How do you help friends in need? With weed? Indeed.

Thursday night, I got a text from a couple I adore. I love going over to their house. They know how to throw down. The man part of the couple turnt (I’m hep!!!) 50 and they invited me over Friday for his birthday party. Why I gotta have an incision?

I was so upset. But I’m not allowed to drive, or do much, and they live maybe 15 minutes away. “Don’t worry,” they said. “We’ll get together soon.”

I know we will. But I wanted to right THEN. Have they met my impulse control?

The next day I got a text from my neighbor, R. She and her husband were headed to this really beautiful little town about 30 minutes from here, to go see a documentary. Did I want to go with them?

Dang my uterus.

And that is why, Saturday night, against my stern doctor’s strict important orders, I showered, put on makeup, even put on pants—PANTS! And drove to the next block where another neighbor was having a party.

I hadda get out, man. I was FOMOing at the mouth. I figured since it was so close to my own house, I could pop in there and as soon as I started to feel bad I could go home.

The photo at the top of this scintillating post is my pants at the party. I didn’t want to take pictures of people and then pop it up on this extraordinarily popular blog and expose their faces to the world, so I sneaked into the coat room and took this picture. Naturally, someone walked in just as I was doing it and I looked like a crazy person. “I have a blog,” I said, which didn’t make me sound any more sane. Or current.

Me, now with pants!

The party was great. It was to celebrate my neighbor moving here a year ago. She has all sorts of interesting friends, and she even had a cake decorated like the logo of the mill that is the whole reason this little millhouse neighborhood exists.

I got there ridiculously early, because I asked some of you on Facebook of June what time you should attend a party that starts at 5:00, and most of you said about 5:15.

I was the third to arrive.

I cursed you all mightily, but talked to the few people who were there and you’ll be shocked to hear I let those people know that I had had surgery and that it was my first sojourn out of the house in 11 days.

Before long, other guests arrived, and had I gone with my instinct to get there at 5:45 I’d have arrived with them like how on sitcoms everyone walks in the door in a clump.

I hobbed and I knobbed, and finally I made my way back to the living room and saw that the mantle clock said 8 o’clock. “Look how well I did!” I said to the people I had met at the beginning of the party. “I stayed later than I thought I would!”

“That clock is wrong.”

Dammit.

Anyway, I stayed an hour and 45 minutes. I was tired when I got home but I didn’t feel so bad. Then Sunday I did feel kind of shitty, to tell you the truth. Kinda shaky. Damn this incision and curse it right. It cuts me to the quick.

But none of this is why I gathered you here. Since I have had nothing but time to convalesce during this, my convalescence, I have been noticing how many people have been being nice to me. Oh my God you guys, I have gotten food and presents and cards and flowers and of course my mother and stepfather flew all the dang way here, which by the way I remember almost none of.

Today on Facebook somebody said that when you’re in a predicament like the one I am in, you should make a list of the things you need done. Then when people ask what they can do, you can show them the list and they can pick something from it. I think this is brilliant.

So let’s talk about being helpful at times like this. [points microphone at you]

Hamilton

It happened again.

I poured water in the damn coffeepot, put the filter in JUST SO, put the lid on JUST FUCKING SO, turned it on, waited to hear it gurgle, showered, came back, and?

It didn’t brew.

THIS COFFEEPOT IS THE DEATH OF ME.

I had to pick it up and put it back down. Sometimes it’s the only way to get it to begin, you know, making coffee. You know how people say, “You had one job”?

Also, I took this cute photo of the Iris.

So if anyone has suggestions for a NONFUSSY coffeemaker, please advise in the comments.

Meanwhile, I haven’t shown you the rest of my Christmas decorations.

Hang on…

edz chortle

I guess you get my drift.

It’s Christmassy up in here.

When I wasn’t decorating this weekend, I took a drive to the country with Ned.

I know.

“This was supposed to be No-Ned November,” I told him. Nevertheless, our friends Bitchy Resting Face Alex and her husband opened a general store in the country, and I’ve been dying to see it.

Ned and BRFAlex’s husband always really liked each other. They both have an element of the ridiculous that they see in each other.

As opposed to me. I have no element of ridiculous.

We didn’t tell them we were coming, didn’t know they’d be there. BRF Alex wasn’t, but her husband was.

Oh my god, I loved their store!

I got a t-shirt I been sleeping in ever since, some locally made pumpkin bread, and some sugar sticks. (See the photo above. It’s the box of “Virginia Beauty.” I have a close-up picture of it, but WordPress is acting squirrely.)

Oh! Did that work? Can you see it? I’ve spent way too much time on sugar sticks, which is what you’d say if you saw me naked.

Anyway, after that, Ned and I drove around in the country a bit, and we came around a bend and Ned said, “Did you just see that mountain with a stone face?!”

“No, I saw it with my regular face,” I said, and then proceeded to laugh at own self for an hour and 45 minutes.

It was Hanging Rock. In case anyone’s gonna ask me and get all geographical on my ass.

Also, I saw an owl on a phone line.

owl on fone line. new fone, hoooooo dis.

Anyway, I’m glad I got to see the store, and why do all my young friends own things? Meanwhile, here I am, working for the man. Technically, I work for the woman. I work for the largest woman-owned something-or-other in the South or east of the something or something like that.

I should own my own store. A Specific Geographical and Facts Store.

no won think you funnee

Anyway, I guess that’s all I’ve got to report. This week is my mammogram, so it’s time for my annual mammogram terror. I should get EMDR for mammograms. Do you know what EMDR is? Allegedly it works, although I’ve tried it before and I’m still an anxious pile of dung. Google fucking it.

Presidentially,
Joon

Wingdog

Edsel is my wingman. We’re going on a road trip together tonight. I have never actually understood what “wingman” means. He’s going to eat my leftover wings? Because Edsel will surely do that.

Anyway, tonight after work, once it’s dark and dangerous, The Eds and I are getting in the car and heading to Michigan. We have a reservation, under his name, at a very nice hotel in West Virginia for the halfway point. I stay there every time I head back, and I know I have many photos of me posing under the bad art in the bar there, but I do not have time to Google that for you right now, as I have to get old Mutt and Jeff to the daycare, where he will be getting bathed, and that is fortunate for all involved, except maybe Edsel.

Also, that was a beautiful and concise sentence, up there.

wate. wut about mill howz?

A housesitter is coming to make sure Iris and Lily do not bludgeon the kitten.

O. okay. Back to regular sked dual.

In the meantime, careful readers will note that I have the kind of mail slot that comes in through the door (squeee! Have always wanted. See? Wishes really do come true.) and also that yesterday I told you I had to get my washer fixed.

My reliable and not-ridiculous new handyman, who we will call Not Alf, called me midday. “I’m sorry to call you during work,” he said, because he’s reliable and not ridiculous. “But I’ve been watching YouTube videos all morning to try to figure out what we need to do with your washer. Did you really wear a wedding dress to work today?”

See. I don’t even remember telling him I was going to do that. But you and I both know it’s one of my signature lines. Maybe I could’ve whipped out the Matt-Rick-teal-homecoming-dress new material I developed for y’all yesterday.

Also, stop calling homecoming “HoCo.” Just stop, before I bludgeon you like I’m one of my cats.

Anyway, what he decided was, the washer might be shot, but he’s gonna order this one part and we’re gonna see if we can get one more year out of that thing, and meanwhile he said I can USE my washer, it just won’t, you know, churn the clothes like it ought to.

Well.

I HAD to wash clothes because I was so out of clean items that I wore my wedding dress to work.

I’ll give you a second to stitch up your split sides.

But really, I leave for this trip, nothing is clean, it was worrisome. So last night when I got home, I was laundry speed queen. I was meeting The Other Copy Editor, fmr., at 7:00, and I managed one and a half loads before I got up with her.

“I really ought to be home laundering.”

We had a beer and watched election returns like they were sports, except neither of us would be caught dead watching sports. TOCE, fmr., is the one who owns that nice old bed and breakfast on the same street where I spent my year abroad. She and her husband used to wander down and sit on my front porch there.

I texted her before we met up. “I know you live on the same street as he, but just so you know, this is a No-Ned November, possibly segueing into a No-Ned ’19, so there will be no Ned talk tonight.”

“Oh, I got plenty of my own stuff to talk about,” she said, and she did.

…I don’t know that you can tell, as I was unable to really capture this on …not film. I was unable to capture it on phone. But I just looked up, and the sun is shining on the rain, fmr., on my den window, and it looks like someone pressed a zillion diamonds on my screen, which, that person should maybe look into other hobbies.

I wonder if this diamond-presser is related to Jack Frost? Jack Frost always freaked me the fuck out. Stay away from my window.

Stay away from my back door, too.

Disconnect the telephone lines.

Relax, baby, enjoy that wine.

Me and my important ’70s lyrics must leave you now, but I’ll try to write you from the road. With m’wingdog.

Wanderlustily,
Joop

“June,” “May” We Hear About Your “April” Weekend? Otherwise We’ll “March.”

I’ll wait till you can stop slapping your knee over that headline.

Let’s see. What the hell did I do this weekend while you were here in my computer in suspended animation?

Friday.

On Friday afternoon, I got an Amazon delivery at work. “I need a blog,” the mailroom guy always says to me, as every delivery I’ve ever gotten is you guys sending me things, usually things that enable my animal habit.

Faithful Reader PJ sent me a most excellent litter scoop (it’s fabulous) (oh, hang on! Entreprenuer June has an idea!).

Oh, look, a link to the scoop! Now YOU can have this excellent scooper, or anything you want on Amazon! All profits go to kitten or lipstick habits.

Also, FR Suburban Correspondent, who really is a faithful reader, sent me some of my kitten food, which I am needing, as they are now eating real food as well as nursing, and they are going through about five cans a day.

ware a condum

And by “they,” I mean my seven foster kittens. And their mom. In case you’ve been out of the country, and not reading me. Being out of the country means there is no internet. Everyone knows internet is American.

They’re doing great, as long as you don’t mind food crumbs everywhere. And they’re ALL getting the hang of the litter box!

The runt is my special friend. She wasn’t eating the real food yet, so I started hand-feeding it to her like she was a bird or something, and now as soon as I walk in, she gets on my lap and screeches, MEEEEEEE.

Oh my god, I love that runt.

I make a gruel, because the internet told me to, of canned kitten food, dry kitten food, kitten milk supplement and water. It looks disgusting but they adore it. And step directly in it. So.

Oh my god, I was talking about Friday.

After work Friday, a very exclusive 187 of us were invited to a happy hour. There’s one guy who’s always funny, and near the end of the day he replied all, “I can’t wait to see all 187 of you tonight. What a reasonable number to invite.”

The good news is, it meant a lot of people were there, and I couldn’t stay long because see 12 animals at my house, above, but I did get to hang a bit.

Koo-koo-ka-choo

It was Ryan’s birthday, and he is very depressed that he is a year away from being 30. Now he isn’t, because I bludgeoned him with a pickaxe. Forever 29.

Also, I’d asked Wedding Alex if she was going to go, as she and her spouse have been doing Whole 30 all year and it’s illegal or something to drink on Whole 30. By the way, if they’ve been doing it since January 1, at this point it’s more like Whole 120.

“Yeah, I was thinking of going,” she said. “But I gotta look cute first.” Then she pushed her hair from behind her shoulders to in front of her shoulders.

“…That’s it? That’s how you get cute? You move you hair forward?” asked the woman who spent $3228,920304 on Ultherapy.

Her “cute side.”

The fun thing about Wedding Alex is she’s a terrible drinker. She’s drunk on like five sips. Normally she’s all professional and poised and then you get a mai tai in front of her and she becomes your Irish uncle. It’s one of my more fun hobbies, witnessing Drunk Alex.

Saturday.
There was a fund raiser here for pit bulls–a pitty party, if you will–and Saturday I left my house of animals to attend a fund raiser for animals. Apparently I did not win the raffle or they’re holding out on me to build suspense.

I photographed self before the event, but once I was in there, surrounded by sweet pitty puppies and big-headed pits and so on, I felt like an idiot saying, “Can I photograph these dogs?”

But, oh. There was a teensy all-gray one who I died over. I’m dead right now, next to bludgeoned Ryan.

After I’d ponied up my raffle money and so on, and headed to the country. Every Friday at work from spring through fall, this produce truck comes to work, and guess who never has cash.

“You should always keep $300 cash on you,” my coworker Griff says, from his loft in Fantasyland.

But everyone’s strawberries looked so good that on Saturday I headed all the way to their actual farm–the produce people’s farm, not my coworkers’–and bought strawberries. Since it was a really pretty day and I was already in the country, I drove around a bit, as that is my bailiwick, driving in the country.

Is your bailiwick a thing you like to do or a thing you’re good at?

Anyway, I found a park with a trail (I could not help but appreciate my grand hiking shoes, which were my pink satin ruffly shoes that’re excellent for a fund raiser AND, apparently, hiking! Versatile.) and a dock and it was lovely and I saw fish jumping, which made me think of how Ned gets annoyed at that Doobie Brothers’ song that goes, “catfish all jumping…” because catfish don’t jump.

The thing is, I go around with my regularly scheduled list of things that irk me, like calling them “veggies” and so on, and then someone lists something new for me to abhor and it’s a whole new world.

I hiked the smaller trail, in my pink satin flats, and did not see a snake, which was my entire goal.

Sunday.
Migraine. Goddammit. Why I always gotta have a migraine? In fact, this weekend I’d stupidly formed the thought, “I haven’t had a migraine in awhile,” which is something my mother-in-law, fmr., taught me is a kina hora, which means you think something like that and you curse yourself.

“Oh, traffic’s not bad today” and boom. There’s traffic. Kina hora.

I really shoulda been Jewish. I’m perfect for it.

I got up, fed everyone in agony and unmatched pajamas, went back to bed and slept till almost 5 p.m. and got up and fed everyone again. Ned came over with two bags of kitten food and a ton of canned kitten food, which was nice, and I will have gone through it in a week, probably.

But thanks to your tips, I’ll just get more!

The shelter should really pay for this. They’d be paying for it if the kittens were there. Also, I’ve been volunteering since November, and in that time two volunteer coordinators have quit. I don’t know what is up, there, but everyone who does work there is really very lovely, if overworked.

While I was lying in misery yesterday, I ordered a Freeze Sleeve.

Actual photo of my body. Also? A link to Amazon.

My elbow has been killing me, and I thought, if only they had an ice sleeve, which sounded like something I made up. My doctor told me to ice my elbow twice a day, and I have been, but when I do, I have to sit motionless with an iced eye mask on my arm. It’s stupid. So in my head I invented a sleeve you can just wear, that’s iced.

It’s like this time in, say, 1989, when my roommate Sandy and I were lying out. It was Michigan, so even though it was probably May, it was still a bit cold.

“This would be perfect if we just had a windwall,” she said.

“A what?”

“A windwall, to keep the wind from blowing on us.” She adjusted her reflective blanket.

“You know you just invented that in your mind, right?”

A windwall.

That was me, with my ice sleeve, but it turns out it’s really a thing, so I ordered one.

Hoping you find your windwall, and get past the torment of turning 29.

June

With better legs

You know the part where I’m weird?

Now imagine it in high school.

Because I was generally this, just with better legs, in high school. In fact, I was even weirder, as I had not yet learned to rein it in. I wasn’t the deeply sophisticated, subtle woman of mystery brewing before you.

Oh my god. I really was just this with better thighs. I just Googled myself for some high school photos and my high school column, “I’m Irked,” came up for me.

Classroom habits drive me mad!

I mean, what did I even have to be bitter about yet? But there I was, already annoyed. And in case anyone recalls the diary I recently shared with you–because I give and I give to you people–where I list everything I wore in 1982? Behold the gray cords, above. It’s sad that I know those are the gray cords. They had slanty pockets. And possibly pleats!

Anyway.

I was not what you’d call part of the In Crowd, what with this personality and this hair and those cords. And “I’m Irked.”

That is why it was weird when, in sophomore year, I got a call from Cardinal Hunter.

Cardinal Hunter was the shit, man. Everyone fekking loved him. My Uncle Leo had taught him in 6th grade, and somehow my uncle and Cardinal had stayed friends past, you know, 6th grade. Every so often he’d pop in at my Uncle Leo and Aunt Kathy’s house, and they’d always say to me, “You should meet Cardinal Hunter. He’s your age, and he’s so funny.”

Oh, sure he is, I’d think. I’ve always been a snob about that sort of thing. But someone tells you another person is funny and you check them out and the first thing you see is a hashtag that reads The Struggle is Real and you’re all, see. I knew you weren’t fucking funny. With your Live, Laugh, Love wall decal.

Because I’m clearly Shekky Greene, over here. Who can argue the level of hilarity that comes from old inventing-the-word-sparklefraffle June Gardens?

Me being snooty about funnyness is like being snooty about Dr Pepper when I’m Mr. Pibb.

So, I got to high school, and the entire world was abuzz about how magnificent Cardinal Hunter was, and how hilarious, and how cute, and though I’d yet to meet him I was already completely over him. It’s the same way I feel about geocaching.

Even my boyfriend at the time, Giovanni Leftwich, was all up in him. “Oh, man, have you met Cardinal Hunter yet?” he asked me while we walked home one day. I can see his tube socks as we walked. I don’t know why, but I totally can.

What I wouldn’t give to just re-live one stupid day of 1981 and see what that was like.

Probably like this, with less cankle. And more Scotty Baldwin.

At any rate, there it was, early February of sophomore year, in the early ’80s in the early days of this personality, when I hadn’t learned to rein it in, and perhaps I’ve already mentioned that. And as per usual I was grounded for whatever transgression, so I was home, Giovanni and I were broken up, and the phone rang on a Saturday night.

It was Cardinal Hunter.

“Good gravy, what does he want?” I thought, although I wonder now what my “good gravy” of the day was. Maybe “wow” or “the struggle is real” or “live, laugh, love AF.” I don’t know.

He’d been back visiting at my Uncle Leo’s, Cardinal had been, and perhaps that seems odd to outsiders, but if you knew my Uncle Leo you could totally see being 15 and popping in to chat. He’s entertaining, Uncle Leo is. That’s why when he and Aunt Kathy divorced, we kept him.

We all apologize, Aunt Kathy. But dude is funny.

The point is, Uncle Leo was making Cardinal watch a slide show, and maybe he’s not as entertaining as we think. My Uncle Leo gets…into things. Like, he gets a hobby, let’s say sailor hats. And then for a year you gotta hear about sailor hats, and when they were invented, and then he starts making his own sailor hats and all you want to do after that year is burn down every sailor and every hat in the nation.

I don’t even know that “sailor hats” are a thing.

But the point is he was into photography then, and he’d taken pictures of me, at 15, dressing up in my grandma’s clothes. Oh, I thought I was hilarious with this. I had on a babushka and her cat-eye sunglasses and her gramma shoes. And Uncle Leo showed these slides to Cardinal.

For some reason, this enticed Cardinal, who has a little weird in him, too. He just hides it better by being socially acceptable. So he called me. And we became a high school thing.

You may have guessed that my romance eventually ended, as I am not mentioning my husband Cardinal that often. You’d think after 11 and a half years of blogging I’d have brought him up.

But we’ve always been friends. Also, Ima have to recapture and reupload all these damn photos again, because dredging them from my old blog doesn’t really work. I really need you to see every nuance of my 1988 perm and my 1988 white zinfandel, up there, and you cannot.

Yesterday I saw my high school boyfriend Cardinal Hunter. He lives outside of Seattle, and yes, we both lived there at the same time for awhile. He was here because most of his family lives in North Carolina, which is weird, right? I can’t shake that damn Cardinal Hunter. It’s like tryina get a taffy wrapper off my hands.

He was glad to meet my kittens, and he was way into meeting Edsel. “How many pets do you guys have now?” I asked him, because he’s like me with the pets. “Just two cats and two dogs,” he said.

So, reasonable. When you’re us.

There was one time he had a mastiff and two Newfoundlands. That was small, over at his house, is what it was. What dogs? You have dogs?

He fell particularly in love with Erin, that tortoiseshell one, as she is a big starer. Eye contact is kind of her jam.

(And in case anyone’s worried, I have been feeding runty Elizabeth a bottle and she’s taking it, so, yay.)

After the kitten intros, we walked Edsel and eventually tried to get a drink somewhere, but my stupid city has decided Wednesday is a big party night, so it took awhile to find anywhere, but we did. We were like that song by Dan Fogelberg, where it’s Christmas Eve and he runs into his ex and they can’t find an open bar and they buy a six-pack at the liquor store.

And they drank it in her car. Which sounds legal.

After our drink, Cardinal had to start driving back to his sister’s place an hour away, so we said our goodbyes. I was just shutting off the lights when the doorbell rang.

“Woof,” remarked Eds.

“I forgot. I got you this,” said Cardinal.

It was a Mallow Cup.

In high school, he’d always go to the party store, which is what we called convenience stores in Michigan, and he’d get a disgusting Cadberry Egg and I’d get a Mallow Cup. And then we’d eat them in his car. Which was probably legal. Other stuff we did in there probably wasn’t.

And that, my friends, is how a February 1982 phone call resulted in weird June Gardens nostalgically eating marshmallow in a cup in 2018. Just for a moment I was back in school. And felt that old familiar weirdness.

Love,
June

Hair-ried

I forgot to mention to you that the day Steely Dan was clearly hurt, with the growling when he walked and his big eyes and so on? I called the vet right away, like at 7:30 in the morning, and they said, “Can you have him here by 8:00?” So I took the world’s fastest shower and put on the world’s fastest stupid ensemble and then I scream scream screamed to the vet and went to work and looked like this:

Wow. I don’t know anyone whose hair reflects her every mood the way mine does. This one says, “Harried.” Hair-ried.

But while we’re on the subject of my stupid life, usually when I write you, I’m in my robe, and I will give you a moment to stop being so turned on.

But today, after I showered

[I’ll give you another moment. You must be on fire at this point.]

I thought, You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna get dressed right away, because that robe is always kind of warm and my bosoms are always in the way

[At this point there’s nothing you can do. You are going to spend the whole day in a heightened state of arousal.]

so why not get dressed now?

So I did, and then I made my avocado toast and bit into it and squirted grape tomato all over my outfit.

And right then I knew, that’s why I fucking wear my robe when I write you. I have to wait till the very last minute to dress, to alleviate the many things that can go wrong with my clothing. The cat hair, the tomato seeds, the toothpaste.

Goddammit.

It’s a good thing I pilled Steely Dan before I showered and dressed, as that was another thing that could have landed on my clothes. I know I told you he takes pills nicely, and compared to my other cats, he still does, but perhaps he’s feeling better or just wasn’t in the mood, because he

SPAT

his pill across the kitchen floor.

I didn’t even know cats could spit. He was like a gray angry llama up in here. Just ptooi across the floor with that pill. But I gathered it up and gave it to him and he was all, FINE and took it without incident.

The fact that he is currently an indoor cat makes me feel better about finding this last night…

My friend Lucy, from TinyTown, gave me this right when I moved into this house, and it’s been in my backyard ever since, and it’s been used ever since. Now, I know Iris isn’t strong enough to, you know, RIP a birdhouse open, and probably SD isn’t, either, but since he was inside (and so was Iris, actually), I know I don’t have to blame my own self for this horrific scene.

I didn’t see feathers or eggs or anything, so maybe whatever animal did this was out of luck. There WAS a nest in there, but that coulda been from last year.

So that was dramatic, and also dramatic yesterday was when an electrician came over. I had a smoke detector hanging from my ceiling by its wires, like I decorated using tips from Crack House Monthly. Like I decorated using pins from Needle-trist. And anyway, Alf my ridiculous handyman said it was going to require an actual electrician to fix it, so I got one to just replace all my smoke detectors, because every single one of them is wired into my ceiling and was either (a) missing because I ripped it down or (2) had a door that was stuck open because they were all old and stupid.

So yesterday at lunchtime, the electrician came over and replaced all 6 smoke alarms, and when the new ones went in they would beep a few times to let us all know they may be new but they’re still annoying. And as he did that I was tryina stay out of his way and I saw this.

Poor Eds was in the bathroom, being a letter C. A few minutes later, I walked past again and the electrician was standing over Eds, rubbing his dog chest. I dearly wanted to say, “May I photograph this moment for my blog?” but YOU try that and see how insane that makes you feel.

But speaking of Edsel, he did get rewarded for his terror last night when Aunt Alex came over. Oh, he was mad when her truck pulled up. He was all making a letter O with his mouth and raising his hackles and carrying on, and Steely Dan, who wants nothing to do with any of us at this point and feels like Pa Ingalls did when he was snowed in for months with his stupid family, glared and hoped the person in the truck was an ax murderer and we’d all be removed from this mortal coil.

But it wasn’t an ax murderer. It be Aunt Alex. Note SD in the corner, with his Paw Wash of Disappointment.

“Steely Dan’s inside!” she exclaimed ‘ere he stomped out of sight.

“Apparently you’re not reading my blog,” I said, and it’s always a weird thing when you write about your life every day and then you have friends in real life and you don’t wanna be RUDE and be all, “Do you read my blog?” but you also don’t want to launch into a story they just fekking READ about and then they have to feign interest and it’s really become a thing, basically.

Other than relatives such as my parents, the people who know me in real life don’t read me. It’s probably enough to know All This in real life without having to read All This.

“No, I–I read. I know he got hurt, but then what happened?”

See. She saw it in Facebook, is what she did. It really is a thing, this blogging and having friends. It’s an awkward thing. Maybe I should just go ahead and tell all my stories, and they can interrupt me with, “Yeah, I read this already, bitch,” but who’s gonna do that? Emily Post has never addressed this situation.

Aunt Alex was over to have dinner with me, as I have not seen her in awhile because we don’t work together anymore and she no longer lives a mile away. She and her spouse, who is also good-looking, moved to the country so they can impress the animals with their golden blondeness. They’re like Adam and Summer’s Eve.

And why do all my younger friends get to move to the country and eat a lotta peaches while I’m stuck in the bustling metropolis that is Greensboro? Why I gotta be all urban? I’m dying to live in the (snake-free) country.

They should make snake-free country the way they got the seeds outta grapes. I mean, someone figured that out, and that couldn’t have been easy. Work on it, smart folk.

Oh my god, anyway. The point is, we went to dinner at this little diner that’s been around since 1977 and since they last decorated in 1977. I want it to NEVER CHANGE. I adore it there.

I had quiche, because 1977, and she had a prosciutto and swiss sandwich, and we had a lovely time and talked and laughed and then she took me home and as I walked into my living room, I saw her pull back into my drive.

I went outside.

She got out of her truck. She stared at me, aghast.

“We didn’t pay.”

OH MY GOD WE DIDN’T PAY! We just clean forgot! We just STROLLED out of there without going up to the counter!

Alex went back, and she texted me after. “They weren’t even fazed,” she said.

We totally coulda gotten away with it.

I gotta go, but I wanted to tell you about a lovely experience I had last night. I mean, beyond dining and dashing.

Here’s one of my Amazon links to a CD. Back in the year 2000, which feels like five years ago but was EIGHTEEN, I trained for and ran a marathon. I also had a very fruity therapist, whom I loved, who changed her name from a nice Jewish lady therapist’s name (think something like Myra Goldblum) to something Indian-ish, because she was super duper into meditation and so on, and during some sort of seminar she was given a new name. So she went from Myra Goldblum to Sanguine.

I loved her. She lived in my neighborhood, so I’d walk over to her house once a week and get therapied. She got me to get a Ganesh keychain, and so on. The point is, she loaned me the above CD, there, called Sound Body, Sound Mind, by Dr. Andrew Weil. It’s five minutes of him talking, then an hour or so of really pretty music.

What happens is allegedly while you listen to it, your body heals itself from whatever’s wrong.

I was to take her CD and tape it, and dear Dr. Andrew Weil, don’t arrest me.

So Marvin made me that tape, and he inscribed it, Sound Body, Sound Mind CD from Gurpmaloni Changetrimeshu.

I used that tape like a motherfucker while I was doing my marathon training, because something always hurt on me, and I would giggle

LIKE AN IDIOT

every time I saw Gurpmaloni Changetrimeshu. And that’s really the name he wrote; I can still remember it.

THE POINT IS, eventually I bought the CD so I wouldn’t have to get up and flip the damn tape, and I LOVED it and I think Marvin accidentally stole it in the divorce, because the very last thing he wants is a bunch of fruity meditation music given to me by Gurpmaloni.

I told her that story, by the way, and she giggled. Oh, I adored her.

Anyway, m’tooth was hurting again last night, and I said, Goddammit. I really wish, what would really work, is if I still had that Dr. Andrew Weil CD, and I don’t. But you know what I did? Technology. I got it on iTunes, and I plugged my phone in next to my bed, and when that music started up, I almost started to cry.

I’d listened to that thing so often from, like, 2000 to maybe 2005, and then it got lost, and it was so nice to hear it again. And I fell asleep listening to it, slept like a LOG, and then today my mouth doesn’t hurt.

So I’ll link to it again if you want it. Or you could just iTunes it like I did. It was 12 dollars.

Namaste,
Junemaloni

The stitch has been fixed. The eagle has landed.

I ended up getting invited to two things last night, because apparently Tuesday is the hot night now or something, and the point is that over the course of the evening, I had a glass of Prosecco and then two glasses of chardonnay, because I’m a girl. Then at my now-usual wakeup time of 4 a.m., I had a splitting headache and slept in this morning.

There was a time I could have three drinks in preparation for my workday. When did I get so wimpy?

So write fast I must, but I hated to leave you without the stunning results of our StitchFix polls yesterday. It would appear that about 355 of you voted, which is a pretty good turnout when I had (lemme go see) 1,430 readers yesterday. According to my maths, 407% of people participated.

A stunning 88% of you voted that my boss, fmr., keep that bird shirt. I hope she perches on that decision and spends some bills on this shirt.

The distressed jeans caused some distress, and oh, lort, June, are you gonna do this throughout? Only 55% said to keep them, which distresses me out. June stop.

We were double-breasted on the coat, too. It was pretty much half and half (49% yes, 45% no) on whether it should stay or should it go, now. If it goes it will be double (breasted) and if it stays it will be double (breasted, still).

That’s it, June. I’m leaving.

At least we were all in agreement that we hated a wrinkle in time, over here. A weird 1.36% voted she should keep this. I’d like to hear from this elusive 1.36%. Do you also hate chocolate and Tom Hanks?

And, finally, we didn’t link to this cuff much. 58% said to unhand the cuff.

Oh, June. You shoulda stuck to waitressing. For you were a stellar and unharried waitress with the patience of Job and the focus to remember what your tables wanted.

Did I ever tell you about the time I cried because the soup changed? Remind me.

Sometimes I have nightmares that I’m waitressing again. I’m at some soda gun going, How did I get back here?

Anyway. Thanks for participating, you 355 or so who did. Why didn’t you others? What a bunch of cranks. Perhaps the rest of you are men.

Yesterday, my boss, fmr., and I were discussing her photos on my blog, and the reactions we were getting to the clothes, and my boss’s boss, also fmr., happened upon us.

“I’d rather…go to the dentist, yes, go to the dentist, than have a bunch of people tell me what clothes to buy,” he said. Keep in mind this was the guy who gave me the eagle calendar. All of a sudden we gotta listen to THIS guy.

Boss, fmr. and I stared at him blankly.

“Well, then how do you shop?” we asked him. Pretty much at the same time, like those twins in The Shining.

“How you shop is, you decide you need something, and you go out and get it.”

We stared at him blankly some more. Kind of like those twins in The Shining. Still. Occasionally, after that stunning announcement, I’d kind of see my Eagles-Loving Former Boss’s Boss and then an elevator with blood pouring out of it would cross my vision.

“Now, what now?” I asked.

“If I’m shopping alone, I at least take a selfie in the dressing room and send it to someone for their opinion,” I told him.

“Yeah, of course,” agreed my boss, fmr.

“You’re kidding,” said my boss’s boss, former, lover of eagles. And their calendars.

Later, I asked Ned about this.

“How you shop is, you say, wow I’m out of blue jeans (Ned always calls them “blue jeans” like he’s Grampa Joe or whatever) and then you go out and get the same kind of blue jeans you’ve been buying since 9th grade,” said Ned.

Blood. Elevator. Somewhere in Florida an old man is having a vision under a painting of a naked woman.

“How is it that we even exist on the same planet?” asked Former Boss of All Eagles.

Anyway, I gotta go. If I’m going to have a wine headache, I’m going to have it at work, where I can complain about it to the world at large.

Givingly,
Joon

June goes off the grid

I realize the best part of life is the thinner slice, and it don’t count for much.

What is wrong with me?

I realize I was supposed to write you Sunday for two–yes, TWO!!–special June weekend posts, but on Sunday I got into a weird cleaning frenzy and never did it.

The good news is, my floors are gleaming. The bad news is, you were bereft all Sunday. Then it was Sunday night, and your mom was spraying Hair So New on your wet hair while you watched Wonderful World of Disney

and ate a pot pie,

knowing you had school the next day and the weekend was over, and NO JUNE POST.

What is wrong with me?

Anyway, we can still have a …banquet this morning, so dry your tears. And your hair! It’s So New!

The reason I was going to write you Sunday is that my iPhotos had presented me with this weird grid the other day, a grid titled “People.” And indeed, it showed me people. Why these people, I don’t know.

But seeing as I’ve blogged at you for 11 years, give or take times I’ve allegedly FLOUNCED, it occurred to me that while I recognize all these folks, scarily, you might too. So I asked you: Who ARE these people?

And you answered. Often wrongly. So without further ado, because your ‘do is wet and it has Hair So New on it, let’s look at who’s on m’grid.

First person on the grid? Ned. That’s back when I liked him, when he still lived in his apartment. That’s all I have to say about grid number one.

That’s my stepfather, Harry, in the second place on said grid. He’s a saint. I remember that picture. My mother said, “Take a picture of Harry to put on Facebook, so his nieces can see him.” Then she photobombed.

Aunt Kathy. I couldn’t believe people didn’t know right away who this one was. I mean, how many times have I featured Aunt Kathy? And her Paul McCartney video?

Geez.

Okay, up next?

Aunt Kathy’s husband, Uncle Bill. He is very handy. Also, he never, like, relaxes. Like, he’ll fly to China, which he does a lot, then come home and replace the roof all weekend, then get on a plane to Germany.

I’ve no idea what he does. Maybe he’s an international handyman.

Most of you knew my youthful coworker Ryan. What a buncha Mrs. Robinsons you all are.

This is my coworker, fmr., Alex. Her name is actually Alex, so she got offended when I started calling everyone ELSE at work “Alex.” To be fair, there really used to be like 12 of them at once. Anyway, you know her from coming to my house to do yoga, and also being one of the youthful people I would drink with.

Cantankerous coworker Griff. Of Thus Saith Griff fame. I like how someone was all, “Your coworker Gif or whoever.” Gif. Dying.

One of the Alexes from work. She doesn’t work there anymore. She helped me make my brick house costume when I had that Dress as a Character From a Song party. She lives a mile away and we never see each other, despite several tepid, “Let’s get together” texts.

Wedding Alex. Been on this blog approximately one frillion times. I took credit for every nuance of her wedding, from claiming I sewed her dress to building the church brick by brick. I forget why. Oh, right. I’m an asshole.

The Other Copy Editor, fmr. We worked on the same team, but then she left to edit poetry for a living, a job I do not understand. How do you edit poetry? Anyway, she also owns the B&B where I drink, as they have Come Drink at Our B&B Wednesdays, she and her husband do.

Aw. Another one of the Alexes. She left to take a very fancy job. She has a single dad my age who is hot hot hot, a thing I never let drop, and I wonder why I rarely hear from her. Hunh.

This Alex was in my blog also 21 frillion times, when she worked with me. She’s gone, too. She and I got pedicures, we had dinner together, I forced her to go to the psychic with me. I mean, we did it all. I also talked her into going on OK Cupid after her breakup, and she met her boyfriend on there, and is still with him, so get ready for another June Takes the Credit Wedding coming to a blog near you.

Dick Whitman. First person I dated once I was single. We dated for I think two terrible months, then we became friends, and then I got mad at him because when Ned and I broke up, he wasn’t what you’d call around. I felt bad. I felt abandoned. I felt all sorts of things. Anyway, when his mom, Dick Whitman’s Mom, died, we did have a nice chat about how great his mom was, so it’s not a terrible or anything, between us.

Camilo, of the banana Camilos. Like, we just talked about him LAST POST, so don’t be giving me any, “Who’s that.”

TinaDoris. We worked together; now she works with OKCupid Alex. I went to her wedding, I saged her haunty house, I blog-named her baby Borbala Rut. She’s having another baby, and I am the father.

I just want you to know, whomever called Austin, “Jerome or whoever,” I have called him nothing but Jerome ever since. I went to his house this Christmas Eve, he has the really good wallpaper in the kitchen, with the measuring cups and so on. He’s my favorite person at work.

Marty Martin. Friend in real life. Boyfriend of Kayeeeee. Marty is good people.

See. I already said Austin was my favorite person at work, but The Poet is also my favorite person at work. She is the other white meat. The Poet is being flown to London for a week, to read her poems, as she is The Poet. I’d be such an asshole if I were as fabulous as she is. Look at what an asshole I am at THIS level.

This is my coworker Molly. I go see her perform sometimes, as she swallows swords. No. She sings and plays guitar, and I like all of her songs. All of them.

Yet another Alex who was actually named Alex. She works with OKCupid Alex and TinaDoris now, in some new place where I don’t actually understand what they do. Anyway, she’s British, this Alex is, and she used to live in TinyTown, which you don’t see every day.

Faithful Reader LaUral. She wrote me and said, “I read your blog, and I’m not crazy but I can tell we work right near each other.” This was when I would do things like meet someone who read my blog. Now I’m wary. Too many creepy things have happened. But LaUral slipped in under the wire.

My tenant, fmr. She became my tenant, then got a job where I work, worked there for a few years, and Friday was her last day. I’m, like, the Last Woman Standing. I feel like some wizened old veteran there, with my seven years going on.

Aw. My boss, fmr. I miss him. I miss him more than I thought I would. He was always good for amusing conversation. And he and Griff would bicker like two old married people.

Kayeeeeee. Marty Martin’s girlfriend. Let me move in with her for those six weeks after Ned and I broke up and my tenant, fmr., was moving out. Kayeeee. Not a fan of Tracy Anderson workout videos.

And finally, none of you were right. This is Ned’s mom. I think I’ve only had her in my blog maybe five times in six years. So you’d have to be a careful, careful, possibly even obsessed reader to catch that one.

So there it is. My grid. And now I’m fairly exhausted.

Gridily,
Jooon

June Doles Out the Special Banana Post

Were you worried I’d slip and forget the banana story? Did you think I’d peel out of work Friday and forget you? That I’d split and forget about the banana?

What a fruity idea.

June’s readers. Finding June unapPEELing since 2018.

As you know, from your Enormous Banana of June Events, my ridik coworker Camilo–whom I’m certain I’ve blog-named in the past but who can remember what I called him. I must be low on potassium.

Anyway, Camilo, my coworker, mashed in from New York all flambé about some shit he learned about bananas. “You guys wouldn’t BELIEVE it,” he said. Look, he’s still green. Banana things excite him.

I don’t know where this news stemmed, but he had something thrilling he learned that was banana-related, and he needed an ACTUAL banana to show us.

No matter how you sliced it, he was making this a huge deal. So after he’d plantain-ed the seed, we were all into learning what the news was. I set up an actual meeting on everyone’s calendar, in an actual meeting room, and every chichita in the place gathered to see what was up.

You could say we were a banana republic.

Dear June:
You’re fired.
Love, All readers everywhere.

So without so much as a yellow, he showed the BUNCH of us the banana.

“Is it the thing where you peel it from the bottom,” an unenthused coworker, who had a deadline, asked. Clearly she had not been on the banana boat earlier, when he’d already assured us it was WAY BEYOND the old opening-it-from-the-bottom trick.

“You know how sometimes you have a banana, and you want to share it with others?” he asked.

No. No I don’t. But I’m an only child.

“Watch this,” he said, about to serve us a banana shakeup. Camilo stuck his thumb in the top of the banana, and pressed down.

Voila. Or, waa-laa, if you want to be …rotten.

Turns out, if you press the top of a peeled banana, it automatically divides into three sections. “It’s like it’s MADE to be shared,” he said. He wasn’t monkeying around. He handed banana sections to the whole bunch of us.

I know I already used “bunch.” Why don’t you try to think up this many melon-farming banana puns?

So. There it is. I don’t know what kind of bread you can make from this info, but now you have a party trick that’s…bananas.

Daylight come and me wanna go home,
June

P.S. Tuuuuuune in Sunday for “the grid.” I have a migraine. Too many banana daiquiris last night.

June’s delusional world

I’m writing you on Sunday night because I have to call the IRS in the morning to figure out if I owe money or I’m getting money back, a thing TurboTax can’t seem to tell me, which makes my ass ache mightily.

Yes, June, that’s a shame. So, what’d you do this weekend?

Well, mostly I hung around Marianne.

In 1992, I moved to Seattle. I knew I wanted to leave Michigan after college, and they read more books there per capita, so I figured I’d fit in.

I did.

I got a job a few days into my move there, by talking up the guy who helped me open a checking account. “I know they need a receptionist on 12. You want me to make some calls?” And a stellar career answering phones on the 12th floor was born.

One of the people who worked with me on that 12th rung of the ladder to success invited me to go to a rugby game with her on a Saturday morning. Anyone who’s read me awhile (See: All of you) knows how often I get up on Saturday and seek out rugby. But I was new in town

and completely desperate for friends. So I got up at some ungodly hour, maybe even 10:00, and went to a damn rugby game.

“We’re going to stop and pick up my friend Marianne,” the woman from the 12th floor said to me. I hate it when you have plans with someone and they throw someone else in like that. In my MIND I’d psychologically PREPARED for it to be just us. But I pretended to be a normal member of society and said okay.

Turns out, Marianne was fairly new to Seattle, as well. And as we stood on that cold rugby…field? Is it a field? Hoooo care. Marianne looked at our other friend getting all into rugby, and said to me, “You wanna go back to the car and drink all the beer?”

And we did. The end.

From then on, we spent every ding-dang weekend together, no matter what. There was a restaurant across from my apartment, and inexplicably it had a mechanical bellhop in front of it, with an arm that moved up and down, sort of guiding you into the diner. We had breakfast there every Saturday. I mean every Saturday.

I’ve no idea what the name of that place was, since all we did on Friday night was sort of drunkenly say, “What time?” and do the bellhop’s arm gesture.

“Eleven.”

Or even, “Oh, god, like, 1:00?”

Marianne and me, right after Kurt Cobain’s memorial at the Space Needle. I’ve no idea why we were so gleeful. I remember being devastated at the time. We were moody at 27.

She left Seattle a year before I did, to go back to North Carolina. At her goodbye party at Lai Lani Lanes, a Tiki-themed bowling alley we adored, I told Marianne that at my wedding someday (Step One: Get boyfriend), we’d find a way to drink a beer in a car during the reception.

She drove all the way from North Carolina to Michigan to come to my wedding, three years later. At the very end of the night, the band packing up, I sneaked into the kitchen of the B&B and grabbed two beers.

We drank them in the rental car, me in my wedding dress and ridik veil.

Anyway, now here I am, in North Carolina as well, and she’s an hour and a half away and we see each other like once or twice a year and it’s stupid.

On Saturday, I was running my usual errands: taking the kids to soccer, meeting with the prime minister, knitting socks, I texted Marianne. “Wanna meet in Winston-Salem right now?”

She did.

While I got groceries Saturday, my car made a pal.

I had no earthly reason to also go to PetSmart Saturday. Other than the important task of getting some strange. I LOVE YOU, HALF-A-PEACHY-FACE KITTY!

I LOVE YOU, STEELY DANELGANGER!

Anyway, since Marianne was able to drop everything and drive to Winston, off I went.

We’d sort of forgotten it was St. Patrick’s Day, and by “we” I mean clearly not old Kermit, up there, dressed head-to-toe in green. Marianne has always been more excited about life than I am.

My point is, we went to a restaurant, and they were shamrocking out, man. They even had hootchie-gootchie girls (TM, Ned’s mom) handing out Irish whiskey for free and everything, along with hats, shirts and sunglasses.

Marianne opted to take all of them.

I just went for the bowler hat. Because, bowler.

“We probably shouldn’t drink all of this whiskey, because we have to drive,” I old lady-ed.

“Oh, I wasn’t planning to,” doddered Marianne.

“I wonder how many St. Patrick’s Days we’ve spent together,” I said. For some reason, Marianne had, like, this houseful of friends who’d all come over from Ireland together. Their house was magically delicious. And not at all devoid of, you know, parties. Especially on St. Patrick’s Day.

Oddly, we can’t remember any of them. Hmmmm. What could it be? What.could.it.beeeeee that made us forget?

Anyway, our three sips of whiskey in us, we headed to our cars. On the way out, I saw a good-looking man I completely recognized, and we both stopped in our tracks because we clearly knew who each other was, but could not place. He was with a woman, so if he was one of my 39583030402 internet dates I’ve had over the past two and a half years, I didn’t want to stir up any trouble.

“Who was that hot woman in the bowler hat?” I mean. It was inevitable, right?

On the drive home, I was all,

“RON!”

Which means nothing to you, and anyone who actually remembers who Ron is gets a plastic green bowler hat.

He was Marvin’s bandmate. From, like, 2008. Marvin put an ad on Craigslist or something and this really nice guy, Ron, answered the ad, and every Sunday for years they would have band practice here at this house.

Every Sunday for years, I would therefore go to the movies and see some weird independent thing, and Ned and I used to say we MUST have been in the same theater at the same time, as a result, which is weird to think about.

I tried to find a photo of Marvin practicing with Ron, a thing I know existed, but instead I found the photo of the time I insisted you all call Henry, my cat, fmr., “Henri.”

Am delighted with self anew.

Ah. Here’s a crystal-clear shot of Ron and Marvin practicing. Pre-bookshelves. Pre-not-beige walls. Weird.

Anyway, the next day I talked to Marvin. “Ron thought that was you, but he wasn’t sure.”

“Is it because I’m so hot now?”

Marvin didn’t answer that. You’d think Ron woulda said, “Man, she’s clearly had Ultherapy.”

Anyway, I’m glad I had the brilliant idea to get together with Marianne, and that we had a good time even though we were done by, like, 7:00 rather than just going out at 7:00. It’s good to have people you can grow old with. Even though I’m getting hotter by the minute.

Youthfully,
June