just another ink-stained wretch

Idle hands . . .

2008-09-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

I am on news overload. Are you on news overload? Of course you are.

I can rattle off, with no sense of authority whatsoever, details about issues and topics and pundits and banning books and a war-mongering Jesus and ohmygah, my brains are melting. I am worried about what will happen in November. Nay, I am more than worried - I am totally freaking out. I need to just stop. Just - STOP. The first step in "Election Anonymous?" Admit that I am powerless.

I am so powerless. I get one vote. One. And I don't even get to cast that vote for almost two months.

What to do? Time to get my hands busy. Detach my brain. So, I am off to the kitchen . . .

And then straight to bed!

Or perhaps I should first take a hot bath?

Oh, sure, you'll call this post "sexist," because I have a bunch of celebrity men up there to ogle, but they are not just any men - they are completely well-qualified men! And, by questioning my choice of men, you do nothing more than prove yourself to be anti-man, as well as anti-family, more likely than not pro-terrorist, an infidel and lousy at fixing the economy.

Cow's revenge

2008-09-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

I made dinner this evening; I mismanaged the timing of opening gas valves and lighting things. I wondered, honestly, if I was about to die - the fireball that hit me as I lifted the grill lid truly was something out of The Stand.

I smell like burnt flesh. The skin on the inner side of my arm is red and sore.

My mustache, luckily, is unscathed.

Mr. Jolly, my enabler

2008-08-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have a speech impediment known as Severe Blurtitis: I just told someone who is both quite classy and the head of a major company that he was having a "good butt day."

And then I threw myself down a well.

This was not as bad as the business dinner where I announced brightly to all and sundry at the table that Miley Cyrus' concept of a teen-based "Sex And The City" could be called "Dry Humping And The City."

After which I stuck a fish fork in my eye. Carry on!

I blame Mr. Jolly. He was my first or second grade teacher (it's a blur - I was still on the pipe then), and he used to sit at his desk and cup one hand in front of his face so that you could not see precisely how he was, with his other hand, picking his nose.

But I digress.

I was tall and nervous and fairly disliked for being both tall and nervous. I also drew attention to my mild, but pervasive unlikeability - I cleared my throat a lot, because I was tall and because I was nervous. And because I was disliked. You see the problem. Some clever tow-haired boy shouted in class that he wouldn't "stand for" the upcoming pop quiz and I muttered, "Then sit down." Somehow I said it in a louder tone than my usual passive-aggressive whisper; Mr. Jolly barked out a laugh and yelled, "Who said that?" with his face open and bright. I still remember that.

The bastard's been getting me in trouble ever since.

Going Green

2008-08-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have a new, biggish writing project in the works, and while there isn't much I can say about it now (mostly because I haven't written it yet), I will tell you that I am one accessory closer to making George Clooney mine.

New Rule

2008-08-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

I am not going camping again until trees learn to make a decent latte.

I am outta here!

2008-08-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

Since I have just fallen into MILLIONS of dollars, I have quit my job, and I am blowing this rickety blogcicle stand. Read it and weep my friends. Read it and weep:

Dear Internet User,

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the E-LOTTERY NL. Internet Promotional Draws. All email addresses entered for this promotional draws were randomly inputted from an internet resource database using the Synchronized Random Selection System (SRSS).
Your email address was selected in the Category "A” with Reference Number NL 80 OS 9414 Batch Number: 444821545-NL/2008 and Ticket Number: PP 3812 /2008-03, and this qualifies you to be the recipient of the grand prize award sum of $2,500,000 (Two million, five hundred thousand dollars).

The payout of this cash prize to you will be subject to the final validations and satisfactory report that you are the bonafide owner of the winning email address.In line with the governing rules of claim, you are required to establish contact with your designated claims agent via email or telephone with the particulars below:
Name: Mr. Frank van Boss
Phone: +31-647-283-937
Email: deptfvanboss@yahoo.cn

You are advised to call the Claims agent for confirmation or provide the following information for processing the payment of your cash award.DATA PROFILENames:Telephone/Fax number:Nationality:Age:Occupation:

Winning Reference Number:Failure to complete the claims of your cash prize after 14 days of this notice will result in the revision of award. Hence, you should commence your claims process immediately, by contacting the claims agent (Mr. Frank van Boss) who would be guiding you through the Claims process.
Congratulations on your Winning Prize and we look forward to completing your payout soon.

Yours Faithfully,
Dougherty Mildred
Lottery Co-ordinator

Way totally rich! This gal was "inputted" and I didn't feel a thing.

And Doherty Mildred? Brace yourself, sweetheart. I 'm headed your way. Grrrr!

Put down your Orange Julius and get yer pretty on!

2008-08-19T07:17:00.001-07:00

I apologize for the quality of the image, but I took it with my cell phone while strolling oh, so stealthily, and faux-nonchalantly, past the kiosk, as if I were an investigative reporter, or Harriett the Spy.

Wait. "Kiosk?" You ask. "What kiosk?"

That is a kiosk. That, in fact, is Exhibit #1 in the case People v. Godless California. It's a dental whitening booth, where one can simply swagger up and request that one of several buxom non-dentists (each in a fetching white lab coat, of course) fix your brown choppers!

I love me some California. I do. I was born here and though I lived on the East Coast for more than a dog's life, I always considered myself a Californian. My kiosk shock is one of those I-lived-in-Boston-too-long cultural markers. Am I pro-shiny teeth? You bet yer bippy. Do I support convenience? Yep.

And yet, there is something to be said for the Yankee way, where one tries to disguise one's vanity a little, where one is expected to do some things behind closed doors, like flossing and fighting the good fight against the body's natural impulses toward both decay and underbrush.

Which reminds me:
I once met a gorgeous - gorgeous! - woman at a natural foods trade show. We bonded over the organic vodka table (Hey, it could happen to anyone). It was, in retrospect, just as if we had picked each other up, but we were both straight, and working the expo. We started chatting and then hung out for the rest of the show.

She was a former model, she said, and anyone could tell right off she really had been. She was now, she said, a personal consultant and gave folks full makeovers, like "What Not To Wear," but in person. She kindly never ran any obvious "Hmmm . . . " full-body eye scan on me, and I was just tickled to have someone help me keep a look out for the utterly compelling, nay, beguiling Ed Begley, Jr.

The gal was funny, and smart, and impeccably, casually lovely, and once the organic vodka wore off, I realized she had nose hairs extending past her "stop here" external nostril markers and far into the atmosphere.*

I'm going to go check mine own nose hairs now, as soon as I hit "publish," and, if I am lucky, I will get a lunch-time technical assist from the Westfair Mall nostril kiosk.

*Nose hair can happen to anyone. Also? One should never (even platonically) pick up straight girls while inebriated on thimbles of blueberry vodka.

How you know you are a curmudgeonly cow

2008-08-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Gesturing vaguely toward the screen, chocolate slab already melting in one's ham fist:

"The reason Mommy doesn't look like any of those fantastic women, children, is that they are a super race, raised in a secret compound in the high desert specifically for competitive Olympic beach volleyball purposes."

August 13 and counting

2008-08-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

I just spent part of the weekend at an event with someone who claims to have seen the genitals of someone famous, so I figure I am now famous by genital association. Sweet! You know how associated fame multiplies and spreads, like, okay, mold? Well-known, cleavage-enhanced, hooked-up mold? And yes, that also applies to the anatomy of famous people, as well. It is only a matter of time before I am eyeing the fine Corinthian leather on Clooney's private projection room screening chairs, and by "eyeing the fine Corinthian leather," I mean completely having hot, sweaty sex with him.

August, in general, has been an interesting month. I'm a little worried that we are only halfway through. I have already learned, this month, that if one forgets one's black bra on a trip and really needs said black bra to wear under a special black-bra-needing top, one can instead wear one's black sports bra under the top, if one can handle a business dinner without ever inhaling whatsoever. And, it's a good place to hide the amuse bouche.

I also discovered that the little mail signature line I have run for the past six months at the end of my emails, the one that makes me look all grown up, professional and email savvy? It had my last name misspelled. Me. I spelled my own name incorrectly. For months.

It's okay, though, because I was drunk that whole time.

Arachnids

2008-08-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

You, L, with the Spider thing? Please know that you are free to leave the room now. You can get your notes from Sheila after class. But for those of you not fleeing the room in sweaty-palmed horror, we have an Issue.

I live in coastal California, which means almost no mosquitoes, and that's terrific, because that means no screens on the windows, and that's wonderful, I mean, really, Holla! But I think I missed the part in eight grade science where mosquitoes trump spiders, because we have spiders. No, we have Spiders.

I know the thing about never being more than perhaps six feet from a spider because they secretly are our overlords, and all, but I think we might have inadvertently moved into world headquarters. My kids have small plastic containers (don't ever ask for some of my side salad at a picnic) by their beds for the expressed purpose of catching spiders.

See? It's so bad that we have dedicated implements.

I vacuum every two or three days. I dust. I point at the piles of paper on the dining room table and mutter, "We need to do something about those!" and, in general, I stir the atmosphere. We're not encouraging them. If they are drawn to faded sandals and Nintendo DS cartridges, we're screwed, but we're not inviting them in. We're a benign environment, wishing we were more hostile, stopping one exit before from Lethal Town.

This is where I'm weird. (This is where I'm weird?) I kill mosquitoes and gleefully paint my face in their blood. I go all Braveheart on ants, marching up and down the front lawn, screaming for their entrails. For some reason, though, my karma counter kicks in with spiders. They aren't obviously looking for trouble. They don't carry diseases (unlike Paris Hilton, and I don't see anyone slamming a Dixie cup over her head and throwing her out the kitchen window). They are garden helpers. Some of them were Greek gods. I don't need them for food, and they are not my people's sworn enemy (ticks, I am looking at you) and their queen, Charlotte, saved that simpering pig that one time, so I toss them outside, where they can plot my overthrow under the cover of darkness. But, yes, I want them more gone.

I just went and looked up what eats spiders and it seems I am left with two options: Fill my house with praying manti (mantises? mantii?) like my whole house is a Super! Fun! pit and they are so many grumpy-looking, poky, poky balls, or, I can go the tactical route. The number one enemy of spiders? Other spiders. They eat each other.

Yep, in order to kill the spiders, I need more spiders. I am going to ignore the logical conundrum posed here and just go with it. I need to recruit. I must, then, rally a spider civil war in the corner behind my TV.

What's the spider equivalent of a tiny Trojan horse?

A note to the lady I frightened in the parking lot

2008-08-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sure, I know how it goes, if you got up, like me, at the sound of your coffee machine. It beeps five times, even if you stand there and turn it off before the first beep, because the cat walked on your head at 4:27 a.m. as part of the Official Morning Awakening Food Announcement and you went back to sleep, after, but not entirely, and finally got up at 7, so the 7:15 coffee beeping thing was unnecessary.

I so get you.

And then you showered and checked your email but not in that order, duh, because that would make sense, and so you drove to work with your hair damp, or okay, sopping wet against the back of your neck with the air turned on high, because that is totally like a blow drier (only not, because your blow drier has that diffuser thing and your hair now smells like dashboard).

Oh, sweater lady, now that we are so close, I can ask: Do you live in a house? A wee house, with a dark bathroom? A bathroom with little natural light? Because, pray tell, if you do, oh, you, too, would not have noticed that your face had gone from this:

to this:

Yea, verily, the warm Silicon Valley sunlight hit my upper lip as I checked my vinyl hairdo before entering the office, and the sudden realization that I had 'STACHE totally freaked my shit right out. Hence, while you were getting out of your Prius with your laptop bag, purse, eco-friendly commuter mug, lunch containers from Whole Foods and your soy yoga outfit, I was yelling in my car, and flailing at my own face, and attempting to fashion crude tweezers out of the nearby Dodge Dart antenna.

I was unprepared for the sudden, violent knowledge that I had morphed into a supervillan.

Not another link. Not one.

2008-08-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

Phobic about plane travel, post September 11? Sure, many people are. It isn't even necessarily the not-so-likely terrorist threat, either - it can be a general, "Oh, yeah, these things can crash" sort of fear. So, you started taking trains, didn't you? Only, Amtrak went bust. You drove for a bit, but now one single gallon of gas costs four gazillion dollars. So, you said, "Okay, the bathrooms are hideous and the pace is loathsome, but at least the bus is affordable. And safe."

And then random bus passengers started chopping up and eating people.

So far this summer, the news has included numerous workplace shootings, international bombings, earthquakes, dead mommies, random attacks on teens, foreclosures, more than one beheading, floods, storms, kidnappings, and one freaky beach monster.

In other news, we're still at war.

At times like these, it makes sense to just stop, and sit, and think nice thoughts about the mighty llama. Won't you join me?

So, a woman with a camera walked into the men's room. . .

2008-07-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

The Madonna Inn Men's Room is famous; casual chat has it that men have to wait for the tourist gawkers to clear out before they can use the shared waterfall urinal. I followed in a woman and her boyfriend; he was quite accommodating (he did The Stance to trigger the automatic waterfall for me, sans nekkid).

We three had a lovely time and only upon leaving, when the toilet flushed, realized we had, in fact, bothered some poor fellow who really would have appreciated some alone time.

I know the sound has some weird interference from downloading, but hey, how much pristine sound quality do you want in a men's room video, anyway?

I went back in the daytime

2008-07-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry for any seasickness you may get, but welcome to the Madonna Inn, guerrilla style. Hey, this is Barbara-with-hand-held/no-dolly, not the schmancy Sundance channel.

Here I give you an intro to the Madonna Inn formal dining room:

The squeeky doll's noise? Total saying "redrum, redrum." And when you hear me saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah?" That's in response to the stunned man behind me saying, "No way! No way! No way!"

Because oh, YES way.

Madonna Inn

2008-07-29T22:37:00.001-07:00

I hope you can come see this.*

When I was there, this Monday, the dance area was filled with soft-soled teenage San Luis Obispo Rug Cutters (their actual name), grooving to too-soft swing music and drinking iced water from the bar in Styrofoam cups. That was not the most intriguing part.

Imagine this (the dining room), but it had more flowers, more lights, more butterflies. MORE! MORE!

The bar area is carved - dark, yellow-orange wood - with faux Germanic grapevines - everywhere, and there are copper chairs and tables, and fake stained glass inserts in the window. There is NOWHERE for your eye to rest. The pillars, the ceiling - everywhere - is that carved wood, and it's painted in the few places where the wood is not carved, the flat bits, with even more grapevines. And then they added pastel leather high-back chairs. The dining area is as you see above, but with manymanymany fake flowers, and little white lights. Everywhere. Flowers on walls, in the middle of the room, strung on light fixtures - HUGE six-foot-wide sprays of flowers with white lights. And then in the one spot where they didn't stick flowers, they stuck a gigantic fake pink butterfly.

The excess is astounding.

Add gilt mirrors, and flocked hot pink velvet chairs, and more flowers, and an animatronic doll on a swing hanging, to and fro, from the ceiling. And for good measure, they shoved a truckload of gold cherub statues into every open corner.

It's like your tacky, drunken, Great Aunt's parlor came monstrously alive and set about feeding 100 people whipped cream soup.

UPDATE: Here is what it looks like today:

* Umberto Eco wrote, "The poor words with which natural human speech is provided, cannot suffice to describe the Madonna Inn...Let's say that Albert Speer, while leafing through a book on Gaudi, swallowed an overgenerous dose of LSD and began to build a nuptial catacomb for Liza Minnelli."

Midsummer movie rentals

2008-07-28T14:06:00.001-07:00

(Taking one for the team, two screen-flickering hours at a time)

Charlie Bartlett: "Harold and Maude" for the Gen-Eh set.

Pros:

It has some lovely moments, and the lead is terrific, if playing it a bit too Wide-eyed Woodland Creature.
Hope Davis shows up, as does Robert Downey, Jr. We love them.

Biggest Pro:

I was fairly certain, THE WHOLE TIME, that Robert Downey Jr. was [this] close, repeatedly, to singing Leadbelly's "Midnight Special" while applying extra virgin coconut oil to his pecs (Don't worry if you didn't catch it upon first viewing: it's subtextual).

Cons:

It falls short of the "Harold and Maude" mark. I know "Harold and Maude," Sir, and you are no "Harold and Maude."
Hope Davis is painfully underutilized and she never makes out with Robert Downey, Jr.
Neither do I.
Also, Robert Downey Jr, whilst possibly contemplating some sweet, sweet moisturizing, never actualizes that damn jar.

End of act three note:
Just before the group swaying the that old Coke ad ("I'd like to teach the world to sing,") I realized RDJR was never going to oil up; I then forcibly choked myself to death on my official Martha Stewart no-slip throw rug underliner.

. . .are the luckiest . .

2008-07-26T13:29:00.001-07:00

I had some close-like-sisters friendships, and some daily road marker friendships, and some nodding acquaintanceships, and then, several years ago, I moved 3,000 miles away from all of them. My job, when I moved here, to California, was more than an hour away from my home; while I developed work friends, I didn't see them except for at work, and I didn't get to know my neighborhood locals, because I was working an hour away, all day, every day. And the little I was home, I spent with my kids.

And then I left that far-away job to work from home, to be near the kids, and more in my life.

Except -- it's been brutally lonely.

I didn't know I was lonely until the day I started complaining about editor billing issues to my eight-year-old, on the way to Little League. He was extremely patient, trying to get me to clarify the differences between Accounts Payable and Accounts receivable, but I could tell under the layer of concern that he really would have preferred to discuss the subplots in "iCarly." And I realized I was lacking some basic friendships with grownups. And I wondered how to open my life up, within the confines of working from home, and being, in some ways, still new in town.

I can't walk up to someone on the swings and ask her to be my friend, because at my age, that's creepy. Also? Few women my age are actively hanging around on swing sets. Where are my people? Was I fated to hang out in organic produce aisles, smoke-free blues bars, and fair trade coffee shops, flipping through my Brain, Child and playing my "This American Life" pod casts a little too loud on my iPod, to better attract my own sort? Making new friends as a grown up is one gazillion times harder than dating. We all have so little time, and want to spend it with our kids/lover/"Grey's Anatomy" reruns/ellipse machine/with people we already know and miss - make a new friend? Not only do we not have time to court each other, we won't have time to see them once we are friends.

I actually said out loud, I need to make friends. I need to figure out how.

It little less than an invocation.

Three days ago, this woman moved in next door. Too bad she was so much older than me, I mused, because I found her funny and warm, and was, you know, really wishing there were people in my life. And my major new business partner? He's terrific, but he's a guy, and also not my age. There were all of these wonderful, magical people appearing in my life, just like I asked for them, but, dammit, none of them fit into the right boxes exactly in the way I needed! Which was too bad, because I was so lonely!

Oh, yes, I truly am that slow.

I had no idea I was so picky, or so thick.

One of the better things about getting older, I think, is that even though I can't always be less Crazy, I can stop short my Crazy a lot faster.

News (of a sort)

2008-07-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

Example #427 of the headline stealing the best part of the story:

Dwarf Comedy Stunt Shocks Swedish Airport Staff

and

Underwear Chicken Dare Puts Man In Hospital

Wednesday Night Fever

2008-07-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

Can you see that? That's the movie theater, house lights down, as the movie started.

Yeah. Not a lot of buzz. Or. you know, people. Maybe the missing audience were swarming "Mama Mia."

Journey To The Center Of The Earth

(Also known as Brendan Fraser, with sad, sad (faux) hair and as much earnestness as he can muster, running like hell to and fro while things virtually plummet and lunge at you.)

The action, including but limited to, examinations of T Rex/roller coasters/killer fish/snot/goo/bugs/lava/glowbirds/etc, had the eight-year-old boys with me clapping, gasping, giggling, guffawing and performing everything short of a standing ovation. My daughter, however, described it best: "Huh. That really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

I startled violently more than once, and you know how much I enjoy paying some $21 for the privilege. While I did enjoy it only as a purely physical exercise, viewers at my theater were unable to view it in 3D (I blame the McCain camp). Also, every time there was a sly Jules Verne reference, I poked myself in the eye with my Big Gulp straw. I am still perfectly monocular.

Summer reading - cliff notes for you

2008-07-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not have heard (and you have, if you have or know or hire or live near a younger teenage girl), Stephanie Meyer's modern vampire love trilogy is big. BIG. Think Anne Rice, without any adult behaviors whatsoever, nor none such ripped, velvet tapestries.

The books go something like this:

Twilight = (They meet, and the push/pull begins). Think Grease, with fewer dirty lyrics.

New Moon = (She lives outside Seattle, with a Peet's on every corner. He drinks blood, plus, you know, waaaay undead). Think Romeo and Juliet, with a side of werewolf.

Eclipse = (Battle lines are drawn). Go with West Side Story analogy, minus the singing.

Note: Do not finish the series, turn to your thirteen-year-old daughter, and exclaim, "Blech! That really needed a juicy undercurrent of homoeroticism!"

Two midsummer movies (in which we rent what's still left on the shelves)

2008-07-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

Let me save you some four simple hours that you, Dear Reader, might otherwise lose to the siren song of "What is this, then? Every copy of 'Michael Clayton' is out, you say? Well. Maybe these are fun and will therefore put pep back into my mildly-to-moderately dreary and lonely existence."

No.

Jon Heder, he of the magnificently emoting front teeth, is an apron-betangled, twenty-nine-year-old who flips when his mom moves on. Add the always-scrumptious (and, here, singing!) Jeff Daniels, and a perkily randy Diane Keaton - and yet Mama's Boy just slumps slowly to the side like little more than a tall, moist bread stick, placed in the center of the table, in a too-short, slightly plain container. The resulting effect on me was so great that I afterwards took to my bed with stale Dorito "rounds," a hearty vial of cold gin and a rather unwieldy platter of melted cheddar cheese.

P.S. I Love You

Extremely hot ne'er-do-well marries too-young Hillary Swank, directed by none of other than Richard LaGravenese, with all the funny, likable and honestly meaningful plot bits left out, in case they distract from the parade of clever hats. At "fini," I beat myself apathetically about the head and shoulders with the May 2004 special shoe edition of InStyle magazine until general ennui won out.

Save yourselves.

And then she found me

2008-07-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

i'm 7 years old my head hurt on and off why
Why are you reading faux-existential blogs when you should be chatting up creepy men posing as like-minded Spheniscidae on Club Penguin?

stained thighs
Stop wearing the Lindsey Lohan line of leggings and you'll be fine. Exfoliate a little, maybe.

robin mcgraws veneers
Wait. You're curious about Mrs. Dr Phil's teeth?

from the trenches

2008-07-15T07:39:00.001-07:00

The shuttle from the airport had me as the sole passenger; the terrifically friendly, quite-a-bit-older driver gave me the longer, scenic tour of Seattle's skyline. He talked about the history of the area, the population, the architecture and basically pointed out all sorts of cool stuff. When he dropped me off at my hotel, he slipped me his card and asked me to call him day or (wink) night. My word. I do believe I was just offered the bonus package!

(if the shuttle van's a'rockin'...)

.

Why I can't go places: I just cheerfully moisturized my face, neck and hands with my defrizz hair serum.

.

Next up: Barbara meets powerful editors with her facial follicles botanically sealed against humidity.

Just another lumpy writer

2008-07-14T16:00:00.001-07:00

I'm at the airport, about to fly to a writing conference.

Every time I do one of these grown up things, something about me makes me crazy. Often it's that I am too chubby and everyone will gather at some secret point in the back kitchen to snicker at my thighs. At the audacity of my thighs. This morning, I decided, while brushing my teeth, that my nose was simply too large to be tolerated any longer. The bulbous end bit? Must. Go. And my teeth! Jaysus gay.

Because at any moment, I am sure, my body may betray me in one million different and new ways, I also went ahead last night and bought one of those killer, industrial WeDoNotCauseBreastCancer! (but could you please sign this waiver?) Solid deodorants, even though I do not, generally, sweat to excess. No, really, the stuff comes with instructions and a timer chart and everything.

I told you I was a leetle crazy.

In so many ways, I vow to you, I am very much not crazy. I am a super grounded mom, and I am kind to animals while not hoarding them in my sewing room, and I don't apologize for laughing, or crying, or getting righteously pissed off, or for eating cake, and I do not have full-blown addiction problems (I have mild, consumer- and body-based addictions, like all earnest Americans). And yet, for this, it's like I audition over and over again. I am twelve in this one area of my life.

So, if you are seated next to me tomorrow, please do not look directly at my nose, or my thighs, but please feel free to enjoy my fresh, dry, extremely medicated scent.

Pants on fire. Also? Vest.

2008-07-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

I need to tell you something, and if you need to unfriend me on Facebook, I understand.

I am a liar. A big, crazy one, with poor planning skills and an unfortunate wardrobe.

A year ago, I bought my daughter a winter jacket at Target. What I did not know is that I had missed the closing of the buy-me-whatever-and-I'll-wear-it window by perhaps one full work week.

Also? The jacket was more than a little ugly. Purple, with faux fur.

I know. Don’t think I don’t know.

She never wore the jacket; the tags were still on when I found it, lost for a long time, at the back of my closet. What did I do? I took it back to Target to get back my $43. Did I remember that Target doesn't take returns? No. Did I have a receipt? No. Did I lie? Yes.

And, Scene!

Me: I'd like to return this.

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: Do you have a receipt?

Me: No. (pause. Take in his piercings and general coolness)
It was a gift. (Lie #1)

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: You can exchange it, but we can't give you cash.

Me: That's fine.

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: (While my incredibly sophisticated computer can't tell me for sure that you lost it in the back of your shoe-and wrapping-paper strewn closet for eleven months, it does indicate that this is no longer in stock. It must have been purchased a while ago.)

Me: Oh. (surprised face, which is technically Lie #2)

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: So, I can't take this back.

Me: It was gift. (Lie #3, because I am embarrassed, now that I see it again under the sweet, sweet fluorescent lighting. It is truly ugly. I don't want to admit my part in this because suddenly this boy that I will nevereverever meet again, who is approximately 20 years younger than me, must not think I buy ugly jackets for children.)

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: We can't take back as an exchange anything we no longer stock. Are you certain you don't have a receipt?

Me: My grandmother bought it. (Lie #4; see also: Lie #3)

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: Can you get the receipt from her?

Me: No. (shaking head sadly) She has dementia.

(Lie #5. I have gone from mildly shifty to full-blown sociopath in fewer than fifty words.)

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: (pursed lips)

Me: (Internal monologue: OhMyGah, what if he checks my purchase history in his supersecret computer?)

Unsullied innocent behind the counter: (wincing in sympathy because I have to take the damn thing away with me) Sorry.

Me: That's okay. (scuttering away, whispering over my shoulder, shoving ugly jacket into thin, ripped, sad bastard bag, wondering if I need an exorcism). Thanks for your time.

Outer me.

Inner me.