Book of June

Sleeping on top of the peacock

April 2, 2018by June40 Comments

I’ve been up since 4:53 a.m. I didn’t even have to slop any hogs or anything; I just woke up. I’d been sleeping with Steely Dan, because he came in last night at a weird time (as in, at all. He usually leaves at sundown and never returns till dawn), and I wasn’t thinking, and when I went in to bed, there he was splayed across my new peacock chenille bedspread that my coworker Poochie gave me. Hang on, I’ll show it to you.

Okay, the bed’s not, like, display-floor made. I didn’t know I was gonna bring you all in here this morning.

Anyway, there he was. Splayed. And of course my first thought was, Oh, no. Because you know he eats m’clothes. But it appears he only slept on the peacock, as he was tired after his many roof adventures.

The point is, he was so cute and sleepy, so I let him stay all night.

Here’s the thing. There are two kinds of cats in this world: head-butters and nonhead-butters. Sadly for me, 66% of my cats butt heads.

That’s two-thirds, right? 66%? Don’t ask me to do maths like this.

Solid, huge Steely Dan enjoys cramming his solid, huge head into my face, over and over, with his stupid always-wet nose, and this may be why I awoke at 4:53. Then, when I tried to go back to sleep, birds started chirping because STUPID SPRING and SD draped his tail across my face and then whipped it, because birds because STUPID SPRING.

Whip. Whip. Whip. Big huge solid tail.

The other head-butter, in case you were curious, is giant fat Lily.

The only cat who’s feather-light, who when you pick her up it’s like air and fur, is Iris, who never head butts, probably because she can’t see my head.

eyeriss SEE thing. she just choowse not to sometime.

But speaking of Iris, I took her to the vet this weekend for her shots, as it was a year ago at this time that she was mauled by old Pitty and Chewie, over here, the neighbor dogs who got out. The vet said she looks really great, and then he said, “Wow, her teeth are wonderful. Have you had them cleaned?”

Pfft. Have I had them cleaned. I used to do that to poor Mr. Horkheimer, till I walked in one day when they were in the middle of cleaning him and it looked like torture. So no.

The vet said that in his experience, when cats have really good teeth, they seem to have good genes in general and live a long time. Yay. Don’t tell anyone, but I like this info because Iris is my f-a-v-o-r-i-t-e.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a lovely, you know, whatever holiday you celebrate.

This was how I Eastered. I did not PASS OVER the chance to eat these.

This was also how I Eastered. THEY HAVE GLITTER DYE NOW WHY DOES GOD ADORE ME SO.

I’m tryina think of anything else I did.

My mother sent me a dress that really goes for the JUGular.

Also, I went to the antique store near me, looking for lamps in all the wrong places. I say this because I didn’t FIND one. Also I can’t afford one, because do you remember when we had the $99 membership for another year of WordPress? They sent me ANOTHER bill for the upgrade I apparently also did last year.

Sigh.

If this hadn’t been beige, my least-most-favorite color, I’d have like it.

I’m really hoping this fox died in his sleep of natural causes.

“Hey, you’re sitting in our seats.” “I don’t see your NAME on…oh.”

I also once again left my house that had cats and coffee in it to go to a cafe with cats and coffee in it.

And finally, after several months, I got a pedicure. I was scared to death it would pain my broken toe, but it mostly didn’t. Because powering through a pedicure with a broken toe is how I tomboy.

For those of you who actually groom rather than proudly announcing you don’t, have you ever noticed that after you get a pedicure you are obsessed with your feet for a few days?

I guess the same as there are head-butting cats and…not, there are women who love to groom and women who think it’s frivolous. I find wind surfing frivolous, but you never hear me saying that. Well. Except just now.

I guess I’d better shower and go to work. I have not one but two huge things due today, and they will both take all day, and yet somehow I must do both today. I do not know how I will pull this off, but no matter how I do it, I will do it complainingly.

Butting your head with my words,
Juun

June's stupid life, Proofreading/Copy editing

The dodgy tip

March 30, 2018March 30, 2018by June27 Comments

It was laundry. That was the smell [see yesterday’s post, ya boob].

Apparently I washed a load of clothes back when I was on the phone with Martha Washington, and I’d forgotten to put those clothes in the dryer, so for 8 centuries they were festering there in the damp, and it’s been warm out.

Guess what’s going now. Is it the washer?

The other news is that for the past three weeks or more, I’ve had a dilemma that I couldn’t tell you about.

Another company wanted me. They desired me. I was IN DEMAND!

It’s a publishing company I’ve freelanced for since 2012. I’m certain you recall March of 2012, when I had a giant project due for them.

Ah, yes, June. That giant–GET OUT’CHER OWN ASS AND CARRY ON, JUAN.

Anyway, I’ve worked for them on and off ever since, and several weeks ago the executive editor wanted to meet in real life, finally, so we got up one night and I thought, “I wonder if she wants a job at my company.”

People are always trying to work at my company. People were always crossing rooms to talk to Maxine (When Harry Met Sally™).

But she wasn’t. She was trying to get me over to her. She wanted me to be a senior editor, and be all fancy, and so on.

So for three weeks, I’ve had that opportunity in front of me, and I had to think about where I work now, and what it’d be like there. So these past few weeks, when I’ve been being hilarious

Let me try that sentence anew.

So these past few weeks, when you’ve smiled wanly at me every once in awhile, I’ve been consumed with the idea that I might switch jobs. I even considered moving to Winston-Salem, where I’d be closer to said publishing house.

But in the end, I stayed at my company. For I like it there, and I’ve been there seven years, and it’s six minutes away. I fit in. Kind of.

Then once I made my final decision, I had to take work home this weekend. Taaa-daaaaa!

For it IS the weekend, for me. We have Good Friday off, and THANK YOU, WEIRD BIBLE BELT. We even got to leave at 3:00 yesterday, although I stayed till about 3:45 to try to get more work done, and THANK YOU, WEIRD JUNE BELT.

As he was leaving, my boss’s boss, fmr., tried to out-Easter-pun me. He’s known as the pun MASTER at work, but walked away, defeated, when I came back at him with,

“Why are you so cross? You’d think it was Maunday, not Thursday.”

Nailed it.

So because I’d had a stressy, thinky several weeks, and because it was warm out, and because we were out at 3:00, I headed downtown. To drive all the old men crazy.

Dear June: GET.OVER.THAT.LINE.

I like to go downtown, so to speak. First of all, the mental status of old men is important to me, and also because it keeps growing and changing, so to speak. I can make anything dirty. What is wrong with me? Perhaps the old men have driven me crazy.

On the drive to find parking, I saw two coworkers and then also two young girls kissing against their car, a thing that likely did drive all the old men crazy.

I admired the sites beyond young-girl love, and I also shopped and didn’t buy anything. You’re welcome, fledgling downtown Greensboro!

They have all these cool new stores now over in the once-dodgy end of downtown, a place I never went unless I was desperate to get to the bakery that was way down at the dodgy tip. But now none of it’s dodgy anymore!

I stopped at store (not the store above. That place above is super cool) and had The World’s Worst Tarot Reading®, where I was told my Workers Comp claim will come out in my favor (??) and that I feel trapped in my marriage (??) and won’t move from Greensboro due to my four kids (!!?!).

So.

Do you feel it’s possible that tarot cards are bullshit?

Oh, she also told me three people are very critical of me right now and FUCK YOU, THREE PEOPLE.

Eventually I joined my coworkers for a drink, and I really had a good time, and then when I went home I saw other coworkers on Instagram, drinking at another downtown bar, and I was all, Was there a cooler, subversive happy hour that I was not privy to?

FUCK YOU, OTHER SUBVERSIVE COOLER DRINKERS.

Anyway, now that it’s my day off, I have to go to the grocer, as apparently I need to shop in 1930s London. Maybe I’ll even go to the greengrocer.

My alarm went off today, because I have it set to go off M–F and this is F, but I shut it off and said to Edsel, “You know what we get to do today, Eds? We get to sleep in.” And I swear to you he did his dog sigh/moan and put his snout on my neck and we slept like that for another hour.

Anyway, I hafta go to the grocer because am seriously out of ERR’THANG. I have no beverages. Well, coffee. But that’s not a bev so much as an addic. But last night I had no bottles of water, no soda, no V-8. The only thing in my fridge was a disgusting black beer that Ned left here when he came to get his cat, which is NOT A EUPHEMISM.

The point is, I tried to drink it. So desperate was I. I realize I have a, you know, TAP, but blech.

That was not a successful jaunt. June’s Legend of Blackbeer.

I like how I have my earrings on with my pajamas. I’m Aladdin, over here.

I will leave you now, and wish you a good Friday.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

heeeee [is risen]

June

Aging ungracefully, Family

She lost her youth and she lost her Tony. Home perm.

March 29, 2018March 29, 2018by June53 Comments

There’s a weird smell in my house, and I took out the trash hoping that was it, but I just noticed it again as I came in here, and I can’t help but think, What did a cat murder and bring in here? Like, somewhere the circle of life has circled, and I’ve yet to discover it.

Steely Dan leaps into the attic whenever he can. My theory is there is a rotting mastodon upstairs.

Also, please keep calling the attic “upstairs,” June. You’re not a bit delusional. Say, what are those faded feathers in your hair?

The ’70s had two songs about faded insane women, women who were both probably younger than I am today. Delta Dawn was only 41. No wonder her daddy still called her baby. Whippersnapper.

And I feel like when they were talking about Lola the showgirl, hadn’t 30 years passed since she’d lost her youth and she’d lost her Tony? So girlfriend was likely 50s.

Goddammit.

I also recall being 15, listening to Bob Seger telling us how Sweet 16 had turned 31, and I remember thinking, God how pathetic. You’re 31. Don’t go out. Then I spent every night of being 31 out on the town, pretty much. So.

You shoulda known me in my 30s. Although I was basically this with a smaller living space and hips. And a lot more action. Act-shun. I had a roommate who’d go to work and fill everyone in on the latest with my love life, because it was forever changing. I was 31 when I finally settled on Marvin, and she told me she went to work, and someone asked, and she said, “Oh, she finally met someone she really likes” and they were all, “Oh.” All disappointed.

THANKS, STRANGERS WHO JUST WANTED THE DRAMA.

So anyway, strangers who want the drama, here I am.

I’m icing my arm, a thing that Faithful Reader Paula envisions as me applying frosting to said arm, and harrrrrr-dy harrrrr, FR Paula. In the meantime, I am in extreme pain. As my grandma would say, I can hardly stand the pain.

My grandmother, the one I’m NOT turning into except for this, was a trifle…dramatic about her aches and pains. She had the arthritis really bad, though, and I hear that hurts like a bitch.

There was a nightclub across the street from her house, eventually. It had been some sort of hall, and then there was an actual, like, dance club or something. One night my poor grandmother walked over there, because she had arthritis in her hands and couldn’t open the new childproof caps to take her medicine. Had a bouncer or whatever open it.

Poor grandma. Sweet 16 had turned 61, and she was at the club. With her aspirin.

It was in her knees, too, the arthritis, and I have knee pain all the time now. What the fuck with the being old bullshit? And I don’t know if you’re online-dating, but as you know I took it back up last week like an

EEEEEEDIOT

and

all you see out there are 55-year-old men finishing a mud run, which pisses me off, because stop. Embrace your old age. Says the woman who just got laser beams in her face for two painful hours.

The point is, how can they do all that stuff? Doesn’t everything hurt? Everything hurts on me.

And do you recall a time when you didn’t have to search for

GODDAMN READING GLASSES all the time?

I have a giant jar of reading glasses here AND at work, and yet I always need reading glasses.

I can’t shop for cosmetics without reading glasses (can’t read labels), I can’t go to restaurants without them (had to have the waiter read me the menu once), I can’t do anything in the kitchen (HOW long do you microwave this particular Lean Cuisine?). I can’t look at my phone when I’m sitting in the car possibly waiting to get a Burrito Supreme.

IT’S RIDICULOUS.

So I’ve got them everywhere. Those old ladies with glasses on a chain had the right idea.

Oh, what is that SPOT on my little DESK?

And yet? Two hundred times a day, “Where are my reading glasses?” Can’t they fix this shit? Can’t they make it so this doesn’t happen? What did people do in the olden days when they needed to read and had zero Rite Aids in which to purchase the readers?

Did they just up and not see things? I guess they did. They also fell over with croup all the time, so.

I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta take my creaky ancient self into the shower, and creak over to work, where everyone is 19 and I’m the dowager, all of a sudden. I remember when I used to be the cute person at work. I mean, you know. I was a solid 6.

Also, while I’ve been writing this, with ice on m’arm, Iris asked to go out. Now she’s mowing to come in. Lily has been doing that purr/meow thing where she wants my attention, and is rubbing her teeth against the chair, my leg, the desk, the air, the world.

Finally, I resorted to putting her on my lap and typing around the football that is her figure. She’s been pushing her stupid needy head into my typing hand, and my one good not-being-iced arm, ever since.

Edsel has gone in and out and in and out and in and out through the screen door and barked at Jackie the personality-free greyhound so many times that I finally yelled at him and now he’s Vitamin C.

Also, that floor is stained. Is there a way to remove DOG MUD from linoleum? Or am I screwed? This floor has been here for 10 years. Maybe I should replace.

The point is, it’s a sad day when Steely Dan is the good pet. I’ve no idea where he is, which means he’s feasting on the mastodon upstairs or he’s on the neighbor’s roof. Knocking down nests or what have you.

Sweet 16 turned 52. Sweet 16’s got 52 pets.

XO,
Jewb

...friend/Ned, I like cats, June can't keep a man

NedTalks

March 28, 2018March 28, 2018by June48 Comments

I am sorry to make Faithful Reader Paula tense, but I don’t have much time today. We have a first-thing meeting at work today re our annual evaluations. Our choices were a lunchtime meeting (no, not with free food. We’d have stampeded to that) or a first-thing-in-the-morning shindig. I opted for first thing. You know I like to get a few rounds of golf in at lunch.

But now tens of women and one gay dude across America are tense because I have to blog in my rapid, efficient style and then get in the car and head to my corporation like I’m George Jetson headed to Spacely Sprockets or Milburn Drysdale, getting to the bank.

f41fbd86-b588-4841-ae57-0021639def48_thumb

Hey, June. Shows have happened since 1969.

Anyway, before I try to hand you five dollars and you take my whole wallet, I’ll tell you about this.

Yes, my bed is unmade. I didn’t know you were all coming over.

Nancy sighting!

I love that sweet cat. If there were a spectrum, cranky NedKitty would be on one end, and sweet Nancy would be on the other.

Ned was out of town on a business trip. And, see. I have all kinds of jokes right now. Jokes about how he’s conducting a series of NedTalks on commitment and so forth.

But I have dignity.

Anyway, he got waylaid. And, see. Oh, the jokes. But I have dignity.

He got held up because he was Customer of the Month at Hoot–no, see. Dignity.

He got his LOYALTY card punched at–nope. I am the bigger person.

I am holding my head high. I am Jackie Kennedy at the funeral, looking regal.

Anyway, apparently Nancy had been at Ned’s vet: Overpriced Cats-Only Clinic.

Helicopter Cat Dad, Inc.

SHE WAS BOARDING AT THE VET. He was headed home yesterday but was going to miss his connection because how can you connect with anyone if you aren’t trustworthy.

Dignity.

And he didn’t want poor Nancy–who probably thought she was being given back–to spend another night at the cat clinic. So I said I’d get her.

Ned was frazzled, so I called the We Take Your Moola Cat Spa and said I was a …friend of Ned’s and that I would be getting Nancy.

“May I have your name?”

“Well, no. I need it for identification and my bank account and so on.”

I’ll be here all week.

Anyway, it turns out I was listed as Ned’s In-Case-of-Cat-Emergency person anyway, so they let me take Nancy and boil her in a pot to get back at Ned.

The place she stay at (have you ever noticed how some people say they “stay” places, while others say they “live” places? If you wanna call this living) happens to be in the same parking lot as my sandwich place, so on the drive over to get her last night, I placed an order for a low-cal BLT.

I’m telling you this because I got home holding a coffee cup, my purse, a BLT, a cat carrier, Nancy food in a Rubbermaid thing and some cat litter, because I was out of litter and figured I’d have to present Nancy with a box in which to allegedly pee. It’s not her strong suit.

Although she’s been doing really well for about two or three weeks.

Anyway, I plunked all of these things into my big chair, and went to the kitchen to get a bowl of water. I thought a manicure was a great idea right then.

No.

I put the bowl in Nancy’s room, and when I returned to the Big Chair With Everything, the Big Chair Deluxe, I wish you could have seen Steely Dan’s head PRESSED against Nancy’s carrier.

Neither of them were being awful, but I did hear a faint, “mmmmMMMMMMmmmmm!” growl, and I don’t know who it came from.

And she may be small, but bitch was a feral. I think SD would have been more surprised than happy had I two-beta-fished the sitch and let her out right then.

But I did not. Nancy recognized her old room, and fell asleep pretty fast. I think she’d probably not slept well at the fancy cat place. Ned told me he gets the deluxe room, and I said that’s probably her cat carrier with a jar of mayonnaise on top of it. “That’ll be 700 dollars, please.”

Eventually Ned got back to Greensboro last night, and was Nancy ever glad to see her daddy. Oh, she loves him already.

People are complex, man. Thank god I’m a simple girl.

Okay, I gotta get ready. I have a shift at the Regal Beagle.

stop tawkin shit about my daddee, ant jooon

Simply,
June

June's stupid life

Disease Du Jour

March 27, 2018March 27, 2018by June41 Comments

I am sitting on my couch, speaking into my phone today, because I am icing my arm. I have a very serious medical condition. You know how this delights me.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to my doctor. Fortunately for me, he’s right across the street from work, so I can just pop in there any old time. At this point, they have a special room for me, and I go in early so I can chat up all the receptionists about their love lives.

I had gone for a followup on my broken toe, and because some of my medication was giving me headaches.

My beleaguered doctor looked at all that stuff, asked me questions from his giant scroll of June medical events, and then at the very last minute, I said, “Oh, by the way, my elbow hurts all the time. Just constantly. I believe it’s elbow cancer.”

My doctor, who is hilarious, has told me that I have two choices: He can be hilarious and I can not ever ever quote him on this blog ever, or he can be all professional and medical with me and I will have nothing to report to you anyway. I have opted for door number one. But just know he has several ridik things to say to me whenever I am there, including my diagnosis of elbow cancer.

My doctor is as over me as any doctor ever is. I have not told him about the streak of doctor suicides I have been responsible for. Or about the two doctors who have quit the medical profession altogether.

Anyway, he was basically not believing there was anything wrong with me, until he touched my elbow. “Wow, it’s swollen!”

After many invasive medical tests and procedures, after a team of experts were flown in from across the globe, it has been determined that I have tennis elbow.

I realize that I have never played tennis in my life, except for when they forced me to in gym class in the 10th grade. Nevertheless, I have a sports injury.

I’ve been trying to think of what repetitive motion I have done to my stupid arm to warrant this major medical condition. As far as I can remember, it just hangs limply on my motionless side. It’s not like I’m out there athletic-ing the world.

I got planter fasciitis when I don’t run. I broke a toe by walking into the dog’s bone. And now I have tennis elbow and I couldn’t even tell you where there’s a tennis court in this town.

Maybe I sleepwalk, and at night I’m a tennis pro somewhere around here. I am Greensboro’s Yvonne Goolagong. My doctor did, in fact, once tell me I had iron-poor blood.

When we were just wrapping up college circa 1989, my roommate Sandy filled out an application for a job, and made the mistake of letting it lie around so I could see it. She listed her hobbies as racquetball and watercolor painting.

When she got home, I chastised her for leaving her racquet all around the house. “And I suppose you’re going to whip up that easel again.”

Anyway, that’s me. Having hobbies that I don’t actually do. That my body is paying for. By the way, she got that job. Worked at that place for 18 years. I always threatened to call and tell them that she had never watercolor-painted one thing in her goddamn life.

Her hobbies included putting on her pajamas and watching “A Current Affair.” And drinking and makeup shopping with me.

Anyway, that sums up my current medical condition. Someone on Facebook last night already determined that our ribbon should be tennis-ball yellow. You guys are wearing a lot of Rubens lately. Ribbons. Jesus. I’ve been wearing a lot of Reubens. What hips?

I leave you with pictures of my animals being aggressive to each other. Last night, Lily was licking the spot on Edsel’s leg that he won’t stop licking. Anyway, it offended Edsel and all of his people through time. All of the ancient Edsels through history rose up from the grave to glare at Lily over this.

Here’s Steely Dan chomping the butt parts of poor Iris.

And that is my life today.

Icily,

Jeb

Family, Friends, June doesn't know any ugly people

June goes off the grid

March 26, 2018March 27, 2018by June43 Comments

I realize the best part of life is the thinner slice, and it don’t count for much.

What is wrong with me?

I realize I was supposed to write you Sunday for two–yes, TWO!!–special June weekend posts, but on Sunday I got into a weird cleaning frenzy and never did it.

The good news is, my floors are gleaming. The bad news is, you were bereft all Sunday. e3e88f11658862cb4435b9174d1b3e0e Then it was Sunday night, and your mom was spraying Hair So New on your wet hair while you watched Wonderful World of Disney

and ate a pot pie,

knowing you had school the next day and the weekend was over, and NO JUNE POST.

What is wrong with me?

Anyway, we can still have a …banquet this morning, so dry your tears. And your hair! It’s So New!

Screen Shot 2018-03-22 at 8.10.11 AM The reason I was going to write you Sunday is that my iPhotos had presented me with this weird grid the other day, a grid titled “People.” And indeed, it showed me people. Why these people, I don’t know.

But seeing as I’ve blogged at you for 11 years, give or take times I’ve allegedly FLOUNCED, it occurred to me that while I recognize all these folks, scarily, you might too. So I asked you: Who ARE these people?

And you answered. Often wrongly. So without further ado, because your ‘do is wet and it has Hair So New on it, let’s look at who’s on m’grid.

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First person on the grid? Ned. That’s back when I liked him, when he still lived in his apartment. That’s all I have to say about grid number one.

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That’s my stepfather, Harry, in the second place on said grid. He’s a saint. I remember that picture. My mother said, “Take a picture of Harry to put on Facebook, so his nieces can see him.” Then she photobombed.

Aunt Kathy. I couldn’t believe people didn’t know right away who this one was. I mean, how many times have I featured Aunt Kathy? And her Paul McCartney video?

Geez.

Okay, up next?

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Aunt Kathy’s husband, Uncle Bill. He is very handy. Also, he never, like, relaxes. Like, he’ll fly to China, which he does a lot, then come home and replace the roof all weekend, then get on a plane to Germany.

I’ve no idea what he does. Maybe he’s an international handyman.

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Most of you knew my youthful coworker Ryan. What a buncha Mrs. Robinsons you all are.

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This is my coworker, fmr., Alex. Her name is actually Alex, so she got offended when I started calling everyone ELSE at work “Alex.” To be fair, there really used to be like 12 of them at once. Anyway, you know her from coming to my house to do yoga, and also being one of the youthful people I would drink with.

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Cantankerous coworker Griff. Of Thus Saith Griff fame. I like how someone was all, “Your coworker Gif or whoever.” Gif. Dying.

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One of the Alexes from work. She doesn’t work there anymore. She helped me make my brick house costume when I had that Dress as a Character From a Song party. She lives a mile away and we never see each other, despite several tepid, “Let’s get together” texts.

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Wedding Alex. Been on this blog approximately one frillion times. I took credit for every nuance of her wedding, from claiming I sewed her dress to building the church brick by brick. I forget why. Oh, right. I’m an asshole.

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The Other Copy Editor, fmr. We worked on the same team, but then she left to edit poetry for a living, a job I do not understand. How do you edit poetry? Anyway, she also owns the B&B where I drink, as they have Come Drink at Our B&B Wednesdays, she and her husband do.

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Aw. Another one of the Alexes. She left to take a very fancy job. She has a single dad my age who is hot hot hot, a thing I never let drop, and I wonder why I rarely hear from her. Hunh.

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This Alex was in my blog also 21 frillion times, when she worked with me. She’s gone, too. She and I got pedicures, we had dinner together, I forced her to go to the psychic with me. I mean, we did it all. I also talked her into going on OK Cupid after her breakup, and she met her boyfriend on there, and is still with him, so get ready for another June Takes the Credit Wedding coming to a blog near you.

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Dick Whitman. First person I dated once I was single. We dated for I think two terrible months, then we became friends, and then I got mad at him because when Ned and I broke up, he wasn’t what you’d call around. I felt bad. I felt abandoned. I felt all sorts of things. Anyway, when his mom, Dick Whitman’s Mom, died, we did have a nice chat about how great his mom was, so it’s not a terrible or anything, between us.

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Camilo, of the banana Camilos. Like, we just talked about him LAST POST, so don’t be giving me any, “Who’s that.”

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TinaDoris. We worked together; now she works with OKCupid Alex. I went to her wedding, I saged her haunty house, I blog-named her baby Borbala Rut. She’s having another baby, and I am the father.

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I just want you to know, whomever called Austin, “Jerome or whoever,” I have called him nothing but Jerome ever since. I went to his house this Christmas Eve, he has the really good wallpaper in the kitchen, with the measuring cups and so on. He’s my favorite person at work.

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Marty Martin. Friend in real life. Boyfriend of Kayeeeee. Marty is good people.

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See. I already said Austin was my favorite person at work, but The Poet is also my favorite person at work. She is the other white meat. The Poet is being flown to London for a week, to read her poems, as she is The Poet. I’d be such an asshole if I were as fabulous as she is. Look at what an asshole I am at THIS level.

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This is my coworker Molly. I go see her perform sometimes, as she swallows swords. No. She sings and plays guitar, and I like all of her songs. All of them.

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Yet another Alex who was actually named Alex. She works with OKCupid Alex and TinaDoris now, in some new place where I don’t actually understand what they do. Anyway, she’s British, this Alex is, and she used to live in TinyTown, which you don’t see every day.

Screen Shot 2018-03-25 at 10.43.06 PM.png

Faithful Reader LaUral. She wrote me and said, “I read your blog, and I’m not crazy but I can tell we work right near each other.” This was when I would do things like meet someone who read my blog. Now I’m wary. Too many creepy things have happened. But LaUral slipped in under the wire.

Screen Shot 2018-03-25 at 10.43.07 PM.png

My tenant, fmr. She became my tenant, then got a job where I work, worked there for a few years, and Friday was her last day. I’m, like, the Last Woman Standing. I feel like some wizened old veteran there, with my seven years going on.

Screen Shot 2018-03-25 at 10.19.53 PM.png

Aw. My boss, fmr. I miss him. I miss him more than I thought I would. He was always good for amusing conversation. And he and Griff would bicker like two old married people.

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Kayeeeeee. Marty Martin’s girlfriend. Let me move in with her for those six weeks after Ned and I broke up and my tenant, fmr., was moving out. Kayeeee. Not a fan of Tracy Anderson workout videos.

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And finally, none of you were right. This is Ned’s mom. I think I’ve only had her in my blog maybe five times in six years. So you’d have to be a careful, careful, possibly even obsessed reader to catch that one.

So there it is. My grid. And now I’m fairly exhausted.

Gridily,
Jooon

Food and Drink, Friends, June's stupid life

June Doles Out the Special Banana Post

March 24, 2018March 24, 2018by June43 Comments

Were you worried I’d slip and forget the banana story? Did you think I’d peel out of work Friday and forget you? That I’d split and forget about the banana?

What a fruity idea.

June’s readers. Finding June unapPEELing since 2018.

As you know, from your Enormous Banana of June Events, my ridik coworker Camilo–whom I’m certain I’ve blog-named in the past but who can remember what I called him. I must be low on potassium.

Anyway, Camilo, my coworker, mashed in from New York all flambé about some shit he learned about bananas. “You guys wouldn’t BELIEVE it,” he said. Look, he’s still green. Banana things excite him.

I don’t know where this news stemmed, but he had something thrilling he learned that was banana-related, and he needed an ACTUAL banana to show us.

No matter how you sliced it, he was making this a huge deal. So after he’d plantain-ed the seed, we were all into learning what the news was. I set up an actual meeting on everyone’s calendar, in an actual meeting room, and every chichita in the place gathered to see what was up.

You could say we were a banana republic.

Dear June:
You’re fired.
Love, All readers everywhere.

So without so much as a yellow, he showed the BUNCH of us the banana.

“Is it the thing where you peel it from the bottom,” an unenthused coworker, who had a deadline, asked. Clearly she had not been on the banana boat earlier, when he’d already assured us it was WAY BEYOND the old opening-it-from-the-bottom trick.

“You know how sometimes you have a banana, and you want to share it with others?” he asked.

No. No I don’t. But I’m an only child.

“Watch this,” he said, about to serve us a banana shakeup. Camilo stuck his thumb in the top of the banana, and pressed down.

Voila. Or, waa-laa, if you want to be …rotten.

Turns out, if you press the top of a peeled banana, it automatically divides into three sections. “It’s like it’s MADE to be shared,” he said. He wasn’t monkeying around. He handed banana sections to the whole bunch of us.

I know I already used “bunch.” Why don’t you try to think up this many melon-farming banana puns?

So. There it is. I don’t know what kind of bread you can make from this info, but now you have a party trick that’s…bananas.

Daylight come and me wanna go home,
June

P.S. Tuuuuuune in Sunday for “the grid.” I have a migraine. Too many banana daiquiris last night.

ADD is--oooo, shiny!, June can't keep a man, June doesn't know any ugly people

The Oddly Psychic Señor Kittens

March 23, 2018March 23, 2018by June35 Comments

We have many items to cover today, so let’s get right to business [straightenss her papers the way Walter Cronkite did].

6a00d8341c630a53ef0133f2563aa0970b

Just so I don’t go all over the place, as I’m wont to do, Ima tell you right now I wish to address the asshole on a dating site, my cool new manicurist, and the answers to our grid yesterday.

Oh, and before I begin (OH MY GOD, JUNE), I do want to tell you that when I woke up today, Edsel was pressed along the length of me, as he does, and at the top, Iris was similarly pressed against me, and Eds was using her as a pillow.

Had I not been pinned in a dog/cat sandwich, and had it not been black as pitch, I’d have captured it on film for you. He loves his cats, Edsel does.

Iris didn’t mind, by the way. She was purring and starfishing her paws.

And also (SERIOUSLY JUNE, TAKE A RITALIN), Camilo my coworker never addressed The Banana yesterday, after ALL THAT BUILDUP the day before. I even sent a very pressing work email about it, and nothing.

I saw on our work Instagram account that he was, like, literally lying on the floor of the studio, setting up an image for a work thing, but I truly feel that bananas should take precedence, when one has PROMOTED the idea that you’ve learned something so new about them that your brain “literally” exploded.

But, as with the majority of the emails I send at work, it went unnoticed. So.

Yes, we have no banana stories.

So, the asshole on the dating site.

A few months ago, I noted that I was done trying to date. I gave up. At least for the time being. But I was procrastinating the other day, and I technically HAD Tinder, I just had it deactivated. So all I hadda do was fire it back up, and that is when I immediately saw Ned, got pissed and decided to stay on it with a vengeance.

Won’t you buy my book, “Mature Reactions, by June Gardens”?

Screen Shot 2018-03-23 at 7.33.12 AM.png One of the profile photos I have up is from my Frida Kahlo costume, although I think I used one where I’m outside, not this one. It doesn’t matter. Why can’t I just tell a fucking story?

Screen Shot 2018-03-23 at 7.36.58 AM.png Another photo I have on there is my photo from that app that makes you look about 10 times better than you do. I have written under it, “The photo where I look hot is an app, unfortunately.”

Today I get a message from a new potential swain. “Who’s Frida Kahlo?”

See. Okay.

Like, if you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t know who she is, you’re not going to be the kind of guy I like. You’re just not. You probably love watching professional football while at the bar at Applebee’s. You probably love Pixar films, and justify it by saying, “They write them so adults can enjoy them, too.”

You probably claim you were “in all the groups” in high school and you “got along with everybody.”

I don’t have time for the middle of the spectrum. I need an edge.

But look where that’s gotten me thus far. So I responded, with all the patience of a SAINT, “She was an artist. Mostly during the ’40s and ’50s. Was married to Diego Rivera.”

I mean, allow me to Google that for you.

As I was writing that, he wrote, “The one where you’re hot is an app?”

Wow.

So, after he read the info on Frida, he responded, “Oh, the one with the unibrow.”

Do you get wings and a Bud Lite at Applebee’s, or…?

“And the one where you’re hot,” he repeated. “An app?”

“That’s an app?”

He did that twice. He wrote “an app,” and then followed it up with the extremely necessary “That’s an app?”

“I believe I noted that, verbatim, yes,” I wrote back. Annoyed. Then I couldn’t stand it.

“I also believe repeatedly peppering a woman about the genesis of ‘the one’ photo where she’s hot might not be the smoothest method for meeting someone, particularly when ‘the one’ hot photo was addressed in my profile.”

Then I unmatched his ass. I whip out the sexy school marm vocab when I’m pissed.

I mean, hide your true colors till you’ve got me hooked, like the other men I’ve dated. Geez.

At least I’ve found love in a hand job.

I haven’t had a pedicure since fall, and what with the broken toe and all, I will continue to not have one. I decided, however, to have a manicure last night, because it’s been a hard week of fending off Appleasses. Asslebees.

I usually go, which you know from your Big Book of June Events, to Elegant Nail & Tan (Slogan, “We actually have no way for you to tan”), but there is another nail place closer (Slogan, “We’re two minutes from your door, as opposed to three”) and I’ve never given them a try, so last night I did.

“So, what’s your story?” asked the manicure guy, and we told each other our life stories.

Oh my god, he was da bomb. He’s hilarious, and he loves Italian food, and he made two of my nails reflective metallic!

It turns out, it’s really hard to photograph your hand.

Okay, see? One’s like a hologram. And I know my cuticles are terrible. I bite them.

Anyway, he was hilarious and smart, and also oddly psychic. He mentioned saying something on my blog before I told him I had one. He asked if I needed a phone charge before I realized I did need one. We discussed his blog name and he said, “Señor Kittens.”

“You don’t even HAVE kittens,” said the woman next to him.

Weird. The Oddly Psychic Señor Kittens.

I see that I have droned on and have not addressed our grid from yesterday, wherein you listed all the people from my photos.

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I do not have time now to break them all down for you, but tune in tomorrow for a Very Special Saturday June where I reveal all. Maybe I’ll even finally have that banana story. Sounds appealing, June!

The one-hot-photo gal,
June

Hair, June's stupid life

Untitled

March 22, 2018March 22, 2018by June92 Comments

Today, I got up, took my stupid Prilosec and started my half-hour countdown, fed everyone (I let Iris be a bad girl today, because Steely Dan hadn’t deigned to come home yet after a night out, so Iris got to eat up at SD’s dish like a rebel.

Then, of course, SD let himself in and looked up at his dining establishment, astonished, but he did not kick her ass as I’d feared. I can never figure this cat out. Instead, I fed him over by Lily, and they both took that in stride), showered (she says, after the world’s longest parenthetical), made sure my stupid half-hour had passed and got my coffee all set, sat down here and was like,

Wow. I have nothing to say today.

Oh, I know!

Photo on 3-22-18 at 7.48 AM #2.jpg I got my hairs cut!

I think it might dry while we talk, it’s so short and shortie now, but let’s see what happens. You won’t BELIEVE what happens next. Click here.

My coworker did that to me yesterday. He didn’t cut my hair–I might have led with that. He works in our New York office now, but he’s back this week to do stuff in our studio, and he was all, “Oh my god, you guys, who has a banana? I learned the COOLEST thing about bananas.” No one had one.

We were all, Do you mean the thing where you hold it by the stem. We all said that with the enthusiasm of a tree sloth. Because Oooooo, Mr. New Yorker’s gonna burst in, thinking he’s all big city. With his banana stem thing we all learned years ago. We’re not in Papua New Guinea, dude.

“No, it’s something different! My brain literally exploded!”

“Your brain did not literally explode,” I pointed out, and quest for world’s popular-ist coworker rages on.

Anyway, he built it up in such a “click here” way that I swear 200 people are gonna stop working so we can watch Camilo and the Banana today. I mean, he built this shit up, so it better be good.

“Maybe he finally realizes you eat the inside,” my boss’s boss, fmr., said to me, as we strolled away.

…I’ve been scrolling through my photos, because I know I have a nice one of a bunch of coworkers holding up their bananas at some point, when it was Banana O’Clock at work one day. I can’t find it, of course, but I found a buncha racy ones of me in a pink bra, and who was I trying to impress, I wonder.

Anyway, I also found the following…

My grandfather and me, petting a dog. That dog was Sam. I believe he set the template for me liking a medium-size, yellow mutt.

My grandfather would have been my age in that photo. I mean, he wasn’t three. I was three, and he was around 52. My age now. Just eat your banana and stop being clever.

Me, househunting for a place in Greensboro in 2008. We hadda take Talu on the search, because she was just a baby. She would’ve been four months old then. Lu.

The two-year anniversary of her death is tomorrow. Yay.

Lu and me at this house. I remember walking in and going, “Ooooo!” like it was covered in diamonds or something.

We’re seeing a lotta Lu anus today.

There’s the front of our Lu! Even back then she stood the same way. That Pitty way.

Why’d Lu have to up and die? Like Mr. Bojangles’ dog? I hate everything.

When I was trying to find that banana shot, which really, I need to get over, I looked in the category of “people” and this interesting Brady Bunch board came up.

Screen Shot 2018-03-22 at 8.10.11 AM.png

Here’s an interesting June quiz. Well. “Interesting.” How many of June’s people can you identify? We’ll label them 1–25, going from top-left across. So, the mystery figure in blue, with the buildings behind him, is number one. The mystery figure in the lavender sweater, looking down, is number 25. The winner gets…

cat-bonnet-tabby_650x

a cat bonnet! And by “gets,” I mean I’ll say you’ll get it and I will never send it. Start playing now!

Don’t you love days when I have nothing to tell you?

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Sadly, I’ve discovered my computer allows me to muck with my photos, a thing I hadn’t discovered previously, and now every photo you see will be all mucked. You’re welcome. Also, I took this in the romantic light of the screen. I do not have a skin condition. But there’s my nearly dry hair.

I gotta go. Ima take Edsel to daycare today, and here’s the link.

Talk at you.
Juan

...friend/Ned, Current Affairs

What are you putting off?

March 21, 2018by June66 Comments

I had a friend who, with her husband, went through some shit. When they were going through said shit, every time a bill came they just threw it in this one black garbage bag. Threw it in there and didn’t acknowledge it.

Just the thought of that makes me nervous.

Eventually, they got their lives in order, and decided to tackle the Huge Black Bag.

“We were horrified, but when all was said and done, we owed, like, 7,000 bucks or something. Had it paid in a year.”

So there you go. Also, they were young and it was the ’90s.

I’ve had a few dreadful tasks I’ve been putting off, although not nearly as awful as facing a garbage bag full of overdue bills. Last year, when I was destitute and got sick and tired of being destitute, I did anything I could to get more money. I freelanced my ass–as my friend Alicia would say–I took surveys for money, and I got this, like, Nielsen box for the internet.

Don’t ask me what the name of the company was, because I can’t remember any longer. Even though the company’s big black box sat behind my TV for a year. But for $60 a month, it monitored what I looked at online for marketing purposes. Since I rarely look at anything nefarious, I did it.

The reason I stopped was because I got caught up and didn’t need to sell my soul and privacy for $60 anymore, and also because every damn month I’d get an email and a text AND a call. “It’s time to recalibrate your box” or whatever, and recalibrating my box was a PAIN IN THE ASS. Am I right, ladies?

June’s blog. Come for the–oh, hell. There’s no earthly reason to come here.

Anyway, I realize it was basically getting 60 bucks for free, but it irked.

So I was supposed to return the box. Like, last October.

They’d sent me a self-addressed, stamped envelope, just like you had to send in to Freakies cereal or whatever, and they also sent instructions for how to send it back.

I never did. The puffy envelope and its instructions mocked me from my secretary. Eventually, I moved them to the top of my microwave, so I’d have NO CHOICE but to send that box back.

Yeah. You know what I had? A choice.

See. The whole setup included a box, and tangled wires, and I figured I’d get really angry tryina figure out which cords belonged to them, so I put it off. And off.

And off.

I also, as you know, from your Wall Calendar of June Things, have some confusion with the IRS and this corrected form I got–The Saga of Form 1098 and the Corrective Shoes–and I had to send in a bunch of paperwork to the IRS, and see above. I keep putting it off because I know I’ll get all frustrated, and who wants that when you can lie on your couch and see Ned on Tinder?

Yes. That happened last night.

I swiped left.

I just got ON Tinder last night, in attempts to put off doing the unpleasant tasks listed above, and look what that got me.

So I got up offen the couch and did my put-offs.

And you know what? Probably took an hour, and that included taking two trips with Edsel to the mailbox. The box-that-knows-all-your-internet-secrets (“Wow. She sure seems to enjoy her a makeup tutorial.”) had really clear instructions for their cords-n-such, and they’d even color-coordinated them to their logo color, which, nice.

And TurboTax, who is refunding a great portion of my cash money due to this confusion with my 1098, also had very clear instructions for getting papers to our good friends the IRS.

The only thing that held me up was I did one task, took it to the mailbox, went home and did the next task, and then I was all, ding-dang it. Now I gotta go back to the melon-farming™ mailbox again. (Use of “melon-farming” as a fake swear, (c)Faithful Reader Paula.)

But still. Maybe an hour.

Oprah once timed how long it took to replace the toilet paper roll: seven seconds. But how many people do you know (MARVIN) who place the toilet paper on top rather than just put it on?

How many things do you put off that, if you just faced them, wouldn’t be so bad?

That’s my deep thought for today. It’s the second day of spring, and here’s our current situation in North Carolina:

I guess nature is putting off spring. But Eds will never put off Blu.

Offputtingly,
Joon

Book of June

Sleeping on top of the peacock

The dodgy tip

She lost her youth and she lost her Tony. Home perm.

NedTalks

Disease Du Jour

June goes off the grid

June Doles Out the Special Banana Post

The Oddly Psychic Señor Kittens

Untitled

What are you putting off?

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