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...."