You People Know Me Scary-Well

Either you have no life, or I have the biggest mouth in the fucking world. I'm pretty sure it's a combo of my tendency to over-share and your addiction to my thinly veiled references to penis. (Fine, so I don't even thinly veil them. It's called "artistic license", jesus you people are a buzz kill.) I'm probably going to steal portions of ALL of these bios and create one hybrid-bio for the Haute Dish submission.

Here is the lame-ass bio I threw together for myself. Clearly I was hoping you kill-joys would come up with something better so I wouldn't have to use this:

Catherine goes by "Cat". She spells it with a "c" because she does not like the letter "k". She works as little as possible as an accounts payable specialist, she has her own office, and frequently suffers from third degree paper cuts . She is undergoing treatment for cynicism, but doctors believe it's a terminal case. Cat spends most of her time blogging and watching reruns of Jon & Kate Plus 8 to remind herself that her life is empty and meaningless. She has no ambition and is content to let opportunities pass her by. Her only interests are bacon and Schell's beer. She is probably drunk right now. Trust us, it's better for everyone that way.

My Jill - Michelle from Confessions of a Desperate Housewife - decided to go the direct route and get right to the crux of it:

Cat is a nut from a very twisted tree. The end.

Teri at Cold Lemonade (she is such a slut) took a break from stalking me on AIM to send me this on Myspace:

Cat writes in metaphors and drinks vodka. Cat is crude and crass yet still manages to wear her heart on her sleeve and all that that entails. Cat misses Alaska but she curses the cold of Minnesota; somehow that sounds hypocritical, but you don't see Eskimos living in MN, so I guess there must be some merit to her cold-hate in that state.Yadda yadda zombies, coins for laundry, driving in snow, stealing cute babies, accusing people of being drunk if they say weirder things than her, staying in budget, loving the fluff out of Gray, detesting frozen snot balls....these are Cat's daily thoughts and considerations. Cat is funny & lazy at home, caring & calloused, and entertaining while bored. Hopefully, Cat will become a good friend of mine, someone I would actually pay money to come visit.

Chris from My Cat Ate My Brain was the only one brave enough to leave her submission in the comments. She gets my Purple Heart medal (it's a pretend medal, so don't hold your breath Chris):

Cat is a transplant from Arkansas. She left before she was forced to breed with her first cousin and have babies with nine heads. She came to Minnesota for the Mall of America, thinking this was the Disneyland of the Midwest. Her happiness was quashed when she realized that Wal-Mart was not a flagship store. She lives with Gray, who she is desperately trying to litter box train. Although the winter weather is harsh and she can’t feel her toes, she is enjoying the area even though everyone talks with a funny accent, don’t cha know.

And last (because it's so fucking long)((seriously, you could make a screenplay out of this bio)), C.S. Perry from Rooked:

The Illustrious career of young author Catherine “The Husk” Campbell began in her eleventh year when she went through the trauma of Menarche. Using the emotional pain and disconnectedness she felt as a result of this premature flowering as a springboard, she decided to turn her talents and attention to the written word.

Towering a mere a five feet, four inches, Catherine used her diminutive stature to her advantage by writing a series of short stories which were collected under the title “I Never Get to See the Parade.” This series was refused, unfortunately, by every publishing house that saw it for gratuitous profanity and unnatural sexual content.

Not letting this get her down, Catherine then embarked to write a novel based loosely in her own personal chagrin at never having been molested as a child. That book, “Why Don’t My Uncles Want me?” was shelved once she realized she would have to wait for the deaths of several family members before publication could even be attempted without fear of any litigation ensuing. It remains her “long, lost” novel.

After her failure with a novel, Catherine fell into despair and was hospitalized for a time for a “nervous condition” that caused her to self-mutilate the inside of her mouth by incessantly chewing on her inner lips. And this despite the long secret congenital defect she had struggled to keep quiet; namely: a missing right incisor that remains a mystery as her Birth Records were sealed by the court when she was only nine days old. Many suspected incest as the culprit but the answer may never be known.

Upon her release from the “Spa,” Catherine set about a memoir tentatively titled “Why Do I Smell Like Fried Food?” She once again abandoned a project in process when she realized that the odor she gave off was the direct result of a constant diet of deep fried Funnel Cakes which she obsessively purchased at country fairs and roadside stands. She insisted later that she only ate the cakes to relieve the “inner tension” she felt that caused her to chew her lips almost into non-existence. Luckily, a renowned plastic surgeon was able to perform a labial transplant using Catherine’s labia majora to replace the damaged facial lips. This gave Catherine a bizarre appearance and she hid from the public eye for many long months.

After the discovery of a therapeutic lipstick, Catherine emerged from hiding to write her next piece, “Snuff the Torch.” It was a geopolitical rant about the Evil nature of the Olympics which she felt were destroying morale around the world and causing too many problems between the Superpowers and rogue nations. She also hated the colors used for the rings. It was not well received.

After this debacle, Catherine went into a recording studio to cut a spoken-word album. Working long and tedious hours on the project, Catherine fell too easily back into old habits and was found late one night wandering the streets and offering to prostitute herself for the price of a funnel cake. She was arrested and her now infamous mug shot shows her replacement lips caked with powdered sugar. The album, which she titled numerically, having been inspired by 867-5309 Jenny, was called “559-63-6669.”

The record remains out of print and is considered the Holy Grail of obscure record collectors since the title is rumored to be Catherine’s social security number.

After another brief stay at her favorite “Spa,” Catherine is now getting back to literature and is planning a triumphant return to Letters later this spring.

She currently lives at undisclosed address with her common-law husband and they share their home with 37 cats and one goldfish named “Lucky.”

I want to hump you all. Instead, I'm going to mess around with these killer submissions, and replace my Blogger profile bio with my New & Improved Reader Bio. It's like I'm a really awesome democracy now. HEIL CATHERINE!

Wait...that seems...off...

Third Person Confuses Me

So I'm considering submitting a couple of pieces of prose to my university's arts & literature magazine. Only problem? I have to write a bio for myself in the 3rd person. Not so easy, I can assure you. My blog bio is not entirely appropriate in this situation. The editor asked me to refrain from saying "fuck", "exsanguinate", "masturbate", or "anal leakage" - which...he might as well kill my spirit already and be done with it.

I will blow* anyone who writes a 150 word (or less) bio for me.

And I don't mean figuratively blow, I will literally blow you. *

Here is a link to the fall 2008 edition of the Inter-rag, go check out the bios if you are so inclined. There's a dude on there named "Rimmer", and I would totally blow** him.

Please help.


*Ok, fine - I can't actually blow you, but I will blow ON you. I've got a sterling reputation to maintain folks. I can't just go around blowing Internet strangers. Anymore.

**Sorry Gray, but it's true. You can totally watch.

Tuesday Is Just Like Monday, Except Younger

• I just got a collection letter for $700 I owe on a hospital bill from August, even though I spoke to the hospital receivables department and they told me they were sending out a credit application for their fabulous Get Into Debt Faster program, and that the account would be placed on hold for 30 days until I could complete that credit application. Fuck you, hospital receivables lady who was a total cunt to me on the phone. Because you know what? Your $1,300 emergency room didn't detect that my fucking baby was dead and it took another 6 weeks and $4,700 for a better hospital to figure it out. I'm flipping you off right this minute.
• My check which paid in full the $700 for that hospital bill from August? Cleared the bank the same day I got the collection letter.
• I'm positive this is going to result in the hospital keeping my money but not calling off the collection company, and both companies assuring me that the other is responsible for fixing the cluster fuck, that I'll have to take it up with them, and that they're going to steal my soul while they wait. I hate you all.
• I didn't know that medical bills could go into collection when you've been making payments every two weeks.
• Speaking of medical bills, remember my awesome experience with Minute Clinic? And then remember the OTHER awesome experience with Minute Clinic a couple weeks later? Well, Minute Clinic has topped it's awesomeness with a cap of Fuckin' A Right-edness. I got a refund check in the mail for $23 the co-pay I made in December. Which, I know that's more likely an insurance company thing, but still - the check came from Minute Clinic, so I'm giving them the credit.
• Smokers smell really bad.
• You might also remember how much I hate Wal-Mart (aka Slightly Worse Than Puppy Mills and Sweat Shops)? In December, I sent letters of complaint to A) their home office in Bentonville, AR; B) the general manager of the store in Brooklyn Park with the shitty electronics department; and C) the general manager of the store in Shakopee, MN with the shitty electronics department. I have not received a response from anyone affiliated with Wal-Mart, so it's clear they do not give a damn about me or where I choose to spend my (non-existent) discretionary money.
• I wish I could drop kick Wal-Mart, but I've been known to accidentally miss the target, and because I'm kicking so hard (but don't meet any resistance from the target) I throw my leg up so high in the air that I'm flung onto my back on the ground. Then I'm stunned so I drop the target on my face.
• I never played sports.
• Gray got a letter in the mail from Maria Duval this weekend. See, there's this ring that is designed with some kind of Egyptian geometric patterns, and since she started wearing it 30 years ago, she's survived a deadly car crash and enjoyed decades of health and prosperity. She's also inspired bloggers to dedicate entire websites to discussing her and her talisman. Inside the letter is an order form (this magical ring can be MINE MINE MINE for only $7 plus $3 for shipping and handling) and a 4x6 photograph of the totalled vehicle from Maria's miraculous car crash 30 years ago. I thought it was interesting that the 30 year old vehicle was late-80's model Chevy S10. Do the math, dumbass scammers.
• I lured The Bloggess into sending me an email and I felt like I was talking to Jesus, and then I had an orgasm.
• I hate Dick's Sporting Goods, those worthless home wreckers can suck my balls.
• Friday, I went to a funeral. My co-worker's father-in-law died from lung cancer almost immediately after being diagnosed. Another co-worker's friends lost their 5 year old girl to cancer on Thursday night. A friend called yesterday to tell me that a former co-worker's cancer was back, and that it's terminal and she only has months to live. Fuck you, cancer.
• I cheated on my No Spending yesterday and bought a sandwich on my way to school. And McDonald's on my way home. I'm going straight to budget hell. But it's next door to regular hell, so it will streamline my afterlife torture, and I'm all about efficiency.
• Please, anyone? Send bacon. Immediately.

Please visit The Un Mom if you want to play with her. I hear she only bites the good way.

Updated:

• I got a random text from my ex-husband a couple of weeks ago. He basically just said that he hopes I'm doing well and that he was thinking about me. Which was weird. So I stalked him on Myspace and found out that he just moved back to Arkansas, which is where we met. So I guess that explains why he texted me. Sort of.
• This means that I'm officially "out of my element" in Minnesota - all of my original posse (the ex, my sister, my niece) have bailed on me. What the fuck am I still doing here?

Updated again:

• Apparently today is Fat Tuesday, whatever that means. Every day is fat day at my house. Anyway, my boss brought in a King Cake. For those of your unfamiliar with King Cake (as I was this morning, gloriously, blissfully unaware of the horror that is King Cake), it is a multi-colored coffee cake with a baby baked inside of it. I know, that just sounds wrong. But that's exactly what it is. Everyone cuts themselves a hunk of baby cake and whomever finds a little baby in their food wins...well, in my case I won three strands of plastic Mardi Gras beads and the title of "King for a Day", whatever the hell that means.
• I really should have been more specific when I told the Universe I wanted a baby.
• I stabbed it with my fork. By accident. Stupid plastic baby.

WARNING: BORING SCIENCE TALK AHEAD

Gray and I sat down last to watch a couple episodes of this new show we just found on the National Geographic channel called Morphed. We totally geeked out from the commercial last week, so I recorded them. I CANNOT DIE UNTIL I SEE HOW THE MODERN DAY TURKEY EVOLVED FROM A RAPTOR, YA'LL. It's really that important.

The first episode was about how millions of years ago, whales and dolphins were small, wolf-like land mammals that lived in Pakistan. Due to environmental pressures (like a heat wave that sounded suspiciously like global warming), they had to find another source of food. They picked fish (personally, I would starve to death if fish was my only option), and began to evolve into the ocean-dwelling, salt water-drinking creatures we know today.

The most important thing I learned from this episode is that everything dies in Pakistan.

I was also a little freaked out that over millions of years, as the whale evolved and populated the oceans of the world, his two main predators remained exactly the same: crocodiles and sharks. Those fuckers have been around for, like, EVER. (And did you know there was once a giant shark that weighted up to 100,000 pounds? I may never sleep again.)

We were about 20 minutes into this episode when Gray paused the show and said, "I don't buy it."

I realize that evolution is a theory not a fact, and that science is constantly changing its mind about shit. But personally, I understand the basics (very, very basics) about how evolution is supposed to work, and it makes sense to me. Truth be told, I'd be shocked if someone proved that monkeys were not involved in my genetic makeup. It just "fits".

But I realize that not everyone believes in the theory of evolution, and so I was interested in hearing what Gray had to say on the matter.

me: "What do you mean by, 'I don't buy it'?"

him: "I get that animals had to adapt their diets based on changing food sources, but I don't believe that animals can just suddenly grow fins to swim faster so they don't get eaten by crocodiles."

(This is the ironic part where I explain natural selection to a man who just ate his weight in burrito and sucked down another can of Dew.)

me: "You know, how people take the dogs with favorable qualities and force them to mate with the other dogs with favorable qualities. And then you take the best ones from that litter and so forth until you have The Optimal Dog. Eventually, only the wolf-whales that swam fast were left, and they mated with other fast swimmers, and then their wolf-whale babies swam a little bit faster..."

It turns out that natural selection is one of those things that make perfect sense until you have to say it out loud. Like the stock market. Or The Bachelor. By the time I stopped talking, I was fucking confused as hell about the whole thing, but apparently Gray was convinced.

him: "Oh, okay. That makes sense."

me: "How fast can you swim?"

I'd Say He's More Like The Fresh Queen

If I had known this guy? I may never have left Arkansas.

Diamonds On the Soles of Her Poo (sha na na na na)

When does one officially earn the title of "miser"?

I've got to be closing in on it any day now. After rounding "cheap bastard", I intend to slide into "penny pinching fool" any moment now. Here's my February spend:

• $3 on quarters for laundry
• $3 wasted in the vending machine trying to get quarters for laundry (aka Sun Chips, Coke, and one serving of air)
• $25.09 at the grocery store (didn't know you could leave there for less than a hundred bucks. Huh. Learn something every day.)
• $29.89 at the gas station (on gas, not on Hustler and sour Skittles. That was hard for me.)
• $3.88 at Walgreen's (Gray says he's going to pay me back for the lube...er...Mountain Dew)
• $4.26 at the Red Box for two Valentine's Day movies (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist: loved it, but what is with the PUKE in all the movies these days?)(Nights at Rodanthe: Eh, I love you Diane Lane, but this was no Under the Tuscan Sun, KWIM?)
• $20 in quarters for laundry

So that's less than $100 more than half way into the month - not too shabby in my humble opinion. The only thing on this list of "expenditures" (another word that sounds awesome but really isn't) that we didn't totally "need" was the Red Box movie rental. Fuck it. I didn't get Gray a card for Valentine's Day, so it all evened out.

This is such a drastic change from my spending in January that I'm getting all these frantic emails from my budget website saying, "Unusual Spending Activity", and "You Are $500 Below the Average U.S. Household, Are You Sure We Don't Need to Send Over the Coroner?"

So far, this spending moratorium has been a piece of cake - THANK YOU DEPRESSION - because I haven't wanted to leave the house for any reason, including to stimulate the economy. I got both my state and federal tax refunds, and I got my student loan disbursement as well. So now that I don't need money to cover bouncing checks, I've got some padding in my bank accounts. Doesn't that just fucking figure? I'm just waiting for everything to clear the bank before I go and pay down some credit cards. They'll probably send over the FBI to investigate that shit.

Speaking of credit cards, I cashed in my few remaining rewards points and ordered a $5 gift card to Panera Bread, which I stopped to use last night on my way to class because I was about ::this:: close to chewing on my own arm, and I'm not even all that into cannibalism these days. All I wanted was a nice, hot cup of soup. Potato soup. Mmmmmm. Great, now my panties are wet.

Did you people know that Panera Bread sells magical, golden soup? I got 12 ounces of potato and water for $4.89. FOUR FUCKING EIGHTY-NINE! I had the gift card for $5, so it worked out perfectly, but I just couldn't believe I was spending five dollars on a bowl of soup. There was bacon in there, and believe me! I understand the value of the pork product. But I've got a package of bacon at home - an entire package! - that cost less than that one bowl of soup with the three crumbs of bacon in it. WE ARE IN A RECESSION PANERA! People don't have magical soup money just laying around anymore.

I went to Panera's website this morning to try and find evidence of this ludicrous price point, but the menu? HAS NO PRICES ON IT. You know how when you go to the fancy restaurant for a special occasion and you kind of hope someone else foots the bill because you've got $13 in your wallet but the menu has no prices listed next to anything so you know they're going to charge you a thousand dollars for that pat of butter? Because only people who have black AMEX cards don't want to know how much shit costs? Because if there are no prices on the menu, you just drink water so you don't have to worry about losing your house?

That's what Panera Bread is like, except instead of fine china and crystal, they give you plastic spoons and and make you come get your own food when it's ready. $4.89 for a bowl of fucking soup. I'm still thinking I may shit out a few diamonds so this all makes sense.

Interloper

There's this thing that thinks behind my thoughts. On those days when the earth shivers violently and the atmosphere is the sharpened black of pencil lead, the thing awakens. It slides out from between the gray folds of its cave, and it settles itself behind my eyes. In the blackness of midnight, it cuts a slit in the back of each orb and then uses a straw to suck the color from the world, one drop at a time, out from the back. Then it closes the slits over with despair like plumbers putty. Sometimes this patchwork leaks, and I awake to a pillow full of anguish. When my hands crack and my blood floods the mesas and gorges of my desert skin, the thing slides into these rivers of dust and delights in lost tubes of cortisone. It twines its tentacles into the meat of my shoulders, and twists them around until they are taught and I feel the tension in my tired eyes. Loved ones eyes scan my possessed frame and they ask me how I'm feeling, suspicion permeates their concern. Then the thing tugs again, and my shoulders mimic a shrug. I can't cry out for help, because the thing is my tongue and it flaps in the sharp wind. Nothing can kill the thing, but when the earth ceases to shiver and the sky drips sludge and heat, then I'll feel its parasitic hold peel back. Slowly, one tentacle at a time will let go of my muscles and retreat to the cave with its black thoughts. When the robins return, the color comes with them, brown at first and broken, then green with the bulbs, and finally blue like an angel. When again I see blue, I'll know the thing sleeps soundly, and so will I. My pillow will harden and dry. I'll think about running away before winter, but in the haze of blue and the smell of nectar, I'll forget until it's too late.

Happy Sexy Time, Interwebnet

For all you losers out there, relegated to blog surfing on this most romantic of Hallmark holidays, here's a little taste of what I'll be up to later tonight...sexy picnic on the living room floor, Chinese food, candle light, flavored massage oils (ok fine, canola oil mixed with Febreeze, I'm on a budget), and a bedroom screening of the amateur video tape we made a year ago today..................

Happy Valentine's Day!

XOXOXO from yours truly,

Lolita Razzle Dazzle

At Least I Hear You Die Real Fast This Way, Which Beats A Gut Shot

I love the word "exsanguinate" but not, you know, what it means.

The English language never ceases to amaze me. How can so many words that feel SO RIGHT on my tongue (like "episiotomy", "pustule", and "bitch slap", ) have definitions that are so negative?
I used to watch a lot of CSI (until I realized I'd already seen, like, every single episode, not because they were reruns, but because THEY ARE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME), and I'd sit on the couch all curled up with a cup of tea - ok, let's be real: it was usually a coffee mug of Popov - and while I was singing The Who at the top of my lungs, I'd be rooting in my head for someone to slit someone else's throat! YES! So I can hear Grissom say "exsanguinate" over and over!

Those strangulation episodes were a real let down, as were the head traumas and drug deals gone wrong. The ones where people got chopped up were ok, but still, nothing says "relaxation" like watching a show about some chick who got decapitated because her lover thought she was stealing cash and hiding it in her trachea.

Let's break down all the pieces of "exsanguinate" and determine where this awesome word went bad.

• First, we've got "ex". I don't know about you, but this word means "freedom" to me. And freedom is most definitely a good thing, unless you're that damned caged bird that sings all the time, in which case you don't much seem to care one way or the other.

• Then we've got "sang". How can anybody not fucking love sang? We do it in the shower! We do it at the bar! We do it in the car! At weddings! At ball games! Sang is a good goddamn thing! Unless you're Gray, in which case PLEASE I BEG OF YOU NEVER SING AGAIN. Singing is not for you.

• Next up is "guin", which doesn't mean anything at all. But it also doesn't mean anything BAD, and it kinda sounds like "grin", which generally has positive connotations. Unless it's one of those creepy grins, like the cashier at Walgreen's gave me yesterday. The kind that looks like it means "I'd like to exsantuinate you" instead of "today is double coupon day".

• Last up is "ate", and the only way you could look at this in a negative light would be if you said, "I really want some of that bacon, but I'm full 'cause I already ate."

So there you have it: scientific proof that the word "exsanguinate" is really an awesome thing, regardless of how pop-culture has twisted it's original meaning. I'm going to start telling people I want to exsanguinate them, which really means I want to be free to sing and eat bacon with them.

(Wait - I just looked up "scientific proof", and I'm going to have to dispute the meaning of those words tomorrow, otherwise this entire post was a waste of time.)

Speaking of exsanguinate, this is how we'll be spending our Friday the 13th:

Also, There's A New Highrise Down The Block From My Scale

I was feeling pretty good about myself today. I actually got off my lazy ass and headed to the track for a run for the first time since I was sick. Last month.

But what can I say? I was sick! And then I was depressed! And then I was a bit psychotic! I was in NO CONDITION to go running. I was in the condition to lay around and cry. And eat taquitos.


But today...well, I threw on my tennis shoes, dusted off my Ipod (literally), and went to the community center. And when I walked in? I realized exactly just how long I'd been gone: the lobby has been entirely remodeled. There were walls in places that were formerly wall-less. And not just walls, but sheet rocked, painted walls with pretty pictures hanging on them.

It was a little embarrassing having to ask where to find the sign-in book. The lady at the desk was judging my slothful ass, I could tell. But then I realized I didn't care what she thought because she works at the fucking community center. Who is she to judge me?

I don't know how far I ran because I lost count right around lap number "try not to puke", when my vision darkened and the giant green bean asked me if I knew how to read my pulse (is it count my pulse? take my pulse?) But I did run for 50 minutes. And by "ran", I mean walked almost as fast at that lady with the oxygen tank.


I'm hoping the workout will help me fall asleep tonight without having to, you know, cry and stuff. So I'm going to go take a bunch of Tylenol PM and start writing an analysis on "the romantic hero" for my lit class. That's a good snoozer combo, don't you think? (Hopefully the Tylenol also helps my legs not seize up during the night)((which is totally likely since I gave Gray so much shit yesterday about his robo-arms))(((because we already know that Jesus fucking hates me))).


If this works to fight against the blues, I'll be sure to run this weekend. I'll need it. Here's why:

I'm throwing in the towel and going back on the pill in a desperate attempt to get my skin to CLEAR THE FUCK UP because I'm about two days away from showering with my clothes on so I don't have to subject myself to the horror that is my torso. I know the dermatologist told me it might take two months to see a significant improvement, but she also said I should see some improvement after only one month. Right now? It's worse than ever. And I'm going fucking crazy over it.

Gray and I - specifically the "I" portion of that duo - are just not ready to try for another baby. We're still paying the damn hospital bills from the last baby, and (if you hadn't noticed), I'm still kind of a wreck, so I don't think throwing a helpless child into the mix is a great idea at this point, no matter what we want. (Hear that, Octo-mom?) We need more time to get back into that "place", where the thought of getting pregnant is a happy one, not one that scares the piss out of me, so this birth control pill thing won't really throw a wrench in the family plans.

Hopefully it helps. If not? You'll see me on a 20/20 special. I'll be the girl who skinned herself with a vegetable peeler and then sold the shavings on Ebay.

I Want 18 Kids Now, Or At Least My Virginity Back

It is Hump Day, but there will be no humping in Casa Zipbagofbones due to an unfortunate combination of Gray's broken arms and the hell spawn that is my period. Ah, to be reminded of my empty uterus. It's bliss. Aren't you so glad to know? I thought you would be. If I have to be reminded, then YOU will be reminded. That's how it works around here.

Gray signed up for a gym membership last fall, and he accidentally worked out 3 times (ok, maybe 4 times) before he was able to come up with a list of reasons why he could not/would not work out anymore. I believe the list included things like "my back hurts", "I'm feeling pressured to go and since I refuse to do what other people tell me to do on principal, I'm not going", and the ever-popular "I'm going tomorrow, and I know I said that yesterday, but I actually mean it this time".

Last week, however, Gray actually WENT the gym with his younger (substantially more fit) brother. They went on Friday for, like, a couple hours and then they went again on Saturday, with a little bit of disc golf (Frisbee golf)((I'd never heard of it either)) thrown in for good measure. Gray's younger brother lifts weights on a regular basis. Gray does not. Apparently, it did not occur to either man that perhaps Gray should take it easy on his first visit to the gym in 6 months. Gray did NOT take it easy at the gym.

Remember those Barbies with the arms that stayed bent at the elbow? Not the bendy-arm kind, the solid plastic arm kind. Remember how hard those Barbies were to dress? Gray was one of those Barbies. He was unable to move his fucking arms for about 3 days, and had to go home from work because his arms were stuck in the "bent" position, which was not conducive to his career as a casino games dealer. He walked around looking like a bad impression of a robot. Or a retard. No offense to the robots.

He's doing better now, thanks for asking. I told him not to over do it (be a moron) next time.

Anyhow, as we're well into the second week of February, I thought I would update you all about my progress on the Month of No Spending. Here's a list of everything I have shelled out for:

• $3 on quarters for laundry
• $3 wasted in the vending machine trying to get quarters for laundry (aka Sun Chips, Coke, and one serving of air)

That's it. That's all. I have paid a couple of bills (the kind I have to pay to continue living with lights and insurance), and I put gas in my car on Saturday (only because the empty light had been lit for several days). But otherwise? I haven't bought anything.

We are running out of eggs, we are TOTALLY out of produce, and the milk is several days expired (it doesn't smell "wrong" yet), so I anticipate a trip to the grocery store this weekend to pick up a FEW perishable food stuffs. (I've always loved the term "food stuffs". It seems like getting away with saying "thingies" in regular conversation without appearing to be a dumbass.)

Here's the kickers: I AM OUT OF BOOZE PEOPLE. Not "booze people", but "booze, people". Although if anyone knows any "booze people", could you ask them to send me some vodka? I drank my last glass of wine on Monday night, and I'm too cheap to go buy more. For now. We'll see how generous I'm feeling by quitting time today. I'd like to tell you that I spent an entire night booze-free (actually, my therapist would like me to say that, but only if it were true), but instead I dug around in my cabinets until I came up with a bottle of amaretto - which I hate - (it was either that or Grand Marnier, but I have no fucking clue what that is or why it cost so much money) and sucked on that bottle whilst watching the rerun of A Very Duggar Wedding on TLC and the 60 Minutes interview with Octo-mom.

And then I cried myself to sleep because I know I haven't remained pure and saved my whole heart for the man that god "would have for me", and I didn't realize that all I need to have an army of children is a little Botox and some student loans.

But I consoled myself with the knowledge that my dad didn't give me the Sex Talk and attempt to explain the intricate details of married intimacy by saying, "It's like Legos".

So, you know, overall I'm really kicking ass in February.

I'm A Puppy For Your Love

I was outside more this weekend than I've been outside (collectively) since November. Which explains why I was compelled to eat the yellow snow, kiss the ground, and kill ducks with my slingshot. What? I had no idea the ducks would be back in town this soon. Can you blame a girl for being hungry? I'm trying to hibernate, yo.

Winter sun at noon

Wind in the non-willows

Some kind of wonderful

Smilin' fool

Spires

We fucking wish

Mmmm chick....um, dark meat

Quack, yo.

Winter Walk

This sock pretty much sums up the story of my fucking life right now.

In case of a mail emergency:

I wonder if this guy is single...

Crazy, melting snow monster

Wonder what it's like on the other side

I Kinda Wish I Were An Oscar Meyer Winner

Thank fucking god the weekend is upon us, not only because I want to take my pants off without fear of losing my job, but also because I've been featured (again) on Five Star Friday! Can you believe it? Go check me out! Although, I'm sure all of you faithful readers have already read and commented on my totally emo Eleven's End post. But still, go check out all the other awesome bloggers that have been featured this week!


Something preternatural tells me that I might owe a "thank you" to my special Interwebby necromancer friend (you know who you are, Miss Poo) for this honor. Would you like your payment in U.S. dollars? Or are the Canadian dollars still worth more these days? I might just send your bribe in rubles so I don't guess wrong and offend you, Canadians are bad asses, and also because there are a lot of Russians in my apartment building, many of them little old ladies who would be easy to mug. Also, what size would you like your I HEART CAT t-shirt to be? I'm going to guess Large, but only because I like to think you're busty. Just shoot me an email and let me know. Oh, and attach a photo in lieu of measurements.

And now, I'll regale you with several unrelated bullet points. That's all I've got going on up here today. My apologies in advance. ALTHOUGH for those of you interested, I am working on the next installment of everybody's favorite child killer Jonesy! Stay tuned for that shit!

• Last Friday at the movie theatre, I went to the bathroom before The Wrestler started (I figured if it was anything like WWE wrestling, that it would be long and go on and on and on...so I should pee). As I'm veering left into the women's room, this boy - maybe 9 or 10 years old - is walking into the ladies' room in front of me. I've totally done that before, except...you know, with the men's' room, so I was kind of amused / slash / embarrassed for the poor kid but didn't really know if I should call out, "Hey kid, you're going into the women's' bathroom", so I decided just to watch and see what he would do. Finally, a lady came walking out of the bathroom and as she passed the boy, I saw his entire body kind of freeze for a second, like a deer caught in headlights. He clearly wasn't sure how to proceed. Should he turn around and run away? Should he pretend he's just a lesbian girl? WHAT TO DO? In the end, he decided to just "roll with it", he was already committed to walking that direction, so he just bolted into the women's' room and slammed the door on the first open stall. I kind of chuckled to myself and did my business. Then as I was washing my hands, I saw him peer out of the stall before he high tailed his ass right out of the bathroom without washing his hands. I felt kind of bad for the kid. I felt even worse for whoever was sharing popcorn with the kid.


• Several of you recommended that I fold my brain tissue around some Flannery O'Connor. Then I came across a Flannery O'Connor quote in my Imaginative Writing textbook. Then I looked on the list of books approved by my dred-ed instructor for a paper I have to write, and "any book by Flannery O'Connor" was on there. I googled some additional quotes, and I found that Miss O'Conner was a total bitch, which means I'll be reading me some Flannery O'Connor as soon as possible. Thank you. And you're welcome.


• I went to the dentist for a teeth cleaning yesterday afternoon, and I practically had an orgasm when the hygienist brought out this industrial tooth floss and filed between my teeth. It was about a quarter inch wide ribbon of METAL. Literally metal. I don't know what kind of metal because when I begged her to give me some, she ignored my pleas and blathered something about how using it all the time would file my teeth away to powder. But it FELT SO GOOD. And it cleared out some little bits of plaque (or whatever the fuck it is) so that now my regular, puny-ass tooth floss glides much more smoothly and my teeth look whiter. And yes, I'm kind of a flossing fanatic.

That is all. Begone!

Pictures to Hump By

Yes, the title is a little bit misleading. But I'm not sorry. Ha ha! Here's a recap of January 2009, photo-style bitches!

Snocross AKA North Pole NASCAR

Every day at lunch for 2 months, I watched as crews formed this track from piles of manufactured snow and really fun-looking big machinery. By the time the actual snocross event rolled around, I was practically beside myself with anticipation.

And then I realized snocross is boring to watch.

Abandoned blankets under a bridge -

apparently beggars CAN be choosers when it comes to bedding.

How I spent the 01/20/09

Prickly pokeys

Because tipping them sideways is like storing them out of the weather.

That's my kind of clean-up.

Eleven's End

Jeremy drove, and I rolled down my window to feel the breeze slide like silk over my arms. I noticed that the sun no longer beat down with the passionate force of summer. Instead, it fell across the landscape as if hung from the side. Fall light had always been my favorite. If I believed in good omens, I would have counted this among them.

On that drive to our first ultrasound, Jeremy twined his right hand into my left and squeezed it just this side of too tight. We grinned at each other, and then we turned our grins toward the windshield and beyond it. We grinned out at the fall light and the road beneath us. After so many weeks spent hoping that the sheer force of my desire would hasten time, we were finally going to glimpse the fruit of our sweaty summer project.

“We should ask him about riding the bike.” He repeated this as if one of us might have forgotten.

“All the books say it’s okay.” His hand was a salty envelope around mine. He wiped it absently on my knee.

“Still, we’ll ask anyway,” and he winked at me again before returning his eyes to the road.
Later, our feet crushed the first casualties of autumn against the sidewalk, and we tumbled into the clinic with our hands still clasped together.

“Isn’t it amazing,” he whispered in my ear, “that you and me…we made a whole other person with nothing but ourselves?” I rolled the luxurious weight of those words around in my head as we waited for my name to be called.

The nurse appeared and shuffled us to the examination room where I was questioned about my allergies and my symptoms. My blood pressure was checked and my temperature taken. Jeremy reached again for my hand. The nurse noticed this exchange and asked, "Are you nervous?"

"No, just excited.” To explain what I felt would have been to heave a great stone up a sheer cliff with nothing but my shoulders. I was about to see with my own eyes that our little clay jar - molded so blindly with unpracticed hands, still unrecognizable in form - was present and accounted for. My heart careened into its slick neighbors, never quite stopping to find it’s proper place before bounding away again.

The nurse told me to undress from the waist down and handed me a paper sheet. I sat on the examination table and covered myself over, then tried to distract my spinning thoughts by pondering the various employments of the gargantuan cotton swabs in a glass jar on the counter. Soon the doctor knocked and then entered the room.

“Will we hear the heartbeat?” I asked him, after the usual pleasantries were exchanged.

“Not this time, “ he replied. “It’s too early for the heartbeat to be audible. But we will be able to see your baby on the monitor in just a couple of minutes.” He busied himself preparing the abdominal ultrasound.

When applied, the gel was icy against my skin. Jeremy stood at my waist and peered over my belly into the soft glow of the ultrasound screen. I studied his features, hoping to catch his first flash of recognition of our tiny life on the screen.

“I’m not getting a clear picture,” the doctor wrinkled his nose, and without looking at me, “We’ll try the vaginal wand.”

He warned that it would be cold and that I would feel a lot of pressure, as if I’d never had a foreign object inside of me. I laughed aloud.

He moved the wand first to the left, then to the right, and he squinted as if searching the contours of the sun. His tongue appeared between his lips, and he bit down on it. His face was folded in concentration.

As his eyes searched from beneath a crumpled brow, mine darted between them, silently pleading for them to loosen in smile. My heart knocked wildly on familiar doors, but its neighbors did not answer. I felt the first jolt of fear in my ribs.

As the moments spun out, I imagined that I could drive my thoughts and direct them safely back home. I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and straining limbs and I fixed my mental course towards a dot on the horizon: an aquatic still life on the ceiling.

I drove my thoughts straight ahead and into that panel which covered the fluorescent bulbs above. Upside down to me, it was the vivid blue of tropical seawater. Anemone swayed in the implied ocean current as clownfish flitted nearby. I thought about the ceiling panel as my car sunk into its sandy bottom, studied it closely as the minutes passed, as the wand searched my inner recesses for the life that should have been there.

The doctor, still moving the wand inside me, said, “There is no fetal pole.” His words were filled with the sound of lost time. “The amniotic sac is the right size for eleven weeks, but it’s empty. I’m so sorry. I know this is not what you were expecting to hear today.”

***

Jeremy drove, and now the light was all wrong. The sun burned red, and everything it touched screamed in agony. It hung crooked in the sky, and had dropped lower to the ground in the since unfurled hour. The dying light pressed harshly down on the landscape, and squeezed from it the warmth of day.

Through my swollen eyelids, I glimpsed flashes of the long, barren winter that lay before us, and the abundance of darkness it would bring. Much time would pass before I’d feel the fertile slant of warm light on my face, and so I began to wrap my mind in layers to keep out the cold.

I've Got Nothing Else To Do This Month

I'm sick and tired of being broke all the time, and by "broke" I mean "lucky I don't bounce checks more often", and by "more often" I mean "all the damn time". I've been trying desperately to pay off some lingering debt from my previous marriage and subsequent divorce, but I feel like I'm just treading financial water. It's winter, and I'm already a little bit crazy at the moment, what from the lack of sunlight and sleep and living vegetation. So I've decided to make it my project for the next 27 days to do something about my financial situation.

During the entire month of February, I vow not to purchase ANYTHING that is not 100% necessary to my survival (including entertainment). Should I bring your smelling salts? Sounds impossible, right? It very well might be impossible, but I'm going to try.

Fortunately, I am not a notorious shop-a-holic (Alcoholic? 'Nother story, which is why alcohol is included on my list of things 100% necessary to my survival), but I do overspend on groceries regularly. The rest of my disposable income (you know, the $30 that's left after I pay my bills) generally just sneaks right past me and out into the world without my noticing, mostly on things like take-out dinners and car washes and hookers. Oh, and equine porn.

I did a little Google search for "month with no shopping" and I found a lot of interesting information, particularly this link to this article written by Liz Pulliam Weston in 2007. There was another link to a post on My Money Blog about all the forgotten pantry food items we buy, put away, and promptly forget about. This person chose to go a month without grocery shopping (except for milk and juice). I LOVE this idea, because the bulk of my cash is spent on groceries, some of which end up in the garbage or wasting away in the dusty corner of my kitchen cabinet.

I'm still working the kinks at this moment - thankfully I didn't go out of the house yesterday, or I probably would have bought something and ruined the whole plan before I got started. But here is a rough list of what I consider "necessary":

• Food items that perish in 30 days or less, and only those we completely consume in less than 30 days (milk, tomatoes, the like). All other meals must be prepared with what we already have at home.
• Booze. I just bought 4 bottles of wine from Trader Joe's on Saturday, so I should be set for at least 3 days. Bar hopping is verboten.
• Toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, other household items we CANNOT run out of in order to maintain our gainful employment and pass the apartment inspection in two weeks.
• Rx's
• Gasoline
• Stamps

What else could I be forgetting? Surely there are other items that are 100% necessary! If not, what the fuck have I been buying all this time?

I do have two social engagements that I have already promised to attend (a friend's winter choral concert this coming Saturday, and a night with my Jill at the Water Park of America at the end of the month), and I don't feel right about cancelling either of those obligations and letting down my friends. But neither should be terribly costly, and...well...I'm probably going to crash and burn with this little experiment anyway, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. My goal is to see how much money I would be able to save in a month if I really tightened my monetary belt.

Going into this, I anticipate the most difficult part of "no spending" month will be finding free activities to keep us occupied during the shortest, yet most unbearable month of the endless Minnesota winter. Fortunately, I have Landers to keep me busy, and plenty of reading assignments for school. I might have to break out the as of now unused stripper pole that Santa brought me. I might have to play any one of my thousands of different video games. I might have to write more.

I might also die, but that's what makes this exciting, don't you agree?