Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Concert du jour guster

Live Blogging Australia

Well, live-blogging the movie Australia was a good plan, what, FOUR HOURS AGO when I started watching it.

I had to go get the laptop just a few minutes in, because after the Interpol warning prohibiting international piracy, then the boring old FBI warning, there is this warning:

Warning: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER VIEWERS SHOULD EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN WATCHING THIS PROGRAM AS IT MAY CONTAIN IMAGES OF DECEASED PERSONS

I'm sorry, what? That's a new one for me. This sounds like a job for ... Wikipedia! (The recording of motion and sounds traps part of the soul inside the media, so that person can't have a peaceful repose after death.) I don't remember seeing that warning on Moulin Rouge, though. This can't be the only movie Baz L. made that was shown in Australia.

This movie starts off a bit broad. During the scene in which Nicole Kidman's lingerie is tossed about, Gary said it reminded him of The Flintstones. The cartoon version. Then it got better, until I was quite on edge when the cattle stopped dead at the edge of the cliff. Those CGI cattle, they always do what they are told.

What made me cringe was the unrelenting sun. I would shrivel and die under those huge skies full of light. There's a spot when Nicole K. is shielding her eyes from the sun and I was thinking God, woman, get indoors. Too much sun! It will sap your strength.

Then, the next thing that got me on Wikipedia was the Aborigine references - I wondered how much spearing and such was going on in the 40's. I remembered the Tasaday tribe- National Geographic found some natives in the Philippines untouched by modern life. Then, after Marcos left, the scientists came back and found (as they suspected) the "stone-age natives" had been smoking cigarettes at the Dairy Queen when National Geographic wasn't around. So, since then i've been suspicious.

I was a little surprised the movie didn't end with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman having a miracle baby. It had some giant cliches. But, it certainly kept my interest once they got an hour into it. And, more important, why hasn't there been a movie about the Tasadays yet? That's a good story.

The Chat-Up

Well, here's a full description of the guy I believe might have been chatting me up at the Coldplay concert. I report, you decide.

First of all, the .75 Sisters walk much faster than I do, even though my thick non-muscular legs are six inches longer than their colt-like sexy legs, plus they parked in B3 and I parked all the way out in G1, so by the time we met up they had more energy. So I was straggling a bit behind and I was speaking loudly at the backs of their heads.

"SO I WAS JUST IN THE BATHROOM AT BANDANAS AND THIS WOMAN CAME IN WITH HER TWO KIDS AND COMMENTED ON THE SMELL. AND THERE WERE ONLY TWO STALLS, AND I WAS ALL WTF LADY, I'M RIGHT HERE. AND I WOULD HAVE CALLED HER OUT BUT SHE HAD HER KIDS WITH HER."

(And that is true, every word. She was rude. Granted, it was smelly, and of course OBVIOUSLY my fault. But she had her toddlers with her, children now doomed to fear poop and never be potty trained.)

So, I can't promise you, but I am guessing this caught the attention of the Young Man, who was behind me. He was behind me while I was going up a fairly narrow series of steps. I don't know what he looked like except he was young and therefore beautiful. Maybe he didn't want a challenge; maybe he likes stinky poo, maybe he figured I was drunk.

He was fairly certainly drunk, but I might be influenced by the large beer he was carrying. He was in my blindspot as we climbed the stairs.

"How are you doing? Are you excited about the concert? Are you going to have a good time?"

"Why yes," I said politely, over my shoulder. If I glanced down I could see the beer but not him.

"Yeah! We're all going to have a great time at the Coldplay concert! So what is it? Veronica?"

(Beer, I thought, Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually correct. )

"Nope. Not even close."

"Something starting with an A then. Am I right?"

(Ahead of me, I heard someone say, "Oh Christ," not in an "Oh Christ our Lord and Savior save us from temptation" way but an "Oh Kee-rist, who is this asshole" type of way.)

"Nope," I said just as we got off the top step and he caught up with me shoulder-to-shoulder. I was looking ahead at the .75 Sisters, and I didn't make eye contact with him, but my guess is he finally saw my face. 

He said, "Well, have a good time!" and thought, "Christ! I almost came on to my Mom!" or "She would have snapped me like a twig" or "I think her friend with the good legs is probably taken anyway."

So, that was it. Probably my Final Chat-Up. Of course, ~~Silk gives me hope.

Bright Spot of My Day

I was at a department team-building / brainstorming meeting at Lake Saint Louis listening to my boss speak, when my co-worker Carter leaned over and said,

"So, you hear Leonard Cohen's coming to Saint Louis?"

I have a little retrograde amnesia about what happened next. Whatever it was, it frightened Carter. Then somehow my iPhone was in my hand and I was scanning the tour dates, muttering, "Spain ... Barcelona ... damn it with the Canada ... Chicago ... Nashville? SAINT LOUIS!" Then I began pressing the purchase button, shouting, "Purchase! Purchase!" Luckily, the boss was done speaking by then. But there will be no purchase until August 3rd.

What distresses me is that in addition to Walter Cronkite and Queen Elizabeth II, I chose Leonard Cohen for the death pool this year. But that was before he deigned to come to Saint Louis. He is forgiven.

Birthday Month In Sight

August 1 will be the first day of the Famous S_____ Birthday Month Celebration.

I've been telling everyone I'm 47 all year, and technically I'm not 47 until well into August. (A point driven home by the frat boy who chatted me up during the Coldplay concert and then retreated when he had chatted enough to make me turn my face toward him.)

My brother Dave and my siblings-in-law have been quizzing me to see what I want. Given that Gary only buys technology for my birthdays and Christmas, I skipped the present negotiations with him. ("Candy? No you don't want that! A fusion cuisine cookbook? Gah! I'm not buying you that: remember the pea soup?") Instead I asked for a high-def TiVo. Pointless, since I've recently realized the high-def TV is useless if you don't have an accurate glasses prescription. (The Best Buy guys should just ask you the last time you went to the eye doctor if you show interest in HDTV.)

Ah well, at least tonight Dave called and had me walk him through the process of buying something on Amazon, including the "Let me read you two pages of fusion cookbook names and stop me when one sounds good." One of the books suddenly sounded very good when we went to page two.

And it isn't like I don't have any hobbies. I should be easy to buy gifts for. Hmph. I can usually find myself something to buy.

In Which I Again Suffer Briefly From The Shopstipation

Saturday we were out shopping, and I caught my reflection in a stray Macy's mirror. I realized that in addition to the face and figure flaws I've had all my life, now my teeth are too small. Clearly, I need to draw attention away from my teeth and down to my bosom. Jewelry! And here we were at Macy's!

Gary and I were there to buy him shirts, but I negotiated a little elbow distance. Elbows would still be in the same store, just in a different department.  I've usually been able to find some interesting costume jewelry at Macy's; not as interesting as Etsy jewelry but I needed teeth diversion NOW. Sadly, Macy's seems to be downscaling their jewelry to meet the needs of recession shoppers. I asked to see some Etienne Aigner jewelry in the case, because I only buy my plastic and plate jewelry from inside the case, darlings, and found though it was in the case it was too lightweight. Heavy junk jewelry I can tolerate, but when it feels like plastic I must pass.

I met up with Gary who was bemoaning Macy's transition to cheaper prices and lower quality. On to Dillards.

Again, the elbows were parted, but unfortunately Gary finished his shopping quickly and found me just as I had fallen in love with the necklace on the right and then hunted down the only only saleswoman at Dillards.

NO!" Gary bellowed. "Are you KIDDING? You can't buy that. Why would you want something like that?"

"Because no one else I know has something like that." (And my teeth are too small and this will lead the eye away from my teeth. Duh.)

"THERE IS A REASON WHY no one else has that."

"I want it."

"It won't work."

"My money."

"The ribbon looks wrong. It will get all droopy and sweaty and stained. And the beads look too even."

I said to the saleswoman, "Ignore that man. Here's my card."

"No. You need something more like ... like .... this!" and he pointed at some random necklace. This one.

"I'll take that too," I told the saleswoman, "He'll quiet down then."

(The beads made of smaller beads remind me of something I ate in my youth. Something about candy corn? Barrels of candy?)

Gary did appreciate that I listened to him and bought the candy / coinage / marbles / buckeyes necklace. Then, mad with ego, he tried to tell me my neck would look thinner if I put a choker full of chunky beads around it. My neck would look slim in contrast, he said.

He did make inroads into my confidence, though. Since the saleswoman mentioned that the cream and peach ribbon necklace was on sale because it had been in the Juniors department, I now fear I haven't seen this style of necklace because I don't have teenagers.

Coldplay Concert

• Fin, the tour manager for BNL, is now the tour manager for Coldplay. I'm sure he is now enjoying a tasty snack of chilled revenge as he sees the Coldplay audience blasted with paper butterflies and giant yellow balloons. Mac & Cheese payback.

• The giant yellow balloons hurtling through the air at my FACE caused unpleasant flashbacks to grade school dodgeball. I think that might be why the lead singer kept asking if everyone was okay. There was a lot of "Saint Louis - How ya doin out there? Are you all doing okay?" It began to make me think Gwynneth must need constant reassurance. There was also a moment of "I hear people in Saint Louis like to fuckin' rock!" As opposed to people in, say, Auckland, perhaps?

• The music was wonderful, however, even if the opening act sang entirely in a foreign tongue, except for the last word of every song: a very satisfied "Yeeeeaaaaah." Coldplay's music was good, and you could tell they were trying to build audience rapport. They played out in the audience a number of times. They had a display that showed text messages the crowd sent. I should have texted "BNL is the best band EVER! Woooo!" but I didn't.

• I am tall. Tall is good for concerts, short is bad. Poor short people can't see a thing. I have never fully appreciated this before, but .75 and her sister are both short; I could tuck them under my lowest chin. They are oddly similar. They have the same legs. Spectacularly shaped, curvy, strong, colt-like short short legs. Also, .75 (who is Jewish) mentioned her sister's Jewish upbringing and I almost said, "Oh! Your sister's Jewish too?"

At the Coldplay concert with .75

Cloud Fusion

As I've mentioned before, on the way home there is a hill followed by a valley and a vista full of clouds.

I've often wanted to stop and take photos of the clouds, but tonight the clouds were so messed up I actually did it.

It looked like God took all the leftover clouds from the nation and just swept them into a little cloud pile and didn't put them into the dustbin.

We have the storm front clouds, the cliched sun-beam silver-lining clouds, the etched detailed clouds in the lower left, wispy cirrus clouds, a UFO cloud in the center (from the store room of "Clouds that look like other things") and then some low-flying wrong little dark clouds that should be over someone's head in a cartoon.

When I was a kid I never saw clouds like this. It's just ridiculous. Focus, God, focus!

On the other hand, New Zealand has again bested us with these new cloud formations:

I am Up at One in The A to the M, whywhywhy.

All did was have a vente cappucino. Hours ago. So I'm raving. Anyone who got an email from me tonight got a turbo-triple-shot email. So here's some random scatter-shot bullets.

• My birthday is coming up, and for some reason we got a circular in the mail advertising guns. Gary placed it on the counter with a post-it reading, "Guns for Birthday?"

• For my birthday I do not want the Beatles Rock Band that everyone else is all ginned up about, as the President would say. In honor of the release I will play Come Together on my bass.

• Gidget the Taco Bell Chihuahua is dead, is no more, has joined the choir invisible. Babe the pig is next. You know I picked Walter Cronkite in the dead pool. If Mick jagger and Queen Elizabeth die, I think I get a visit from the NSA or something.

• I made my last fusion experiment today, which turned out to be a chopped salad minus the lettuce. I think my issue is that I've found a lot of great fusion sauces, but they all go on scallops or salmon. Lobster and Avocado Summer Roll, and Porcini and Asparagus Risotto are the next two attempts. They are both by the person who submitted that very good steak with sauce. I think that's the trick, I need to stick with one reliable source.

Food Blog, You Say?

How to make tonight's dinner:

1. Previous evening, make a pea soup based on chicken stock with roasted chicken bones. You must roast the bones. This is Key.
2. Take the chicken meat you just tore off the bones and chill it overnight.
3. Overnight, get up at 3 a.m., feel nauseated, go to bathroom, think "pork jowl!" and puke up Pea Soup with Pork Jowl and Without Amaranth. Put the rest of the Pea Soup down the garbage disposer.
4. In the early evening, season your cast iron skillet by searing some steaks. Delmonico steaks. (As an aside, top off those steaks with a delightful sauce of mirin, ginger, garlic, butter and shiitake mushrooms. Your husband will complain it is too rich.)
5. Take the iron skillet, wipe it out with a paper towel and set it aside.
6. Take two pounds new potatoes so you can make the german potato salad with proscuitto ham.
7. Boil the potatoes and while they cool prepare the sauce with the garlic and two types of oil. Feel proud you already had the sesame oil.
8. Peel by hand each blessed tiny little hot red potato.
9. Toss the potatoes and garlic oil and vinegar dressing with toasted cashews and ham and leftover chicken. (Thats where the reserved chicken comes in.)
10. Feed some to husband, who complains it is too oily. Try some yourself and realize the recipe is seriously wrong. It is too oily! Retire to your room in high dudgeon.
11. Watch the Daily Show.
12. Return to the kitchen reinspired.
13. Take half the oily potatoes and push them down the garbage disposer. Take the remaining potatoes and put them in the recently oiled and Delmonico-steak-seasoned cast iron skillet.
14. Take your pastry blender and use it to mash up the potatoes because you can't find your potato masher. (This is also key.)
15. Turn on the heat and let the mashed potato / proscuitto / garlic / chicken / cashew / vinegar / oil mixture simmer for half an hour. Turn it every half an hour after that until you have been cooking this damn thing for seven hours.

Then, you will have this:

Which, I would like to say, are finely nuanced tasty hash browns with cashews, chicken, and proscuitto. I would like to say that but I can't. It's really awful. It's oil suspended in a potato emulsification.

So, three dishes. Pea Soup: one chuck up. Steak with Sake and Shiitake: great, seriously great but yes, fatty. Potato Salad ("A Great Light Dish for a Summer Evening," ha) unspeakably bad.

The Third Part of the Grocery Store Trilogy

So, we had the grocery store shopping spree, and the ten blackberries of shame. Our latest trip to the grocery store was the fusion shopping spree. Since I've fallen for the fusion food, the next natural step is "Hell, I could make that."

I ran about my kitchen and considered what flavors I could fuse. Baileys and Watermelon tenderloin with a cream cheese fondant! Steamed pork jowl with shaved mizithra and a deep-fried green onion finial. Chicken Voila in pastry and sun-dried tomatoes. Generally, everything in my freezer and pantry, except the Box O' Turkey.

Then I pulled myself together and started looking up recipes on the Internet, many of which were everything in some other woman's pantry and freezer. I found four recipes:

• Squash, Corn and Beans with Mizithra Cheese
• Proscuitto Potato Salad with Toasted Cashews
• Pan-Roasted Beef Tenderloin With Sweet Ginger-shiitake Brown Butter
• Split Pea Soup with Pork Jowl and Amaranth

I knew I still had the Pork Jowl in the freezer ("Rotted!" Gary screamed. "ROTTED  PORK JOWL!") and essentially all the other ingredients were easy enough. Off to the store. Hell, I had the jowl in the freezer, how hard is it to find peas and amaranth seeds?

Hard. Really hard. After a few hours I found the peas. I don't know why they were so hard to track down; I found the sake for the beef tenderloin after half an hour, in the German section of the wine department. That recipe also called for Mirin, or cooking sake, which we found in the Chinese grocery area.

That's why I had such confidence we could find the Amaranth seeds. By the sesame seeds? No. By the quinona and barley? No. In the health food aisle? No, and not in the pharmacy either. We looked in the pharmacy because Gary had pulled out his Blackberry (ten for ten dollars) and read they have lots of essential acids. Amaranth seed! Wikipedia says it's the crop of the future.

Eventually (midnight) we gave up. The cashier asked if we found everything we needed.

"AMARANTH SEEDS!" I was ready with my answer. I might have lunged at her a little.

"What are those?"

"It's a small tan seed the size of a poppy seed," Gary chirped. "Aztecs used it in their virgin sacrifice ceremonies!"

The cashier called the manager over and the very nice manager wrote down "Amaranth seeds" and our phone number, and then she called the police. No, I'm sure she'll be calling in a few days to tell us she ordered some amaranth seeds for us.

At any rate, yesterday I cooked the chicken and roasted the bones and made the stock then chopped the red bell pepper and onion and garlic and sauteed them in the olive oil and then simmered the pre-soaked split peas with the pork jowl for two hours then pushed the soup through a sieve. And I said "screw the amaranth seeds," not for the first time that night, and since it was three a.m., I kept the soup in the fridge and ate it today.

And it was a pretty good pea soup. Still, I think it would have been great with the amaranth.

I think next it'll have to try the Pan Roasted Beef Tenderloin. I got every single ingredient for that at the Schnuck's. Hope it's worth the effort.

Thumb 30 seconds into the first use of new knives

So, Here's the Story

It all started with this sign:

Does the phrasing of these grocery signs not imply there is an assumed contract that one only gets the deal if one purchases ten packages? The sign does not say, "Each package is a dollar." The cashier usually gathers them up so they can ring them up together, and you know they count them. Usually the signs expect me to do hard math, like 15 for $12, and I have no idea if that's a good deal.

So I bought my required ten packages and went up to the self-serve checkout, where I rang up the first package of blackberries.

"1 @ $1.00," said the screen.

Wha? I thought, how does the machine even know I bought all ten packages? It's like - It's like they're just one for a dollar! Still, I thought, someone might stop me at the door and make me pay a surcharge. Better to get all ten.

When Gary saw the ten packages of blackberries on the counter, he squawked, "TEN packages! We'll never eat TEN packages! What made you buy -"

"They were ten for ten dollars."

"Ellen, you KNOW you don't HAVE to buy all ten."

Well, no, thank you, I didn't really know that (though I have long suspected.) Of course when faced with 60 ounces of blackberries Gary immediately found blackberries very off-putting, so instead of letting them rot I made a pie. A ten-dollar pie. Which, six hours later is half-gone. That's five ounces per hour at 85 cents an hour. Maybe. I have no idea. But, pie!

Blackberry pie of shame

Story later.

Stock up on Crocs.

Can't hawk a box
for 30 bucks (approx.)
Chalk it up to bonds and blame the stocks
Tics on the clocks
left for Crocs

Some knock the Croc
Others mock
Friend 1 just talks trash of the Crocs
Cause no one gawks
at women's stalks
in Crocs

Jocks grok Crocs
They walk for blocks
They let me rock in concert flocks
Now I am shocked
They had a lock ...

This just socks.

Plans

I had dinner with Friend #1, Catherine, at the Tapas place. (St. Louisans, get the Airline Chicken. Sounds bad, tastes marvelous.)

We "caught up," which was difficult for me as nothing has happened to me in the last few months since I've seen her. I had nothing to share. All I had was the Labia Report (Aunt Flo came to visit this month and stayed on the porch instead of going into the house and settling in like she's supposed to) and the Fat Report (up five pounds since I last saw her) and the Shoe Report (she has new shoes and let me know how disappointed she is in my Croc habit.)

But as I drove home I crested the hill on Page where the river valley stretches out, and there was a dome of clouds overhead and a perfect soft summer evening, and I was happy.

All that I have on the social horizon are the Coldplay and Guster concerts, the Mike Birbiglia show at the Pageant, and perhaps a visit to Las Vegas in the fall. Still, I am determined  to have done something to report next time I catch up with Catherine.

Visions of the Future

Gary is of an age he is within reach of retirement. I like it, since both fathers died five years younger than Gary is now, but just as mid-life makes you aware of your mortality, it also makes retirement very real as well.

Today, Gary was off work, and I got a taste of how it will be when he retires.

He called me at work around 11:30.

"So. I got my haircut."

"Oh, really?" I said, while typing.

"Yes. It's good, but not as good as it usually is." (pause.) "So how's your day going?"

"Really busy."

"So I'm going to go get your car inspected. I hope the cops don't see me. That would be a bummer, getting a ticket for expired tags while I'm driving your car to get inspected."

"Gary."

"What, hon?"

"Gary."

"What? Oh, you're busy. Okay, bye then."

Half an hour later the phone rings. "Do you want an oil change with the inspection?

Half an hour after that, the phone rings. "So, the inspection went well. I'm just driving back home now."

Twitter. Only Twitter will save our marriage after he retires, since I'll be working another ten years.

Grocery Store Spending Spree

The grocery store visit began innocently enough. Gary was in the produce aisle and asked "Carrots are too crunchy. Why don't they make and sell steamed carrots?"

"I could make you steamed carrots," I murmured obediently.

"No!" Gary cried out, "It's too messy. It's too messy when you cook! Oh look, here they are."

"Well, it was meant to be. You have to buy them. And these."

 

I hate beets, but Gary must be iron-deficient, and we were on a weird food roll.

 

(Gimme the sweet beets gimme the sweet beets baby from mah own backyaaaaard.)

 

About then I started to grab ridiculous things off the shelves for myself. Like these. Never fried, never baked, just popped. I doubt they are tasty, but who knows, maybe they are.

 

This was really good butter. It's cultured butter, motherfuckers.

 

I have not yet tried the 18 dollar a pound Spanish Manchego goat cheese above. As you see Gary has tried it but evidently he didn't like it. Because it is still here.

 

I wanted to buy a watermelon, and of course Gary roared "TOO MESSY!" Then we considered pre-cut watermelon, and found they now have watermelon cut into spears, because that isn't racist, and then I found this: Watermelon Tenderloin. A good compromise. Gary deemed it not too messy.

I also bought some Mizthra cheese to grate on some Orzo pasta to make what I will call Pasta with a Z. I'm not picturing it here because one wedge of Mizthra looks like another. This caused some confusion tonight when Gary was tearing through the fridge looking for expired food. "THIS WEIRD MIZTHRA CHEESE HAS BEEN IN THE FRIDGE FOR MONTHS!"

"Days. We bought it two days ago."

"MONTHS!"

"Noooo ... see, the expiration date is 9-9-09."

"YES! NINE!"

"Yes. Nine. September."

"EXACTLY! NINE! SEPTEMBER!"

I paused, then pointed at the calendar. "July."

"SEPTEMBER! NINE! SEPTEMBER!"

"July, August, September."

(Pause.) "Oh."

Anyway, it was fun to buy ridiculous food, especially since Gary paid the bill. They can steam my beets and culture my butter, that's fine, but I would never pay to have someone cut the rind off a watermelon for me.

Mama Mia Review

"Wonderful" my co-workers all said. "I loved it! I love love love that musical." "Mama Mia was terrific! I went out and bought the DVD and the soundtrack."

Gary and I watched Mama Mia. We sat on the loveseat in silence for half an hour until Gary announced, "This is crap."

"I love musicals. I like Abba. I hate this. Let's stop watching it."

But we couldn't stop. Except for one brief moment of hope as they were playing "Dancing Queen" on the way to the pier, it was so unendurably hideous we couldn't look away.

Here's how a movie musical should be: Eliza Doolittle is pissed at her boyfriend and starts singing "Show Me." Nellie breaks up with her boyfriend and sings "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair." There's motivation for a character to say something, then when they say it in song it progresses the plot.

On the other hand, we spent much of our time dreading how they were going to integrate "Waterloo" into the plot. We also turned on the sing-along subtitles. So we got to see the lyrics. Lyrics like: "The judges will decide / The likes of me abide / Spectators of the show / Always staying low."

It was awful. Why did you all like it?

I Learned Something Today

When Sarah, the woman on the sticker from your Lush bottle of Sonic Death Monkey Body Wash says:

"Best Before 21/Apr/08"

...she means it. Expired Sonic Death Monkey reeks.

I tried the Monkey today because I had fond memories of its Tootsie Roll odor, and I needed a smell self-esteem boost today. A few weeks ago Gary asked if I had ever considered douching.

What I should have said:

a. Have you ever considered sticking your dick in a autoclave?

b. No. Why would I? I smell like cinnamon toast and taste like tres leches ice cream.

c. Sorry. Well, you know I have Advanced Labia Rot down there. It won't smell pretty.

What I said:

Really? You think I need to do that?

What I did about it:

I've tried to take a little more care of the area, not just a surface shampoo and a hand swipe, you know, but a scrub past the gates. Not with soap, because I've done THAT once - but with a washcloth full of suds.

Another reason I'm atending to my toilette is I've been riding Western saddle on cold unwashed cans of Diet Rite White Grape Soda this past week. It's official: the labia swell with my cycle, then the week after my period yet again doesn't arrive, there is the external blood. Hence, my intimate relationship with cold soda cans. If in the future your labia swell painfully, go right to the refrigerator and grab a soda. This has been a Pubic Service Announcement.

I should be glad I've found it's cyclical, because that is proof my body does still recognize something is supposed to happen every 28 days. And I'm assured it'll be gone sometime next Wednesday at worst.It's monthly proof I am not pregnant. In my labia. With a Blabia.*

ANYway. When Sonic Death Monkey goes bad, it goes madmonkeybad. It goes so bad it smell worse than my purulent decayed shedding privates.

* A parasitic labia baby. I'm sure it's in Urban Dictionary. Not to be confused with Barbia, or Barbie's labia.

 

See those hips? That's Barbie. Before her vaginal reconstructive surgery.

After:

 

It's the Bass, Baby

Baby.

It's me, baby.

I'm the Bass with No Name.

Yeah, Baby.

I kept that girl going all night long. Her husband went to bed and we kept at it. She three-fingered me until I could eventually recognize "Bird on a Wire."

You don't use your thumb in that song. It's a good song for beginners.

And that's a good thing, because I'm a beginner bass.

That's a photo of me on the left. Not a good photo, because I actually have another set of pickups. I can swing both ways: active and passive. She's not ready for that yet.

She's comfortable with me, because my family name is S_____, just like her husband. And I'm easy. Look at me with my four thick strings and giant frets.

She's thinking of moving her guitars into another room so they don't watch her accusingly when she puts me in her lap.

I Ache In The Places Where I Used To Play. Still.

I was self-diagnosing on the internet when I came across the graphic below.

Does this graphic look right to you?

 

Uh, it seems to me it is not drawn to scale. Or else it is accurate and Gary is really well endowed and has stretched me entirely out of shape. Because my parts are not in those proportions.

There more I look at this the worse I feel. I have an enormous vagina! I have a bad body image now. 

If that's to scale I've been getting it directly in the ovaries. Right up past the tubes, frankly. No wonder I have an ice pack in my lap right now.

Intimacy

I had planned to get my tags renewed today. I had planned to get my Celexa refilled today. I did not plan to have a McAngus Burger barrel through my lower GI tract as I drove home. Yet, that is what happened, and I am proud to say I made it. I planned well in advance and unzipped my pants as I entered the subdivision. I parked in the middle of the garage, shut the garage door while in the car so I wouldn't have to pause at the back door, and at the bathroom door in an Olympian gymnastics move pulled down my pants, entered the bathroom heading west, twisted my body while flying through the air to land on the commode pointing south.

The dog stuck his head in the door and warbled. The door, I confess, was ajar. So I let the dog in and pushed the door shut, but not till it latched. The dog loved it. He never goes in the bathroom with us.

"Yay Mac!" I cheered. "Party in the bathroom!"

"Rowwrrorowr!" Mac warbled.

The McAngus took the scenic route, but it couldn't have been more than ten minutes before the dog wanted out of the bathroom.

"Hey. You smell too," I grumbled. He started barking at the closed but unlatched door. "Well, you can nudge it open."

Gary, right outside the door, asked, "Ellen?"

"AUUUGHHH!" I roared and hurled myself at the door, while still keeping my rear on the commode, so essentially I just doubled over and flung my arms out to the side. Gary was home! Gary never comes home at 5:30! Ever! I WOULD HAVE LATCHED THE DOOOOOOOORR!

Gary promised to let the dog out without peeking in. I will never let my guard down again. (I will also never eat a McAngus again. If the cops pull me over tomorrow for having expired plates I'm writing a letter to McDonald's insisting they pay my fine.)

In Which I Am Trodden Down By The Man!

Today the Man is the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles. I don't know the Man's scam in other states, but Missourians have to get plastic stamps to stick on our license plates every year.

Back in the day (1980) I would pull my Mustang with its gutted seatbelts into the gas station; the mechanics would glance at it; I'd take my inspection and 15 bucks to the DMV. Nowadays, the Man has more requirements for me: proof of insurance, proof I paid my property tax, a VALID safety inspection (bastards!), a personal check, and they keep threatening I'll need my passport soon.

A few years back they added the bullshit emissions test, available only at these special single-purpose emissions testing stations. Sometimes I'd luck out and they'd send my a form that said I'd driven past one of their magic vans and I'd been tested SURREPTITIOUSLY FROM THE BEHIND and I had passed. Passed emissions. Whatever.

The last day of last month I went, looked around, and announced to the line, "I believe I will gladly pay the $25 fine not to wait here." Then I realized I didn't have my emissions test anyway, so I went driving off to FIND one of THE SPECIAL emissions TESTING STATIONS since I hadn't been VISITED by the emissions fairy in the magic van. I went right to where it had been always and it was not there.

BECAUSE THE MAN got rid of the special station, and the magic van, for God knows why, and did not tell me. Perhaps the Fox 4 News Team told me, but I was not listening to them, and I suppose this is a situation beneath Wolf Biltzer's attention. Anyway, I am highly annoyed at the Man. He makes me submit to unreasonable requests and then he jacks with me.

I could have driven everywhere looking to cut in front of a magic fairy emissions van.

I know I should be happy, but I am annoyed. The Man is a turdbunny.

Sunday Miscellany

I. Both days this weekend met my yardwork criteria: they were overcast and approximately 80, so I allowed myself to go outside. I see now the criteria should be expanded to require the weather be overcast, 80 or less, AND have some actual oxygen molecules in the air that are not bound to hydrogen to make humidity. At any rate, both days I was out doing yardwork, and Mom-in-my-Head was pleased.

II. Both days this weekend were capped off with delightful movies, both starring Frances MacDormand. First, she was in Burn After Reading, looking like this:

Then the next night she was in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, as a completely different human being.

 

(The very best part of Burn After Reading was the CIA superior: J.K. Simmons.

 )

III. Generalissimo Michael Jackson is still dead.

 

I cannot wait for Tuesday, when Michael Jackson is buried and the news channels are once again dedicated to covering the news.

A Time to Sow, a Time to Reap

I remember 20 years ago, planting the landscaping around the house, searching for ground covers that would fill in the blank spots, waiting through "the first year they sleep, the next year they creep, the third year they leap."

That rhyme doesn't continue on, but the verse 20 should be "the year they become invincible even though you spray them randomly with woody weed killer and mow them down with the hedge trimmer because they won't just stay in one spot already and stop trying to come into my house, you bastards."

I Hope I Get Three Secrets Too

This coming week it will have been one month since the last holy visitation by our Lady of the Labia and her miraculous stigmata of the Cooter. Will my crotch weep tears of blood every four weeks?

It is a little like Mary appearing every month to the children at Fatima. We shall see. Given the state of all my other symptoms I appear to be replaying history.

A Poem for the Last Late Six

natural causes /

trashed a closet -

strangled and dangled while masturbating /

found in bed not respirating /

crappy anus / heinous heart /

Died in penury of an old neck injury and the next set of three can start