Everybody wins!

This weekend was the Dunhams' annual tea-lightful (HAR I'm a Hallmark card!) open house tea. Which was lovely and tasty at the same time. I think my very favorite part was sitting at the kitchen table with 10-year-old Marie, who had brought her own Star Wars action figures in a Baggie.

We talked about the Star Wars movies and old toys and the present figures: Falcony Han with a comm wire; ROTJ Luke; Boushh Leia; Falcony Lando; Chewie Chewie; Loose-Eye Threepio; Nonheadspinning Artoo; and some new droid. They're ridiculously articulated -- you can see the tendons in Han's wrists, and the faces actually look like the actors who played the characters, unlike previous incarnations. The Luke and Leia I got in the '90s (Round 2) looked exactly like (a) each other and (b) monkeys.

Gaa

Who the hell bothers to barricade a door when there are a dozen great big windows just inviting interlopers to bust through them?

Also, who the hell barricades a door and waits behind it WHEN YOU HAVE A DOUBLE SECRET PASSAGEWAY??!???

PostSecret

Frank Warren of PostSecret spoke at Cornell tonight. He didn't show as many postcards as I'd expected, and some of what he said was kind of Hallmarky, but it all really means something to him, the things he said, so that's OK in the end. And the night overall made me cry. And I wish I'd thought of the whole idea myself.

So buy his books. They're full of art and beauty and humor and sadness, and the project has raised loads of money for 1(800)SUICIDE.

A large part of the talk was devoted to letting audience members speak. I was SO impressed and awed by the fact that each one stood up to say something so private to so many people.

I've liked you so much for a year and I know you're here tonight so I want to ask you, D.K., if you would have dinner with me! (arms spread wide: "YES!")

I work in the bakery at Wegmans and I want you to stop talking down to us. You talk to us like we're 5. I don't go to Cornell but I'm eloquent, I'm smart, I'm well-educated. Also, I enjoy decorating your cakes; get excited about your cakes!

I am going to be a clinical psychologist and when they ask me why I won't be able to tell them so I'm telling you: because three of my cousins killed themselves

My friend wanted to be here tonight but couldn't, but one night she tried to kill herself and I was sleeping in the room and didn't hear her and didn't wake up and I will never forgive myself

I want to thank the love of my life, Theresa, for making me not want to run

My grandmother couldn't read and she's the only one who told me I could make it

I had my first panic attack in the past month and I want to say to everyone here: TAKE A BREATH!

I have so much rage because one of my ex-girlfriends after we broke up accused me of rape, and it ruined my name at the school where I went for a year and a half

One time I asked my best friend what she would do if I killed myself, and she said "I would blame myself and be in therapy the rest of my life." I never thanked her but I'm going to tonight

We're not good friends but I know you, I see you in class every day, I know you're here tonight, I know you cut yourself and burn yourself and I wish you would talk to me, please, please, please talk to me

The genius of those I run with

Hawkman and Elly and I just played a game of Scrabulous on Facebook, and Hawkman ended the game by playing "BYE."

I leave you to savor the serendipity of this in your own special, private fashion.

The three of us, at least, can look back to this time in our lives and remember the joy here ...

A call to action

Barefeet:

do you think any of your friends will remember the game show [Press Your Luck]?

ShireMonkey:

chris will, once he reads it, like once a month

blake would but i don't know if she's reading

Barefeet:

you get fewer comments now that you have moved

ShireMonkey:

yeah

Barefeet:

like switching the time slot of a tv show

Barefeet ‎(1:01 PM):

this means i don't have to comment, right?

and now for your regular Tuesday discussion of birth control.

Barefeet:

hm, i wonder why they didn't call it pregnancy control

ShireMonkey:

too many syllables

Barefeet:

baby stoppers

ShireMonkey:

hee!

breed-no-mor

Barefeet:

breed-b-gon

missed opportunities, these.

Barefeet:

fertility blocker! that would be apt

Barefeet:

keeps you from thinking about the babies altogether

ShireMonkey:

exactly

Barefeet:

no baby, no baby, STOP!

(do you remember that game show)

I have decided.

I will be bedded, and properly and appropriately so, while I am still in my 30s.

This gives me 342 days.

I will be fancied, wooed and courted. I will be dined and possibly wined, and I will be danced. I will distract from the task at hand. I will set smoldering. I will be fallen for, and hard.

Like never before.

All these things will go in the other direction as well.

With the same guy.

Me and him.

It will happen.




Complete.

Relief.

Cliff* came up from Binghamton for dinner tonight, and afterward I asked him if he was all right with us just getting to know each other as friends for now. He basically said yeah, that he likes me but he knows I want to move and he realized he had kind of ignored that. (That is the issue, isn't it, with meeting guys here.)

Wow what a relief that was. You could feel the air clear for both of us. He's not like the other guys I just didn't care about ever seeing again, after all. He is definitely friendable.

You may go about your business now.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent

Snorgle

I’m sitting on the couch eating pistachios, which I haven't done in like 10 years, not like this, pistachios I was going to bring to Twin Peaks before I sank my car in the mud. And the cats are all into this. They want pistachios. Rogue on one side of me, Salem on the other, Fathom on the floor in front of me. Fathom, she’s all Give me some, loser, and I’m all You don’t eat nuts, Kittypants, I’m protecting you. And she’s all GIVE ME SOME NOW, LOSER, and she reaches up and wraps her paw around my finger.

If she had thumbs she might’ve succeeded in her quest. As it was she just made me AWW.

The rest of the story

(Read the previous post first)

Not such a hoot this morning. The wrecker guy, John, came back to help, but then his truck apparently got stuck too and he had to call another to pull him out. The guys who came with that one yelled at John for doing the job at all, saying they'd told him never to go that far off the road a million times, and that he had to call the sheriff now to file an incident report.

Sheriff? Seriously? For ruts in the lawn?

Yes, because it's private property.

Oh whatever. Just get my car out. I sat it in while John winched it (before the Others came), which was weird, moving incrementally slowly across the lawn. The sheriff's deputy was pretty much "Huh, whatever" too. (Since the truck made some ruts too, I guess they technically had to call the sheriff in order to cover their butts.) Carol, my landlady, was pretty much "whatever" as well, though she did question my thought process in driving over the lawn in the first place (understandably). And when her husband pulled up at the office while I was talking to her, she told me I'd probably better go. Heh.

So there went my good start on Saturday morning, the energy for cleaning and everything that I so need to do. Eh. Still getting some done, but really wishing I didn't have anything else going on now. Bleh.

Oh but many thanks to John for doing it at all, regardless of whether he was supposed to or not. I know he felt bad leaving me stranded, so to speak, last night. He never would've called the sheriff if not for the Others. We bonded over having lived in Florida (him, Altamonte). He's moving back in the fall, he hopes. Maybe to Apopka. Get a job working for the highway department. Hats off to you, John. Happy trails.

Look what I did

Really, my talents are far beyond measure.
(This is in front of my apartment. The parking lot is up from us, a staircase away, so those of us who live down here often drive across the lawn to unload groceries and other things. I was in a hurry to get to Twin Peaks night and ...)

Stuuuck -- stuuuuck -- STUUUCK!

There were so many warning signs.

But this was pretty!

I actually managed to rock it quite a ways from that initial landing spot and got it to somewhat drier ground (spongy but not feet-soaking). I'm sure I would've been able to get it all the way out. Had it not then stalled.

Poor Skywalker. I feel so bad leaving it out there. Skywalking helps not in slimy mudholes, we all know this by now.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Urrrrrrgghhhh

So it's Friday and I'm just really wishing I had the weekend to myself, the whole thing, but I made a commitment for Sunday so there it is. There it all is: I'd rather be home by myself, at least in this case. OH it makes me want to scream and maybe do a little stampy dance.

I am not so good at the compartmentalizing.

But you, what about you, how are YOU? I know you're out there, choosing Not to Comment. Like 18 of you, at least, eventually.

Ea and Amy will testify, methinks

This morning I realized the perfect words for an inherent truth about myself:

I am a closet theater person.

Not a drama queen (shut up), but a performer. Many are the times I want to just burst into song. Few are the times I actually do, except when I'm alone.

*****
IN OTHER NEWS, we are back to not being sure at all. We know we must not confuse exuberant joy over the weather and the flowers that burst in our heart when we listen to These Are the Fables with other things, however.

And then out there somewhere is someone 4 hours away whom we wonder about.

Well. Maybe that's it, then.

I met this guy on Match, let's call him Cliff, nice guy, cute, quite shy (says he has few friends in the city he's lived in for 12 years because he's shy, that kind of shy), extremely low-key. My gut has been saying No, but I've been trying to assuage the gut some, saying Who Knows, Maybe. Sometimes I do get a little excited about him. (Gotten together with him twice so far; will again this Sunday too.) I mean, it's kinda nice, sort of. But I'm finding I want to run screaming an awful lot too.

Huh, Miles Davis via the sitar on NPR right now.

Yesterday I started thinking that having been alone for so very very long must be making me skittish. Like I was actually acting like Bliss does around not-me people. Look at me, some kind of feral cat.

(Stomach is churning so unpleasantly right now.)

Then I had this dream last night. It was a Friday night. On Saturday I was to see the guy I'd met. Friday I ran into Keving, Jessica 1.0's friend and sly set-up of September '06. I was happy to see him and hang out with him; I let him lead me to a movie, sort of. Well you don't need to know all that weird dream detail about the Shakespeare and the beautiful wooden seats. He was being platonically affectionate and I was leaning into it, knowing it didn't mean anything to me -- the way you are in college with gay guy friends and straight guy friends whom you're not actually interested in, guys like Brian Rothkopf.

Anyway. Back to the dream future of Saturday night. The guy I was going to be seeing was "Jason," who looked like Jason-jason but was not in substance That Jason. He was the guy I was actually sort of seeing for real (but still not in substance). In the dream I realized how much I'd rather be with Jason. And I thought, well. There it is, then. Nice.

When I woke up and realized that the Real Life Jason-jason was actually Cliff, every part of me said "NO!!!" before I could even choose my actual reaction. And my stomach started churning.

I think I have my answer. Sure, I could still be wrong, and it would be nice to. But this is becoming so very very VERY visceral, and I have learned to listen to my viscera (see Asshole 1998-2000).

So NOW what do I do? UGH.

And let me point out that it is 7:30 and yet I am up and sitting at the computer telling you this. I've been holding off writing about this at all, all week, and I woke up Compelled.

Now to shower before I blow the earliness altogether.

What a Monkey!

Steven is going somewhere, Guatemala I think. To help out. So I am here now to wish him a bonny voyage and say,

Off with you, monkey!
Off with you gently through the monkey skies
No IMing for like 10 whole monkeyless days
But that's OK
Cos you're helping out
Helper monkey.

OFF YOU GO, GENTLE MONKEY
We will keep the light on for ya.

Munky.

Flush me.

Another superpower seems to have come to the fore in my life. It would appear that I am the only one in our building -- including the cleaning people -- who understands how the toilet paper dispensing apparatus monkey works. The details don't really matter; suffice to say the things very often work badly until I lay my hands on them.

It makes sense, really, when you think about it. I, who once said that if they ever name a monument after me I hope it's a bathroom. I'm probably like the Aquaman of washrooms.

Which would explain the seahorse saddle.

Where have they been all my life?

I just saw the New Pornographers, and I am CRAZY about them! Look, see? I should be in bed, 11:30 on a Sunday night, but here I am talking to you.

UPDATE: Especially the song These Are the Fables. Took me half an hour to track it down last night. I'd enlighten you but the YouTube video (audience-member-made) has awful sound.

What the hell is up with my state tax return and YONKERS?

Especially this entry, totally [sic]:

Resident: I were full-year Yonkers resident.

THE CONTEXT

New York State:

Resident: I lived in New York all year. Part-year resident: I moved into or out of New York in 2007. Nonresident: I didn't live in New York but worked there or received New York income.

New York City:

Resident: I lived in New York City all year. Part-year resident: I moved to or from New York City during 2007. Nonresident: I didn't live in New York City during 2007.

New York City:

Part-year resident:0I moved to or from New York City during 2007. Nonresident:0I didn't live in New York City during 2007.

City of Yonkers:

Resident: I were full-year Yonkers resident. Part-year resident: I moved to or from Yonkers during 2007. Nonresident: I didn't live in Yonkers during 2007. Enter More Yonkers Information Moving information: I moved to the City of Yonkers. I moved out of the City of Yonkers. City of Yonkers residency dates: 00Bethany From (MM/DD/YYYY) To (MM/DD/YYYY) Check all that apply: I earned City of Yonkers wages or self-employment income as a nonresident.

ENTER MORE YONKERS INFORMATION. I must have that on a T-shirt.

Five cats. Five rabies shots.

One bathroom.

One me.

Watch! as the scratchy stabby pain ensues

It might've gone all right if I hadn't had to confine them in the bathroom the day before, when maintenance came to look at a bedroom window. They are a smart and suspicious lot, however, The Blissy among them most of all. There was no luring or tricking. There was instead lots of twisting and clawing and struggling on the strength level of leopards or bears or maybe woolly (clawed) mammoths.

In the end I got three in there (Bliss by carrying her trapped in her wooden hiding cave). The vet helped get Fathom out from under the bed. Rogue is pretty friendly with her anyway. Me, I am now clawed up (shoulder, upper arm, chest) like I'd been wrestling a tiger. SERIOUSLY. TIGER WRESTLING INJURIES. RIGHT HERE.

Let me take you back in time.

When I was little I was terrified of bathrooms. Or to be more accurate, of toilets flushing. First there was that dark passage into faraway and mysterious sewers. Then on top of that there was the flushing sound, which drowned out every other noise. These two things together meant that any horrible monster could rise up out of the toilet to get me.

So what I did to prevent this happening, see, was 1. put the lid down and B. lay invisible bricks on top of it.

Then I was able to flush. But still with terror. Absolute, sheer, utter terror.

In public restrooms it was tougher. At school I wouldn't even flush if I was in there alone (the whole room, I mean). I remember doing this (or not doing it) in 2nd grade, when my classroom was down this hallway on its own, for some reason. So I could kind of do it with impunity. I remember that being a vast relief.

The bathroom that was the very worst was the restroom in Penney's at the Seneca Mall. It was right near the elevators, and the machinery would turn on and be just deafening and I must've jumped high into the air like a skittish little hedgehog.

I mean, I would run like you run from things in your dreams (when you can run in your dreams), your heart basically 3 feet in front of you, that quick scooting run where you're making tiny little movements, conserving motion, to just get some distance away as fast as you can, like even just around the corner.

At some point I became convinced that there was a monster living under my bed, of course. You had one too. But my monster had a laboratory and a lab coat. He was, of course, covered in brown fur. Under the lab coat.

This came from my seeing one commercial for something where this woman in a very '70s luxury apartment was frantically trying to close her sliding glass door against a furry hand.

He also had a henchman: a seaweed monster-man whom I'd seen, again in a commercial, walking up out of the ocean. This was the monster I was trying to keep from getting me via the toilet. The seaweed monster was also somehow my neighbor Mike Talboys. His purpose: to bring me back to his master, who wanted to marry me. (Seaweed monster always secretly wanted me for his own, too.)

And if the lab monster could not marry me, he would kill me.

Remember, I was like 7.

Sweet dreams! XO