Tuesday, October 31, 2006

My lil punkin

Rascal Fat Cat Triple Scoop says Happy Halloween everybody.

rascalhalloween

And I'm pretty sure Fuck You too, but that's just for me.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

This, that and the other thing

Well, my brain is dead again. I've had a couple days of Hormone Storm or carbohydrate poisoning or some such ailment that rendered me anxiety-ridden with a dash of depression and a side of discontented confusion. (I was almost going to use the much overused word ennui but as I mentioned it's overused and frankly I hate it. Sounds like an infected body part south of the border and I ain't talkin' 'bout Mexico.)

I was very, very, very pissy and found myself flipping someone off in my car because I let them merge and they didn't give me the courtesy wave. I got mad at an admired journaler for crabbing on their blog about a personal problem then I got irritated at someone else for writing about being happy. I called Oprah a bitch and made my cat barf by forcing her to wear a lobster costume on her head. Tuesday I couldn't face the world and called in sick and spent a good part of the day in bed. It was all very upsetting, especially for the cat.

I will spare you the dirty details of my current stupid stresses since it would sound retarded anyway and every time I try to start an entry about all of this melodramatic heavy shit weighing on my soul, oh how melodramatic, it comes out like blah bleh why ah! fart poop cry. Which makes sense inside my head but loses something in the translation, no?

I can't seem to find a consistent voice and I'm comparing myself to others who manage to put coherent thoughts on fancy pages for people to read so, in conclusion, I am an asshole. At least that's how I feel right now.

There are so many changes I need to make right now. Big, huge, looming changes that look like a gigantic monster who's going to gobble up my head then spit its chewed remains onto the floor. Intellectually these changes are good ones. They're important and have to be done. But it's scary and stressful and as much as I hate my feet standing in quick-set cement it seems harder to move forward than wear a pair of cinderblock sandal's.

I hate change. Change to me usually equals bad. I'm a creature of psychotic habit. I don't even like to change pens as it takes me days to get used to a new one and my gawd you cannot expect me to switch from a black ballpoint to a blue uniball all willy-nilly and without properly going through the 5 stages of grief. Christ. Am I a robot? No.

This cute little idiosuckcracy has plagued me since I was conceived or shortly before that. My mother still likes to tell the story (with rolling eyes) of when I was 5 1/2 and it had been decided (for me) that in anticipation of a move from one city to another, and with my entrance into first grade coming up, that I would graduate from a twin mattress to a full. The day the swap was made I sadly stood on the driveway with giant tears rolling down my fat face watching the mattress men take my baby bed away because I was so attached to a hunk of cloth and springs I had a full-scale meltdown.

Right now I have much more than a bed to say goodbye to. We've decided to move. Move away from my home of 36 years. The whole of my conscious life has been spent in San Diego, with the exception of attending 3 years of college in Pomona, a whole 100 miles away, this is all I've known. My familiar space. My identity.

Most of the time I know deep down in the smart part of me that this is a good thing. A necessary thing. An inevitable thing. But there are times when it goes beyond an intelligent idea shooting right past an exciting plan into a terrifying thought of very bad badness and then it eats my face off. Just trying to decide when to visit our city of choice, in another state, to hopefully get the good vibes I need to make the final decision made me nearly self-combust.

Bah.

I wish I was more brave. I wish I had bigger balls. I wish I wasn't such an asshole.

While I'm trying to sort these things out I thought it would be a good idea to expose myself to more self-doubt and stress by joining this awesome idea by the lovely Eden of Fussy. (I'd add this as a side-bar tag thingy but I can't fucking figure out how to do that.)

writing

She's brilliant and I'd like to swap lives with her for a weekend except she has a little boy and he shouldn't be exposed to an asshole like me. I guess I'll have to settle with pushing myself by writing every single day for the month of November and trying not to cheat and hopefully entertaining all 4 of you at the same time.

And there's potential prizes involved! Which always turns me from an everyday asshole into a competitive SUPER asshole. You should see me at baby showers. I will take home that travel shower gel kit with the matching loofah at all costs. I don't care if you're giving birth in a month. Who's idea was it to play a game of arm-wrestle the preggo anyway? I did what I had to do.

Because...I am an asshole.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Rethunk

Just when I think I'd like a life of leather coats and high heels, dining under twinkling lights at nouveau eateries while 700 series BMW's are valet parked outside and the average cost of a bottle of imported blushing wine is more than some people's car payment and I scan the room to see nothing but cash and cashmere, I get a load of the menu and find myself looking at words I've never seen before and having zero inkling to what the fuck all those vowels mashed together mean and my shoes are too tight and my pants are cutting off the circulation in my guts and this small plate of unpronounceable appetizer will be putting a serious dent in my overdrafted credit card and my hair is in fact not glossy and perfect and as I look around I realize that at worst I'm a total poser and have no business being there and at best, while the atmosphere is cool and sheik, I don't like snooty places filled with snootier people and weird food with weird ingredients and I'd rather be hanging out in black yoga pants eating a decadent cheeseburger with fries dripping of ketchup all washed down with a cold diet coke extra ice please sitting on my comfy couch in front of our moderately large TV with my super mega kick-ass boyfriend watching Jason Vorhees in the much underrated Jason X kill people in space by slamming their blond bimbo heads into a sink full of dry ice them smashing their frozen faces into a million icy bits and after the credits roll gettin' some bow chica bow bow with semi-decent porn playing in the background then getting a tender kiss goodnight.

So for anyone who does heals and high-brow, it's cool, but I'll be over here on the sofa with slippers and slurpee's.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Better than cheese

You can have your illicit drugs.

Your ecstasy.

Your crack.

Your Mexican blue-hair pot grown in your brothers friends friends cousin's backyard in the middle of his mother's prize-winning tomato plants which you smoked through a soda can bong filled with breast milk or whatever you kids are into these days.

You can have your alcohol.

Your beer.

Your wine.

Your shots of tequila poured down throats as some sweaty guy in a seedy bar holds you upside down while blowing a whistle to the staccatoed tune of the roof the roof the roof is on fire in your ear and applies a temporary tattoo on your shoulder of a cross-eyed coyote while drunken short skirted girls scream yea baby.

You can have your desserts.

Your pie.

Your ice cream.

Your death by chocolate quadruple layer cake with drizzled fudge and whipped cream piled as high as the Matterhorn on a chilled plate swirled with caramel served by shirtless men in tight pants who look like Brad Pitts twin before he became Mr. Jolie Nonuts.

Because I have found the answer. I have found utopia. I have found the rainbow pot of gold lucky charm. I have found the answer to world peace and love among all creatures great and small. I have found a savior in a bottle. I have found, this;

pamprin

I'm going to grind it into a powder and sprinkle it on pancakes.

I'm going to snort it through a straw.

I'm going to marry it.

I'm going to go the fuck home tonight and take it because I have PMS the likes humanity has never seen and if I don't medicate myself into a coma I will crush bunnies and slap orphans and kick the balls of people I love. I will punch unsuspecting necks and gouge innocent eyes and scream obscenities to everyone. I. Will. Hurt. You.

I might be 39 years late to this party but I'm turnin' the mothafucka out.

Oh, and I totally lied about the desserts. You can't have those.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Pet peeve 1 million and 1

I make it no secret that I think most people are dumb assholes. However, they can be dumb absent of asshole and visa versa. Although I contend I'd rather deal with a nice dummy than a smart asshole because smart assholes are dangerous. They're a whole new level of evil. Or have the capability of being so.

But I'm not talking about them today. Today is all about the insufferable garden-variety fuckers I, you, we encounter all the live long god damn time. And yes, I know that I fall into all of these categories now-and-then but I'm not talking about myself today either! And if you don't know where you fall in my matrix of ass, I'll give you a hint now.

When someone is sharing a story, recounting a memory or confiding about an important happening, don't interrupt them, follow they're last breath with, relentlessly open your big yapper and spew, " what you should have said was..."

Man! That drives me fucking crazy! Do you know what you do when you say that? You imply the person telling the tale handled it badly. Said the wrong thing. Was a blundering blunderhead. Of course there are situations where that comment is warranted and invited, but be a pal and judge the situation and keep that shit to yourself if the green light of feedback is not illuminated.

When I was in San Fran a few weeks ago the subject of a very painful event between my best friend and I came up. The Bad Thing happened when we were teenagers in high school and involved his family and me and him and it was scary and bad and awful. During this time his mother had called me and asked me to come over to their house, without my friend around, to have a private chat.

Of course I was freaked out and tried to keep myself composed while sitting across from his formidable mama who was burning a laser hole through my skull with her eyes. After some warm-up questions I was hit with the big gun.

She asked me point-blank if her son was gay, since this had a lot to do with the Bad Thing going down. I categorically denied it. And since M. and I were frequent kissing partners and even though I had a hefty suspicion, this was the mid 80's and we were kids and fuck, I wasn't sure and it certainly wasn't my place to say! I didn't know what to do.

This did not go over well since his mother already knew he was in fact a gay boy. And being her first born she was doubly messed up about it which I could tell and felt that I had lied. But if I did lie I lied to myself that day too since in my 17 year-old brain I wanted to marry this guy so I didn't want him to be gay either but I wanted the Bad Thing to be over with and him to be OK even more. And like I said, I really wasn't that sure and fuck, I didn't know what to do.

So yea. She's pretty much hated me ever since. Of course M. is now a lovely gay man who's one of the best people on the planet and the family is cool with everything and actually 1 of his 3 sisters is also gay which I personally think is God's little snub on his mother for being a shit about his coming out (at first) and maybe for being a poop to me back in the day when I hadn't done anything anyway. Ha.

Anyway, back to 2006 and dinner in SF. As we're talking about the Bad Thing our third party dinner companion decided to rail me with a barrage of you should have said's. What is the fucking point of that? This all happened over 20 years ago and I was a child. A child being confronted by an adult. A scary adult. A scary adult in my face.

But so what if it happened yesterday? I certainly didn't say anything like "Oh man, I totally screwed the pooch talking to so-and-so yesterday! How I wished I'd said something different! Thank GOD you're here to correct me in HINDSIGHT!! Wanna make out?"

This guy wouldn't get off my ass about it. And the things he was coming up with that were supposed to be the better responses were retarded at best. Not-to-mention my own mother would have died of shame on the spot to think that her child would speak with such disrepect to an elder. Even with 2 of us arguing back that no, teenagers don't have the wherewithal to handle a situation like that, he didn't give up that bone for at least 10 minutes.

Thankfully I'm not the type to wilt like lettuce in the sun when someone is trying to bully me and since I recognize this flaw in others and the probable reason behind this particular mind-fuck I cordially held my ground and cursed him inside my head.

My irritation when I get that particular phrase is instant. Unfortunately it happens all the time. Fortunately I've gotten a bit used to it. And a couple glasses of expensive wine on the offenders tab takes the urge to shove a piece of buttered bread up their beak.

When I returned to the office the next Monday I was relating this story and my many excellent rebuttals to my supervisor. I was all I said this then he said that and he was all blah blah and I was totally like eff you only nicely and before I could finish my boss cut me off with a chuckle and said;

"I hate those kinds of people too, but what you should have said was..."

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Brief intermission

The weekend after my birthday I flew up to San Francisco for my annual b-day trip/visit/extravaganze of debauchery with my best friend Matty. This time not only would we be partying in the gayborhood and getting massages at Relax NOW! (now, dammit, I said RELAX!) but we'd be going to the Folsom Street Fair of which it would be my first time. Consequently, it would also be my last time since the only the naked and greased-up penis I like to have brush up against me is whitey's and not some accountant from Oakland with a pierced taint and a free pass to wave it in public once a year.

We did some shopping and relaxing and walking walking walking walking walking. Oh, and walking with also a trip to the SF MOMA, which was rather YAWNA and they didn't let me take any pictures even with my flash off so now no one will get to share the magnificence of this unless you go there yourself and see it in all it's...ah...pukely vulgarity brilliance. Although I did score a fabulous new backpack that is all the envy. Envy me.

We really packed a lot into one weekend and to spare everyone from a detailed itinerary I'll leave you with some pictures. I'm really getting into this photography thing and hope to one day be good enough to maybe sell a few. Or at least share them with someone who'd like a photo of mine hanging on more than their fridge.

I've loaded a few of the ones I thought were worthy of sharing (absent the swinging penii) into a set you can see here and below are some of my favorites. Please keep in mind I have almost no idea what I'm doing and a host of these were experimental (drunken) attempts at creativity. (And if anyone knows of a photo-hosting or sharing site that will link a pic as it's own page in a thumbnail then it gets huge after you open it please let me know. I happily wasted 3 hours at work screwing around with pic's but got frustrated in the process and now you're left to navigate the confuzzled flickr page I've managed to fuck up.)

Enjoy!

The incredible view from the apartment balcony. (Clicky to make bigger.)

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Saturday sunrise.

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Clock tower.

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Farmer's market.

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Purty.

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Friday, October 06, 2006

Just sayin'

People who use recalcitrant in casual conversation should know better than to wear polyester blouses with giant shoulder pads.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

When one door closes...

It's taken me a few days to get my bearings but I'm starting to feel my feet planted firmly on the ground again. At least most of the time. Just the occasional bobble to the right with a dizzy head and a heaviness in my chest. I'm not sure I've dealt, am dealing, will deal with this death the right way but for now I'm doing better than OK, less than great.

I certainly wasn't prepared for how bad it was all going to hurt, and it wasn't an easy passing, but I'm not going into details. Boo is gone and I'll keep with me that she's a whole kitty now and someday we'll see each other again. Sounds good to me.

A huge thank you to all for the comments and the thoughts. With as much sincerity as words on a screen can convey, I truly appreciated it, felt it, and used it for strength and comfort. And I'm very, very fortunate to have whitey to reach out to everytime I pout and tear up a little and say that I miss her because he reaches back for me every single time and says, I know babe, I know you do, and that always makes it a better.

Whitey and I are both animal lovers. Another fortunate thing in our relationship because there's no way in Satan's asshole that I'd ever be with someone who was a hunter and killed creatures for sport. I dig it that we both get super excited over the beasts that we encounter. And it cracks my shit up that he calls every friggen thing at the Zoo/Sea World/the great outdoors "puppy". (Thumbs up for the kid we saw at Sea World last weekend who was calling all the rays in the ray encounter "kitty". Kid after our own hearts.)

We both talk about how many animals we'd like to have in the future. In fact, it's one of the main reasons we talk about moving. So we can afford a house and fill it up with whiskers and fur. We definitely want a load of cats, and if we had our choice, 10 dogs. He also comes up with crazy shit like he wants a pygmy goat (I finally relented and said yes, but just one, and he have to clean up the crap.) But no fucking way am I agreeing to a goose. They shit what looks like left-overs from an autopsy and they're mean.

I, however, want a miniature horse. How funny would it be to ring someone's doorbell and they have a little horse standing behind them? And I think you can train 'em not to poop in the house, which would be the rule for everyone except those who poop in authorized receptacles. And of course we want a gigantic fancy shmancy tropical fishtank that I just know it going to be a disaster of epic proportions what with the cost of the fish and maintaining the ph balances and shit and lord knows I don't have any luck with that sort of thing ever since I had a fire newt that tried to run away from the lovely home I made for him and we found him down the hallway stuck to the carpet. For now we'll have to stick with kitties and we're on the search for a chihuahua.

Yes, we like chihuahua's.

I know, it came as a shock to me as well. I've always, always been an anti-purse dog person. I scoffed, I mocked, I actually laughed a little when I was in a car that slowly backed over a miniature poodle (don't yell at me the dog was fine). But some sort of shit happened to me in the last couple of years and suddenly I was looking at hua's differently. They were like tiny little regular dogs only with totally big attitudes, which I completely support. Bitches in small packages. Rock on!

Then one day whitey and I were talking and I can't remember who confessed first but the issue came up and we both professed our secret love of chihuahua's and if I wasn't in love with that man before I certainly was then. Finally! Someone who would want to own a yipper dog with me and wouldn't gag at the sight of a puppy in a purse. And he comes up with the most awesome potential names for dogs, too. I tend to stick around things like "Morty" and "Walter", which I find hilarious as hell, and he comes up with names like "Bucket" and "Pancake." How fucking funny is that? I know!

Of course in addition to a wee dog we also want a great dane too. That picture I linked up there, that's exactly what we want. And I plan to walk them at the same time. You might think it's stupid but we think it's brilliant. Maybe I'll get them matching sweaters too. The hua's from Pampered Pets and the great dane from Old Navy. There will be more dogs than that since I have my heart set on another black lab, but for now we'll settle for a little guy.

And um...a cat.

Alright, here's where I get a little controversial since I realize this is a sensitive subject and animal lovers have pretty passionate opinions sometimes, but I want another cat now. Like right now.

I'd already been thinking about getting another one and having 3 since my ultimate wish is to have 4, but I never wanted to do anything that would upset Boo in any way or put her in the line of fire from some cranky new cat so I was never really serious about adding to our pet family to I haven't persued it.

And to be perfectly honest, the universe sends me animals and I'm not kidding. It's been this way my whole life. All the animals I've ever had have come to me by way of circumstance. I've never had to go to a shelter or answer an ad in the paper. They somehow come into my life and they're always incredible and always need me as much as I need them. And judging by my constantly-drained bank account it's a good thing they come to me because most people wouldn't do what I've done for my much loved and expensive beasts. And in my eyes, they're worth it.

Losing Boo last week was brutal. If I let myself think about it for more than a nanosecond it feels like my heart is going to melt into my pockets. Her presence was a big one in our house and even though we're now 3 instead of 4 it feels half empty. By Sunday I was looking online for rescue cats and trying to find one that might be a good fit with us and Rascal. Knowing full well it was probably a futile effort since I was going against what always happens but I had to look anyway.

Oh yea, here's the controversial part. I do not believe that I'm dishonoring Boo by getting another cat so soon. I'm not "replacing" her. She was probably the most awesome cat I'll ever have, never to be matched. But she's gone and I have an empty space for loving a kitty that needs to be filled. As hard as it is to lose them, I can't live without them.

And thank you universe, you did it again. I got a call from my friend S. on Sunday night but didn't retrieve the message until Monday. When I heard it I got a chill up my neck. S. told me that her sister needed to find homes for her 2 cats since her 3 wild kids were a handful and the kitties weren't getting enough attention, and one kitty was freaked being around kids to the point that she hides under beds all day.

My friend had mentioned this to me a few months ago but I didn't give it much thought. And now on the same weekend we lose Boo another kitty needs a good home? One with no kids, loving caretakers and enough treats to gag a pony? That's us!! And I have a sneaky feeling I'll end up with both of them, but we'll see.

I still feel wistful about it, and the one kitty I plan on taking is the same age as Boo and Rascal so I hope I don't have to face losing another one for years and years, but the universe has spoken and I won't ignore her.

I pick up Jade on Friday and I can't wait.