Dead Girls Don’t Dance

Now I’ve done it. I’ve gone and taken up making jewelry, as if we NEED any more craft, hobby, and art supplies taking up space in this tiny little bungalow. Here’s my first attempt at my newest non-kid friendly hobby:

I decided to keep it simple, for the first piece. It has a certain understated elegance, I believe. You can’t really tell in the picture, but the beads are aren’t black, they’re dark metallic grey, aside from the little silver spacers. And yes, that’s my very own big fat neck.
(edit) Not a clavicle in sight. I always HATED having those bones poking out when I was a scrawny teenager with no boobs, and now it’s stylish? Fuckers. But I digress.

“What’s so non-kid friendly about stringing beads?” you might ask. “Don’t kids do that in crafts in kindergarten?” I’ll tell you. It’s dangerous because I’m doing it. It’s enjoyable, but far too easy. Playing with shiny pretty things until you like the arrangement, and then putting them on a string is fun, but I need more of a challenge. One little necklace, and I’m already contemplating making my own beads, and that will almost certainly involve toxic chemicals, hot things, and sharp things. Had I only thought of it at the time, I would have added hobbies as a reason to not have kids.

This house is full of potentially dangerous stuff; crazy people, paint, glue, solvents, varnish, heat guns, hot glue guns, staple guns, nail guns, and a crucible for melting soft metal. There are shiny colorful things small enough for a rugrat to swallow, and sewing pins, knitting needles, and other sharp implements of every description. Did I mention crazy people?

It’s all I can do to keep my kitties away from hazardous items, but fortunately they generally have enough sense to leave the shit alone.

Well, not always Renfield, the Amazing Retard-O-Matic. He occasionally eats a scrap of yarn, for some incomprehensible retarded cat reason, and later horrifies me by waddling around with a bit of poop-covered string dangling from his asshole. I have more than once been forced to put on a rubber glove and pull a foreign object out of his butt, and trust me, it’s not pleasant for either of us. Just be grateful I don’t have a photo.

Anyway, I have yet another new hobby besides pulling poopy yarn out of my stupid cat’s ass, and I can make a wider variety of nice but inexpensive (and non-poop-coated) gifts for my friends and loved ones… if I can keep any friends after I accidentally poison their kids while they’re visiting.

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Goddamn flu. Why the HELL am I spending so much money on vitamins, anyway?? Stupid vitamins. What I need is a HEPA mask, and a gallon jug of hand sanitizer strapped to my chest.

I wash my hands a lot. I take vitamins. I eat vegetables. I don’t kiss random strangers with runny noses. So why am I sick? Not fair, dammit!

Thursday, one of the night guys called work (sounding like he was hacking up a lung) to say he couldn’t come in. One of the day shift guys was pale, baggy-eyed, and obviously unwell. He left early, and didn’t show up at all Friday. I felt fine.

Fast forward to yesterday morning… breakfast and a quickie. I was sweaty and shaking, which is normal… but then I ran away and threw up, which rather insulted The Light of My Existence.

It later turned out I had a temperature of 102. I still do, and I feel cold, even though the house is nice and warm. I hurt all over, my eyes feel like boiled eggs, and it feels like an invisible sadist sandblasted my sinuses while I was sleeping.

I ended up calling in sick to work today, myself. Coughing and sneezing all over a restaurant just didn’t seem like a good idea. It’s just as well I stayed home, because I got the Hershey squirts right around the what would be the middle of the lunch rush. Yecchhh. I slept most of the day, today (highly unusual) and I hope I’m not still contagious if I feel better tomorrow. I’m going back to bed, now. AGAIN. Well, not bed, really. I’m sleeping on the couch… I can’t breathe lying down. Great, I’m turning into the Elephant Man.

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Valentine’s Day is pretty much a wash around here. That’s partly because my beloved and I just aren’t sweet, mushy people, but mostly because Valentine’s Day is a steaming heap of over-commercialized crap. (Just like Christmas, only with most of the pressure on men.)

It’s just plain WRONG to make people feel that they don’t deserve to be loved unless they spend boatloads of money on useless rubbish, particularly when you consider the multitude of perfectly valid OTHER reasons for not loving them. If you are unloved because you’re a stupid jerk, you’re doing yourself a disservice by thinking it must be because you didn’t buy somebody that diamond tennis bracelet.

Despite all of this, and the sheer annoyance of being visually assaulted by cutesy pink fuzzy-wuzzy things every time I walked into the grocery store, drug store, or damn near any other store for the last two weeks, I didn’t see any reason not to try to squeeze a little fun out of this bullshit Hallmark holiday.

A few days ago, I spotted big bags of steamed lobster claws in the seafood department at the neighborhood grocery. They NEVER have lobster at this stupid store except around Valentine’s Day, because this part of town is not exactly a high-end market where people just simply decide to have lobster for dinner for no special reason.

So I said to my dear darling, “Hey, how about we get some of those and have a romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day?”

“Valentine’s Day is stupid. But lobster DOES sound good. Let’s get the other stuff and come back if we’ve got enough money.”

“You’re about as romantic as a plantar wart, you know that?”

We didn’t get the lobster then, but I decided yesterday to grab some if they still had any. And they did. So I bought it, and also blew two bucks on a card with a mildly dirty joke in it, and another dollar for a pair of novelty dice.

Bonehead didn’t come home, though. I signed the card and left it on the computer keyboard to make sure he’d find it, and started tucking into the lobster claws without him. In front of the TV.

When he finally showed up, I was curled up, almost purring, on the couch. He tossed a heart-shaped box of chocolates into my lap and headed for the computer without kissing me, because I had butter all over my face.

“Whumpph oo bmmphh?” I called out, spraying the box with garlic bread crumbs. (We are not only unromantic, we’re also getting disgracefully rude.)

“WHAT?!?” he shouted from another room.

“I said, where’ve you been?”

“Over at Stevie’s,” he called back. Stevie is one of his friends.

“How did Pam feel about that? It IS Valentine’s Day, you know.” Pam is Stevie’s live-in girlfriend.

“She didn’t care. I think they already did something.” Pam and Stevie are about as mushy and sentimental as we are.

“Want some lobster claws?” Please say no…

“I’m not hungry, maybe later.” SCORE! I continued to stuff my face, and then a few moments later I heard him laugh.

“Find your card?”

“Yeah. Cute.” Here’s what the card said: (Outside) “I don’t need a special holiday to tell you how much I love you.” (Inside) “But, if it leads to having SEX… Happy Valentine’s Day! Merry Christmas! Happy Halloween! Happy Thanksgiving! Happy St. Patty’s Day! Happy July 4th! Happy Memorial Day!”

That pretty much sums the whole thing up, don’t you think?

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Love isn’t just for Valentine’s Day. I pass by this every day on my way to work.

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I actually got a blogging award. It’s my first internet award in over ten years. (I got a couple of awards for a web site I did for a newspaper I worked at in New Mexico, but it doesn’t matter, that site has long been revamped since I moved back to my home state.) But I’m a bit new at this whole blogging thing, so I’m fairly amazed.

Apparently, the illustrious Cookiebitch thinks I could get good at this, but I’m not certain I actually deserve an AWARD. As I said to Cookie in an email, I’m not sure if I should be pleased with myself, or go outside and step on the rake so it will fly up and whack this silly smile off my face.

At any rate, since I have been given an award, I will try harder to deserve it. This may involve saving up for a laptop; I have a hard time getting to the (only) computer since That Man That I Don’t Kill For Clogging The Bathroom Sink With Ponytail Holders Because He Has A Really Great Ass has become addicted to an MMORPG.

I’m also going to have to change the theme on the site again… as much as I like the current one, it’s not really what I want. Darkly pretty is nice, but it just doesn’t suit my writing style. I have thought of a delightful way to visually imply sarcastic melodrama and general silliness, but I have to design it and do all the artwork myself, because I’m fucking poor.

Give me some time. I’ll get it done. Really. I’m a certifi(able?)ed genius, and besides, I got an AWARD!

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Until I got off the bus on the way home and was greeted by this poor bastard:

I had an annoying day. I’m a prep cook and dessert chef at a restaurant, so when food gets delivered late, or not at all, it kinda messes my day up. But that guy in the gorilla suit gave me some perspective. He works for a sub shop. It happens to be my personal favorite place to go for a big, decadent sandwich, but standing by the roadside in a cheap gorilla suit waving at commuters seems a lot worse than running out of zucchini.

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My trip home from work this evening was just delightful. Some crazy old guy tried to pick me up at the bus stop. He hobbled up to me and told me he had $300, and he wanted to get a room and a bottle of vodka, and that I was beautiful and he would be really nice to me if I would join him. I just stood there aghast for a moment, partly because I was so surprised that he looked clean and wasn’t smelly.

I suppose he could have gotten the wrong idea from the fact that I was lounging against a wall on a street corner in an area of town that long ago was notorious for the availability of streetwalking prostitutes, but HONESTLY. The hookers relocated something like a decade ago, I believe. I just got off work from a restaurant kitchen, and was dressed accordingly.

(I think it’s a sad commentary on the state of the oldest profession in this town if a woman wearing food-stained jeans and t-shirt can be mistaken for a hooker, even in a run-down neighborhood, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I gave the old man a dirty look and told him I was just waiting for a bus, then pointedly looked away. He didn’t take the hint. The crazies never do. He apparently felt the need to explain himself.

“My name is Bob. I’m 65 years old. You know about any apartments for rent? I just got throwed out ’cause my girlfriend went to jail. She was my girlfriend, you know, I don’t buy women. I give ‘em money and treat ‘em nice, though, because women like that.” (This is correct. So he’s a loony, but he’s not entirely stupid. You don’t have to be a hooker to like money. The world would be a better place if more men understood that. Preferably men who are NOT toothless 65-year-old homeless crazies.) “See this ring? It’s gold. I got a lot of gold. I got $300, too, and I need a place to sleep tonight. You’re really beautiful.”

I slowly sidled away. Bob kept talking, gradually increasing in volume, but started drifting toward somebody else, thank goodness.

“Hey! I need to talk to you, man! You know about any apartments for rent around here?”

The man he was addressing scurried around the corner, because by now Bob was shouting. Not in a hostile way, just amazingly loud for someone who appeared to be rather decrepit. Everyone at the bus stop was trying to ignore him, but it was hard, because he kept saying weird funny things, and people were snickering.

“I need a room tonight. It’s gonna get cold, but that’s okay, I survived the Ice Age. I’m like a roach. I AM a roach. I WILL survive! That’s a song. That’s a song by Gloria Gaynor.”

Bob pointed at me and started singing “I Will Survive” in a cracked voice. Oh GOD DAMMIT WHERE IS MY FUCKING BUS?!?

To make things worse, I was really tempted to take video or at least a picture of this poor old nut. It would have been interesting. He looked like a perfectly normal old guy from a distance; he was clean shaven, and his clothes, although faded and a bit shabby, were clean and fairly tidy… but at close range, it was obvious that he was quite mad. Insane. Crackers. He was smiling as pleasantly as he could manage, keeping his lips closed over his toothless gums, but when I looked at his eyes I could almost see the wasps eating his brain. It was repulsive, yet fascinating. (My hand started rummaging in my bag for my digital camera, without my permission.)

It was a bad idea to photograph this man. I wasn’t sure how he would react, and the high probability that he would interpret it as a sign of attraction and interest was unacceptable in light of the fact that I had NO IDEA how much longer I would have to put up with his nonsense before I was rescued by a bus. (Stop rummaging, dammit!)

Meanwhile, Bob forgot the words to “I Will Survive”, faltered for a moment, then launched into another song, after announcing that it was by Hank Williams, Sr., while wandering aimlessly around in the street, in rush hour traffic. Lucky for him it was moving at a crawl.

I then had another horrible thought… what if I took his picture, and he ALSO boarded my bus and started following me? He didn’t seem dangerous, but I can’t begin to calculate how embarrassing and how much more tedious than usual my bus ride would have been. What if he tried to follow me HOME? (The disobedient camera-seeking hand withdrew from the bag of its own accord.)

The poor old bugger somehow made it safely to the other side of the street, where he started annoying some other people who were waiting for a bus heading the other direction, and then MY BUS ARRIVED.

Hallefrickinglujah. I have officially survived yet another day of being a loony magnet.

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Don’t breathe on me, please.

I am mildly social in public bathrooms. While I am washing my hands I might say something like “That’s a cute pocketbook” or “I like your haircut” sometimes followed by “Where did you get it?” but I never touch people I don’t know, if I can help it. Ewww. Apparently, a lot of other folks don’t have this reservation. This situation for example:

I cracked up some women in a movie theater bathroom recently, because the faucets and paper towel dispensers were motion activated and didn’t work very well. I was just trying to dry my hands. Really. I had a hard enough time WASHING them to start with, and then couldn’t dry them. I got exasperated and started slowly waving my hands in front of the paper towel machine, and gravely intoned

“These are not the droids you are looking for. You will give me a paper towel.”

Lo and behold, the stupid machine yielded to my entirely sarcastic attempt to use The Force, and reluctantly spit out a towel. This was greeted by laughter and huzzahs from all the other women who were standing around helplessly shaking their wet hands because they didn’t want to wipe them on their clothes.

But here’s the thing: After I tricked the damn thing into working, I damn near had to swim through a heaving sea of bodies to get to the door, because all the silly bitches started crowding around THAT ONE TOWEL DISPENSER with no regard whatsoever for the fact that I was done and wanted OUT. There were two more towel thingies! Get off me, dammit! Stop breathing on me!

I can’t stand people, sometimes.

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My precious darling just ripped out the carpet in this room to put in wood flooring. Wonderful! Having carpet in Florida is unbelievably stupid unless you are fond of mildew. However, his timing sucked, because it interfered with MY plans for the day.

On Saturdays, he normally sleeps in, and then spends a good deal of the afternoon hanging out at his buddy Steve’s house. I’m not exactly sure what guys think they mean by “hanging out,” but as far as I can tell, it means sitting around gossiping like old ladies, only they drink beer and watch sports while they gossip, to make it seem more manly.

Anyway, keeping his usual schedule in mind, I had purchased hair dye, a bikini wax kit, a shiny new manicure set and some yummy-smelling bubble bath with the intention of having a do-it-yourself spa day after he left for his male bonding session.

I got up early and puttered around for a while–did a little laundry and tidied the house up a bit, all the while humming contentedly to myself as I anticipated my afternoon of (much needed) self pampering and beautification. Manicure, pedicure, facial, the whole nine yards, plus a bottle of red wine (also much needed) and Miles Davis on the stereo… what could be more blissful?

Then the madman woke up and immediately commenced a construction project. Have you tried to give yourself a bikini wax with somebody sporadically running a circular saw in the next room?

No?

Well, neither have I, and I’m not going to. I have enough problems without being startled by a sudden loud noise and accidentally clogging my vagina with hot wax.

It’s bad enough that I had green glop all over my face when he unexpectedly returned from Home Depot. He said he was going to the store. I thought he was going to the corner store for cigarettes. When he didn’t come back in ten minutes, I assumed he had gone straight from the store to his buddies’ house.

He came back with construction materials, and started ripping things to bits, and nailing in the wood flooring, occasionally shouting at me for assistance. So much for my spa day.

And at the end of it all, he had the nerve to tell me I looked like hell.

Note: this was originally written Sunday, January 20, on actual paper, with a pen. I just now deciphered it and typed it up.

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I saw Tim Burton’s movie version of Sweeney Todd today and LOVED LOVED LOVED it. Granted, I have yet to see a Tim Burton film that I didn’t enjoy, and am slowly collecting them all on DVD, but I particularly liked this one.

The movie stayed reasonably true to the original Sondheim show (although I’m sure some theatre purist will argue that point passionately) and I was pleasantly surprised at how well Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter pulled off the singing. I went into the theater somewhat apprehensive, but they did WAY better than I expected, meaning that they are not brilliant vocalists, but it was enjoyable, and in a movie format, it actually makes the characters seem a bit more realistic.

Sweeney looks rather like a cross between Edward Scissorhands and the bride of Frankenstein in this film, but it works, and Johnny Depp made this brooding, vengeful character thoroughly believable. His performance reminded me of someone, it bugged me for the first twenty minutes of the movie, and I just now put my finger on it. Christopher Walken. He didn’t really act or sound like Walken, mind you, but for his spoken lines he used a similar understated delivery with a mad gleam in his eyes… and it was really creepy.

Helena Bonham-Carter was quirky and delightful, as usual, and apparently did her own hair, lol.

And the whole movie just looked wonderful. Gloomy and dismal most of the time, of course, but that’s my idea of wonderful. The mostly monochrome color scheme served a purpose; when throats start getting cut, the crimson of blood fountaining everywhere is all the more shocking. It’s the brightest color on the screen, and your eyes get fixed on it, willingly or not.

And of course, a lot of the movie is funny. Sick, twisted, dark funny, but funny nonetheless. If you’re the sort of person who is capable of snickering at murder and cannibalism, anyway. Which I am.

So is William, the dear old friend I went to the movies with. We hadn’t seen each other in months, and we both have men in our lives who don’t like musicals, so we went to a matinee together. Afterwards, we ate an excessive lunch, during which we dissected the movie, gossiped and caught up in general. I had a nice day, for a change. Thanks, Will.

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