Memoirs Of An Evil Genius

CROSS YOUR LEGS

Jamie-Lynn Spears is pregnant.  Oh, yes she is.  This is not a drill, folks!  This is the real thing!  The SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD sister of Britney motherfuckin' Spears is going to HAVE A BABY.  They are like The Beverly HIllbillies FOR REAL.

Happy Holiday$!

What's this "writing"?  It seems so new, so unfamiliar!

I kid, but not really.  It's been forever since I've updated, but it's been forever since I've done just about anything except for work.  Fortunately, my episode is in the finalization process, so MOST of the headachey parts are over.  OVER!  Of course, the qualifier "most" is "most" important here.  I've learned to stop relaxing, because at 6:30 when I'm supposed to leave I know someone will come running up, all, "OMG!  There's a thing that needs to be done RIGHT NOW for tomorrow, and if you don't do it nine million people will die!!!!" and then the 24 clock starts beeping and the screen goes to a four-way split screen, and...well, you know the drill.

But!  I am finally approaching the finish line for reals.  For REALS, for reals, because we deliver on the 21st and I go home on the 21st for the holidays, and I'm not doing any work on Christmas.  (Incidentally, I did a typo right there and said I wasn't going to do any qork on Christmas -- I'm not going to make that promise.  Frankly, I have to do a lot of qork just to get me through the holidays.)  What I WILL be doing is freezing my buns off and feeling poverty-stricken.

Oh, did I neglect to mention that I have had my car in the shop THREE TIMES since I bought it IN SEPTEMBER?  First the engine light came on and it cost ~$200 to repair.  Then the engine light came on and it cost $700 to repair.  Then, and you'll love this, the ENGINE LIGHT CAME ON -- ten days later -- and it cost $600 to repair!  And now?  Do you want to know what's happening now?  Do you?  Just listen: NOW the BRAKES are making horrific groaning noises, in manner of Shrieking Eels or similar, like they might be fixing to give up the ghost any old day.  Not comforting!  Add to these expenses the holidays -- WHICH, by the way, are taking off downhill like MY CAR WITH NO BRAKES -- and I'm practically sweating money.  I would love to stop my bank account from hemorrhaging, but it appears to be hemophiliac at this point.

Which reminds me: has everybody finished their Christmas shopping?  I HAVEN'T!  Who has time?  I bought a bunch of shit over Thanksgiving, and a bunch more over the subsequent week, but I've got more and more and more people to buy for every year.  And now that I have a "better" "job", people seem to expect more.  Apparently I can't get away with shopping at the 99¢ Store anymore.  I don't care what people say -- you never have too many ceramic hobo clown candle holders.

Anyway, I just wanted everyone to know I'm not dead.  Like my mom.  Who called me two weeks ago, and when I didn't answer called everyone I'd ever met to ask where I was and was I okay.  I was fine, by the way.  I was just drunk.  It was a Tuesday morning, after all.

(Kidding!  It was Saturday morning.)

(Kidding again!  It was Saturday afternoon.)

I Said, "I Want to CRUSH James Bond," Not, "I Have a CRUSH ON James Bond!"

I always knew I was GORGEOUS.

Dressed for Distress

So last year for Halloween I decided I wanted to go as Colonel Percy Fawcett, famed British explorer thought to have died under mysterious circumstances in the Amazon jungle in 1925.  I had this vision of me in full Great White Hunter attire, with some arrows sticking out of my back for effect.  In the end, everyone else in my party decided to go extremely low-key that year, and I wasn't about to be The Guy With The Complicated Costume.  So instead I went as Andy Warhol, and it all went over very well.

This year, I decided to revive my dead explorer idea, and employed Tex in the enterprise of rigging my arrows.  We realized that putting them in my back would actually not be a serviceable idea -- one cannot sit in the car with arrows sticking out of one's back -- so we moved them to the front.  It actually worked really well, although the harness acted like a lung tourniquet whenever I sat down, and people all responded really well.  I had this stupid mustache I made out of cotton balls and tape (hey, not everything can be all fancy and special effect-y), which made drinking difficult, but I guess we all have to make some sacrifices for fashion.

At one of the parties, we randomly ran into two women I work with.  One of them, Manda, was outfitted as Elle Driver (from Kill Bill).  She actually did a very good job, and was sexy in an understated way.  At one point in the evening, I was approached by some guy who wanted to let me know that my "girlfriend" was very sexy.

Me: Um, thanks.  But she's not my girlfriend.

Him: Not YET.

Me: ...right.  No, we're not going to go out.

Him: But you COULD.

Me: ...no, probably not, actually.

Him: But the interest is there, right?  Right?

Me: ...have you met my boyfriend?

Then he got all quiet and awkward.  Straight guys are so weird.

GASP

That's me, gulping air into my lungs, because I have FINALLY been able to get my head out of work for a few minutes.  Things have seriously been crazy hectic this week.  The shit hit the fan, like, six different ways.  Fortunately, I'm getting to be an expert shit-handler.  That sounded wrong.  But it is actually fairly accurate.

Okay, but for reals?  Why do people have to be assholes?  Like, especially (JUST FOR EXAMPLE) people in public relations.  Isn't their job to RELATE?  To THE PUBLIC?  If I had a dollar for every douchebag PR guy who gave me the runaround this week and/or acted like I was planning to slander them To Catch a Predator style and run some kind of child labor exposé ("We'd love to come down there and film you guys!  Could you make sure your workers don't bathe or put on makeup?  We'll be bringing some shackles -- for atmosphere -- so make sure everyone's aware.  We'd also like them to sing some old spirituals or whatever.  If you have any with broken limbs, let's put them in the front with extra welts on their flesh.") I would have...a whole lot of dollars.

But it's cool.  I got my car situation all straightened out at last, and it's mine, mine, mine!  Ironically, while I was sitting there and waiting for them to process my title transfer, I recognized this guy who was working there at Triple-A.  At first I was confused, because he looked familiar but still seemed so different, and I convinced myself I was wrong.  But then I heard him answer the phone, and sure enough: it was Tony, my old compatriot from the shackles-and-child-laboring pits of Arts-Friendly!  I didn't have time to go over and ask him how he was or what he's up to, because I had to haul ass to the office, but it's kind of nice just to know where he is and that he seems to be doing better than ever now that he's broken free of the chain gang.

In other news, both Tex and Ulrich have officially completed their respective local obligations and have returned to whence they came.  Ulrich is back up north at school, and Tex has gone back down south to his other obligations, so Argyle and I are alone.  Just us and TiVo.  And pie.  (I made pie this weekend.) I don't know what we did in the days before TiVo, though, I swear.  Of course, it's not all roses -- last night I was up till 3am trying to catch up on shows, because I'm going up north myself this weekend and will be missing all my leisurely opportunities to watch at my own convenience.

Okay, speaking of which, I need to get the FUCK out of the office.  RIGHT. NOW.  I will go for a run, I will drive the fifteen or so miles all the way back home to get shit I forgot this morning when I was running out the door, and then I will drive all the way back that and THEN some to go visit my boyfriend.  Toodles, y'all -- have a great and relaxing weekend!
 

Mo' Auto, Mo' Problems

Okay, I'm going to have to make this really, really quick because I have to leave work in about five minutes, but I have been so fucking busy all week that I didn't post anything.  SO, a quick update.

I bought a car last weekend.  Not that it was without The Drama.  Of course.  See, first off?  The car has...an odor.  Like, the guy I bought it from had this goshawful air "freshener" in the car, and it was so cloying it gave me a headache on the ride home.  It smelled like melted crayons and cheap, French whore.  So we put two boxes of baking soda in the car to soak up the stench.  So far, it's done wonders on the cheap, French whore!  Not so much on the melted crayons.

ALSO?  The tires needed to be replaced.  ALL of them.  So I did that on Monday, with much sturm und drang when they told me I needed the "wheel lock", but I'd thrown out the wheel lock (or else I'd salvaged it from the trash by putting it on the coffee table -- I did both things, but I couldn't remember which one came first.  Did I mention how busy I am?  It's like a David Lynch movie inside my brain), and they told me they were going to charge my ass $44 per tire to break the locks.  That's $176.  AMERICAN.  I said hell no, and they, worried they'd lose the insane sale of four tires, relented and broke them for free.  That's business for you.

Of course, the engine light has come on, and now I can't pass the smog test the guy who sold me the car was supposed to have gotten done before he sold it, and without that, I can't transfer ownership or register the car (the guy who sold it to me ALSO did not keep the registration current, imagine that), so I have to put it in the shop on Saturday.  Hooray for the "convenience" of personal automotive ownership, right?

Oh, ALSO also?  I came home Monday night to a letter from the bank informing me that, oh, by the way, they didn't cash the payout check I got from my insurance company for my total loss.  So I paid for my car and have been paying my bills with money I just barely had in the bank.  Like, by the time I found this out, I had $200 in the bank, and my rent check was still at large.  So I called them to yell at them about why I was just finding out about this now, via a letter, with no recourse, when the teller should have informed me there was a problem WHILE I WAS IN THE BANK DEPOSITING THE CHECK, and they should have CALLED ME to let me know that I might not want to start going all Paris Hilton with the spending when I didn't really have a dime to my name anymore.  I finally got things sorted out -- BARELY in the nick of time -- but BANK OF AMERICA has NOT HEARD THE LAST OF THIS.  I will be switching banking institutions, just as soon as all my latest checks have cleared.  Motherfuckers.

PS, I love how they try to subtly (or not-so) blame it all on you.  Like, they'll be all, "you're one of our most valued customers!" and then as soon as you have a complaint, it's like, "well, I'm sure it's your fault somehow.  We'll be sanctioning your account and charging you a ridiculous overdraft fee if anything goes wrong as a result of our incompetence."

Okay, now it is FINALLY the weekend, and I'm going to drink some wine.  Peace, y'all.

Putting the Cash in Crash

To make up for nearly two weeks of absence, and because a couple people asked me some questions, I will herewith impart the tale of my TOTALLY TOTALED CAR.

It was actually all very banal, as these things go.  We (the drivers) were at an intersection and incorrectly communicated which one of us would be going, and then we both went, and I hit the brakes and he stepped on the gas, but it was too late and we hit each other at a combined speed of about 40mph.  There was very little drama, no injuries, and the damage to my car appeared to be little more than a broken headlight casing (the lamp itself still worked fine), a damaged grille with scratched paint, and a slightly misaligned hood.

I drove a good 50 miles more before I finally dropped it off at the body shop (shoppe?) the next morning, whistling a very optimistic tune in manner of Andy Griffith or similar, thinking to myself about how quick and easy and painless this would all be.  Turns out it was quite painless for the mechanic, anyway, who won't have to do any work after all.  Because I got a look at the estimate, which placed the damages at about, you know, nearly SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I? Was outraged.  "What exactly is going to cost seven thousand dollars?"  I asked, in my outrage voice.  They informed me that they were essentially going to have to replace the entire front end of my car.  "With what?"  I demanded.  "A condominium?"  But no.  I couldn't understand everything on the itemized estimate, but according to my insurance representative, who went on in an airy bluster about "safety" and "responsible agenting", it would not be acceptable for me to continue driving that car.  So they have paid me considerably more than the damages to shut up and be nice about it.

So I will be getting a new car.  Hopefully this weekend.  God willing.  Because I cannot rely on the kindness of boyfriends (mine and other peoples') forever.

You'll Never Guess What Happened

First, the good news: I'm getting a new car!  Yay!  Well, not a NEW car, but one that's new to me.  Now the bad news: I'm getting a new car because...my car is totaled!  Sigh.

I know what you're thinking.  Go ahead, I'm thinking it too.  But seriously, did one of my ancestors, like, crash a jeep into the mummy's tomb?  Because what is with all the bad car mojo?  However, I suppose I should be glad that this time it literally took only a week for me to get all the paperwork signed and the money from my insurance company in the bank.  Last time it took five months and I almost lost my motherfucking mind.  I've actually even picked out a car already, sorta, if the dude selling it would ever call me back.

Related: why is it that I can't get people to sell me their cars?  The first car I bought -- brand new -- I couldn't get the salesman to call me back for two weeks.  I'm all, "Hey, I've got several thousand dollars I'd love to give you!" and he couldn't find time to get in touch?  Second time, the dude resisted my haggling but promised that if the price dropped he'd call.  The price dropped two weeks later and he didn't fucking call.  I found out about BY ACCIDENT because I responded to an ad in the paper for a car that sounded exactly like the one I wanted at the price I was asking.  What a douchebag.

Anyway, I've been driving Tex's enormous SUV for the past few days.  This has been exciting, because I am decidedly not a Big Car person.  In addition to lending me his car with no questions asked, he also cut my hair for free and is helping me take care of getting this new vehicle.  I told Argyle the other day that I was really glad we're going out with her boyfriend.  But then he needs the car tomorrow, so I will have to figure out something else.  "Something else", it turns out, will be that Ulrich will drive me to work at FIVE IN THE MORNING on his way out of town, and pick me up on his way back.  I will spend three hours tomorrow sitting in the Starbucks and reading.

At least I'll have a shot at finishing my book before the year's out.

Mountain High

Sorry for the unintentional vacation, y'all!  It's been a hectic couple of weeks.  I got back from my trip on the 2nd, worked four days, and left for the mountains last Friday so Ulrich and I could celebrate our two-year anniversary.  Hooray!  It was actually a wonderful getaway, and the B&B was amazing, even though our room had a slight...rabbit problem.

Okay, I don't mean there were, like, rabbits chewing on shit or whatever; I mean the room was decorated like Beatrix Potter blew up all over it.  Ceramic rabbits, stuffed rabbits, painted rabbits, ragdoll rabbits.  We picked the room because it had a raised spa tub for two (hooray!) with a view looking out at the woods, and were thoroughly satisfied, but...rabbits, y'all.

We did some wine tasting on Saturday, and that was a shitload of fun, as always.  We made a record haul, too!  We're usually pretty reserved when it comes to the tasting -- like, we'll split one between us, and at most we'll buy like two bottles if we're feeling good -- but we went all the fuck out this time.   I'm serious.  I'm going to have to cancel my cell phone or something, because we spent a fortune on booze and food.

The first place that we stopped at, we were clearly the only ones to show up that day.  The lady kept pouring and pouring, and asking us about ourselves, and we obliged as comfortably as one can be expected while talking about your relationship to a total stranger.  Then she pulls out this weird, unmarked bottle, and goes, "Now we're going to try something!"  She poured us a wine that had only been in the bottle for a week, the first harvest of newly planted grapes, and said that she tasted "fruit and onions".

A) WTF?  B) Worst. Combination. Of flavors.  Ever.  We had some.  It tasted like fruit and onions, all right.  Like fruit and onions BOILED IN FECES.  I am serious, it was the worst thing I have ever had in my mouth, and I once fell off the monkey bars and landed mouth-first in a pile of fucking dirt.  It was like...if someone stuffed a rotting beaver corpse with feta cheese, garlic bulbs, and aluminum shavings, then soaked it in sweat and gasoline, and then liquefied it, you MIGHT approach what we tasted.

That night, we walked into town and had an amazing dinner, followed by some seriously awesome apple pie for dessert.  We started to walk home, when we realized that the sky was so clear up there that you could actually see the Milky Way.  We also realized that there were no street lights on the mile-long twisty mountain road leading back to the B&B, and we stood a good chance of getting mowed down by an SUV and left to die in the obscuring underbrush.  So we called our hostess, and she came to pick us up.  THAT'S why a B&B is the way to go, people.

Anyway, there was more, of course, but this entry is long enough and I have to get back to work.  I only have one more week!  This was a shock to me, because I thought this job was pretty much permanent.  Imagine my surprise when I came in this morning to find out that I'm getting a promotion and starting a new, higher-paying job come the 24th.  Hooray!  My horoscope even told me this would happen, and I totally didn't believe.  Shows how much I know.