La Petite Poorgeoisie

Italian terracotta Great Dane decoys. Price upon request.

I used to think I would make an excellent rich person. Because it would seem that so many very rich people suck at having money. They buy horribly ugly things: ticky tacky ceramic dogs and lucite panthers. They coat their lives with Swavorski crystals seemingly because they can.

Bright "Escape" jumpsuit (quotation marks not mine). $1950.00.

Very often the very rich dress like shit. Victims of either L.L. Bean or Paris, their eyes are obscured by rare gold coins and their wallets are housed in $24,000 handbags. I find this ridonkulous, perhaps because I am jealous, who knows? But the very rich often seem sad, too, alcoholic-y, lost, and I've always thought that if I were very rich I would be happy, found, massaged. Especially if I had the good sense not to spend $2k on a tie-dyed cotton fugly jumpsuit...

Swavorski crystal marlin. No worries if orange is not in your color scheme as it is also available in pink and yellow! $5000.00.

But what I am finding lately is that I am exceptionally good at being poor. Ish. Not poor, because I'm not; it's a relative poor and I'm poor compared to what I used to be. So I am good at being poorish. A member of the post-economic meltdown Petite Poorgeoisie, I am good at making do with leftovers, creating cute outfits out of what is already in my closet. I am good at garnishing dinner with the basil that I grew, watering down juice, I am good at poorifying my life. A step above the new poorletariat, but I am only so-so at making puns out of poor. Leaded crystal Baccarat Leaping Panther otherwise known as a big fat WHY? $1500.00.

Sure I still want to be rich. I want facials and organic everything, a Mercedes Benz station wagon, Mallorca, I want these. But I also want what I already have which is not a lot and everything, and that, I've already got.

So what would you want if you were very very rich? Assuming you are not already. And what are you good at as a member of La Petite Poorgeoisie?

A New Low

Achtung! This post contains the words vagina and my, only the my is before the word vagina, hence one of the vaginas in question might belong to me. So if you are not prepared to read about my vagina please stop now and visit this url instead: www.susannahhasnovagina.com. No greasy aftereffect! Click on pic to enlarge.

Well fuck me. And I mean that in the most please don't really fuck me sense of the word. Because my vagina hurts just reading the latest news. And apparently it is dirty because I have never not once safeguarded my dainty allure with Lysol disinfectant. Or anything really. No, my dainty allure is au-natural. And quite frankly, unless I plan on swimming that day, my dainty allure would be right at home in the original 1972 edition of The Joy of Sex, so lax am I with hair removal.
Sue was furious at Tom for the way he'd been treating her! But she was really to blame! Click on the pic to enlarge and see how Sue shot benzalkonium chloride into her cooch to go from domestic crisis to marital bliss!

And now I hear this news: as if my vagina wasn't feeling inadequate enough what with nary a Lysol to dis the infectant, all hairy and happy and post-pubescent, post-pregnancy, post-me caring, now my vagina feels lazy, too. Because guess what? My vagina could probably only bench press 8lbs, and only then if my daughter was screaming crying trapped under that 8lbs and for some reason I had no arms and no legs, not even a chin to nudge her out, just my apparently germy, hirsute vagina to save the day. Come to think of it, my vagina probably couldn't even do that. When Zoey was born she weighed just 5lb., 15oz., and I still had to have a c-section, so no, my vagina can't even lift 6lbs. I'm telling you--my vagina is one Pringle-eatin' couch potato; when we go to the beach my vagina gets sand kicked in its face.

Those damn Russians with their little matryoshka dolls all nestled inside each other just so. So there's this lady. And she's all over the internet. She says she holds the record for The World's Strongest Vagina because apparently such contests exist and nobody told me. She lifted 14 kilograms worth of weights--almost 31lbs, which would be the equivalent of me picking up Zoey with my pocketbook. I only say pocketbook because I am tired of writing vagina. Vaginavaginavagina. In Russian the word is киску which totally looks stronger so she had that advantage going in.

Kozhevnikova of Novosibirsk, 42, has been exercising her intimate muscles for fifteen years, and says, “After I had a child, my intimate muscles got unbelievably weak. I read books on Dao and learned that ancient women used to deal with this problem using wooden balls,” she said. “I looked around, saw a Murano glass ball and inserted it in my vagina. It took me ages to get it out!”

This. Dis. Turbs. Me. A Murano glass ball? Intimate muscles? Dainty allure pumping iron (or glass balls, wood balls any ball at all?) Listen--I know about kegels. Someone once told me to do them whenever I am waiting for a red light to change. So I do. Or did. Until I saw a kitten crossing the street or a balloon floating in the sky, until I had a thought in my head and then I forgot about my vagina sitting there in the car all clenched and grunting in its World's Gym tank top made just for vaginas, and I stopped. And I sure as hell haven't inserted any Murano glass balls in there.

It would seem that my vagina is an under-achiever. My vagina won't be setting any Guiness Records. There is no need for me to douche with Lysol and then apply self-tanner and iodine in order to highlight its muscles. Because my vagina is a pussy.

Just De-Lovely and Delicious

My new house smells like honey. Seriously. At night so thick I can taste it, during the day a little lighter but still there, an amber-colored smell of something so sweet that I do not know its name, so I call it honey, like a man might call his lady friend after a long night. Deep breath in, deep breath in, what is that? Sometimes I forget to exhale. It smells so good I say to Bryan, and without fail he replies with it's because I farted. He's been saying that since I've known him, and I don't know which surprises me more: how many times I seem to remark on how good things smell or how unfailingly he attributes night blooming jasmine or garlic in a skillet to the stench of his own flatulence. I swear to god he could cheat on me then murder my family, I could get re-married eleven times and vow to forget him, but for the rest of my life I would never be able to say something smells good without anticipating his reply, it's because I farted. So yes, there's that: my new house smelling like honey. Any ideas what it is? And then there's this: a historical church in England renovated and converted into somebody's home. Something tells me this house might smell like bread and wine, perhaps the dank of stone and the warmth of church pews, but I still think I'd live there, tombstone garden and all.

Although it would be very hard not to feel as if you were living out some kinky sacrificial sexy role play here, on display for the congregation. Would you just be able to have procreational sex? Missionary, close your eyes and think of England?

And after we finish the mutton, we will adjourn to the apse for the rectory, the unholiest of communions... Can I help it if all religious words sound slightly dirty? I'm going to Hell, aren't I? Do you think these people put up a tree at Christmas?

But check out the bathtub: divine, and I'm not even saying that in a pretentious way. It truly is divine.

I wonder, though, if the church had to be deconsecrated before the couple moved in? Is there such a thing as deconsecrating? Or is that simply desecrating? And why am I now thinking of defecating and that 90's band Deee-lite? (God how I used to boogie to Groove is in the Heart.)

Of course the real desecration here is the collection of denim sofas. I'm just sayin'--a little piece of Land's End in God's House? De-No.

Granted my house is no church, and clearly I am no lady of the cloth. But there are Buddhas in my garden, a Greek Mati at my door, a portrait of the Virgin Mary on my fridge and at her feet sits Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth. I planted lavender for good luck, tree ferns because they make me happy, and now my house smells like honey and is the best home I have ever made. And that I hold sacred.

I Hate Mondays

I used to hate Garfield, and when I say hate I mean HATE as only a 4th grade girl can hate. Which is a lot. Or alot, one word, because 4th graders can't really spell but fuckin'-A can they hate.I must have been a fairly astute 9 year old because I found Jon to be a pervy pencil neck. I did not like Odie. But what really got me was Garfield and how he hated Mondays. I would spend ten minutes staring at a cartoon of Garfield in his cat box with the sheet pulled over his head, reading and re-reading the caption: I Hate Mondays. Why? Why Garfield do you hate Mondays? And why am I supposed to find that funny? (In related news: I had some book, I don't even remember which one, and I had dog-eared a page because there was a sentence that read: "Her mom doted on her." I would take out this book every night and stare at that sentence because I thought surely it was a typo. Her mom dotted on her? But that didn't make sense either. So in hindsight perhaps I was a little obsessive when it came to things I did not understand, my 9 year old self-esteem so intact that the errors of the world compelled me to, to... I don't know. To stand in my room and stare at them. Which is kind of why I'm a walking symbol of what is wrong with this country, but that is for another post, one which probably won't include videos of city councilmen farting.)

I still hate Garfield, only now I hate him because I realize that all these years he was right, fat cranky puss with the sheet pulled over his head. Mondays suck. Unless of course you have slowly leaned back into unemployment as have I and now see Mondays as an extension of please pass the platter of government cheese, and pardon me but might you have a cracker? No? Am I the only one? Anyhoo, for the handful of you that might actually still have a job I give you this: 3 Things to Cheer You Up On This Monday After a 3 Day Weekend:
This guy. This photo. This makes me laugh and when I say laugh I mean to say it makes me fall on my knees grateful that this is not me. Thankyouthankyouthankyougodorwhoeveriloveyouandiwillbeagoodgirlforeveramen. So this is for you, people at work. Be grateful that you have very little chance of this happening to you today unless of course your job title just so happens to be Chief Jogger in Black Dolphin Shorts and you stopped at IHOP this morning for a Rooty Tooty Fresh and Frooty. In which case I suggest you clench and keep running, run like the wind! Oh, and p.s., don't come to me looking for a wet wipe, my daughter is potty trained and I don't know you.

And then there's this:

As the pretentious hacks at my old job used to say, how brill is that? Slices of peanut butter! Gives whole new meaning to a fruit roll up! The web site boasts that it "makes peanut butter easier to eat." Which is awesome because it was just so difficult before, what with the jar and the spoon, and the jar. And the spoon. As one enthusiastic customer commented: "Great. Because I hardly ever indulge because it's so hard to eat. I mean, like my hand gets stuck in the jar. And then I can't get it out. And I can't open the door to my house because I have a pb jar on my hand. And I'm stuck in the house for weeks. Thank god for this product." Happy Monday!

But wait! There's more. This. This makes me sublimely happy, like TGIM happy.

So there. Sure, the 3 day weekend is over and it's back to the grind, no real holidays until Labor Day and yet here I sit in my bathrobe watering my ferns and eating blueberry toaster waffles, one eye on DJ Lance Rock and the Super Music Friends Show. Sure you could be bitter and jealous and hate me more than just a little bit, but why? Why when I give you diarrhea and slices of peanut butter and city councilmen farting? Why when the State of California is handing out IOU's and my unemployment check might bounce, The Terminator is my governor and the cheese is pimento? Spicy pimento at that? Fuck it. I hate Mondays, too. But not you. I love you. I dote on you.

xoxo,

S

Random(ish) Thoughts on This Friday, the 3rd of July

You know what really pisses me off? My wisdom teeth. Okay, yes, fine, this was years ago, but I still find myself thinking about them. When I had my wisdom teeth removed I asked the surgeon dentist guy if I could have them afterward. He said yes. I counted backwards from ten, vaguely remember leaning out my car window to wave to people on the Golden Gate Bridge and the next thing I knew I was on my couch. Delicious drugs and done. At the follow-up appointment I asked the surgeon for my teeth and he said he forgot and threw them away. WTF Mr. Surgeon Guy??? Those were MY TEETH. I had big plans for those things. Spotlights on my mantel, a gold chain around my neck. Depending on how big they were I was going to make one into the gear shift knob on my car or maybe fashion one into the doorbell button at my house. Now they exist in some medical waste facility, no spotlights at all, and I still think about them sometimes. Okay, often. I think about my wisdom teeth often.

You know what else I think about more often than I should? Lady Gaga.

And String Theory. Surely they are somehow related because I don't get either one and here's the other coincidence: I DON'T CARE. There. I said it. Put on some pants and wash your face. You look stupid. You, too, String Theory.

Also? The lady at the party I went to a few weekends ago. It was nightfall and there was a fire pit outside. Someone brought out a bag of marshmallows and we pulled twigs off a tree to make s'mores. I ate one. Then another. Do you have any idea how good roasted marshmallows are? Why don't I make those every freaking night, I ask you. On the third one this pinched woman I did not know said, "you know the limit is two. Two marshmallows per person." The fire lit up her face from beneath, not a good angle on the prettiest among us, and I swear to fucking god I wanted to poke my twig through her head, stick it in the fire and shake it a little until her head fell off into the orange burning coals with the rest of the gloppy burnt hot dog butts and bottle caps.

But then there's this. These. This guy. A graphic designer artist funny guy who I like a lot even though I do not know him.

He makes me happy the way a man with a pen only can, and sometimes that's all it takes is a Dot with the word Bitch inside.

And this. This makes me happiest of all.

Watching 4th of July fireworks with my Petunia Faced Girl. She lets me have all the marshmallows I want and maybe one day, if I'm a really good mommy, she'll give me her wisdom teeth. Or she'll want to keep them for herself which will make me oh-so-proud.
Happy 4th, my friends. Be safe!
xoxo,
S

Guimauve

At three Zoey has already surpassed me in coolness. She has better clothes than I do, her shoes are glittierererer, she is a way better dancer what with the way she hops and twirls as if no one is looking, and now she has better hair.
The ladies at her daycare like to play with her hair, and sometimes when I pick her up she looks like this and I feel like maybe we should make some grand elaborate plans on account of her hair looking so pretty--go to a party or a club, get a drink somewhere for Happy Hour. Instead we stop at the grocery store to buy some milk and I find myself looking random strangers in the eye in the hopes that they will say how adorable she is, my daughter. As I said, I am not very cool and have been known to will people to do things. Say my daughter is pretty, she is perfect, check out that hair, c'mon, you know you want to, oh wait, excuse me, can you please hand me one of those things of half and half?...

But that is not enough, never enough, and so I take Zoey out to the garden with my camera and promise her marshmallows if she'll let me take just one picture of her not making that face, the one where she scrunches up her nose and sticks out her tongue, her hands clawing at the air in front of her. Just one more! C'mon Zo! I hear myself pleading with her and I know I should stop, that this is not good, it is not cool, me bribing my daughter with fluff so I can admire her celluloid beauty, fluff for fluff. Tit for tat. One day she might hate me for this, might pierce her eyebrows, her lip, insert one of those quarter-sized tribal discs into her ear to stretch it wide gaping open like a sore. Meanwhile, she will not listen to me still offering marshmallows, proffering sweets if she'd smile just so.

But that is a maybe, the eyebrow piercing, the blase attitude toward fluff in the future; now all I have is this. This sweet sweet girl, the coolest in the world, and the ladies at the daycare that I have been silently and secretly willing to have ask me if they can play with my hair, too.

Bid'ness

Pssst! You! Yeah, you! I need some help over here!

Okay fine. This photo has nothing to do with this post and this post has very little to do with entertainment (but everything to do with this blog). This post is about me and how you can help me and blah blah boring, a # sign here, an @&asterisk followed by a question mark there. If you're still reading this drivel you must really like me which means I really like you and we should totally dry hump on your parent's couch.

So here's my question: Lately I have been getting some requests from companies wanting to advertise which is awesome and quite frankly makes my boobs feel bigger. So I'm considering it but have no clue what to charge. Per month? Per year? Per what and how much?

Yet another question: Does anyone know anyone who might have a brother who knows a guy that designs blogs? 'Cause I'm thinking I'm due for a facelift. Nothing major--no peeling my face back only to stitch it behind my ears. No, I want to stay on Blogspot but need a new look, a new template, a new gnu. Anyone out there? Anyone? And again, I have sand up my nose from sticking my head way down but I have no idea what this sort of thing costs. I only know I can afford cheap. Or free. Will dry hump for design?

Did I mention what a good kisser you are? Thank you for reading this far, as well as for any suggestions or referrals you can give me. Me me me memememememeeeeeeeeee.

Happy Hump Day, mes petites.
Toujours,
S

6 Signs of the Apocalypse, i.e. Happy Tuesday!

As we were driving back from the beach on Sunday I said something about all of the dead trees. Dutch Elm or Live Oak, something: the rolling hills of West Marin were dotted with the brittle skeletons of dead trees. It's a sign that the end of world is coming, Bryan said, and then I fell asleep, not so much because I am indifferent to the impending death of our planet, more so because there is something about a hot car on a windy road, salt air and the sound of an open window that seriously knocks me the shit out.

Anyway, since then I've noticed that he might be right. The dead trees are almost certainly a harbinger of the Apocalypse because every where I turn I see more and more signs.

Because you have to know that this world will not go down quietly. First maybe it will be heard in word captures. Sented Diarrhea? Does this happen to anyone but me? I mean, not the diarrhea part, although woosh! That time I went to India was a story. No, I mean the word capture. What does this mean? The supposed randomness of these words. Surely it means something???

And then there is this:

Somebody's high school senior portrait, which really wouldn't alarm me if I hadn't just watched three back to back episodes of 16 and Pregnant. Watch that and then try and tell me the world is not ending. (Sarah Palin--I blame YOU for this one.)

Other signs? These No-Eye Contact glasses, and the fact that I did not think of them first. I thought it was enough that I have a bitchin' Cloak of Invisibility I like to wear when I see someone I used to work with at the supermarket. But no, I think I might also need these glasses. Just to be safe. And because they would look awesome with my Cloak.

And then there's this:

And the fact that I laughed. C'mon, you know you did, too. All of this social networking, web 2.0, 3.5 and onward, the world getting smaller and cozier and still people cannot spell the word "congratulations"???

And while this last one seems as if it would signal imminent global death, a swift death knell to the nuts of The Big Blue Marble...

I take small solace in the fact that the marketing department opted not to name it c*nt. Instead they chose Pussy, the softer, gentler shock value. This here is a new energy drink made of white grape juice, Mexican lime, lightly carbonated water and infused with lychee and grenadilla. Hate to say it, but that sounds tasty. I am thirsty here as I type this, trying very very very hard not to make some really base jokes about Pussy. Feel free to go at it in the comments section. Moderations are off--what do I care? The world is ending anyway. Congradulations, my friends, and see you on the other side (of Tuesday).

xoxo,

S

If One Drowns, Do They All Drown?

This here is Zoey's 12th birthday present:
Although with the hormones in the tomatoes these days perhaps I ought to give it to her for her 10th birthday. I mean, surely I have some time to think about this, but really, I just want her to know how very stupid it is to try to be like other people.

Years ago I went to a psychic. Which is sort of the antithesis of what I'm trying to say here--not to follow the herd, to listen to yourself... But honestly this woman was eerie. She said that Bryan should watch his blood sugar (he's diabetic), that she sees him around boats and water (he surfs and sails religiously). Looking back she said an awful lot about Bryan and not so very much about me there with my cash in hand, but she did eventually say that we would have two children, the first a girl, an old soul. She said that adults would be drawn to her eyes. (She also said that my second child would be a boy with very feminine energy, so watch for my son to appear sometime in 2011? 2012? It's Gay Pride Month and I will be honored to join PFLAG should I be so lucky.)

Anyhoo. I watch Zoey play sometimes, her head bent to look at something no one else can see. She talks to herself a lot, pretends; sometimes she looks in the mirror and makes funnyuglysillystupid faces. She does not care if her face is dirty, does not flinch when I catch her eating a booger, she is not embarrassed when she farts. In fact, she laughs. Do I hope my daughter grows up to be the strange kid who sits in the back of the class wiping boogers under her desk and cutting stinkies all day? Mmmm, not so much, but if that is who she truly is and she is happy, then yes. Sure. Senior year I want my daughter to be voted Most Likely to Pick a Winner.

I was a stupid teenager. Is there any other kind? I was a cheerleader my freshman year of high school because I saw one too many John Hughes movies and thought that was what I was supposed to do. Bear in mind I am not naturally prone to cheer. I wanted to be popular. (God, the very word makes me cringe. Popular? Popular?? What a fucking joke. The only time that word should ever be used is in front of the word Mechanic, and even then it should not see the light of day outside of a tire superstore.) I drank when I was not thirsty, laughed when I did not get the joke, flirted when I didn't even know if I liked the boy, I just knew I liked hoping the boy would like me. I was weak. I wore too much makeup and swam in these ridiculous little circles breathing only when the others did, my face surely contorted and strained and pathetic. I tread water, my feet never once touching the bottom.

How do I ensure Zoey stays there making funnyuglysillystupid faces in the mirror? That she does not one day look and see the eyes of other people staring back from the void of her own reflection? Is it inevitable, the synchonized swim, the furious way we all dog paddle to stay in rhythm, or is there something I can do to teach her how to cheat at Marco Polo, to yell out her own name in response to any question?

This post started as me just laughing at that pic. But then it unraveled, as they so often do, and I want to know: What sort of stupid things did you do to fit in? Do you do now? And honestly, do you have any advice on how to raise a self-confident girl who knows who she is and never ever, not even once, drinks 6 peach flavored Bartles & Jaymes just because some boy keeps handing them to her???

Dancer in the Dark, i.e. Where the Sun Now Shines

In my family we have a word called "heaviosity." It describes a certain thud of thought, a self-conscious heaviness much like a goth sweating in the sun but unwilling to take off his black coat. Remember that Bjork movie where she was going blind while working in a factory and singing those nutty off-key songs while clomping across metal bridges? That right there: perfect definition of heaviosity.

This week I feel like Bjork. A goth. A goth listening to Bjork while working in a factory and closing her eyes and maybe eating black licorice. My posts have been long and drab and then long again. I feel thick with sweat so I guess the best thing to do is just disrobe.
Today I give you this: a different kind of dancer in the dark just because it's Friday and I want to make you smile. Ce qui la baise? No idea if that translates, but you get the idea. Happy Friday, my friends. May your weekend be filled with light.

p.s. I am well aware that most people loved that Bjork movie. I did not. I should also confess that I did not like "Once" so maybe you hate me now which would totally suck for you because I am more than willing to lend out my Raidoree to friends, first come, first serve.

Maybe(ish)

In the sixth grade I had a Michael Jackson poster on my wall--the yellow one? He was wearing a lemon colored sweater vest with matching bow tie and his eyes looked sad. It made me feel funny, the poster, his wet sad eyes, tingly funny down there the way he was just so good next to my poster of Billy Idol sneering. Human Nature--yes, that's what it was--the poster for Human Nature.

Now all these years later Michael Jackson is still making me feel funny, but it is not tingly and it is not down there. It is somewhere in my brain cold and stale; I don't know what to think.

By now you have probably read a thousand and one tributes to Michael Jackson and you will likely hear a million and one more, surprise at his death, his life in song, photos of his nose collapsing throughout the years. And what I have to say is not all that different: I am surprised. Saddened. Intrigued. But I am also supremely confused. Who died today? (I mean other than Farrah Fawcett and millions of other people I do not know.) Did the King of Pop die? One of the most talented entertainers in the business? A damaged man with too much plastic surgery and a penchant for Peter Pan? Or did a child molester die? A predator, a liar? A monster?

It is easy to hate a child molester. No matter the background, the reason, if there can even be a reason for such a thing. It's black and white: child molesters are evil. They deserve The Portrait of Dorian Gray, for their noses to crumble, their skin to mottle, to be alone and sad, stewing in the decay of their own miserable wrong amid tacky marble statues of monkeys and castrati. Child molesters deserve to die.

But what if Michael Jackson wasn't a child molester? I go back and forth with what I think. Maybemaybemaybe. The man was talented, of that there is no question. But maybemaybemaybe and now he's dead and I will never know anything but that maybe. How are we supposed to mourn such a divided maybe?

Whatever the answer I do mourn this: New Year's Eve 1983. I guess I was eleven but I felt fourteen. My parents had left me alone while they went to a party, the first time ever, and my friend Tawna was spending the night. We partied with Martinelli's cider and MTV, one hand on the remote and the other sweaty on the receiver of the telephone. We were talking to Aaron Boyde. Aaron Boyde! The cutest guy in the sixth grade, his voice on the line telling us that at the stroke of midnight he would ask one of us to go. It was dreamy, sexy, romantic, Martinelli's and MTV, knowing that we were alone in the house on New Year's Eve. Aaron Boyde did the best centipede in class. Or was it called the caterpillar? I may be old now but I remember the way he waved his prone body across the assembly stage floor like ribbon, his red lips. At 11:55 the new Thriller video came on and we watched it enrapt, Tawna and I on the phone with Aaron Boyd, and at 11:59 the zombies began their synchronized dance and Aaron began his sentence with Tawna...

I think what we will mourn most is our memories set to the music of Michael Jackson. The gloved one, P.Y.T., the freak with the pressurized oxygen chamber, not the man himself because we didn't actually know him. Was he a monster or a damaged man/boy? Who knows? He's dead and all we have left is a thousand and now two tributes to the King of Pop, the musician, the myth of Michael Jackson, this black and white maybe about a man with supposed vitiligo.

Found

For days now I've been stuck behind lumber trucks. On the freeway, as they make 12 point turn-abouts on small streets, idling just a foot too far to the left so I cannot get around. Lord knows where these lumber trucks are going, if they are all part of some huge wooden thing being built somewhere, or if maybe they exist just to be in my way. (I am fairly certain it's the latter.)

On Tuesday night Nacho went missing. Our new house is at the base of a mountain. There are bobcats and coyotes, mountain lions; at the very least our next door neighbor has a husky with one blue eye and one brown. 9pm is Nacho's curfew, and when he hadn't come in by 11 I began to worry. Don't worry, he's just off cattin' around, Bryan said, so I gave one last clink of a can against his catfood dish and closed the door. The next morning I went out in my bathrobe, calling softly at first, then louder. Maybe my bathrobe opened a bit too much but I didn't care--I was worried.

I had my (scheduled at the last minute) interview yesterday afternoon, and I had Zoey all day. I had a playdate in the morning and a cat that had very possibly been eaten by the mythical Suburban Sprawl Yeti. I had laundry to do because it was a day and this is my life and my life and my days consist of whites and darks, fishing Chapsticks out of pockets and collecting change. I had too many plans but really no plan so I grabbed Zoey's hand and we went out to look for Nacho. We walked up the hill past a parked lumber truck, then down to a small street where eventually we found Nacho stuck way up high in a tree, a tiny speck of fur and mew. Of course this would have been no problem if, say, I lived in the pulp of a cartoon where the fire department rescues cats from trees and might call me ma'am without making me feel old, but I do not live in the bubble of a bad Family Circle so when I called the fire department they laughed at me. Laughed. And I felt old.

This story is getting much too long, this I know, because when I told it to Bryan last night he said I really need to get a job and he sounded tired. So yeah. First I climbed on top of a recycling can and then when that wasn't tall enough I found a ladder that was at least 3 feet too short. I took some of our good Chianti Salami and wedged it into the bough of the tree and if I stood on my tippy toes and stretched my fingers I could maybe just barely almost touch Nacho's nose. Far on the ground beneath me Zoey pelted me with questions. Did Nacho run away? Is he sad? Does Nacho have a heart face? Is he going to die? Can I go pee pee on the leaves?

I went to the interview with my cat stuck in a tree. I answered questions, I smiled, I asked questions. I paid bridge toll and parking and took an elevator up 15 floors. When I got home my cat was still stuck in a tree. At nightfall we finally found an extension ladder and pulled him out of the tree like a scared velcro bean bag, if velcro had the ability to be scared. Which it should. Nacho had been on that branch for over 24 hours without sleep, without food or water, unable to lie down. We forgot to grab our good Chianti Salami so it is still up there, an $8 tube of compressed salty meat in the bough of a tree.

This morning I came out to find my tire had been punctured by a very long nail. It was flat. I got it fixed. Now I am doing yet more laundry. Yesterday sometime during the day our landlady gave Zoey a Princess Jasmine costume, and now she refuses to take it off. She is particularly fond of the wig, a black pompadour thing with a high ponytail that makes her look more like John Belushi's samurai than Princess Jasmine, though how could I break that bit of news to her as she pulled strands of polysynthetic hair out of her bowl of mac 'n cheese last night as if it were spun gold. I want this job. I do. If only so I can feel justified at getting increasingly pissy while stuck behind lumber trucks, if only for somewhere to go.

Look Me in the Eye and Tell Me I Couldn't Do This Job Easy Peasy Lemon Squeazy

Today I have an interview for a job I actually want and I'm thinking of answering all of the questions while deadpanning like this:
Because honestly: who could reject a candidate with this type of focus? No one, that's who, which is why I'm off to practice in the mirror.

Wish me luck! (Back tomorrow with something more substantial.)
xoxo,
S

Synesthesia

Zoey's childhood is something oily dripping from between my fingers. Almond oil, perhaps, very slightly sweet and slippery warm. The other day as we played outside in the sun she sang the theme song to Wow Wow Wubbzy softly under her breath. wow wow wubbzy, wubbzy wubbzy wow wow... She has taken to wearing what she calls her clickety clacks as she gardens, pink plastic mules with faux marabou feathers that I have had to tape back onto the tips of each toe. Thanks, Zoey, I said, now you've got that song in my head. And she looked at me, confused. The song is on your head? So I explained to her what that meant, a song in your head, how you can hear it over and over inside your head, doesn't that ever happen to you? She smiled and patted her shovel against the dirt. Five minutes went by until she walked over to me with her plastic clickety clack shoes and pressed her ear against mine, a hard, hot apricot late in the afternoon: but I can't hear it! Sometimes I feel as if I am mother to Amelia Bedelia, drawing the bath on construction paper and making sponge cake out of Scotch-Brite.

And yet there are other times when I feel as if I am mother to genius, her mind complex like sweet and sour borscht, an abundance of senses, synapse and red tongue-like edges. Mama! I have a song in my head! Yesterday she pressed her ear against mine again. Can you hear it? Sticky hot ear against sticky hot ear. What song is it, sweetpea? And this is what she said: It is a yellow song, mama, can you hear the yellow song in my head? So I pressed my ear hard against hers and I heard it, the song of my child who tastes spiney pokes and smells the sharp curve of fuschia. The song of yellow and why not.

When I Win the Lottery I Am Going to Have My Own Hair Stylist. And Masseuse. But First I Have to Play the Lottery.

Here's what I don't get (among other things: Mariah Carey, the deal with Israel and Palestine, playing piano with two hands at the same time)--I don't get Heidi braids. I mean, I love them. Covet them. Close my eyes and picture myself wearing the perfect boho purple paisley dress with my hair all done up like only a German orphan living with her grandfather on the Swiss Alps can be braided. But I don't get how to do them. Granted I seem to have been born lacking a few stereotypical female traits. I don't have the cooking gene, never really daydreamed about my own big tulle fondant seven layer wedding day, and I am seriously lacking the seventh rung on my DNA which scientists at MIT have discovered is the one in which woman learn how to do their own hair. Here the helix is off-kilter or something, crooked, because for the life of me I cannot do anything with my hair but a ponytail, and a lumpy ponytail at that. I mean, is it just me or did Heidi not have any bobby pins living high up on that mountain top with an old cranky man? Perhaps she used the toenail clippings of her sheep to fasten her plaits? What? I don't know.

Anyway, this is how I spent my weekend: watching these You Tube hair-do tutorials with this adorable chick and then running to my mirror to see if I could do it. I can't. My hair is at once too slippery, too puffy, too layered, too mine. In short, my hair grows out of my head, me with the missing girlie gene, which means it is forever intent on just sort of lying there. Like that. But never like this:


Still, if I can show just one person how to create her own Heidi braids I will be happy. And very jealous. You people with your perfectly lined up seventh genome--I might follow you down the street staring at your pretty pretty hair; I might reach one hand out to let my fingertips graze your head. (But not in a creepy way, of course.) I might watch videos of you doing your hair over and over and over again trying to memorize the way you open that bobby pin with your teeth. (This in an unmistakeably creepy way.)

In related news: I think this young gent has the aforementioned hair-do gene. In fact, I am pretty sure he stole mine. Who's got my back should I confront him?

*I found the Heidi tutorial here. God knows where I found the beard-do pic.

Happy Father's Day, Part II

Dear Bryan,
The other night I asked you who you would save if you could only save one of us: me or Zoey.
It was a macabre question, I know that. But by now I imagine you're used to that, to me, to the pickled leopard shark in the glass jar on our mantel.

You answered my question correctly, by the way, if there is such a thing as correct in such a Solomonian dilemma. You are a fabulous husband but an even better father, and this is the way it should be, a slice of something I can't ever ever have or touch or feel because it is yours and hers alone, a father-daughter dance and I cannot cut in. And so I watch from the edge of the music, smiling as you spin her around and around until she cannot stop giggling, and it's true: it kills me a little bit. Every time. The pink sole of her foot in your broad palm, the way you love her and oh how she loves you. Thank you for it--all of it. For her and you and me, for this vastness of feeling, for being a father. For being you.

Happy Day.

I love you,

Susannah

Happy Father's Day

Dearest Daddy Maddy,

For as long as I can remember when I have asked you what you want for a holiday your answer has been the same: something unique, handmade, just a little something one-of-a-kind and priceless and then you smile and I give up and get you a book or a cactus or that one time I bought you a framed rattlesnake skeleton, never a tie because you are not a tie kind of dad. No, you are not a golf tee dad, or a dad who would like an 18" model of a Chris Craft boat. You are a dad that defies magazine editorials in June. Gifts for the sporty dad, gifts for the hipster dad! Taupe socks and signed photos of whoever played the Superbowl. Shit. You are not a dad for which one can just buy shit, the shit at the cash wrap of the store in the mall that somebody in an air-conditioned office decided months ago would sell for Father's Day. You are not that dad.

You are this dad:
My dad: A dad who cuts a fine figure in a tony sheath avec pailletes, a dad who can do one-armed pull ups with his tattooed bicep. A dad with the most absurd sense of humor, a kind dad, a smart dad, a dad who talks to me about string theory and spit, a dad who still throws his arm across me at a crosswalk so I won't get hit by a car, who won't let me pull the blade out of his Swiss army knife for fear that I may hurt myself. You are my Daddy Maddy, (although I think you gave yourself that moniker as I don't remember ever calling you by that name), and I certainly hope you are the type of dad that won't kill me for posting this picture. But honestly, I think this is my favorite photo of you, the slight sadness in your eyes. The way you feel the brevity, the heavy weight of living, the contradiction of joy, and yet refuse to take it all too seriously. The way you pull off that hat with your beard, the curve of your wrist just like my own. Happy Father's Day Dad: I think you would agree--this photo is unique, the staging handmade, the sentiment one-of-a-kind, and the posting of it? Priceless.
I love you,
Your daughter, Blam

*Dear Reader: I believe this photo was taken after my grandmother passed away. That's my frocked father on the left, my uncle on the right. I think they were going through her stuff and this was their way of dealing with the grief. If only I knew what happened to this dress because it is perfection.