Entries from November 2003 ↓

Happiest of happy birthdays to the VCB!!

I am so very glad your parents decided to do it without a condom 29 years and 9 months ago.
‘Cause you rule harder than everyone else. Plus, I get to love you. Which is maybe the funnest thing ever.

Television shows for which I would totally watch a Very Special Reunion-type thing:

Small Wonder
Charles in Charge
Diff’rent Strokes
Silver Spoons
Punky Brewster (not that shitty cartoon)
Growing Pains
Little House on the Prairie
Webster
Out of this World
Mr. Belvedere

Cartoons I miss and wish would come out on DVD:

Berenstein Bears
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Foofer
Care Bears
Get Along Gang
Galaxy High
Jem
Shirt-Tales
Smurfs
Snorks
Wuzzles
Rainbow Brite
The Littles

Right now I sit atop an enormous ass zit, a bloated ball of swollen and hate. My face is full. My lips push outward from the puffiness and my chin is dangling in my lap. My skin feels like that of an overfilled water balloon and I can barely type around my boobs.

The cramps aren’t here yet. I am bracing for those through gritted teeth and quick-ready tears.

This morning I woke up to the prospect of dragging all my laundry to the laundromat and felt instantly suicidal. The VCB urged that we should go–hell, he’d even do all the laundry–if only because he’s down to his last pair of underwear.* The self-imposed, two-hour guilt trip that would come with his doing my laundry would eat me inside out, so I just whined and pouted and stared at the ceiling as he patiently tried to work something out for us. And for his soon-to-be unclothed bum.

I cried. I said things like, “I want to punch you in the face. A bunch of times.” I decided on screaming for as loud as I could for as long as I could, but decided getting arrested might not be the best way to overcome my irritability. But I was tempted. I was oh so close.

It’s CRAZY how crazy I get three days a month. Maaaan. I feel like I talk about it all the time here on the weblog, but fuck! Sometimes I just have to bitch and scream and if I have a couple hundred people to sound off to then I feel somehow justified in all my senseless ranting. Not that I care what any of you assholes think right now.**

Speaking of assholes. Certain people are using the comments atattched to each post to harrass and belittle me, offering up advice on how to better my writing when I don’t remember having asked what they thought. I think some posts on this weblog generate intelligent, funny and often engaging discussion, and for those posts comments will remain open. However on other shorter posts, or the ficiton posts, or on more personal essay-type stuff I think it’s wise to leave the comments closed. I welcome openly valid critcisms and ideas and the like, but perhaps if your criticism is solely negative then that (unsolicited) critique might be better suited for email. Or not at all. Posts like this one though where I’m basically letter writing to the reader will definitely have comments open and I encourage them wholeheartedly. Just tightening things up before they get out of hand and I have to start issuing some fucking beatings. The VCB saw my fists of fury this morning (see below) and he can attest they are quick, precise and mighty.

Tonight I will be taking my cans of food to MTSU to see my buddies Jay and Mike (of Apollo Up) and Jeremy (of Mercator) play a fancy-pants gig with Matt Sharp. I’m going to bring my camera along if the big rockin’ stars allow it and maybe kick another photo gallery over there on the left.

The VCB will be back soon from buying new underwear and some lunch. And if he’s smart some head gear.

*Sorry to talk about your panties, sweetie, on the blog. It was write honestly or resume punching that pillow, and since I jumped the gun last time and nearly socked your pretty nose, perhaps it’s best I hash out my emotions in this manner. I thought you’d understand.

**I kid, I kid. Though, honestly, I’d like you more if you were in front of me with a Valium and some chocolate.

You are flipping through stacks of pictures while he plays chess on the computer. There are photographs of his old band in the studio, his ugly bowtie and cumberbund combo from senior prom and him with that awful, grown-out haircut sitting on some rotting log.

The pictures stick together, tacky with time and dirt and tape. Fuzzy photos of him as a baby in a big, red wagon. Pictures of hollowed out grocery stores, black and white images of sculptures and lampshades.

He joins you on his bed, bending it with his weight, as you are nearing the end of the pile. He twists a lock of your hair, looking at them with you, and you love him so much you wish you could have loved him at eight and twelve and twenty-two.

An out-of-focus shot of a sunshine-filled window rests between smiling faces from a toddler’s birthday party. His bed, the one your are resting on right now, is in the foreground, just a large smudge in the belly of the window’s light. Woven into the wrought-iron bars is the sash of his bathrobe. The one you see hanging ont he back of his bedroom door.

Your guts stop churning.
Your pulse drives wildly into the base of your skull.

“Who did you tie up?,” you manage to mutter, dizzy, hoping he’ll say he staged it all. Merely a scene for a snapshot.

He sighs as he says it, pitying you. “Marcy.”

All you can think about is how Marcy, his ex, considered herself a brilliant chess player.

And how he will never tie you up again.

(Thanks be to Torrez, who saved this story from near extinction.)

Bits of conversation I had or overheard during my bar shift tonight:

Man with the blue shirt and long face: “She left me. Left a note. And, man, she only packed one suitcase. Damn near broke my heart in two.”

Trashy, blonde redneck lady drinking draft Bud Light: “I told that motherfucker to not leave Travis alone with them puppies.”

Me: “Look at that, Marlboro 27s. I have never seen those.”
Her: (reaches to hand me one)
Me: “Oh, I don’t smoke. I quit. But thank you though.”
Her: “Then you don’t get one. I’ll just tell you how smooth they are and watch you jones.”
Dude beside Her: “27 is the numbers of swepts it took to make that cigarette. Little dirt, a little hair, some rat turds…”

Me: “Hey, how are you?”
Asshole with cheap, feet-stinky cigar: “I need a Sapphire and tonic and a banana daquiri.”
Me: “Oh no, I said, ‘Hey, how are you?’”

Little, tiny lady with the neat purse but questionable eyewear: “I’ll have the Chicken on…”
Me: “The Chicken on the Barbie?”
Little, tiny lady: “Yeah, thanks for not making me say it.”
Me: “Oh, no problem.”

Doofus guy with awful haircut: “Can we watch the Victoria’s Secret fashion show?”
Me: (in my head) “Well, it is prime time on ABC. And, uh, ‘no rules, just right’ or whatever.”
Me: “Yeah, I guess.”
-30 minutes later-
The Boss: “Brittney! Turn that off! This is a family restaurant and naked ladies are not appropraite for family restaurants!
Me: (in my head) Like I care about the dang naked ladies!

Some smarmy guy in a black suit: (to K., a pretty hostess) “I have lots of money.”
K., the pretty hostess, who I think now totally rules: “That’s unremarkable.”

Watching America’s Funniest Home Videos (don’t ask):

The VCB: I hope the guy that got hit with the fish wins. I am more a fan of accidental humor.

Me: But that baby had meat on it!

The VCB gifted me plush, purple footed pajamas long after I gave up looking for such a thing. I didn’t know footy pajamas for Very Big Kids existed, and now that I’m wearing a pair I find myself damn near giddy about it.

Such a freak.

Dear the 50-60 of you a day who come here in search of the real Paris Hilton sex video,

Cease your search. It’s so not worth it. I saw the 6 meg, night-vision video that features a glowy-eyed, stick figure Paris giving some guy whose hair highlights glowed neon green the worst sex ever featured on film and it is awful. For real. This girl couldn’t fuck if dicks were fire and she was the world’s only water source. Which is total nonsense, I know, but wholely symbolizes the pointlessness of your search.

Abandon ship. Look no longer. There is no coke-ridden hotel heiress writhing in ecstasy or even drooling in drunkeness–just some slightly buzzed blonde with a boy’s body stopping mid-way through the most pitiful fuck seen on screen to answer her fucking cell phone.

Pet your cat. Take a walk. Trim your cuticles. Anything.
Anything, I promise, is more sexually titilating than that total yawner.

Spoiled milk, you ask? Sexier than Paris.

One day when I was 14 or so, I came home from somewhere to find my sister and her best friend Emily on the couch talking on the phone. The scene as usual. Emily lived three houses up the hill from us with her older sister Rhoda, who was my age. We became friends when my Mom sort of forced my sister and I to introduce ourselves when they moved in, which we secretly wished to do anyway. So we did.

Emily and Amy grew closer than Rhoda and I did, and in fact, are roommates this very day. Which is all beside the point. The point is it was no big deal that Emily was there; nothing at all seemed amiss. Until I sat down on the couch with them. The television was off and their phone call had ended, and in the quiet I heard noises from downstairs in the basement. My parents weren’t home, yet. There was no one there but us. The look on my sister’s face indicated I was correct–there should be absolutely no one in the basement. There was a clanking noise and then, minutes later, a bang. Amy and Emily’s faces froze solid with terror and my own heart began thumping wildly. Another loud and sudden boom from below sent the three of us into hysterics, the girls screaming wildly, me darting into my bedroom.

Once there I found letters from my boyfriend and photographs of us torn and scattered on my bed. A stuffed animal he’d given me sat gutted amidst the scraps beside a letter scrawled by a shaky hand. It read: Robin doesn’t love you bitch, so stay away.

Confused and paralyzed with fear I tried to make sense of what was going on. About that time whoever was downstairs began making more noise and my sister and Emily had taken cover in the hall closet. I found comfort in my own, as well, and went in there to freak the fuck out. I was terrified.

More noise from downstairs frightened me enough to make a bit of pee escape and it was at that point that I took off running. I found the courage to bolt out of the closet and through the living room and out the front door and right over to my neighbor’s place where I began banging relentlessly on their front door. At like, 10 p.m.

The couple that lived there was sleeping when they heard my screaming to get in. Once inside I told them how there was someone in my house and about the note and the torn pictures and nearly hyperventilated to death. The wife phoned the police while her husband headed outside with a shotgun. I was worried about Amy and Emily. I feared for their lives.

Before the police arrived Amy and Emily discovered what I had done and came running over to tell me what was happening. The girls and Rhoda and one of Rhoda’s friends were playing a prank. It was Rhoda downstairs making all that noise, while Amy and Emily played scared victims. Amy and Emily were in on the whole thing, they told me, and my nark-ass had just called the fucking police!

Then Emily and Rhoda had to inform their mom that the police were on their way because I’d just called them. Because their cruel little trick had backfired. By this time my parents had arrived home, which was fortunate since my stepdad was a deputy sherriff. He explained the misunderstanding and assured the officers the culprits would be reprimanded.

For their punishment, Amy, Emily, Rhoda and her friend each had their mouths washed out with soap. They were punished on a technicality, since a joke gone wrong can hardly be punished. They’d used the word ‘bitch’ in their letter. And for that they burped up bubbles for days.

My punishment, for being an over-reactionary, cry-baby, scaredy cat was weeks of ostracizing from the girls. That, and I kept the label given to me years earlier by my older stepsister, who still to this day holds a grudge because the beer-soaked towel she snapped at me during a game of Quarters with her friends (while she was supposedly babysitting me) left a huge red welt on my thigh, alerting my parents to the evening’s drunken goings-on.* That nickname was NarkFace, and it sure as shit didn’t go away after I inadvertantly called the police the night my friends practical joked me.

*There was also the time I broke my arm at the park while my stepsister was smoking cigarettes in the woods, thereby getting her totally busted when we sorta had to go to the emergency room, what with my bones all sticking out my arm and shit. I got blamed for getting her groundeing then, too.