You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2008.
Steve has the day off so we’re spending time together. One must plan these things for a healthy relationship. That’s my advice today — schedule time to see each other. Commit to having sex X amount of times per week. Two bits of advice.
I’m up on Bookslut.
And I’m up on Culinate.
See? I’m not really gone today.
Okay, fingers crossed that I get lucky…
I’ve written about social networking websites a few times on my blog. Basically, I don’t get them. And to catch up my new readers, I’m not on Face Book or MySpace because I just don’t get it. I am on Linked In (where I have one friend) and Twitter (which I haven’t updated in a month) and Good Reads (which I might firebomb because I find the cliquishness to be repellent but I can’t exactly delete myself from a social website about books, for obvious reasons) and Ravelry (a knitting social network site!). And if you want to social network with me on any of these things, I’m always Melissa Lion or melissalion. By the way, my .mac email address is about to expire, so if you have that email, drop me a line so I can tell you my new address.
I do, however, have an alter ego on Face Book because while I did not want my own name on there, I wanted do a wee bit of cyber stalking. But as it goes with me and social networking sites, I sat down to do my cyber stalking only to enter a name and not find the person, and then I gave up, preferring that reliable stalking workhorse — Google. Truth is, I just can’t sort through three zillion Persian boys looking for the one I want to stalk.
But yesterday I was cyber stalking reading my ex-husband’s blog and one of his commenters — another Melissa (how many of us does he know?!?) said something like, oooooh look how hottttt you’re Facebook pge is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, she said hey, look how great you look. I just like to act like everyone on Face Book communicates with the inappropriate amount of vowels, consonants and punctuation marks. And the incorrect version of your. Your = possessive. You’re = You are. And while I’m at it: its = possessive. It’s = it is. Whose= possessive. Who’s = who is.
So as fast as my comcast cable internet would take me, I leaped over to Face Book to check out the profile. I logged in as my alter ego and had to deep breathe as I tried to hunt him down. It took me three searches and several trips to other blogs before I could muster up the patience to scroll through the people who came up. And why the fuck can’t you add descriptive words to the search? Like surf and boards and surfboards? Because that would really help speed up my cyber stalking.
I found him and clicked on his profile, but you have to be friends to see his pictures. What the hell? I could see his friends, including his girlfriend who has no picture but an image of a shiksa or a shiva or whatever that Indian lady with the 75 arms is called. How do I know she’s his girlfriend? Well, because he was interviewed for his local paper and he mentioned her first name, which I then took to Google and searched with their town and because Google is way more awesome than any networking website, I found her last name too. And the college she graduated from. Spoooooky.
You know, all I was looking for was a picture of her and of him and of their house and of their couch because he took our awesome tiki couch and half of my Fiestaware and hey, RL, do you have it? Are you using it? I hope so, because if you gave that stuff away because you moved to a different country, well, then I’ll be slightly mad, but not mad enough to actually feel any anger because there are other things that I spend time dwelling on like my general anger at inflatable things and people leaving white paper on dashboards.
Anyway, I’d thought I’d hit picture pay dirt with Face Book and I. DID. NOT.
So here’s my point. What the hell good is Face Book if I can’t use it to spy on people?
Oh, and I know I need a Face Book page because I’m an author or something. And my super-cool project needs a Face Book page because we’re cool and all about networking. But my super cool project has a goodreads page. Why can’t that be enough? Why do I need to be on a website populated by college students named Hot Margarita, and Sexxy Bitch. I blame the dumbing down of America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This one was taken at 6:48am. I’m trying to decide what to call these things — The 6:55 Chronicles, or maybe The Happy Feet Diaries. PSA’s: Melissa Lion’s Message to the World? Who knows.
And to Joe in Vegas – yes, the mug is from Starbucks. It has Alaska on it. It is so good to drink tea from.
And to Ride — thanks for the lawnmower info. I have no idea what you were saying.
This video is for the boyz.
Here’s our lovely lawn. Steve’s been working on it. Can you see that center strip where it’s been mowed and the outside area where it hasn’t been mowed in more than eight months. What happened is, we bought a lawn mower for $25. For my long-time blog readers, you’ll remember two days ago when I said we were getting one from Craigslist for $35. (I need to remind my core blog readers of these things because, to the reader, they’re all alcoholics and pill poppers and who fucking knows what they remember from one day to the next. They’ll forget I wrote this shortly, too.)
So what happened was, Steve went to the outer reaches of Portland and bought a lawn mower from a large black man called Leslie. Why did I insert Leslie’s race? Well, because Steve is a tiny white boy from ‘burbs and picturing Steve driving his little Toyota corolla with the California plates to the outskirts of Portland to meet a huge black guy named Leslie both tickled me and scared me all at once.
Steve gets there and pays for the mower with two cigarettes, some dirty playing cards and a shiv with two twenties because the mower was $35. Leslie gives him back a five and a roll of quarters. Steve leaves with the lawnmower and comes home exultant because he got a deal on the lawnmower.
And because we’re both cheap and any deals we can score we celebrate with beer and sexual intercourse.
And then Leslie called him and left a message saying he gave Steve back the wrong change. I don’t know how you hand someone a roll of quarters and not do it intentionally, but whatever. Steve doesn’t call him back because WE GOT A DEAL!
And then Steve tries to mow the lawn for the first time. He gets two stripes done and the mower dies. Not to be revived. But the next day, he is able to start it and mow another stripe and then it dies. And finally, yesterday, one more stripe is cut, but the mower dies again. Why does it do this? Is this a common lawn mower problem? It’s been raining here in Portland for 75 months, so maybe our grass is too wet? Little help here, readers.
Steve called Leslie back and said, “I’ll bring you back the roll of quarters, but I was hoping you could give me some advice on keeping the mower running.” And Leslie hasn’t called back. Now who’s the chump, Leslie? Who’s my bitch?!? Say my name!
Oh, and to the guy who left me a comment about his podcast about lawnmowers and how I should listen to it because I just bought a lawnmower for $35, please understand that unless your podcast is sponsored by the Melissa Lion fan club, and instead of lawnmowers, you’re going to talk about Melissa Lion and how everyone should buy my books and editors across the country should call me to write book reviews for which they’ll pay me a million dollars per review, well, then I’m not going to accept your comment. So don’t leave one today. Unless the previously mentioned conditions are met.
This blog post is dedicated to Surviving Myself who wants to hear me speak and to Kiala Krazybee — my muse.
Recovering Straight Girl posted today about going to hang out with the Governor of Oregon. Because RSG is a lezzie a writer, she hasn’t worn tights or pantyhose for many moons and has forgotten, I’m sure happily, what the rules are to this plain oppression of women fashion choice. So I reminded her about the perils of tights and pantyhose and she was a little at a loss because when you meet the Governor, you need to look proper. For me, as a Californian, that means rolling up in a Hummer and transforming into a robot when shit pisses me off. For Oregonians, that means dressing nicely.
I gave her some advice on the matter: get cotton tights and don’t wear panties. And then she included my advice in her blog post. But she didn’t say why, because boys read her blog. Well, boys read my blog too. Well, they are manly men who aren’t afraid of the truth and the functions of women’s bodies. Anyway, her readers are confused about tights and panties. And my male readers are strong, masculine men who are fearless.
So I filmed my response.
I have no idea. No, I do know. I was busy whoring myself out on the metaphorical street corner that is being a freelance writer. And I was working on a super-secret project that I’m totally stoked on. It will be revealed very soon.
It’s so funny about freelancing because the more I stand around and look like a slut, the more people want to give me money. I love that, because looking like a slut comes naturally to me. Neon blue lycra is my color — I’m a winter.
The internet does not love me right now. Someone in my household decided to reset the router and now we have no wifi. So I’m on Metrofi, which is Portland’s free city-wide internet. Just like dial-up, baby. I don’t want to say who the person is who reset the router, but I will say that it was not the person who hacked the computers so badly, I believe I can see slash marks in the covers. I’ll leave you to puzzle through that one. And I’ll add that there is no hacking happening in this house. No. Not ever. Why the hell would we hack our own computers?!?
I also shot a video about our lawn to show you how ghetto it is. And then I tried to upload it to Vimeo and it said it would take an hour and a half and I said, “Fuck that noise.” That was before I was slumming on Metrofi. Basically the lawn video went like this:
(And keep in mind, the only screenplay I’ve ever written, was actually formatted by Steve and a computer program that I don’t know how to use.)
EXT. MORNING. PANNING AN OVERGROWN, WEEDY (and not in a good way) LAWN RIDDLED WITH DANDELIONS AND UNEVEN GRASS UP TO THE FILM MAKER’S ANKLES.
Voice over: This is what happens when the Southern Californians move to town. Because when you grow up in Southern California, your rich parents hire Mexicans to do this sort of thing. But Steve and I (without our rich parents) don’t have enough money to buy a Mexican, and we don’t know shit about lawns or house maintenance, so this is what our lawn looks like. And the neighbors are embarrassed. [PANNING TO NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR'S PERFECTLY MANICURED LAWN] The male of the house next door spent his Sunday mowing the lawn. Apparently, this is what men do. He is also replacing the flooring and sanding down the walls, and he came over and rewired our thermostat. He’s pretty manly, but I like to believe he’s not in touch with his feelings. And he’d never, ever strip to Kelly Clarkson’s Miss Independent when I was feeling blue or hungover, which is something Steve always does for me. And most of the time, this is enough manliness to make me feel like a red-blooded straight woman in love with a MAN. However, the lawn is embarrassing me now and no amount of Kelly Clarkson can take away the fact that I feel like the neighbors are peeking out their drapes and tsk tsking me. Normally I know they’re tsk tsking me for hooking on the street corner and feeding my kid KRAFT macaroni and cheese, and I’m okay with that. But the lawn is another thing. The lawn is something I can control.
[END SCENE]
And now Steve is out in SE Portland somewhere buying a used lawnmower for $35. Yes, we have lived in this house for eight months and have not touched the lawn. Have I mentioned that Steve is half Mexican and from now on, until we have enough money to purchase a full Mexican, he’ll be tapping into that long-dormant, manual labor side of his heritage.
That’s my empty bowl after I ate canned soup for lunch because I couldn’t get it together to do anything else. I heated it up on the stove, and not in the microwave because if I had used the microwave and taken a nap in the middle of the day and I was still in my yoga pants and robe and I haven’t answered my phone for the ten two people who have called because I was up last night with Arch as he coughed his baby way to lung cancer, well, the microwave part would have just pushed me over the edge into complete despair. So I heated it up on the stove. And promised myself I’d eat just half the can. And then I ate all of it. With two tortillas with butter. Because I’m cold. Very cold.
I did turn in two stories today. And I have a few more I’m working on, so it’s not like I’m a total lazy waste of a human.
And I’ve had all this free time lately. Like Steve and I go to bed at the same time. And we see each other when he gets home from work. And I keep thinking, oh my god, what is all of this? How did this happen? What am I forgetting. And then I remember what I’m forgetting: I’m not working on my novel. Because it’s finished and my editor has it.
And then I remembered, I have a book I need to finish. My adult book. My beautiful, sexxxy adult novel. Oh god I love this thing. So I’m going back to it. To finish it and to sell it for a lot of money because it is that good.
That’s all that’s going on with me. Because today is Steve’s Friday and I’m at the barest minimum in terms of humanity. A quick story that sums up my mental state: I found a huge thing of snot on my shirt and I have no idea whose it is — mine or Arch’s — and so I just sort dabbed at it and left my shirt on. Because who cares?!?
I’m a shell of a woman.
To my adult book!
Here’s a sweater I finished yesterday. It’s the puff sleeved feminine cardigan from Stephanie Japel’s Fitted Knits. I used cotton wool yarn, instead of all wool. I did this because I had enough cotton wool in my stash and because I don’t want to wear a short-sleeve sweater that’s all wool. The problem is the cotton wool doesn’t have the stiffness of all wool so now the sweater fits me sort of weird, hence the prop in the picture. Look at the lemon, not at the sweater that makes me look like I have no waist. OMG, I almost used a lower case I instead of an upper case I. I have to say that using lower case i’s on the internet makes me batty. Please people, there’s a shift key. Use it.
Is that enough of a blog post for today, gentle reader? I can’t really do much more because I went lezzie dancing last night with the RSG and her HG. We went to Crush, which is a general homo bar where the gays and the lezzies co-mingle. And then we went to the Egyptian Room where it’s lezzies and more lezzies and more lezzies.
I had written a whole thing about the Egyptian Room here where I said the Egyptian Room specializes in lezzies of the bull variety but I realize that might be offensive, so instead here’s a sample of two of my conversations at the Egyptian Room.
RSG: Are you scared?
Me: Yes.
*later*
Me: I need to pee.
HG: Are you scared?
Me: Yes.
RSG: I’ll go with you.
Me: Thank you.
I did some karaoke. I did She Bop. Except I sucked at it because I had no memory of how that song went and I thought I’d do it because there was only so much Melissa Ethridge and Creed karaoke I could take. RSG did a song too and let me say, that girl knows how to sing. And do karaoke. I danced for her because that’s what lezzies do, I think.
RSG and I danced a bit and then when we were leaving, they said I’d passed some sort of lezzie test and now we can go to the lezzie bars where there are more women and less womyn, if you catch my drift.
I would like to add that I have no idea why the RSG and the HG hang out with me, but I’m glad they do because I have a blast. Even if they do not, but rather become exhausted by my constant questions about the homosexual lifestyle.
I came home at about 1:30. I filled Steve in on my lezzie antics. And then I went to sleep. Archer got up at 4. And now I’m tired. I’m sorry if this post sucked. But I’m in that moment of exhaustion and post-alcoholic depression where anything I say or do will fill me with dread and anxiety.
A few days ago I posted about how suck-tacular Portland drivers are. And I felt like there was a wee bit of blowback and disbelief about Portland drivers from my readers. From Nels (who I still worship because he thinks I’m famous) who thinks I need to chill out behind the wheel, to Qanzas (who I love because he’s gay and living in Kansas and that, in my book, deserves my love) who didn’t believe people would actually abide a law that says one needs to wait for the pedestrians to leave the crosswalk before hitting the gas.
Well, here’s proof that Portland drivers suck ass, except I realize it’s not proof at all, but rather a photo taken a minute after the situation would have made it proof.
Whatever. Here’s what happened. See that hippie in the Volvo station wagon? (Frankly, I’m surprised it wasn’t a Subaru station wagon because shitty Portland drivers love those cars.) The person in the Volvo decided to stop on a green light because there was someone on the corner waiting to walk in the crosswalk. Stopped on a green light to let someone pass.
It reminds me of graduate school when I co-taught a class on Post-modernism and we were reading some Gertrude Stein or Michael Palmer or Walter Benjamin (did you catch all that — I’m smart enough to halfway teach some kids to bullshit their way through a bunch of people who make no sense) and this guy who was a graduate student too (but not a co-teacher like I was, so he can go suck it) said, “There are no rules to this stuff, you just write what you want to write and that’s it.” And the other teacher, who actually knew about this stuff said, “You’re an idiot. There are rules to it and if there were no rules, then there’d just be chaos and what if there were no rules on the roads. We’d all run into each other and people would die.” And then I hit my head against the wall because I wanted to co-teach Creative Writing and not Post-modernism because Post-modernism is a load of shit. But I did have a huge crush on the other teacher because he was actually a journalist and he had a swing and a tree growing in his apartment and he let me open his mail, some of which was from Courtney Love. And then we got stoned and graded papers on Post-modernism, which just about sums up that semester.
Back to driving. There are rules on the road, and when hippies in station wagons (Volvo or Subaru) don’t follow them, I need to honk, and then Archer needs to shout, “FUCK” from the backseat, because he understands the gravity of someone stopping on a green light to let a pedestrian cross.
After my prolonged honking and my toddler’s cursing, the guy waved his hand to me and to the pedestrian. And the motion was like, “hey you stupid bitch, there’s a guy on the corner and he wants to cross, don’t you see him.”
And I honked more and my honking said, “Hey fuckhead, I’m going to vote for Bush and kick some poor people off welfare and personally drop a few bombs on oil rich countries, because you’re driving like a mother fucking douchebag.”
The pedestrian didn’t cross because he was a smart human being who realized that, like Post-modernism, Portland drivers need to take their pedestrians-are-the-most-important-people-on-the-road attitude, and shove up their rear ends.
And finally, the Volvo begrudgingly went.
And I drove behind him cursing the fact that I carry no baseball bat in my car and that violence is bad for kids to see and WAIT, I have my camera in my car and the only way I can properly violate this guy is take a picture of his car and post it on my blog. And because I’m pretty sure most of Portland reads my blog, if that is your car and you were on Broadway yesterday around noon, send me an email, because we’ve got some issues to work out and that involves my foot up your ass for driving like an idiot.
In other news: Archer got his cast off yesterday! YAY!
Gentle reader, I’ve written two articles in the past two days. One was a food story, one a book review. I love writing food stuff, don’t get me wrong and I’m a total writing whore, which means I’ll write pretty much whatever a person wants to pay me for. So, send more food stuff! But, the book review took me all of an hour. No hives, no hair falling out. I just sat down and wrote it. So, send more book reviews too please.
Let the blogging begin.
I grew up without religion. To this day, I’ve never been to a church service that wasn’t a wedding or a funeral. The last funeral I went to was for my great grandmother. Suddenly people started standing up and kneeling and repeating things back to the guy in the robes up front and I had to turn to my cousin and ask what was happening.
Me: What the hell is all of this.
Cousin: It’s a service.
Me: Duh. I totally went to a wedding last year. But what’s up with all the kneeling.
Cousin: What are you asking?
Me: I mean why is everyone repeating things back to the guy in the front.
Cousin: This is a Catholic ceremony.
Me: Our family is Catholic?
Steve went to Catholic school for eight years where he developed a healthy hatred of all things nun and nun-like. Needless to say, Arch won’t be getting baptized anytime soon.
Yesterday on our walk, Steve said, “You had a typo on your blog.” Typos are the bane of my existence.
Me: Tell me something I don’t know.
Steve: You said there were popes on the baseball field. Like there’s more than one pope.
Me: There is more than one. They were all there on the baseball field in their pope hats and coats.
Steve: There’s just one pope. That’s why they call him THE pope.
Me: I know what I saw.
Steve then explained to me, again, that there was only one pope but because I’m a modern-day girl, I see all professions in terms of their potential to make me a star.
Me: You know, if I were a priest, I’d feel pretty bad that I had no to hope to be the pope. HA! I rhymed, did you hear me honey? See how clever I am!?!
Steve: Yes, but I think if you’re a priest, you’re just happy to be a priest and you don’t necessarily want to be the pope.
And then there might have been some talk about popes getting their gratification from touching little boys. Surviving Myself has a funnier joke about priests and little boys today so go visit him for the funny that belongs in this spot.
Me: Well, if they want to keep their priest quotas up, they need to make more popes. Like one pope per country.
Steve: They can’t do that because the pope lives at the Vatican.
Me: They should build Vaticans for the new popes.
Steve: They can’t. The Vatican is in Vatican City.
Me: Well, they can make more Vatican Cities. It would be like Disney and all the different Disneylands and worlds and Euros.
Steve: Well, if they’re going to make a pope of Disneyland, I’m going to be the pope of Tomorrowland.
And here’s where things got sticky because Steve has spent a lot of time at Disneyland and I have not. This combined with his eight years of Catholic school made this conversation really lopsided and not in my favor.
Steve: And you can be the pope of Bear Country Jamboree! Ha! You’re the pope of Bear Country Jamboree!
Me: I don’t want that.
Steve: No you are that because I’m the Pope of Tomorrowland and what I say goes.
Me: No, I’m the pope of whatever that area is called with the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Steve: New Orleans Square? You want to be the pope of New Orleans Square?
Me: I don’t know. I mean, I hate that stupid Carnation Pavilion where no one dances.
Steve: Well, how about this, you can be the pope of all of Bear Country.
Me: How about I’m the pope of Space Mountain.
Steve: No, I’m the pope of Tomorrowland, and Space Mountain is in my realm.
Me: Well, I guess if I were the pope of Bear Country, I can rule over those lemon slushees that are so good.
Steve: Shyah. And I get to rule over the rocket launchers.
Me: I smite you.
Steve: What, with your fuzzy bear paw scepter? Well, I smite you with laser beams.
Me: Bears paws are stronger than laser beams.
Steve: They aren’t.
Me: They are.
Steve: They aren’t.
Me: Hey, I wrote a book about Alaska. I know this stuff.
Steve: Well, I’m the pope of Tomorrowland.
And then we were silent because he understood that I was right and that bear paw scepters are stronger than laser beams and being the pope of Bear Country Jamboree is AWESOME and I am the ruler of all things animatronic and Ursidae.
And it is so. Because it is published on the internet.
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