Weathered Vain

“Leaves no oily residue,” my eye-makeup remover reads. I just read that this morning while I was washing off the oily residue from my eye-makeup remover.

Just tell the truth. Jesus. “Removes your makeup pretty cheaply because it’s the drug store brand.” You know what I really like is that Clinique eye-makeup remover, but it’s too rich for my blood. Even though I got new lips yesterday like I could afford it.

Wait. What?

On Tuesday, I had a consultation at the same place that I get m’Botox and m’Juvederm. In case you’re local, I go to Barber Center and I see Robin.

You know I hate my lips, right? And I already have a Gor-Tex implant in the top one, from 1998, and lemme show you my lips, former.

Al Gore-Tex

Okay. Here’s me and my blemish and my lips, fmr. I took this Monday. I’ve no idea why. I’m certain there was a reason at the time. …Oh, I remember. Self-obsession.

So I went to the consultation on Tuesday, and this Robin over there, man does she look good. Not fake cat-lady good, either. The point is, she said, “Thin lips are really hard to bring out. We can add bloo-dee-blah and see if that works, and on top of that, add bleee-dee-bleep-bloo if we wanna keep going.”

That all sounded good to me, but she’s so in demand that she wasn’t available to do it till August 29. “That’s fine,” I thought, and don’t you hate people who say, “I thought to myself”? Who the hell else do you think to?

Anyway, my theory was that’d give me time to save my pennies.

Then yesterday at work, the phone rang.

“Robin has had a cancellation. Do you want to come in today?”

I wonder if we’ve met. Hi, I’m June. I’m impulsive. How do you do? LET’S STREAK.

I mean, I could have said, “Oh, I’ll wait till August till I’ve saved my pennies.”

“I’m taking an early lunch!” I announced, and hightailed it right to the office of beauty and naturalness. The building of aging gracefully.

While I was waiting in the lobby, my old workplace called and up and offered me a job. I am not kidding you. It’s the place I worked at circa 2008–2009. I demurred. Then I went in and had my lips done did. Talk about your dramatic day.

She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t li-docaine.

This is what she used on me, and look at this bitch. If I had her regular lips, I’d be praising Jesus and all the saints.

“We’ll try Volbella,” Robin-who-looks-great said, (“Volbella.” Good lord.) “and if we want to keep going with other stuff, we can.”

First, I iced my lips, and I don’t mean I murdered them. Then she put this numbing cream on me, and maybe this process was the other way around. It was all a whirl. I woke up yesterday not knowing NEW LIPS were at hand.

Here’s me yesterday with the numbing gel, waiting for my million shots to the lips. SHOT TO THE LIPS, AND YOU’RE TO BLAME. Darlin’ you give aging a bad name.

I mean, I think you have to hand it to me that with all this last-minute-ness, I thought, Oh, shit, I’ll probably blog about this. I should take a fow-toe. So I did. And flattering lights in there? When the lights, shine down, on the biddy.

How much of that lidocaine you been takin’, honey?

Then she gave me the shots.

Mother of pearl.

Look. I get through Botox like it’s nothing. And I had Ultherapy and wanted to die (I think I’m beginning to see the results of that, by the way). This pain was somewhere in between.

Mostly, the fact that my lips were so numb freaked me out. It felt like they were 11 feet wide, and I worried, “Am I able to breathe? I can’t really feel my breathe parts.”

And then also, and I want you to brace your own self, but having needles poked right in your lips really hurts. But each shot included lidocaine (Take your silver spoon, dig your grave), so it got more numb as time went on.

Who here is hoping hard I keep referencing cocaine songs?

We used up the Volbella, and after some discussion, in which my lips did not actually move, we decided I’ll stay with just this for now, give it two weeks to settle in, and see if I want to add this other stuff on top of it.

quack

So here they are now.

“It looks very natural,” my Aunt Kathy said, when of course I immediately texted her the results of my day of needles.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” I wrote her back. “Natural is never my goal.”

Lip, lack, love

So here’s before, with the flattering numbing cream, and after. I think I will probably go get more shit put in. Because last night Ned stopped by, which by the way, I pulled into my drive just as he did, because I had been out on a very important mission.

Faithful Reader and now Mother of One of My Foster Kittens LaUral sent me info on this: rosé vodka. You know in the cartoons where someone takes off in a hurry and there’s a little puff of smoke behind them?

“Hi. I’m a girl,” my new lips said to the indifferent woman at the liquor store. “I hear there’s a rosé vodka.”

She sighed and took me over there. To the vagina section of the liquor store. The only good thing that happened was this song came on:

and it turns out, we both love it, if you’ll forgive the pun. So we had us a little dance party in the vagina aisle.

Anyway, so Ned popped over, and I was all, “Oooo! I won’t say a thing, and we’ll see if he notices my new giant lips.”

He didn’t.

Oh, I was pursing them, and smiling with them even though they hurt. I was turning my head in every direction. That male, straight motherfucker.

wat rong wif U

Anyway, I can tell, but I will probably add to the lip sitch in a few weeks.

Oh, and yes to the rosé vodka! I tried it straight and it kind of tasted like rosé wine, but then I added it to my PowerAde Zero Fruit Punch flavor, and it was a dream. I hardly ever drink now, because I’m tryina be thin and also wine never fails to make my head hurt, so I think the last time I drank was that party back in early May. The good news is I have one drink and I’m all painting my body gold and singing Wild Irish Rosé.

Don’t give me any lip,
June

The June Channel

Sans makeup. Blugh. Oh, but I DO have on sunscreen! Australian Gold tinted 50 SPF.

You know those annoying posts where I put on my makeup and talk to you, because I’m tryina do everything at once?

Yeah.

Laura Mercier Secret Concealer for Undereye in 1.5. How can it be a secret if I’m telling you about it?

So, if you read yesterday’s post about my humiliation, you know I have TV now.

L’Oreal Brow Stylist in Light Brown. I don’t actually like this stuff, but it’s what I’ve got. Does anyone like their eyebrow tint?

Turns out, TV SUCKS, man. I haven’t watched TV in, what, two years? Is that how long it’s been?

First of all, almost all the channels are just commercials disguised as channels. QVC, old-lady makeup network, a cheerful channel called Dealing With Cancer. What happened to, you know, shows?

Chanel Perfection Lumiére Velvet in Beige

Then when you DO get a channel, like, I stopped on E!–E exclamation point–there are all these terrible POP-UPS at the bottom of the screen that distort the real show and distract you annoyingly.

Do TV people realize we can all just stream things now? That they should be getting BETTER, not worse? Why do we PAY for this bullshit?

NYX Natural Shadow Palette. Don’t really like this, either, but it’s what I’ve got. I like the COLORS, but it doesn’t seem to actually go ON. It’s like, did I just DO anything, applying this?

One good thing I found was a network that showed me old Warner Bros. cartoons. I saw one where a poor homeless hound dog needed shelter, so he found a house in the woods that ended up belonging to a skunk, and the whole thing was the two of them duking it out and being friends in the end.

I guess maybe in retrospect, the skunk was squatting in the house same as the hound dog, because there was a vanity with perfume, and why would the skunk have a vanity?

Also the next one was a dog who got abandoned in a field, and I WAS ALL NO YOU ARE NOT SHOWING ME THIS, who wanders over to Porky Pig’s farm and tries to get P. Pig to adopt him. The dog is all, “I’m 50% Pointer–there it is, there it is. I’m 50% setter (he sits down). 50% boxer (he starts boxing).” Oh my god, it was magnificent.

Also, Porky Pig is not humane. He was mean to that poor dog. I guess to be a pig who owns a farm you gotta be pretty cutthroat.

NYX Retractable Eye Liner in Gray–they really make these labels on cosmetics for the young. And L’Oreal–although nowhere on this tube does it SAY that–Voluminous Butterfly Sculpt in Blackest Black, because eff natural. 

Finally, last night I watched Mildred Pierce on Turner Classic Movies. What happened to the old guy? There was always an old guy named I think Robert who introduced you to the film and told you the inside guff. Now they’ve got some preppy whippersnapper.

Clinique Chubby Stick in Roomiest Rose. I don’t really like it, but it’s what I’ve got. Are you sensing a theme, English major? Also, I like how sometimes Eds is at the door, and sometimes he’s dashed outside again.

So I’ll probably get ridda TV once the royal wedding is done, because this is bullshit.

Television industry, you have one week to get me hooked again.

Luff,
June

P.S. Obligatory kitten picture:

%@&$ kittenz.

 

 

Sleeping on top of the peacock

I’ve been up since 4:53 a.m. I didn’t even have to slop any hogs or anything; I just woke up. I’d been sleeping with Steely Dan, because he came in last night at a weird time (as in, at all. He usually leaves at sundown and never returns till dawn), and I wasn’t thinking, and when I went in to bed, there he was splayed across my new peacock chenille bedspread that my coworker Poochie gave me. Hang on, I’ll show it to you.

Okay, the bed’s not, like, display-floor made. I didn’t know I was gonna bring you all in here this morning.

Anyway, there he was. Splayed. And of course my first thought was, Oh, no. Because you know he eats m’clothes. But it appears he only slept on the peacock, as he was tired after his many roof adventures.

it exhaust to be steelee

The point is, he was so cute and sleepy, so I let him stay all night.

Here’s the thing. There are two kinds of cats in this world: head-butters and nonhead-butters. Sadly for me, 66% of my cats butt heads.

That’s two-thirds, right? 66%? Don’t ask me to do maths like this.

Solid, huge Steely Dan enjoys cramming his solid, huge head into my face, over and over, with his stupid always-wet nose, and this may be why I awoke at 4:53. Then, when I tried to go back to sleep, birds started chirping because STUPID SPRING and SD draped his tail across my face and then whipped it, because birds because STUPID SPRING.

Whip. Whip. Whip. Big huge solid tail.

The other head-butter, in case you were curious, is giant fat Lily.

The only cat who’s feather-light, who when you pick her up it’s like air and fur, is Iris, who never head butts, probably because she can’t see my head.

eyeriss SEE thing. she just choowse not to sometime.

But speaking of Iris, I took her to the vet this weekend for her shots, as it was a year ago at this time that she was mauled by old Pitty and Chewie, over here, the neighbor dogs who got out. The vet said she looks really great, and then he said, “Wow, her teeth are wonderful. Have you had them cleaned?”

Pfft. Have I had them cleaned. I used to do that to poor Mr. Horkheimer, till I walked in one day when they were in the middle of cleaning him and it looked like torture. So no.

The vet said that in his experience, when cats have really good teeth, they seem to have good genes in general and live a long time. Yay. Don’t tell anyone, but I like this info because Iris is my f-a-v-o-r-i-t-e.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a lovely, you know, whatever holiday you celebrate.

This was how I Eastered. I did not PASS OVER the chance to eat these.

This was also how I Eastered. THEY HAVE GLITTER DYE NOW WHY DOES GOD ADORE ME SO.

I’m tryina think of anything else I did.

My mother sent me a dress that really goes for the JUGular.

Also, I went to the antique store near me, looking for lamps in all the wrong places. I say this because I didn’t FIND one. Also I can’t afford one, because do you remember when we had the $99 membership for another year of WordPress? They sent me ANOTHER bill for the upgrade I apparently also did last year.

Sigh.

If this hadn’t been beige, my least-most-favorite color, I’d have like it.

Sequence. Oh, kill me now.

I’m really hoping this fox died in his sleep of natural causes.

“I didn’t, hooman bitz.”

“Hey, you’re sitting in our seats.” “I don’t see your NAME on…oh.”

I also once again left my house that had cats and coffee in it to go to a cafe with cats and coffee in it.

wat.

dis ideea not my bag

And I saw this sign and it made me sad.

And finally, after several months, I got a pedicure. I was scared to death it would pain my broken toe, but it mostly didn’t. Because powering through a pedicure with a broken toe is how I tomboy.

For those of you who actually groom rather than proudly announcing you don’t, have you ever noticed that after you get a pedicure you are obsessed with your feet for a few days?

Oh, look. M’feet.

I guess the same as there are head-butting cats and…not, there are women who love to groom and women who think it’s frivolous. I find wind surfing frivolous, but you never hear me saying that. Well. Except just now.

Yu done tawking now?

Seeryuslee, mom. Yuu done?

I guess I’d better shower and go to work. I have not one but two huge things due today, and they will both take all day, and yet somehow I must do both today. I do not know how I will pull this off, but no matter how I do it, I will do it complainingly.

Butting your head with my words,
Juun

The Weeknd (God, is June hip)

[Flumps coat and purse in first, slides into booth after.] Have you been here long?

Sometimes, on Mondays, when I haven’t written all weekend, I sit down here at my desk and think, What the fuck did I just do for the last 72 hours? Today is one of those days. Then what I’ll do (tell us more, June. This is riveting.) is plug in my phone to see what pictures I took, and apparently Friday just didn’t exist. I took zero photos.

Remember when the camera (and your flashbulbs) would be on top of the fridge or in a closet or something, and you only got it out at Easter? “Everyone stand in front of this wall, because that wall will be fascinating in years to come.”

Anyway, maybe I had a migraine. Maybe it’s Maybelline.

At least I know what I did Saturday. I did Nancy. Call PETA.

I had to get my eyelashes redone Saturday, because I’m a deep person who does a lot for the world in her spare time. And who understands first- and third-person rules. Anyway, since I was out, I called Ned. “Can I come visit Nancy?”

She’d had FOUR DAYS IN A ROW of pooping in the box. When I was there, it was the start of day five. “Let’s move her up to the computer room now,” I implored, because it was up to me. Nevertheless, that’s what we did, and I hobbled up those steps with cat bowls and so on, and Ned got her all set up.

“Let’s let her wander around while you’re home,” I implored, because any of this was my business.

She was so glad to have the house to wander again. Cooped up in that stupid half bath. Actually, that was always my favorite room when I lived there. Had wainscoting. And a teensy chandelier. And it was my color.

[teensy chandelier not pictured.] [also, this is when I lived here. Ned does not have a fruity pink flamingo or an Eiffel Tower ring-holder.]

Anyway, it was all going great with Nancy till at some point she pooped behind the shower curtain, so she’s in that computer room till further notice.

hooo go der?

To find that photo of my bathroom, fmr., I had to scroll back to photos from 2014. This photo was taken on the same day, as I traversed the basement stairs. Back when m’toes functioned.

Anyway, I got my lashes done, and I like how one has already fallen off, here. Also too I look fairly dead here.

When I wasn’t hanging out with my animals or other people’s animals Saturday,

Yes, I do know it’s probably nice enough out that I can clean all this furniture again. I’M BROKEN.

I finally got my broken-toe shoes that the doctor said I had to get. I’d been to all sorts of no-nonsense-shoes stores I never go into.

Dowdy ShoeWarehouse.

You Look Like Thom McCann.

Too Many Clarks Bars.

Wayless (attractive) Shoes.

REI‘m Butch.

Why do athletic, down-to-earth gals always hate me?

But I finally found luck (“luck”) at the Birkenstock store, where a young salesboy had to hear approximately 47,000 inappropriate Birkenstocks jokes from me.

“I’m not really a Birkenstock person,” I explained to him, first thing, as soon as I hobbled in, like I’m Zsa Zsa Gabor or something, with all this glamor. You know what that whippersnapper at the store would not know? Is who Zsa Zsa Gabor is.

The point is, I got these, for a mere $138. I have $68 till payday now. Who knew granola women paid so much for shoes?

I’ve worn them all weekend, except for late Saturday night, when I was going to bed and stubbed my broken toe on the cat scratcher.

God

DAMMIT.

Hot Saturday night at the Gardens house. The Gardens/Silverman/Frost house. No one here has the same last name. Well, Iris and Lilly both share “Frost” as a last name. What is wrong with me?

On Sunday, I groomed.

Did some cleaning.

Of course he’s that cat. The play-with-sheets cat. Do you enjoy my Tums? Hot. Tums and enzyme cleaner for cat pee. Hotter.

The shelter wrote me this weekend to see if I wanted to take another mom and her four kittens. I said no. I am so not ready after that last fiasco. See? Sometimes I have impulse control.

Anyway, as I was taking recycling out or something, I looked over at Peg’s and noted…

…her tulip tree’s bloomed. She always bemoaned that tree, because it either didn’t bloom at all or it would too early and then there’d be a freeze and all the buds would die. I sent her this picture, through her daughter. I hope she likes seeing it. I know seeing her house gray will piss her off. She liked the yellow.

I also saw The Post yesterday afternoon, and I think that means I’ve seen all the Oscar-nominated films, including the shorts, so I am all set for Oscar night.

I even have the shoes.

In which aspic is mentioned

When we left each other yesterday, slamming the door and saying, “IT’S OVER! I MEAN IT THIS TIME!”, I was going to try to come back here and write you at lunch.

That didn’t happen. Work. Tis busy.

So here’s a two-day update on everything that’s happening in my stupid world. I wish to tell you about Ned and Nancy, my broken toe (surprise!), stupid cosmetic things I did and also Steely Dan’s shenanigans. This is like when you go to a fancy event and they show you a little menu of what you’re getting.

MENU

Fresh radishes
Liverwurst finger sandwiches
Aspic

No, I don’t know what kind of horrific imaginary fancy events I attend, either.

Ned & Nancy. An update.

I wanted to give you a visual, here, so I went to my pictures and searched, “cat,” and then my computer carried on with the guffawing. “Oh, THAT’S specific, June,” it said, as my computer is actually some kind of talking sarcastic animal like on The Flintstones.

Here. And lose the attitude, computer.

As you know–because for generations, your family will be gathering to tell my stories–Ned adopted Nancy, my foster cat. What with the losing her kittens and the going back to the shelter to get spayed and having a terrible time with her operation and possibly with being feral, she got to Ned’s and was not pooping in her box. Like, she was pooping all over yonder, including her food dish.

Ned did everything, seriously everything, so stop “Did he…”-ing me. The vet suggested he confine poor Nancy–which I just wrote as “poop Nancy”–to one small room, and leave her in there.

Guess what. It worked. It took several days, but for the past FOUR days, she has gone exclusively in her box. Ned is encouraged. “This weekend, I’ll move her up to the computer room,” said Ned. He gave Nancy a promotion.

Toe. An update.

As you know, because for generations your family will–oh, stop, June. M’toe is broken.

Yesterday, my doctor-recommended hard-soled shoes came. I worked from home yesterday, because I never thought about it much till it HURT, but it’s a long damn-ass walk from the parking lot to my actual desk, and it involves stairs, and ouch.

So I propped my foot yesterday, I was in the props department, and then when my shoes came, I hobbled to the door to receive them. It was like shoe communion.

There they were. All flowered and shit.

And?

I can’t wear them. I can’t get my foot in that little hole. I mean, I forced myself into said shoe like a wicked stepsister, and then it hurt worse once it was in there. So this weekend, Ima have to hobble over to DSW and look for something clog-ish.

Dammit.

Also, the part where it was almost evening and I was putting on shoes sent Edsel into fits of WE GONNA WALK joy, and I had to crush his dreams rather testily, as I was in pain and he was IRKING me.

Also, this morning, I was drying off after showering

(I’ll give you a moment to stop being turned on.)

and as I was drying off, I half paid attention (my epitaph) and sort of told myself, Remember your big toe is broken when of course

IT’S THE LITTLE TOE MOTHER OF GOD OW.

OWW.

OW.

So now it hurts even more.

And, scene.

June’s a grooming asshole. An update.

Recently, I noted that there are many cute local stores and boutiques near me that I never go into. I always breeze past them as I’m on my way to get something else, usually a sandwich. There’s one sandwich place that’s been there since 1977 and they’ve updated the decor not at all, and I’m deeply in love with the whole atmosphere. I feel like I should be in there with my rainbow jeans and my Bass 100s.

Anyway, a few Saturdays back I decided to spend the whole day just popping into all those shops I never go in, and that is how I discovered the grooming place.

They might as well rename themselves June Store.

They do Botox and microdermabrasion, facial peels and makeup. They do manicures and waxing, they do all the shit I blow all my money on. I was there, innocently getting Botox when I found myself signing up for eyelash extensions.

Yes.

It takes more than an hour, as you lie there and talk to a woman who sounds precisely like my pal Alicia, who is painstakingly attaching eyelashes to your lid, one by one. It lasts about a month–you’re supposed to go back and get touchups.

goddamn nose

But the thing is, they mostly all fell out. And I was all, Well, THAT was a bust, but in fact they texted me to ask how my lashes were working out. And that is the kind of person I am. I get texts asking, How are your lashes working out?

Anyway I told them and they’re redoing them all for free.

The interesting thing, and I may be alone in placing this under the category of “interesting,” is that you’re not allowed to wear mascara with these on, and as these are falling out I’m still not using mascara, because rule-follower.

The point is, I can see my real lashes now, and this is the longest I’ve ever gone without mascara since I’m 24 and went through a hippie phase. I mean, allegedly I take my mascara off, but those of you who groom know it’s never really off. There are always remenenenenants.

My friend’s grandmother could never say that word, so now I can’t NOT say “remenenenants” as well.

THE POINT IS, it’s really off. I mean, I have no mascara on these lashes. And what a set of namby-pamby Melanie Wilkes lashes these are. Holy cats. Why do I have to have seven pounds of hair and caterpillar brows and if I don’t shave my legs every morning I’m Zira from Planet of the Apes but my eyelashes?

NO! Fine and blonde, those are.

WHY, GOD.

…Oh, right. Yes, I’d forgotten that. …Oh, that too? You’re still pissed about that? Geez.

I see I’ve run out of time to tell you about Steely Dan, but I think you and I both know it would go like this:

SD is an asshole. We all love him for it.

The end.

To Reader. Love Always, June

“I’m just calling to let you know the Russell Stover eggs are available,” I said to my mother, although in truth it was more: “Uh ussel oer eggs are aaailul.” As I was, of course, already eating mine as I pulled out the Rite Aid, there.

“I have four in my cupboard already,” said my mother, and it must be genetics that make those stubborn pounds stay on.

I’d gone to Rite Aid because I’m a glamor girl whose real-life adventures are not to be believed, but also because my coworker, Lottie Blanco, had brought me some soup that her wife, Lottie Blanco, had made, and

it

was

delicious

and I wanted to put something in the soup container when I returned it, to be a nice person. Yes, I did just feel that shift in the universe. Anyway, I thought candy would be sweet

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

so I went to the Rite Aid. Which takes fewer steps for the parking and the hobbling to the door, because in case you forgot, my toe is broken.

Oh, and speaking of which, speaking of my major injury, the doctor told me I had to wear hard-soled shoes, and this is where we left off yesterday, promising to write and leaving each other with framed photos of ourselves. “To Reader. Love always, June.”

The cute pottery-making-lesbian-folk-dancer shoes I’d planned to buy, that I showed you yesterday as you slipped your 8×10 colorized photo into a frame for me, were, in fact, not going to be available till MARCH FUCKING 8, and by then I will be over the novelty of my broken toe and onto something else.

So I got these Doc Martens instead. Aren’t they MAGNIFICENT? They will be here tomorrow. Oh my god, I will never be sad again.

…Good lord. Here I am, tryina have my morning and write to you about all the pressing news of the day, and I keep getting “Can you do this today?!?” emails from work. I worked last night, as well. What’s with the busy all of a sudden?

So I guess I’d better wrap this up early, so I can hobble to work, but I wanted to mention something that dawned on me: My grandmother–the nice one, not the one I turned into–was widowed when she was my age.

And she never dated again.

Maybe that’s me. Maybe I’m gramma. Maybe my days will be filled with having my grandchildren over, sewing and crocheting. Making big dinners that involve boiling potatoes.

…Oh. Well, crap. Hey, I can at least boil potatoes.

Anyway, it’s weird to think about, because at the time it never dawned on me that she’d want to get on a 1969 version of Match dot…well, there was no com. What the fuck does “com” mean, anyway? Communications? Commoner? Composed? Book of June dot commoner. No, I have NOT taken my Ritalin yet. Why?

The point is, maybe if there’d been online dating, she’d have been all over that.

“Five-two, brown hair that won’t go gray and why didn’t my granddaughter inherit THAT, loves Days of Our Lives, Cremora and covers for the Kleenex.”

But I don’t think so. I think she was pretty much over men. And maybe I’m following in her arthritic footsteps. See, I DID inherit her knee arthritis.

Speaking of which, my elbow hurts like a motherfucker all the time now. I know I have a trapped ulnar nerve. I mean, I say I know that because I am a medical professional, and by “medical professional” I mean I Googled it.

And I do the exercises I find online, but I don’t see much change. You’d think with all the solid scientifically proven medical attention I’ve paid to this injury that it would be improving. I guess I could phone my beleaguered doctor, who’s probably already worried sick about how many ToeGate phone calls he’s going to receive.

All right, I’m out of here. Off to copy edit something.

Naturally,
June

June talks to you while she gets ready for her hot Friday night.

6:09 p.m. and I just showered.

I had two plans tonight: coworkers were getting drinks at 5:00, and then other friends invited me over at 8:00-ish. Don’t you hate people who add “ish” to a time? What are we, gay men in the ’60s? That outfit is fab, lover.

Anyway, I eschewed my right-after-work plans because I didn’t work today. I took the day off to go to the doctor in Durham about m’nose. I’ve waited TWO MONTHS to get this appointment to see if I can actually get it fixed, and how much would it be, and so on.

And? Migraine. Woke up with it in the middle of the night. ‘Twas a bad one. Had to cancel my damn appointment.

So, I spent the day instead sleeping till 10:30 and then trying to clean the smell of cat bodily fluids out of my bedroom. Fmr. Because cats.

I had taken 839395945 books and surrounded the bed, so they couldn’t crawl under there and poop, and instead all I did was make it so they could still go under there and poop, but I couldn’t get under there to clean it. So. Good work, June. Efficient! You can smell my German roots. They smell like cat shit.

So I took the opportunity to scrub the empty bookshelves, which is a pleasurable way to spend one’s day off, and then I put the books back up but cannot recall how I organized them with all their gee-gaws and doo-dads that I also have up there.

Last time I arranged my books, my neighbor Peg was here to help me, and we drank wine and she ordered me around and it was a typical evening with Peg.

Now she’s in hospice. HAPPY FRIDAY!

Anyway, here’s the first bookshelf, and it really needs Peg’s touch, plus also I should always leave that clothes hamper right there. Hot.

So that’s done, and my afternoon of scrubbing the bedroom floor with vinegar, and then drying it by mincing around the room with a beach towel under me, and opening both windows, and turning on a fan, and Sharking it, all that resulted in guess what.

It still smells cat.

So while the rest of my household, not including Steely Dan because please. It’s Friday, bitch. But while the rest of my household plans them a hot-in-the-city-tonight evening, I’m drying my hair

with my GODDAMN UNFIXED NOSE and then Ima put on some makeup and before my plans Ima head to PetSmart

and them Ima come back with some enzyme fluid and see if that works. If it doesn’t, I’m going with Faithful Reader Tee’s suggestion of uninitiated alcohol or whatever she calls it. Indentured servant alcohol. What the hell does she call it?

Also, I need lamps. I have no money for lamps this pay period, but lamps I need. I need one for next to the bed in the guest room, and now one for next to the bed in my room BECAUSE IT GOT POOPED ON, and a stand-up one in the living room for comedy, and maybe one back here because the one back here has no knob–it fell off–and now it flickers and I can’t do anything about that. Because no knob.

I have the hardest time finding lamps and clocks. Every clock I’ve bought for this house has ceased working eventually, and the Lenox clock they gave me at work? The fancy crystal one for 5 years of service?

Stopped working.

I think it’s my nose. It can stop a clock.

Seriously, was looking forward to this nose appointment for TWO MONTHS.

Is this dry enough? It isn’t, is it. Goddammit.

Insert Jeopardy theme

So, other than my plans tonight, half of which I skipped out on, my only other big exciting thing Ima do is get my chakras read tomorrow. Of course I will report back to you. What are you, new?

The first asshole to point out how many lamps I can buy with a chakra reading gets cloudy chakras.

…Okay, dry enough, man. PetSmart won’t shop itself. That made no sense. As opposed to the sensical smelling of my German roots.

Your number one. And two,
Nosily,
Joon

World’s Worst Person Gets Her Nails Done

People at work have been talking about a new manicure procedure called SOS or S&M or whatever, and apparently it’s powder they dip your nails in to color them. Somehow this creates a manicure that keeps going for two weeks like a 17-year-old boy but allegedly isn’t as terrible for you as a gel manicure.

And that was the day June lost all her butch readers. And got arrested for pedophilia.

I remember one night, my high school boyfriend and I did it three times. THREE TIMES. I’m not talking 7 p.m., 1:00 in the morning and then at dawn. I’m talking, like, 8:00, 9:00 and then 10:00.

Hi, mom.

Anyway. Powder manicures are fun till you add the “gelous base,” and then it’s all “Where were you?” “Who was that guy I saw you talking to?”

Given that I like to spend my spare time playing basketball and helping others, I hadn’t yet experienced the excitement of powder nails, nails that have to take a powder, but seeing as that $100 I won on New Year’s Day was burning a hole in m’Kate Spade,

[Dear June: Be more basic. Love, Universe]

I decided to take myself out on the town and get one. A powder manicure. Keep up. No, I HAVEN’T taken Ritalin today. What? God.

So Friday after work, I headed out on the town, the manicure-choices town. I’d had a very deep talk with the receptionist at work about which nail place we like to go to. There are a hundred within a three-mile radius of work, and they all have “Nail” in the title.

“I don’t mind Glamor Nail, but Celebrity Nail seems kind of cliquish,” said the receptionist, who prefers a french manicure, whereas I always want something dark and mysterious, to match my exotic nature. With m’Kate Spade wallet.

The point is, she’s right. Any time I’ve ventured into Celebrity Nail, the owner is trés gregarious, and I feel like his claim to fame there is kibitzing jovially with the clientele. Whereas the place I usually frequent, and “usually frequent” is not at all annoyingly redundant.

What? God.

The place I usually frequent, Elegant Nail & Tan (Slogan: We don’t actually offer tanning) has a quiet, businesslike owner who isn’t that outgoing but gives the best massages ever during the pedicure process. I always pray I get him, but usually I get a small, rather angry woman named “Stephanie.” (Slogan: Not remotely really named Stephanie.)

The receptionist and I agreed the only reason we really ever step foot in Celebrity Nail is because it’s closest to work. It’s similar to the Chinese place I get takeout from. (Slogan: Not good, but so close by.)

And that is how I found myself walking into Celebrity Nail on Friday night, because traffic was irkedly snarlsome, and so was I, and I could not possibly have withstood traffic for the four more minutes it’d have taken me to get to Elegant Nail & Tan.

I really love that they don’t offer tanning. It’s like my favorite thing ever. IT’S IN YOUR TITLE, but tan schman. Does anyone tan anymore? I guess people spray tan. Elegant Nail & (Spray) Tan. There you go.

SO THERE I WAS–God, June–at Celebrity Nail, and as usual, the owner was loudly joking with a few customers. I mean, that’s nice and all, but if you’re not a regular there, you can feel a tad left out. I’d never really put a name to that feeling till the receptionist mentioned it. That happens to me a lot, actually.

“Any time I talk to her, I end up feeling bad about myself,” someone once said to me about a mutual acquaintance, and OH MY GOD was that true, and I’d just gone around feeling vaguely bad with that acquaintance and not really acknowledging it.

“This kung pao chicken takes like root beer,” my college roommate’s boyfriend once said to me, as we were eating at this place I went to at least once a week. GODDAMMIT. I hadn’t acknowledged it till he labeled it.

So there I was Friday, finally noticing that this place made me feel kind of bad, and also kind of annoyed. I come to the manicure place to read celebrity gossip, and choose nail colors like I’m making Sophie’s Choice, and to generally sit quietly, which for me is pretty much always my goal.

I go to work hoping to always sit quietly and concentrate. I get my hair done hoping I can sit quietly and have my tresses colored. I want restaurants to be quiet. Maybe I should just isolate more.

The point is, as the evening wore on and I…sat quietly with the manicurist I was given, who had a terrible cold and was spending an hour basically holding my hands, so that was relaxing. As we were over there being quiet, I began to notice one insider over at the popular table was being more…attention-grabbing than the others.

I tried to sort of turn in my chair and see her, but I couldn’t even determine her race. All I saw was a rather thick woman, with dark hair, who based on the tenor of her voice was probably middle-aged. As opposed to how young and svelte I am. BUT AT LEAST I WAS SITTING QUIETLY.

The first thing I couldn’t help but overhear, because she was practically screaming into my soul, was that Red Bull, the energy drink? She alleged it was made from bull sperm. She’d been reading something from the internet, that reliable source, says June, typing at you from the internet.

“WELL. IT’S NOT THE FIRST SPERM I’VE DRANK,” she announced grammatically. Everything was an announcement with this one. I expected, when I turned to look at her, that she would be just a mike and a brick wall behind her. Tip your wait staff.

She started talking about a guy at work who was “Chinese,” and the owner of the salon pressed her for more info. Was he actually Chinese, or was she using that term universally? “What’s his last name?” asked the owner.

“I DON’T KNOW. CHIN?” she asked. And that is about the time my annoyance turned to searing white hate.

“What do you feed your kids?” she eventually asked the owner, who had been joking with her the whole time. “Rice and soy sauce? HA HA HA HA.”

Cold Hands the Mucus-y Manicurist and I exchanged glances.

“You know, everyone at work loves my Asian accent,” she said, and that is when my blood turned to ice. No. No, she’s not gonna…

She did. In a NAIL SALON, with 600 Asian people working there, this stupid white BITCH ASS (I’m assuming she was white. Again, I never saw her. Though in my mind I’d punched her 12 times in her phantom face already) did an ASIAN ACCENT.

She did.

At the nail salon.

My nails turned out just okay. There are some spots that didn’t take the clear coating, and I’m not sure if this is how S&M nails always turn out, or if my poor manicurist was sick and perhaps distracted by the BITCH-ASS RACIST in the nail place.

I do have to say that eventually the outgoing owner said to her, “That’s so racist.”

“No it isn’t,” she said. Because that gets to be up to her, and not the ASIAN PERSON she just mocked.

Maybe they should have two sections at salons: Women who want to talk endlessly and loudly, and a quiet section. A nice-people section and a racist section. A nail section and a tanning section.

Maybe people should just shut the fuck up.

 

Mrs. Garrett was probably younger than me

On the first day of 2011, Ned got out of bed, walked into a wall and broke his toe.

And hey, June, this bodes well. A mention of Ned in the first sentence of your first post of the new year. Yeah, good moving on.

Anyway, he did, and he told himself, “Well, that’s a sign you aren’t going to have a good year. You’d better just keep your head down and muddle through 2011.” And he was right.

He was newly back in his hometown of Greensboro, having spent his adult life in Raleigh (inside guff for outsiders: Raleigh is way cooler to live in than Greensboro), he was working for the family business after a decade of doing something he truly loved

(he’d been a professional beer taster)

(he was hired full time to ogle women)

(they needed an expert salad-eater, and he took on the job)

(he wrote a weekly column titled, “You Know What I’D Do…”)

(okay, I’ll stop),

and he had zero girlfriend.

So he got through 2011, and on the fifth day of 2012, he met me. WHAT. LUCK. REWARD! SILVER LINING!

The point of me telling you this is the very first thing to happen to me today was that my clothes pole…thing in the walk-in closet of my bedroom? Crashed ONTO MY FINGER today. Then after that, all the clothes that had been residing on said pole similarly fell onto my finger.

Inside guff for outsiders: It hurt.

“Oh my god,” I told myself. “I’m Ned in 2011.”

I’d had such high hopes for 2018, too. As you may know, as I very subtly alluded to it earlier this week, I’ve had something of a cold. No big deal, really. I hate to cause a fuss. Anyway, yesterday I ended up being asked to a little celebration, a little reason for the season, and that reason is Prosecco.

But given the precarious nature of my health, I thought I’d better test my reserves, so I took myself to see The Shape of Water first, at the movie theater near my house. I figured if I could sit up and take nourishment (popcorn and a Dr Pepper) for two hours, maybe I was ready for the big leagues, aka a middle-aged mild New Year’s celebration.

First of all, The Shape of Water. Highly recommend. And not just cause everything’s midcentury and you know how I get about that.

So I slapped on the makeup and headed into the middle-aged night and rang in the new year and was in REM by about 12:01. Still. I got out. I didn’t even take 47 Kleenex.

Me and m’New Year’s makeup and several heavy Instagram filters. You, too can feign rosy health!

So that all seemed to go so well and then boom. Pole on m’finger.

I did not go to my annual ironically named kindness meditation downtown, as it was 870 below zero today, and the only kindness I could meditate on was not doing that to myself given that I just got out of my iron lung with this cold. Instead I paid my bills, wrote in my new journal I got for Xmas (thanks, mom), checked my finger to see if it was turning black, and talked on the phone to my old LA neighbor Alicia for about 700 hours.

This time I wrote down some of the funny English-but-not-quite-English things she said during our 11-hour conversation. I have always loved the way she uses language. She’s like a little angry Spanish poem. Attached below, for your edification, are some of the things she said that I adored so much I wrote them down…

“She had to come up and tell me what she thought. She had to put her five cents on me.”

also

“I have bumped heads with that bitch for years.” This, by the way, was about someone famous, but I cannot, really cannot tell you who. BUT YOU WOULD DIE.

“Finally, we said okay. We bury the hatchets.”

plus also

“She was mad. She did not like that I was in her ass.”

And the grand finale:

“I tell her, ‘Stick it in your ass and shove it.'”

I’m just telling you now. “Stick it in your ass and shove it” is the new “Very nice, Coot.” Although I have to say I grow fonder by the minute of “bury the hatchets.”

I’d been guarding my pole finger jealously all day, assuming the nail was going to turn dramatically black, because I see my finger and I want it painted black. Nevertheless, my finger persisted, and while it’s SORE, it appears I may have exaggerated what I thought would be the effect of that ENTIRE POLE OF CLOTHES crashing down on it.

I took my black finger of death and all the rest of my digits to the grocer’s, and I like how all of a sudden it’s 1950 up in here, with my grocer. Mr. Hooper was waiting for me in his white apron.

I got my usual Sad Single Girl items, such as Lean Cusine and cat litter.

(I have forever wanted to find this one Nick at Night promo ad they used to have with Sally from the Dick Van Dyke show. I know it went: “Sally is single. Single, single, single.” I can never find it. I always identified with Sally, the wisecracking writer, and now she’s dead and I can’t find that promo and my finger is gangrenous.)

The point is, I bought my week’s groceries and got this urge to buy an instant lottery ticket. I almost never do this, because (a) I never have cash and (4) I just never remember we have machines at the store. But the universe colluded or whatever, or the Ghost of Sally came over me, because we all know how famous her character was for buying lottery tickets.

Anyway, I won $100. I bought one ticket for one dollar, and I won $100. Can you believe it?! I’m RICH.

I scratched off my ticket in the cold parking lot of the store, of the grocer, and ran back in to tell Mr. Hooper, who has apparently turned into a 20-year-old black kid. When young Mr. Hooper ran the scanner thing over my card, it played a little song and everything. It was so exciting.

“2018 is gonna be my year!” I announced to Mr. Hooper, and stampeded back to my car, where I excitedly plunked back down in the driver’s seat,

on right onto my glasses. Which broke into 90 pieces.

So, you take the good, you take the bad, you take ’em both and there you have 2018 so far.

Happy new year. I hope you will not feel the need to stick this year up your ass and shove it.

P.S. I imagine “promo ad” is redundant, is it not? Son of a bitch. Thank god I have all this money.

P.P.S. Super Strawberry. Dammit. I keep forgetting.

June does her makeup and talks to you. Yes, again.

It will be 11 years Friday that I’ve done this dang…website. Other than June’s Live Sex Tape, I’ve pretty much done it all on this thing.

[Considers June’s Live Sex Tape.] [Step one: Get sex life.]

When we left each other yesterday, dabbing at our eyes the annoying way the Real Housewives do: dab, dab dab–check Kleenex, we said every day we’d try a new lip color from my exciting Clinique set of 20 lip colors that I needfully bought. Because if there’s anything anyone needs, it’s 20 Chubby Sticks.

Step one: Get one chubby stick.

Hey, mom. [Sees mom in her head. Sees mom’s pursed lips. You know what would unpurse them? A Chubby Stick, by Clinique!]

Since we all know this exciting post is going to end in me showing you today’s color: Fuller Fig (as opposed to yesterday’s color: Richer Raisin), I thought we’d put on our makeup altogether together.

Oh, June. With the play on words.

So I started up there with my grocery-store-purchased Revlon Brow Fantasy, and if you’re really having fantasies about eyebrows, consult your nearest medical professional.

I am using Light Brown, or as the fancy people call it, Brun Clair. Why is my eyebrow pencil also French? Do a lot of your French folk schlep to the grocery store for their cosmetic needs?

In real life, when I have the dollars, I prefer the Anastasia brow products called DIPBROW™. Look at me, even adding the TM.

Laura Gellar Baked Balance-n-Brighten, because you know how much I love anything with “n” instead of “and” in the title. My Aunt Mary, whose initials are QVC, sent me my first compact of this in 2015 and I’ve been using it ever since. It’s easy and it works.

Also, since I moved my computer in my quest to photograph anything OTHER THAN THE RAYS OF THE SCREAMING SUN, please note my poor succulent back there. It seems to be drooping. As you can see, it’s not like it’s NOT GETTING ANY SUN, so does anyone have succulent advice? I know to not water it often; that’s why I HAVE a succulent. Have you met my attentive nature?

Laura Mercier Secret Concealer for Undereye. It’s not a secret anymore.

I wonder if Laura Gellar and Laura Mercier duke it out in my cosmetics bag?

I really meant to go to the store last night and get root touchup. GodDAMMIT. Anyway, Bobbi Brown eye shadow in Gray. Because it’s my prerogative.

Do I make that joke every time? What do you want from me? I’m an old woman. Also, note my gray eye shadow and my gray roots do not match. Apparently there really are 50 shades of gray.

I like how my blog about me is showing pictures of me with a reflection of me in the background. Also, carry on, my wayward sun. Jesus, with that sun. So to speak. Talk about your father, sun and holy shit it’s bright back here.

Anyway, Revlon ColorStay eye pencil in Black/Brown, or as they also like to call it, Noir/Brun. Okay, Revlon. Get over your not-French self.

Followed by DiorShow Blackout mascara, and the color is apparently 099. That’s warm and personal.

Ninety-nine. I’ve been waiiiting so long. Oh, 99, where did we go wrong. Oh, 99.

We need to hear more from Toto. Whatever happened to them? We cast aside our musical heroes so fast. Toss ’em aside and call them 099.

Incidentally, while I’m writing to you and doing my makeup, what I know for sure is that eating six Jeno’s Pizza Rolls for breakfast is not good for you.

That is why I’m having six Totino’s Pizza Rolls.

TAAA-DAAAAA!! FULLER FIG, which I just typed as “Fuller GIF.” Again, it’s not bad. I don’t wanna marry it, be June Fig. But it’s okay.

What’s not okay: gray fucking roots.

So there it is: A simple makeup routine that, if you also blog about it and photograph it and eat pizza rolls during it, takes a mere hour and a half.

I leave you with this portrait of ennui that I took last night. Apparently there was a staff meeting no one told me about. Perhaps they’re planning a takeover.

Fine with me. I hate being in charge around here. Let THEM figure out how to afford flea meds for four.

Talk to you tomorrow, when we shall delve into the exciting world of Clinique’s Whole Lotta Honey.

WAYYYYYYY down inside. WOman. Youuuuu neeeed.

LOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV….

XO,
June Fig