Oh, my stars and garters!

Booboo

Wain sure banged himself up good yesterday.

He was riding his bike in the HEB parking lot when his pedals missed a beat and he lost control. He broke his fall with his face and knees and skidded about six feet. Then he rode home all bloody.

This is by no means the worst bike wreck he's had. Not even close. Other memorable Wain bike mishaps include (but are by no means limited to): Wain getting hit (gently) by a Capital Metro bus; Wain riding into the side of the 51st Street 7-Eleven headfirst; Wain riding too fast, falling, tearing a bunch of ligaments, and dislocating his shoulder. He incurred a huge ambulance bill on that last one because virtually no one we knew had a car at the time. He asked some nearby cops for a ride to the hospital, and they insisted on calling EMS.

So this? Pretty gory, but by Wain standards, not very impressive. Still, for his general welfare, I think we should chip in and get him one of those poky old lady tricycles with a big cushy seat.

Holey crap

Dan and Chad are hosting a bigass multiperson yard sale on Saturday. We're moving soon, so I'm getting rid of some dead weight. Right now I'm trying to price all my junk, mostly clothes and paperbacks.

I've never had a yard sale, and I never go to yard sales. So I don't know how much to ask for most of this crap. Is $2 reasonable for an intact pair of jeans with an unfashionably high waist? How much is a pair of slightly squashy Fluevog Angels with one heel way more worn down than the other worth?

I don't know how I ended up with all these ugly clothes, but they have to go away now. Now now now. I feel guilty asking for even the little I am because I'd just as soon set it all on fire as sit around all morning trying to sell it.

Culling the books has been tricky too. I like having a lot of books around, but face it, those fuckers are heavy. I tried to be fairly ruthless and root out all the stuff I will absolutely never get around to reading or will never read again. Hopefully someone else will get something out of them. Anyone want to buy a signed (I thought it was, but it's not) copy of "You Shall Know Our Velocity," cheap?

Progress

Here we are, 16 years after the last picture I posted. There was a better one in which we were all laughing, but I blinked. Dammit! Understandably, no one was really delighted about having to do a second take.

Also, here's a video of my almost-successful attempt at a zoetrope animation at the George Eastman House.

(Now that I watch that again, it's not so great, but I'm feeling too lazy to resize and upload other art.)

George Eastman's estate is creepy and fabulous. It sounds like he was a pretty weird dude. He counted his silverware obsessively, was awakened each morning by a live organ performance, and decorated with the liberal use of hunting trophies (Dear RJ Reynolds: I promise to never quit smoking if you send me an ashtray with a real ibex hoof as the base).

He finally shot himself to death in the chest at the age of 77. You can see the note at the museum. All it says is: To my friends, My work is done, why wait? And, of course, he helped bring photography to all us little people. So you see that our trip was fun and educational.

Grumpalicious

It took us 13 hours to get from downtown Rochester to my living room today. Seven of those hours were spent waiting out delays at JFK. Their $8-beer-serving, no-smoking-area-having Delta terminal can kiss my ass.

The knot is tied

Welp, the wedding's over. Nobody fainted or started bawling, and nobody got unduly stupid at the reception. It was damn lovely, actually, and congratulations are in order for Vickie and Erik-with-a-k.

I wish I'd taken more pictures, but I had no pockets and was carrying this stupid little dainty pink purse. That is not the best way to keep one's camera handy. I blame the patriarchy. I mean, really, how am I supposed to get anything accomplished when all I have room to carry is a tube of lipstick and a pack of Camel Lights?

Anyway, my work here is done, and Eric and I fly home tomorrow afternoon. Which is okay; we miss our cat. I can't tell you how much I hate being the kind of person who misses her cat, but there you have it.

Quickie

It's cooler here. Happy little kids crack me up. I saw a life-sized hamburger made out of marshmallow at the grocery store but didn't buy it. I may go back, though. I need to practice walking in high heels before tomorrow. That's all; I gotta go wash my grimy hair.

BFF!

Tomorrow I'm off to officiate the wedding of the girl with the earcuff, ankh necklace, and jaunty hat. I will be staying with her matron of honor, the girl with the swoopy bangs, pegged jeans, and spangly Contempo jacket. I have no idea who the person with the braces, perm, Chess King creepers, and quasi-political T-shirt is.

Go ahead and snicker, but you have to understand that in 1990 we were the coolest people in the world.

My skull is impenetrable

Oh, god, not this again.

Does anyone remember the first incarnation of the bike helmet ordinance in Austin? And how everyone bitched and bitched and bitched, and it was finally repealed, and then we all took our sweaty, smelly helmets off and pedaled away happily with the breeze blowing through our hair? I know helmets are safer. I just find them cumbersome and hot and hateful, and I don't want to wear one, especially since most of my riding is limited to a route down side streets to the damn grocery store.

With a right, left, right, left, you're toofless.

 

 

Stinky went in to get his teeth cleaned this week and ended up getting five teeth pulled due to some weird condition that's been causing his roots to rot in his gums. The horrific thing is that it causes excruciating pain, and we had no idea. His teeth looked fine and he was acting normally, aside from a little weight loss and a bit of standoffishness, which we just attributed to the heat. And his breath was bad, but it's always been bad. He's Stinky, for Christ's sake.

He came home completely wrecked from the anesthesia. Did you know cats can run sideways? It was funny, in a pathetic, wrenching sort of way. Later, he managed to get up on my bed. He started cleaning himself, but halfway through he held his paw in the air, mid-swipe, and just stared at it blankly for a while. Dude, have you ever really looked at your paw?

What wasn't funny was that I forgot to buy him wet food the next day. I saw him take a single pellet of dry food, roll it around in his mouth for about thirty seconds, and then dejectedly let it drop to the floor in a string of drool, then try again. And again. At that point my heart turned inside out in my chest because I realized I am the shittiest shitbag cat owner of all time. I went directly to the store to get the smelly mooshy canned food, which comes in a baffling rainbow of meat flavors. I believe the cat-food people are fucking with us. Do you really think cats can tell the difference between the "chicken in gravy" and "grilled chicken in gravy" flavors of horsemeat? I wouldn't know, because it all smells like vomit to me. I hope his mouth heals up fast. Among other, more selfless reasons, that shit makes me downright squeamish.

In case of rapture, can I have your worn-out old slippers?

I found these just like this in the middle of the street. Why were they there? It is a mystery.

Frocks

I found a dress! A pretty dress. One that I will wear for occasions other than the one I purchased it for.

It was not so easy to find this dress. My sister and I trudged for hours through shitty department stores before we went to the boutique that she'd originally suggested, the one I waved off as too expensive and as a place that Eric hates and would like to see fail, for a variety of reasons. But fuck loyalty! I found a dress!

It's pretty bleak out there. I don't know what's wrong with me, or I don't know what's wrong with the garment industry, but for several hours, every single dress I liked had one horrible flaw that made it completely unsuitable. Lousy color. Weird cut. Bedazzler-ed neckline. Fucked-up fluffy collar tie thing that had to be wrapped around the neck and knotted at the waist.

These are apparently the slammin' looks for summer '06:

Every self-respecting, fashion-forward woman will want her otherwise perfectly nice dress marred by a generous sprinkling of huge shiny brass knobs and tiny wooden beads along the neckline.

Too-big armholes provide superior ventilation as well as a tantalizing glimpse of bra, panties, and those weird rolls of flesh that appear in between the two when you sit down.

Plumber's butt is never okay, but it is especially frowned upon at weddings and such.

It is nothing less than good sense to produce a dress that is skin-tight in the hips and stomach but has what can only be described as gigantic tit bags affixed to the front. After all, the vast majority of women who wear a size 10 have 28-inch waists and and size 42EE breasts. Also, you may not know this, but periwinkle looks enchanting on sallow skin.

Ew. I think you can understand why I was beginning to suspect that every designer in the world got together before releasing their lines this season and altered them all just a tiny bit so I couldn't wear anything. Oh, she'll love this A-line! Just open that neckhole a little so it'll sag unflatteringly on her sternum. And she would look great in this shirtdress, so let's dye it electric yellow. Yes, that's good; maybe print huge brown-and-white chevrons on it for good measure. Hmmm...there's not a lot we can do to the classic little black dress--wait, I know! Let's give it a halter top and sew tiny white beads all over the hemline. Perfect! She'll SHIT!

I wish I could show you the dress I actually got after wading through all the above-type garbage, but it's a surprise, and anyway, it's not nearly as much fun to draw.

180

Amanda and Choo go swimming!

I am sad that the Amanda fun is over. How often do you get to have a week doing nothing but fun things all day and all night? I hardly took any pictures because I was having too much fun, plus it's hard to operate a camera when your fingers are greasy from eating meat.

But now she is gone, and we must put our energy toward other things, like work and errands and vet visits and rental listings and car inspections and aimless internet surfing. At least that'll be the case until Saturday, when I'm off to Dallas and then, a few days later, Rochester.

You know, I am never busy. My lazy ass makes it a point to never be busy. This is bizarre. I kind of like it.

Glut

It's quiet. Amanda is still sleeping; her flight home leaves this evening. I think our plot to convince her to stay forever has been thwarted by the cruel and impiteous sun, but, dammit, we tried. I've consumed far more than my monthly allotment of meat and beer in the attempt to show her the best Texas has to offer. It's been fun, and I think I will spend the rest of the week staying in and drinking a lot of water.

Blushing

I'm slightly embarrassed that I told Amanda to come on down because early June isn't usually too hot here. Because it turns out that it's going to be, like, 101 outside for the rest of the week. It's kind of brutal, but it's mitigated slightly by the fact that no one else is acclimated to this crap yet either.

Also, we've been talking up the barbecue so much that if I don't get some brisket soon I'm going to fall out in some sort of beef deficiency seizure. Someone will have to hold my tongue down with a big slab of meat to keep me from choking to death.

Oh, heck and darn!

We were so excited about Amanda coming that we took her out and got ourselves drunk. You know, the kind of drunk where you go into a bar when it's full blaring daylight and you come out of the bar and it's dark as shit and then you go to two more bars for good measure and then come home and open a beer and drink half of it and think god, that was stupid. I see a leftover taco, a toothbrush, and a bed in my immediate future.

Please welcome today's guest blogger!

Jill's Corner
by Jillbert McFinkelstein

Oh my Gawd!!!!  Can y'all believe this, or what?  So, listen...Tonight I was hangin' out with my sister, Joolie, and we were talkin' all about pedicures and shit.  Joolie started puttin' lotion on her foot and I was all, "Ha-ha, I can't believe you jizzed all over your own foot."  I then squirted the lotion bottle just as Joolie moved her foot, and it was all like divine intervention or some shit. What "came" next I knew y'all wouldn't believe, so we took a picture:

I mean, seriously, the penis gods were shinin' on us tonight.  I mean, seriously, it does not get more perfect than this.

Anyways, it was great hangin' with y'all.  If you ever need any advice about penises or cats, please don't hesitate to contact me.  Keep it real, ya hear?

Jillbert McFinkelstein enjoys reading Proust, quantum physics, knitting, kickball, and shelling peanuts.

You guys are smart.

So can anyone tell me what kind of creature makes a quick, fluty "woowoowoowoowoo"? (I could also describe the sound as shimmery and delicate, if you insist on getting fey about it.)

I've only ever heard this after dark in my backyard in the late spring/early summer. It sounds nice, and I think it's a bird or an insect, but I have no idea what it is. And you won't believe it, but plugging "woowoowoowoowoo" into a search engine is no help at all.

Big pig!

A bunch of us had lunch at Din Ho, the Chinese BBQ place, this afternoon. It was more interesting than usual. Choo munched on tongues, guts, and ears. Dan had a really tasty chicken hot pot that required the very cautious extraction of tiny, sharp bones. I just had boring old orange chicken.

Then, as we were leaving, some of the staff carried out a whole roast pig.

I asked the woman who was picking it up how much the pig cost. She looked at me like I was an impertinent servant who should have her ears boxed, then allowed that it wasn't cheap--about $200. Was that a rude question? I mean, it's not every day you see someone loading a whole pig into the back of an SUV.

Then she thawed a little and told me it was for her son's 30th birthday party. They were having a luau, and she wanted to get him something "a little different." Yeah, I think an intact cooked animal corpse would just about do it. Actually, it looked really good, and the crinkly wrap and red bow were both ridiculous and festive. I kind of wanted one. Maybe if everyone chipped in?

This is June

I have kind of a busy month ahead.

Tuesday we have a visitor coming in for the week, so I'm taking the week off. Amanda showed us an insane amount of fun and hospitality when we were in Seattle last year, and I can't wait to help reciprocate.

There's nothing much planned for the next week, and then I'm taking a quick trip up to Dallas for Father's Day, and then! Eric and I fly up to Rochester, New York, for a week, so I can attend and officiate Vickie's wedding on the strength of my mail-order ministerial credentials. Holy crap.

The Reverend Joolie--who apparently refers to herself in the third person--is flabbergasted, stoked, deeply honored, and slightly nervous about all this. She is mostly worried that she'll disgrace herself by getting weepy during the ceremony. There is a slight danger of this because Vickie is her dearest friend and is very much deserving of happiness and the whole story of how Vickie and Erik got together is very long and sweet.

Also, the Reverend Joolie has to buy a dress for the occasion. Vickie suggested a nun's habit, but the Reverend Joolie suspected more than a trace of snark and so will disregard such impudence and instead drag her sister with her on yet another emergency shopping trip. The Reverend Joolie is annoying the crap out of regular Joolie with this third-person conceit, so she will stop now, and hi, I'm back; sorry about that.

So that's pretty much the whole month. Except also, I asked Wain to do a run of "I am not lonely" shirts, and they came in tonight. They look great, and now I have to figure out the best way to get rid of them. Oh, jeez, and we should probably find a place to live somewhere in there, too.