A college student from Vermont has been missing for a long time — you may have heard about this, as it made national news for a bit, but all over Vermont, of course, it dominates the evening news, as stuff like that Just Doesn’t Happen Here, whatever that means. Each day, police are doing something different — sending out dogs and organizing recovery teams, etc., and really, it’s heartbreaking, thinking about what his parents are going through — they sent him off to college in one of the safest parts of the country and now … he’s gone. It’s unspeakable, really it is.
And much as I’m loathe to do this, I must admit that I am morbidly horrified and fascinated in equal parts about the recovery missions I see on the news that involve trawling the creeks and rivers with divers. Divers, oh my God.
I mentioned my fear of large things underwater and specifically, of finding a dead body underwater, I don’t know why (holla to Swistle who first articulated this fear for me), and for some reason, I can’t imagine why anyone would be able to DO THAT, and I have untold respect for the people who do. Because honestly, does that not sound like the scariest thing ever? Here, let’s give you a wet suit and some diving equipment and some flashlights for you to head into some seriously murky water — the murkiest of the year, in fact, for it is mud season — and hey, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a DEAD BODY FLOATING DOWN THERE so that we can give this family some closure. Most people I talk to, for the record, believe that’s precisely where they’ll find him, washed up somewhere in the creek, for where else could he be?
*shudder*
(And uh, it goes without saying that there will be no swimming in a single watering hole in the state of Vermont for me this upcoming summer. If … well, suffice it to say that “if” anything, let me tell you, I would have to be hospitalized on a Thorazine drip for the rest of my life, so help me, I would.)
Speaking of unpleasant things, we watched American Gangster this weekend and while it was a very interesting story, really it was, was that not THREE WHOLE MOVIES wrapped into one? I mean, good God, it went ON. AND ON. AND ON SOME MORE. The beginning was slow as molasses, full of exposition that seemed to go nowhere, and then it took off and went in forty different directions that all went too slow and too fast at once. I liked it, nonetheless, mostly because Denzel is eminently watchable in almost anything. I’d happily watch hours of footage of him doing nothing but eating grapes.
But what really got me about it is the same thing that bothers me about EVERY movie with any sort of drug use in it, which is that there is some sort of filmmaker-enforced OBLIGATION to have multiple close-ups of people shooting up. And as a viewer, I have to say, I would be much more content with other, more implicit methods of getting the point across that yes, we get it, people are injecting heroin. The mere presence of needles, for example, suffices, as do the rubber arm thingys, especially if you’re in a seedy apartment with peeling paint. WE GET IT. I do not — nor, do I think, does anyone else — need to see the super-tight shot of the dude’s veins as the needle closes in and I ESPECIALLY do not need to see the blood rushing back into the syringe. Ew, just ew.
Incidentally, I say this as a completely non-squeamish person when it comes to needles — I can watch as my own blood is drawn, and I’ve actually injected other people with meds. Hell, I’ve considered NURSING SCHOOL for much of my adult life and yet, please. Please stop with the injection scenes, PLEASE. I beg of you, O Hollywood.
And finally, at the suggestion of approximately 5,478 people, I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and made it through the Italy part and so far, I’m trying to resist the compulsion to hunt her down — wherever she is right now, I don’t care — so that I can rip her self-indulgent, bratty little face off. Oh WOE IS ME. GROW UP. We ALLL go through shit, and many people do it with infinitely more grace than she’s demonstrated through her (totally not) self-deprecating filter. And further, OH FURTHER, we manage to do it without a book advance so that we can go “find ourselves” abroad (at 34, mind you) and learn to — you guessed it — Eat! Pray! Love! and then write about our “journey” while whining our way through three countries.
(That book deal bit is tinged with jealousy, just a little bit, because who WOULDN’T want that? BUT STILL. SHUT UP, LIZ.)
(Edited to add that I do feel very strongly that the pre-determined publishing agreement took a great deal away from the authenticity of the project. While I admire her savviness in securing one prior to her travels, on the other hand, how much more would you have admired her if she, you know, did it on her own, out of an actual desire to do so, rather than a mercenary, selfish motivation? That would be a book I’d be interested in reading, rather than this funded, self-interested navel-gazer of a memoir.)
So I ask you, does it … does it get better? When does she get “likable” as the New York Times Book Review promises? And how do I tell my beloved stepmother, who I love very much, that I hated her recommendation?
I made my own homemade mayonnaise today, and in case it’s not obvious, I am SO NOT the type of person who usually does such things (see: tonight’s dinner of microwaved kielbasa), and all those people who tell you that homemade mayonnaise beats the pants off of the jarred stuff? THEY ARE TOTALLY RIGHT. And also, it takes like a second to make, seriously. So go forth and mayonnaise, because Jesus, if I wasn’t already five pounds up from moving to Vermont and being perilously close to an ungodly amount of Vermont cheddar and maple syrup, I’d be sitting on the fridge right now with the Tupperware container and a spoon. It’s that good.
I made Orangette‘s recipe, adapted from her column in this month’s Bon Appetit which, by the way, was a gift subscription, because again, I make Shake ‘n Bake and things that are microwaved as a general rule, but I do harbor an immense love for food porn, cookbooks and cooking magazines. If you want to make it, it’s basically the recipe I linked to, sans Meyer lemon zest and the garlic and with whatever oil you want to use. And dude, it’s GOOD. Try not to eat it with a spoon, I dare you.
And hey, speaking of culinary weirdness, I discovered that many Vermonters put high-quality maple syrup on their pizza, particularly during sugar season (now). The higher the grade, the better it is on pizza, so I’m told. And weirdly, I GET this, because maple goes with things it shouldn’t, like turkey and ham and BACON. Yes, bacon. (Although you’ll never get me to eat that bacon chocolate. Ever.) And it beats the pants off of the central New York trend of putting blue cheese dressing on pizza, which is a trick I learned while attending Syracuse University in the late ’90s. It’s good, but it’s not like pizza needs to be any worse for you than it already is, and I always finding myself needing like half a cup on each slice to be satisfying. This and copious amounts of uh, substance-induced munchies were the reason I was convinced my clothes had all shrunk by senior year. Ahem. Yes.
And if you’ll indulge me please, yet again, in a brief discussion about the mystery of hormones and how they can ROIL AND RUIN your life. Yesterday, I was in a Very Dark Place, wherein I knew it was a hormone-induced dark place, and yet I was completely incapable of illuminating the darkness through logic. I KNEW my period was due any second now, and yet I still could not totally convince myself to, you know, let there be light and shit.
And yes, let’s discuss how irrational I was: I got myself VERY WORKED UP about the lack of annoying people in my life since I went full time freelance and no longer work in an actual office, and how this lack of irritating people was going to impact my non-professional writing career and now I’d NEVER FINISH MY NOVEL. EVER. BECAUSE THERE WERE NO ANNOYING PEOPLE TO ANNOY ME.
(I … I don’t get it, either.)
(Yes, like everyone else, I am writing a novel, and it’s just one of those things that I Have To Do Just To Do It regardless of outcome, really, I mean that. ME AND EVERYONE ELSE, I KNOW. And that’s probably the only time I’ll talk about it, because aspiring novelists, we are an annoying dime a dozen. )
Anyway, I was in such a STATE about this, you’d think that I’d just been diagnosed with flesh-eating disease or something a bit more tangibly bad. Plus, as you know, my life is PLENTY FULL of irritating people, and further, why would that be a BAD THING?
The point is, you see how this Dark Place was STUPID. And then, suddenly, no lie, as I’m laying there, the darkness lifted and I was all peaceful and HAPPY and RELAXED. And not to go all TMI, but suddenly I realized that was the VERY SECOND the P abandoned its MS colleagues. THE VERY SECOND. Hormones are NUTS, man. NUUUUTTTS.
And in other things we’re trying not to think about, after the spider in my bed incident the other day, HA HA HA, guess what? I have a MYSTERIOUS BITE OF THE SPIDERY VARIETY ON MY UPPER ARM.
Am I grotesquely inhibited if I admit that it really bothers me when people bring reading material into bathrooms other than their own? I went to the coffee shop today to work on a project and was met with various and sundry ills, not the least of which was a man who thought that we all wanted to be in on his business meeting and rested his cell phone on the table ON SPEAKERPHONE and proceeded to conduct the meeting as though he were ensconced in a soundproof conference room. As if this weren’t offensive enough, I went to the bathroom to discover someone’s half-finished sudoku puzzle resting on the floor with a pen, as though it were a dynamic public entity designed to be continued by the next person afflicted with a bad case of constipation away from home.
Gross, right? And yet, you’d be surprised how often this happens. At nearly every job I’ve had, it wasn’t unusual to find the sports section missing from the pile of papers out front as the creeping realization took hold that one of the men in the office absconded with it for a lengthy stay in the public restroom. And worse — oh yes, this is way worse — they would often PUT THE PAPER BACK LATER, right into the pile as though it had never rested on the floor of the men’s room. I watched them do it, those little bastards. This meant, naturally, that some poor unsuspecting soul would go to read the paper without understanding that it was rife with foul bathroom-type things.
It was always worse when it was an executive. When I worked for a large public company, I could never look at the CFO the same way after I caught him leaving the bathroom with my personal copy of The Wall Street Journal that he’d borrowed earlier. And again he would try to return it as if I didn’t know precisely where it had been. I saw him with it! I saw him! I SEE EVERYTHING.
I hope tax season is treating you as well as it is us, which is to say that we have to pay back taxes on YET ANOTHER YEAR, which is one of the greatest pleasures in being audited back in 2004 — they never let us go, and each year, they find something on us. And even better? I have the same case worker each time, who spent much of our last phone call screaming, “SCHEDULE D! SCHEDULE D! THIS IS NOT HARD! SEND SCHEDULE D!” in a Blanche Devereaux accent and of course, I thought she said Schedule BEE, and hilarity ensued, except it wasn’t funny at all, really.
Right. Just know that the IRS often uses a zero cost basis for stock sold, EVEN IF YOU PROVIDED DOCUMENTATION OTHERWISE, is all I’m saying. Prepare yourself. And then, send in Schedule D, not B. I don’t know what B does, but it’s not what you need and asking for it will cause great confusion.
(And I haven’t even gone into the excitement of being a sole proprietor come tax time. Another day, another riveting post!)
Surprisingly, and this is embarrassing, if slightly cleansing to admit, I have not missed many shows since the writer’s strike began and perhaps even more surprisingly, I have found new ones to like. In addition to my boyfriend Bravo, there is the sad fact that I have taken to um, TiVo-ing Charmed in the mornings for late-night viewing and also, and this might be the worst thing I’ve ever said with regards to television, I have a small affection for The Ghost Whisperer. Yes. Ahem. You read that right. It’s the BOOBS. It’s all in Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs and eyelashes the thickness of spider legs. They hypnotize you and never let go.
Speaking of spiders, I wasn’t kidding the other day when I said that there was a spider in my bed. A big black one, in fact. And yesterday, I awoke to a little brown one hovering eight inches above my head. OH OH OH, and I kill about three wasps a day STILL. INSIDE THE HOUSE. (FIVE ON SATURDAY)
I met someone who claimed to be a faith healer once. It was comical, really — or would have been, it wasn’t so terrifying. I was reporting on religion at the time (something I still do on occasion to this day), and had scheduled the meeting with a pastor who headed up a place called Miracle Hands Ministries at the behest of one of his parishioners. Though I realized that he believed in faith healing, I expected it to be along the lines of the Pentecostals and Charismatics I had met who viewed faith healing as a distinct possibility, but not the primary focus of their beliefs — a nice to have that was part of God’s overall gifts, made possible by the power of prayer.
This, I’m afraid, was something else entirely. From the outside, it was an unassuming little church, tucked behind an unaffiliated Baptist church and the local Jehovah’s Witness headquarters. When I stepped inside, however, I kept imagining Elizabeth Vargas’ voiceover as she interviewed my parents and husband, asking, “Now, when you step inside this building, and you see the decay and horror before you — don’t you wonder what she was thinking? How she could have possibly continued forward?” I imagined the cameras panning to the birdcages, some empty and mysteriously full of feces, and some full of skeletal birds with sparse feathers and dull eyes. In the corner, there was a fish tank overrun with algae — there were piles of it literally overflowing from the top of the tank, highlighted by some sort of back light that cast an eerie green glow on the darkened room. Bags of crickets littered a table and dangled from the backs of chairs, and what looked like an iguana was slumped in the corner of a haphazard tupperware container placed on the floor. It smelled horrible, like the very essence of death captured in aromatic form.
And yet, I kept going — I honestly don’t know why, because I had a dark, sinister feeling that I couldn’t quite explain. I found him in the back in what he claimed was his office, though the only evidence that it was used for anything business-like was a desk sitting among piles of boxes filled with canned goods and open boxes of pasta — I remember seeing an inordinate amount of Ragu. He invited me to sit in a folding chair in front of him, and when I did, I couldn’t honestly believe what I saw. There were ants everywhere – covering his desk, nestled among the papers and at times, crawling up his fingers. And worse, he seemed not to notice, as though it was a daily occurrence, which I’m now certain it was.
Aside from the obvious, I can’t explain what an overwhelmingly bad feeling I had — not that I was in any personal danger, but something almost worse — that I was in the presence of true, dark evil. I can’t say I’ve ever had that feeling before, nor since, and I am almost reluctant to admit it, for I’ve never believed in such things. My appendages felt heavy despite my quickening pulse, and I had difficulty opening my mouth to ask him any questions. My tongue was thick and dry, and I remember desperately trying to swallow but being unable to move my muscles properly.
When I finally spoke, he answered in a slow drawl that suggested he was either thoughtful or drugged, and his responses were both frightening and hilarious in equal measure.
“It’s both a blessing and a curse,” he said of his ability to heal. “I’ve felt bones move beneath my fingers and helped children to walk again, but it all comes at a steep, steep price. Satan is never pleased with those who heal, and he seeks retribution.”
Retribution for him involved the sudden departure of his wife (“She took the money and ran …”), a near-fatal heart attack, an accident involving a drunk driver and, perhaps most pointedly, a washer-dryer set that continually broke down, a clear sign that Satan had a hand in the calculated breakdown of his household appliances.
And so it continued in much the same vein for more than three hours as he alternated between stories of miraculous healing and Satan’s swift retribution. He claimed to have healed everything from eczema to migraines to pancreatic cancer, and cited no fewer than five people who had been told they’d never walk again but were now running marathons thanks to his able fingers. He even admitted that at one time, a woman regrew part of her pinky finger that had been severed during a boating accident. And once, during a particularly magical service, he said, he looked up to find gold dust pouring from the ceiling, raining down on the pews.
In retrospect, what disturbed me the most was his claimed ability to heal checkbooks. When he said this at first, I foolishly imagined him laying his hands over checkbooks that had been neglected or damaged after a run through the Satan-infected washing machine. Instead, as most of you probably figured, he was referring to his ability to miraculously infuse cash into families down on their luck — with the assumption, of course, that a significant percentage of every windfall would be returned to the church, of which there was very little infrastructure beyond himself. In fact, he and his two children lived in the church, which explained the odd menagerie and discarded food strewn throughout. Nonetheless, recipients of healed checkbooks, he said, quickly turned into the church’s top tithers.
Nearly four hours and a million ants later, I left with a feeling of disgust unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before or since. I’m not one to believe in Satan, necessarily, but I do believe I was somehow in the presence of pure evil beyond anything I previously imagined. I immediately called my mother — the most religious person I personally know — and talked through what I’d experienced, asking her to please, talk to God on my behalf, tell him I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go there. That sounds crazy, and I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but that’s precisely what I did. And despite my agnosticism, I told him so myself, too.
I never did write the story, by the way, and part of me was relieved, for I initially pitched an in-depth expose involving background checks and financials and things that doubtless would have attracted the attention of a man I sincerely hoped would forget that I ever existed. He never asked about the article, either, and my hope is that he did indeed forget. As for why it never materialized, my editor at the time was a bit of a pansy who was afraid to incite the ire of the religious community, one that we relied upon quite heavily for both readership and content.
I’m honestly not sure what made me think of that today, but it’s a story I’ve been meaning to write down for a long, long time — I still have the notes I made that day, and as I read them tonight, I felt sick at the memory. I’m incredibly grateful that I never had to write it, and beyond this, I never will. I’ll admit, too, that part of me is wondering if he somehow isn’t responsible for the spider I found in my bed tonight, such is the unexplainable fear I have about this man and what he claims to do.
And though, as I said, I still write about churches and/or religion from time to time, I am grateful that the seediest thing I’ve encountered since was a bake sale whose profits were questionable because — GASP! — many of the participants bought their items instead of making them.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Redhead Reduced and Sadie were dead-on when they said that cocktail attire in the wilderness does not mean what it means to people living a tad closer to civilization. Because I was running late, I didn’t get to take a photo of what I wore to the event, but it involved a just-below-the-knee gray wool skirt, a cashmere sweater and black knee boots after a last-minute consult with a fellow female attendee. And sadly, I was the most overdressed person in the room, which made me want to smack myself in the forehead, because DUH, YOU TOLD ME SO. (But really, a skirt and a sweater is overdressed, REALLY?) But hey, better over than under, I say, and dear Jesus, at least I wasn’t wearing the cute black cocktail dress I was considering, because it’s possible that I would be dead right now from sheer humiliation. Because my God, it was like a Coldwater Creek catalog exploded all over the room. There were a lot of woolly vests, is what I’m saying, and not a cocktail dress in sight.
There was also a really fun moment where I was (truly very kindly) introduced as a blogger — literally, “And this is Jonna, she’s a blogger!” — and for a flash of a second, I thought I’d die because the concept was so foreign and no doubt insanely frivolous to the investment banker I was being introduced to. I felt so inadequate in that moment, because really, how do you follow that?
“Yes, hi! I obsessively document my life on the Internet, but hey, um, why don’t we talk about your $70B fund instead! How’s that going?”
And this was BEFORE I accidentally engaged a group (with the AMPLE assistance of my husband) in a lively, if slightly uncomfortable, discussion of “Scientology: Cult or Not?”
(Note: this is not as bad as it sounds, because of the lack of Scientologists and the fact that, I’m sorry, it’s a cult and we all thought so, but still. Really? How did I get there? REALLY?)
And dude, I didn’t wear the boots at all the entire evening due to a fabulous New England mud season tradition wherein you take them off at the door. Thank GOD for the last-minute addition of black tights, because, in nature’s never-ending reminder of ooky things, if there’s one thing I forgot, it’s that winter feet get JANKY when they’re all cooped up, and I’m sorry for the visual, but my God, winter feet are awful. Florida feet don’t do that, I swear. My puppies miss their unfettered breezy freedom found in a lifetime of Reef wearing, and every store should carry those foot cheese graters that give you gangrene when fallen into the wrong hands after grating multiple feets, because it’s obvious that WE ALL NEED THEM. I love New England, but this part is unpleasant. UNPLEASANT.
And hey, on to maple syrup sugaring! I don’t know what I was expecting, but the whole set up was like touring the Wonka factory, seriously. There were Oompa Loompas and vermicious knids, even! Okay, fine, there weren’t vermicious knids, but the distiller thing was so shiny and behemoth that I really was waiting for Gene Wilder to drive it away singing lines from “As You Like It” in his purple coat. And it was steamy! So steamy! Like that whole foamy scene! And though there were no fizzy lifting drinks, we did walk away with a wee bottle of our own, and it’s so fat and adorable I want to dress it up and put booties on it after I finish pouring it over a stack of pancakes.
Adam and I were also marveling that while sugaring and syruping (?) has gotten very high tech, the fundamentals of it are so crude. I mean, you jam a tap into a tree and shove a bucket under it, like this:
I mean, shouldn’t they have figured something out here? Some sort of wild piping system that draws the syrup out and delivers it to Giant Shiny Thing That Makes Syrup? No? I think my future might be in syrup planning and technology advancement.
Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful weekend full of pancakes and homemade syrup, too. Onward to Monday!
Bravo is my new boyfriend. I TiVo approximately 5,678,342 shows on that particular network, and if it were a man, I would make out with it, leading me to wonder if there is a Bravo costume I can buy for Adam, because that would HOT, people, HOT.
Of course, there’s Top Chef, which is always a pleasure, but I have to admit, I’m not as into it this season as I’d like to be. I couldn’t give a rip about any of the contestants, and that includes any sort of deep contempt, as I had with last season’s winner, Hung. Contempt for Padma remains strong, however, and I’m certain — CERTAIN — that she wouldn’t know a proper chiffonade if it rammed its way up her ass. She was all noddy-noddy will Daniel Boulud, oh yes, a chiffonade, very nice. I call bullshit, Padma. Bullshit!
The point, however, is that I sincerely hope you’re watching The Real Housewives of New York City. While I know I mentioned this before, I can’t really stress the high comedic factor enough. These women are pure, delicious trash and yet are abominably wealthy in a way that makes my toes curl in a mixture of disgust and pure delight. These women are … well, they’re nouveau riche and utterly lack class of any kind, but the best part? THEY HAVE NO IDEA. And — and! — they think we envy them! Oh, it’s delicious, and truly a must-see. Alert viewers will catch reality TV whore Bethenny Frankel, who came in second on Martha Stewart’s Apprentice.
To whet your appetite with a particularly grotesque amuse bouche, if you will: one of the housewives, Jill, has an ill-behaved chihuahua named Ginger that she … well, there’s no classy way to put it, my friends, she allows Ginger to LICK THE INSIDE OF HER NOSE. Yes! Yes! The dog is mining for GOLD in there while she casually watches television! And yet, Jill feels quite strongly that she is in a position to judge the rest of us.
Now go TiVo it. Go. Hurry.
The purpose, however, of this entire post is to ask: what does one wear to a professional-type cocktail party at an exceedingly wealthy man’s house that also includes a maple sugaring demonstration in the woods? Note that although the entire event has the trappings of a typical cocktail party, the maple sugaring portion had a parenthesis next to it that said “Wear sensible shoes!”
A little black dress and a pair of Crocs? Seriously? I’m honestly asking here, because I’m at a loss. A total loss. It’s mud season here in Vermont, and I am seriously considering a Croc purchase because I can’t set foot outside without getting mud up to my hips, and my waterproof boots are way too warm. Mock me if you must, I deserve it. (But really, wtf do I wear? WTF?)
And last, but not least, Lawyerish got her referral! She saw her baby’s face! Now go congratulate her on her beautiful, perfect baby girl if you haven’t already. Oh, the TEARS.
I hope you have a great weekend. We’ll be sugaring in the woods with our cocktails and Wellies, hoping that no woodland creatures eat us.
I had plans with my neighbor today to take the dogs downtown and relax over a cup of coffee near the river. Honestly, it was pretty awesome, as our dogs frolicked (yes, FROLICKED) with other dogs and we relaxed while watching the water roll over the ice. Haaaa, I said ICE. Because when she came to pick me up, she was coatless, clad in only a sweater and jeans and marveled — clearly before taking a look at me — that it was incredibly warm outside, wasn’t it? And then ha ha HA, she took a gander at me, who took one quick gauge of the general temperature and wound a giant pashmina around my neck and threw on a wool coat. Oh, and I grabbed MITTENS just in case, and my hat was firmly ensconced in my pocket. And she HOWLED, because clearly I am not accustomed to this.
No no, it was not warm, and I’m ashamed of myself for saying it, but I’m a winter PUSSY after living in Florida for two years. PUSS.AY. I can hack it if I’m properly attired, but I’m not about to go prancing around COATLESS, unlike some (very nice) lunatics out there.
I had quite the social day, which resulted in getting very little done, but after the Great Sickness 2008, wherein I was apparently sucked into the vortex of misery such that I believed that I, too, was sick, it felt great to get the hell out of the house and into the real world. And, as is the nature of a small town, when I went to work at the coffee shop, I ended up having impromptu coffee with two other people I know in town, which is ABSURD, as I have only been here a month, and how is it possible that I know enough people to have three pseudo coffee dates in one day? THE HELL.
Dude, it’s lovely — please don’t get me wrong, for I honest to God love it here, and that’s an integral piece of my love — but I’m surprised that I sort of miss anonymity. Not on a regular basis, of course, and certainly not enough to actively COMPLAIN about it, but there’s something I’ve always found vaguely comforting about being able to go somewhere that you can just disappear into the crowd and not see anyone who knows you. I used to love that about Boston — whenever I needed to think something through, I would pick a section of the city like Beacon Hill or the Back Bay, and just walk around, stopping for coffee and lunch by myself. Despite its size and my network there, I never found Boston to be like New York, where you run into people you know every time you head out (at least I do. Every time I visit. EVERY TIME!) It was wonderful — I honestly like being alone quite a bit, and to a certain extent, I need a little of that on a semi-regular basis, even if it’s just a long car ride.
I mean, I can be alone in my house all day if I want to — Adam goes to the office and since I work from home, it’s all mine — but there’s something incongruously perfect about going out into the world to be alone, I don’t know what it is. But here, I’ve honestly never gone anywhere, from the grocery store to the hardware store to a WALK THROUGH THE WOODS, NO JOKE (THE WOODS, AS IN PATHS IN THE WILDERNESS) without running into someone I know. For God’s sake, even when we took Adam to the ER on Sunday, the woman checking him in read our address and got all excited, introducing herself as our neighbor, and hey, what a great time to meet new people, when you’re hacking your lungs out and delirious with fever!
Dude, that’s NUTS. NUUUUUTTTSS. It’s like ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION ALL OVER THE TOWN. And I’ve been here ONE MOOOONNNNTH. In three, I expect that it’ll be like goddamn Cheers all OVER this place.
While this doesn’t present many challenges — hell, it’s incredibly soothing, really — it does force me to look decent wherever I go, because LORD KNOWS I’ll run into someone who will tell someone else that they saw me and that I was wearing a T-shirt with beet juice dribbled down the front. Really, this HAPPENS. The second woman I had coffee with told me that she heard from the first that I was there and she thought she’d say hi. MY GOD. THE SMALLNESS. SHE HEARD I WAS THERE. And the second woman told me that she was worried about the first, as she was “looking a little peaked.” And she wasn’t being gossipy — she was genuinely worried, oh my hell. Beet juice would spark rumors of a bloodletting, especially if word of my screaming gets out. But they would be NICE about it! SO NICE!
The also prevents me from driving as I usually do. I … I’m an animated driver. The word “douchebag” comes out of my mouth perhaps a bit more often than it should and I do a lot of arm waving and the occasional middle finger flipping, despite repeated warnings that someday, someone is going to shoot me in a road rage incident. I know this is bad and rather obnoxious, I KNOW. But rest assured, that option has been ripped off of me like wet T-shirt. Jesus, I’ll flip someone off and they’ll turn out to be the owner of the bookstore I frequent or the checkout girl at Shaw’s whose mother is the dental hygienist in town who cleaned my teeth and knows my husband’s boss and WHAT THEN? Adam will be fired and we’ll be run out of town with pitchforks and torches, that’s what.
I know, I’m sounding crazy, I KNOW. But I’ve never lived anywhere this small before, and to have that degree of “oh HI!” all over the damn place after a month is just … I’m sorry, but this is just … it’s freakin’ surreal. The whole thing. SURREAL.
Happy Thursday! I have … I have yoga. Third week in a row, and I expect my ass will be none too pleased, for I couldn’t walk until Sunday after last week. SUNDAY.
Thanks for the reassurance re: my unusually psycho behavior. I mean, I know we all yell and scream, but it’s so hard to remember that when you’re knee deep in shit. But hey, things have improved like a hundred-fold after a solid five hours’ sleep last night and uh, showering also helped because no, I didn’t take my own advice and honestly, my yoga pants went to the hardware store themselves today and came back with some laundry detergent.
Incidentally, NeighborWife and I have plans tomorrow, totally not of my doing, and unless she’s planning an intervention (“Jonna, have you thought about the consequences of your violent behavior towards your husband?”) I don’t plan on mentioning The Screaming.
No one will be surprised to learn, either, that I woke up at 3 a.m. retching with heat-related dryness and ripping off my pants in wild fury because someone, in a vain attempt to kick the heat on, cranked up the thermostat to the proverbial eleven before Heat Man came. Dude, it was EIGHTY FIVE in here this morning. That’s like falling asleep on the concrete outside in mid-day Miami. A bit of Florida, right here in Vermont!
Moving on, in no particular order. Around these parts, we refer to Sunny’s Special Lady Area as her gunt, and while I know it’s crass, honestly, it’s one of my favorite words. So EVOCATIVE of that vague no-man’s region where the gut ends and the … ladybits begin. We’ve been saying it over and over to her for about an hour now in various endearing voices, “Who’s got a gunt? WHO? Does my special girl have a special gunt? WHO’S A GOOD GIRL WITH A GUNT?” And so on …
I should also let you know that I was Rickrolled four times today and each time I was completely surprised. COMPLETELY. I’m like a goldfish who fails to realize, ooh look! a TREASURE CHEST! over and over again. But would it be in bad taste to let you know that I found Rick Astley super sexy back in the day and that there’s still something vaguely boyishly handsome about him? And that I, um, owned the album and might still have it kicking around up here?
Speaking of nostalgia, my friend Erica and I have a bit of a thing for ’70s (early ’80s?) Sesame Street scenes and PSAs and spent the better part of the morning killing ourselves over various clips that will no doubt be mysterious to those under the age of 30, but dude, do you y’all remember the creepy milk segment with the high-pitched “Milk. MI-ILK. Milk”? Do you remember when Timer hankered for a hunk o’ cheese? No? Let me remind you:
And look! A wagon wheel!
And finally, because it is The Right Thing To Do, even though it’s not the type of thing I usually do — and this time it’s for a friend of a friend. If you haven’t seen the situation with Emily’s friends and their poor sweet daughter yet, and are so moved, check it out. I always thought this was the sort of thing that the Internet was for, when used properly. Thanks thanks!
*Haaa, Rick Astley. My favorite one on the album. Do you think less of me? I don’t blame you.
