Change of plans

I may have mentioned that I'm lazy.

It's not that I don't enjoy projects, work, staying busy, et al. It's just that I like doing those things because I WANT to do them rather than because I have to. I spent a lot of my life doing things I have to do, and now I enjoy doing things because they're fun.

Laundry is a bit behind, for obvious reasons.

I drove to St Paul for my children's writing class on Thursday. I sat in the parking lot studying, and by "studying," I mean "looking at picture books and reading the accompanying text book about why picture books are important." I finished brushing up on everything necessary for my class, and I still had 45 minutes to sit around.

I wondered, then, if I wanted to spend 12 hours a week thinking about, writing, and analyzing books for young children, or if I'd prefer to spend those 12 hours at home with my family, out with friends, drinking beer and working up the courage to rip out the cabinets in my bathroom.

I realized this class was going to suck.

I got in my car and drove home.

On the way, I called Gray and said, "Yeah, so I just dropped out of school."

His response? "You went back to school because you wanted to. Because it was fun for you. You were doing this for YOU. If it's no longer something you enjoy, then you don't need to be there."

EUREKA! Higher education is all about me, especially in my case, because I don't intend on using my English degree for work, nor do I plan to continue on towards a graduate degree. Gray is right: I returned to school because it was interesting to me, and because I wanted the tuition money.

I'm at the point now where I'd prefer to spend my time in other ways, and so rather than continue to rack up student loan debt, I've decided to throw in the proverbial towel. At least for now.

I partly blame my brain pain. That semi-near-death experience made me view everything in my life differently, from my relationships with Gray and friends and family, to the way I approach my life. That stupid fall down the stairs changed my life, both in good ways and in bad. And I'm starting to take to heart what my husband has been trying to teach me for years: "Do you."

He's been telling me (for as long as I know him) that I spent enough of my life taking care of other people.

He's been trying to show me how to put myself first.

He's been giving myself to me.

So, in summary, now that you've vomited all over your keyboard from the sappy shit above, I'm not going back to school this fall. Instead, I'm going to read for pleasure. I'm going to write because I have something I want to say. I'm going to make plans on Thursday nights and not worry about making excuses to my professor. I'm going to travel. In fact, I'm hoping to visit my BlogHer '10 bitches in Salt Lake City this fall.

I'm going to do me.

Fucking lazy

Where have I been?

Exactly where I always am, which is either on the toilet or on the couch. If only they could unite the two, my life's dreams would all come true.

I've been reading a lot for class, and by "reading" I mean "looking at picture books and wondering what the fuck is going on because I don't understand how to follow a red scarf through a circus without accompanying text because jesus christ, is that lion eating a woman?" Because reading for kids who are too young to read is, apparently, taxing on my little pea brain.

I promise I'll be here soon, when I have something to write about which does not involve the word "hippo" or "sharing nicely together."

So really, I'll never be back.

You would think I'd be used to this by now.

You GUUUUUUUUYS. I can't sleep. Guess why? It shouldn't be terribly complicated, I started digging through my archives and discovered I do this EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.

My writing class starts tomorrow.

This is a problem for two reasons, and probably a whole lot of other reasons I haven't thought of yet, but the first is that I haven't been to a class of any kind since mid-way through fall semester last year.

You know. When the shit got knocked out of me and stuff.

I am no longer used to A) being a student or B) having deadlines or C) HAVING DEADLINES. And by "deadlines," I mean "anything at all I have to do for any reason other than because I feel compelled."

Second problem? Writing classes: they can haz scarinezz. You ever taken one? They read your shit out loud, and then they tear it to fucking shreds. OUT LOUD. It's all very...well, it's awesome, actually, and super helpful, but I've been stuck in writing classes with really stupid people before, and they're kind of a buzz kill. Because they suck and writing, except they think that they're awesome at writing, so they hate my writing (which...come on, seriously?) and then they refuse to employ any of my suggestions or answer my questions.

At the end of the day, it's a tiny room full of people, sitting in a circle, showing each other their private parts and critiquing everyone elses bush trim.

OH. Thought of another one. This is a children's literature writing class.

Ya'll have read my shit before. Obviously. You're here after all, and most of you probably aren't even being held at gun point (Hi Joseph! This one's for you buddy!).

So it may be obvious to even the most dense of you, that I? DO NOT CATER TO THE RATED G CROWD.

I can't write for fucking kids, am I out of my mind? Seriously, the last assignment I had to write from a child's perspective was traumatic even for me. I have a lot of work to do on my child's voice, but the thing is that I don't ENJOY writing that shit, so finding a new creative voice seems...like a lot of fucking work.

I blame this on the fact that I started reading Salem's Lot when I was eight years old. There's no going from Stephen King back to fucking My Little Golden Books.

I write stupid stuff and mildly scary stuff and funny stuff and suuuuper disturbing stuff, and all of it is...adult rated, shall we say. Even the few things I've written (like this) about happy times in my childhood (there were actually a few), my voice is distinctly not a child's voice. Nor is it an adult speaking to a child. It's like...a really stoned guy explaining the intricate details of Bugles to the cop who just pulled him over.

OH. Thought of another one. My class is at the Midway campus, which happens to be called "Midway Campus" because of it's close proximity to the state fairgrounds, and did I mention that tomorrow? IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE MN STATE FAIR?

I've already had a traumatic first day of writing class experience. This one may be just as bad, except it's possible I might find cheese curds on the ground, and that would actually be awesome.

Time to panic about school

I woke up this morning and realized HOLY SHIT I START SCHOOL IN LIKE...OMG I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHEN I START SCHOOL.

I'm notorious for pretending not to remember just long enough that I have exactly zero days left to buy my books and, usually, all kinds of plans I have to cancel because CHRIST. SCHOOOOOOL.

I am way out of practice. Last fall, I was registered for a humanities class and a literature class (I think...) and I made it half way through he semester before breaking open my skull and spending a few unconscious weeks, after which I was verboten by my neurologists to read or write or even freaking watch TV. I had to drop the classes.

Then spring semester, it was highly recommended I not return yet to classes because I was still in occupational therapy and just returning to work part time. I spent most days trying to stay awake and avoid passing out from the strain of sitting upright for a few hours.

Summer semester? I just didn't fucking feel like going to school.

So here we are, back at the beginning of fall, and I have no more excuses, especially as far as the student loan companies are concerned, so it's either continue working towards my semi-pointless degree in English...or start paying off my student loans.

Which...did ya'll know if you spend eleventy million years in school because you can't decide what to do and you have to work full time (sometimes more) that by the end of it, if you stacked up your loans like a block tower, you'd need the biggest fucking Godzilla baby in the world to begin knocking it over?

So yeah. Schooooool.

I'm taking children's literature and writing children's literature, so they should go nicely together, but it did occur to me I'll have to seriously cut back on my use of the word Fuck.

I'll also have to begin driving to St Paul every week, which is by far the least fun part of my upper-division classes because the coursework at this point is all pretty entertaining and challenging, but the driving? LORD, the driving. It's so faaaaar. And the classes are three-and-a-half hours long. By the time I get home from St. Paul on class nights, it's officially waaay past my little old lady bedtime.

On the upside, expect many posts about procrastination in the near future.

Well now.

So I have this friend who's an actor and a playwright (both in reality and in aspirations) and he's been giving me a lot of shit because I haven't been writing myself lately.

Technically, I HAVE been writing, here on this blog and over at The Metropolitan News, but in the grander scheme of literary ambitions (I can't deny my English major and creative writing minor without confronting a large stack of thereby-pointless student loans), I know that this blog is bullshit. It's all fluff and shock and awe without much content, especially since my brain pain.

In years past, I was featured many times on the really kick ass blog Five Star Friday for posts that one of my readers connected with in some way, and none of those posts were particularly blog-centric. Instead they were creative non-fiction or fiction itself, like this and this.

I haven't been nominated in a long time and I realize that's because I haven't written anything worth a damn.

Funny? Fuck yeah.

Therapeutic? Sometimes. More than not, really.

Disgusting? Always.

But literary? No. Not even a little bit. In fact, my writers group is probably getting a little sick of my lame excuses for why when they show up for a meeting, they have pages for us to review and all I have is a bowl of popcorn and a compulsion to bum a cigarette from them. But they're too consumed by their own creative drive and their awesome works in progress to really spend any time kicking my ass over..how lazy I am.

I could blame not having a laptop, but my actor friend vetoed that excuse. Something about a pen and paper. What the hell are those? I didn't really understand, either.

I could blame my lack of being in school, but that's kind of, oh, one hundred percent my fault, and anyway I don't want to be in school for the rest of my life, so at some point I'll have to man up and make myself write even if I don't have an assignment deadline. Hell, if I get what I REALLY want, all I WILL have is deadlines, and I hear publishers are even less forgiving than college professors in that regard.

I could blame my wedding last summer, but...that was last summer.

I could blame my head injury, but that was only a valid excuse for the amount of time it took me to be able to shower without vomiting or using a shower chair. I'm lucky as fuck that my brain wasn't permanently damaged so that I was no longer able to write creatively - or at all. I should be taking advantage of my second chance at creativity.

When I break down all the excuses, I find that I'm just tired. And scared (hey writers, feel me?). And out of practice. And lazy. And I watch too much television and I drink too many beers and I adopt too many dogs.

I'm giving myself every reason in the world not to write.

And so I guess I'm going to do what any self-respecting woman would and just fucking write already.

All of this to say that some of the things I post here might not be my standard blog fodder. I may not tell as many awesome poop stories for a while, and I probably won't discuss cervical mucus (unless I have a really awesome chunk of it myself someday). I'm going to make myself post shit that came from somewhere a little further in my head than a bad penis joke.

And I'm exhausted just from finding a pencil.

Maybe I should break my arm again

I have a giant rash on my left shoulder and arm, and I'm pretty sure it's a stress rash from HAVING TO WAIT TO FIND OUT IF I'M PREGNANT.

Have I mentioned I'm not good at waiting?

I'm trying desperately to distract myself, keeping busy every day at work and when I get home, but there isn't one second of the day that my mind isn't flashing an internal neon sign and screaming at me that I don't know if I'm pregnant, I could be pregnant, I might not be pregnant, I have no way of knowing if I'm pregnant, I MUST KNOW RIGHT NOW.

Gray doesn't understand the stress involved. He listed of a dozen other semi-major things we have gong on, and said his mind keeps busy mulling those things over instead, and then I punched him in the gut and told him to suck on his busy mind. Because I mull every one of those things over (except Mortal Kombat) every day, too, and apparently I've got a speedy mental processor, because it's like I wake up in the morning and go,

"Three days until payday *mental list off all the bills we need to pay*, Gray might be starting a second job *mental list of all the money he would make and how I can spend it*, Lily ate two sticks of butter and Scary tried to bite the kitchen island when it snuck up on her...dogs are both still in need of major training *mental list of all the ways I could dismember them and shove their pieces down the garbage disposal*, need to fix the garbage disposal *mental note to google how to fix the garbage disposal*, I start taking summer classes next week *mental list of all the shit I need to buy for school*, have to remember to take my prenatal vitimin *OMFG I MIGHT BE PREGNANT*"

And then it's all over from there. The rest of my waking hours are spent alternating between thoughts about pregnancy, worries about miscarriage, *mental list of acceptable baby names*, cringing about cervical mucus, and wondering if I'm pregnant.

Last night I decided to take one of those "early detection" pregnancy tests that are supposed to work up to five days before your next expected period is due.

Last night was exactly eleven days prior to my next expected period, so I figured my chances of getting an accurate reading were, oh, SO FUCKING GOOD.

Okay, okay, fine. I knew I was wasting a pregnancy test and my time, but was there a tiny little part of me that thought that just ::maybe:: it would come back positive? Maybe just 1% chance?

Yes, I figured there might be a tiny chance, and so during the requisite three minutes waiting for my pee to soak into the stick, I contemplated the best way to disappear into another country to escape all the scientists who would want to study me because I'm the only woman on earth who got an accurate pregnancy result before her body even knew it was pregnant.

It was negative, of course, which leaves me exactly where I was this time yesterday, which is HELL, if you're wondering.

Maybe I shouldn't have quit smoking pot. Seems like that would help right about now.

Here, have a squirrel:

Once a cheater...

I wrote this for a brief class assignment in 2009:

I wrote a lot of angst-ridden "poetry" in high school. A LOT of it. And I'm horrified now by every single word, but cannot bring myself to throw it out. I have this old earth science binder from 8th grade and it houses every short story and poem I wrote from 5th grade all the way up until computers ruled the world. It was like my blankie.

As a kid, poetry was an easy way to expel my scrambled thoughts in a medium that didn't have to make sense...my purge when I just had to get my feelings out. It was like I had bulimia of the mind.

I'm only recently beginning to appreciate READING poetry, much thanks to the creative writing class I took with Gar Patterson last spring. He is so gifted with the ability to use language in new ways, to take a single word and give it 50 different meanings simply by how he spoke it, that I had him pegged as a fiction writer. Because only fiction writers are that versatile, right?

And then I googled him.

I ordered his books of poetry from Amazon (proof that poets all have day jobs, each of them was less than $1) and started to view both him and poetry in a new way.

Now I'm trying to tear down the "I don't like reading poetry" wall I've built over the years and allow myself to appreciate it's value to me as a writer and a student and a human being.

Poetry is courting me.
 
After two years of this bullshit I came to the conclusion that I still hate poetry.
 
That's probably why I married a gamer instead of a writer.

Nickfit & McClooneybin

Today, I sound like a carton-per-day, loose-neck-skinned grandmother from the backwoods. I'm probably wearing matching socks and t-shirt under my night shirt. Mr. Hicks - If you need some strong baritone in your chamber choir this year, lemme know. I can fly down for the spring concert if need be. I think what pushed me over the edge was the cigarette I smoked. Who says carcinogens are bad for people? It's like I'm supporting fine arts just by being alive. I'm a hero. ::hacking and gasping::

::throat clearing::

Last night I got to hang out with my writing losers Nick and John. It looks like we're the Final Three in what started out as a writers' group of six spazzes, and it has come to my attention that although this was our first meeting since September (stupid brain pain!), it was not the first time that everyone came with some writing to share EXCEPT FOR ME.

I've gotta get back to school and into a creative writing class before my brain cells die and fall out of my nose. I'm registering for summer and fall classes next week.

Nick, whom I think of as one crazy good motherfucker, read a performance piece about some wrestling match back in some time before I even pretended to like wrestling for the sake of getting into Gray's pants, and it was funny as hell, thanks to his typical crazy fucking delivery. But if I liked it, you might have thought that Gray was going to jizz all over the dining room because holy shit this nerd is talking about THE UNDERTAKER in my very own home and now I can die happy. Well played, Nick my man, and if Gray tries to cop a feel next time, it's all on you. Home-wrecking bastard.

Then there's John, who just published a collection of fiction on Amazon, and ya'll'd be fucking nuts not to go buy them for 99 cents a pop. You don't need any kind of E-reader to download them, just half a brain and a computer. John used to work with prosthetic limbs, so he could tell you a thing or two about the brilliance of your plans to play chicken with a train and your bad habit of eating too many Oreos (I'M LOOKING AT MY HUSBAND).

I'm a big fan of John's work. We took a writing class together last year and I remember him as one of a handful of people with real talent, at least as far as my vodka-sodden, concussed brain is concerned. He's a bit on the dark side, which is another reason his work is relatable for me. Three of these stories are short fiction and one is flash fiction, which meant it was almost physically painful to me when the story ended and I realized THAT WAS IT. No more. Nada.

When preparing to tell you losers about John's published stories, I asked him to dish some embarrassing (and thereby fascinating) things about himself. Apparently one of those things should have been that he's a perfect specimen and has never fucked up in a public manner, because this is how he responded:

Three embarrassing things about me:

1. It's been ten minutes of blinking cursor.
2. Hmmmm... apparently I have blocked out anything truly embarrassing.
3. Fuck, Cat, I don't know. Make up something about a nursing home, a pellet gun, and a plastic vat of Mississippi river water.

You can see why I love him so.

Columnar

I know, I know. I'm still missing.

But I'm inching closer, so be very afraid and also, stock up on hand sanitizer.

In the meantime, you can read my column over at The Metropolitan News.

Me, In Print. No, I'm Not Joking. You're an Asshole.

They seriously print this stuff. IN INK. I know it's hard to believe, but if you ever meet the staff of your university's newspaper, you'll probably find that they're all stoned and whimsical, so really it makes perfect sense that I'd be published there.

Did I mention they use ink?

You Know It's Good Journalism When It Makes Me Sound Important.

My friend Randi (you'll remember her as the wedding flutist)((or as my doppelganger, although the more I get to know her, the more I realize she's WAY more stable than I am)) wrote this really awesome and deceptively intriguing article about me in the university newspaper. You should go read it and then come straight back here so that any illusion of writer-ly-ness I may have pulled over your eyeballs can be removed when I inevitably say the word "shart".

Speaking of which, I totally sharted all over myself last week, and I'm talking throw-your-underwears-in-the-garbage, walk-around-all-day-going-commando, belatedly-realize-your-cooter-hair-is-protruding-directly-through-the-front-of-your-pants. AT WORK. Kind of shart. It was awesome.

I also realized that I had a very similar incident almost exactly one year ago, which leads me to believe that I eat too much Mexican food in August, and also that September is extra scary.

That's right, I forgot. It totally IS scarier. Thanks Gray.

PS - Welcome, Metro State Metropolitan newspaper readers! I'm so glad you're here for me to horrify!
PPS - Try AJAX. It seems to be the most effective at removing this blog from your mind. And poop from underwear, now that I think about it.

Perfect Time To Have Kids, No?

I'm considering a return to talk therapy, and holy christ, I was unprepared for how awkward that sentence would sound out loud: the verbal equivalent of that couple who walks around with their hands in each other's rear pants pockets, regardless of how impractical that may be when they're also, oh I don't know, trying to cross the street while making out and talking on a cell phone.

I know I stood up Dr. Crazy Socks last time, but I'm pretty sure he (meaning his wallet) will welcome me back into the crazy-fold with lots of, "So how have you been"s and "How did that make you feel"s.

I've been feeling really good, actually, considering the stress I've been under (and yes, I realize it's mostly self-induced stress, fuck you very much), but I'm still just a little big ::off:: somehow. Anxiety is slowly creeping into my brain, and as Gray pointed out last night, winter is approaching, and we all know how the onslaught of 6 dark months tend to = me in a corner with a spoon pressed perilously close to my eyeball, humming Edelweiss and stroking my stuffed lobster toy.

Also, I'm trying to figure out why I feel the need to be incessantly, exhaustively over-scheduled. I tell myself I LIKE DOWN TIME and I'm pretty sure I mean that when I say it, except when I look at my calendar for the next two months, I feel like I'm trying to emulate Barack Obama, granted with fewer black tie events and more dog poop, but I'm fucking booked solid, is what I'm trying to say, and all of these things I have going on are voluntary (besides my full-time, necessary for continued survival-type job and my part-time, why dear god am still doing this to myself college classes), and I can't figure out why I seem unable to just sit the fuck down already.

After work today, I'll be driving to the St. Paul campus (for the second time this week, and regardless that all my fall classes are online) to pick up and distribute the September issue of The Metropolitan newspaper. Then I'll hustle home to go for a walk with my dog and shovel down some dinner before biking over to my doggy client's house to take her for a walk. Then it's home to read Don Quixote for my Lit class for as long as I can keep my eyes open.

I don't even have time to drink during the week anymore. If that's not a cry for help, I don't know what is.

I'm supposed to meet my mortgage broker one of these nights to sign some documents in preparation for closing on our house on September 30th, which means I also need to start packing because HOLY SHIT WE ARE MOVING AGAIN IN ONE MONTH, but I should start packing until I've finished writing our thank you cards from the wedding, and I can't forget the writing deadlines, and then Kylie arrives to crash with us (meaning I'll want to do nothing but to paint her toenails and talk her ears right out of the room. Over several glasses cases of wine.) Regardless of this ridiculous time schedule, I find myself scanning the domestic "gigs" listed on Craigslist, searching for part-time cleaning jobs to make a little extra money because I have fifteen spare minutes every other Tuesday evening and I'll be damned if I spend that time enjoying myself. Plus, two people have told me I'm "crazy" since yesterday. Maybe I should look into that.

I think this post was a way of convincing myself I need therapy. I just don't have time to make an appointment.

Services Rendered

So I've started my new career as a newspaper columnist / slash / professional dog walker, and I have to say that it's awesome so far. Of course, I've only written one column for the University's paper and I've only walked one dog. One time. But still, I couldn't help but day dream last night as Libby and I strolled through the darkening SE Minneapolis streets...I could walk dogs all day long and maybe write a little in between "clients". That would be the life.

I believe I mentioned we're broke. I believe you'll remember that we started doing the TOTAL! MONEY! MAKEOVER! thing with Dave Ramsey and that it worked pretty fucking well (I paid off a small fortune in about nine months), but then we got engaged and every last cent *plus some cents we didn't have* went into paying for the wedding and associated festivities.  Then there was BlogHer. Did I mention shit is expensive in Manhattan? Plus there was luggage to check ($20/bag) and airport bars to support ($9.99/bloody fucking mary) and now we're just flat out broke as a couple of Summer's foot bones.

Here we are, post-expensive occasions and stuff, and I'm frantically trying to pull money out of my ass so we can get back on track with our budgeting and debt-paying and, oh you know, EATING.

Enter The Metropolitan. It just so happens that the editor of the paper is a member of my writing group and the production manager was the flutist in our wedding, and they were interested in adding a student lifestyle column, and what was that? I can make $30 an issue, you say? I'M IN.

Then I realized they were also in need of a business manager to do some paperwork for a total of two hours per week and I basically knocked over anyone standing in my way and demanded that I be given that position as well because A) I FUCKING LOVE PAPERWORK and B) bigger stipend, so here I find myself as the new business manager and contributing staff writer for The Metropolitan, student newspaper for Metropolitan State University. My first paid writing gig.

It just so happened that on the same day I heard about the newspaper gig (I totally just typed "jewspaper"...must be thinking of Jessica Bern today...), I also placed an ad on Craigslist for my dog-walking services, thinking if I could find one or two clients who needed me to walk their pups a few times per week, it would be a great way to make a little extra money AND get some exercise, especially while the weather is still warm and sunny.

Yesterday, I met my first client: Libby, the Australian shepherd mix. Her person works overnights and has a long commute, so Libby needs to be let out and walked between 7:00 and 10:00pm several times per week. She is super adorable and teeny tiny, but has some socialization issues and isn't very friendly with new people so her person tells strangers to stay away because she bites (which she doesn't), so I actually am getting paid to scare children and play with dogs.
 
Since I think I would love walking dogs full-time, I wondered what it would take to quit my job and walk dogs full-time like Jennifer Lopez in Monster In-Law, except my apartment will always be organized and mothers-in-law love me, except when I divorce their sons. Don't worry Sharon, your son is too awesome. So far.

I calculated would need to walk fifteen dogs every day to make the equivalent of my current hourly wages, not to mention I'd have to pay for private health and dental insurance. But then again, I wouldn't have to pay taxes, which is awesome in and of itself, and even if I get audited it would be like Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Stranger than Fiction and my auditor would end up falling in love with my bra-less boobies and my incredible home baked goods. I would have to pick up a whole lot of dog shit, but I'd also be able to drink all day long because I could just ride my bike around from house to house.

Plus, I could steal enough dog treats for Bampa that we'd never have to buy them again.

It's like I'm scamming The Universe.

The Trouble With Studying Creative Writing...

...are the writers themselves. They say you're supposed to write every day and they tell you to write about anything at all, just so long as you're putting words on the screen, and Anne Lamott gets even more specific, saying you should write 300 words every day, even if all you can write about is how much you hate writing. Just write. Every day. It's like weight training for your imagination or, at the very least, your typing skills.

Lamott also says you should accept the fact that you may be in a "dry spell" creatively, and instead of beating your head against the keyboard in frustration, you should write your 300 words and get out, because "Your Unconscious can't work when you're sitting there breathing down it's neck." True, but also not true, because in the case of my unconscious mind, I have to stand over its desk and monitor its progress if there is any hope of getting anything done. As far as creative dry spells, also known (horribly) as writer's block -  a term that always reminds me of a public decapitation in medieval times - I seem to have more of these than the Mojave desert.

It would seem that in order to have a proper dry spell, I must first have a wet spell, a period of time when I'm leaking creativity from every orifice, just squirting it at everything I see, but I don't seem to have these wet spells, and I'm starting to think that may be because I only ever write things down when I have all the basics of a piece worked out in my head, at least to the extent that I feel like my ideas are going somewhere, as if the destination is what's important when I know really it's the interstate and the truck stops and the road construction and the flat tires and the fart wars and the battle for the CD player that matter. The problem with waiting to write until I have well-formed ideas is that I can't ever fucking remember anything unless I write it down, and now you should be picturing a snake eating its own tail because HELLO DYSFUNCTION and WELCOME SELF-DEFEATING HABITS. Catch-22 on a stick - the newest Minnesota State Fair food.

But I'm buuuuuuusy, I whine. Or, I'm sleeeeepy. Or huuuuungry. But the wedding! And what about the laundry? THERE MUST BE CLEAN UNDERWEAR, I declare, ignoring the obvious, that there are 30 to 50 minutes between times when I am actually needed to do anything to the laundry, it's not like I'm out there by the river beating my thong against a rock or anything, so how do I justify the not writing then, huh? The truth is that I don't justify it at all, I simply tell myself that I write for fun and fun alone, that I shouldn't force myself to do anything that isn't fun, don't push myself because maybe it will stop being fun, and that wouldn't be any fun at all.

There is also the small matter of me being drunk all the time, and there is something about being tipsy that somehow reinforces the FUN ONLY policy, and then I wake up and it's morning and I forgot the idea I had meant to write down, can only remember that it had something to do with octopus taxidermy, and now not only have I not written anything, but with the flight of my brilliant idea goes my inspiration followed closely by my discipline, and lastly my brain, and I'm left with the stale vodka sloshing around in my otherwise empty skull. And I need to pee.

And then something comes along which reaffirms why I write in the first place - something like a great comment on my blog or an attagirl from a classmate or an award from the university - and suddenly I'm propelled (almost against my will), limbs flailing helplessly, back into the make-believe world in my head, and when I arrive in my personal Wonderland, I'm greeted by the shadowy people who live there and the pre-possibilities which sometimes become real in that place, and I remember the ideas that I'd lost to late nights and reality television. I remember why I came here in the first place, to this strange and incredible home.

Goddamn 300 words.

School's Out

I've been doing a lot of reading in the last two weeks, which in turn has let to my doing a lot of Couch Cocktail Sipping, only augmented by the fact that it's been coldish and raining for a couple of weeks, so the fireplace is oh so very delightful, and what else would one do by the fire besides drink and read? Nothing, that's what I thought. In the process of vegging out so hard that my brains have melted entirely and drained out of my rectum and onto the furniture, my Muse has filed for divorce citing, "Smells Like Brain Farts".

I have five books going at the moment, all of them piled haphazardly around my house and car along with ten other books I haven't begun but must return to the library in a week, bobby pins and crossword puzzled shoved in as place holders, all of them are equally wonderful in their own special ways, but mostly they're wonderful because I don't HAVE to read any of them. Which is not to say that I did not enjoy basically everything I did have to read this semester, it's just that the berries which ripen on the Pleasure Tree are ever so much juicer than their Required Tree counterparts, if only because nobody is telling me to pick and eat them.

Well, that, and that I don't have to analyze their juiciness until my head explodes.

I had my first true English major experience yesterday. I was reading an achingly beautiful memoir by Joan Didion (only because I happened to pick up that book on my way out the door, else I might have been devouring a juvenile book about wilderness survival or the end of civilization and a teenager's decision to repopulate the planet) when someone commented, "Joan Didion. That's kind of...high brow, isn't it?" As I was completely unprepared for this question about the level of brow-iness of Didion's book, my only possible response was, "Yeah, well. I'm an English major," as if somehow the fact that I am majoring in English would explain the writer's pomposity. My next inclination was to confess that I also read Penthouse, but somehow (after all, this was my gynecologist I was speaking with) I was able to keep that tidbit to myself.

My dad asked me not long ago what I was reading, and I ran down a laundry list of titles and authors, none of whom he seemed to recognize, then he inquired about whether I'd read any Vince Flynn lately. The answer to that, as it has always been, was "no". I told him I'd picked of Middlemarch because I have chosen to use two different quotes by George Eliot in my wedding ceremony, and I figured I owed it to the author to see what other brilliance he'd written. Of course, I explain to my dad, this was before I realized that he was actually a Victorian she, writing under a male name because that was the loophole women found when they wanted to be taken seriously in that time. I am glad that I am alive now, in a time when I'm just as unlikely to be taken seriously whether man or woman, especially since I have small tits.

I am, as I said, devouring literature like I devour BLT's or Skittles or K-Y strawberry lubricant. At first, I found it unfortunate that the trade off for such bliss seemed to be that I could no longer write. And I don't just mean that I couldn't write anything decent, I mean that I literally was afraid to open my Blogger dashboard because of the sound of violence of the Nothing that would happen. My fingers seem to quiver in fear. My brain remains filled with ideas and words and dreamy images and IDEAS but I am physically incapable of translating them from the existential mush they are into actual keys and letters and words, etc.

I've also begun listening on tape to Anne Lamott's instructional Bird by Bird multiple times in a row, and now I'm piling inspiration and drive on top of my ideas and characters and words, so that the whole lot of them are squishing my attention span into the floorboards of my car, and still I'm unable to do anything about it. For now. It's like everything is organizing itself into piles in my brain - the Funny pile and the Heavy pile and the Characters with Small Penises pile - and once they've been sorted and the floor has been swept, then the tiny OCD Muse who lives in my brain will appear with a tiny desk and a rusty typewriter and then she will begin to work again.

Perhaps it's my spirit's version of spring cleaning. Perhaps it's just the same old fucking procrastination I perfected in high school. It's definitely not the first time this has happened, and it certainly won't be the last. What it feel like this time, though, isn't so much like a well running dry as a runner stretching, lining up in a row across the track, preparing to take her mark.

She is preparing to Go.

This is (kind of) a PSA

I put on too much bronzer this morning and now it looks like a fairy came all over my face. Which is funny because that's how I thought my dermatologist was going to remove my moles. Not by coming on my face, but with fairy dust. You know, magically. I thought perhaps she would dissolve them or pull them out by the roots or pop them like gigantic zits. Like this, minus the scalpel. Who needs cream cheese?!

As it turns out, my dermatologist DID use a scalpel and she didn't even give me a beer first. I know, what a bitch, right? Then she used a soldering iron and MELTED THE WOUNDS. That's right...melted. The whole room smelled like that time I accidentally shot that kid at my school and had an unexpected bonfire. So I've learned that humans are not edible. They don't smell delicious like basically every other mammal on earth. And even though my mole removal was voluntary, the doctor still stuck the corpses in these little plastic jars like the ones in Saw III, and then she shipped them off to the lab for testing.

First of all, can I just say I am so relieved I don't examine bloody, mutilated (sometimes hairy) growths for a living. HOLY FUCK. That has got to be worse than a horse inseminater. Secondly, despite never having concerns that my moles might be "abnormal" and despite the fact my dermatologist has checked them out and given them her blessing in the past, now I'm totally positive I'm going to die of melanoma. Because that's what happens when they remove moles.

If that's true and my days are numbered, I should be whooping it up while I still can, which for me means switching from speed to crack, porn to hookers, and burritos with no sour cream to burritos with sour cream. Instead, I've put Gray on a strict 2,000 calorie, pre-wedding diet and I joined him because I am physically incapable of cooking for just one person. Even when I cook for both of us I'm still really cooking for six because there are always so many leftovers that by day four of Leftover Chicken we're ready to puke.

It wasn't even my idea. Gray looks like he's eight months pregnant. I'm pretty sure his hips have spread. He wants to get in the "best shape of his life" in time for our wedding. IN EIGHTY DAYS. I'm to fucking busy right now to do the whole make-special-meals-every-damn-day-and-be-sure-he-has-a-healthy-lunch bullshit. It's seriously way too much work, and I'm already relatively bogged down.

Did I mention we're buying a house? And don't forget about my semester finals. Oh yeah, and there's the small detail of THE WEDDING. You know, the three day extravaganza which involves organizing a twenty-three person bridal party and two hundred of our closest friends and family and making sure they are all comfortable and entertained and eat fucking well, and then I have to be sure I'm more gorgeous than on any other single day of my twenty-seven years on this planet and I have to beware that I don't have a surprise break-out and I need to ensure that the backne scars on my neck, back and chest magically disappear. DID I MENTION THE HOUSE?

So yeah, no fucking way am I cooking for a big man on a diet.

We're ordering meals from a healthy-eating place in the area - breakfast, lunch and dinner - and it's awesome because I don't have to cook a damn thing and I don't have to put the leftovers into lunch-sized Tupperware and I don't have to wash dishes and I don't have to grocery shop and I don't have to think. I'm on the 1,200 calorie plan and I've already lost a pound.

Everyone freaks out when I tell them I'm on this diet. They're all like, "WHAA? You're already little!" and I'm like, "Dude. This is my WEDDING. I am a BRIDE. SUCK MY WILLIE." The truth is that I'm fucking starving to death at the moment. Apparently I was used to eating about 5,000 calories per day because I look at these portions and think, "Oh my god. I must have robbed a gnome." This diet is a short-term solution. Don't worry about me. I don't have an eating disorder.

TRUST ME. I've tried before.

In junior high I'd go as long as I possibly could without eating, which was usually lunch to dinner, but eventually I'd break down and shove a bunch of olives and crackers down my gullet, which inevitably made me feel ishy and fail-y, so I'd hustle into the bathroom and attempt to puke. It turns out that I'm physically incapable of vomiting on command because I don't have a gag reflex, a blessing for Gray. I simply cannot make myself throw up. I could shove a fireplace poker down my throat and all it would make me do is swallow a fireplace poker. Even when I'm hammered and it would be in my best interest to throw up, I can't. That's how much my body hates puking. It would rather DIE.

I don't really remember where I was going with this whole alcohol poisoning story, but what I DO know is that I'm hungry (and also in the mood for BBQ), so I'm going to round up the three raisins and fork-full of eggs that they gave me for breakfast, and afterwards, I will fill up on butterscotch candies when nobody's looking.

The moral of this story is that moles can kill you. You're very welcome.

I, We

I met her around the time I learned to use contractions instead of formal negations, which is to say I was young, but still old enough to know that cutting corners was my thing. She was mousey, the stereotypical new girl, and tentative, and I loathed her for those qualities under the guise of my own confidence. I loathed her because she was me. It wasn’t her, but myself I despised.

She helped me with some spelling words one day in class(I wanted to spell “distinct” with a “k”), and I thanked her. She must have taken that as a sign that I wanted her to tag along, and from that moment on, I couldn’t shake her. Not on the playground, not in the cafeteria, not even at home. She called me there, and my mom remarked that my new friend “seems very good”.

She is, I told my mom. She’s good, but I’m good, too.

I brought her home on the bus one day, and some of the high school kids grabbed her – pulled her into the seats at the back of the aisle and teased her. I yelled for them to give her back. The diver threatened to kick us off. One kid brought her back to my seat and said she was very good, my new friend, if a little worse for wear. I know she is, I told the kid.

My little sister said she was going to tell on me for bringing home a friend, but I told her to shut up. Our teacher sent a note, I said, and I could tell that really, my sister just wanted to play with us, so we let her.

I made the new girl do my English homework. She didn’t want to, but I told her she had to. I wouldn’t be her friend. So she wrote my essay and I got an A. From then on, I used her every day. Sometimes she liked it – she went along easily where I led her. Other times she was stubborn, wanted me to do the work by myself, she was tired of writing. Mostly she did what I said, and all of the adults began telling me how good I was at English, that I was going to grow up to be a writer some day.

I’m good because of her, I thought. I felt like a phony because it wasn’t me who wrote: it was her. I liked the attention she brought, but I didn’t give her credit for anything. She only did what she wanted to do, I told myself.

There was this boy in my class that I chased at recess. I wanted to write him a love note so he would be my boyfriend, but I knew it wouldn’t be any good, so I made her write it instead. She liked this job, got really excited and drew lots of hearts in the margins. When she was finished, she passed the note to him.

He snickered. Said he was going to throw up. He asked who wrote the note.

She did, I told him. I pointed at the new girl. I told everyone in class that she wrote the note because she liked him. She just watched me with big eyes and didn’t say anything. I blamed her. And later, she forgave me.

She kept doing my homework and following me around. Eventually I got used to her and I started to miss her when she didn’t show up to class. Mostly she was there, though. We were always in the same class, every year, and then we’d spend all summer curled up together in the woods on a blanket, reading, or sometimes playing Haunted Horse Barn with my sister, who always had to get trampled (because she was littler) by the horse ghost that only appeared when the moon was full.

Once, I found a stack of Playboys hidden in the bottom drawer of my mom’s dresser, and I showed them to the new girl and made her look at the pictures, made her look at them together. She didn’t want to, but she always did what I told her to do. I made her touch me like in the pictures, and I touched her back. We never told anyone because we knew that what we had done was Bad. We just didn’t know why.

As we got older, she consoled me, nursed me through heartaches, kept me company during the nights when I couldn’t sleep. She told me stories that she made up just for me. As my conscious, she saved my life (or at least parts of my life) on many occasions, but neither of us knew it at the time. She was adopted into my family. She sent newsletters to my grandparents.

She was what people liked about me.

I decided to take a year off after high school. We applied to all of the same colleges, but I told her I wanted to leave without her. I wanted to know if people liked me without her. She didn’t cry, just packed and left and sometimes she sent me letters. After a year, I enrolled in a college where I experimented with other women: technical writing, history, small business management, psychology. I wanted to know all of my options. I wanted to pretend I didn’t want her because there was something better. She isn’t good enough for me, I told myself.

Later, when I realized my mistake, she came to me and we picked up right where we’d left off, as if the flow of time had never widened the banks between us. She is the kind of friend that everyone deserves to recognize inside of themselves. She is not good. I am not good. Instead, she is what I am good at.

I am learning how to respect her, how to work along side her, how to pull an equal load of the weight and sharing the credit for what we make together. This class has been like couples counseling for us: We are learning to communicate more openly with each other, more freely expressing what we want from each other, spending more time together. I am learning how to give her the respect she deserves and she is learning to give me the space that I need when life is pressing against my eyelids and I am tired. Just as we labor together, we rest.

We are two halves of a pear, juices flowing between us. We surround the pit, one on either side, and together, we chip away the bitter core and fill the void with sweetness.

I Am the One Who...

...is never wrong except when it comes to what is always right, like the tone of my voice when I correct your grammar, again, for the love of god why can't I stop saying, "You mean 'aren't,'" because who the hell cares that you are the one who will notice if I change the channel, but never if your plurality is incorrect, which it often is when it comes to what is always my job, like staying on top of the laundry so you don't end up wearing those awful Simpsons' boxers, again, even though you will never notice if your socks are full of holes, but I will always point out when your verb tenses don't agree with the color of your belt and you will always be the guy who tries to get me to be the girl who can leave the laundry until later because it ain't that important, are they?

I Love People Who Love Poop Stories

I have GOT to start writing shit down when I think of it. I had all kinds of fun things to divulge to you freaks, but then I drank half a bottle of Cabernet and ate my weight in lemonade jelly beans. And watched District 9. That is a fucked up movie, but then again, ANY movie that makes me want to cuddle a cockroach-shrimp hybrid is a fucked up movie.

So, in short, I forgot.

What I DO know is that there are big things happening in the Zipbag household, and no, I'm not pregnant, not yet anyway, because once we say "I do," I've got about 100,000 eggs all prepped and waiting. I might literally jump Gray's bones on the altar.

I think, because he loves the little children, that Jesus would approve.

No, our big things have more to do with buying a house. But I'm not at liberty to disclose those things yet, so you'll have to wait for the exciting news. This is a total secret. Now please excuse me while I go make an offer on a property. But don't ask any questions because I WON'T TELL YOU THE SECRET.

So Gray and I met a friend of ours in St. Paul at The Nook on Friday night. And by "friend," I mean this hairy guy from my British literature class last fall who didn't even remember who I was because he sat in the front row, which he did because it meant he didn't have to remember anyone from class.

I think he might be brilliant, and because this next bit of information has everything to do with this hairy yet brilliant "friend," I'm going to have to give him a pseudonym. Let's call him Moe.

Hi Moe! I know you're out there waiting to read about yourself! Thanks again for dinner!

Ok, so within 15 minutes of arriving at the restaurant, Moe told us The Best Poop Story EVAH, which means he invoked the power of Awesomeness and anointed himself with...well, let's not extrapolate on what he may have used to anoint himself, but I do know that he ensured my undying loyalty (which sounds awesome, but as he'll learn, really it means I'll require him to ditch his daughters with the snap of my fingers in exchange for some Cat Gossip Time)((about him))(((while he's wearing a tutu and pouring my vodka))).

And Skittles. I will require Skittles. In bulk.

Moe began his story by telling us that his apartment or house or whatever he lived in (I wasn't really listening at that point because I was distracted by the bartender, who was wearing a t-shirt which said "nookie" in numerous locations, and who was pouring my Guiness which = me not paying appention, not even if you're naked) had one bathroom upstairs and a solitary shower stall in the basement.

Shortly upon moving into the rental, Moe woke to an incredibly urgent Poop Situation, but unfortunately, he discovered that the (one and only) toilet was occupied. By someone else. Who was not Moe.

Apparently, Moe's Poop Situation was such that he had to conceive an alternate Poop Station, and he decided (BRILLIANTLY!) that because he needed to shower anyway, he might as well try to "work something out" in there. That's what he actually said, "work something out," and I don't even think he was punning on purpose, it just came out naturally. (My pun trumps his pun.)

So Moe settles on a plan: He'll poop in the shower, near the drain, and he'll mush it through the tiny-holed drain with his feet, and then he'll pretend like it never even happened like, Poop? What poop? I don't poop, I'm a musician.

And so that's what he did. He shit, he smashed, he moved on. And he thought he'd gotten away with his little makeshift potty fiasco.

That was, of course, until one of his roomies asked him, "Dude. Did you shit in the shower?"

To which, of course, he replied, "What the fuck? Who would DO such a thing? No, dude. It wasn't me."

After which he was informed by the roomie that there was a trail of evidence, so to speak, which would (begging Moe's pardon) seem to indicate that he DID poop in the shower.

It turns out that the basement shower stall was not directly connected to the home's drainage system, but instead drained through a short portion of your standard variety garden hose, which emptied NEAR the floor drain, but not above it.

You see where this is going...

...the roomie had unwittingly stumbled across a streak of wet, mushy shit which led to a pile of wet mushy shit, all of which lay in a wet, shitty pile on the floor of the basement.

"Did you get busted?" I asked him, once I'd hoisted my oozing jaw up off the floor where it lay next to my purse.

"They knew," he replied. "I lied, but they knew."

Maybe If I Shove a Habanera In My Ear *Updated*

It fucking figures that the second I register for a conference for bloggers that costs hundreds of dollars (the conference, not the bloggers, we're all cheap) and puts me Out There on that limb named "Calling Yourself a 'Writer' In Public" ...as soon as I take that giant step forward, I stop writing. I stop blogging. It motherfucking figures.

I haven't stopped blogging so much as my brain is constipated, which means that not only is Zipbag of Bones nothing put a zip bag of SHIT at the moment, but also that my creative non-fiction writing class isn't going too hawt, if you know what I'm saying. I'm SO constipated that I'm frantically trying to decide if I can somehow pass off my "Summer Vacation" essay from the 5th grade as my 10 page memoir essay that's due on April 8th.

QUICK! How do I say "threw up on the carpet while watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" in a way that makes it sound now-ish?

It's not like I don't have anything going on, what with the wedding in 109 days and the other big things I'm working on, plus my voluntary torture (school), personal dramas, and never ending love affair with the bottle...Let's just say I am NOT lacking brain shit. It's just that all my brain shit is backed up in there, somewhere around my duodenum...wait, or is it pons...and it WON'T COME OUT. Meanwhile, my brain intestines keep leaching fluid out of the brain shit so now it's hard as a rock and won't be passed through the brainus and into my fingers without hella pain killers and probably some stitches.

Every once in a while, I squeeze a little brain pebble into these fingers and it splashes softly on this blog...things like the fact that I saw a mattress and a box spring go magnificently flying out of the bed of a truck on the freeway yesterday and a bunch of cars had to swerve to avoid getting smacked by what amounts to a giant, flying pancake and the driver of the truck didn't even notice at first, but when he finally pulled over and I passed him, his head was buried in his hands and you know he was thinking that now he'd have to live on the freeway.

If that were me, I would have kept right on driving. Nobody wants to sleep on a freeway.

Although, it might have been better than the motel in which I stayed Thursday and Friday nights when I met my little sister and Angel Butt and my mom in Des Moines for a weekend of shopping and, apparently, ulcer irritation-ing. The hotel itself wasn't bad, but they didn't exactly have what you might call, oh, LOCKS ON THE FUCKING DOORS. And the overnight desk clerk reminded me of Charles Manson.

Speaking of look-a-likes, we went to dinner at a hibachi place on Friday night and the family we sat with was the great-grandparents, the ten-year-old grandson, grandma, and finally the lesbian aunt who looked EXACTLY like Marshall Mathers. I am not even shitting you. If you took a picture of Eminem and you put a fedora on his head and an extra 50lbs on his ass, THAT'S what the lesbian aunt looked like (and this is a perfect example of why I fucking need photoshop). She was amazing. I almost asked for her autograph, but I was afraid she'd think I wanted it because she's a lesbian, not because she looks like a rapper, and I don't want to be mistaken for somebody who stereotypes lesbians. They would all kick my ass and hang me in a tree by their flannel shirts.

So the Japanese waiters sang a Chinese birthday song (I know, I was confused, too) to a little girl at another table, which was apparently inspirational because Angel Butt decided that we needed to sing Happy Birthday at our table, too, except it wasn't anyone's birthday. The grandma said that it was their friend Niko's birthday, except he wasn't at the restaurant, but that didn't matter at all, and Angel Butt lead us all - the ENTIRE table, even Eminem - in a lovely rendition of Happy Birthday to Niko (to which my mom harmonized) and even though Niko is a complete stranger and a 2-year-old and he lives in North Dakota, I think he knew.

And then my sister and I went back to the motel lounge and got drunk with the bartender and a girl whom he likes and whom likes him, and both of whom are too Iowan to admit that they like each other, even though she goes to the bar to hang out with him EVERY WEEK (I'm pretty sure my sister and I broke the ice on THAT one...god, we're like saints...) and eventually they had to kick us out because they were closed but that didn't seem to bother us, and my sister ended up vomiting from Iowa to Arkansas. Because she has ulcers and can't drink anymore. Because of the holes in her stomach. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen again.

I'm also pretty sure I never paid our bar tab.

Iowa is weird.

*Ya'll, I just checked my credit card and it turns out that I totally paid my bar tab! But did I tip? I don't know if I tipped, which is so incredibly unlike me. Normally I tip way too much and then I have to explain to the police that I wasn't trying to solicit sex from a minor, I was just letting the waitress know that I appreciated her preemptive beverage refills.

Hey, bartender! Did I tip you? If I didn't tip you, leave me a comment or shoot me an email. I would be happy to send your tip in the form of a voucher, redeemable for (1) blow job or (1) corn dog.