A Very Special Southern Indiana Christmas

I promised myself I wouldn't blog until I'd finished a column I had due. Last time I make that mistake. I can barely remember Christmas by now.

So, the highlights. The Saturday before Christmas, my Jeep wouldn't start. Instead of finishing my shopping and wrapping presents, I spent the afternoon resolving complex logistical issues of getting to work that evening and to Southern Indiana the next day.

On Sunday, a Christmas Miracle! The Jeep healed itself and started right up. My brother-in-law sent me to NAPA with a parts list. I spent the morning of Christmas Eve under his tutelage and under the hood of the Jeep, giving it a good tuneup. My hair kept getting caught in the wheels of of the creeper and I ended up with approximately 1/4 of the motor oil in my oil pan in my hair.

FYI, use dish soap when removing motor oil from long hair. Regular shampoo will not work.

I got lectured about how worn my spark plugs were, how much corrosion was in my distributor cap, how the oil looked like molasses, and how the battery terminal cable was probably falling off every time I went over a bump. My BIL did not buy my story that the guys at Jiffy Lube must have backdated the oil filter.

The best part of the trip was Christmas morning. My sister had warned me that she wouldn't be getting me much for Christmas, which is fine. She usually has her husband help her out with buying Christmas gifts, but since he was still paying off medical bills from when she ran over him with the golf cart, she wasn't about to ask him for any Xmas cash.

Imagine my delight, then, when just like the parents in "A Christmas Story," my sister and BIL told me there was one more gift that wasn't under the tree. They brought it out, and there it was, my own version of a Red Rider BB Gun:

You see, one day this summer my sister was visiting me when I was putting new steps on my deck. I threw one of my two shitty drills across the yard when it refused to work. Contrary to popular belief, apparently I WAS a good girl this year!

And yes, it's entirely possible I will put my eye out.

Better late than never, the Christmas meme

Checking in after days away, I discovered I'd missed Nora's meme. But it's still Christmas, right? I apologize for the lack of pictures that could illustrate these answers better, but that would put me an extra day or so behind. I'll post more about A Southern Indiana Christmas later.

1. Wrapping or gift bags? I usually try to wrap (badly), although I'll use gift bags when time or oddly shaped gifts dictate. Sometimes I'll wrap oddly shaped gifts just for the fun of it. This year, for instance, I did a Family "Heirloom" White Elephant gift exchange for my niece and nephews, using random crap from the farmhouse.

I call the farmhouse the family museum, because it's full of 50 years worth of worthless stuff that I can't bear to throw away but which no family member will take. So this year I wrapped, without boxes: 2 child-size football helmets, circa 1965, one with the number 47 plastered on with black electrical tape, the other with a Gemini V space mission sticker on it; a stoneware Daniel Boone whiskey jug; and a small white statuette of a dove. The kids (ages 18 to 26) were thrilled, as you can imagine.

2. Real or artificial tree? I'm on the fence. Growing up we had an artificial tree. Every year I begged for a real one. When I got my drivers' license, I took matters into my own hands and showed up one day with a real one. From then on, I, and then my ex and I, had a real one. Last year, daunted by the prospect of acquiring, wrangling, and disposing of a real tree by myself, I decided not to get one. At the last minute, after the episode known as "Losing My Shit in Crate and Barrel," a couple of friends and I decorated the fake ficus tree in my dining room.

After Christmas, I bought an artificial tree for $10. I set it up this year and was chagrined to discover that a) when I took the tree out of the box, it almost exactly resembled the size and shape of the Grinch. The time it took to make it resemble a tree made a real tree seem like a lot less trouble; and b) instead of a pine-fresh Christmasy smell, my living room was filled with the aroma of a Chinese plastics factory. My floor is already covered in dog fur, pine needles suddenly don't seem so bad.

3. When do you put up the tree? Late, usually around the 15th of December, except for last year (see #2).

4. When do you take the tree down? Again, late. Part of my rationale for getting an artificial tree (see #2) was that I would not have to load up the tinderbox of a tree in March and cruise country roads looking for a suitable place to dispose of it (I don't really think it's littering if you dump a real tree in the woods--it's more like returning it to its natural habitat).

5. Do you like eggnog? Omigod, yes. This year I discovered Traders Point Creamery eggnog, and drank an entire quart in one sitting, in a stupor over its organic creamy, eggy, custardy goodness. It's one of a few beverages I do not think is improved with the addition of alcohol.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? It's a toss-up between the Fisher Price cash register with the big plastic colored "coins" that rolled out when you cashed out a sale, and the pink gingham jewelry/music box with the tiny plastic ballerina inside that twirled when the music played. I enjoyed both of those well past the age-appropriate time.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Not unless you count the polyresin blob that plays "Silent Night" and shows the Holy Family in bas-relief. There's a plastic disk attached to the back, with gold stars painted on it, that you spin to make the music play, so it looks like there are "stars" in the "sky" above the nativity scene. The disk also has a red arrow, which will not come off, indicating which way to spin it. It was a wedding gift. For my October wedding.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Probably the engagement ring from my boyfriend when I was 16. That one could have ended with me being a Trailer Park Queen by age 19. For the worst Christmasy gift given for another occasion, see #7.

9. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Mail, although I'm much worse about that than I used to be. I have boxes of unsent cards to serve as evidence of my good intentions.

10. Favorite Christmas movie? A tie, between "A Christmas Story" and "Bad Santa." I giggle the entire way through both of them.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? This year was early--the first week of December. I do the bulk of it around the 22nd and 23rd, though.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? For breakfast? My favorite thing is the summer-sausage-and-cheese tray we always have on Christmas Eve. I don't eat much meat, but I will beat family members away from a stick of summer sausage given half a chance. For breakfast--homemade cookies!!

13. Clear lights or colored? The old-fashioned big ole gaudy colored ones (C7 bulbs). Nothing matches their sheer festiveness.

14. Favorite Christmas song? "A Christmas Song," by Nat King Cole. It was my mother's favorite, and my sister and I still sing it, loudly and off-key, while we're doing our Christmas baking.

A close second is the story of Christ's birth from the book of Luke. We sang that every year in the Christmas Eve program at my Lutheran school/church. It's a tricky song for grade-schoolers and we'd start practicing it in October, sometime after we got done celebrating the Reformation. I still know all the words, having sung it countless times from grades K-8. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Au-GUS-tus...that....all the world...should be taxed...." There's a couple of really high notes when the angels tell the shepherds to "FEAR not! For be-HOOOOOLD!" Ask me sometime, I'll sing it for you. Really!

Favorite modern Christmas song: "Lloyd the Reindeer" by Otis Gibbs. I listen to it year-round.

15. Travel at Christmas or stay at home? Travel, to Southern Indiana. Christmas Eve is the one mandatory family holiday. One day I hope to put a new furnace in the farmhouse so we can have Christmas in its rightful place again.

16. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Is Sneezy a reindeer?

17. Angel or star on the top of your tree? Angel.

18. Open your presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Christmas Eve, although my siblings and I don't really do much in the way of gifts anymore--a bottle of wine, a nice candle. My sister and I get each other additional gifts, which we open on Christmas morning.

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Work. It gets in the way of me properly preparing for Christmas.

20. What do you leave for Santa? Some dog fur under the tree.

21. Least favorite holiday song? Any of those melodramatic modern easy-listening supposed-to-be-tearjerkers involving the Christmas star falling from the sky and landing in a child's eye or some shit like that.

22. Do you decorate your tree with any specific theme or color? All of them at once.

23. Favorite ornament? The little ceramic reindeer with my mom's name on it. It's still in a box at the farmhouse, waiting for the return of Christmas to its rightful place (see #15) and its placement in a position of prominence on the tree.

This is supposed to be where I "tag" seven other people, but to be honest, I'm kinda new to this whole blogging thing, and Nora's already answered and tagged most of the blogs I read. So I'm flaking out on this one. Maybe next year!

Trust me, I'm a professional

What the hell is up with all these people wanting me to do actual WORK the week before Christmas?

Unfortunately, the quality of work turned in to those who run the word mills was set at 8 a.m. Monday morning, during an interview for a profile of a local sandwich shop.

This particular sandwich shop is open till 4 a.m. on weekends, nestled as it is among abso-fucking-lutely horrendous clubs with words like "monkey" and "sharks" and "shaft" and "beaver" in their names. The owner regaled me with a tale of a customer who, in a misguided, alcohol-fueled, late-night attempt to draw in more patrons, lifted up her skirt in the middle of the sandwich shop, removed her unmentionables, and placed them on the banana tree on the counter.

The owner, being the respectable AARP member he is, couched the tale in euphemisms and giggled whispers. We laughed. He then began telling me about an annual competitive-eating contest the restaurant stages to raise money for a worthy charity--none of which has anything to do with drunken whores hanging panties on banana trees.

"Did you like that segue?" he asked. "From the banana tree to..."

In a display of unjournalistic rudeness, I finished the sentence for him, eyebrows raised, smirk on my face. "To pickle-eating?"

I reached into the air to grab the words as they left my mouth, to no avail.

His eyes widened, he began laughing nervously..."no, no, don't go there..." Which, of course, I already had. And while that would have been the time to apologize profusely and blush in mock demureness, that is not what I did.

Instead, I offered, "And this is just on coffee--you should see me after a couple of drinks!"

The journalism profession is filled with courageous individuals who expose government coverups, report from war zones, ferret out corporate corruption. Today, I say to them, "Yeah, but have you ever tried to salvage an interview after making an oral sex joke?"

Is that a Ritz or a saltine?

I got called a cracker this evening. While I was walking the dogs, down the street from my house.

Is that really still a valid racial slur? If so, what the fuck does it mean exactly?

Everytime I see a Cracker Barrel, I imagine the restaurant was built to house what must be the epitome of crackers. Maybe that's why I was so pissed. I am NOT a Cracker Barrel kind of person.

The girl must have been about 12 or 13 (ah...happy times of hormones, anger, and feelings of helplessness...I remember that age fondly). I threw out the baddest B.I.G. attitude I know how and said, "WHAT did you say?"

Her friend sold her out. "She called you a cracker."

"That's what I thought. You better watch that mouth!"

Honestly, it sounded more menacing than it reads. Really. Maybe. Probably not. My instinct was to add "you fucking bitch" to the end of it, but I figured someone should be the adult.

I hope it's Ritz. I really like those little peanut buttery ones.

why didn't I get one of these?

If I'd received one of these letters before my Halloween party, I could have been properly prepared for Bob Sanders' visit, and saved myself a lot of grief. Thanks to Flipside Sports for its outstanding coverage. The story doesn't say anything about hiding your wine, but then again, that was probably unnecessary for an elementary school visit.

And yes, I did feed him popcorn when he stopped by a few weeks ago. Big mistake.

"the (miniature) glow of electric sex"

To reward myself for starting my Christmas shopping early (Dec. 5), I bought myself a present.

As a bonus, I walked into the Indiana History Center gift shop just in time to watch the arrival of the leg lamp on the A Christmas Story continuous loop, complete with Ralphie trying to feel up the leg.

This is going to be the best holiday season EVER! I can just feel it! (Cue ominous foreshadowing music.)

It snowed this much...

...by 8 a.m. this morning.

Not quite enough to hitch the dogs up to my sled and try to get them to pull me down my street (it's not as if that worked last year, anyway), but it's a good start.

Yay, snow!

what the hell happened?

Mark Knopler said it best: "Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug."

This is me today:

As I type, I'm "working from home," while a plumber replaces my entire kitchen drain and garbage disposal. I knew the fuckwads who used to own this house didn't install it right, which is why periodically my sink turns into a foul-smelling, brackish, grease-film-covered cesspool. Like it was this morning when I went to make coffee. I hope he puts a big-ass red bow on it when he's finished, because it's my six hundred and forty fucking dollar Christmas present to myself. Ho fucking ho!

And then there was the meeting last night of one of the groups I volunteer with, at which the discussion suddenly and horribly turned to Deputy Joe .... and his girlfriend. That's right, girlfriend. With no small measure of effort, I stifled the urge to yell, "Girlfriend??!! He doesn't have a girlfriend!!!"

Oh, but he does. I tried to maintain composure while one of the members of the group recounted her conversation with the two of them at a Function a couple of weeks ago, in which Deputy Joe told of his plans to return to some impoverished third world country with her for a few weeks after the first of the year. Another member of the group, a contractor, piped up to add that the girlfriend called him about getting a quote on some work at his house.

His house?? The one that may or may not still have a pair of my underwear lost in it? The one with the floor from which I collected my clothes at dawn a matter of weeks ago???

That mother fucking goddamn slimeball piece of shit.

Of course, while this was all going down, I was sitting directly across the table from Bob Sanders, and therefore stifled the urge to begin violently stabbing my notes with my pen.

Since I'm "working from home" today, I had the chance to do some research on this...person. She's a member of a Family of Note, is an incurable do-gooder who loves children in third-world countries (which, I'm sure, she helps with the Family Money, because her teacher's salary isn't going to finance all those trips), and--get this--wears pigtails. Low on either side of her head, braided. Maybe Piggy only did that once, but even once past the age of 13 is completely unacceptable, particularly when there's a camera in the vicinity.

It's noon now. I think it's beer o'clock.

Next on my hit list

Things have been blissfully quiet lately, which means I've been spending more time in the 'hood.

Which means I'm bound to be pissed off about something.

I'm happy to report that Bad Influence Grandma has officially been cited by the city for the junk cars in her back yard. No doubt using her "but I'm just a sweet little old lady" wiles, she got an extension to get rid of them. She's due for reinspection Dec. 1. The cars haven't moved. She's running scared, I can tell.

So I'm turning my attention to the other house down the street that periodically has been the bane of my existence. Among other violations of common decency/criminal code, this house has been through more dogs in the past six years than I've been through men. So when I walked Big Head Dog and the Monster past this house, I wasn't particularly surprised to hear the scampering of doggy feet.

The front chain-link-fence gate was open, of course. Two pit bull puppies ran up to the fence. One ran out and jumped my dogs. No "hi, how ya doin'" butt-sniffing, no "wanna play?" tail-wagging, just flat out jumped 'em and went for the jugular.

The puppy went for the Monster, who's without a doubt the bigger pussy of the two dogs, and rolled 'im. Big Head Dog moved in and in no uncertain terms showed the puppy who's boss, and it ran off with its tail between its legs. The Monster cried like the girl he isn't, but was unhurt.

During this melee, I'm yelling, dogs are snarling. A chained-up dog in the back yard is raising ten kinds of hell. The lights are on in the house, yet no one is sufficiently curious to come out to investigate.

I considered dialing 911 to report a vee-cious dog attack. Then it became clear what I must do. Amass evidence. Photos, specifics, incidents. Then I will report them to the city's dog-fighting task force. I don't know for certain the thugs are into dog-fighting, but I like the last line of that press release: "all tips are investigated."

I like to think the investigators will arrive in SWAT team fashion, but that's probably too much to ask for.

Thanksgiving without a bang

Keeping with the munitions theme...

Upon my arrival Wednesday night in southern Indiana, I called my sister, who reminded me that it's deer hunting season.

Crap.

In the 5 years I've had Big Head Dog, I seem to always forget to buy one of those safety-orange vests for my deer-colored dog. In case you've never seen one, a whitetail deer looks something like this (minus the shirt) running through the woods (or, I suppose, through my living room):

Big as he is, Big Head Dog is not deer sized. He also does not have antlers. Only a complete idiot or drunkard would do something so stupid as to mistake a 75-pound dog for a 10-point buck while holding a gun.

Ahem.

So, I searched the farmhouse for something sorta dog-sized and orange-like. And I hit the jackpot--a bag full of my clothes from the mid-80s. Florals, fuschias, oranges, day-glo....oh, the horror of it all was spectacular.

And so Big Head Dog ran the woods with his t-shirt proclaiming him a participant in the 1985 Lanesville Heritage Weekend 8-mile race.

Even though the Monster is not deer-colored, he looked so....naked. And unstylish. And he is a monster, so he deserves something heinous every chance I get. Behold, the hot-pink muscle sweatshirt:

Are they waiting at the door to go outside, or to run away from their cruel master once and for all? Who knows.

Thanksgiving with a bang

It's difficult for me to pick just one post from Thanksgiving now that I'm back in the land of internet connectivity. It was a great 2-1/2 days.

I never used to care much one way or the other for Thanksgiving, being wedged in between my favorite holiday (Halloween), my birthday, and Christmas. But the past couple of years, it's worked its way up the list, maybe because my family dinner is always "if you're not doing anything else, stop on by" casual, or maybe because it's the only time I ever get a 4-day weekend to do whatever the hell I want without burning precious vacation days.

I think, though, that my favorite picture of many from the holiday is from the shopping excursion my sister and I made. Neither of us care much for shopping, and we sure as hell weren't going anywhere near Wal-mart on the day after Thanksgiving, but nonetheless, I had a few things to pick up, namely, RV antifreeze (to winterize the farmhouse) and firestarters (also for the farmhouse). (To start a fire in the wood stove, not to light the house itself on fire.)

So, after we burned off about 1/2 piece of pumpkin pie at the Y, we crossed the street to the liquor store for a 6-pack, then went to Tractor Supply Co. Words can scarcely describe my love for that store, but this should help:



That's right, 8 feet of empty (I think) Winchester shotgun shells, all festive and lit up for the holly-days! It's gonna be a helluva Christmas!

i had a ball!

If you've stopped by Chez Pez lately, you know that Friday night was Tonic Ball.

The night went great. I poured wine at Tonic Gallery before the show and raked in $74 in tips to donate, which made me feel better since I couldn't afford to bid on the art. The music, as Jerry said, rawked. (It was great to meet you, Jerry!) I could do a post just on the music, but I suspect Nora will do a better job of covering that.

What I will cover is the men. Good god, they were everywhere. Deputy Joe, Bob Sanders, Dead-to-Me, plus a multitude of minor characters and some really great guys that I am lucky to call my friends.

One guy I'd never seen before walked up to me and started dancing with me (it wasn't even Drinky Bear), and--get this--could actually dance! Before I knew it I was being whirled, spun, and dipped all over the place. Then he bought me a Jagerbomb. With surprising clarity, I guessed where that whole scene was headed (nowhere good), and fled. After I drank the Jagerbomb, of course.

Deputy Joe looked super-hot with freshly grown stubble, but was in full self-absorption mode. Dead-to-Me was wearing a sling from having shoulder surgery. Nora accidentally hit him on his bad arm. Thanks, Nora!

And Bob Sanders fell down at my feet. Literally.

I first saw him outside Radio Radio waiting in line. He explained he was limping because he'd had an accident. Pressing further, I determined that "accident" was actually a euphemism for "bar fight."

The next time I saw him he was fubar. His friends, no doubt with a wisdom born of experience, had abandoned him. He said something, the exact memory of which was erased by what happened next, and I gave him a playful shove.

Possibly due to the injury from his "accident," but more likely due to mass quantities of alcohol, he fell on the floor in the bar. Nora moved in to see if it was time to kick him out. I helped him up and apologized. "My bad leg!" he shouted. "You owe me a blow job for that!"

Oh-kayyy...

Now, I stopped falling for the "you owe me a blow job" line sometime around 1988. That also might be the last time I heard it. Bob Sanders gets this month's "these people can't be serious" gold medal for shocking me to the point of speechlessness.

This morning I ignored a 9 a.m. (4 hours after I got home) text from him offering to make some "killer pancakes."

Let's take a moment to review what I now know about Bob Sanders: he desperately wants to marry and breed, he is "accident" prone, and he loudly demands blow jobs when he's really drunk. It's clear that any smart woman would stay far, far away from him. But me, well, I'd say odds are better than even that sooner or later I will sample those killer pancakes.

But back to last night. After the music wrapped up, I closed down a saloon in the bad part of town with some of Dead-to-Me's friends. Then I gave Dead-to-Me's neighbor (who also happens to be his best friend) a ride home, and a cop caught us making out in the alley in back of his house.

Making out with the neighbor/friend of a guy I dated for 5 months may seem like an odd thing to do, but a) he's hot, and b) it furthers my mission to prove that Dead-to-Me is an idiot. You see, his friends already like me a lot, and must suspect that Dead-to-Me was stupid to dump me, but now...well, now at least one of them has some idea of the full scope of reasons why Dead-to-Me will never do better than me.

all by myself

One of these days I'm gonna have to figure out how to do all this fancy Internets stuff so I can pimp my blog.

Today, for instance, I'd hunt down an audio clip of that godawful song in the title.

You see, my house is empty today. The ex called while I was working my weekend gig Friday night to see if he could have Big Head Dog and the Monster for a few days. It took every ounce of self-restraint I have (which is about 4 ounces anyway) to not say, would it have killed you to ask me that a couple of weeks ago when the Greek refused to come to my house because my "vee-cious 10-headed beast" (that would be Big Head Dog) would've tried to attack him when he got within 10 feet of my bedroom?

And he's not even the guy who Big Head Dog bit in the ass.

Anyhoo, I kept my mouth shut, packed the boys' suitcase (actually an empty Trader Joe's bag) and took them to their dad's for a long weekend yesterday. And the roommate's gone for the weekend, too.

I'm shocked to find I'm completely discombobulated by all this. I don't know what to do with myself. There are no furry creatures interrupting me every 5 minutes for their favorite game, Inside Vs. Outside, and there's no one sitting on my sofa watching television and distracting me with valuable insights into the latest episode of America's Next Top Model. It's going to drive me to do something completely wacky, like clean.

I planned to get an early start on the day, but of course I didn't come straight home after work last night, like I'd planned to. I stopped by the friendly neighborhood tavern (it is, after all, on the way home), and it's a good thing I did. Otherwise, I would have missed the first meeting of the Crabby Club.

I also would have missed important discourse on topics such as programming home thermostats and whether or not the theme song to Baywatch had words, and if so, did David Hasselhoff sing them?

I also would have missed the Marines birthday party, where a bunch of ex-Marines, average age 68.2, drank a lot and periodically broke into increasingly distressed versions of "Halls of Montezuma." You couldn't miss 'em--they were the big group with the big red USMC flag duct-taped to the wall (Crabby Club--do we need a flag?). I actually got saluted on my way to pee.

warning: introspection ahead

This morning I heard a poem on Writer's Almanac that sums up so much of what I feel like I'm going through, and what I'm hearing so much of from my friends.

There's more to it, but this is the part that nearly had me driving into the back of parked cars on my way to work this morning. It's called "The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures," and it's by by Samuel Hazo.

Prolonged, they slacken into pain
or sadness in accordance with the law
of apples.
One apple satisfies.
Two apples cloy.
Three apples
glut.
Call it a tug-of-war between enough and more
than enough, between sufficiency
and greed, between the stay-at-homers
and globe-trotting see-the-worlders.
Like lovers seeking heaven in excess,
the hopelessly insatiable forget
how passion sharpens appetites
that gross indulgence numbs.
Result?
The haves have not
what all the have-nots have
since much of having is the need
to have.

It gets at what I've been struggling with for the past two years, on and off (mostly on). All-consuming fire vs. numbing ice. Too much vs. not enough. The unsustainability of passion, vs. a total absence thereof.

I spent much of the last weekend remembering what I had forgotten, all the things I really liked about my previous life, when I was Good. There was a lot to like. Stability, peace, calmness. But when you're being Bad, it's no surprise when things go wrong and tears flow and hearts break. When you're Good and things go wrong anyway, it hurts much more.

oh, what a night

Yesterday was Election Day. And while I don't want to get all preachy and shit, suffice to say things did not turn out as I hoped they would here in Naptown.

What made it ever so slightly better is that I ended up spending the evening with people of like mind. The friendly neighborhood tavern turned into the midtown satellite office of the county party HQ. As despondent as I was, there were people there with a whole lot more to lose than my tenuous connections in the administration.

With each glass of wine, someone would bring up something else.

"What about the arts? What will happen to the murals downtown?"

"Forget about ever getting the SuperBowl."

"What's going to happen with the stadium and convention center expansion?"

"Who the hell is going to run the city???"

If my head didn't still hurt, I'd be even more despondent today.

them's my people

Saturday was my birthday. The first phone call was at 9 a.m., from my brother-in-law. I figured he was calling to wake me up and wish me a happy birthday. I didn't answer it, as I was still in bed and in no mood to converse.

Instead of birthday greetings, however, I had the following message. How could I not be in a good mood the rest of the day?

(delivered in a thick Southern Indiana drawl)
"This is your favorite brother-in-law. I don't know if your sister told you she broke my rib. She ran over me with the golf cart on Halloween night. I figured she might be too embarrassed to tell you. You should give her a call later today and ask her about it. Bye."

Wha? Hooo hooo ha haaaaa!

un-fucking-believable

Mother of god.

To recap the past 24 hours:

The Greek and I did indeed get to share a glass of wine before he left, along with friends who were in a Halloweenie festive mood. The "and....um....uh" turned out to be some really great conversation after the friends moved on for the night, about art and life and our personal demons--all the good shit that makes me want to move somewhere like, oh, I dunno, Seattle and spend my days at a cafe drinking wine and smoking cigarettes and writing great literature.

Not that he didn't try to talk me into fucking him in the parking lot behind the friendly neighborhood tavern, but hey, I live here, he doesn't. I'm in that place waaayyy too much to have that kind of story floating around.

Wow, I DO have inhibitions! Who knew?

Anyhoo, what with the Greek hangover and all, I decided to blow off responsibility for at least another day and skip tonight's meeting of the group I volunteer in with Bob Sanders. I wasn't really in the mood to deal with that.

Of course, the group called me to see if I was going to be there. Dammit.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I remembered that I was supposed to be bringing minutes from the last meeting to discuss, the ones with, oh, the group's mission statement and goals and objectives, you know, mildly important things like that.

I went in and sat down. Someone asked about the goals from the last meeting, then everyone looked at me.

I searched my mind frantically for a plausible and rock-solid excuse. Something like, "I've been called in by the head of the C.I.A. to work on a top-secret project. I'd love to tell you more, but I'd have to kill you. I'm fresh from a meeting with several heads of state, and that's why I don't have the minutes."

Nope. "I.....uhh.....I've had...um...... *sigh*.... I've had my head up my ass."

I'm pretty sure when they form the board, they will create a "Court Jester" position just for me.

As I was suffering through the rest of the meeting, I got a text message. From V.P. That's right, Pregnant Girlfriend Guy.

At least he texted. If he'd called, my phone (which I of course forgot to turn off) would have blared "Let's Get It On" at top volume, and I would have had to resign from the group immediately.

"Hey...I sent out a press release today...it should be big tomorrow...need some feedback...this is V. The one you had the most ridiculous sex with."

WTF? Seriously?? Does he have some kind of fucking radar? He entered my life last spring within days of when the Greek did. One week I was being wholly indecent in the front seat of PGG's SUV in a bar parking lot, the next week I was spending the most mind-blowing 24 hours of my life at the farm with the Greek. Is my life on some kind of fucked-up, twisted loop of foreign men with sexy bodies and the minds of 14-year-olds?

So I responded, "Why yes, I remember you...Looking forward to seeing the big news."

And then, "Is it good memories?"

Well, let's see. Good memories of what? The admittedly ridiculously good sex, or of the screaming matches in the parking lot of his apartment? The smooth, brown, sculpted chest, or the jealousy and possessiveness? The Sunday afternoons playing tennis and eating sushi, or the buckets of tears?

I opted for honesty. "Of the ridiculously good sex, yes."

Mistake. Subtlety is obviously not his strong suit.

PGG: "Where are you? Want some fun?"

No fucking way. I don't need this shit.

B.I.G.: "Fun for me tonight is jammies and puppies. I'm sure you'll find something to do."

PGG: "Like you?"

Mother fucker, he's persistent! Like a goddamn yapping chihuahua!

B.I.G. "Probably not a good idea."

Finally, silence. Sweet Jesus, it's been 14 months since I dumped him! Since then I've run into him exactly 3 times, once with a perky brunette on his arm. Isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on a booty call??

In addition to inhibitions, I apparently also have some brains. It's just been a regular fucking day of mother fucking self-discovery.

I'll just be taking leave of my senses now

And with the phone call, the Greek hangover begins:

B.I.G.: Hi. How are you?

The G: Running around like crazy.

B.I.G.: Trying to get everything done you should have been doing the past week before you leave tomorrow?

The G: (hearty Greek laughter...I swear it's possible to laugh with an accent) Yes. It's the Greek way.

B.I.G.: I'm a big fan of the Greek way. Are you going to be around the friendly neighborhood tavern tonight so I can send you off with a glass of wine and...um...uh....

The G: I would really like to be sent off with a glass of wine and...um...uh.... I'm going to try to, but I'm taking off early tomorrow....

B.I.G.: I know. It's a shame you're not going to be around Saturday. You know how last Saturday when you were driving me back to my car, and it was drizzly and dreary, and you said it would be a good day to lie in bed and watch bad porno, get up and make some soup, go back to bed and fuck, then watch more bad porno? This Saturday's my birthday. That would be a great way to spend my birthday.

The G: Oh no! I'm sorry I'm going to miss your birthday. Next time I'm in town we will do that. We don't need a reason to celebrate.

B.I.G.: No, we don't. We'll have another "one more time" the next time you're in town, then.

The G: Yes. I'll call you if I'm going to be out tonight.

B.I.G.: I hope you do stop by. If I don't see you, have a good trip.

I wanted to add, "Go back home, to your woman who loves you, and try not to break her heart."

But I couldn't bring myself to.

now THAT's frightening!

Apparently hosting a party takes at least a week and a day out of my life, as I notice it's been that long since I posted. I was working on a post about neighborhood crazies showing up at meetings and disrupting speeches, but I suspect there's more interest in what happened at the Halloween party than in one nutty old lady's whacked-out opinions on creating walkable streets and more pedestrian-friendly communities.

So, on to the show.

First off, I went a little crazy at Costco. I've put off buying a membership there because I'm only one person, how many rolls of paper towels do I really need to buy at once, plus, it's clear up in suburbia hell, where I never really want to go, and furthermore, there's just a lot of crap there I don't need.

Like a 1/2 gallon container of minced garlic. Which I now have.

Or 4 cases of beer, 2 big bottles and 5 regular bottles of wine, some Captain Morgan's and some vodka. And a case of chicken broth. For the chili, you know.

It took 10 trips with the wheelbarrow to get all the groceries/beer/ice from the car to the house. Discover's fraud prevention unit called to make sure some raving drunken lunatic hadn't taken my card.

Nope, I said, this lunatic has her card right here!

Btw, I have a LOT of beer and chili left. Stop by for dinner sometime this week. Please.

All in all, the turnout was good for having given people a week's notice and having it on an evening when everybody and their undertaker is having a party. Zorro and the flamenco dancer were the first to arrive, followed by a vampire and the Crazy Cat Lady, who proceeded to creep the fuck out of everybody by doing things like standing in a corner alone, playing her recorder:

In short, hilarity ensued wherever she went.

Then the youngsters showed up, on their way out to the bars in Broad Ripple:

Hope made an appearance, the youngsters and Crazy Cat Lady/vampire left, and then Hope, too, was gone.

I was patting myself on the back for being a responsible party host, and having a party that ended at the respectable hour of 1:30 a.m., and not with me sprawled out on the kitchen floor.

That's when Colts safety Bob Sanders (or a reasonable facsimile) showed up, wearing his dreads and carrying the Vince Lombardi trophy:

Now, I know Bob from a neighborhood group I volunteer with. He's cute. And single. And he thinks my jokes are funny. Which is more than I can say for at least 90 percent of the men I come into contact with. So I opened one of the big bottles of wine and Bob and I sat down to get to know each other better.

I mentioned it was 1:30 a.m., right? Did I also mention I'd spent the previous 6-1/2 hours doing my part to reduce the overpopulation of beer in my fridge?

The bad news is that, unfortunately, Bob is not looking for a woman to date. He is looking for a wife to bear his children. Clearly, SuperBowl ring or not, Bob is going to have to look elsewhere. The good news is that by the time we got 3/4 of the way through the big bottle of wine, I seem to recall being quite honest about my voluminous emotional baggage, commitment issues, views on marriage being an outdated patriarchal institution, etc. I quite distinctly remember giving him my disclaimer, "I am probably way too independent to ever successfully be married."

So, I shouldn't have to worry about the bad news!

Sigh. It seems like just Friday night that the Greek was telling me that I'm hard to handle. I have no idea what he meant.

I just got an e-mail from Bob. He left the Vince Lombardi trophy at my house, and apparently I sent him home with a bowl of chili, because he wants to drop off the bowl and pick up the trophy. Yikes.

Opa!

Yeah, I'm totally catching up on posts today. I'm sure that's impolite blog etiquette or something, but it's an excuse to lie in bed with the dogs on a Sunday afternoon, so I'm taking advantage of it.

Speaking of lying in bed with dogs, it's been an interesting weekend.

Friday night I had some weird-ass dreams. In one of them, my dog caught a mouse straight from the innermost depths of hell and there was a lot of thick, gloopy blood like oozes from walls in horror movies.

But even weirder was the dream in which I walked into a flower garden full of blooming butterfly bushes, gorgeous white and yellow butterflies flitting gracefully about as they sampled the glorious nectar, sun shining, sweet smell of flowers in the air.

Then, the butterflies attacked. It must have been a swarm of souped-up South American Killer Butterflies, because each of the suckers weighed like 10 pounds a piece, and they kept flying into me on purpose, hitting me about the head and face. It was awful! I woke up screaming and flailing.

The dream stuck with me all day Saturday. What was my subconscious trying to tell me, throwing out images about the blurry line between that which is good and pure and that which is dark and sinister?

By 7:30 that night, I had my answer, thanks to an informant. The Greek. Spotted the night before at a friendly neighborhood tavern near me.

By 10:30, my ass was on a barstool having naughty things about it whispered into my ear. I was working the phone trying to find some rather exotic cigarettes. If I'd had some notice, I would have been prepared, but that's not how this recurring fling works. We don't talk in between his visits. He doesn't call when he gets into town.

"If it is meant to be, it will be," he says. "Fate."

He does not know that Fate sends text messages.

He was talking big before I got there. "I've been living with this girl, and I've been faithful to her," was his story.

Then, to me: "I'm living with this girl, and I've been behaving myself since the last time I was here in town. ... Who am I kidding? I can't do it. What's new with you?"

"I've been forced to conclude that boys are scared of me."

"Scared? Of you? Why??"

"I think they think I'm trouble."

Hearty Greek laughter. Then head lowered, impenetrable dark eyes peering over the black frame of his glasses, eyebrow raised. "And are they right?"

"Maybe. But I don't see what that has to do with it."

More laughter. "Forget about dating. Just [edited for graphic content]."

We couldn't get the pay-per-view at the Super 8 to work, but I was not in a different part of the state when the sun came up this morning, as has happened before. Of course, that might only be because I had guests staying at the farmhouse. And the roommate was home this weekend. How is it, exactly, that I own two houses and yet had nowhere to take a boy last night?

There were other things, like weirdness with Dead-to-Me's friends Friday night, and the "accidentally hit the call button on the phone" call from the ex Saturday evening, which resulted in a 3-minute long message of his conversation on an apparent date with a woman who has a couple of kids. But enough of this lying in bed with dogs, I have things to do.

ch- ch- ch- chia!

Hot damn! The grass has sprouted and my front yard is all, like, fuzzy and shit!



For the first time, I can almost--almost--understand the national obsession with lush verdant lawns. They're such cute little blades! I am SO proud of this grass, I am going to be the best lawn caretaker EVER! I will never let its waving blades be marred by dandelions, ground ivy, violets or crabgrass. I will fertilize twice a year, and I will never, never, allow it to grow so tall that I must cut off more than 1/3 of the blade height.

Unless, you know, I like, get busy and have a lot of other stuff going on.

Best damn lookin' porch in Southern Indiana!

I can hear you asking, "what color did you paint the trim at the farmhouse, B.I.G.?"

No? That wasn't you? Oh. Sorry, must be the damn neighbors acting up again.

Anyhoo, here's what color I wanted to paint it:

Can't really tell there? How about here:

Yes, it is a lovely bluish-gray, thank you! Unfortunately, very little of it is covering the god-awful green, because Big Head Dog wound his chain around the entire gallon of paint, which my sister left open and unattended on the porch, knocking it over. When I returned to the scene, Big Head Dog was so happy to see me, he wound the paint-covered chain around my leg.

The resulting conversation went something like this:

Me: aaaarrrrrgghhh! You big stupid, you left the paint open!

Sister: Your big stupid dog knocked it over!

Me: You're the big stupid!

Sister: Nuh uh! You're the big stupid!

Me: Fuck it, let's have another beer.

Sister: Good idea.

Since the entire gallon of paint was then on the porch, we really had little option but to spread it out. So now the top-of-the-line exterior paint I bought (charged to my ex's account, whatever) is covering a concrete slab porch. I can't wait till the first time somebody tries to walk on the damn thing when it's wet--it's gonna be slicker than snot on a glass doorknob.

A guy walks into a bar...

A good shouting match just ended in the neighbor's back yard. I couldn't catch all of it--that's the bad thing about arguments, multiple people tend to all talk at once. Plus, all the windows were closed, so it took me a while to figure out that the best place to listen was at the back of the house, lights out, window cracked enough to stick my head through.

What I finally got, though, was that the beau of one of the Crazy Sisters came home late. And really drunk. Once D got Crazy Sister in the house, I heard him pleading his case to the guy who's been over there painting.

Apparently he was out with a buddy and kept telling him he couldn't hang out all night. The buddy took him somewhere, and at that point, according to Drunken Beau, "I said, man, I can't leave you here, this is the ghetto hood! I ain't gonna do ya like that!"

In other words, his excuse for late drunkenness, or drunken lateness, whichever, was that he was in too bad of a neighborhood to leave, so he had to stay there and drink.

I've heard worse excuses. Maybe even made them.

All we are sayyyyy-ing.....

Question: Who am I? "Well, I lost the bid to lead the free world in a highly contested election. I guess I'll just go win the Nobel Peace Prize."

I don't want to get all political and shit on this blog, but Christ! Has there ever been a bigger "Up yours!" in the history of political contests? Really, I'm asking! You can argue that Gore wouldn't have been the best president in the history of the country, and I might agree, but can anyone imagine Dubya ever--EVER--winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Snort! That cracks me up.

So that puts Gore in the company of Jimmy Carter. Another question: why can't Nobel Peace Prize winners make good U.S. presidents? If I had one right now, I'd light a fatty and contemplate that while listening to John Lennon.

hitting the wall

It's been another crazy busy week, so today I took what some people might call a mental health day. I called it a "fuck you, I'm exhausted and I have too much to do to put up with your bullshit" day.

After 14 hours of sleep, I felt better. The weather suddenly turned from rivers-of-sweat hot to winter's-coming cold this week, and today's the first day my body caught up and quit shivering. I got out of bed at the crack of noon, had some coffee, took a nice hot shower, and then went to the paint store and charged $100 worth of paint and supplies to my ex-husband's account.

"Hi, you know KD? I'm the mother of his dogs, and I'll need to put all this on his account."

That made me feel much better. I figure in the grand scheme of things, he's still about $14,584 down, not counting the ongoing maintenance for the dogs, but I'll take the small victories.

Then Lizzie called and we decided to go to this new cupcake store. I know cupcake stores are all the rage in way-hipper places than Indianapolis, but frankly, I'm skeptical. Yes, the red velvet cupcake was tasty, and the gelato looked heavenly, but seriously? The decor looked like a 14-year-old girl decorated it. Pink and flowers and shabby-chic everywhere. And 5 bucks for two regular-sized cupcakes? I'd get more enjoyment from a bottle of 3-buck-chuck.

The constant stream of private-school kids getting their afternoon sugar fix courtesy of the nanny almost made me lose my cream-cheese frosting. Lizzie and I reminisced about how in our day, an after-school snack consisted of making yourself a bowl of cereal at home, not $2.50 cupcakes.

So now I've watered my grass seed, and almost dialed 911 when a thug picked up a bottle on the sidewalk and broke it and started walking toward a group of people, yelling. Apparently his intended stab-ee took off, so he calmed down. Police action averted. Dammit.

Now all I have left to do is write a column that was due Wednesday, so I can head to southern Indiana and paint the trim on the farmhouse. And I don't have a topic. Lizzie and I brainstormed.

"What have you done this week?" she asked.

I considered the possibilities. I whored around in Broad Ripple. Can't write about that. I listened to someone pour his heart out over an affair he's having. Nix that. I could write about the shooting behind my house, but I want new people to move INTO my 'hood, not OUT of it, so I don't really want to go there.

I had an interesting conversation with Deputy Joe Wednesday night about all sorts of pertinent matters, but if he reads a published recounting of our conversation, he'll probably never invite me over for, um, a nitecap ever again, and I sure as hell don't want to alienate the only reliable member of my stable.

"Have you done anything artsy-fartsy?"

I haven't.

"Wow, you're screwed."

Yep.

If you want something done right...

So the loser I hired to "hit" the graffiti tags on the sidewalk reported back to me today. He stopped by Sunday morning, but forgot the friggin spray paint, so he went back home, then he got a phone call, and by the time he got back around to it it was mid-afternoon and he figured the thugs would be out, blah blah blah.

Now he's out of town for two days.

For fuck's sake, can it really be that hard to hire good help? It's a 10-minute job! All you need is a car, and a can of spray paint, and he couldn't get his shit together enough to get both of those things in the same place at the same time??!! I weep for the future of America! Jesus!

On the bright side, I was outside sowing grass seed (the legal kind) in the front yard when a car screeched to a halt in front of my house and a fuh-laming gay man jumped out waving frantically (or maybe it just seemed frantic because of the lack of wrist muscles) at me. He wanted to know how I like the neighborhood because he's *this* close to buying a renovated bungalow down the block.

Well.

Omigod, I LOVE it! I've been here 6 years and the neighbors are all WONDERFUL! There's this teensy weensy little problem down the street but we're working on taking care of that and it'll be gone soon enough and everything will go back to being right as rain!! It's a fabulous investment and, ha ha, oh yes, people told me not to move this far south, too, they're so silly!!

Ahem.

Yay! The gays are coming to my block! Finally! I've been waiting for this moment for 6 long years!

these boots ain't made for walkin'

Bad Influence Girl hit the town Friday night.




When you're wearing these with fishnet hose, a little black dress and fuck-me-red lipstick, you don't have to look too hard for trouble, as it turns out.

I woke up at 1:30 p.m. (!) Saturday, with the taste of Red Bull in my mouth and a large blood blister on the bottom of my foot. Oh, and a numb spot on my tongue. I think I sprained it.

When I arrived at work for my bartending shift at 5 p.m., I was still dizzy. The hangover really kicked in around 8 p.m.

I wore the hooker boots to an early Halloween party. But the party fizzled out around 12:30. Do those look like boots that are ready to go home at 12:30?


In the end, the hooker boots had to be carried home in the pre-dawn hours. They promised big but didn't deliver, kind of like, well, a cheap hooker. Boot. They were still on my feet at 3 a.m. for last call in Broad Ripple, but my feet revolted soon after, as nearly as I can remember. The fishnets did not make it home at all. I'm afraid they may be in a pickup truck.

Someone asked me last night who is my bad influence, since I am known for being a bad influence on others. My answer was, I don't need one, clearly I do a fine job all by myself.

crime solved!

The great thing about public records is that you just never know when you're going to unearth a gem among the pebbles.

The other day I picked up a copy of the incident report from last week's shooting behind my house. And there I found what is clearly the biggest clue in the case.




Never let it be said that the police here aren't thorough in their work.


At first I was puzzled. Who had been eating the Fritos, the shooter or the victim? Were they hoping to retrieve valuable DNA evidence from the Fritos? Is there a special room at the station for perishable evidence?


And then the light bulb went off. There can only be one answer, only one person who could be driven to commit such a heinous crime while under the influence of corn chips:



It all makes sense. After being dropped by Frito-Lay, Frito Bandito couldn't find work elsewhere and turned to a life of crime. There's nothing sadder than a mascot gone bad.

livin' da thug life

I've put out a hit on the graffiti tags.


Someone from outside the neighborhood is going to drive in, paint over the tags on the sidewalk, then drive away. I bought the spray paint on my lunch hour (yes, I paid cash), and drew up a map showing precise locations.


Tuesday while I was at work, someone backed up to my garage and starting loading stuff into his trunk. My neighbor was outside lunching in her back yard, enjoying the lovely fall day. She yelled at him and he gave her some story about helping someone move some stuff. My neighbor called bullshit and then called the cops, god bless her.


I'm pretty sure that was my retaliation for hanging out and watching them Friday, because I don't keep anything worth stealing in my garage, and taking crap from my garage would merely annoy the hell out of me. When I got home, there was a box of trash bags and a quart of oil stacked near the garage door, and a box of golf balls by the back gate. Not exactly the kind of stuff that fetches top dollar on the black market.

Unfortunately, said thug did not take any of my ex-husband's crap that's still stacked in the garage. Perhaps I could put up a sign or something: "Please take this shit first. Thank you."


Oh, and I've declared war on an elderly woman. I'm not particularly proud of myself, but I've had it with her. Every few years one of her grandchildren gets sprung from juvie and turns her house into Thug Central. She refuses to do anything about it and doesn't understand why everybody's always calling the cops on her babies.

So yesterday, I filed a complaint with the city about the junk cars in her back yard. Every piece of trash, loose gutter and unmowed blade of grass is going to get reported from now on.

If it was illegal to "plant" fake plastic flowers in your front yard (which it should be), I'd turn her in for that, too.

uh oh

Aw hell....

You know the neighborhood thugs? The ones I've been sorta kinda taunting? Turns out those gunshots I heard in the wee hours last Wednesday actually went INTO someone. In the house right behind mine.

That shit ain't cool.

I'm starting a calvary. Bring your horses, spears, legions (not lesions, please leave those at home), minions, and canteens to my house at oh-8 hundred Saturday. The crack should be wearing off by that hour, we'll catch 'em drowsy.

Maybe I'll recruit Patio Man. I haven't seen him lately, not since the rain got his chairs all wet. At least he's not a crack-slingin', ass-cappin' thug.

I was going to paint over their tags on the sidewalk this week. Maybe I'll wait till shit cools down.

today's gross injustice

I can run, but I can't hide.

Today the IT overlords at the office tracked me down remotely. They'd warned me they didn't physically need my laptop, and they were right. Sometime between showing a co-worker my weekend Sorghum Fest pictures (see yesterday's post) and reading the latest news about Brangelina, my desktop image changed from this lovely smile-inducing Emma Overman painting from this year's Art vs. Art:

To the company logo:

Seriously, I have GOT to get a new job. "First they came for the personal photos, and I didn't speak up because I'm a crappy photographer...."

sweet as sorghum

Friday night, on my way out of town, my neighbor down the street said to me, "You're a special kind of crazy. I like that."

He said that as I was parked outside of his house, 1/2 block away from my own, sitting in my rather distinctive vehicle (not too many on this street have a "Dog is my copilot" bumper sticker) watching the thugs. They kept looking at me like, "what is this crazy bitch doing?" I actually saw a real live drug deal!

Anyway, then I left town, which probably wasn't the worst idea ever.

I headed south to meet up with my sister and a couple of her friends. After some great directions, we found the Hancock County Fairgrounds just outside Hawesville, Kentucky, which calls itself the Sorghum Capital of the World.

There we sampled a lot of sorghum (yummy) and learned much about this plant, which comes in somewhere far behind tobacco and marijuana on the list of Kentucky's largest cash crops.

At the sorghum festival, a mule named Molly walked around in a circle to squish the sorghum juice out of the cane:

That is, until my sister and her friend told Molly she was a pretty girl, at which point the whole operation ground to a halt. Molly is such a slut.

The Kentucky Department of Ag trotted out Kentucky Kate for the event. Here you can see some young men developing their teat know-how by pulling the hell out of them and trying to squirt each other. Someday, some poor girl is going to have to spend hours un-learning that behavior.

And although I haven't milked a cow (R.I.P., Girly) since I was about 4, I found it's kinda like riding a bike, only ickier. For the record, Ky. Kate was giving only water, not milk.

Because I have more work to do than is humanly possible, I procrastinated by taking the scenic route home to Indy, which effectively stretched a 2-1/2 hour trip into 4 hours. Bought some mums, though, and wandered Indiana. It really is a lovely state.

Got home and used the rest of the daylight to work in the yard. The trip must have done some good--one of the thugs made fun of my car and I just laughed. But seriously, is "I don't know who would drive that thing" supposed to scare me? I scoff at you, thugs!

what day is it??

Yeah, about that experiment.

Tuesday I went to a neighborhood thing at someone's house. They had so much wine, it seemed inhospitable to not have a glass. But, it was a tiny plastic cup. And then my friend wanted a cheeseburger, and well, it seemed inhospitable to not keep her company while she ate, and while they DO have Diet Pepsi at the Red Key, a beer really sounded good...

But, I did drink in moderation. So that's something of a victory.

And then there was Wednesday night. Geek Boy and I were supposed to be playing tennis, but he had a meeting that got rescheduled, and couldn't meet till 9. I didn't know of any public courts with lights, plus, it had been raining all day, and I hate playing with soggy balls, so Geek Boy suggested meeting for a beer.

I have known Geek Boy for a couple of months. We went out a couple of times. We get along incredibly well and have interesting, geeky conversations about subjects that would bore many people to tears. He's smart, he thinks I'm intelligent and attractive. As a bonus, we agree that we have an off-the-hook physical chemistry, as in, omg, did we really just spend an hour making out in the parking lot outside the bar, in semi-public??

Given all that, naturally (wtf?) Geek Boy decided he just wants to be friends. But "really friends, like, do stuff together."

Sex is doing stuff together.

Geek Boy didn't think that would be a good idea, for reasons that still mystify me. Something about just getting out of a serious relationship, blah blah blah.

Whatever. We do have a good time, so Wednesday we did stuff together that did not, unfortunately, involve sex. It did, however, involve darts and a hell of a lot of Bells Oberon. God, that's a good beer. And it was on sale--$2.75 a pint!! You can't beat that with a stick!

Not for the first time, it occurred to me that I should not try to keep up with Geek Boy in the drinking department. Because I can, but he's about 6' 3" and 220. I'm not, and should not drink like I am.

So I completely fell off the wagon. But, it was the full moon! Nora, I would claim that as your excuse, too.

All in all, however, I clearly didn't overindulge, because I am completely unrelaxed. Again, a small, empty, hollow, bitter victory.

This weekend, it's off to a Redneck Adventure Weekend with my sister and her friends. This installment of RAW is camping in southern Indiana (if you saw my sister's camper, you'd know there's not much adventurous about that. It has a stereo system, for god's sake) and going to the World's Largest Sorghum Festival in Hawesville, Kentucky. I'm not even going to pretend I won't drink my body weight in Miller Lite.

parched

For reasons that I won't go into, my life is stressful. I know, I know, whose isn't, but there's just some shit going on right now that I'll feel a lot better about when it's resolved.

I don't deal with stress very well. I am not, as a rule, very pleasant to be around when my nerves are a little on edge. Additionally, I bottle up stress deep inside like any good German would. And, I'm a Scorpio. Not that I'm into astrology at all, but if some sources (or here, or here) are to be believed, friggin Mount Vesuvius lurks under this pleasant, sunny exterior.

For these reasons, relaxation is very important to me, and when I cannot achieve it, bad things happen, usually to me but sometimes also to my personal relationships. Which really sucks.

Which brings me to this week's experiment: relaxing without the assistance of alcoholic beverages. September seems like it's been one big blur, and not just because I've been busy, but at least partly because literally, things have been a little bit blurry much of the time. I haven't woke up in a different state (unless you count hungover as a state) or anything, but my behavior has been a little unhealthy even by my liberal standards.

This would all be much easier if I was able to release all that pent-up tension through, oh, sex, for instance. That hasn't been working out so well for me either lately. Generally the drinking leads to the sex, but clearly, I've been doing something wrong.

Maybe it's the 15 pounds I've gained since I quit smoking in June. Yeah, that's right, no nicotine to relax me, either. Not that I haven't cheated liberally when drinking (see above).

All the good stuff, in short, is gone. I'm left with exercise, eating right and getting a good night's sleep. For fuck's sake, what's become of me?

Oh, and I was going to post a picture of the neighbor's fucking outdoor living room, but apparently the IT overlords at work wiped the photo program off my laptop, and I need to reinstall it as well as my camera as recognized hardware. And it's hot and I'm cranky and I just don't feel like it.

Tonight we--me and Patio Man--had a kitchen window standoff, btw. I stood in my kitchen, shade open as it always is because I feel claustrophobic when it's closed unless it's below 20 degrees outside, in which case the numbness in my fingers overrules any claustrophobia, and fixed dinner. (A stupidly healthy dinner of fresh veggie stir-fry, fyi.)

Patio Man sat, his chair actually facing my house, and watched me. I had all the windows open, with Audioslave blaring at 11 on the volume knob. It got dark and I still didn't close the shade. For all I know he was sitting there pleasuring himself while I chopped red peppers--the oil in his tiki no-torch musta been running low because I could barely see him--but dammit, it's my window, my view, and I was there first!

just throwing some words out there

**Correction: the one chair is actually green, not pink. If I could retrieve the picture off my friggin' camera, I'd prove it.

For a few years now, some people have suggested I start a blog. Mostly, this subject comes up when I talk about an article I've written for a less-than-edgy business publication, and I have to leave the best parts out of the printed story. Like the elk farm story.It was never enough to get me to start a blog, though. What was? The neighbors' "outdoor living area."

Now, I've been reading a lot of articles about the latest trends in outdoor furnishings, outdoor kitchens, bringing the indoors to the outdoors, blah blah blah. I am certain that two upholstered chairs--one pink and one homemade patchwork denim--on an unsheltered brick patio, with a tiki torch that's missing the stick that makes it a torch, does not qualify as an "outdoor living area."

Unless you're my neighbor. Some guy has adopted the patio, along with furnishings listed above, as his house, or perhaps room. Today, he rearranged the furniture. I guess he needed a new view.

This house was built in 1910 or thereabouts. From my big kitchen window--the best window in the house, incidentally--it looks a little like the house from Amityville Horror, which, if you don't associate horror with it, is a pretty darn cool-looking house. You know, the quarter-moon windows on either side of the big chimney and all. My neighbor Miss D. just got it painted a real purty creamy pale yellow color, and the house sits on a double lot, so there's probably 50 feet or so of lawn between our houses. An original brick patio runs the length of the house on the side facing my house.

Enter into this lovely tableau some guy sitting in a freaking stuffed armchair. He seems to prefer the pink one. The patchwork denim one, he reserves for guests. I don't even know who this guy is. He is not the owner of the house. He is not the owner's ex-husband, or boyfriend, or brother. He may be connected with one of the owner's siblings--Skinny Crazy Sister, Fat Crazy Sister, or Short Crazy Sister--but no one's sure. All I know is that when I look out my kitchen window, be it morning, noon, or night, there is a man smoking cigarettes and drinking Bud Light, sitting in a pink armchair, doing nothing.

If I wanted to look at that all day, I would have stayed married.