You just want it cause it’s gaudy.

No one is in the house right now except for Steely Dan, and I admit to the tiniest thrill of fear. There is no other animal to come to my aid, should he decide this is the moment to reveal he’s a tiny perturbed man in a cat suit.

When I look over at my entry rug with my naked (also, sexy) eye, I do not see THINGS on that carpet, but take a picture and everything shows up. Like the entryway that four animals traipse in and out through eleventy times a day wouldn’t have the occasional thing to contend with.

Sure wish I had a scrolly button on m’mouse. I don’t, though. Because maybe you didn’t even notice; maybe you went about your day yesterday without a care in the world, but I did not write you because my comPUter would not stop SPOOLing yesterday, and lo, there was great annoyance in my land. So naturally I threw the damn mouse. Most IT experts will tell you that’s how you should handle that. It’s what Gandhi would have done. Or at least Dondi.

fuck the mouse

Anyway, now I have to get a new mouse, because I was forced to throw mine, and I just want you to know that payday happens tonight and remember last week, EARLY last week, when I had 80 dollars to my name to last till June 30? I DID IT. I made it. I went to ALDI and got enough food, and I lived like a miser, and tomorrow I will be paid and I still have $13 left.

I feel so accomplished. I feel like Ma Ingalls or something. And now I gotta rush out and get a mouse. With all m’new dollars.

Ooo, but look. $9.99, too! At the Home Office Supply Depot Staple Center or whatever.

If there’s ever the opportunity to own the whimsical version of anything, I’m on it. Jane Austin Band-Aids. Flamingo computer mouse. Hello Kitty coffee pot. This dates back to when I was a kid, and my Aunt Mary would take me for donuts, over to the Dawn Donuts, there, and I would always–always!!–opt for the seasonal selections at the front of the display. The green-iced St. Patrick’s Day donut with plastic shamrocks. The Easter donut with purple jellybeans.

The Armistice Day donut.

“You’ll never eat that,” my Aunt Mary would say. “You just want it cause it’s gaudy.”

I mean. Of course I do. That sums me up in seven words.

Gaudy curly girl

In other news, I’m sick of my hair. It never looks good. I’m toying with, like, going to the blowout place each week, spending $25 to blow it straight. Because as you know, I am just riddled with cash. Or cutting it all off, which never goes well. Then I’m just a person with SHORT bad hair.

Also, note m’eyebrows, what a mess they are. This is the longest I’ve gone without an eyebrow wax since God wore the short trousers. Ned knew some guy, some foreign guy, that same guy Suzy went and left us for, who always said, “Short trousers,” and then Ned only said that, and now apparently it stuck in my head, as well.

Speaking of which, I’ve had four experiences lately on the Facebook where I have seen people clearly using my phrases in their posts, and getting tons of accolades for said clever posts, and I can’t decide whether to be flattered that people are talking like me or irritated for copyright infringement. I realize being irritated for copyright infringement doesn’t make any sense, but now today someone will stampede to social media and say it.

“That’s so clever! Hah!”

“People have always talked like you,” my mother said. “It’s happened your whole life.”

At some point, in high school, my best friend Donna and I began speaking in this opposite way, and I have no idea how it evolved, but it certainly had something to do with the part where we were glued to each other from hour one of high school till graduation night.

It’s true. We were in each other’s homeroom. I’ve told you this before, right? She went to North Junior High. I went to South Junior High. They took the loudest girl from both and placed them in the hearing-impaired kids’ homeroom, which back then we just called deaf. Anyway, I get to my first moment of high school and my homeroom is silent.

I was horrified. Was everyone in high school going to be stoic?

Then this chick with June hair bursts in, full of what you’d call the personality, and that was all she wrote for my high school career. We were also in gym class together, and not only did Donna have the June hair, she similarly had the June athlete gene.

“Welsh, Summerfield,” (a mispronunciation of both our last names) “I’m not even gonna test ya on this one. Just go play with the badminton racquets.” The gym teacher’s soul died by, like, day two.

Anyway, very quickly, we began speaking the opposite of what we meant. “Oh, but the gym teacher adores us, is what he does. The gym teacher is quite the admirer our athletic prowess,” we’d say, strolling off with our badminton racquets.

“Oh, but this class is easy.”

“Oh, but I had zero to drink at that party, at any rate.”

Starting off with, “Oh, but” was big with us.

The point is, we were a seriously odd duo, we had a partner in weirdness, and it was delightful, and then it seemed like all of a sudden, the whole world was talking like us. We’d even hear, “Oh, but it’s not Donna and June, though. There they aren’t.”

Donna and me on my 22nd birthday. My nose used to be reasonable. Oh, but my nose isn’t unreasonable, though.

Part of our ridiculous affectation was whenever we’d state something that was the very opposite of what we meant, we’d also raise our hand up when we said it. I’ve no idea why.

Oh, but I’m not raising my hand up, though.

One time, Donna told me she walked into a room, and as soon as she did, the whole room raised up their arm in our signature manner.

I recall this one girl, oh lord, this poor one girl, who dearly wanted to be cool, and I assure you we were 100% really fucking far from cool. But this girl wanted to be at one with us, but it’s like she was uncool in her own way, a way that lacked what you might call charisma, and I wonder whatever happened to that poor thing.

The point is, she never got it. She’d use our tone, and she’d raise an arm, but she’d manage to say precisely what she thought instead.

[arm raise] “Oh, but Andrea’s drunk, though.”

Oh, honey.

Anyway, I guess that’s all I have to offer this world, is weird ways of speaking, odd sentence structure, a bizarre vocabulary, that others pick up on. I mean, that’s it. That’s my contribution.

You’re welcome.