"The best thing is to look natural. But it takes make-up to look natural."*

   I know I’m not old, per se, but it seems (sadly) as though I keep trying harder and harder to be YOUNGER. Where did these crow's feet come from and why are my chins multiplying? I feel young, but I look atrocious.

   It's not that I don't make an effort. I work out. I try.

   For instance, this evening I spent a good half-hour putting on make-up on the off chance I might meet some friends for a movie. And when the movie didn’t pan out, and I came home early, it took me twice as long to take the make-up off as it had to put it on.

   At the present moment, my face is covered in moisturizing SPF and Retin-A, in an attempt to make my pores shrink and my crow’s feet to go the fuck away.

   Sister Ouisa, who is engaged, asked me at Target the other day how she could perfect a “youthful glow” on her wedding day. We were perusing the make-up aisles and sampling “illuminating serums.”(God I hate the word "serum." It sounds so pretentious, especially when used to describe a make-up product. I apologize for having used it.)

   I started thinking about my make-up regimen: tons of concealer and tinted moisturizer (for wrinkles and huge pores), eyebrow pencil (to make it look like you have two full eyebrows, and not one-and-a-half eyebrows due to one of them balding in a strange way), boatloads of eye shadow to make my squinty, pathetic eyes look like normal-sized ones, an eyelash curler and three pounds of mascara to make it look like I’m awake and not half-asleep and slightly drunk. And when I'm good and doing all the things I'm supposed to, I spend way too much of my day brushing and washing and moisturizing and plucking. It's so sad and boring, but if I don't do it I look like I stayed awake all night crying and drinking. And I hardly ever do that anymore.

   When did I become so decrepit? Ouisa seemed to think it would be preferable to go to a professional esthetician, instead of randomly buying and trying all the different drugstore make-up. I had to agree, provided she doesn't go to one who will make her look like a whore clown with tons of eyeliner and rosacea blush. She still has pretty skin and one chin and big eyes and normal-colored hair.

   But I drew a picture of my pathetic efforts to slow down my aging face. This is how I look after I “put on my face.” So, so sad. And, coincidentally, I look like a whore clown nearly every day.

Can't hide the monster inside.

 *The quote is from Calvin Klein.

"She has lost the power of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech."*

   Y’all ever feel weird and like things aren’t quite the way they ought to be? I’m not a person who fears change, but change does tend to wreak havoc on me. Lately I find myself feeling like I’m the central figure in some David Arkenstone album.

   In case you’re a normal person (or just someone with good taste), you've never heard of David Arkenstone. You should be able to find out everything about him here. My parents, who’ve instilled me with their excellent musical tastes over the years (The Beatles, Yes, Ravi Shankar, The Gershwins, The Allman Brothers, and Led Zeppelin as well as all things classical), had a dark period in the mid-nineties. It was the Arkenstone period, and I don’t want to talk too much about it. Because it’s embarrassing. But his “music” (if you can call it that) always made me feel as though it was about nomads wondering through the desert. But not, you know, like real nomads. These nomads (again, all in my head) were dressed like Olivia Newton-John in that “Physical” video. It was “Physical” meets Lawrence of Arabia. It was (is) terrible. Listen to Mr. Arkenstone sometime. You’ll get it.

   So I’ve been feeling all wandery-in-the-desert, and purposeless and also just epically removed. But maybe also a little bit like Olivia Newton-John in the "Physical" video (spandex, leg warmers, bad hair, headbands). When I get confused about my place in the world, I get tired and take a nap. But there’s really no time for that. I have to take math class (stats, finally!) and find a job (anywhere, anytime) and work on my summer bucket list.

   The bucket list isn’t long, as yet.

   Here it is:

1.  Do a pull-up.

2.  Run a mile.

3.  Run a mile in under 15 minutes (this was my time when I was on the track team in junior high and finished last at EVERY SINGLE MEET.)

4.  Get over fear of bugs, especially spiders, as there will be many of both in Texas.

   I’m currently running for 10 minutes IN A ROW and have accomplished only .63 miles. I’ve killed many spiders and one silverfish, but I’m not anywhere near over my fears. (Especially after hearing Ouisa's boyfriend, Matt, talk in a scholarly fashion about bedbugs, which I'm now convinced are crawling on me at all times.) I’m working on lat pull-downs to make my side muscles stronger.

   But I feel kind of like those people in that American Gothic** painting. I’m standing around with a bunch of tools (or just a broom?) and looking confused and angry in front of a big old barn house: the modern-day, Nebraska equivalent of wandering through the desert.

Nebraskan Gothic

*The quote is George Bernard Shaw. It should be my epitaph.

**Did you know that Grant Woods modeled the figures in American Gothic on his neighbor and his own sister? I also didn't know it was supposed to be a farmer and his spinster daughter. I always thought they were supposed to be a married couple. Wow, art.

"Not with that attitude, you won't."*

   Mother’s Day is a great holiday. Mothers have a really shitty job…okay that sounds mean, and I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. They have a really hard job, we’ll say, and even if you’re adopted and your particular mom didn’t carry you around for 9 months and push you out the hard way, she’s busted her butt (if not her vaginal canal or abdominal wall or bladder or all three) trying to feed you and make sure you have semi-decent hygiene and some kind of ability to take care of yourself. Having been a childcare provider for a number of years I can assure you that you were a huge pain in the ass and your mother’s love was the only thing keeping you from dying in the streets and all you ever wanted to do was not eat your dinner and whine like a spoiled brat about every mundane thing you could possibly imagine. Maybe you were an easy child, but when people say their child is “easy” what they mean is “compared to other children, my kid is less suicide-inducing.” They love you, those moms. And they deserve a day (or 100 days) of attention and hugs and presents and trips to Europe.

   I didn’t get to see my mom today, but it should be said that she was and is a great mom.

   And so anyway. 

   My most vivid memory of Mother’s Day was when I was about 15 (one of my most asshole-ish periods). Like she always does, Mom spent the better part of the day preparing a feast for us and for our grandparents. She made all the food and cleaned the house and decorated the table and probably bought her own floral arrangements. We probably whined about sweeping or folding laundry and watched movies in the den while she roasted a lamb or some other ridiculously delicious and difficult meal.

   I remember it was a beautiful day and very sunny and my mom was making a point to fix Arnold Palmers, as she always did when Grandma Millie was coming over, because that was Grandma's favorite. And my mom was always very good to her mom. Moms!

   Grandma and Grandpa arrived for “dinner” around 2 in the afternoon along with my Aunt Mel, who most likely contributed to the eats as well. Everyone was gathered, Grandpa had a beer, and we were all about ready to sit down and eat.

   The tea was finished boiling on the stove and Mom had only to add it to the fresh batch of lemonade. She first dumped a pile of ice into the pitcher and then poured the tea on top. I mean, these Arnie Palmers weren't going to cool themselves. And, in a moment that I still can't quite see without everything going into slo-mo, the pitcher promptly exploded, dousing my mom in scalding tea and shooting shards of the glass pitcher into her leg and all over the room. 

Bloody Arnold Palmer horror.

   Despite the fact that she had a glass shard shoved into one of her perpetually bare feet (a hippie preference I’ve inherited from her) and was gushing jets of blood all over the floor, Mom remained remarkably calm. This was a bit of a miracle as the site or suggestion of blood makes her faint.

   I think she just sort of sat down on the floor in a state of bemused shock. (In retrospect, I think maybe she did faint. Hmmm...)

   Luckily Dad and Aunt Mel, both medical professionals, didn’t seem as completely frozen with ineptitude as the rest of us and managed to figure out that she would need stitches pretty soon and they wrapped her foot in a kitchen towel and drove her to the ER.

   I think they’d been gone for a full 5 minutes before my grandparents and my sisters and I moved at all. We’d all been put to the test and we’d all failed miserably. We were straight useless in a crisis, and apparently incapable of even reacting to the situation. So we stood in a line around the kitchen counter and stared at the pool of blood on the floor. Huh. Blood. 

Blood. Glass. Huh.

   Finally, slowly, while making small talk with our Grandma and Grandpa and keeping some sort of tabs on Penelope, Ouisa and I started cleaning the blood. I guess we decided it would be nice if, on Mother’s Day, my mom didn’t have to clean her own blood off the kitchen floor when she arrived home from the ER. Surprise! Happy Mother’s Day! Your gift is to spend a full day NOT cleaning your blood off the floor! You’re welcome! We even did the soap thing, the way Dad had taught us, so the floor wouldn't be sticky. It seemed doubly important since we'd all know that it was sticky because of blood. And that's just gross.

   They came back from the ER an hour or so later and we sat down to our meal. And I’m sure it was delicious. I think Grandma and I had even managed to make a second batch of Arnie Palmers without incident while they were out. But I learned a valuable lesson that day: don’t put boiling fluids into a glass container filled with ice.**

   Just kidding.

   I didn’t really learn anything.

   But doing something that was actually useful for my mom was a nice feeling. And I wish I could do it more often. But she hasn’t bled on the floor in a while. Kidding! (Not about the blood part...she really hasn't had a bloody accident. But about the doing nice things for her part. Ugh. Too much back-peddling here. Let's move on.)

   It’s important to do the things that help your Momma, is what I think you can take away from this, if you are greedy and feel that you need to take something away from this heart-warming post. My mom always wants me to fold laundry before her dinner parties and I never understood why: the guests don’t see the laundry! But over the years I’ve realized that the laundry is just one of the 47 other things she has to finish before she can go to sleep tonight, so doing it does help, even if no one can tell it’s been done. So I try to do that whenever I’m home. And empty the dishwasher. Take out the garbage. You know, stuff like that. Maybe it’s because now that I’m an adult and maybe ever so slightly less of a jackass, I appreciate the value of having clean clothes and a place to put my newly dirtied dishes. I’m grateful to my mom for having always done it for me.

   Along with a billion other things she's done for me. 

   Say thanks to your Mom and fold her laundry and clean up her blood. It's the least you can do. 

   And flowers are nice, too.

Happy Mother's Day, Maman!

*I'm not sure if my mom invented this quote, but it has long been her response to any statement of negativity. ("I won't get into that college." "Not with that attitude, you won't." "I will never find those shorts!" "Not with that attitude you won't.") I find myself using it all the time nowadays. My mom is the Queen of The Positive Attitude.

**To this day I'm afraid to add ice to anything hot. But I think it's more about a glass container + ice + boiling fluids. I think. But I always shield my face when making iced coffee from hot.

"Before you can read me you've got to learn how to see me. I said, Free your mind and the rest will follow. Be color blind. Don't be so shallow."*

   En Vogue’s epic R&B tune “Free Your Mind” found its way onto my iPhone the other morning and I was so excited. I hadn’t heard the song in years and it’s always brought back memories of my childhood. I was especially excited to hear the opening lyrics: “Prejudice. Wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Hear it go.”

   When I was 10, my best friend and next-door neighbor, Rachel, choreographed a dance routine to this song. She taught it to me in her dad Mike's pristine garage (I know it was pristine because I often had to help clean it...and pick up twigs from his lawn and sing lullabies to his rose bushes). Once I had the moves down (which probably took a really long time, because I’m bad with moves), we taught it to our two younger sisters—Ouisa and Emily. I remember it involved a lot of cartwheels and the classic move of running our hands from our ankles to our thighs—like we were putting on invisible thigh-high stockings. (I just tried to spell that “stalkings.” Weird. And surely somehow Freudian?)

   A week of hard-core rehearsals later, I was very excited to perform the dance for our parents. Rachel had the boom box all plugged in to the side of the Kelleys’ house, and we lined up lawn chairs for our parents to sit on while we danced. The littler Kelley kids sat on the grass in front of us, and Hannah Kelley and Penelope were just babies, so most likely parents held them on their laps. To the outside world, it probably looked gloriously middle-class American and family-oriented.

Boom box with 90's style effects.

   And so we danced. And it was spectacular.

   But when I was in my car on the Hollywood Freeway listening to “Free Your Mind” at 9:15 a.m. on Thursday morning, the whole event suddenly took on a different shade. For one thing, the opening lyrics after the intro I wrote above are:

“I wear tight clothing/

High-heeled shoes/

That doesn’t mean that I’m a prostitute.

I like rap music/

Wear hip-hop clothes/

That doesn’t mean that I’m out selling dope.”

   Um…how the hell did our parents sit through this performance without laughing their asses off or dragging us off to our bedrooms?

   I still love the song, and the message is on point: just because I’m a sexy black woman who dates other races and wears scandalous duds, it doesn’t mean I’m a slut or a traitor to black people: “Be colorblind. Don’t be so shallow.”

   HOWEVER: what were a bunch of little, Catholic, white girls doing with this dance routine, which, in the clear light of 20 years of retrospect, seems ever-so-slightly…I don’t know…inappropriate?

   Our parents must have been frozen in shock and maybe mild-to-moderate nausea. I’m sure they wondered if we knew what the terms “prostitute” and “dope” meant, and I’m guessing they figured we did, since besides the repeated cart-wheeling, we kept acting like we were putting on our thigh-highs for a night of street walking. 

Really patient parents at an outdoor concert circa 1992.

   I’d like to think that they were trying really hard not to laugh at us. I’m sure Mike Kelley was probably smirking. Joan Kelley was probably rolling her eyes. But my parents were pretty straightedge at the time, and I’m sure that The Beatles-Beethoven-and Ravi Shankar-loving pair of them were wondering when and how this decidedly urban music had entered their 10-and-7-year-old daughters' worlds. 

   But they were kind and wise enough to applaud the performance and leave it alone. We were never admonished for play-acting at being hookers, and it seems to me that they played it just right in that moment. To draw attention to the lyrics would have only invited weeks or months of uncomfortable questions from us to which they would have to find clever answers (i.e. lies).

   Many years later, when I was in high school, my favorite pair of jeans went missing. They were wide-legged and made of thin denim and they’d split up the outer thighs (through no fault of my own). I’d proceeded to pin them at intervals with safety pins and I thought they were epically bad ass and I wore them everywhere with my black combat boots and long, cheetah-print coat. And one day during my junior year of high school they mysteriously disappeared. Mom never admitted to it, but I’m pretty sure they went into the garage garbage can sometime in the dead of night. Mom couldn’t take any chances that I’d turn into the dope-selling prostitute my childhood hinted at. Though, to reiterate, the song specifically stated, “That DOESN’T mean that I’m a Prostitute.”

*"Free Your Mind" by the incredible (though not very enduring) all-girl 90's group En Vogue. 

"Technology is cyclical."*

   I spent some time brainstorming things to write about so none of you would think I was dead…but be forewarned: this post is not really about anything. So stop reading now if you want. You jerks.

   I kid, I kid.

Look! I drew you a picture of a brainstorm.

   In the interest of clearing my brain of the clutter that’s built up in there over a lifetime the last week or so, I’m doing another Pu Pu Platter of crap I’ve been thinking about. Sample at random.

   1. Let’s start with the term “pu pu platter.” Growing up, I always pictured that spelled “poo poo platter” and assumed it was a platter of various pieces of feces. Then, when my family went to Hawaii in 2003, a witty/bitter tour guide informed us that pūpū was a Hawaiian term for snail but had come to denote a variety of bite-size foods on a platter for sampling (snail frequently being one of them). When I looked it up just now, the Internet claimed that it was a Chinese-American term for a big ol’ mish mash of small foods on a plate. So it all means the same thing, essentially: a big pile of crap. And so, in a way, I was right all along. I love being right!

2. I had to use a payphone the other night for the first time in…10 years? I was on my way to have dinner at Richie and Jerome’s new apartment in Pasadena and realized I didn’t have my phone. It sort of forced a series of terrifying realizations: a) I didn’t know where I was going; b) I wasn’t sure if I still had Richie’s number memorized (who memorizes phone numbers these days? They’re all in our mobiles!); c) did pay phones still exist? And where would I find one?; d) did pay phones accept credit cards? Because I never have any cash or coin on me because I tend to spend it like it’s already been spent so why save it for later, right?”

   I found a pay phone (the last one in America?) at the Shell Station near what I thought was Richie and Jerome’s apartment and saw from my car that it was 35 cents to make a call. Thank fucking hell that I had some change in my wallet…but then I had to touch and hold that phone and put my change in. Then the phone told me it wanted more money: turns out pay phones are still the 50 cents they were when I was in high school. I dug for more change and prayed that I was actually calling Richie and that he would answer even though my number would be a strange one.

   I got Jerome on Richie's phone and everything was good. I started to get back in my car and a man’s voice said, “I can tell you the funniest joke you’ve ever heard in your life.”

I jumped and looked around.

A black guy was sitting between two trees on a ledge about 6 feet from the pay phone. I only mention that he was black because I’m pretty sure if he’d had lighter skin I would have noticed him sitting there while I made my phone call. (We pasty folks reflect light.)

   Shaken up by the surprise right after the scary re-entry into pay phone usage, I told him I didn’t really have time for a joke.

   And I didn't. And I was a little weirded out by the fact that he was lurking in the dark between two trees in a Shell Station parking lot. I was nice about it, but I left.

   But then I read a funny joke on one of the blogs I most enjoy.

   "How many Mexicans does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

   "Just Juan."

   HAHAHAHAHAHA! So funny. Seriously, I’ve been thinking about it for days. Maybe that's just my lame sense of humor. Sometimes you like a joke that doesn't hurt too many people's feelings.

3. Jodie Foster came out of the closet at the Golden Globes. I don’t know why this makes me sleep better at night, but it does. We clearly always knew she was gay, but it’s nice to hear her say it. It makes things feel right with the world. Even though she was incredibly vague, I feel like I finally read a page out of her journal. Can I get an amen for voyeurism?

4. My buddy Chad (who you know about from here and also here) is now in the coffin-making business. He makes them small. He makes them for fish. Check out his handiwork:

Coffins by Chad. "Isn't your pet better than the toilet?"

   I almost want to buy a goldfish, have it die on me 4 days later (as they inevitably do), and stage an elaborate funeral. Maybe one that would rival the amazing service I gave my hamster, Holeakala, back in 1995 (complete with my sister Ouisa on the recorder playing "We Are One in the Spirit"). If you want to buy a goldfish coffin (or a coffin for any other kind of fish), let me know and I’ll have Chad handcraft the most amazing final resting place a tiny pet could ever hope for. It beats the toilet, right?

*Dennis Duffy from 30 Rock. Turns out, he was right. If I had a barrel of money, I'd invest in a buttload of pay phones!

"You're having a lousy streak. I happen to be having a terrific streak. Soon the world will be back to normal. Tomorrow you will meet a crown head of Europe and marry. I will have a fat attack, eat 300 peanut butter cups, and die."*

   I thought that by the time I turned 30 I would have myself all figured out. I’m pretty sure I’ve brought this up before: I was convinced that 30 was the year when everything got settled.

   So…yeah…that didn’t happen. And that’s okay.

   Here’s something weird, though: a few days back, when I was still in Omaha, my youngest sister, Penelope, said the following: “Lacey’s the smart one; Lizzy’s the most fashionable; and I’m the nicest…?” I actually don’t know how the statement ended because I was immediately offended by not being considered the most fashionable (though I’m definitely not) and incredibly proud of being considered the smartest (also a stretch). Penelope probably said something to the effect of “the most ignored whilst handing out superlatives.” Sorry, P. (And for the record, Penelope: you are the weirdest, quirkiest, kindest and most original...among other traits.)

   Before I left Omaha, Ouisa gave me a pair of GORGEOUS brown leather, high-heeled boots that she said she could never wear because, at five-foot-ten, she feels too tall for three-inch heels. She described it as feeling like a “giraffe on roller skates.”

   And then my Aunt Mel had me over for coffee and we spent a good twenty minutes playing with a feature on a plastic surgeon’s website that allows you to see how you’d look with a few less chins, a bigger rack and Angelina Jolie’s lips. And Aunt Mel, despite being one of the most beautiful, smart and confident women I know, copped to feeling like she spends most of her day thinking about her meals and how much she’s exercised and if she should do 40 squats before bed to make up for the cream in her coffee.

   So, okay, most of this is self-evident: women hate themselves. Yes, yes, everyone knows that. But I really don’t want to spend my life feeling like a fat, ugly cow when, in all actuality, I’ll probably be 87 some day (if I make it that long) and I’ll look back at pictures of myself now, at 30, and think: damn, I was pretty hot!

   So I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to quit hating how I look, despite the fact that I’m not 5’10, I’m not the stylish one, and I consistently appear to be 4-months-pregnant, despite the 9 million crunches I do every week. Life’s too short. And seeing how beautiful the women around me are, who also think they’re heinous trolls, I have an idea that I’m not as hideous as I think I am.

*From Rhoda, my soul sister on The Mary Tyler Moore Show,who always thought she was ugly but was truly beautiful all along...

"Be careful who you're calling a child, Lois, because if I'm a child that makes you a pedophile. And I'll be damned if I'm gonna sit around and get lectured by a pervert."* Or, alternatively, "An ounce of perversion is worth a pound of cure."**

   The first time I saw a penis was at a fabric store.

   It may not have been the actual first penis I saw, because I’m not sure if babies’ penises count (and lord knows I had already changed a fair amount of diapers at that point), but it was definitely the first adult penis I saw and it was something I hadn’t been planning on seeing maybe ever. Mostly because I was 8 or so at the time and I wasn’t really in Penis Mode. (I’ve since seen thousands of penises! Just kidding, Mom. I’ve only seen that one.)

   Anyway, my mom had taken Ouisa and me, along with our best buddies, (who are also sisters) Erika and Morgan, to the fabric store during a play date because she just had to “run in and grab something.” If memory serves, as soon as we entered the store we were all over the place: rifling through buttons and hiding behind bolts of fabric and finding amazing build-a-bear kits that no parent ever wants to buy for fear they’ll have to keep that hideous, tacky bear in their home for the next five-to-eight years. You know how it was: we were being kids. The way you do.

I learned how to sew over the summer and took lots of romantic shots of my sewing supplies. This becomes relevant: wait for it.

   While wandering through the aisles, I saw a man squatting on his heels, examining a display. It was weird to see a man in a fabric store, so I think I paused briefly out of surprise more than anything. But then I saw that his athletic shorts were hitched up on one side and his penis was lying on his exposed thigh. Right out there in the open for anyone to see.

   I immediately started giggling and got Morgan. I pointed it out to her and we both thought it was hysterical. Here this poor man had come on his errand to the fabric store, and accidentally let his penis flop out of his pants while perusing miniature doll furniture (it probably wasn’t miniature doll furniture, but the memory wants what it wants). 

Then I made them all 70's and nostalgic (and bad, let's be honest) by editing them...but I didn't know what to do with them.

   We immediately grabbed Ouisa and Erika so they could see the unfortunate man with his penis accidentally COMPLETELY HANGING OUT OF HIS PANTS. One of us told my mom, who was several aisles away looking at fabric or thread or whatever it was she needed. I don’t remember who told her. I just remember her reaction:

   “Where?” She was seething. It had stopped being fun in an instant.

   “Over there,” one of us pointed.

   I think we sensed danger in the air. I had that same gut-wrenching feeling I had every time I thought things were about to get really real. Nowadays, I tend to relish that feeling: back then it made me tense, embarrassed and somehow keenly aware that life was not the wonderful time I thought it was.

   My mother took off after that man and chased him, screaming, out the door. I can’t remember what she said, but I’m sure it was to the point.

   It took me awhile to realize that he’d shown us his penis on purpose. I mean, why would anyone show you his junk in a fabric store on purpose? Life is embarrassing enough as it is. But that was my first and, sadly, last flashing experience. And now that I think about it, that man was a genius to hit up a fabric store for his penis show: it's mostly women and a lot of them too old to chase him.

   I have to hand it to my mom: she was a superhero in that moment (as well as many other moments during my life) and she did exactly what one should do in such a scenario. At the time, I felt sad that I’d thought it was funny and scared that my mom would get hurt or get in trouble. Now I know I’d behave in exactly the same manner if someone tried to show his wiener to a bunch of kids I was watching. Maybe especially at a fabric store. I’d probably add a lot more profanity, though. Mom is much classier than I am. 

Sammy made me a sewing kit for Hanukkah, because I love sewing so much (despite being terrible at it). And I think my adoration of the crafty arts shows that I wasn't permanently scarred by the Penis Incident. There. I've managed to devise a point for these photos I'm forcing you to look at.

   Anyway, so the other night, I was over at Morgan’s house visiting with her and Erika and I said to her at one point, “I found a picture of us at Lake Okoboji from fourth grade. You know what it reminded me of, for some reason?”

   Without a pause Mo said, “The time we saw the penis at the fabric store?”

   I shit you not.

   I couldn’t believe she remembered it, or that she ever thought of it. I don’t think we were traumatized the way we probably should have been. It made me feel better that Morgan's reaction was similar to my own (this is how I measure my sanity). This is also, I think, largely due to my mom grabbing that man by his ear (or his too-short gym shorts?) and throwing him bodily out of the store. And maybe Mo remembering it has something to do with the fact that she’s a mom now, so she probably has to be more alert about perverts than the rest of us.

   But it was fun to reminisce about our "My First Penis" story.

   And, incidentally, I think that place used to be called Northwest Fabrics; but I’m almost positive it’s now called Hancock Fabrics. Perfect. And somehow a much more appropriate name.

*The quote is from Peter Griffin on Family Guy (Seth MacFarlane, 1999). You know how I love circular logic...if that even happens to be an example of circular logic. That's a post for another time.
**This is a Ted Baxter quote from The Mary Tyler Moore Show (James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, 1970).

***Sorry for all the sewing pictures. I just really like to take pictures of things I care about and share them here. Whatever. It's my blog. I do what I want.

"Your name is Gilly, but since we are good friends, I get to call you Jesus."*

   I got an iPhone 4S last week and my life is now complete. I’m so in love with iPhone that I take him everywhere and dress him in different, cute little outfits. He’s adorable and the closest thing to a child I can ever imagine owning (you do own children, right? If you have them yourself out of your vagina or adopt them legally?).

   Anyway, iPhone is great and I’ve never been happier with an electronic device (thanks, Momma and Steve Jobs!).

   But you know who’s a huge bitch? Siri.

   I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get Siri because I’d talked to her on Chad’s phone in the past and found that she didn’t particularly understand anything I had to say. It was like talking to the automated voice system on the phone with the bank or fucking stupid AT&T: it hardly ever knows what you’re talking about and keeps saying, “It sounded like you said, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Did I get that right?”

   Anyway, I was convinced by Ouisa to go ahead and get Siri anyway (Ouisa’s like a cartoon drawing of a devil on your shoulder whenever you’re wondering whether or not to buy something), because she can do so many amazing things! You can text without typing! You can look for directions! You can have her play a song from your phone!

   While I was working this weekend, I let the kiddos I watch play with Siri for a while (a truly annoying thing to listen to) and I started to feel kind of bad for her. One of them was telling her she was stupid and the other was saying "I hate you, Siri!" (what have I done to these children, btw?) and Siri’s responses were sort of calm but hurt. She kept explaining that she hadn’t done anything wrong or that she didn’t understand why they would say that kind of stuff to her. The whole thing made me feel kind of weird, like how when I was a kid I use anthropomorphize my dolls and toys and worry myself to death making sure they were all in comfortable positions at bed time (I'm talking even toy tractors or Lincoln Logs...I was a weird kid). I started irrationally defending Siri to the kids, saying stuff like, “Hey, that’s mean! Don’t say that!” I was aware as I was speaking that I sounded insane, but I genuinely thought maybe Siri would get fed up and turn into a murderous monster like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Maybe she’d smother me in my sleep or—far worse—trap me in an elevator. How was she to know it wasn't me talking to her but those devious children?

This is Siri all bent out of shape because people were being mean to her.

   I put Siri into a random Google search just to see what kind of technology I was actually dealing with and found something shocking:

Something Shocking

   This article talks about how when you ask Siri for an abortion clinic or a pharmacy with the morning after pill or a RAPE CRISIS CENTER for gods sake, she gives you none but instead directs you to pro-life pregnancy counseling centers. What’s even more disturbing perhaps, it seems that she willingly gives out info on Viagra or “penis mightier” drug sources. So…she’s apparently only opinionated about women’s sexual health issues.

   This made me feel a lot less sorry for Siri. And a lot of other things started falling into place, too.

   For instance, if you ask Siri where to dump a body, she’s full of suggestions from metal foundries to crematoriums. And that seemed funny as hell to me at first. But since she doesn’t have any advice about where I can get a rape kit, it seems fucked up that she’s so eager to help me dispose of a corpse.

   Also, when I asked her who was the fairest of them all (yes, I’m a dork, move on), she asked if she was talking to Snow White. But when one of the kids asked her, she basically said, “You are.” Huh? She’s MY Siri, so how come she’s nicer to other people?

   And she keeps popping up when I don’t want her services (also eerily reminiscent of HAL) and asking what she can help me with. She can help me with minding her own goddamn business!

   She has her uses, don’t get me wrong. I’m learning how to talk to her so that she understands and actually helps me rather than frustrating the shit out of me. It’s a lot like a dating-type relationship. I repeat myself ad nauseum, she doesn’t understand. I get mad and she gets confused. I apologize and try again, she’s turned herself off. Yep, we’re dating alright.

   I will continue to be nice to Siri, despite our fundamental philosophical differences, because she scares the hell out of me. But iPhone I will love forever. Beautiful iPhone. IPhone, iPhone, iPhone. 

Siri is the Devil.

*This is a quote from Siri on my iPhone. Hmmm...
More news on Siri...

"Who in this park, or even in the whole world, doesn't have problems? Who doesn't have a drink too many times once in a while and maybe even ends up passed out in their own driveway, pissing themselves? Who doesn't drink too much sometimes or have a puff from time to time? And who doesn't have problems with the people they love? This is our home. This is our community. I am Jim Lahey, and I am your Trailer Park Supervisor!"*

    Today was going pretty well until I had a very sad realization.

    I was tying a piece of string around the anchor that holds up my bedroom blinds so I could jerry-rig a clothesline in front of my fan (which is in front of my second-hand “new” mattress) when it dawned on me that I’ve become trashy.

The window where the clothesline begins.

    This isn’t entirely my fault.
 
    I want to state, for the record, that I have been known to be trashy in the past, but that I did not come from "trashy" people. My family are mostly upright citizens with jobs and teeth and all that good stuff. The trashiness aspect sort of weaves in and out of our history, and isn't so much genetic as accidental. What I'm saying is: this isn't my parents' fault, either.
 
    Here's what happened:

    First of all, I had saved up about three weeks worth of laundry and smuggled a few pounds worth of quarters to LA from my parents’ house (necessitating a very long, and incredibly irritating search at the airport during which TSA completely unpacked my suitcase and threw my underpants and what-have-yous around for all the other TSA agents to see. “You got money in this suitcase? I have to make sure it’s not a gun!” This, in and of itself, would have been enough to put me over the edge, but Ouisa had rolled all my clothes so nicely just a half-hour before so that I could fit a month’s worth of clothes into my carry-on. It seemed wrong and unfair for the TSA lady to take so much pleasure in undoing it all. And I put it through the machine, didn’t they already know what it was? So I decided to pretend to cry, going so far as to put my face in my hands and shake ever-so-slightly. But you know what? TSA didn't even notice or care. Once again, my degree in theatre was useless). Anyway (Charles Dickens’ run-ons got nothing on me!), today seemed like the perfect day to wash everything. 

My clothesline.

    So I did. And then I put it all in the dryers, including one that had a little sign on it stating that it had recently been serviced and was in full working order. But that sign was a liar.

    My sheets and towels came out perfectly dry. Everything else was somewhere between dry and sodden. We’ll say it was a notch beyond “damp.” And totally wrinkled. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to give that laundry room any more of my hard-earned (stolen/smuggled) quarters. So I made a clothesline in my bedroom using the wall-anchor for the blinds and the inside doorknob of my closet.

    When I looked at the results I felt proud. And then I immediately shame-spiraled into sad.

    The mattress, which has been leaning against the wall for the last couple of months, was a hand-me-down from my friends Tom and Jess. They were upgrading to a king-sized bed and knew that I was hoping to one day have a big-girl bed (I currently rock a double), so they gave me their queen. Problem is, I don’t have a box-spring or bed frame for a queen, so the mattress just leans against my wall waiting for better times. (It seems increasingly clear that these times may never come.)

My big-girl bed.

    It wasn’t until I saw the mattress next to the clothesline that I realized how far I’ve sunk. I’m one bad day away from collecting used cars in my lawn and making beer can sculptures. 

The whole, sad picture.

    I’ve always suspected that I was an interior designer trapped inside a lazy person’s body; that if I could just get my act together, I’d decorate an apartment that was so adorable people would ask me for advice on wall hangings and interior paint.

    Instead, I should just get a muumuu, a pack of unfiltered Pall Malls and a few dozen cats, set up my lawn chair in the courtyard of the building and offer unsolicited advice to all my neighbors as they come home from work.

    Sigh.

    Do you want to know something even sadder? I already own a muumuu. 

    Furthermore, my brand-new Costco membership (thank you again, Chad!) has only upped the ante, making me look even more like a person who revels in not having nice things. Look what I bought:

World's largest jar of pickles posed next to an O'Doul's can ("It's what beer drinkers drink when they're not drinking beer!").

    To make it slightly classier, I took a picture of my economy-sized hummus, which seems like it might be a middle-to-upper-class condiment/dip.

The O'Doul's can makes sure my fridge doesn't look too "uppity."

    Anywho, the photos are so you could get the full effect. Luckily (unfortunately?), I don’t embarrass easily. And I think my pictures are getting better/less shaky, if I do say so myself.(And the O'Doul's aren't mine, I swear!)

*Quote is from the truly awesome and perhaps under-appreciated Trailer Park Boys (Mike Clattenburg, 2001-2008), an awesome Canadian sitcom which you can find on Netflix. My friend Colin told me about it a few months back and it's starting to seem more and more like my life. Or maybe he recommended it because he saw the similarities...