 7 a.m. Come and knock on our door. We’ve been hatin’ on you.

Come and knock on our door. Eds is waitin’ for Blu.

Come and knock on our door; we’ll play music at 2:00.

Anyway, you can imagine. Edsel could SEE Blu just on other side of metal theeng, mom. it ther. it rite ther. go get, mom. stop singeeng 3 Compnee, mom.

So now he’s curled in World’s Most Dejected Ball behind me, a thing I’d photograph for you but I’m charging my phone.

In my room, I have one of those long pluggy things with all the plugs in it. What’s that called? Anyway, it’s next to my bed, because a lot of the plugs in this 1932 house have the two-hole situation, and all the things I own need three holes to plug in, and let’s not delve into the 7th-grade humor we’re all dying to delve into.

Come and knock on our door. We’ve got three holes for you.

POWER STRIP. I have a power strip next to my bed, for the lamp and allegedly to power my phone at night, but all of a sudden my phone won’t charge there. I have no idea what’s wrong, but I discovered it when my phone’s alarm didn’t go off one morning because it was dead. 

Come and knock on our door, we’re dead.

Come and knock on our door. Work’s been waitin’ for you.

So now I use a regular alarm clock like it’s 2005 or something, and if I don’t remember to charge my phone at night I have to plug it in in the morning, in the kitchen, and what this blog is is fascinating.

Come and knock on my blog. I’ve been boring to you.

In other news, today is Tallulah’s birthday. She would have been 11. ELEVEN! Can you imagine? I can’t.

Goddammit. Why did Tallulah have to get sick and die? She was my favorite thing in the world. Look at her square head. I can’t stand it. I loved that dog.

Anyway, that sums up today. Things annoy me and my dog is dead.

Come and knock on my–OH MY GOD STOP,
Joon

Now that I’m not destitute

–and could I take this time to once again thank the people online who said they were “so sick” of hearing about how destitute I was before? That was kind. You’re kind. Be proud. Also, going on a website to complain about bloggers means your life is full. Yep.

Anyway, now that I’ve moved into this marginal neighborhood and my mortgage is practically nothing and so forth, I am able to buy things like a normal person, such as bread and hair gel and a handgun. Here’s a rundown of my latest conspicuous consumer purchases:

Blueberry hummus.

See. You thought I was making that up, didn’t you? Just like the reader who said I made it up that someone put Violet in my car.

I don’t know why I’m so bitter today. I guess I woke up this way. And by the way, the first thing I did this morning was punch Iris when I went to shut off the alarm. Maybe I’m bitter because too many goddamn animals sleep with me. When I was a kid, I slept with my 79 stuffed animals. I had no idea I was training for real life.

Anyway, blueberry hummus.

I went to the grocery store last night for my regular shopping and saw this on the shelf. There was a man also similarly looking at hummus. “Should I try blueberry hummus?” I asked him, pulling if off the shelf. “What have you got to lose?” he said. He was a jovial type.

I mean. $4.99. That’s what I’ve got to lose. But I got it, and as I walked away the man yelled, “See? I’ll try black bean hummus! We’ll report back to each other!” 

Like black bean hummus is such a stretch. Come on. Clearly I am the adventurer in this relationship.

The point is, I got home and tried it immediately because have you met my impulse control? And blueberry hummus

is

delicious.

Oh my god, I adore blueberry hummus! It has a definite tang to it, and I ate it with crackers–regular rice crackers, not graham crackers as they suggested as I am not a toddler. Well. Other than my impulse control.

Prose hair products.

About a week ago, I told you that I fell for an ad on Instagram, and really I fall for ALL THE ADS on the Instagram. They know my thoughts. Just this weekend I mentioned I’d like to buy another paint-by-numbers, and lo and behold, Instagram gave me a paint-by-numbers-for-adults ad.

I don’t mean it was a paint-by-numbers dick. It was a nice impressionist painting. I want one.

But the ad I fell for that I’m talking about here is Prose hair products. You answer Qs and they MAKE THE PRODUCTS just for YOU! You know how I am. I’m Donald Trump. I love things about me.

I told them about my hair (worrysome) and they came up with shampoo, conditioner and a hair kabuki mask, which by the way is not the same blend as they came up with for Rebecca, up there in the photo. “Outdoor athlete.” Usually, when people describe me, that’s their first descriptor.

Anyway, at first I was on the fence about Prose, but that was before I used the hair mask. The hair mask made the difference.

I think I like Prose. My hair looks more normal-person-ish.

“It’s like your hair is a whole different texture!” my hairdresser exclaimed, ‘ere she drove out of sight.

Happy hair products to all, and to all a good night.

Coffeemaker.

As you know, from your Big Book of June Events, which I guess is just “this blog,” I purchased a small Cuisinart coffeemaker when I moved in here, as my previous one conveniently died right when I was moving. I was all, Good. One less thing. But that new coffeemaker VEXES me. It’s fussy, and half the time won’t brew because it’s not in the mood or it’s taking a mental health day.

So this weekend I was buying a padlock for my garage (see above re marginal neighborhood) and I saw coffee pots were on sale at the Target, and I got a programmable Mr. Coffee for like $18. WOOOOO! And when the alarm goes off and I punch a pet each morning, I can hear the coffeemaker already workin’ for me.

My life has been transfigured. I put that French high-maintenance bastard Cuisinart in the cupboard, for coffee emergencies, even though I also have a french press for the same reason. I got a backup for my backup. What addiction?

That sums up m’purchases, although while I’ve been writing this, my (hot) mailman (of color) just dropped off three pair of reading glasses I ordered, as I have gotten more blind and have to, you know, read every day for work. I wonder if I can deduct these? 

I’m a 2.25 strength, if anyone wonders. And yes, my eye doctor does blame my career choice for why my eyes are bad, although my mother practically wore glasses in the womb, as did my Aunt Mary. My grandmother that I’ve turned into always felt so guilty, because she took my young Aunt Mary to the eye doctor, and Aunt M put on her new glasses and kept squeaking, “I can see! I can see!”

Anyway, I can’t wait to get to work today and copy edit something that I can actually see.

Hello, supervisor who reads my blog.

What have you bought lately? Should I try it? Should I wait till Instagram advertises it to me?

Consumerly,
Juun

The first thing I did this morning was punch Edsel in the face, as I reached to shut off the alarm. Merrrrry Christmas! 

Oh, he’s fine. If you can’t take a punch, you have no reason to be my dog. Plus, must he BE .07 INCHES from me at all times? It results in tragedy like this.

Anyway.

This was a busildy weekend, starting with me getting the wrong glasses.

I waited 16 days for my new glasses to come in, and I’d ordered a rosy tortoiseshell, and the mirror was behind the desk at the glasses place, and it wasn’t till I got to a restaurant after that I was all, heyyyyy. These aren’t tortoiseshell.

Nothing gets past me.

So then I had to take them back, and I could tell they didn’t believe me that I didn’t pick out these worm-colored frames, but I didn’t. But then I couldn’t find the rose-colored tortoiseshells, and I was cursing my whole “Don’t print a receipt” from 16 days ago, because every time I have something printed I picture the polar bear on a tiny piece of ice and I can’t even stand it.

So instead of ruining our ecosystem or whatever, I ruined my appearance.

Anyway, I ended up getting these, which look like every pair of glasses I ever pick out.

And now I’m my grandmother even more than I was.

Back in her day, polar bears had plenty of ice. As did her veins. Also, in the photo of her, there’s my small-person head at the bottom. Good lord, I had every color of those beads for your hair that you can think of. I believe I secretly thought every day should be pink-bead day.

Saturday was one of those days where you run from one thing to the next. On Saturday mornings, I like to dump out the disgusting litterbox altogether and scrub it and hose it out and dry it and sweep the litter that’s all over yonder and wash the floor in there, and for some reason that takes a damn hour.

Then I had to scream Lily to the vet, as she and Milhous managed to trap themselves in the bathroom one night last week, and the following morning, a morning I’d overslept, I tore into the bathroom to shower as quickly has humanly possible and not only were two cats in there, but poor Lily, because she’s a good girl and did not know what else to do, pooped in the shower.

This led me to the discovery that there is a tapeworm up in Lily, which means there’s a tapeworm in everyone and why do I have pets.

If you’re not familiar, all you have to do is give them all a pill and it’s over with. But the vet had not yet met Lily, as I quit my last vet in a huff about six months ago (they seriously sent me “It’s time for [insert pet’s name here]’s appointment!” emails at least once a week, and when there are four pets that gets old, and also it was never actually really time for an appointment. It was always the sort of thing where okay, we could go in now, if I wanted to spend every weekend at the vet. I called twice to say, I only want to take in each pet once a year, barring emergencies, so can you knock it off with those false alarms and they always said, No, we can’t. We have NO CONTROL over how often we send you these. I even gathered them all up on one screenshot to show how often they were–)

I know. I’m being a let-me-speak-to-your-manager Karen.

So the new vet, who does not bug me with emails, insisted she see Lily before she just gave her a pill. She’s seen everyone else. The point is, she insists Lily is overweight.

I’m TELLING you, she doesn’t eat that much. But she’s a round mound of meow, as Ned would say. Apparently that’s a sports joke.

So she got cans of special diet food that she refuses to eat, and that the other cats also similarly too refuse to eat, so now I have cans of rejected diet food, which is what I’ve been hoping and praying for all along.

As soon as I got Round Lily keeps on turnin’ back home, I had to scream to the hair place, as it was time for my roots. Last time I was there, I was going to move into a whole different house, and I’d link to that post where I tell you about the 17 houses I considered, but I’m pressed for the time because I was occupied with punching the dog this morning.

The point is that I hadn’t gotten my roots done in four months, and was living on $7 root cover, and it was dire. It was dire, wolf.

We decided to go a little darker, like my moods, and voila.

I not only have darker hair, I have on 16 pounds of makeup. I was invited to my coworker Lottie Blanco’s Christmas party, that she and her wife, also named Lottie Blanco, throw every year. Before the party and after my hair dye, I ran to the candy store to get them a hostess gift and when I whipped open the candy-store door, there was The Poet, buying boxes of candy that reached up over her head.

“Are you getting everyone candy for Christmas?” I asked.

“No, this is just for me,” said The Poet from behind her boxes. The Poet weighs at most 17 pounds.

Anyway, I drove to Lottie Blanco’s and once I got to her neighborhood, I pretty much guessed which house was hers.

It was the house with the subtle nod to Christmas.

“You’re certainly going to have the most festive shoes,” Lottie B told me she thought, when she saw my black velvet shoes with sparkly ties. Those shoes ROCK. Those shoes hurt like fuck.

“Hey, everyone, this is Lottie’s straight friend!” Lottie Blanco’s wife, Lottie Blanco, said.

Who is never going to get over the part where I’ve blog-named them both Lottie Blanco? Is it me?

Anyway, we had a great time. The food was to die for, and there was nothing un-Christmassed in that house. When they begin a theme, they follow it through, the Lottie Blancos do.

At one point, the back door just up and broke. It leads to a screened-in porch, where a lot of people had stored their drinks, and that damn thing would neither open or close. It was just stuck. Poor Lottie Blanco my coworker was stuck behind it, on the porch, with all the drinks.

“Is this going in your blog?” she asked, from behind the door.

Eventually, about 450 of her friends came to help her and they eventually had to take the whole damn thing off. “How many lesbians does it take to open a door?” someone joked, and that is when I thought maybe I should help and bust that stereotype, but I want you to brace yourself: I had no idea what was wrong with that fucking door.

The rest of the night was spent watching Lottie B’s corgis try to figure out why the door was weird, and leap over it with their tiny stump legs. They’re corgis, so they have to stump over everything.

In unrelated news, I would like a corgi.

I have to get to work, which is a shame because I wanted to tell you what a

JERK

Iris is about taking a pill, but suffice it to say everyone here is medicated, and some of us are foaming at the jerky mouth.

I’ll talk at you later. Try not to poop in the bathtub today. Or punch your dog.

Love,
Joon

Milhous’s newest thing is to go outside with Edsel, where I watch them nervously from the back door, and 

TEAR

after each other around the back yard. Milhous gets a bottle-brush tail and Edsel smiles like a big huge giant baffoon.

I think Milhous was a good addition to this house.

Anyway.

I had my mammogram yesterday. No word yet. WHAT GIVES? It’s been 18 hours! My bra stopped lasting.

At my mammogram place, they have lockers to put your, you know, shirt while you’re in that cape. Each locker has a famous woman’s name on it, so you remember where yours was. I chose Lady Bird Johnson, seeing that we First Lady’d here yesterday. The other women in the waiting room were Calamity Jane and Coco Chanel. I asked. I feel like in real life those two wouldn’t have had much to say to one another. Maybe Lady Bird, being a politician’s wife, would have been good at finding their common ground.

Anyway, so now I wait.

I hate this part.

When I’m anxious like this, I sort of curl into a mental ball and obsess. I’m certain that’s the healthiest way to handle it. Oh, I Google. I think. I imagine. I delight all and sundry.

Anyone who tried to talk to me yesterday, on the inside I was all, what what WHAT? Why you bug? I’m tryina obsess. GOD.

…I just noticed Edsel growling, but in his “Blu stuck under this thing, mom” growl. It’s more of a plaintive moan. I see that Milhous has gone under the footstool and Eds wants him out. I just went to check that Milhous wasn’t horrified that something 86 times his size is sticking its snout at him, but Milhous is under there purring, so.

Yes. Definitely a good edition. If you’re Edsel. Or Milhous.

Let me go check my phone. Maybe they called while I was in the shower. At 7 a.m. Yeah. That sounds likely.

No calls. No emails.

I did, however, notice I left a plate next to the bed last night. I got hungry about 9:00 while I was reading, and got some cheese and crackers. Why so round.

I also just captured this on film. While I was putting the plate in the sink.

Do you think enough time has passed that I can check my phone again? Do you think there are women out there who have alternate seat cushions for holidays such as Christmas? Like, they put the blue ones up somewhere and replace them with red and green? Do you?

…I checked my phone. No new messages. Also, they said they’d send a letter anyway. So the only reason I’m checking my phone is that last year they called, said you need to come back. Not to be obsessive or anything, but they called two hours and 24 minutes after my original appointment last year. You shoulda SEEN me yesterday two hours and 24 minutes after my appointment. I was waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square. Without the joy, but with the chattering teeth.

I’d better get to work. My boss, current/fmr./current again, is considering Stitch Fix, as she had given it up for a time. “You could ask your readers if I should get special boxes,” she said, likely trying to distract me.

Imagine having to supervise June.

“Special boxes?” I asked, while Googling Millions of Ways to Die Waiting for Mammogram results.

“Yeah. You can get, for example, just pants.”

Oooo, just pants!

Or she could get all date-night clothes. Or My-Corporate-Job clothes. I have to look on Stitch Fix and see what all the choices are, then set up a poll for us.

But first I have to obsess.

Talk to you!

Handling it gracefully,
Joon

UPDATE: Just got an email. All is well with mammogram! I knew it. It was my positive thinking, and my ability to put it out of my mind.

Before this holiday, back when I was not bloated like a tick, I suggested we send in photos of our THANKSgiving, as they say here, or ThanksGIVing, as normal folk say it. You did, so let’s not ado further…

Am I going to have this much detail with each photo, or will I get burnt out and by the end be all,

“EDNA. NEVADA.”

What do you think? Read on…

They were all in the beaver creek. [snicker]

Hang on while I try to age 45 years.

Also, note that I tried not to respond to your emails to me with these photos, because I knew when I was in this hell of searching my email that my replies would show up and I would hate self. So please don’t think I was being rooood.

Basically, June, do we just have to hear you complain through this whole post? Yes, yes, you do.

 

…And that was the day June learned that if she did a mosaic, she can’t caption it. Ding DANG it.

Anyway, these are from Deborah, and she did not tell me but I happen to know that’s her son and her dog, and they are in California and her husband’s name is Peter and I seem way too up in Deborah’s life. Also, no matter what I do, I can’t get rid of the extra space below this paragraph. …Oh, I think it’s okay now. I need a drink.

Okay, it did. Yeesh!

 

Faithful Reader Paula H&B sent me these, claiming they are the World’s Most Boring Pictures of Turkey and Gravy. Careful readers will note Paula sent beige pictures.

Ned just called me, and I was all, “OH MY GOD WHAT I’M DOING THANKSGIVING PHOTOS” and he knew just what I meant and slunk away in fear. Slinked?

The animals have all migrated in here because it’s obvious Ima be in here for the duration, and I just noted Lily has squeezed her rather sizeable hips into the kitten bed.

No, I won’t upload a photo. Would you enjoy being bludgeoned?

Okay, FINE.

Also, when I finish each photo, I select “Delete” in my email, but the choice right under that is “Block.” If I accidentally block anyone, let me know. Of course, how can you if you’re blocked. Oh, dear.

I need an intern.

Holy cats, we’ll need to hear the end of that story.

God, I’m hungry. I wonder when the last time was I got up and took nourishment?

I’d also like to thank my computer for showing me this last email, as I just noticed the subject line was “Tahanksgiving.” Look how smart my computer is!

Faithful Reader Deborah, who already sent a picture of her kid and dog above, also sent me a photo of the dog nativity that she got because I had it. I don’t think she wanted me to include it, but that’s what came up in my next email and I felt bad not at least mentioning it.

Also, I am an influencer. Right?

I’m tryina think of the last time I felt my ass. So numb.

I thought I was done, but I clicked and there’s another page. Why, god. I try to be a good per–okay, I get why, god.

I love everything about that caption.

Dang it. Karen in Virginia Beach sent a video, but I can’t open it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my god.

Oh. I’d guess that last one was from Saginaw, Michigan. Or thereabouts.

As I write this, it’s Sunday afternoon. It’s possible someone will send me a late photo, but I MIGHT BE DONE and I might could GET UP from this desk and LIVE again. I’m George Bailey, over here. Help me, God. I wanna live again.

Anyway, I’ll set this post on to brew, and meanwhile, thank you for participating in Send June Your Thanksgiving. When I first started this, people had to get home to load their photos onto their computers, but now we just boop boop boop! send them. Oh, technology.

Talk to you tomorrow, when I force you to look at my Christmas decorations. Oh, technology.

XO,
Jan. …Hey, where was Jan in these photos?

P.S. Just when I thought I was done, Friend-in-Real-Life LaUral sent hers.

If you ever want to irk me, go ahead and be a fussy coffeepot.

My regularly scheduled one, at my old house, 

(aw, old house)

died right when I moved. So I went to a kitchen store (who knew there was such a thing) and got a Cusinart little teensy coffee pot on sale

(aw, new house) and guess what. 

It’s fussy. You have to have the LID on just so. You have to have the filter in just so. Half the time I get out the shower and it hasn’t worked at all, or has made an inch of coffee and gotten ennui. This does not work with my executive lifestyle.

Speaking of which, I’m going to attempt to stop talking to you early enough that I can scream to the store before work. I have to get bread and cheese and wine, as that is the hard-hitting stuff I’m bringing to my Thanksgiving tomorrow. How the hell do you display cheese? I’m never good at it. It always looks like Frankenstein hacked at it with this hand.

I also have to drive to Tibet after work to cat-sit for my friend who is quickly moving down to B-list. Oh my god she lives far away. Why didn’t she hire a dang cat-sitter? I look forward to her return, when she reads me complaining about her and kicks my ass. The good news is, she’ll have to drive all the way over from Tibet and won’t be able to do much as she will be exhausted.

I can hear cat playing while I type, and little chirps I assume are coming from Milhous.

The only one not having a play FESTIVAL is Iris, who is misunderstood and in her room listening to The Cure. Won’t you enjoy my current musical references?

All right, I’d better go to the store, which ought to be a relaxing time. The store nearest me is the one my old reading-tutor student referred to as The Ghetto Lion, when that man approached her one day while we were TRYINA STUDY to brag about how he managed the Food Lion on [insert street near me here]. “That’s the Ghetto Lion,” she said, dismissing him in one sentence.

I wish I had that kind of bitchiness in me.

We feel like you DO have that kind of bitchiness in you, Joooon.

Oh, fek off.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Oooo, let’s do our thing where you send me photos of your holiday.

Email me (junegardens16@gmail.com) with THANKSGIVING as your email subject line so I can find it in all my emails. If you don’t, I won’t find it, won’t put your picture up, and you’ll send me that sad emoji and I will have to drive over and kill you because you know how I feel about emojis.

Then in the email, send the photo, your first name (or your name when you comment on my blog) and where in the world you are.

One time I did this, and people started sending me photos that read, “Bathsheba, in my kitchen.”

I MEAN WHAT CITY, BATHSHEBA.

June, out.

We have an exciting day of drama and suspense, for my new shampoo and conditioner arrived!

I just heard all of America scooting their chairs closer. I like how in my mind you’re all at your desktop computers, when probably most of you are on your phone. I’m sure my stats tell me, but stats. Zzzzz. Write in today and tell me if you’re reading on a phone or a desktop or you’re one of the four people who has a tablet.

But I digress. NEW SHAMPOO.

For years now, I’ve used the Deva Curl line of products, because with all this hair I’ve embraced the Curly Girl method, which I’m getting sick of. I think age has made my hair less curly, so every day I’m using these curl-embracing products and scrunching out the crunch and drying my head with a t-shirt instead of a towel and sitting here under a Laila Ali bonnet with ionic something-or-others and?

Eh.

I mean, I want COILS of SPROINGY curls, and I get sort of half-exhausted curls, like they just ran a 10K. So why am I bothering so much?

To be fair, my hair before Curly Girl was this:

So.

Anyway, during my recent trip to Michigan, I was GOING to pump some of my $11,000 Deva Curl conditioner and shampoo into those travel bottles, but I rushed so I just put the giant tubs in my suitcase, and?

Left them at the hotel on the way there.

I CALLED the hotel less than 24 hours later. “Oh, yes, ma’am, we sure did find those. We throw away toiletries, though.”

Someone in West Virginia, who may or may not work in hotels, has delightful curls now. I’m going to write it off as a charitable donation.

So I knew I was gonna have to buy more of my $11,000 Deva Curl products, and you know how your phone is listening to you now? You know how you’ll say to your friend, “I’m really interested in Sparklefraffle,” and next thing you know old Jed’s a millionaire and also your phone is advertising Sparklefraffle to you?

I immediately got an Instagram ad for shampoo.

And not just ANY shampoo! INDIVIDUALIZED shampoo. Which I keep typing shamppp and I’m like that one Real Housewife who keeps calling champagne “champs” and I want to punch her directly in the face.

It was right up my alley. You take a quiz about your hair, [True/False: You have hair.] and then it COMES UP with a formula JUST FOR YOU. I even got to pick the scent, which I hemmed and hawed about endlessly. They describe their original scent as “powdery,” and if there’s anything I don’t want in this world, it’s to smell powdery. Say, who changed a diaper? I’d like to bang the woman who smells like a diaper!

I can’t wait to see the searches that now will bring people here. Of course, that would involve me looking at m’stats, which, zzzzz. Did I mention?

I told my rather no-nonsense coworker, Lottie Blanco, that my personalized haircare was coming yesterday.

“Your what?” Her wife sends me leftovers sometimes, and yesterday I got chicken pot pie, and that is why June ate lunch at 11:11 yesterday. Who could just WORK knowing HOMEMADE POT PIE was waiting? Who?

I told Lottie Blanco all about filling out the form about m’hair, and how somewhere in Brooklyn a bearded hipster, probably a woman, was creating my individualized formula and it was ON ITS WAY to me for a million dollars.

I forget how much this all was. It was either $60 or $80. I know that sounds exorbitant, but when I buy my Deva products, I can spend more than $100. Those large tubs last me for months, though, and this product claims it will, too.

“Call me when this gets here,” said Lottie Blanco, who probably uses whatever’s on sale at the grocery store for shampoo. IN MY DEFENSE, Lottie Blanco has normal-person straight-ish hair.

IF ANYONE IS EXPECTING A PACKAGE FROM PROSE HAIRCARE, ALERT THE MAILROOM, came the email from the, you know, mailroom. 

Lottie Blanco said she was tempted to call and tell them whose it was herself.

The mailroom guy, who is fairly beleaguered because y’all send me gifts at work probably once a month minimum, and he really doesn’t know why strangers send me things, came up with m’box.

“But this says June Gardens on it,” he said, and really the more you try to explain it, the weirder you sound, and the good news is, Lottie Blanco had already arrived like Endora used to, just popping up out of nowhere.

I got shampoo, a mask for my Kabuki theater and also conditioner. 

“Oh, I forgot to smell it,” I said. “They had a bunch of choices and I finally went with Tropical.”

I opened the mask. Smelled it.

It smells precisely like an old lady.

“This smells precisely like an old lady,” I announced to the now-growing crowd who’d come over to see my new shampoo. It was much like the birth of Jesus. Cattle were lowing. I handed the mask to one of the shepherds for sniffing. “Oh, it really does.”

“I like it,” said Lottie Blanco. “I mean, I like old-lady scent. Don’t you like that?”

I do when I want to nostalgically recall gramma’s vanity, but not ON MY HEAD ALLA TIME.

Today I burst out of bed, knowing it was time to use my new products. Maybe you get out of bed to embrace life wholeheartedly, and if you do, why on earth are you here on World’s Most Cynical Blog? But today I had purpose. 

They wanted me to wet my hair, apply the mask and wait 30 minutes.

WHO HAS THAT KIND OF TIME?

I just heard all 10 of you say, “I feel like YOU have that kind of time, June.”

I think people think I have nothing but time. A friend from work asked me to cat-sit for her while she’s on vacation this week, and it’s 40 MINUTES there and back, plus of course I would never just go in and throw food in a bowl and leave. Then I had to go home, feed my own pets, let the dog out, play fetch with him till my arm falls off, feed myself, do some laundry and then, oh! It’s time for bed. A full-time-job single person with 29 pets doesn’t have 30-minute mask time.

I’ll probably do the mask Sunday, because on Sunday? I have time. Even though a neighbor keeps wanting me to go to church with her, and eventually Ima have to let her know I’m a heathen. I just keep putting off what I know will be her disappointed look.

So instead I just used the shampoo and conditioner. It said to use four pumps of each.

Four pumps? That’s it? What am I, having sex in high school? But they told me four pumps so I pumped four pumps. Then I put it under Laila Ali for as long as I could, and while it’s still damp, here it is:

10K curls.

So. 

Exhaustedly,
June

I’m in Michigan, blogging from my phone. With Edsel. I mean, he’s not blogging. Now I picture him tapping his dog phone with his dog claws. edz blawg from iBone.

We’re having the season’s first real snow today, as it always does on or right near my mother’s birthday, which is today. She is 100 years young. I’m Willard Scott. Enjoy Smuckers.

Anyway. We drove here Wednesday and Thursday, the dog and me, and stayed at a dog-friendly hotel. It was dog-curious.

We drove six hours Wednesday night; as soon as I got out of work we got on the road. It was pitch black the whole drive, and boring AF.

I hadn’t eaten dinner, and when we got to the hotel, they told me the kitchen had just closed. Son of a bitch. I got up to the room, and they had a cute little welcome kit for Edsel.

Oh, sure, they had food for the dog.

Anyway, I called downstairs for a glass of wine to be sent up. “We just had last call, ma’am.”

Son of a bitch.

Eds was very good at the hotel. I worried he might bark at people walking past our room, but he never did even once. He was also good in the car. He was mostly a letter C, I have no idea why.

I’m here for my mother’s birthday and also because there’s the film festival in town. Last night, we went to see The Wife, not that I’m married, and it was at this old movie theater I went to 100 million times when I was a kid and haven’t been to since I saw Wayne’s World in the early 90s.

When I was a teenager, we lived right near that movie theater. In the summer, they would show dollar movies. I must’ve walked down there three or four times a week, because it was cheap, it was entertainment, and most of all it was air-conditioned. This is probably why I still go to movies all the time today. Anyway, it was cool as shit to be back in there.

I have to go get a card for my mother. Look, I was planning a lot to get here. I asked her if she had any spare cards and YOU KNOW SHE DOES cause she’s a mother, but she refuses to give me a spare card. So now I gotta traipse out in this BLIZZARD. God.

Talk to you later. My mother won’t stop talking to me even though I said I was honing my marvelous craft here on my phone.

Did you ever see that movie? Sweet November, I mean? It stars a very namby-pamby dying Sandy Dennis, which I guess is redundant. I think they remade it later and I never saw the remake, because remakes annoy me, with the exception of A Star is born, which I have seen twice and will see 700 more times.

Yesterday was Halloween, and I went as a disappointed middle-aged woman. As I was leaving work the night before Halloween, people asked me what my costume was going to be, and I said I didn’t have one.

“WHYYYY?” they were wondering.

“Because I’m an adult,” I said, and for a moment that burned until they remembered who they were talking to. Adult. heeeeee!

Yeah.

Actually, the woman in the next row at work is pregnant, and it was only one day before Halloween that it dawned on me we could have gone as Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon.

In case anyone’s keeping track, that marks the 54th year I’ve gotten a great idea too late. But next year? Ryan at work, and me. Harold and Maude.

Clearly I just want to be Ruth Gordon. “Love fades.” She says that in Annie Hall, do you remember that? Maybe you would have needed to see Annie Hall 79 times as I have.

Soon I’ll be quoting A Star is Born all the time! Won’t that be refreshing?

Anyway, so other, life-embracing people dressed up at work yesterday, and we had a contest and so on, and then later in the day people brought their kids. I took pictures of people’s kids in 2013, and now whenever these same families come to my desk for candy, I whip out the Google Photos and force them to look at themselves from years back.

Do you enjoy my clever editing skillz, with taking the name plates and making them useless? I’m like a photo editor guru. Every time I say that word, I say it, “guRU,” because there’s a Hallmark commercial where this woman visits her old professor, and he says, “What did you become, an internet guRU?” and she says, “No, a teacher,” and pretty much every Hallmark commercial sends me into fits of the weeps.

Anyway, the copy editor guRU who sits behind me had come to work at FIVE TO 6:00 yesterday morning to get a big thing done, so she left before the kids got there at 4:00, but put this candy right behind me and Dear Children: I am sorry the other copy editor did not leave you any candy. She’s so rooood. Luff Juun.

Anyway, after that I sat on my porch and waited for trick-or-treaters, millhouse edition. My neighbors tell me the people who owned my house used to have a big bonfire and serve hot chocolate, and clearly I am not a life-embracey person as they are.

You know what I like? I adore Day of the Dead. Apparently I’m a death-embracey person.

My point is, I had a few T-or-Ters, but not a lot.

That about sums up yesterday, not that you asked, except as I was getting ready for bed, I wondered what was up with Milhous, who finally ate, like, 10 bites of adult canned cat food and that was better than he WAS doing, so.

Anyway, I was all, why’s he obsessed with my nightstand, which careful readers will note I painted kind of a seafoam.

Anyway, once he got his buff ass pushed off the newly green nightstand, I realized Iris was glowering inside the bowels of it. She’s really not that mad. I mean, she’s not growling or anything. But she wanted her sanctuary, man, and Milhous can’t let her be.

It was kind of a “shove Milhous off things” kinda night.

But in the end, he prevailed.

I will leave now, but I know I have to tell you about paint, and I really know how to lure the reader back for more. Also, they’re having us send in an official thing® at work about what our hours are gonna be, and you can get in any time between 7:00 and 9:30, and you can take half an hour or an hour for lunch, and leave once it’s been 8 hours that you’ve worked.

So which should I go for? Like, 8:00 to 5:00 with an hour for lunch? Or 9:30 to 6:00 with half an hour for lunch? Somewhere in between? I can’t decide.

Meanwhile, Lily has decided the kitten litterbox is again preferable. Sigh.

Milling around,
June

I’m running late because I’ve spent all morning presenting Milhous with 75 kinds of food he won’t eat.

At the shelter, they gave me a bag of Science Diet kitten food, claiming that’s what he’d been eating.

Won’t eat it. Covers it up with his paws.

So I gave him a can of kitten Fancy Feast.

Won’t eat it. Covers it up with his assy paws.

Okay, then. Would you eat another dry kitten food? Let me head to the store again and get you another brand, she says a trifle shrilly.

COVERS IT.

What about adult canned food, she asks desperately.

Paw. Dick-ass paw, covering it.

WHAT ABOUT DRY ADULT FOOD? FOR ADULTS ONLY CHICKA BOW-WOW?

COVERS IT.

He has the energy of a thousand suns, and he drinks water, but I’ve only seen him indifferently nibble a few bites of adult canned food. Everything else can go to hell.

Meanwhile, Lily and Iris are Templeton at the fair, as they are getting his dregs.

So, anyway, I was gonna tell you all about seeing Nosferatu at my old movie theater last night, where they had a live organist as opposed to a dead one playing, which would have been more in keeping with Halloween, but I guess really I just wrapped that all up even though I said I was “gonna” tell you.

But since I have to get in the shower now and worry about my kitten, and also make sure I have enough razors to stick in all the Halloween candy, I thought I’d turn it over to you today.

Let’s scare each other.

Yesterday I mentioned to The Poet that I was going to see Nosferatu, and she said the photos from that movie scare her to this day, and Dear Poet: Sorry I just scared you with that photo above.

I cannot, I mean cannot, look at anything having to do with The Exorcist or I get chilled to my very bone parts. That movie scares the crap out of me.

(Also, Milhous craps, so he MUST be eating something, right? He’s over in the chair and I can hear him purring. He seems fine other than NOT EATING.)

Anyway, back to our topic. The Poet and I then discussed other movies that have always scared us, and I told her about one that was on TV late at night, at some point in the early ’70s, and these people, I think, killed someone? And wrapped the victim in a sheet? And placed him on the elevator in their apartment to get rid of the body?

But then the ghost of that sheet would ride past their place, whistling and so on and trust me it was terrifying. The elevator would come up, right in their living room, and there’d be that sheet, just whistling.

“But what I wanna know is, how desperate for an apartment must you be to elect a place that has an elevator going right through it?” I asked.

“Might it have been a dumbwaiter?” The Poet asked.

And right then I knew.

ALL MY LIFE I’ve gone around thinking that movie had an apartment with an elevator going right through the living room–and hey, good design–when I’ll bet you anything it was a dumbwaiter and I was too young to know what one was back then.

So, my point is, what movies still scare you to this day?

Or even better, what ghosty things happened to you that you can’t explain, that still kind of scare you to this day?

When I was a kid, we turned part of the basement into a TV room. I’m certain we thought we were the height of sophistication with the particle-board walls we put up, decorated with a WC Fields poster.

That room had one bare hanging bulb you had to pull a chain to turn on or off, a dark-blue velvet chair and an old couch, plus one TV tray, as I recall. I watched all my Saturday morning cartoons down there, till the sun would creep in the windows and I’d feel guilty and bring my bowl up and go outside out of some sort of childhood duty.

Anyway, it was always slightly creepy to pull the chain on the bulb and leave the dark TV room and have the rest of the dark basement among you. I’d always

RUSH

up the basement steps, in a way that would kill my knees now. Each step was covered in a sort of brown ribbed plastic that kept you from slipping, and in my MIND, there was always a scary creature, let’s say Nosferatu, just behind me, and if I made it up the brown steps I’d be fine.

So one time I’d successfully escaped the clutches of Nosferatu, Saginaw basement version, and at the top of the steps, I stared down to the basement in victory.

And the light in the TV room?

Turned on.

Then off.

Then on.

Then

MOTHER OF GOD I GOT THE HELL OFF THAT LANDING AND INTO THE KITCHEN

and I never told anyone that story till now.

So now you go.

Since y’all mentioned in the MORE THAN FIVE comments yesterday that you’d like to hear about m’new house, I thought I could start with that story, and on the following days we could have a delightful new catch-up series, a catsup series, that really cuts the mustard. You’ll relish it. Hot dog!

(Dear June,
Please go back to obscurity.)

A catch-up series wherein I tell you what’s new with my pets, my job, my friends, and m’love life. As in, is that a bone-in ham?

As you know, from your Big Book of June Events that apparently has been lying sandy at the bottom of your beach bag all summer, I was always brokeldy broke broke. It was driving me crazy.

I had the idea to sell my house, fmr., because while I know it wasn’t any grand mansion or anything, it was cute and in a very desirable area. Trust me. That area was hot. Like, you’d totally wanna finger that area.

First of all, it was centrally located. Second of all, it was rich-people adjacent. Like, across one busy street from my house, fmr., is the neighborhood of George Bailey, the richest man in town. I mean, it’s swank.

Plus also too, I was in the school district you wanna be in, apparently, which as you know makes a giant difference to me.

So for all these reasons, I sort of, oh, impulsively called a real estate agent offa Zillow one day in early July. I was looking on Zillow to see what my house was worth (hint: Eleven billion dollars more than I paid for it in 2008) and below that it said, “Interested in impulsively selling? Call now!”

So I did.

The real estate agent came over soon after, and said, “Everyone is looking for a house exactly like this.” Then he told me what he could get for it, and it was more than stupid Zillow said, and my eyes turned into dollar signs.

A few days after that his wife came over, because she’s good at staging a house, and she was all, “Oh my god, everyone is looking for a cute house just like this. Hide the litter boxes and the 18 foster kittens and you are golden.”

They scheduled an open house, like, immediately, and meanwhile, 23948572240 people came to look at it.

This entire time, mind you, I was all, THIS IS GREAT and WOOO! and MAKE IT RAIN and what I’m trying to say to you is I called a Realtor offa Zillow on a Tuesday and my house was sold for the full asking price on Sunday. I had multiple offers.

So that was fun. And then I figured out why my house sold so fast.

There were no other good houses for sale on earth.

Also, that is right about the time my real estate agent became George Bailey, the most beleaguered man in town.

(If you still don’t get my It’s a Wonderful Life refs and you had all summer with nothing to do and no blog to read, I don’t think I can help you, and neither can our Lord and Savior.)

My poor Realtor. It’s rewarding to know that you can change someone’s life for the worse in just one summer. Oh, I wish you’d all been there. Because my real estate professional lost his will to live, and sort of wished I’d shuffle off this mortal coil my own damn self. No one has hated a person with more white-hot heat than Bob My Beleaguered Realtor ended up hating me.

I wanted to buy something cheaper than my house. I wanted LOWER house payments. But everything lower was on the corner of Crack and Ho. Right off Methamphetamine Ave.

And everything a tad higher was BRAND-NEW! In a street with NO TREES! And an HOA!

Ugh.

Girl, I looked at real estate apps the way a 17-year-old boy looks at titties. I looked at real estate apps the way Camilla Parker-Bowles eyes up a bag of feed. No one was more attuned to Greensboro’s real estate market harder than I was July and August of 2018.

I almost made an offer on the downtown place. Turns out my pal Kit had lived IN THAT VERY PLACE in the ’70s, when it used to have a pink bathtub. But what about Edsel? There was no yard. If he got diarrhea in the night I’d have to take him to the rapey streets of downtown. Where I’d be driving all the old men crazy.

Dear June,
Okay, no one really missed you.

Finally, I made an offer on an old-lady townhouse that I could have made ADORABLE, and they didn’t accept my offer.

Asses.

Then I made an offer on a really beautiful hou$e not far from where I lived, and they said ye$, but once I met with The Money Lender, it turn$ out my monthly payment would have been way more than the online mortgage calculator said. $o I had to say, Okay, never mind.

I mean, dudes. There was nothing out there. Oh my god. Pickins were slim, pickins.

There’d been a house my pal Lilly found, over in her town, which isn’t that terribly far away. It was cute, and in a cute hood, and I looked at it, liked it, and after a week of deliberating, I made an offer.

They accepted it.

So that was it. I had my house. I was gonna move in, and yes, I’d have to learn to navigate a new town but what the heck. And I’d be near Chris and Lilly. I’d be living in their town, driving all the millennials crazy.

But for some stupid reason, I kept my Trulia app on my phone, the way you keep your Tinder going even after four dates with a promising guy. And maybe two weeks after my offer and right before my inspection, I saw this…

Dudes.

I saw it first thing one morning, soon as I woke up. And I gasped out loud. I had a G-O-L situation.

DUDES.

So I phoned Bob, my beleaguered realtor.

“Bob, I found a house I like better than the other house.”

Bob sighed.

“I mean, we can go look at it, but the inspection is scheduled, you’ve paid a due diligence fee. Your move-in date might not jibe anymore. You might be homeless a few weeks. We can do it, but it’d be a lot,” he said beleagueredly.

Beleaguered Bob hates me.

I went to see it despite these obstacles, and I almost cried. I have no neighbors behind me. There are woods, then it sharply drops off, and there’s the train track. THE TRAIN TRACK!

The house was way less expensive than my old one, making the payments really low. Stupid low. You-wouldn’t-believe-it low. It was the price I’d hoped for but never found beyond the corner of Ass and Rape.

But this neighborhood, while not pristine, was cute. And? The house was in impeccable shape.

I sat on the back steps and watched yellow finches fly in the pear tree. I heard the train rumble past. And I thought, Could I ever be lucky enough to live here? I had tears in my eyes because I never thought I’d get lucky enough to live somewhere this good.

Turns out yes. I CAN live somewhere this good.

AND? It turns out I knew the owners! I work with the woman who owned this house! Her husband had lived here since 1963. She’s a wonderful person, and they kept the place immaculate. I will ruin it immediately.

As soon as she and I figured out I was looking at HER house, our respective real estate professionals told us DO NOT SPEAK. And we didn’t. Even though we were dying to.

And yes, it was a pain in my ass to switch from the house I said I’d buy to this one.

So I made an offer on this house, and had to live with Ned for 10 days, while the poor woman I work with moved out tout suite and Bob the Beleaguered Realtor took up sniffing glue.

And look. This neighborhood ain’t fancy. It’s a mill neighborhood. It’s on the historic register. We’re near two mills, and these houses were BUILT by those mills. The houses on my street are identical, just boop! boop! boop! all the same design, and we all have an alley behind us because in 1932, everyone had an outhouse. The really cool news is, the alley for some reason stops at my house, so I have, like, a personal alley.

You know what song I hate? The Alley Cat song.

Anyway.

So while these houses are charming AF, not all are as…kept up as mine. Most people who live here have lived here for generations. Their parents were mill workers, and in some cases so were they.

The nearby mills are shut down now, but one has been revamped with fancy apartments (Ned looked at one back when he was looking for places) and restaurants and so on, and they just broke ground on another even closer, less than a mile, to do the same.

So I think this neighborhood may become more desirable as time goes on, and in the meantime it’s quiet, other than my neighbor’s rooster WHOM I LOVE, and everyone here looks out for each other. And I have the prettiest little pink millhouse in town.

So that is the story of how I became an urban pioneer. And of how Edsel managed to ingratiate himself into nearly every photo.

P.S. I have been getting together with other UPs in the neighborhood on Friday nights. We go to the local Mexican restaurant and talk about just everything, including how charming this neighborhood is. It’s just three blocks, mostly with dead ends, and the train tracks behind us. We’re very sort of isolated here.

And oddly, I am now just on the OTHER side of the rich-people neighborhood.

I keep skipping over moving right in there.

So that’s the catch-up info re my house, and I hope it answers everything re this, seeing as I’ve droned on for 1900 words and you are doing this:

Driving all the old women crazy,

June