insert a big ol' belly laugh there at the end, because I did

Overheard between a guy and a girl, after the girl complained about having to buy toilet paper at the store today:

guy: I always buy toilet paper when I buy lube, so I've come to associate it with sex. And odd smells that survive hand-washing.

Ah, nothing like a little lube humor to brighten your day.

and i'll probably feel a whole lot better...

I have the best friends that money can buy, that spend their money buying me Jager bombs.

Holy crap, dude. Those things are so wicked vicious that you can get hit in the back of the head with a beer bottle and not even really notice. You'd be all like, "Dude, did someone just punch me? What? A beer bottle - are you fucking serious? Shut up."

Not that I'd know anything about any of that.

But what I do know is that I saw a really awesome cover band made up of middle-aged white guys that not only covered Santana but also "Return of the Mack" so well that I thought it was a cd. It was crazy, yo.

Something else I know is that out of the majority of the people I went to high school with (that are still living in the area) (and were at that one bar the other night) I am at least 50% cuter than they are. And boy don't they know it! Cuz I totally told them!

So I'm feeling better now, but people still do suck.

Except for Royksopp. Nothing sucks about Royksopp, and I've got a beer bottle with your name on it right here if you dare disagree with me.

life lessons i've learned at the tender age of twenty-eight

People.

Fucking.

SUCK.

That's about the long and short of it, I think.

five days has gone already? time sure flies when you're unemployed and living in a basement!

But perhaps, just perhaps, I shall not be unemployed for long. A chance has come my way to join a - wait for it - UNION. How badass is that? That ain't no blue collar stuff - this is, like, no collar stuff. Because Lynard Skynard concert t-shirts don't come with collars, that's why. I am so there.

I think it would be totally killer to be working construction or surveying or something like that. I'm at a decided advantage because, as my union hook-up (otherwise known as "A Guy") informs me that since I'm female I have a better shot of getting in, due to EEOC regulations and the stunning (stunning!) lack of women in the construction field. Hooray for vaginas! Rather, hooray for my vagina! Today I am proud to hold my hand up high and say, "Yes, I am a vaginal American. Now give me some sweet-ass benefits. Because of my vagina!"

Are all y'all squicked and skeeved over the copious use of the word "vagina" in the above paragraph, and then again in this sentence? Because I am.

I shouldn't have much of a problem getting into this little collective (what a quaint concept, the collective!) provided that I can piss clean on my drug test. Which is why I've given up smoking black tar heroin for Lent. "Good Friday" my ass - more like "Friday I spend puking my guts out in the ficus tree because the methadone clinic is closed".

Vaginas and fake drug addiction in the same post - mama's on fire today.

Jon Stewart, the decadent bolshevik lesbian Jew, once had a bit where he discussed Lent. I'm paraphrasing here, despite the misleading presence of quotation marks:

"Yom Kippur - the Jewish day of atonement. You don't eat for one day and all of your sins for the year are washed clean. And it's not even a full day - it's from sundown to sundown. Most of us are like 'Fuck it - it's cloudy; I'm having a sandwich'. What is Lent, forty days? Forty days of absolution versus one day? Even in sin you're paying retail!"

Why am I up so early? Because today is Easter Egg Hunt Day! But all adult-style, where the prizes are cars and money and shit, which means there are a lot more stabbings than at the candy hunt for the children. Well, maybe not a lot more stabbings, but at the adult hunt more of the stabbings are fatal. Important distinction. Trouble is, everyone else in the area is going, too, so we have to get there somewhere between the cooling of the earth and the Paleolithic era. Sucks, ja!

I'm not hurting for being up - in fact, I'm in a pretty bitching mood - and my dad gets part of the credit for making the first decent pot of coffee he's ever made in his miserable life. I don't like his coffee. I say, "This coffee sucks, dad!" and he said, "Well, don't put milk and sugar in it and maybe you can taste it" and I say, "But I have to put milk and sugar in it because it sucks, dad!" Around and around.

I think I just might be his favorite daughter. Or son, for that matter.

Little story about my dad - the other morning I picked up the four sheets of newsprint that passes for the local paper and said, "This thing is a piece of trash. Front page news is how a duck on a local farm likes to play with the cows. You know, there's a whole wide world out there and stuff happens every single day, but you'll never hear about it down here." He said, "Whole wide world? What the fuck do I care who got shot in Chicago?" Then he laughed riotiously.

My dad says "fuck" around me, and I, he.

The only bad part of this egg hunt is that I'm going to have to run. I won't even run if someone's chasing me with a knife. If that happened I'd probably run to a wall or something and taunt my would-be killer with, "Neener, neener, I hit home base so you can't kill me now!" And the would-be killer is all like, "No way, that's not home base! You totally made that up - you are not scott-free!" and I'd be all like, "Yeah huh! I totally called this wall as home base when we were picking teams. You just didn't hear me." and would-be killer would get all pissed and be like, "Fine then, brat, be that way - I'm taking my knife and going home!" Then I'd sit down to smoke some more heroin, all the while laughing to myself at the stupidity of the would-be killers in my paranoid fantasy scenarios. What a bunch of chumps!

So hopefully the next time you hear from me I'll be bragging about some car or money or some shit that I've won, instead of the really hollow stuff I brag about now.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a knife to polish. Nothing screams "easter!" like a shiv to the kidney. At least, that's what gran always used to say.

i like cheese. do you like cheese?

I bet that ticked you off, how I posted then disappeared for days, huh. It's okay, you can tell me. I already know. I'm such a tease!

For the first time in who-knows how long I went out for St. Paddy's day. In the paper today someone who writes a column that I could totally write much better said, "When did St. Pat's become the new New Year's Eve around here?" I agree - all y'all's crazy for St. Pat's in the QC, yo.

I went to a "real" Irish bar - and by "real" I mean that it had an "O'" in the name and served Guinness - and listened to Latin music! Crazy, man. Just crazy. I talked at great length about the Pakistan-India conflict (because that's just how I roll when I'm up in da club) and was hit on by a midget in a leprechaun costume. Where the hell did all these midgets come from?!? Are midgets the new black? Time will tell.

I did not drink a green beer. I didn't even drink several green beers. But I did drink plenty of black beer. Then I got emotional and loved everyone, then I got belligerent and fought with everyone, then I got emotional and cried at everyone. But I didn't puke, so wheee!

This morning my mom told me I need to get a job. I'm all like, "Whatevas. Jobs is for losers." She was unimpressed.

Later on I told her that our family was so neurotic I'm beginning to think our house is built on a haunted Jewish burial ground.

Again, unimpressed.

On Saturday my dad told me I looked fat in those jeans, and this morning my mom told me I look fat in these jeans. I'm starting to think that my ass may be the problem, but I'm still going to blame the jeans manufacturers.

To everyone in the comments from my last post, I apologize for not answering your email. I totally meant to, though, so that should count for something, and I totally mean to reply in the near future. Just know that I got your email, appreciate it, and will be in touch as soon as I get a decent connection speed. Promises, promises! ()

hey there. you may not remember me...

Ah, how I do so cherish this brief respite from picking up the shattered pieces of my broken life! This tiny stolen online moment just melts my little heart, it truly does.

Hi there. How ya been? Have you lost weight? You're looking fierce.

I'm in Illinois now, after having been to hell and back. Then I took a detour to Wisconsin, returned to hell because I'd left my keys there, then back again, quick hit of the drive-thru at Culvers for a succulent butter burger, then back to Illinois. And boy are my arms tired!

I know I've mentioned this before, but it is totally worth repeating: I kick ass.

You should see what I've managed to do all by myself! I have the strength of two small ponies. Why not one large pony? Because large ponies are ridiculous and, surprisingly, not at all that strong.

By my estimation, I have two more treks back to Minnesota and a few days of cleaning before I'm finished. Shit's hard when you're by your lonesome (now you go "awww! I would totally help you if I could!" Yeah, but you can't, so just suck on your fake helpfulness, you phony.) but I'm pushing through. Because, if I may reiterate the above point, I kick ass.

When everything is finished I've decided to really treat myself by fishing out the wayward penny getting the cd player in my truck fixed. Iowa radio is brutal, man. What have I learned from Iowa radio stations? I've learned that all country singers have dead grandparents that taught them valuable lessons before passing. I've learned that every metal band has had way too much experience with psycho ex-girlfriends. I've learned that rapper girlfriends all have big booties and like to take it from behind.

These are lessons better left unlearned.

But that's not the only thing I'm going to do in celebration, oh no it's not. (Oh Natalie, you spoil yourself, you do!) Damn straight I do! Hell and back, shattered life, yadda yadda yadda. Remember? Anyway, I'm going to get another tattoo and a motorcycle. I'm totally going to be rocking the pink chaps and a helmet with flames on the side. Oh yes I am! And my new tattoo is going to be..ah...a...unicorn. A unicorn on my shoulder blade with stars behind it. Ooh, ooh, and a rose wreath around my wrist!

Well, if I'm going to live in the Quads I might as well get days of white trashy, right? (For those of you who don't know the Quads, it's quite white trashy.) (And that's where I'm going to be living.) (Seriously, people here wear baseball caps to weddings. "Mustang Ranch" baseball caps. Think I'm joking?) (I'm totally not joking.)

It was weird driving around this place again. It's amazing how much of the area I've forgotten, despite the size (it's very small and easy to navigate - nary a freeway or a tunnel or, indeed, a stoplight to be seen) and the fact that I lived here for the first seventeen or eighteen years of my life. I was sad to see that the old Mexican grocer is now an Asian grocer, and the head shop now proudly proclaims to sell Chili by the QUART!!!. Where has my youth gone, I ask you?

One kind of weird thing is that my favorite gay bar is now a gentleman's club (but the point could be argued that it was a gentleman's club before...) that features midgets.

You know you're a real live grown-up when the name of a former classmate can be seen on signs around town urging you to vote for him in the upcoming midterm election. That's some freaky shit right there. I'm going to pretend it's actually his dad that's running.

I'm headed back to Minnesota now and will leave you with this one last visual which sums up the whole Quads experience - while returning the U-Haul to the hardware store today, I saw an elderly man with a comb-over giving oral pleasure to a very fat Hispanic man in the parking lot. (I use the phrase "oral pleasure" because I get yelled at a lot for my potty mouth by a bunch of fuckos. Saying "oral pleasure" rather than "blow job" is my concession to said fuckos.)

And now, my comments!

This is where you click if you want to say something totally awesome about me and my potty mouth. Or even my general bad assness. Whatever your heart desires, yo. ()