The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

First the Good:
Which is not so much good as it is great. Not even great, it's fabulous. Mother-effin awsome oh I'm sohappyiamforgettingallpunctuationexceptanannoyingpittypatofexclamationpoints!!!!!!!!!! My mammogram came back NORMAL! I made an adorable video of Zoey eating a celebratory cupcake and announcing the news that her mommy has healthy boobies, but apparently God does not want to bless me with healthy breasts and speedy internet connectivity in one day so it would not upload. Believe me, I'll take healthy boobies over fast internet connection any day of the week.

Which leads me to the Bad:

Hurricane Ike. A lot of my favorite bloggers seem to live in the Houston area or Texas at large so let me just say this: my thoughts are with you as you hunker down.

And what good would The Good & The Bad be without The Ugly?

Truthfully I didn't really have an ugly so I found this image on the internet. I think we can all agree that this pooch is a tad bit aesthetically challenged, no?

So there you go. Feel your boobies. Wait for the winds to pass. And then, uh, gnaw on your toenails? I dunno.' Shitty post this one, but I'm just giddy with my boobs right now.

Happy Friday!

The Door to Hell (Just Around the Corner from A Stairway to Heaven)

There is a place in Uzbekistan called "The Door to Hell." I may be feeling a wee bit dark lately but I swear I did not make this up. So if you are searching for just such a doorway, look no further than the small town of Darvaz. You need not know the Devil to enter.

The images are stunning and the story is this: 35 years ago geologists were drilling for gas when suddenly the earth opened up to reveal a huge underground cavern. The equipment and camps fell deep inside, but no one dared go in because the cave swam with poisonous gas. So rather than let the gas escape they set fire to it. And now, 35 years later, the earth is still burning.

It took me until late morning to realize that today is September 11th. Never forget, people say, but life goes on and today is Thursday. Tonight I have dinner plans with my husband's sailing team. I drove to work thinking about Isis from America's Next Top Model. I ate a croissant. And yet seven years ago the world stood still and we all thought it would never be the same.

I mean no disrespect to those that died as a result of the terrorist attacks. I have only the highest regard for those that worked to save lives. If I really think about it I can remember that deep chasm of hopelessness I felt in those days right after, the creaking ache in my chest when I saw an American flag, when I smelled smoke. How one night driving home I pulled over just before I got on the Golden Gate Bridge because I did not like the looks of the truck in front of me. The world is not the same really, but it's also not all that different. Now when I cross the bridge I curse the fact that they just raised the toll to $6. My heart creaks for my daughter and when I see an American flag sadly I snort. Because I think our current administration is a joke.

I don't know what those geologists should have done when the earth caved in. Because really, which is better? Letting the poisonous gas slowly escape sight unseen, or setting it on fire to burn for all of eternity, an ulcerated wound on the world?

I Beg to Differ

People criticize the internet. Email. Websites. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter Bitter and Blog. (Ooh! Dibs! Great name for a blog. Or a legal firm.) They say it's impersonal, that the big bad world has gotten small with pockets, that instead of communicating face to face we now sit behind our monitors and emote to the click of a keyboard. But here's the thing: I don't know how I would have gotten through these last few days without you. Yes, you. You there eating the Rice Krispy treat and you, I see you, the one picking your nose? Thank you. Of course I am not through anything real yet. It takes a Laffy Taffy stretch of a week to get the results, but guess what? It's Day 2.0 and I love you for being there.

And I can't believe I'm saying this, and in public, no less, but my mom is right. (If you don't know what I'm talking about read her comment on the post below. How will you know which one is my mother? *snort* Look for the novel.) Growing up my mother sang along to every song with a beautiful voice but the wrong lyrics. Ever heard of the Top 40 hit by The Police Sausage in a Bottle? Yeah, no one has but Judy. And when I was in college I called to see if she had any of the English Lit. books I needed before I went to the store to buy them. She said she had I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and that she'd send it to me overnight. The next day I opened a package containing I Heard the Owl Call My Name. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe, but today she got it right. I need to live as if everything is hunky dory because today? Today it is. Today I am going home to my Petunia Faced Girl. Today I am going to eat guacamole and chips with my husband outside on the deck as the sun goes down. Then I am going to take my mom's advice and DO IT. I heard the owl call my name and it's telling me to take that sausage out of the bottle.

Image above by the fabulously talented Chris Piascik.

The Before of Nothing

I wonder what change looks like, fear. Physically, I mean. Is it bumpy and sharp? Wispy like a tumbleweed full of hot air? Or is it pebble-soft smooth, one of a million in a rain stick tumbling down?

Last night Bryan and I watched a mediocre movie. At some point I took off my earrings, small gold studs, and I hooked one into the other and rolled them around in between my fingers. Is this what it’s like? A spikey small thing, uneven and strange? I rolled them around like that until the pads of my fingers went numb, and then I placed them into the fold of my robe and ran my hand over the tiny bump in the chenille. Bryan sat next to me, transfixed by the tv. I don’t know if it’s a man thing or just a Bryan thing but when the tv is on he cannot see, hear, taste, smell anything but what is on the screen. I could change the channel to the Cantonese Home Shopping Network and still he would stare. And so he didn’t notice that for the entire movie I had one hand inside my robe rubbing small circles, first over one breast and then the next.

What does it feel like?

Which is not to say Bryan was not, is not, a fabulously caring husband. Throughout the movie he would tear himself away and kiss me. I love you, he’d say. You’re sexy. Me there in my robe rubbing my earrings beneath the fold. D’ya’ wanna’ do it? And I shook my head no. We’re not going to do it until you get your results, are we? And the thing is, I don’t want to be scared. This is silly. I am fine. Really, I am sure I will be fine. To everything there is a before and an after, and this? This is the before of nothing.

But last night my breast ached. A dull throb beneath the spot. Don’t be silly, I thought. And then I made my pinkie ache, just to see if I could. Ow, I thought. My pinkie hurts. Do it, see? Really. Think about it and your pinkie will hurt. It aches. My prostate, the one kind of cancer I am truly guaranteed never to get. Somewhere deep inside my backside I imagine a gland. I am not even sure where it is: my ass? My urethra? I don’t know, I do not have one, but if I think about it hard enough I can make my prostate hurt.

It aches. And I have to imagine that if I can make something I don’t even have hurt, then I can make something I probably don’t even have never appear. Because change looks like this: a 36 year old woman sitting on her couch in her bathrobe watching a mediocre movie with her husband. Trying to breathe.

So Yeah, This Happened, Too

Certain things make me feel like a good American: going to Target, balancing my checkbook, getting my teeth cleaned. Doing these things makes me feel good, pure, as if surely nothing bad could ever befall someone whose checkbook is balanced. Getting a pap smear. Logically I know this is not a “safe” doctor’s appointment. Cells could be abnormal, cancer could be detected. But a clean hoo hoo means that I am a good person so there you go. I am willing to put myself in the way of cells dividing. As you can imagine I was in heaven while pregnant, all those check ups, me married and pregnant, getting weighed, having my blood pressure monitored, jelly smeared across my growing belly. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a pearl choker wrapped around my neck, I was just that good. So imagine my surprise on Friday when I went to the dermatologist to have some splotches on my neck looked at. I wear sunscreen. I don’t smoke. The dermatologist is another safe haven of health. I leave with free samples of Eucerin and assurance that I am good. But this time, this time was different.

There’s a fungus among-us. Of course the splotches on my neck are nothing a little Selsun Blue won’t cure. Despite the fungus inside I felt clean, until the end of the appointment when the doctor asked if I had any more questions and just because I was there I said yeah, you know? I’ve had this little spot on my breast for a few months? And I opened up my paper robe and the world slowed down, my body an hourglass, the sand falling away at my feet. The doctor looked at it, at me. She called in another dermatologist. He put on the visor with the magnifying glasses and I was exposed. 10x. No longer clean, pure, no longer good. I’m sure it’s nothing, he said, smiling beneath his magnified eyes, but we’re going to schedule you for a mammogram. And then it was over. The appointment was over and I went back to work where I traipsed into the bathroom stall every 10 minutes to open my bra and stare at a tiny spot next to my nipple that could be the end of it all.


At 5pm on Friday the doctor called me back. She said I really don’t want you to worry. I am almost sure it is nothing but you should have a mammogram anyway. But the thing is there are no take-backs on fear. You’re either good or you’re not and oh I didn’t really mean to scare you while patting my shoulder dappled with fungus is like gifting Christian Louboutins to a double amputee. On Saturday there was a breast cancer walk through my town and as Zoey and I nestled into my bed to take a nap together I could hear the hoots and the hollers, the cars honking their horns at the walkers all dressed in pink. Healthy boobies, Zoey said, which is what I taught her to say the last time we drove by the breast cancer walk and I rolled down the car window so she could wave at them. Sshhh, I said this time, Nigh-nigh time, and I shut my eyes and pulled the covers over my head.

I have my mammogram today at 3. I am sure it is nothing, the doctor said. But I no longer feel like a good American. My checkbook is off-balance and I am not clean.

Breathe

Inhale pink, exhale blue. Om, giggles and a diaper full of poo. Happy Friday!

Namaste.

That Depends...

The first time it happened we were in the bathroom stall at Target. Ne touche pas! I kept saying to Zoey, because for some reason if I tell her in French not to touch something I feel like less of a nag. Plus, there is always the possibility that someone will overhear me and think I’m French which is just pathetic of me, I know. Meanwhile Zoey is growing up ne touching pas and watching her cabeza and hearing me say nein instead of no because certain words just sound better in other languages. But that is not what happened in the bathroom stall at Tarjay. What happened is that I was going pee and trying to distract Zoey with squares of toilet paper so she wouldn’t touch the door, the walls, the floor, so that she wouldn’t open the feminine hygiene dispenser to play with the mice inside. Ciò disgusta! I was saying when out of nowhere her tiny hand reached down with some toilet paper to wipe my влагалище.

When I was trying to get pregnant I totally pictured rocking my baby in the soft light of dawn. I closed my eyes and imagined my baby’s soft coo, her giggle, I knew one day we would play ring around the rosie and all fall down. What I did not picture was my daughter chasing me down the hallway with a postage stamp size bit of toilet paper yelling at me to stop because she has to wipe my butt. Alas, here we are, and no, my ass does not need cleaning.

A photo of Zoey and her other sudden fixation: washing her hands. Because you don't want a picture of her wiping my ass.

Perhaps this is an integral part of the potty training process that is not covered in the cinéma vérité that is Elmo’s Potty Time DVD? Because lately Zoey is obsessed with my bits. It’s September in the Bay Area which means that summer has just begun. When I get home in the afternoon the house is hot and stuffy. First thing I do is shed my clothes and don a short, thin cotton robe I bought in India. First thing Zoey does is go to the bathroom to grab small fistfuls of toilet paper. Mama? Your butt? If I am lucky she hands it to me. If I am not looking she will very quickly shove her hand up the back of my robe to clean me.

And here is where I reiterate: my ass does not need cleaning.

Is this normal? My daughter’s acute fixation with my personal hygiene? Because I thought this moment would not arrive for at least another fifty years. There is no argument that changing someone’s diaper is the height of love, what with all the poop and creases and shadowy places. And it feels terrible to turn a blind eye (not a brown eye) to my daughter’s outstretched offer of a hand, to run down the hallway away from her. But really. Ne touche pas, Petunia. Nein. Watch your cabeza, ma petite. Ciò disgusta!

Sometimes a Bad Pizza Is Just Bad

I never thought I would say this but the new 90210? It's kinda' like pushing rope. And if you don't know that expression you're missing out because it is my new favoritest thing to say, ever. Not that I have ever had any experience with it (dear husband), or with rope of any kind (Dad, Mom, Andy, in-laws... why am I even writing this? Because the saying is just that good). So yeah, bring back babydoll dresses and David Silver singing because the new 90210 needs to just roll over and go to sleep.

The Beginning of the Rest

On the eve of my birthday I was laying in bed reading People magazine, because that’s what you do when you’re 36, you read People, cover to freaking cover. See, when you turn 12 you get a subscription to Seventeen and then when you turn 20 you read Cosmo and then it’s Marie Claire around 28 and then in your mid-thirties you just say oh fuck it and read People and then I think around 50 you make the switch to Reader’s Digest except in saying that I am surely going to piss off my readers that are older than I am so slash that. When you’re 50 you don’t read at all because you can’t find your glasses. I kid, I kid. Where was I? Ah, yes, in bed reading People feeling sorry for myself for turning 36. And then feeling sorry for myself for feeling sorry for myself. And then I turned the page to an article about a little girl who has been missing and was probably murdered and just like that my 36 year old hormonal pity party ended. Feeling sorry for myself for aging is a luxury and I decided to shut the fuck up about it all. To which I am fairly certain I just heard a collective sigh of relief.

On Saturday we packed up the car and headed out to the beach in Point Reyes. For those that don’t know: Point Reyes is heaven. A peninsula protected as Point Reyes National Seashore. It looks like this:

On the drive out there Zoey feel asleep in her carseat and Bryan was driving and I had my feet up on the dashboard just sort of zoning out. And I suddenly realized: I am at peace. This is it. Peace. Long slow blinks in a warm car driving out to the beach with my family and a bag of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Peace. And I wanted to tell Bryan but I was afraid that the minute I said it the car would crash because isn’t that just the sort of thing someone says right before they die? I am at peace? So I waited but the feeling just wouldn’t go away so I said it quietly, hunching down. I am at peace, I said in a whisper. Hm, Bryan said back, and that made me happy because if it were a movie and the heroine had said that right before dying in a fiery car crash then surely her lover would have replied with something a little more final, right? His hm saved me.

Except now I just read that last paragraph and I wonder about writing it. Is this the blog entry that you will all read and re-read, wistful and dramatic, after somehow finding out a blood clot burst in my brain, killing me instantly on a nothing of a Tuesday afternoon? Killing me before I ever get to see the new 90210? Is this the blog entry you will forward to your friends with the subject line: This is so Incredibly Tragic! My life honored with a sad face emotion? If I point at it enough, the situation and the possibility of me being at peace inviting my swift demise, does that somehow render me safe? Because surely the universe wouldn’t be so hackneyed as to kill me after I posted about not only being at peace but thinking that I would die for saying that I am at peace, right? These are the thoughts that clutter my brain, this and calculating if Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter could have really given birth to the baby boy with Down's Syndrome and now be 5 months pregnant. I mean, does that work? This is the closest I get to ever really being at peace. And this is good enough for me.

Happy Birthday. ‘Tis the End of The High Holy Days and the beginining of the rest, 'til death do us part and Happily Ever After. We should all be so lucky.

Except this: Pins and Needles, I know. You are all on pins and needles waiting to find out who won the first annual Petunia Face ¡Cumpleaños Felices! Con Regalo!: the coveted fossil. It was a difficult decision, I mean what with all of you clamoring for the prize. But last night I read all of the comments and immediately disqualified my entire family from ever receiving a present from yours truly ever again and then I decided to give it to…

KristiniMartini! Come on Down!

I love love loved all of your well wishes and flattery (note to Nathan, you made my day and I am now going to walk up and down the mall hoping to run into you), but KristiniMartini was the only commenter to flat out say she wanted the fossil and that she had a place to put it. So KristiniMartini—email me where you’d like me to send it. From Agadir, Morocco to my house to yours: Happy Fossil To You!

xoxo,

Susannah at 36

¡Feliz cumpleaños! Con Giveaway!

Today is not my birthday. Tomorrow is, but tomorrow I will be at the beach with my family aging beneath the late August sun. But that is tomorrow and here we are today where I am still 35. Friday, August 29th, in the Year of our Lord 2008, and today I am commemorating my unbirthday. This post celebrates the three hundred sixty four unbirthdays I have every year in addition to the one birthday which is tomorrow.

In Spain it is tradition to buy your friends dinner on your birthday. I am not Spanish but sometimes I wish I were. In my family my mom would make sure she had a present for the child whose birthday it was not. So on January 27th my brother would blow out the candles and unwrap a mountain of gifts: one year a new Redliner bike, Atari, an adidas tracksuit another year, a Gumby doll. And then my mom would hand me my present: Pokey. My brother would be in his room playing asteroids and making the sound effects himself, beeoouuuuup, beeouppp, beeeouuuuup! Rocking the three nylon stripes and I’d be sitting there on the floor bending the legs of the little orange horse that nobody ever wanted.

Tomorrow I turn 36. Upper mid-thirties. This morning I noticed that the face lotion I use is called ACCEPT. What marketing genius thought of that brand positioning? Because oh honey, I just don’t think so. So here is your Pokey, an unbirthday giveaway. Tell me why I am not old and I will send you a real fossil. Seriously.

Hands off the nipple clamp, ma petite, you don't get the s&m.

This is an ammonite, 350 million years old, from the Devonian era, I believe. Ammonites are thought to have lived in the open water of ancient seas; this particular specimen was found in Morocco. It measures roughly 6.5” in diameter, looks stunning on a mantle and likes long walks on the beach. Plus, just by having it you will look smarter.

One year ago today I started this blog, a birthday present to myself. (You would be able to read that first post if I hadn’t deleted my own blog a few months ago, but that’s another story altogether…) I started this blog with a Langston Hughes poem:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore--And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

And here I am a year later, my dream still not yet realized but not entirely deferred anymore either. This blog has given me more than I ever thought it would: an outlet, an inspiration, a friend. You have all given me that. And so I offer this present as a way of saying thank you. Thank you for listening, for reading, for everything. Thank you for my blog. Thank you for keeping me from exploding.

Please leave me a comment (not an email! A comment in the comments section of this post) telling me why 36 years does not a fossil make. The comment that makes me laugh the hardest or convinces me that I am still 25 wins the ammonite. I will read all comments after 5pm on Monday night and will announce the winner on Tuesday. Please check back on Tuesday and if you’re the winner email me and give me your address and I’ll send you this unbirthday present. From me to you. Not a Pokey but a fossil. Don’t try to bend its legs. It doesn’t have any.

Again, thank you all. Happy Birthday, Happy UnBirthday. Just Happy.

The Born Dependency

You know in those Bourne Identity movies how Matt Damon enters a restaurant and without even looking up from his menu he can tell that there is a man inside a phone booth across the street wearing a red tie and that the man dresses himself on the left side and speaks with a German accent? Well I’m kinda’ like that except of course I only have one passport and no muscle. I have no interest in what color tie anyone is wearing at any given moment but as the adult child of an alcoholic I can tell you the mood of everyone else in the restaurant right on down to the dishwasher and whether or not he is on edge and might need some alone time.

My dad has been friends with Bill W for about 16 years. I am not supposed to write that. I think. Anonymous and all. In Health class in the 10th grade we watched an after-school special starring Martin Sheen as an alcoholic father. In the movie he drank straight from the bottle and then flew into a rage and kicked the patio furniture into the swimming pool. We had a pool but no plastic patio furniture so I was in the clear and spent the class writing notes to my friend Tawna. Are you and Jason going to do it? Priorities. At night the lamps in my house would be dimmed and my dad would disappear into his office with a glass of cognac and some pot. My mom would have to remind my brother and I to turn down the tv. Our house was quiet and we all spent the evening in our respective bedrooms.

Bryan does not know how to read moods. He has muscle but only one passport like myself and he cannot ever tell when I want to be left alone. Is that Halle Berry? He leans over my shoulder when I am at the computer looking at a photo of Kim Kardashian’s butt. No, I say, the lights around me dim. Are you sure? he asks. Bryan’s mother does not know Bill W., nor does she need to meet his acquaintance. And so Bryan leans down farther into my personal space and I can feel my chest tightening.

Zoey is not a morning person. Nor is she a 4pm person. Or a person who takes the tear in a Hello Kitty sticker in stride. She does not like hair in her face or cheese in her eggs. She does not take kindly to whistling. Instinctively I know these things, not just because I am her mother but because I am codependent, hypervigilant to any change in the air around me. She hates me, Bryan says sometimes and of course he is wrong. It’s just that he is healthy and cannot tell that when she sits in that corner of the couch with her sippy cup tilted at an angle just so that it all means to give her some space. And me? I know because I am an al-anon action hero, a codependent CIA operative who will forever study the menu feeling the mood.

p.s. True to my codependent label I must make it clear that my dad is now sober, has made his amends. He is a wonderful father and nothing like Martin Sheen. And I am nothing like Matt Damon. Although Bryan is very much like Franka Potente. Scheiße Manni!

Community

The blogosphere is abuzz today with warm fuzzies and community...

For those of you that are not familiar with the Nienie Dialogues, Stephanie is a fellow blogger who, last month, was in a plane crash with her husband, Christian. Read about the accident and their recovery here and here.

I have posted a donation button to the right. Feel free to push it!

Or bid on one of the blogagillions of auctions taking place today all over the www, the proceeds of which will go toward the recovery and their children.
Lots of great stuff for an even better cause. Thank you.

Not So Happy Hump Day

Sad sad news from SF this morning. Del Martin, a pioneering lesbian rights activist who with her lifelong partner became a symbol for the movement to legalize gay marriage, died Wednesday morning. She was 87.

I don't know why this hits me so hard. I didn't know her. I am not gay. But something about the story of these two women... Bryan and I got married beneath the domed ceiling of San Francisco's City Hall. I know what it is to love someone with such ferocity, but I don't know what it is for the world to not accept it.

The best way to honor her life is to continue to support equality for all.

My thoughts go out to Phyllis Lyon and their friends and family.

Love,
Susannah

Happy Hump Day! The Sexy People Edition.

Mostly I find humanity disgusting, all those mustaches and guts, sweat, sebum, bad tee shirts and toenails grown too long. But every now and then I see something that does not even begin to apologize for itself and it is then that I find humanity endearing, the ugliness of the human race forging on with a grimace against a sponge-painted backdrop and crystalline skies.

Meet Pretty People, a website dedicated to the perfect portrait. Last night I spent much too long picking out my favorites…

Royal Aspirations.

Cousins.

A suggestive wedding portrait. With lace.

Oh. Oh dear.

Oh dear, male.

And lest you think I am being a snob, well, okay, fine. I am being a snob but I am a snob that harbors my own perfect portrait gone hideously awry, so there. Or here. Yes, here, behold:

Channeling Kenny Loggins and Loretta Lynn...

There is no explanation, just this: this gem was taken years ago before Bryan and I got married. Bryan’s mom had taken the whole family plus me to one of those portrait studios in the bad mall, you know, the mall with the Hot Topic store and the teenagers battling cystic acne? The photographer was 18 and wore an elf hat and for what seemed like eternity she posed us in clusters calling out, okay now big sister get behind big brother, put your hands on his shoulders! And smile! Remember you love big brother! And oh how I wanted to freak out the little elf and turn my big brother Bry around by his shoulders and make out with him, tongue and all. Perhaps this would not have surprised her much. Perhaps she had seen much worse in her gig as photog to the stars of the bad mall. Perhaps she would have kept on shooting, a chain store Diane Arbus who recognizes that all of society is a franchised fringe.

Something tells me that Diane Arbus wouldn't have swallowed handfuls of barbituates and slashed her wrists if she had access to Sexy People. Because I'm telling you, seeing all of these photos with feathered hair and parasols? Something about it, well, it just redeems humanity in all its pathetic glory.

Happy Hump Day!

A Nothing That (S)He Knew Too Well

I tried very hard not to post today. Because I have nothing to say. Really. I drove to work thinking hm, self, maybe something interesting will happen on the way in that I can write about, but nope. Nothing. Then I sat at my desk and waiting some more for something to happen. And guess what? Soon it was noon and nothing had happened. Then I got hungry and went out to lunch when usually I just sit at my desk and eat some chips from the vending machine, but no, today I went out, hoping that something might happen that I could post for you. I bought dos tostada verduras with corn y zucchini and still--nothing happened. I even addressed the cashier by name thinking that might spark something. Gracias Jerry, I said eyeing his nametag, only I pronounced it Hairy on account of it being a Mexican restaurant and all, but nada. He didn't even correct me. Incidentally, you owe me $13.50 for the tostadas. Less the .85 cents I usually spend on the chips so I suppose that makes it $12.65 but if you factor in gas money it's probably more like $43 so I'm giving you a deal when I say it was $13.50. I'm good like that.

It is now 2:57pm and still nothing has happened. Most people would see this as a sign not to post but me? I'm afraid of not posting. I know myself. In my lifetime I have joined at least a dozen gyms and worked out maybe 4 times. Because the minute I tell myself self, just do it tomorrow, it's okay, then tomorrow becomes the next day and at the end of the year I have shelled out $1500 for a gym I've never gone to. I know myself and tomorrow is the gateway drug to never.

So here you go. A post about nothing without the benefit of a Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Am I going to lose readers with posts such as this? Maybe. But I'm telling you, I know myself (which is why I call myself self when I talk to myself) and it's either this or a year from now while I'm cleaning out my closet I find a never-before-worn pair of Reeboks and suddenly remember that once upon a time I had a blog called Petunia Face and you, that once upon a time I gave us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada, Amen Senor Hemingway.

Now on the off-chance this is not enough for you, like maybe you want your money back even though this blog is free, then I leave you with this:


Because as we all know (and because bumpers stickers are never ever wrong) even though nothing happened and I have nada to post, shit is a sure thing, sure as shit, and shit? Well shit always happens.

Boom Chicka Bow Wow (That's Porn Music for Those Who Don't Recognize the Sultry Strains)

Yesterday my finger slipped into my cat. Yes, you read that correctly. MY FINGER SLIPPED INTO MY CAT. Unfortunately, this is not a pornographic post and I am not trying to coyly say my finger slipped into my pussy, because really? Can anyone ever be coy in saying that? No, quite literally, yesterday afternoon we were out on our deck eating brie and apples (which I don’t think they do even in le porno français filme) and I leaned over to pick up Nacho and my finger slipped into a gaping wound on his belly. MY FINGER. GAPING WOUND. INSIDE. MOIST. GAAAH!!!

I am much more comfortable making off color jokes about porn and pussy, even slits, the worst slang in the history of pooty tang, because the memory of picking up Nacho and feeling that, that… that slit in his belly… I am pretty sure something inside of me was irrevocably changed in that split second when I felt the innards of my cat.

So you will please pardon my loopiness today. We took Nacho to the Emergency Pet Hospital where he underwent surgery and I underwent writing a check for $800. The vet put Nacho under, shaved his belly and stitched up two large lacerations then sent us home with a drugged up cat wearing an Elizabethan collar. For the rest of the night I had to listen as my proud Abyssinian alpha-male fell over from the sheer tilt of the planet, as he skittered his kibble across the laundry room trying to force his coned head into the small bowl, as he fell off the side of our bed with a thud and then decided to just lay on my robe there on the floor, his head at an angle sheathed in plastic, his eyes big and dark, simultaneously panicked and dopey. I did not sleep at all.

And then this morning I had to protect him from Zoey who very much wanted to paste a SpongeBob band-aid or two or twelve onto his freshly stapled belly.

My poor Mr. Man, King of the Meeps, Bat Ears and Snakes. What have they done to your dignity? If I ever find out which neighborhood cat did this to you, rest assured, I will kick its ass and then let Zoey at him, a stack of Dora stickers in one hand, a glittery glue stick in the other. We've got your back, Nachinator, now you go rock that cone like it 'aint nobody's business. My shaved pussy will grow back and the slit will heal, and in the meantime, my apologies to all the randy men who found this post by typing words into a search engine with one hand. Just remember:

Voted Most Likely to Waste More Time

It's Friday and today I am voting myself Most Likely to Waste Time. Why, you ask? Okay, so maybe you didn't ask but here I am in Homeroom writing notes to you anyway. Doesn't Rachel look like a total skank today? Check this box for yes, this box for no. And then go check out this website to waste some time with me. Yearbook Yourself and find out what you would've looked like in high school from 1950 to 2000. It's peachy keen, groovy, bitchin.' Ah, here we go...

1964In 1964 my given name is still Susannah, of course, but people call me Dee on account of my Devilish side: you know, sometimes I say H, E, double hockey sticks and at the Homecoming Dance I let Ricky touch my boob. I think. I couldn't really feel anything what with the thick padded missile bra I wear in 1964. But he touched my boob and told his friends and then I was Dee.

1966

In 1966 I smoke Pall Malls and think I am going to meet and marry Dobie Gillis. I carry around a tattered copy of Kerouac's "On the Road" even though I have never read it. I don't know this yet but in one year I will be a freshman at the University of Kansas where I will have an affair with my married Philosophy instructor. He will open up my mind to Nietzsche and pot and leave me one rainy Saturday morning in a motel room in Wisconsin while I am still asleep.

1976 In 1976 I make people call me Stan. I dress in men's clothes and think Ziggy Stardust is God.

1982

Oh dear. In 1982 I have severe acne on my forehead but convince myself this hairstyle not only covers it up but looks rad. I dot all my i's with hearts and am constantly nursing a terrible yeast infection caused by Chemin de Fer jeans worn much too tight. They zip at the ankle.

1984
In 1984 I identify with Miss Piggy. I spend my lunch hours making school spirit signs in the hallway. Friday Pajama Day! Remember to Vote 4 Your King and Queen! When nobody is looking I huff away at the nib of all the pens and go to class lightheaded and sad, purple ink smudged at the tip of my nostrils.

1990 In 1990 I actually did graduate from high school. I looked nothing like this. However, I did wear vests with cut-off jeans and really wanted to be Emma from Kate and Allie.

Okay, that's it for now. The bells about to ring! Ta Ta For Now!

p.s. Do these bangs make my ass look fat?