Putting the TMI in absentminded
I have assembled every bit of paperwork I need for this Manhattan project settlement. I just have to decide if I want to file via US registered mail or by the on-line portal.
I think most people are choosing the course that will get them the quickest cash turnaround, but I don’t think I need that. If I thought that way I’d feel like I was cashing in on my father’s death.
And of course that is what I’m doing though, isn’t it?
Nope, I wasn’t done, because the yellow-green neon came in the mail.
So this is the previous …
This is the progress …
And this is the goal.
I am done, really, now that I have that neon yellow green. It’s a big tube so my mica lampshade reflected on a blue-green wall needs are satisfied for life.
The highway interchange by the mall has been distorted into a diverging diamond interchange. I was not expecting this at all.
Like so many, I screamed my way through the journey when the lane I was in, the right lane, pictured in red below, aimed me toward the other side of the overpass bridge into the opposing lane instead of going straight forward as it had for decades.
The video below makes a strong case for the diverging diamond interchange. You get a nice view of drivers driving smoothly into the opposing lanes. No one in the video is screaming “what the fuck.” They are paid actors and I assume also heavily sedated.
I don’t know if this is apocryphal but I hear tell that people have moved house after they find they have to drive over this nonsense to get home.
I took a hard look at the man on the underwear box, especially his wonky navel, and then I noticed another flaw.
Look right above the word “Calvin” on the elastic waistband on the right.
“Gary,” I said, “Come here. It looks like the model has psoriasis or eczema or whatever you have.”
So evidently I have a type, I guess. It’s the crusty blotches that draw my eye.
Oh, good God, just this morning I heard three phone alerts, eight tornado alerts over the TeddyJ PA warning system, and six separate outdoor sirens.
I imagine this day of unrelenting tornado alerts is to make up for the lack of alarms when the 2025 tornado hit Saint Louis City.
It began at work when our phones all went off. I went to the window and saw a legitimate wall cloud on the horizon, so I contributed my own weather alert noise. I walked back to the cubicles. “Hey,” I said to co-workers. “Wall cloud.”
We discussed last year’s tornado for a minute, no more.
”But really,” I said, “You should see this wall cloud,” and I turned toward the window and discovered we were IN the wall cloud, just as we were summoned by the PA system into the stairwell, where we sat for an hour.
It is 7pm and it’s still going on. It’s going to go on another hour.
For years I deliberately didn’t give a thought to my appearance, and now that I’m aging I’m straightening my teeth and playing with fake eyelashes and losing weight. Because, as I say, I can’t be plain and then be old on top of it. That exceeds my acceptable level of hideousness. (Youthful acceptable level of hideousness immediately below.)
(Though it is evident I did crop out my double chin. So vain!)
Because I bought fake, inappropriately heavy eyelashes, the algorithm has determined I am a drag queen who really really cares about eyelashes and now it has shown me all the ridiculous advances in lash technology since I last shopped for makeup in … 2018, I think.
DID YOU KNOW they have really doubled down on eyelash curling technology? Some are even heated to really set the curl. Look at that first one with a readout for HOW HOT YOU WANT YOUR EYELASHES.
Or, as someone pointed out, you can just turn your blow dryer on your old school metal clamp curler for a few minutes.
So yesterday I went out looking for new technology and returned with eyebrow gel and pricey wattle tightening cream. (Which of course I shall apply to only the right side of my wattle for the next six weeks so the left wattle can be the control. Science.)
It’s been four years of wigs now, and really, the wigs are working out for me. Granted, it gets a bit dull during the week, same hair every day no matter the weather, but on the weekends I make a point of exercising the wigs that have been sitting idle. The neighbors see me gardening in a variety of wigs every Saturday and Sunday, especially if the temperature changes.
Because age thinned my eyelashes as well, I thought I’d try fake eyelashes again. I’ve tried them over and over through my life, but they seemed impossible to apply.
Then Facebook seemed intent that I try these cluster lashes, where you apply the lashes in sections. It was futile for the first twenty minutes but then after I made all the mistakes it was a snap.
I mean, it looked utterly inappropriate for my age, sure, but there are many styles and weights, just like with wigs. I promptly ordered some designed for an Asian baby: virtually no density or volume.
I still had the first test pair on and read they will last — even if you sleep in them — for up to two weeks.
No. Not if you sleep on your side.
The left side is fine, but at some point in the night I evidently put my entire body weight on my right eye and smashed the lashes into that erect and upright position. Also, somewhere in my bedding is 2/4ths of that inner eyelash. If you look closely you’ll see the outer quarter is barely hanging on there.
So, that was a failed experiment. I have probably aged out of fake lashes anyway, but still, I hold out great hope for the low-density Asian baby set that’s coming in the mail. They might make me look a bit less like a lizard for the few hours I’m out during opera season. But who knows. My neighbors might see me in full drag queen kit out in the garden.
You may recall Gary gave me this box to appreciate earlier this week.
Yesterday he came by and complained I had set the box down and now I could not admire the box fully unless I was standing up.
Today he pointed out the man’s navel. “THAT MODEL HAS A BAD NAVEL. MY NAVEL IS WAY BETTER THAN HIS.”
So the comparison is fair I have given Gary’s navel the full Mapplethorpe black and white treatment.
I think Gary is right.
So this is the previous …
This is the progress …
This is where it started:
And this is the goal.
I am done. Still couldn’t capture the light. I am no Thomas Kinkade. You know, maybe I meed to just buy a tube of neon yellow green.
Tiny steps are being taken in the domestic peace talks. For example, I watched his tiresome movie last night.
In response, this morning he gave me this empty underwear box.