Last summer, we had a food truck at work.

We have them a couple times a month when it’s warmer, and people from our whole building frequent said food truck, not just my offce.

(Also, as an aside, some days I’ll get something from the truck and return to my desk with a Styrofoam container or a little open food tray with hot food in it, and inevitably someone will say, “Oh, is that from the food truck?”

I realize I am the World’s Crabbiest Person, but this drives me berserk. Where else would it be from? Did you think I just make a Philly cheesesteak at home and put it in an open container for lunch? Even anticipating that question has made me so cranky that I spend my entire food truck lunch tensed up, waiting for 15 people to ask, “Oh, is that from the food truck?” At this point, I get something from the truck and put the usually open container in my car and drive home, just to avoid that conversation.)

But that is not why I’ve gathered you here today.

I’ve gathered you here to talk about forgiveness.

Last summer, the, you know, food truck came to work and parked itself in our parking lot. I traipsed out there, keys in hand, ready to get my food and scurry home, away from The Question, so that Edsel could say, “dat be frum fud truk?”

Anyway, the line was sort of haphazardly formed, and I saw someone I knew and went over to say hello. “Oh, is your food going to come from the food truck?”

The point is, this little

ASSHOLE

from another company said, “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am?”

He was talking to me. Don’t ma’am me, you little twit.

“I don’t mean to be rude.”

Any time someone says they don’t mean to be rude, they 100% mean to be rude.

“But, we were here? Behind you? You just cut in line.”

I mean, they hadn’t been behind me. They’d been clustered sort of messily in the general vicinity. But I said, “Oh! I’m so sorry! Of course!” and, humiliated, got behind them in line.

Three young boys they were, probably early 20s, although at this point early 20s and mid-30s look the same to me. Everyone I see under 40 has a beard and skinny jeans and I have no way of knowing if they’re edging toward male-pattern baldness or just got voting rights.

Seconds later, I am not even kidding you, SECONDS LATER, their young stupid friend joined them. “Hey!” he said, all happy to see a coworker, the way I was.

AND THEY LET HIM STAY. THEY LET HIM “cut in line.” Even though they’d just admonished me for the same thing.

Here’s what I have to talk to you about. That was last summer. I AM STILL LIVID.

I really am. I mean, when I even pass another door to another office here in this building, I think of that incident and burn right up. I don’t even smile when I see someone I don’t know in the parking lot, in case they know those horrible boys.

What I want to know is, how do people forgive real things if I can’t even get past the food truck incident? Like, how do Holocaust survivors forgive, and I’m over here still burning mad over millennials?

I’m seriously asking this. Cause, oooooo, I’m mad.

I’m also still angry over something that happened in 1981. There was a boy, Giovanni Leftwich, who like like liked me all spring and all summer and all fall, and he was constantly coming over and making his 10th-grade move and so on. Finally, over Christmas break, finally I came around to his side and liked him back.

We had two glorious 10th-grade-romance weeks, when out of nowhere he broke up with me. He didn’t even break up with me, really, he just disappeared, and I finally had to call him at home to ask what was up. “I don’t like you because you’re a flake,” he yelled, and I burst into tears and was brokenhearted and did my best to carry on and then

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

it dawned on me.

HE WAS THE DAMN FLAKE.

Oh my god, this sizzles my chaps. HE WAS THE FLAKE. He did nothing but hit on me for months and then when I liked him back? Oh, forget it. Never mind.

Okay, so tell me. How do you not sit around being livid about things that really don’t matter that much?

Also, is that from the lunch truck?

June

Yesterday, my pal Wedding Alex and I headed … north? West? We headed in some direction to the mountains, as the Vanderbilts, personal friends of ours, bilt a mansion in the 1800s, and do you see what I did there?

Wedding Alex was the driver, as she is the grownup. Hey, I’m the one who had the free tickets, thanks to being a world-famous blogger.

We got on the open road with the first light of day (9:30-ish), and off we went. Free! Unencumbered! We had the world by the tail! We…we…

had to pee. We stopped off at a room of rest.

It turns out this restroom was even better than the one I go to to have gay man trysts. It had THE BEST vending machines, and I realize one doesn’t necessarily HAVE to go to the vending machines at a rest stop, but if you don’t you aren’t my type and our homosexual tryst is off.

First of all, it took ATM cards, the vending machine did, and my info is probably being stolen across the land. This land is your land, this card is your card.

Also, when you selected your item, this mechanical arm reached across and got your item, let’s say a Mrs. Freshley’s cupcake just to throw a random scenario out there, then it gently placed the item in the outbox or whatever it’s called, and then it mechanically gave you a reacharound.

“This is going to be my favorite part of this trip,” I announced, because mechanical arm!

Anyway, we finally got to Asheville, like the Edie Brickell/Steve Martin song.

If you’re ever headed to the Biltmore, and you arrive in Asheville, you needn’t worry that you won’t be able to find, you know, the Biltmore. Once I was in the cemetery where they buried Jim Morrison, in Paris. All these other famous people were similarly buried there, but all sorts of tombstones had spraypainted on them “Jim” with an arrow leading you to Jim. Asheville was much the same, leading you to the mansion, except on fancier, less-dead signs.

Once you get to the property, it’s

TWO

MILES

from the front to the actual house. Then, after you’ve driven

TWO

MILES,

it’s an 8-minute walk to the actual house.

Two miles. That’s longer than from my house here to work.

I took a video of us exclaiming over how ridiculous it was to have to drive two miles just to get down your driveway, and we said all sorts of pithy unforgettable things about it, and then you know what? I turned on the video feature of my phone once we were done. See, normally what you’d want to do is turn it on, you know, first.

Anyway, we eventually got there, and felt quite butch making that 8-minute trek through the woods, although W Alex became convinced we’d be kidnapped. You hear of a lot of kidnappings at the entry to the Biltmore, so I get it.

Also too, every time we saw a guard or a traffic guy or a janitor, we’d say, “That guy wanted us.”

It’d be funny if it weren’t so true.

You’re going to be stunned to hear that the Biltmore has a lotta rooms, and a lotta fireplaces, and I can’t begin to imagine what they spend on those Duraflame logs each month.

• 

• 

But what I liked best, beyond the billiard room and the bowling alley and the pool and the gym

was the everyday stuff. Because you know how I am about the everyday. I’m obsessed with it. So, for me, the bathrooms were riveting. The kitchens (they had, like, 10 of them). The maids’ rooms. That’s the stuff I could identify with. Okay, I can’t identify with kitchens. You know what I mean, though. I mean, I can’t say, How does this drawing room differ from mine. But a bathroom? I can identify.

Afterward, we had lunch in the stables, as you do. Even the leftovers be fance.

Then, because we hadn’t spent enough money there, (we’d spent none) (well, lunch. Okay. LUNCH.) (I had bison pot roast. The waiter really buffaloed me into ordering it.) we popped into all the shops, where I am sorry to tell you I bought dark chocolate lavender truffles. I wanted to buy some dark chocolate-covered cashews, but the moment I would have brought them into the car, W Alex would have fallen over dead with her nut allergy and then I’d have had to navigate home and I’m really not good with directions.

In all, ’twas an excellent day looking at rich people’s houses, although I guess technically I looked at rich people’s HOUSE, and it’s hard to believe that was one house.

Now I gotta go the 17 steps from my house to my car, and then drive…well, zero miles to get out of my driveway, seeing as I don’t have one. I DO have a personal alley out back, and can the Vanderbilts say that? Hmmm? Can they?

Wealthily,
June

I have today off! Because Wednesday is the traditional day to take one vacation day.

A faithful reader sent me two passes to the Biltmore, a mansion in the mountains that the Vanderbilts used to live in. I wonder if they still own it. Like, can Anderson Cooper be all, “Everybody out. I want this place to myself this weekend”?

Anyway, I’ve asked Wedding Alex to be my date, and now we’ve BOTH taken a day off work and the whole office will go to hell in a handbasket because we are the backbone of that company. Or, no one will notice.

Wedding Alex has a much fancier job than I have. She, like, directs client solutions or provides architectural solutions or she solves mysteries with solutions. I forget. But she fancy. She’s very grown up.

I tend to have friends who are younger than me who are very grown up, have you noticed that? Although my friend Sandy, who is my age, said the other day, “You’re pretty much Frankie to my Grace, right?” and I pointed out to her that other than my hippie woods-living friend Marianne, ALL my friends are Grace to my Frankie.

If you don’t watch Grace and Frankie there is something wrong with you. Or you’re Hulk. One of the two.

So she’ll be here soon, Wedding Alex will, and we’ll get in the car and head to the mountains and go to a mansion and I hope eat lunch at some point, because lunch. Then we’ll look at mansion things some more and then head back and that will be the end of our day of romance in the mountains.

My grandparents–the grandmother I’ve turned into and my grandfather who was the World’s Nicest Person–retired not far from said mansion, and they got season passes and went there just all the time. They were obsessed with that place, and by “they” I probably mean Grammy. Picky, my grandfather, probably just went along for the ride, which sums up their 109 years of marriage.

Anyway, they once sent me a picture of the two of them there, in front of a statue of some little sprite playing the flute or something, and it was such an absurd photo–the two of them in their sensible beige spring jackets, that I took that picture with me to the library, propped it up on books whenever I studied for something, to kind of lighten my mood.

I wish I could find that picture, and I just assumed I’d shown it to you at some point between 2006 and now, but when I google my blog and “statue” I get the following…

I remember this day. This is Joann, who had a blog, and I had a blog, and we used to email and call each other and so on. She lives in Florida, but she came to Raleigh for something and asked if I’d drive to have lunch with her one Sunday.

The Sunday we were to meet was a day or so after Marvin told me he was leaving, and I hadn’t told anyone yet, and I was dying to get there and confide in her. I wanted to tell someone face to face, not over the phone. I could hardly wait to spill all, it was all I could do to hold on till then, and when I got there, she said, “Do you mind if my husband joins us for lunch?”

So. I can’t recall who I finally told my tale of woe to, but eventually, that fell under the category of “everybody.” She, Joann, sent me a really nice print after Marvin left that I still have.

Anyway, when I get home tonight from my romantic getaway, I’ll look for that photo of m’grandparents. In the meantime, I have to figure out what to wear. I’d imagine an old mansion is going to be drafty, right? The last time I was there it was hot as blazes and there was no AC. No one was there to drive OJ down the 405. BAH.

Oh! Now I’ve talked too much about things that don’t matter and forgot to tell you I saw a card reader yesterday.

Basically, she said I had to actually leave the house more and stop being so happy to go to work and just come home. Crap.

Oh my god, are those heart hands in that middle card? I guess not. They’re more diorama hands. The fact that the third card doesn’t have a period doesn’t bug me or anything.

Okay, W Alex texted to see if I wanted anything from Starbucks (I don’t) so I’d better go so I look lovely when she arrives. Apparently she will be arriving in 1990.

XO,
Jooon

Would you like to know what annoys me (vol. XI4a)?

When famous, spectacularly beautiful women get asked, “What’s the secret to your beauty?” and they say, “It comes from within” or “It comes from being surrounded by love.”

Oh, go fuck yourself. Everyone on earth adores me and I still look like an almond with a nose.

It comes from within. Shut up. Are you saying Don Knotts had ugly thoughts and was dark inside just because he was goofy-looking? Your beauty doesn’t come because you’ve surrounded yourself with happy thoughts, you fortunate-boned nincompoop.

It’s a stupid question anyway. People who look that great come from a line of people who look great, no matter the sunscreen or water consumption, and Don Knotts’s people have always been goofy-looking and always will. I don’t know why I’m so anti-Don Knotts today. And I’m really not. I’m anti-phony answers.

In other news, a body was found in my old neighborhood. I realize I should have led with this, but I just saw Julia Roberts interviewed. The secret to her beauty, she says, is she has nice kids. And that is when I punched her right in the junk.

Anyway, I don’t know how much about my old neighborhood you recall, but it was quiet and 100% safe and nothing happened to me for 10 years other than that weird knock on the door late at night right before I moved. Did I tell you about that?

It was, like, 10:30 p.m. on a weeknight, and as soon as the knock came, my heart started racing. Cha-Cha told me to start my engines.

“WO WO WO WO WO WO!” said Edsel, racing to the door with my heart.

“WHO IS IT,” I said, trying to sound like a fit 27-year-old man with anger issues and a pistol.

“Delivery,” said the male voice. Delivery. Who are you, the Land Shark?

“WO WO snarrrrrl,” snarled Edsel, and he’s not much of a snarler.

“Ah, you know what? Never mind. Sorry,” said the murderer.

And that is the only thing that ever happened to me in that neighborhood.

It, my old neighborhood, was very quiet, other than there were busy streets on all sides of it. Each busy street was three or four blocks away, but still.

Anyway, in my small neighborhood was a small park that Edsel and I went to every day. It’s where we always threw his poop bags out. I mean, in the garbage. I’m not a savage. It’s because I’m lit from within by my happy thoughts.

It would appear, based on the news photos, that that’s where they found said body. The park, not the garbage. I can think of some neighbors, fmr., that I hope it is, but it might be that it’s some poor nonresident–say, Don Knotts–who was murdered elsewhere and dumped in my Edsel Poop Park.

I got up one night at 3 or 4 a.m. to watch a meteor shower in that park. I am glad no one accidentally threw a body on me.

…Oh! I just looked it up, and the death is not suspicious. They believe that the person is really dead, it’s not suspicious. They don’t think the person is playing possum.

Wait, so what are they saying? Someone just UP and DIED in that park? That’s also creepy. …Oh. Was it a suicide? Now I feel bad. No wonder I’m not pretty, with my bad thoughts and mean kids.

On that note, I have to be at work in 11 minutes.

Your beautiful pal,
June

I’ve been waiting till payday, which was, mercifully, on Friday. I had a list of things I’ve been waiting to get, which included:

• Shampoo and deep conditioner for 2C/3A, low-porosity hair.
• Face serum that Hot & Flashy recommends. Yes, I AM obsessed with Hot & Flashy, and who wouldn’t be? Look at her! Good gravy; she’s magnificent. Hot & Flashy is my new Carrie Bradshaw.
• Groceries, including yogurt and healthy not-at-all-processed Lean Cuisines.
• Foundation from IT Cosmetics because (wait for it) Hot & Flashy recommends it.

Sunday morning I made myself a little list of everything I had to buy because have you met my ADD? Yes, you have. If you’ve ever read one single day beyond this one, yes, you have met and made out with my ADD.

The first thing I did was go online to order the Vitamin C serum. Hot & Flashy–and clearly I am planning to run off with her and be June & Flashy–gives you 5% off if you go to this one website that sells the serum and put in a special “I’m obsessed with Hot & Flashy” code. (It’s hf5off.)

I used Paypal for my purchase, which I always opt for because it’s faster and heaven knows I’m pressed for time with all these kids.

My point is, I forgot one of you gave me a tip this week, and it covered my serum, so my total was ZEEEEERO!

I did not know it was the start of a whole day of deals.

After my online extravaganza, I walked in the cold rainy day and got in my cold car and headed to the Target. I’d done some research and there was a specific curly-girl-friendly shampoo and deep conditioner I wanted to try.

By the way, that last link is for just in case you were all, “There are products that are friendly to curls?” Yes. Yes, there are. They don’t have harsh stuff in them so there’s less chance you’ll look like Voltaire after you use them. That link just tells you a little about that and lists specific products, but there are tons more.

Anyway, I’d heard good stuff about this Carol’s Lover or Carol’s Banana or Carol’s Christmas or whatever products, and they sell them at Target so did I mention I drove through the cold rain?

Oh my god! I got some of Carol’s Dingy Black Vanilla shampoo and Carol’s Dong deep conditioner, and got 25% off one of them! Then? I got to the checkout? And remembered I had a Target gift card, and my purchase was FREEEEEEE!

I was on such a roll, man.

Then I got flea meds at PetSmart and paid full price but shut up.

I headed to Ulta, and remember when I hated them? I got over it. Anyway, I got the IT Foundation that H&F told me to get; now we’re so close that I just call her H&F.

I haven’t used it yet because it was Sunday and who cares what I look like on Sunday. My point is, I went to the counter to pay my cash money and remembered I had an Ulta gift card, so my

PURCHASE

WAS

FREEEEE!

How sick of me are you? Go ahead, feel FREEEEEEE!

Finally, I went to the grocery store near my house, and on my list was yogurt, and they were selling it 4 for $5, AND? Lean Cuisines were ALSO on sale, so everything was practically

(ready?)

FREEEEEEE!

I should have bought a lottery ticket or something.

The only other news I have to impart to you is I got a few work emails while I was out, so eventually, I had to sit at my computer and do some work yesterday afternoon. Because I’m salaried, I worked for

FREEEEEE!

Love,
June

I got a message from the place that’s doing Edsel’s DNA. They’re typing with someone named Geno or something, which, I guess I’m glad to get updated but just GIVE ME THE RESULTS.

GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT.

Do my movie references bug you?

Anyway, it was Valentine’s Day yesterday. FYI. I see that something fuzzy and feathery is at the bottom of this photo and what I enjoy about my own self is it could be one of 49 fuzzy and feathery things at my desk. Corporate ladder. Long ago, my coworker Griff gave me a lavender clock with kittens on it. Said clock is wrapped in ostrich feathers and it’s magnificent. I also have a baby-blue-feathered tiara. With gems.

Have I mentioned corporate ladder? Hello. I’m a serious businesswoman. Let me just set this feathered kitten clock aside and make serious business decisions.

Anyway. So, as pictured above 90 paragraphs ago, I purchased Fun Dip for people at work. As I mentioned to Alex when I gave her hers, I bring both the fun and the dip. You really can’t ask for more in a friend.

And because we live in an era where no fun is ever allowed, now our candy says this…

See what a good friend I am? I bring thoughtful portions, which are okay to enjoy if you have a balanced diet and OH MY GOD LIGHTEN UP.

Two of the guys from IT chipped in for an elaborate Valentine for me: A card that reads, “You rock” and some Chik-fil-A sauce. I don’t understand how anyone in IT can like me given how often my computer won’t do what I want it to, and they come down and, like, jiggle one key and lo and behold. But yay! They like me anyway!

When I got home last night, I walked in to this tragedy:

Chris and Lilly gave me an air fern for Christmas, inside a little yellow duck, and I’d put it in my kitchen windowsill right next to the plate of homemade wishes.

I Miss Marple-d the situation above, and (a) I blame Milhous. (2), I figure he must have leapt onto the kitchen counter, and for WHAT. Then he must have taken that plant out the duck, leapt down like a hunter asshole, and batted it around the kitchen till he was satisfied and then ripped it to shreds.

Asshole. And no, I didn’t check to see if air ferns are POIIIIIIIISON, June. I hope they are. Also, he seems no worse for the wear as he was doing this last night…

Which might explain the fur on the rim of that lamp. He has done his life-of-the-party move since he was a wee sweet thing (which he no longer is).

The other day, I just happened to have a Twinkie still in its wrapper on the ottoman, and why so chubby. Milhous jumped up there, took said Twinkie in his evil cat mouth, and flounced away with it like it was prey. My point is, who hired this cat?

The other thing I did yesterday, other than hand out the dip and the fun and receive glorious Chik-fil-A packets, was I went to our local bookstore, where they were having a reading of erotic scenes from books. Scenes that were very badly written.

I took a surreptitious photo right when I got there, but it became a pretty full house. And it was hilarious. Oh my god. I wish I could remember any of the passages they read, but John Updike wrote one of them, as did William Styron, but I decided to get a celebratory glass of wine, and do you remember two weeks ago when I decided to get a celebratory glass of sparkling rose and immediately got a headache?

That was my last drink, till last night’s drink, and not only did I immediately get a migraine, I also got really stuffed up and my eyes got red.

There is no fun left in my world anymore. No sex, no alcohol. But at least I have cats.

I also apparently had a very shiny head last night. Juney the red-lipped woman, had a very shiny head.

You’re welcome.

Anyway, that sums up m’Valentine’s Day, and while there was no romance in it, there was bromance from IT and there were bad sex passages and there was fun and dip. And a shiny head.

And a dead fern.

Love,
Jupe

I have learned the most from the not-so-joyous things that have happened to me in life. Happy times? I learn nothing. If things had always been happy, I’d be starring in the remake of Forrest Gump or something.

But like Forrest Gump, I do know what love is. Especially now. The last seven years have been … educational. And occasionally joyous. But mostly educational.

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m an anxious attacher. There are three kinds of people in the world: secure attachers, who meet someone and might have everyday problems, but in general they know the other person will be loyal and they will be too. Their problems don’t stem from a lack of closeness.

Then there are love avoidants. If they find a mate, they then find every reason possible to make their person not the top priority. They get really into work, or friends, or hobbies, or affairs, or porn, or alcohol. Whatever it is that distracts them, it makes them be not fully in the relationship.

Then there are anxious attachers.

How do you do. I’m June. Of the Anxious Attacher Junes.

I never knew this was a thing until I read about it and said, “Oh my god, that’s me.” And I find it shameful as hell. I so don’t want to be an anxious attacher.

When I first start dating someone, I have this month or so of smug, where I know I’m not that hooked yet, and I can sort of take or leave the person. I always enjoy that part. I love Month of Smug, because I’m still in control. But I also know that it won’t be long before I’m hooked, and then I’m just one of those shivery poodles.

Once I’m hooked on a man, it’s all “Why isn’t he calling?” “Where is he?” “When will I hear from him again?” “Will he leave me?” “Does he like someone better?” and

OH MY GOD

it’s a pain in my ass.

And guess what else? Secure attachers find and date each other. And anxious attachers and love avoidants find each other. I mean, that’s just a pisser.

They say the secret is for anxious attachers to find a secure attacher. Marvin my ex-husband was a secure attacher, and you know what? I was okay. I was, in fact, a new woman. I wasn’t jealous or obsessed. I didn’t have any of my baser traits that I have when I’m with a man. And even though I didn’t know about secure attachment, I knew SOMEthing was very different with this one.

But that ended, and I went back out into the dating world, and I met someone and got anxious again. Oh, my god, for the last seven years I’ve been a wreck, with the obsessing and the worrying and the UGH WHO AM I, EVEN? For all my married-to-Marvin years, I had this clear head and this sense of peace, and then it all went away once I went back to my anxious relationships.

And maybe you’re saying, But gee, June, your last relationship ended several years ago. Didn’t it? What’s this “the last seven years” stuff? Didn’t you break up in 2015?

Kind of. But also kind of not. You could say I ended my relationship three and a half years ago and also a month ago. Because even though I moved out and so on? We were super enmeshed, still.

And imagine trying to be my friend during all that. Wait, are they broken up or aren’t they? Wait, I thought they’d decided not to speak anymore, but here she is with him.

So, yes, I understand that that might be, you know, frustrating. The same way it’s frustrating for me to see you make mistakes and not rectify them. But you know what? I didn’t abandon you for your mistakes.

I think when you see someone whose relationship might not strike you as good for the person, and you “just don’t get” why the person doesn’t “just leave,” that (a) you might be a secure attacher and that (b) you don’t know shit about trauma bonding.

When you’re in a relationship with glorious highs and terrible lows, that shit actually changes your brain chemistry. The intermittent reward of “Oh, this is great” after “Oh, this is terrible” triggers dopamine and serotonin. It’s really addictive, and it bonds you to the person.

If you’ve only ever been in something healthy, you don’t know what that feels like, but man, I do. Trauma bonds are some powerful effing bonds.

It’d be like if I told you to give up your dog or something. “Just stop seeing your dog. How hard can that be? Just stop loving that old mutt.”

Impossible, right? Welcome to trauma bonds.

So, the thing is, I know this. I read up on what’s been happening to me because I don’t want to be this sad lovelorn person who can’t make up her mind whether to leave or stay. I’ve known what’s been happening to me and why, but what I had to do was work up the courage for the horrific withdrawal that comes after you aren’t getting those highs anymore. It was terrifying.

But here I am, muddling along, and I’m surprised at how often I feel stupendous, actually. I have these moments of just the most lighthearted joy, and I don’t feel heavy and bogged down with fear anymore. It’s great.

But I also am aware of friends who are just not around anymore: the smug secure attachers. Everyone who left is in a happy relationship, and I’m sure they left because they just didn’t get why I stayed. Maybe they thought abandoning me would be tough love or something. Or that they just couldn’t watch someone do something they couldn’t understand.

Well, now I’ve explained it, Sir or Madame Empathy, so maybe now you’ll get it. And now I feel happy a good 70% of the time; my forecast is bright. But you know what? Don’t come back now that the weather’s fair, friend.

XO,
June

I guess my most thrilling news is that they changed the light in the vending machine at work.

“Hey, Griff, did you see the new light in the vending machine?!” I asked Griff, my coworker, and I guess this last part of this sentence was unnecessary. Also, how horrible must it be to deal with me every day?

We have three vending machines, not including the soda machines, which I never use. One of the vending machines is “healthy” and has offered exactly the same things for three years and I never want to see a peanut butter Cliff Bar for the rest of my life. The other two are regular bad-for-you machines that have a delicious variety.

There’s one machine near Griff’s desk, and I’ve seen him leave notes on said machine re his gum. “Gum didn’t pop out,” one of his notes read, and I enjoyed his colorful language. That is the note of an editor. Not just that it didn’t come out. No. It didn’t POP out.

“I just walked past that machine. It didn’t have a new light,” kvetched Griff. Kvetching is his preferred method of communication.

“It does, though,” I said. “They even have a sign up touting their new light.”

Sure enough, we went over to the machine and there was, you know, everything. You know how sometimes there’s a noise, but you don’t really notice it till it’s gone? Almost eight years now I’ve been staring into the murky depths of our candy machine, not quite realizing that half the time, I’m all, “Now, are those Cheetos in that top row or Chesse-Its?” You really couldn’t see in there, it was so dark and mysterious.

“Now lit by LED!” the sign proclaimed. Oh, the Fritos were fluorescent. The Doritos were displayed. Everything was in its full glory, as junk food ought to be.

Meanwhile, the dryer really seems to be shrinking m’pants.

And that’s really the end of that story, except they no longer sell gum. “The gum row is empty,” kvetched Griff.

“Why don’t you just get gum at the store?” I asked him.

“I always forget, and besides, it was 50 cents in there. Where else are you gonna get that kind of deal?”

…He kvetched.

Meanwhile, Kitty Karry-All, over here, is obsessed with my candles. I put them on top of the armoire, but then the whole time I have one lit, he’s this guy. He’s Stare-y Grant. Also, could you make a note in the margins that the next cat is for sure getting named Kitty Karry-All?

Dear Mom: It was the name of Cindy Brady’s doll. See. Is why that’s funny. Kitty Karry-All was the Mrs. Beasley of The Brady Bunch.

Anyway, I fear that one day he won’t be able to stand it, and he’ll actually be able to leap to the top of the armoire, and burn his face off and then he’ll be, like, Make-a-Wish burned face kitty and at least maybe we’ll get to go on a cruise or meet ‘N Sync or something, and that is why it’s always good to look for the silver lining.

Really, he’s obsessed with everything, Milhous is. No open closet goes unexplored. No cupboard is not crawled into. You’ve no idea how many times a day I hear a muffled “mew” and he’s gotten himself stuck in something. Why can’t I ever get the mellow kitten? You know who was a mellow kitten? Iris. I should always pick blind cats.

Finally, I leave you with one more thing: Something seems to be wrong with Edsel. I mean, aside from the obvious.

When Edsel fetches Blu, he runs pretty hard for five or 10 minutes, but then when he comes in, it almost seems like he’s unsteady on his feet for a bit. The other day he was crossing his paws in front of each other while he walked like he was on the high-fashion runway. “collur by ver-sotch-eee.”

And when we’re in the car and he’s sitting in the passenger seat, I can’t QUITE see it, but it almost seems like his front legs are shaking. I see it out of the corner of my eye, but when I look, it’s not happening.

Also too, and this is my final example, he’s sleeping more often. In the morning, he used to always know the second I was awake, and leap onto me ecstatically, and now he just remains snoring in his bed. And it seems like he doesn’t want to… hoist himself up.

I know this means I have to make my monthly visit to my vet with the butch haircut. I really like my vet with the butch haircut–she’s pretty brilliant. Sometimes I want to encourage her to grow her hair shoulder-length and scrunch the waves, but I don’t know that that would be a welcome suggestion. A little mascara and a tinted sunscreen wouldn’t hurt, either.

Also, her receptionist is this hot young tomboy girl who I have a serious crush on, and I don’t know why I’m, like, lesbian for a minute, but you should see me turn on the charm with that receptionist. She really is appealing. She’s like Leather Tuscadero cute. I’ll bet I could win her over with my current references.

Anyway, then I leave the office and I’m straight again, but that’s not why we’ve gathered here. We’ve gathered here to talk about the new LED light in the vending machine and also, what do you think is up with the Eds? Is it arthritis? Is eight and a half old enough for arthritis?

Is eight enough to fill our lives with love?

Don’t say it.

Don’t say it.

Don’t–

Go live your life like bright and shiny new dimes.

XO,
June, who has a plate of homemade wishes on the kitchen windowsill

The thing about death is we always think it’s not going to happen, when in fact it happens to everyone. It really will happen to everyone, you know. Do you know anyone who’s 6,000 years old? I mean, mornings after I eat many potato chips, I look 6,000 years old, but that’s beside the point.

A friend died suddenly this weekend. He was Facebooking that morning, and then he was dead. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know why everyone’s first question is, “What happened?” other than I guess we want to hear that it was something that would never happen to us. Oh, he was in the middle of a jousting match. He had a severe allergy to Pledge. Mrs. Butterworth came to life and strangled him in her own sweet time.

The thing is, we’re all going to die, and so is everyone we love. But we all go around thinking it won’t happen, even if we’re the kind of people who go around obsessing about it happening the way I do.

I met Greg at a party in 1987. I don’t know how we got to talking but it turned out he owned a marketing agency, which is what we called them back then, and needed a part-time writer.

I remember everything I was wearing that night: Black velvet capris pants with pointy black velvet shoes, and a ridiculous mauve paisley jacket. Basically, he hired Prince, is what he did.

Greg invited me to his office, read my cumbersome dark-blue, three-ring notebook with my newspaper clippings and press releases (I still have it), and gave me little writing assignments, which I’d do at home. I’d get all sweaty and tense the way I still do when I work. I wanted so much to please him. Because we were both young and ridiculous, we’d also run into each other in my hometown’s bars. I recall lots of drunken late-night talks at parties, over loud music that would, at this point, drive me berserk. “Can we turn Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark DOWN, please?”

I can’t recall how I stopped doing that writing for him, but I do recall a year or so later, his business folded. He was very upset about it, and he’d told me he wanted to plant a tree in honor of this business. It had to do with the name of his business. You’re going to have to trust me that it was a lovely idea. Anyway, one drunken night I told him I’d like to go with him to plant that tree when he was ready.

And then? He called me one Sunday to go plant the tree. I was writing a paper for school and couldn’t go.

And now he’s dead.

I mean, we had 30 more years of friendship after that. He met a great woman, Ann, whom I adore, and they bought an 1800s-era house and refurbished it together. I even moved into a little apartment in said house for a few months in the early ’90s. That place had a living room with giant windows, a kitchen in a hallway that I never used for anything but making coffee, and a bedroom with a little bathroom off of it. I remember them complaining that they could hear all the loud sex I was having in my apartment.

Hi, mom.

But still, even though all those years have passed and we went to each other’s weddings and we had laughs about stupid old jokes and all that stuff, what I’m stuck with is the guilt that I didn’t help him plant that tree in 1988.

I always think of all the shitty things I did when people die.

My friend Melanie, who killed herself, IM’d me in the months before, asking if I knew if our old workplace was hiring. It had closed years ago and I knew she knew that. What I didn’t know was she had a problem with prescription drugs and wasn’t thinking clearly. I still have our IM where I sort of dismiss her. “That place closed years ago–you know that. Move here! It’s affordable!”

She never wrote back. And we never talked again.

I think of the flippant way I said goodnight to my grandfather, who would die hours later.

I think of crappy things I did to my grandmother, who was my favorite person.

I remember my Uncle Jim waxing on about some horror film he liked. “Have you seen it?” he asked me. And I scoffed and said, “No.” I remember his downcast eyes after I said it, like I’d shamed him for liking a kind of movie I didn’t.

Stuff like that haunts me now. The stupid dismissive or downright inconsiderate shit I did to people, assuming I had forever to make it up to them. Assuming they wouldn’t die.

I’m not telling you all this because I have some sort of wisdom to wrap it all up. I’m telling you this because I feel horrific that I can’t call my Uncle Jim and say, “Hey, what was that movie, again? I’m gonna check it out.” I can’t go visit my friend Greg next time I’m in Saginaw. I just feel guilty and sad and I hate death, basically.

I suppose the lesson is to not be an asshole, but I never meant to be one any of those times, so how will I know not to be one in the future?

Dismissively,
June

It’s Thursday night, and a train is rolling by, and I’m in my pajamas writing you tonight because I got a notice that I have a meeting early tomorrow.

So here’s my latest quandary. Last year, I didn’t do any freelancing at all. I just got tired of coming home from a day of work to do more work. So I took a year off. And guess what! I didn’t have to pay taxes this year! I did my taxes on the TurboTax, there, and it turns out I get money back, for once!

So, with this windfall, here are the things I’m thinking of doing. I am asking you which thing I should do, but I am not asking you to suggest other things I could do with it. Are we clear? Am I gonna have to put a cap in your ass? If so, will that cost me any of my windfall?

Okay, so I’m getting about $1,200 back. Should I…

Make repairs around the house?

I’ve got a ton of things I wanna do, like replace all the gold doorknobs with something prettier (and that I don’t have to spend 86 hours locking–they’re old) and plastering some stuff that needs plastering, etc.

Buy a new washer?

That washer is from 1902, and it leaks, and shakes violenly like the bed in The Exorcist.

Get a youthful injection?

I’m dying to get my cheeks lifted with a delightful injection that’s supposed to take YEARS off.

Wallpaper my room?

They have removable wallpaper now, and I really want to try it.

So what say you? Which thing should I do? Or should I blow it all off and get new clothes because my current wardrobe is sad? Oooo, or I could join a yoga place. Oh, the possibilities are endless, but did I mention I don’t want other ideas?

Okay, so here’s a poll, my stripper friend. Get up on that thing and help me out!

In September 1985, I was starting my second year at Michigan State University. It was the very first week and classes hadn’t even begun yet. They had this very stupid thing called Welcome Week.

Welcome Week. Pfft. Shut up. Why did we need that, anyway? Let us continue our jobs or our summer romances till classes start. Geez.

Anyway, it was Welcome Week [pfft], and my previous-year roommate asked if I wanted to go off campus to a house rented by a bunch of guys we knew. Or more accurately, by their parents.

“Sure!” I said, and remember when you could just go do things?

(We’ll take a moment now to ignore that June has no kids and a six-minute commute. We’ll ignore how June nods knowingly with people who have three kids, a 55-minute commute and bosses who text them at 10:30 p.m.)

So, back then, when I was devil-may-care and not tied down to these toddlers and demanding husband, I went to the soon-to-be-unsanitary rental house of five untidy boys.

And that is the day I met Marvin Gardens.

I tell you all this, most of it unnecessarily, to get to the point that I eventually married Marvin Gardens.

First, he had to not like me back all fall and winter terms.

Then, he had to finally like me at the end of spring term, after I’d gotten a tanning-booth tan and had grown out my perm and you can’t blame him because I was smokin’.

Then, we had to date for three terrible months, most of it long distance because he was back home for the summer. I had to be smit-smit-smitten and he had to be sort of, eh. I think he was dating other girls while I was 50 miles away with a grown-out perm and an enlarged heart.

Then, he had to go away to Boston to college there, to get a useful music degree.

Then, we had to stay in touch after that, talking once or twice a year.

Then, in 1996, I had to invite him to Seattle, where I lived. He lived in Los Angeles.

Then, after just one weekend (and 11 years), he fell in love back and yay.

Then, I had to move to Los Angeles.

Then, he had to propose.

Then, in 1998, we got married. And that is what I mean by “eventually married.”

In the early 2000s, after we’d eventually gotten married (see above), Marvin was way up in that new thing called the internet. He made a ridiculous website that made me giggle, he recorded songs right there on the computer, he joined The Facebook, and also? He blogged. I can’t even remember the names of his blogs anymore, but one was an advice column where he pretended to be Middle Eastern and his photo was him with a paintbrush for a beard.

It did not take off.

All of his blogs had an audience of two: his mom and me. “That was funny, hon,” one of us would say.

Marvin told me I should blog, and I blew him off 14 times until I didn’t. And in 2006, I started a stupid blog called Bye Bye, Buy (oh my god, it’s STILL THERE) because Marvin said I should. I sent it to 18 people. “That’s funny, hon,” they’d say.

One day I had 30 readers.

Then I had 100.

And now there are TENS of you, tens of you who from 2006 when I started till 2011 when Marvin and I got divorced, got attached to Marvin. My blog in those years was all Marvin, all the time. Then he left, and yesterday it occurred to me that those of you who were around back then might wonder what he’s been up to.

So now, 6,000 words later, we check in with Marvin Gardens, husband, fmr. When we left Marvin, or more accurately when he left me, he was a teacher and had a band and also, took the cats in the divorce.

Last we saw you was 2011-ish. Please give us a brief rundown of what you’ve been up to since.

I got tired of yelling at 5^th graders, moved to Atlanta in 2014, and got back into doing sound. My main gig these days is working for Turner Classic Movies recording the hosted movie intros and outros, but I also work on films, TV shows, corporate events, etc.

Do you ever read Book of June nowadays?

I don’t read fake news. Seriously, I check it out when the mood strikes me. But I don’t keep up on the regular or anything.

Do you regret giving June the idea of becoming a blogger?

Non. Je ne regrette rien. And you shouldn’t regret rien either.

Do you still leave black cords in drawers?

Nope, I have a full bin of them now! But I mainly wear my blue or brown cords for nicer events.

If you had any advice for June or Edsel, what would it be?

Get a room!

What’s your favorite song and least-favorite color?

Puce.

I’m quite fond of  “Fuck If I Know” by Snuzz at the moment. We talked about it in my latest podcast.

A reader asks: How can we figure out when he’s joking and when he’s being serious on his Facebook posts? Some of them are obvious, but some I really sit and ponder.

I’m usually joking unless I’m seriously joking. But who knows if I’m being serious about that?

Current pets?

My Henry cat is 10 cat years old now. Ampersand (Anderson Cooper, fmr.) is still hiding under the couch. And Shuggie came along with my wife as a package deal. And you should see the package on that cat!

Another reader asks: Does he miss us? How’s his new life and we need a Make Marvin Do It Day at least once a month.

Not really! But I wish everyone well. I’d say every 11 years is plenty enough excitement for me. [Disclaimer from June. He kept joking about it being 11 years since we’ve seen him, because the year we last saw him was 2011, and I speak Marvin and get his jokes, but I was too exhausted to explain all that to you all, yet here I am.]

Another reader asks: Biggest reason he quit teaching…or biggest teacher horror story.

Every day was pretty much a horror story. Luckily, most of my students survived it and went on to torment a whole new team of teachers the following year. The teaching part was great. It was just the kids I could do without. I also don’t miss the drive-by shootings as the buses were loading, or the kids bringing knives to school to protect themselves from the kids packing pellet guns.

We want to know about Henry.

He’s fluffy. He’s orange. Get over it.

A reader asks: Did the second wife work out?

Sadly, no. We just celebrated our second anniversary a couple months ago.

A reader asks: What’s he doing now? Favorite June memory that is not TMI? How many songs has he written about June? Is she still inspiring his work?

I think my favorite memory is our Grand Canyon trip soon after we were married. You should have seen brave June mincing down those paths!

I never specifically wrote about June, but I’m sure it just naturally seeped into anything I happened to be writing at the time. Like a couple of these.

June has always inspired me to be my truest, most authentic self to myself. Of course, I could be lying.

So that wraps up our check-in with Marvin, and now you have a semblance of what it was like to be married to someone who never, ever gives a straight answer.

Talk to you all tomorrow, or in 11 years.

Luff,
Juan

When I got Edsel, he had normal teeth.

I got Edsel off a website, like how you’d order pornography or books or a bride from overseas. It was a “rescue” site that I now sort of suspect, but at the time I thought I was doing the right thing. I wish I still had the picture they used to advertise him.

A person was holding Eds over her shoulder, and all you saw was a puppy head and 50 feet of ears. “I want this ears-y one,” I announced to Marvin, to whom I was formerly betrothed.

Marvin sighed. He didn’t really want a puppy. We already HAD a dog. And that was my point: Our dog needed a playmate.

Tallulah up there was correct. She tolerated Edsel for the rest of her life, but he was never her cup of tea. But oh, was she ever his.

The point of all this is that Edsel had normal teeth when I got him.

Did I mention I got him in a gas station parking lot? The “rescue” place online said to meet them there, in a town called Mt. Airy, about an hour away. They were very late. I nervously watched the sun set beyond the Shell sign as I awaited their (late) arrival.

Eventually, a sleazy-looking van pulled up and I worried I’d end up in that Silence of the Lambs pit, even though Marvin my husband, fmr., was with me. Marvin wasn’t what you’d call an alpha.

In the van was an old lady driving, with an even older lady in the passenger seat, holding my “rescue.” “She’s got dementia,” said the driver. “That puppy loves her.”

Edsel did seem to love her. He looked at me nervously as I handed over the $90 “rescue fee.” What I didn’t know then was that he was not a fan of strangers, and at the time, that’s what I was.

“His mom was a white German shepherd,” the driver–sorry, the RESCUER–told me. “She was a backyard dog. Someone got her pregnant and her owner said he didn’t want a bunch of puppies.”

Well why didn’t he–

How could he–

God, I hate people. Also, his mom was a Carolina Dog. You can’t tell me any different. A white German shepherd. Pfft.

As I took Edsel to my car, with his normal teeth, the lady said, “I didn’t think anyone would take this homely one.”

I’d been planning to name him Sputnik, but on the drive home, I said to Marvin, “What about Edsel? The car nobody wanted.”

Marvin was a Ford guy. He was all up in that name choice. Five months later, Marvin was gone, but I don’t blame Edsel for that. I blame today’s vows, schmows attitude.

His teeth began to stick out as he aged. Edsel’s, not Marvin’s.

For a while, it was sort of charming.

Eventually, people started asking me, “Has the vet ever said anything about orthodontia?”

The vet never has. But I can tell you one thing: Eds doesn’t use those bottom teeth. Like, at all. He doesn’t chew with them. They stick too far out. The only thing those teeth are good for is bouncing popcorn off them when I toss him a kernel.

About a year ago, he was staring at me as he does, and I noted one of the bottom teeth was loose. I panicked and made an appointment with the vet, who seemed to think I was fairly berserk. He told me as dogs age (Edsel will be 9 in July) their teeth get loose, particularly at the bottom. I remembered Tallulah having one less tooth one day, on her bottom row.

“It’ll come out very soon,” he said.

Define “very soon.”

Because for ONE YEAR, I’ve watched that thing get looser, and I’ve watched him not use his bottom teeth, and I’ve watched popcorn bounce off it, but in his mouth that tooth remained.

It became more and more obvious, and I considered calling the vet to pull it, but that seemed like it would traumatize this already-nervous animal.

Yesterday, I could tell that we were near the end. That thing was ready to be gone. And it was making him uncomfortable. I saw it in the way he ate, and the way he fetched Blu. He’d…work his way around his tooth.

So at lunchtime, I had an idea. Usually, we go into the yard and fetch Blu until he gets so tired that he brings it back only halfway. Edsel will never give up on fetching Blu, but he will bring it back about three inches from where he retrieved it, like, O, dis close enuf. And right then I know.

But yesterday, instead of throwing Blu across the yard as far as I can (news flash: I throw like a girl), I tossed Blu straight up in the air. I know he doesn’t use his bottom teeth to fetch, hence the dang yearlong wait for the leaving of the tooth, but I know when he leaps up to catch, sometimes his bottom row gets involved.

And?

It worked.

I only had to toss Blu in the air, like, five times until he dropped it and smiled up at me with a gap.

The relief was instant. He was a new dog. Well. He’s still neurotic Edsel, the puppy nobody wanted. But a newer version of Edsel, let’s say that.

And that’s the toof.

XO,
June

In the comments recently, someone came up with a great idea, and I’d love to credit the person by name but here’s my scenario:

Comments usually come in the morning, once I’ve posted, until midafternoon. Then everyone seems to get over it.

I’m work work work working during that time. I’ll see I have an email, and more likely than not that email is a comment because no one in real life sends emails anymore. They text. Remember when everyone emailed those horrible things that were all Subject: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: 10 Reasons a Cucumber is Better Than a Man?

Ugh. It doesn’t take long for the mediocre to infiltrate everything.

My point is, I’ll be in the middle of work and I’ll say, Oh, an email and I read it and sometimes guffaw and then go back to work. So I can’t remember who sent this suggestion or what day it was, but whoever you are, please speak up in today’s comments and take credit.

The suggestion was that people write in with their woes, and then we, as readers of the woe, can comment back with our advice. So I guess we could do this two ways.

1. We could start writing our woes, everything from love affairs to child-rearing to how to change a faucet (which might be my current woe) (just to throw a scenario out there) (I haven’t enjoyed a shower since September), in the comments and we could answer them in the comments.
2. We could email the woes to me, I pick one, make it the subject of one blog post, and people write advice in the comments.

I like option one. Makes more sense, right? And it’s less work.

Maybe, like, every so often I’ll say, Okay, today is advice day, and then if you need advice on anything, you can ask in the comments, and anyone who can help you can reply to your comment in the comments.

Say “comment” one more time, June.

So, today is advice day.

I’ll start. Does anyone have trouble with running out of hot water when your tank is just 4 years old? Does anyone have a faucet that, when you pull the thing for the shower, doesn’t 100% work, and some of the water floops out the faucet, still, and not from the showerhead? Does anyone have a window in their shower? How do you circumvent that?

WHY CAN’T I ENJOY A SHOWER?

All right. Your turn.

Well, here we all are again. Our metal chairs in a circle, with our styrofoam cups of coffee. Hiiii, June.

This was a social weekend, or a sosh weekend if you’re going for World’s Most Annoying. It’s also a time that I note that even though I paid for extra Botox, I see I have a bunny wrinkle up near my nose. Annoy.

On Friday night, we had a special pop-up concert in the studio space at our work, and I am with you on pop-up anything being annoying. The only thing I want to see pop up is your man parts. Anyway, I didn’t go, but then I saw videos of it on Instagram and it looked pretty great and I had the regretsies. Hey, where’d that World’s Most Annoying award go?

I also had my weekly dinner with the people in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood. In my neigh-bor-hood, and? I didn’t go. Also, too, it was First Friday downtown, and you know I like going to First Friday downtown, and yet? I also didn’t go to that, either.

Instead, I took time out to lie on my couch and stare angrily into space for about three hours.

On Saturday, though, I got up and did my weekly cleaning, after last week’s orange-on-the-side-table humiliation, and then The Poet came over for tarot cards and tea.

I’d show you a picture of The Poet’s visit, but what I didn’t realize is my 1099 from Amazon is in the foreground, with all my important info on it like my real name, my address, my sosh security number. That minor stuff.

Okay, there. I’ve managed to crop the shit out of it. I forget what we were eating. Oh! Gluten-free chips. They were delicious.

On Saturday night I got together with a friend I’ve gotten together with a few times and never mentioned, a thing he pointed out Saturday. “I notice you said YOU went to see the Laurel & Hardy movie and you didn’t mention me,” he said.

“Well, for one, I don’t have a blog name for you yet,” I pointed out, and after much deliberation, including a terrible discussion about the option of Ray-Ray, we have landed on Twin B. His blog name is Twin B. I wish to never hear the word Ray-Ray ever again.

Anyway, as you know, from your Big Book of June Events, I can’t drink anymore because it always gives me a migraine, and then I go out and say, Well, maybe I can have a drink, so Saturday night, I had ONE and fell drunk as a lord because I’m out of practice. It was a very manly sparkling rosé. Which is exactly what John Wayne knocked back at the saloon.

Fortunately, we sat there from like 7 to 11, so I sobered up. Then I went home and got a migraine.

Yesterday I did my grocery shopping and I was all, WHY IS EVERYONE HERE and realized, when I asked a grocer where the canned pumpkin was, that it was fekking Super Bowl Sunday and I literally had no idea.

It was over in the baking, not the canned vegetables. Don’t throw me off like that. I never darken the baking aisle. I kind of forget that aisle is there. Also? I adore it when people spell it “isle.”

Afterward, my friend The Other Copy Editor came over for tarot cards and tea. Yes, I know. It was a very Groundhog’s Day weekend. Literally.

I forgot to take pictures of my kitchen table and my sosh security number yesterday when TOCE was here. I guess I was busy living my life and not photographing it. After she left, I did my taxes, and because I didn’t do any freelancing last year and the only extra income I got was from Amazon, I get money BACK this year for the first time since 2011, which, yay!

Oh, and finally. In summation. While I was at my kitchen table this weekend, which I seemed to be for 26 hours of it, I noted this…

Iris was over there staring at me in personal growth, which is only funny if you’ve memorized When Harry Met Sally and why haven’t you.

She’d convinced herself it was dinnertime, I think, and she was off by a mere three hours. But she kept boring into my soul, over there, till finally I looked over at her and she’d turned, and was pointedly staring at the wall. Oh, she was giving the wall the ol’ “IT DINNER TIMES” stare. Then she rotated to stare out the window intensely, then finally back to staring in my general direction again.

It was like she was on some sort of rotisserie. Poor blind Iris. Why didn’t she just look at her watch?

…Oh.

Talk at you.

Luff,
Joon

I decided to sit outside with my coffee this morning and watch the sun rise.

The whole time, I could hear my neighbor’s rooster, a thing other people here hate but I just love it.

I went out there intending to sit at the table the old owners left behind but forgot I’d heaved all the backyard chairs into the garage when we had a hurricane, DURING the hurricane. That was a relaxing time. Did I tell you guys about that? It was raining sideways and blowing so hard I thought the chairs would blow into the house, so I had no choice but to take them in. Halfway through, I noticed Edsel, squinting in the sideways rain, following me back and forth to the garage. Faithful cur.

Anyway, instead, I sat on my back steps this morning. Cement steps. It’s January.

Oh, wait! It’s now February! (Which, by the way, didn’t make the cement steps any warmer.) We get to see my NEW FEBRUARY CALENDAR PICTURE!

Nuts. Seriously? What makes calendar makers say, Oh, she’ll want to look at shades of brown all month. Because February is such a cheerful month anyway. Nuts. Of all the…

Speaking of which, I went to see a movie last night about Laurel & Hardy. Remember the scene where Oliver Hardy is in the hospital and Stan Laurel brings him hard-boiled eggs and nuts?

Why were Laurel & Hardy movies always on? Does it seem that way to you? And why aren’t there really good TV channels anymore where they show just old random movies? I guess there’s a…movie channel, isn’t there? But they make such a big proDUCtion out of old movies, and you have to sit in a room with that one guy and some other movie star like Alec Baldwin, hearing about why they loved that particular movie.

Oh my god, shut up shuttin’ up. Just show me the Werewolf or whatever.

I enjoyed the old days, when you literally had to go over and pull on the TV, then stand there like an idiot and

CHUNK

CHUNK

CHUNK

the channels over till you come across the first few minutes of Stella Dallas, but you don’t even know you’re watching Stella Dallas because you’re 10 and you have a bowl of Sugar Pops in front of you and you aren’t even thinking about carbs.

That’s what I miss. Because I saw some really great movies that way, without anyone telling me what I was about to see and why it was great.

Anyway, the movie last night was a movie about Laurel & Hardy after their heyday. Apparently, their manager or whoever he was really dicked them over and they didn’t make much money. Why are people such greedy assholes? So it was about Laurel & Hardy in their 60s still trying to earn a buck.

The guy who played Stan Laurel sounded exactly like him.

The damn movie theater I go to USED to be called the Carousel, and it had an unfortunate, you know, carousel theme when you walked in. But they showed really weird movies in the side rooms, and I liked it.

Then some ass bought up a bunch of property all along this part of town and he named it Midtown, which no one calls it except him, and he changed the name of my theater to Red Cinemas, and as you can see he went to town on the goddamn theme.

Also, you have to sit through 29493420230 previews and TWO–TWO!!–commercials for the theater, where you already are. AND they closed down my weird side rooms where they showed weird side movies. Well, they didn’t close them down, they turned them into rooms where kids have parties.

You can imagine how this sits with me.

When I was married, and I’m sure I’ve told you this before. But when I was married, Marvin had band practice on Sundays with his nice friend Ron who is Southern, and I remember being mad about something or other and coming into the room saying, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck” and I literally saw him flinch. I think he was not used to people like me.

Anyway, they’d have band practice and I made myself scarce so I wouldn’t be Yoko. I’d always head to the Carousel to watch one of my weird movies in one of the side rooms. Later, when I met Ned, it turns out he went to weird movies on Sundays, and often the theater would have only one or two other people, and we think that some Sundays we’d be watching a movie together without knowing each other, then I’d go home to my husband.

Weird, right?

A friend of mine told me that her mom lived in a building right next to where her future husband lived, and it always gives her a tingle to think, “HE WAS RIGHT THERE” that whole time.

Plus also too, Marvin and I lived in the same dorm, knew all the same people, but we never met till the next year when he lived in that unsanitary pink house he lived in with 949402040202 other boys. I never peed there, not once.

The point is, how many times did we reach for the same bacon tong in the caf without knowing we’d be married one day?

I love to think about shit like that. And I have no idea how I went from sunrises to nuts to Laurel & Hardy to standing right next to someone you’ll eventually love, but you know how I am.

Disjointedly,
Joop

Well, I made it. I made it through most of this week with -$5 in my account.

My intent since buying this house for $6 and living in the hood is to only use cash for life, so I paid cash for m’Botox this month, but as I told you, The Botoxer did a little extra here and there and it cost

MORE THAN $600

and it broke me. I was okay till the gas company took their automatic withdrawal. The auto withdrawal is a thing I have marked on my calendar as happening on payday and not the MIDDLE OF THE DAMN WEEK, GAS COMPANY.

RIGHT BEFORE PAYDAY, GAS COMPANY.

I’m starting to think I’m not going to get Botox anymore. It’s costy-pants. And it used to be that I could really tell a difference when I used it–I got this delightful eyebrow arch–and now? I’m so old and disgusting that rat poison doesn’t even work like it’s supposed to. I’m immune to rat poison, that’s how ancient I am. My brows stay dowager-ly down.

So this week kind of sucked on the cash and eyebrow front, but I had many groceries to live on, and the dog and 47 cats were stocked the fuck UP, so all was well. We just didn’t rent movies or drive through Subway, as the cats like to do. No big deal.

Even Lily says, “Yes” before starting some sort of transaction.

And now it’s payday, yay, and most of that check goes to my mortgage, but still. In the old days? When Marvin first left and I had no job and I hadn’t refinanced yet? There was about $80 left over after I paid the mortgage. Now I pay $150 more than my actual mortgage, I save 15% of my check in my four-oh-wonk and I still have $600 left over.

Not too shabby. I mean, it’d be great to not live paycheck to fucking PAYcheck, but you can’t have everything.

Amazon said I could come back, by the way, and be an Amazon Associate. All I have to do is set it up and you see I’ve jumped right on that with my ambitious self. I know the setup is going to annoy me.

I still have a tip jar on here, but it’s this subtle one tiny line at the side of the page, here. I don’t want to be all, “FEED ME.” That’s my trouble. I’m not opportunistic enough.

Speaking of it being the end of the month, though, remember how I had so much trouble finding a suitable calendar to suit all my suity needs? I settled on a Farmers Market, no apostrophe, one. Here’s January’s riveting picture:

Potatoes, y’all. I mean, sure, it’s great to have a pinup of the Rose Finn Apple. Actually, that’s a great dog name. This is my dog, Rose Finn Apple. Oh, that makes me want to run right out and get a girl puppy.

Anyway, I’m holding out hope that February’s image is more riveting than potatoes. I mean, I rejected a lot of motorcycle and kitten calendars for you, Farmers Market No Apostrophe calendar. Step up.

I guess that’s all I have to tell you, which I admit was, you know, not a lot. Oh, as a result of yesterday’s post on tidiness, I went on Facebook and polled my tens of Facebook friends, asking if they made their bed. The poll hasn’t ended yet, but as of right now, 7:34 a.m., the results are…

137 — Yes
124 — No

Faithful Readers Paula and Fay said yes. Faithful Readers Bev and Deborah said no. I tell you this because their names are at the top when I click, “Answers.” I mean, I’m sure my sociology teacher from 10th grade answered, as well, but he wasn’t at the top of the list when I clicked “Answers,” so.

I noticed that most of the people I’m friends with in real life gave a definitive yes, furthering my theory that I make friends with thin sort of nervous women. I’m sorry, all the thin nervous women I’m friends with. I’m just drawn to you, like gray cats. Apparently you like chubby jolly women.

Well. “Jolly.” Is it possible to be mirthlessly jolly? Because that sums me up. And how long am I gonna be able to get away with “chubby” and not downright portly?

Okay, really going. It’s 16 degrees out and I think that calls for the blow dryer, or at least Laila Ali.

Dryly,
Juun

When I first looked at this house, I was struck by a few things. A) How cute it was, 5) How cheap it was, and E1.a.9) How neat it was.

It turns out I knew the owners, or at least half of the owners. The woman is someone I work with, and she has always been impeccable. Her posture is astonishing, and her clothes were always the most ut, and it was sort of like I was working with Jackie Kennedy without the unsavory-Greek-husband period.

Once I moved in, I heard from neighbors about how exacting the husband was, and I can tell that’s true because nothing in here had a flaw. It was amazing. One afternoon The Poet was over, and we noticed that Milhous had batted one of his mice under the stove. “I’ll bet that’s where ALL his mice are going,” I kvetched, and proceded to move the bottom drawer out of the stove and look underneath.

“The Poet, look at this,” I said to The Poet. Under the STOVE, y’all, UNDER THE STOVE, there wasn’t a speck of dirt. Just clean, dust-free concrete.

As a result, I’ve aimed to be a better housekeeper. A few people have come over and exclaimed, “It’s so CLEAN in here,” which I hear about as often as I hear, “You have natural athletic abilities.”

On Saturday mornings, I sweep and I scrub the kitchen and bathroom floors. I dump out the litterbox and wash it and air it out. I clean the sinks. I vacuum. You wouldn’t even recognize me. You’d think, “That can’t be June. On Saturday mornings, June has her regular softball scrimmage.”

I have no idea what a “scrimmage” is. I just hear that word up close to athlete things.

This past weekend, I had shit to do, like read and hang out with Wedding Alex, so I didn’t do as much. I did sweep all the floors, because pet hair, but I didn’t scrub anything. Also, on Monday night, my friend from work Ryan came over unexpectedly, and I had a little flame of pride that I’d made my bed, which I try to do most days now.

But yesterday morning? I didn’t. I didn’t make the bed. And Edsel had tracked his damn muddy paws through the kitchen that morning. Usually, I spend a painstaking amount of time cleaning them when he comes in, but I hadn’t known it’d rained, so his paws being muddy was a delightful surprise.

I’m telling you all this because yesterday at lunch, there was a knock at the door and it was the tidy guy who used to live here. He’s in his 70s and he’s lived here on and off since 6th grade.

He also owned the house next door, but he’s sold it, which vexes me. The women he’d rented to was PERFECT. Friendly without being annoying, quiet, neat. And now god only knows what nightmare is moving in next door.

He wanted to ask me a few things about the logistics of that (I have this private alley and he wants to use it to get stuff out of the other garage) (I know how you all are. How you get off on TANGENTS about things. “What did he want, June?”) (“Tell us, JOOOOOOON.”) and while we stood talking on my porch, Edsel behind the storm door barking and grabbing his face and screeching like that kid in Home Alone, it dawned on me he might like to see the house. Since he lived here for, you know, 60+ years and all.

“Oh, I’ll come in for a bit,” he said.

Dudes.

In the living room, I have FOUR THROW PILLOWS piled haphazardly on a chair. I got them free when I got that loveseat I regret buying. They’re blue and tan, and I got them out this weekend to take them to Goodwill and then never did.

Also, both the couch and the chair have pet blankets on them, for the whole fur sitch, and the blankets were all…SMUSHY, and everything looked ridic.

Then I took him here into the den, my favorite room, and there was a sweater just balled on the chair. In four months of living here I’d never done that, BUT OH I DID THAT DAY. Goddammit.

Plus? There’s an orange on the side table.

An orange.

Then, of course, we meandered into The Larry Mud Melman floor in the kitchen, the Tracks of My Paws floor, and the only good thing I can say is there were no dishes in the sink. But? Also for the first time ever? I’d thrown a coat onto one of the kitchen chairs.

And for the grand finale, the unmade bed.

Here’s your house! I’ll bet you’re glad you sold it to me!

Jesus. As he drove home, probably a single tear rolled down his cheek in mourning for his once-pristine dwelling.

So that’s my latest humiliation, in my line of humiliations that make up the fabric of my life.

Tidily,
June

…because someone peed on the mat by the back door WHILE I WAS CLEANING the litterbox. Oh, and then? Pooped on the litter catcher WHILE I WAS TAKING THE MAT OUTSIDE.

Cats for sale!

Here’re the other downtown pictures from this weekend. Make up your own stories about them. Or sip Cold Duck and enjoy them with your smooth jazz.

I had so many epiphanies this weekend!

Well. Two. I had two. But normally my weekends are epiphany-free.

The first one happened right as I was wrapping up the workweek. “I have so much spinach that I’m worried it’ll go bad,” I said to The Copy Editor Who Sits Behind Me, and let’s give her a name from the Random Name Generator.

…

“I have so much spinach that I’m worried it’ll go bad,” I said to Trix. “I’ve put it in smoothies and on sandwiches, and it’s like that giant bag won’t budge.”

Also, I am a riveting coworker. With my spinach woes.

“Why don’t you sautee it?” asked Trix, who is quite likely to hate her new blog name.

Sautee it?

So on Friday night, I asked my Google Home how to sautee spinach, and it turns out it’s easy, and it turns out it shrinks your available spinach down to a nub, and it turns out it’s delicious.

Also, that isn’t really exactly an epiphany, is it? It’s more that someone told me something. But I’d like to go down in history as the person who invented sauteeing spinach, and can we make that happen? Like, when I die, you guys can be all, “Maybe you never read her blog, but did you know she invented sauteeing spinach?”

My other epiphany was that I’ve decided I have low-porosity hair. I know this means almost nothing to you, as opposed to that life-changing info on my spinach consumption, but as a curly person who is in 72 curly-hair-care groups, it changes everything. Particularly because my hairdresser told me I have high-porosity hair. But I’ve decided she is wrong. I hope she’s not like Fonzie and unable to say, “Wrong.” Remember that? He’d say, “I was wr.” No wonder it didn’t work out with Pinky Tuscadero.

That sums up my two epiphanies, but also I took a shitty shitterson shit sandwich shieski of pictures this weekend, so let’s look at some.

My grandfather used to say that when your breath wasn’t so fresh. “Did you just eat a shit sandwich?”

Let’s have Things Your Grandfather Said Day in the comments. That is if today’s fascinating info isn’t enough to comment on.

The Weekend

So far this year, I’ve re-read Angle of Repose by someone or other.

God invented Google, girl.

I also read a book that we got sent to us for free at work because some mailing lists think we’d be the kind of place that we might talk about new books. It was called Family Baggage.

Angle of Repose was good and worth the reread. Family Baggage was the kind of book you take to the beach.

Then I started that Marie Condo book or whatever her name is, about tidying up. So far it’s made me anxious. Then, as you’ll see with future photos coming up, I also bought Michelle Obama’s autobiography and I can see me reading all of that before I go back to Tidying Up. Not literally. I can’t literally see myself reading in the future. Because creepy.

So on Saturday morning, I read some of Marie Condor, not knowing I’d end up buying Michelle Obama, and it’s this kind of madcap unpredictability that makes the Life of June so readable.

At noon I had a Botox appointment, and with my newfound cheaper house and fiscal responsibility, I intended to pay for it in cash that I’d saved, and who even is June Gardens anymore?

This is only my second time going to this particular Botoxer, and I really like her, but she talked me into a new jab o’Botox here and a poke of it over there and in three days to a week I’d better have trouble getting into PG-rated movies, is what I’m saying to you.

My point is, when it was time to pay the bill it was WAY MORE than usual and now I’m destitute until Wednesday night.

I went home and thought of ways to cook Milhous when I got a text from Wedding Alex. “I working downtown,” she said. “You should come hang out.”

So I did, as it was free and all. I expected that she was somewhere selling her needlepoints, but she was not. She was, like, manning a counter at a store.

Turns out she was doing a favor for a friend, which is different from “asking for a friend,” a joke I am so over.

Anyway, it was cool in there (I’d been before but stuff changes all the time. Like, all of a sudden I’m sauteeing spinach) and I stayed for hours and eventually walked around downtown and drove all the old men crazy.

Speaking of jokes you’re over.

There was a woman in here sketching people in this bar. I wanted to, you know, WALK RIGHT UP to the window and take a photo, but, hello, freak.

Eventually I came back from my stroll downtown and went back to Wedding Alex’s store that she now owns and tried on this coat and loved it but I am broke see above crap.

On Sunday, I had plans to go downtown again, which is not a euphemism, to attend pit bull bingo. It’s where you play bingo and all proceeds go to rescue pit bulls, and also pitty pit heads are there for adoption and oogling.

I was meeting Trix and also Fewks, The Guy Who Sits Next To Me at Work, plus Special Guest Star Fewks’s wife, and I was lucky to get TV FUCKING PARKING right out front. But I got in there and,

oh, man.

They had a bigger turonout than they expected. It was can’t-move crowded and it immediately gave me angina and I was all, You guys, I am not staying for Calcutta Bingo I’m sorry so I ended up walking around downtown again.

Basically, this whole post is The weekend. I went downtown. Not a euphemism.

Do you remember a few years back there was a fancy antique store downtown with a door at the back of the store that led to a teensy courtyard that I thought would be perfect for my second wedding?

That store closed, as did all hope of my second wedding, but there’s a vintage shop there now!

I have to go, even though I have eleventy more photos to show you. I must get to work, and why does everything take so long?

I’ll show you the rest of my downtown pictures tomorrow, so now you have something to live for. Don’t forget to tell me stuff your grandfather used to say in the comments.

Abruptly,
June

[I almost couldn’t get ON here today. WordPress was acting squirrely. But here I am! The one that you love! Asking for another day.

Again, we need to work on deprogramming me of the Air Supply lyrics.]

Hi. I guess everyone enjoyed discussing what items they used to love and now can’t find.

A lot of people are sad that their lipstick is no longer findable, and my, June, what a good writer you are. Words just trip off your tongs or whatever the phrase is.

The point is, my phone was, as usual, listening to me yesterday because on Instagram ads–a place THEY ALWAYS GET TO ME, MAN–they had an ad for build-your-own lipstick. You got to blend the colors online and say what consistency you wanted and what FLAVOR, even (that was $3 more) and in the end, I didn’t do it. But now I can’t get it out of my mind. And even though I’m typing on a desktop computer, somehow my phone will know, and later Instagram will repeat, “Spend thirty dollars on lipstick, Jooooooon” and eventually I will succumb because

DOESN’T THAT SOUND FUN? Oh my god! And you get to NAME the lipstick! What should I name it? How about $30 Poorer?

Speaking of spending my money on things, I also ordered a DNA test for Edsel. Again.

Nine years ago when I GOT Edsel, when I did a build-your-own-dog online, when I said Ima build a dog whose bottom teeth stick out to Egypt, when I did that, I ordered a Wisdom Panel DNA test. They told me Eds is a German shepherd/Iris setter.

I mean, German shepherd I can see. But Irish setter?

After I spent a million dollars on the now-ironically-named Wisdom Panel, one of you said, You know, June, it looks as though you went online and built yourself a Carolina Dog. And like everyone else on earth, I said, What’s a Carolina Dog?

Carolina Dogs, which the AKC recognizes, are from this area, big surprise, and they’re some of the last wild dogs left in the world. They came over like 9,000 years ago on the Bering Straits, whatever those are.

Carolina Dogs have been wild and primitive for so long, and kept to themselves so much, like Ted Bundy, that other breeds didn’t get in their bloodlines.

They evolved to do well in the wild, so they blend in with a field and their tails are curly for … some reason or another, I don’t know. I get bored with facts after awhile.

Once I was told he was a Carolina Dog, I thought, well, I can see that. But how would I know for sure?

A few years ago, I found a personality test for dogs online because I have too much time on my hands. The testing took Edsel and me like three days to go through, and in the end?

They politely told me that Eds is no genius, but that he shared the traits of the first domesticated dogs, with his “burgeoning” social skills. Which,

SEE? He’s a damn wild Carolina Dog. He ran callin’ Wildfire.

They also said his empathy was “through the roof” and I will not disagree with that.

Anyway, because I have too much time on my hands, still, yesterday I searched around and found a company that will DNA test for “primitive” breeds such as the Carolina Dog.

So yesterday they had a special online, and I ordered a DNA test for Edsel rather than lipstick for myself, and I guess it’s these sacrifices we make for our children.

Is that how parenting works? You do something you totally want to do, like send your kid to boarding school, and then you act like it was a sacrifice you made for the kid? Cause that is brilliant. I wish I could get away with that. You make sacrifices for your cat and you just seem crazy, not noble.

Anyway, the test is allegedly on its way, and this whole waiting this has never been my strong suit. If it comes back German shepherd/Irish setter again, Ima be pissed.

Sincerely,
June