LumberJune

Years ago, I was on the phone with my oldest friend, Pal From MA. She was on her porch, and who knows what ridik topic we were on, but it compelled her to yell, “HELLO, CLITORIS!” at one point.

And when she did that? A woman walking across the street waved.

This obsessed me. I was so tickled, so to speak. It really pushed my buttons.

I mean, was that her NAME? Did her parents hate her? Did she just think that’s what the cool people were doing now, like it was the new Whatup, Homie?

Was she thinking my Pal From MA was offering up some sort of girl-power hello, like the woman bits in me salute the woman bits in you?

Nubaste.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I woke up at 1:48 a.m. today and thought of this and could not stop giggling.

I giggled so hard, and for so long, that Iris, who is usually delightful to sleep with, flumped to the end of the bed, where everything was normal and no one was all “If this bed is a-rockin’ it’s because June is chortling uncontrollably about something that happened in 2009.”

Iris is my favorite cat to sleep with. Needy Lily, on the other hand, is all HELLO CLITORIS, so clingy is she and so hard does she want to sleep inside my soul. Fortunately she wasn’t there last night, because she’s the kind of person who ruins your giggling with, “What? What’s so funny?”

Why do people do that? It’s never as funny when you describe it. It’s the same as, “What’re you reading?” Oh, let me put down my book I’m enjoying and give you a verbal summation. Here’s a summation: You’re an asshole.

Anyway, hi. I know I’ve not been here in a few days.

I didn’t blog at you Friday or Monday because I got yet ANOTHER notice from WordPress that I owed them money and I was irked. I just renewed my ($100!!) yearly subscription with them a few weeks ago, but apparently I also upgraded my account last year at this time, because I needed to transfer over 11 years of blog photos and so on, so I owed on that.

I was giving careful consideration to just stopping this blogging deal altogether, so annoyed was I with this SECOND bill, but then I mentioned that on Facebook, and a bunch of you sent tips, even though I no longer have a tip jar on this blog.

That was so nice, and I was all, oh, I’ll blog Tuesday, and then today Steely Dan got injured.

dun dun DUNNNN

He came home last night, which right there was odd enough. He usually eschews me all evening for god knows what. He’s probably out saying, MEOW, CLITORIS, except he’s fixed. But so am I and I carouse, so.

Anyway, he came in last night during Edsel’s final pee of the night, and he was clearly upset. He was whipping his cat tail, his cat eyes were big and he clearly wanted me to stop fekking cat Yoko-ing him.

Then this morning he was Limp Bizkit. He wouldn’t put any weight on his back leg. I rushed him dramatically to the vet, who tells me SD’s been in a cat fight, and I’d just like to mention that Oscar the fluffy Orange Julius of a kitty next door is also an outdoor cat, and I feel like orange you glad you have a new cat to beat up was occurring last night, and I somehow missed it. How did I miss a catfight? Maybe it was one of those new Silent Bob(cat) fights.

He’s at the vet now, and they called me a while ago using his full Christian name. “Steely Dan Silverman is ready for you to get him at 1:00.” So I’m ready to leave in a second to go retrieve Jack Dempsy, over there, with his antibiotics that I feel like he’ll be quite mellow about taking. Like, Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet mellow.

By the way, there’s a gray parrot at my vet, a gray parrot who meows. As worried as I was this morning, I could not help but be charmed by that parrot. “Meow!” he’d say, lifting his bird foot.

“Mew!” he did a whole ’nother cat voice while he poked at his budgie. This voice was almost kitten-y.

Then he whistled the Andy Griffith theme song to the room at large, and at this point I’m ready to be Mrs. June Gray Gardens Parrot, so enamored am I of this creature.

Meanwhile, my cat died like that little girl in Airplane, where everyone’s singing and not noticing her IV had fallen out.

Oh, he was FINE. He was in his carrier. IT WAS A MEOWING BIRD. Who can resist?

So, that’s all for now. I have much to tell you, including that I was in a tornado, and afterward Marvin couldn’t find me because apparently my phone was out for a bit so I did not recieve his call or follow-up oh my god are you dead text, and then I didn’t blog, so all of a sudden Marvin pictured me under a house with stripy socks.

The house began to pitch, and I’m a bitch.

Anyway, it was nice of Marvin to care if I lived or died. The tornado didn’t touch down at my house, but it sure as hell touched down elsewhere in my city. Tornadoes blow.

Tune in for more of this kind of hilarity and a full Steely Dan Silverman update tomorrow.

P.S. I forgot to ask you: Yesterday on (Face)Book of June, we got into a discussion about what our school mascot had been. Faithful Reader Paula’s kids used to be The Warriors, but that became politically incorrect, and since it was a Christian school, they changed it to The Warriors of the Lord, and I AM SORRY THAT IS EVEN BETTER THAN HELLO CLITORIS.

Warriors of the Lord. Oh, that KILLS me.

I was the Lumberjacks (of the Lord). Those of us who identified as female at my school were called—are you ready? Lumberjills.

Of the Lord.

Goodbye, Clitoris.

If you do not enjoy the F word, this is not the post for you

How long do you allow between coats of paint? I'm painting my windowsill today, and please to enjoy my fine photo of the windowsill. It's like you're right here with me. If you had glaucoma.

I just finished it at about 5 to 4:00, but I want to do a second coat. So I write you while I wait.

I just looked it up. It'll be dry to the touch in an hour, and I should wait four hours for a second coat.

FOUR HOURS!?!? What Ima do for FOUR HOURS?

Maybe I'll blog for four fours. How'd you like that? When would you give up on me, do you think? It's June's four-hour blog extravaganza! Yay! Says no one.

I guess one thing I can do is show you all the photos on my desktop, tell you what you're looking at. Yay! Says no one.

On THANKSgiving, as they say it here, I went to Ned's mom's house. She lives locally now, and her little house is as cute as a button, and she's decorated it all nice, and it gets tons of light and then I went home and everything looked shabby at my house. Hence the paint. I spent all yesterday binging Gilmore Girls and taping and scraping and sanding. Oh Sanding baby! Someday! When high-yiy school is done.

You never want to be in my head.

Anyway, behold Ned and his mom, above. I love that picture. Ned had three plates of food, and dessert, and then all night I had to hear how he didn't feel up to snuff. Which I knew was gonna happen when he gleefully went back for that third helping of everything. But what can you do? It's probably how he feels when we pass the Baby Animal Emporium.

God, don't we look happy. Thank god we got back together. You can't buy this kind of contentment. Or blur. Really, everything is going scary well, which is not like us, because we live on coffee and fights but we decided to try a different route. Not the coffee part. You'll be prying that from my cold GERD-ridden gullet. That made zero sense. Anyway, let's see what other happy photos I have.

Ned's mom had a few Xmas decorations up, and she offered to play Christmas music after dinner, and Ned said, "Yeah, okay, let me just get a screwdriver so I can drive it into my eardrums." Ned. Huge fan of Christmas. 'UGE.

Thanksgiving night, we went to his house and played some Monopoly. I own the millennial Monopoly, so the money is vellum and they have new pieces, like airplanes and cell phones and all those super-modern things from the aughts. I was the Lab. Ned was the bike.

You learn a lot about a person from playing Monopoly. Namely, that Ned is a Park-Place-&-Boardwalk-buying, hotel-purchasing, pay-rent-in-singles-to-be-a-dick ass tong. He'll also not tell you if he's landed on your property and you're, say, checking Facebook.

What a dick ass. Oh my god. He is ruthless. He bought ALL FOUR railroads, then railroaded me on the rent. When I landed on goddamn Boardwalk where he had a goddamn flea-ridden hotel that Lindsay Lohan wouldn't even stay at, I lost, and perhaps had a poor attitude about it.

What an ass tong.

yuu a bitz, ant joon.

eet yer hed off, ant joon.

Yesterday, after I'd binged and watched and scraped and so on, I took a shower and headed to this bar in my old neighborhood, where Ned and I enjoyed Karaoke night and made fun of young people. Incidentally, you should never try to Karaoke a Queen song. You just shouldn't.

I don't know why this picture's on here, but I love it so bad. "Oh, that's a food face," said Ned. "Lu didn't get that look unless there was food. She saved her most earnest expressions for that."

I miss that dog more every day.

The only other thing I did this weekend besides waiting for paint to dry is I asked Ned these questions from a meme going around. I don't know the point of this meme other than you get to talk about yourself even more, and what's more appealing to me than that?

The meme is a series of Qs you ask your person about yourself, with the idea that the answers will be rib-ticklingly hilarious, and my experience was it was not that hilarious and more filled with the word "fuck." Here we are, below. These are the questions I asked Ned about myself.

Q: What is one thing I say a lot?
Ned: "I stabbed it with my steely knife but I just couldn't kill the beast."

Q: What makes me happy?
Ned: Fucking. Also, fucking. And sex. And coffee.

Q: What is something that makes me sad?
Ned: When we don't have sex.

Q: What's my favorite thing to do?
Ned: Fucking. (Honestly, it's like he just learned the word.)

Q: How tall am I?
Ned: 5'6". Do they ask how much you weigh? Because you seem to keep that a great mystery.

Q: What do I like to do when you're not around?
Ned: Look at Facebook, blog, work.

Q: What makes you proud of me?
Ned: Your writing. I really like your writing.

Q: What's my favorite food?
Ned: Fucking. And mashed potatoes.

Q: What's my favorite restaurant?
Ned: Filling Station. Which is weird because they don't even have mashed potatoes.

Q: If I could go anywhere, where would I go?
Ned: Seattle. Paris. To LA to see your friends.

Q: Could you live without me?
Ned: Not very happily.

Q: How do I annoy you?
Ned: You don't.

Q: If I called you to say I was in trouble, who would I most likely be with?
Ned: Me.

So there it is. My blog about me, reporting on questions I asked someone about me. I should change my name to Mimi.

This is the last photo on my desktop, and I took this the other night before I left for Ned's to play Monopoly/discover the depths of Ned's dicklihood. Oh my god, no one ever give him property. Please never let him turn into a real estate mogul. He turns into a fuck dick.

I've written for 45 minutes, and I guess maybe I'll eat something now and wait for the paint to dry some more. Hasn't this been, like, longest weekend ever? It's fantastic.

I'll write later, with fascinating updates on the state of my windowsill. Sash over soon!

Panefully,

June

June’s going to kiss you. She won’t even wait.

I'm trying to think of anything of note that happened to me this weekend after The Hair Incident of Saturday, but mostly I had migraines on and off.

TAAA-DAAAA! Thanks, June. Thank god I'm here today. Took time out to visit yer ass.

Yesterday was finally a nice day, after 46 days and nights of rain, so Edsel and I took a long walk, and then practiced our non-expressions.

Then we practiced our "stuffed and mounted" look.

It really was an excellent day yesterday. The kind of fall day where it's still warm, but not remotely oppressive, and you think, "Do I need a coat?" because it's breezy, but then you don't. I had to get some work done yesterday, which sucked because who wants to think of work on a Sunday. Even God doesn't. Even God's all, screw that. I'm restin'. Sittin' on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. Goin' to the candidate's debate.

But I also went to a very bad movie. It was called The Last Film Festival and even though Jacqueline Bissett is on it with her hoots, it was not worth it. Her hoots are still fabulous. Girlfriend must've had 'em lifted or whatever. They were divine.

The movie was not.

Also, I have to sneak my own popcorn into the movie now, as I am not allowed to eat movie popcorn on my migraine diet. Except the thing is, my popcorn that I make with Parmesan cheese and nutritional yeast is 48 times better than that block of salt they sell at the movies. Shoulda been doing that all along.

I remember one of my very first conversations with Ned was about what we eat at the movies, and he was big into his ice (he likes that choppy ice, what's it called? Where it's like little slivers that you can't avoid? I hate that kind of ice). Re popcorn, we were both strongly non-butter people.

But even without that disgusting butter, eating movie popcorn is like after you've made out with Lot's Wife.

How much have you missed my Lot's Wife humor?

I remember having this conversation with him and being excited that he was rich enough to get snacks at the movies. Marvin used to discourage me from snacks. "Why do we need popcorn?"

We're divorced now.

Did I ever tell you about when we went to the movies in LA, and the ticket taker greeted us from behind the counter? She was seated. "Oh, don't get up," Marvin said, really snotty-like.

We walked over there and she tore our tickets from our wheelchair.

You know that feeling where your blood turns to ice?

Anyway, in summation. BYOP is better than BYOP. Bring Your Own Popcorn/Buy Your Own Popcorn. Down with BYOP. Yeah, you know me.

In the meantime, I'm trying to find ways to keep the World's Most Rambunctious Kitten amused. He is the cat version of Lottie. I can't have a sedate pet. No one mention Stanley, a thing I regret EVERY DAY. Anyway, he likes bird and squirrel videos, SDSilverman does. He acts just how you WANT a cat to react to them. All my other cats have been bored and look around at everything else when I get these videos out. Not Steely Dan.

Also, no one wants to play with that spitty ball, Edsel. No one.

I'd better go. Did you watch the ridiculous presidential debate last night? When did we all stop being grownups?

Dignifiedly, in her smoking jacket and ascot,

June

P.S. After I'm done writing these posts, I always go over to my categories and pick some that apply. It just occurred to me that it's the same as hashtagging. God, I'm annoying.

The many adventures of June. Alternatively, June is dull.

Yesterday I had many little things happen that were sort of exciting. I mean, not Indiana Jones exciting–you know how I am. I get excited when it's new-bar-of-soap day. So.

I've been migrainous, so I got up when Lottie did yesterday, took her outside with my screaming head, let her back in and fed everyone, then left the back door open so she could go outside to pee. I let her run around while I slept with the bedroom door closed. I was worried but didn't know how else I could sleep. If I'd put that energy-of-a-thousand-suns back in her crate she'd have had a fit.

When I woke up again? She'd been fine. She was lying outside my bedroom door, waiting for me. No accidents anywhere.

Really?

Anyway, as I was struggling to wake up and so on, the phone rang. It was Ned.

"I was just calling to see how you were doing." And that is when I asked him to come make the gate we'd bought two years ago into a smaller gate, so that I can keep Lottie in this back room, with access to the back yard. That way every once in awhile I can, oh, gather my sanity for a bit while she runs around like a chilly fool back here.

Twenty minutes later, there was Ned with his tools, and that is not a euphemism.
He shortened the gate so I can keep it right here, and in fact that's just what I did when he and I left to go to Lowe's. He needed new string lights for his backyard, and I'd left that dog bed out, the one in the living room that was half-chewed anyway. I'd been cleaning the floor in there, for a change (no one cleans a floor more often or more fruitlessly than me, old Sisyphus, here.) and it started to storm out and I was not only ridin' the storm out, I was leavin' the bed out. I needed a new one.

no, relly, dis be fine.

So we headed to Lowe's on a Saturday at 2:00, which as you can imagine rendered it completely empty in there. "We could have BROUGHT Lottie," I pointed out, and Ned looked weary. I've already taken her there once, although I really shouldn't because parvo. She gets her final round of shots this week and she can go just everywhere after that. The day I took her to Lowe's it was another "I just got home and I can't possibly put that poor dog back in a crate" sitch.

Single motherhood. It's not for everyone.

The point is, while I exposed her to yards and yards of parvo in every aisle, she was like the Lowe's greeter. Holy shit with that dog and the smiling and the wagging and then when someone stopped to pet her, of course you couldn't actually pet her because of the jumping and wriggling and that is why puppies are the worst.

lotEE resent. wat you meen you used to like dis chare? Chare perfektlee good.

Turns out, they don't SELL dog beds at Lowe's. I was at HOME DEPOT and saw on-sale dog beds. Why the hell don't those two just merge? It would help my confusion tremendously. The good news is, Ned found his string lights, and I met TWO boxer doggies who were together. To tell you the truth I was never much of a boxer person–and now I dearly wish I had Photoshop skills so I could pop in a photo of me with a boxer face–but anyway, now I'm suddenly all, Look at his boxer Lottie earses. Look at his Lottie chest, all boxer-y.

Their owner told me they calmed down at age 4. God help us, everyone.

So Ned and I went to TJ Maxx, which, really? When did I become the person who spends her Saturdays at chain stores? I used to go to cool coffee shops and restaurants and have sex all day. Now I go to TJ Maxx.

But it turns out, TJ MAXX IS FANTASTIC. Who fucking knew? They have a WHOLE SECTION of pet stuff, and I got a new bed, two bins for pet food, which I've been wanting forever because ants, and also a microfiber towel that allegedly wipes more mud from dog feet.

The stupidest thing I ever did was give to Goodwill that huge, mud-trapping entryway rug my mother got me five years ago. They cost like a hundred dollars and WHY DID I DO THAT?

I moved abroad with Ned. That's why.

"The stupidest thing I ever did was get rid of all that stuff to move in with your ass," I announced to Ned, who was perusing pillows. He just got a new mattress, to bang all those women on because swinging bachelor. "I got rid of all kinds of books I regret," he said, WHICH REALLY ISN'T THE SAME.

Anyway, we were armed with our fabulous TJ Maxx goods, and we got the max for the minimum and I just made that up. We were headed back to my house when we noted our barbecue place was BOARDED UP.

"Stamey's is boarded up!" I said, and right then Ned knew. We pulled in to the parking lot, and there was a little sign announcing they'd had a fire, but won't we go to their food truck? And right in the lot was the food truck, and right then we knew again.

"We totally should," I said, because altruistic. So Ned, of the salad Neds, had a barbecue sandwich with cole slaw on it, fries, and a bottle of Cheerwine in a glass bottle for lunch. Am certain this made him nervous. Am certain he is still thinking about his triglycerides as we speak.

We got back to my house and the gate worked! I know we're teetering on the day Lottie just jumps over the thing, and that is the day I get a big chain and a tire and she lives tethered in my back yard. I'll throw a few scraps out there every day or so.

"We should get ice cream," I said, and that is when Ned, whose soul has left his body, said okay and off we went. The place we like to go to is near his house, and they take only cash, so we pulled up to his house so he could run in and get the many many stacks of dollars he keeps behind that picture over the fireplace, where the code is…

When we pulled up, two men were in the driveway getting out of a pickup truck. "Who's that?" I asked. "I don't know. Stay here," said Ned, because he knows I carry and my trigger finger is ITCHY, man.

He got back in the car after a minute, looking disconcerted. Even more disconcerted than he had when he realized he was following up a bottle of Cheerwine with some ice cream, and that it was likely they weren't going to have lettuce flavor as he was hoping.

"That was really weird," he said. The men said they were there to do yard work, but since the day we moved in this guy Jesus had done the yard work. When Ned asked who'd sent them, they mentioned someone named Mike, so maybe my chair guy sent them. Or my screen door guy. "I told them to not work on my yard," said Ned.

We sat on the stoop of the ice cream shop and he ate thoughtfully. We'd gotten there five minutes before they closed, and Ned noted we'd closed two places down. Last weekend when we went to that bar and ran into my friends, they left and Ned and I stayed and talked, till we noticed it was just us, the bartender and some guy waxing the floor. I'm certain the bartender was not wishing to corkscrew our heads or anything.

We ate our cones (peach for him, butter pecan for me) and discussed the men at his house. There WAS a handyman named Mike who'd do things around the house. Could he have sent the men? "That was really weird," Ned kept saying, till a garbage bag got thrown at us. It missed us by an inch.

"Score!" said the bearded millennial from the doorway. He'd clearly been trying to clean up and wanted to get the bag near the trash can or something. Then he saw us.

"God, I am so sorry, guys. But I saw you there and you just made me so damn mad."

And that is when we loved the millennial ice cream guy.

We decided to swing past Ned's house again, and THERE WERE THE MEN back in his driveway. Ned was really upset, so we pulled around the corner and called 911. He has this, like, fancy thing now where if he's on the phone in his car, it automatically becomes a speakerphone sitch over his radio. "What do I tell her?" Ned asked, once the operator came on.

"Two men, one smelling of alcohol, are in my friend's driveway without authorization," I said authoritatively to 911, who probably knows me from all the other annoying times I've called.

"911."

"Yes, how do you clarify butter?"

"I'm leaving the car here," said Ned. "I'm going back there to confront those men, and I want you to stay here in case it gets dangerous."

Naturally, I was delighted by all this, because drama is my friend. But while he stalked off to, I don't know, have a knowledge-of-literature-off with the strange men, a triglyceride-off, it occurred to me, maybe our gaylord would have some info. I still have his number on my phone.

"Well, hey, June!" said my gaylord, former, who told me he had the phone IN HIS HAND to call Ned and tell him that (1) Jesus quit and (4) two men were coming to trim the ivy, clean the gutters and prune the bushes.

And right then I knew.

I ran–RAN!!–to the house, calling 911 in the meantime to stop the presses. "It's okay!" I bellowed, as I saw Ned confronting the poor men in the driveway.

In the end, Ned felt like a jerk, the men think we're crazy, 911 is over me and my former gaylord is all, Why was she at Ned's?

As we pulled away, Ned asked, "I just wonder why Jesus quit."

"He probably doesn't need to work anymore, Ned," I said. "After all, Jesus saves."

And right then I knew. I am my own soulmate.

So, I've already written 1700 damn words, and I haven't saved the bird yet or seen the muskrat or closed down two more places or gotten to Peg or talked about Boomer the big-headed dog, so I guess I'll write more tomorrow.

Big day-ly,

Jooooon

June accidentally records her life. As opposed to this tome.

I was just uploading photos from my phone onto my computer

mom boreeng

and I saw among the photos a video on there that was half an hour long. "?" I asked myself.

seer y uslee, we so ober this story

I clicked play. It was a blank screen the whole time. You could hear me, what do you know, about to take Tallulah on a walk first, and Edsel had to wait, a thing I had to remind him 39495929 times. My theory is I musta been looking at my phone, accidentally hit the record button, then placed said phone face-down on the couch before taking Lu on her walk.

do anywon have stiff shot of wiskey? eyeriss just want story to end.

You can hear me snapping on Tallulah's leash, and telling distraught Edsel he has to wait (I can't handle them both. I used to be able to, but when they see another dog, they now attack each other, and what I have here is a pack of geniuses), and then you have THIRTY MINUTES of Edsel whining and barking.

Good lord. I had no idea he carried on that much when I left with Talu. Really, it was more 10 minutes of him whining and barking. As I listened to this recording today, both dogs came in, curious. hoo da hell barkeeng? wat a dik.

Eventually you hear him flump onto the couch, dejected, till I finally come in. You hear him jump off the couch, WHICH HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ON, you hear me say hello to Eds and announce my return, and then I snap his leash on. Then I pick up the phone and it's over.

I'm just glad I didn't hear any ghost noises or anything while I was gone because my whole face would just fall off in fear if that had happened.

lillee take lyfe

Okay, FINE. I'm done with that story. God.

o thank godz

I have to get to work. We have a two-hour meeting right during lunch with no lunch served, and of course I have no take-it-with-you-how-convenient things to snack on in order to live through that, so I have to go scrounge my cupboards like I'm a bear in a cabin.

Everyone tell me a story of a time you were humiliated in your youth. I always like when we have "everyone tell me stories" day. Those after-someone-dies stories the other day were EFFING RIVETING. As opposed to my story above.

Fascinatingly,

June

June drinks wine and blogs

I have to drive my car to the fix-my-car place, get it inspected, the oil changed, the taillight fixed and possibly have those eyelashes put on the headlights the way some people do, and because of all that, I gotta get up early tomorrow, which is my favorite thing. Man, do I love the morning. Give me that old-time religion and also the morning, so I can go on my run and eat kale after. My wonderful friend Kaye, and why does she even like me, is driving me to work after, even though it's her day off.

My grandmother once sent me a t-shirt that read, "Give me that old-time religion" and it featured a picture of Stonehenge. I wish I'd saved that.

As a result of this unfortunate occurrence–the getting up early, not my grandmother's hilarious atheism–I decided to blog tonight, and have me a glass of wine while I do it, which should result in me making a heap of sense, as opposed to the other times that this blog is linear and focused.

Remember when we last spoke and the weekend yawned before me? Whatever happened to THAT idea? So far this weekend, I've taken 24,800 steps (I'm in two, not one but TWO, Fitbit weekend challenges, which is where you compete with people you've never even met to see who can take the most steps in a weekend. You find yourself feeling murderous over people you will never know. DIE, YOU FUCKING 30,000-step heifer), bought a coffee table and a phone table, for all my coffee and phone needs, cried, reunited with a friend and kissed Tallulah's earses several times.

Oh, and I saw Ned.

Ned and I live five minutes apart, and you know what I never considered? Is that I was renting a house with Ned five minutes from my regularly scheduled house and that if we broke up we'd run into each other all the goddamn time. THAT I never considered. I never even considered we'd break up. We both thought that that move was a forever thing.

News flash. It wasn't.

[sips wine bitterly]

After I blogged at you Saturday, I got my feces together and headed to the vintage-y store where I bought my chair that has the broken caster and my cowboy chair and other cute things. That store is huge and fabulous, much like my penis.

Not only am I hoping to find a coffee table, I'm also looking for a red suede pump (When Harry Met Sally reference. Sorry. Wine.) and also for a 1950s-ish plant stand to put here in the back room. I saw one online that every time I look at it I have a teensy orgasm, but it costs.

{shiver}

So I was at the front of that store Saturday, because all the plant-y things are there, near the window, and I saw a cute man walk past so I looked up, and dagnabbit.

THERE WAS EFFING NED.

Naturally I did the mature thing and stalked him and photographed him and announced my Ned sighting on Facebook, but then I finally said hello.

Hello, said Ned.

And then we commenced shopping together. SHOPPING.

I'm sorry, Ned is pretty. I think Ned is the prettiest boy alive. Have I said dagnabbit yet? Why'd I have to have the insane hair on a Ned day? Who can take a Neddy day and suddenly make it all seem insane? Well it's you girl and you should know it.

He and I ended up going to another store that I love love love, and if you're local, it's called Agatha's or Agneta's or –ADELAIDE's. That's it. Adelaide's. It's on Spring Garden. Oh my god, everything there is adorable. Adorbs. It's so cute it's adorbs, and go ahead and punch me right in the large, fabulous cock. I deserve.

Anyway, I got this coffee table above, and Lily has chosen it. If Lily were God, this table would be the Jews. It is the chosen one. I love that she has decorative wings now. Yes, that's Ned in the background shut up.

I also got a phone table, and as I was leaving with it, this woman stopped me. "That was my great-aunt's phone table! I brought that here!" she told me. She said her great aunt was named Eunice Pitt, which is the best name ever born, and that she was an old maid, which is perfect for me. Iris has chosen this table. So. At least the gray fur will look good with the gray phone table.

In the meantime, Ned got this shelf/bar/bookstand thingamajig, and he had to go home for them to deliver it to him. So that went without incident. Until today. When he called.

"I miss you," Ned told me. "I actually ache for you. I still love you."

Son of a BITCH.

And you know what I did? I cried. I'm not much of a crier, actually, although of course I AM the town crier. Wait. It's nine o'clock. I have to let everyone know that all is well.

I told Ned all the things I want, which I actually didn't know I had at the ready like that. I didn't know I had this much clarity about things.

I want to get married. I want to be with one person forever, whom I, you know, like and who likes me and whom I trust. I want to be with someone I can talk to, work things out with. You'll always have conflict, but what matters is how you handle it. You know what we didn't? Is handle conflict. We both screamed and yelled and jumped up and down and broke things and it would have been charming only if we'd been Italian.

"I can't be with you, Ned," I told him, and when I hung up the phone, I knew it was true. It really is over with Ned, and I really do have to fucking move on. And he does too, which by the way will kill me when I see it or hear about it. NO ONE TELL ME. I don't wanna know.

 God, that was fast.

Oh, look, it's a grapey miracle! MORE WINE IS HERE!

Anyway, I hung up the phone, crying like a little bitch. Eventually I checked to see if Jude Law had called or something. But it was even better. Well. It was on par, let's put it that way.

I have a friend. Some friends I have have said to me, "I don't want anything to do with your goddamn blog, June. Don't put me on it" and this is one of those friends. But oh, what good friends we were. He and I had a falling out awhile back and I was JUST THINKING OF HIM the other day, and today came an email from him.

"I miss you," he wrote. I am very missed. I'm probably better once I'm just an idea and not reality. "I never miss people, but I miss you all the time." Then he finished by telling me his dog died.

Sit down. I loved his dog.

I called immediately.

"Oh thank god," he said, picking up the phone.

It was so great. We talked for ages, catching each other up. He's in love, and I've never even heard him like this before. He's stupid in love, and it's so cool to hear. I told him about Tallulah, and he cried. He's edgy about dog death right now.

So I don't know, man. Life closes a Ned door and opens a friend's back door or something. You take the good you take the bad. You take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life.

How many times have I said that, do you think? How many times can you punch me in my fabulous cock before even that isn't enough? Once is not enough.

Also, today I was on the phone with my mother, who seems to have rejoined Team Ned ("Can't he just marry you? Wouldn't that be great?"), and as we spoke, she told me places I could put my new phone table. I mean, she didn't say stick it up your ass, seeing as this is the woman who recently said, "Go to the bathroom or get off the pot." The POINT is, I moved that phone table from the back room to the living room to the dining room to the hallway, and Iris rode on it throughout, unflapped. She never jumped off.

eyeriss be thee unflappabul eyeriss frost

Anyway, that was my weekend. Dag and also nabbit. …Look at Iris's spready toes. I love her so bad.

Hope you were sitting down. Okay, I gotta go. Long Island Medium is on.

Drunkenly,

Jppooooooppppon.

(goddammit)

I’m not kidding, Juney

It occurred to me that maybe Tallulah and my vet are in cahoots on the world's most anticipated April Fool's joke. Wouldn't that be great? Dicks.

Last night I was proofreading my riveting statistics textbook, as I do, once the deadline is hopelessly near, and started taking selfies of Talu and me. Groupies. Petpees.

hay, mom, maybe you could let lu rest in peece. mom get it? do mom?  

Anyway, after Tallulah threatened to join the cancer-y Witness Protection Program for dogs, the Bitness Protection Program, I let her be and assaulted the other animals. Because no one's more attentive to her statistics textbook.

edzul down wif attenshun. wy not try edzul? he heer. he heer! hullo mom.

o happee day. attenshun.

wat we lookin at?

leef lillee the eff alone, mom. lillee meen it. not in moood. not kidding, maddi.

Have you seen the "I'm not kidding, Maddi" thing? Some woman got a shrill email from Hilary Clinton, which isn't like her, saying, "I'm not kidding, Maddi, send me a dollar."

So, Maddi put this on Twitter or whatever the young folk do, and people started making memes.

I want you to know all of these make me giggle like an idiot.

That's it. I'm dead.

Speaking of dead, Tallulah seems to be doing well on her Piroxicam. That's what they give dogs with bladder cancer, to slow the growth of the tumor. They tested 69 dogs, and two had complete remission. Say, odds. Anyway, dogs on Piroxicam live about 195 days on it. Who's done too much Googling, do you think?

It's an NSAID, too, so it helps her with pain.

A faithful reader's dog, Pepper, sent Lu a stuffed toy. Any time we're somewhere you can pick out your own toy: the lobby at dog daycare, PetSmart, other people's houses, Lu selects a stuffed toy. When she was a puppy, she took an Airdale's stuffed hippo, and the woman whose dog it was said, "Oh, let her have it."

When she took it, that thing was bigger than her head, but she carried it out in her puppy teeth anyway. Here she is, above, at my mother's cottage, with Blue Hippo. And some ribbon she probably swallowed that's likely still wrapped around an intestine. She wasn't even one yet, Lu wasn't.

Anyway, she loves her new stuffed toy. She's been carrying it all over yonder.

I'd better go. I have to go to work, where I'm currently working on something having to do with luxury brands such as Tiffany, and I have to look at jewels from Tiffany and realize it's Valentine's Day and I got no man in sight, for the first time since 1996. This year, I feel like I might send myself something lovely from Tiffany with all my money, and maybe a big romantic plate of nachos.

In fact, I'm sorry to tell you that on Tiffany's website, in case you didn't know, they have a place you can send someone a "hint" from Tiffany. You can put the person's email address in, and then they ask for that person's name, so that they send a lovely animated post card type thing. Dear [insert name here]: June Gardens saw this and loved it. Just a little hint from Tiffany. That sort of thing.

I may have sent a few out to Dear "Buy Me Jewelry, Bitch."

"You sent me the flower ring twice," Ned wrote me back.

"That's God saying buy me two of them. Bitch." I wrote. I see nothing untoward about someone you broke up with five months ago buying you Tiffany jewelry. For the good times. All two of them. One ring for each good time.

I'm not kidding, Maddi.

June will not say something tired like haters gonna hate.

Good hair day yesterday. …Oh, look. A pet in the background.

I've been blogging now for nigh on nine years. I have no idea what "nigh on" means. Does it mean "almost"? Because that would be inaccurate; it's now more than nine years. Nigh on nine years. I'm just gonna go ahead and make "nigh on" mean whatever I want it to mean.

Because I've been blogging for such a nigh on time, it's inevitable that some people who read me aren't gonna like me. The part where I let my bitch flag fly high probably doesn't help. I might even be a tad polarizing. Like cilantro. I am nigh on cilantro.

The first person to hate me was that Carin person, who when one day when I felt sad about something or other, and I got here and said I don't feel remotely funny today, took offense. I've noticed that any time I get on here and say I feel sad, people are mean. It's the oddest phenomenon, but it never fails, and years go by and I don't dare say I'm sad, then I forget and it happens again. I have literally typed a blog post in tears, mostly when things were going bad with Ned and me at the end, there, and written a whole funny tra-la-laaa! blog post just to avoid the mean.

But man, she really came out of nowhere. She accused me of trying to sell coffee mugs. Of course I was trying to sell coffee mugs. You can still buy coffee mugs, by the way. There's a button on the upper right. Anyway, she was mean. And then we all hilariously talked about her for freaking months. Any time I'd lose my glasses, someone would say, "Carin took them." Or Carin was responsible for a traffic jam, or she gave me the flu. I hope poor Carin didn't off herself.

Then some nutbar wrote me and told me I was bipolar. Bipolar. Pfft. I have no poles other than crabby. I think that whole thing was pretty much behind the scenes; she didn't leave mean comments so much as she left me mean emails. She also, I realized later, started a fake Facebook account, in which I was her only friend. Any time anyone friend requests me now and they have, say, seven friends and/or no photo, I do not accept the request.

Oh! And THEN there was that wingnut Kelly. I'm not saying if you hate me you have to be crazy. I can see how I would grate, believe me. Look, not everyone in the world can be as sweet as Faithful Reader Megsie or FR Sadie. You want a sweet blogger, go read The Nester. You want cilantro, you're in the right place.

Anyway, Kelly would leave all kinds of mean comments, like "Ned will leave you soon because you're so unattractive" and "Do you have rosacea?" Oh my god, she was a gem. And I'd block her, and she'd get another IP to comment from. THAT is what I mean by being a nut.

But now? Oh, now. I have the best hater of all. Because what this person did was BRILLIANT and I cannot help but love it.

About a month ago, I started getting emails on my blog email from The Gap, and Banana Republic, and Old Navy. I know they all belong to the same company, so getting mail from ALL EFFING THREE was annoying, but I understood it. The thing is, I never use this email address for anything except your comments. It's nigh on anything else. Today in the comments we have to use "nigh on" absolutely incorrectly all day long.

Anyway, I deleted them, but I was also curious about how I even GOT on Banana Republic's mailing list.

Then I started getting emails from Sears. And beauty-supply companies (hey! I'll take those!), old-lady stores like Soft Surroundings and medical supply companies for my walker.

And then? The Duggars' newsletter.

And right then I knew. Someone was fucking with me. Someone was signing me up for anything she could get her hands on. This must be a girl doing this, right? Men are never this vengeful in such a clever way. Men just shoot you in the head or whatever. Women are diabolical, man.

And it was the newsletter from the Duggars that made me love her. Because THIS WAS SO GREAT. Now I can't wait to see who she signs me up with next. Sometimes I get the introductory email. "Thank you for signing up for the Bible Passage a Day email. Click here to confirm."

I wish I had thought to do this to someone. I mean, I still could, but now it'd be derivative. I would so sign Hulk up for Animal Lovers Unite, or Yay, Democrats! or something. Or some super-gay-a-day email. Daily Dick Pics. I mean, once you start thinking of someone you want to torment, you can really go to town on what to sign them up for.

Actually, now that I think about it, when Marvin and I first separated, I did forward him all my Increase Your Penis Size spam, just for awhile. But that wasn't as genious as this.

Anyway, I'll keep you abreast. Today I got a Wall Street Cheat Sheet subscription, because you know how I can't get enough of checking on my stocks. It's like a little gift in my email, every day. It's like it's always Christmas, but not depressing, suck-out-your-soul regular Christmas. God, aren't you glad it's over? I am nigh on the fact that it's over.

Nigh on,

June