What’s going on here?

Looking after my neighbor’s apartment has HAD its perks — emphasis on “had.”  And there were things that I had come to expect, like availing myself of loose quarters.  This time around was ever so disappointing – and I’ve never seen so many roaches!

When I went to their apartment to bring the mail and water the plants, though I was attacked by roaches, I still looked for the many packages of cookies T has insanely hoarded for like — ever. But, as mentioned in my previous post – there weren’t any – I would still have eaten them with roaches there – he usually keeps them bagged and in jars and shit.  Okay so fine – I accepted that I’d be responsible for purchasing my own snacks.

Then one night, I steamed vegetables, opened the cabinet for olive oil and had the hideous remembrance that it was on my shopping list since I’d run out.  “Oh dang. But T prolly has some!”  I go downstairs and grab a bottle — I don’t know what the hell kind of oil was in there but, that, was no olive oil!

Okay so next, T has always kept quarters on the foyer table.  Other times when I watched his apartment when he was in Ireland, I would take them if I ran out of laundry quarters and replace them later.  This time the quarters looked like commemorative quarters – I was scared to touch them, so had to wait till next damn day to finish laundry.

Yesterday I came to terms with the fact that I was spoiled when it came to T’s apartment.  The only thing I could partake of in there was the liquor, but I’m not apposed ta drink it.

Back home after dropping their mail and flicking off roaches that leeched onto the black garments I’d worn the last four days, I realized that looking at liquor bottles did much to warm my mind and much to loosen my sphincter – I had to take a shit.

Oh so marvelous, but, alas, no toilet paper… Thank God we live in a century where we needn’t waddle down to the babbling brook to wash our asses when this happens – so I hopped in the tub and got under the spigot.  But what happens upon the ‘morrow, I mused, as it was too late to go the supermarket.  Then the light bulb came on in my noggin, and I dashed down to T’s.  He’d be good for at least one roll.  And.  He was.

Why’d it have to be weird?  It was some generic brand that had been perfumed.  And you know what can happen when you use tissues laced with industrial fragrance?  But, oh, I am happy to report that all is well in the nether regions!

I await now the return of my neighbors, and will disclose not the least of my disappointments.

Ass-Crack, Anyone?

I sell copies of my book every month, hallelujah.  So where’s my $27.69 from last month’s sales?  The price of *quinoa just went up and I need Halloween socks, a disposable rain bonnet, and some Limited Edition Pop Tarts.

Amazon was supposed to shoot this money over to my account.  I wish they’d hurry up–it’s Pop Tarts LI-MI-TED Edition!  By the time I get my money, the damn things won’t be in the supermarket anymore.

*For those of you who don’t give a shit, quinoa (pronounced:  keen-wah) is a healthy ‘super-food’ that tastes like ass-crack.  It costs a lot of money but I could probably grow it on my fire escape.

Who Let That Crazy B**tch Into The School?

This isn’t a reblog but an excerpt of my Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies post. Maybe no one but my dear blogging buddy Madame Weebles saw it because I had just started blogging.  But if you have seen it, perhaps you should read it again as I’m sure you’ll gain some new and exciting insights…  Yes, it was a long ass post!  I wanted to highlight the fantabulous Mrs. Flynn from it — dedicate the whole damn post to her — here she is:

…my 2^nd grade teacher, poor, weird Mrs. Flynn.  Who let that crazy bitch into the school!?   Yes, the bitch was a mental case.  If you touched her, she’d yell “Don’t touch me!  Don’t ever touch me!”  She was a dumpy woman with a big square head, red hair, and very pale skin.  She kept always on her desk a tin of Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies which she never offered to us kids.  I loved Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies, and would eye them covetously, fantasizing about a day when she would change her non-sharing ways.  She ate them anytime she wanted, right in front of us – the buttery pretzel shaped ones, with chunky sugar granules on them.  Something about her piggish face reminds me of the Nazi female prison commander in Seven Beauties.

One day she told us that we weren’t going to practice spelling, or numbers or any of that shit.  Instead she commanded us to run around in circles in the classroom – that’s right, just run around.  Some of the boys took to it immediately and ran around like maniacs, banging into tables, chairs, and into each other, falling down all over the place.  By the end they were all red faced, sweaty and ripped up.  And Mrs. Flynn from behind her desk screamed, “Don’t stop, run, run – keep running, yeah!”  She then went back to reading the paper and eating butter cookies.  A few girls ran with abandon as well, their little skirts hiked up in friction around their tights, but I remember the circle of us who just sat there, scared — Martin, Michelle and maybe a couple of others.  A couple of those kids were crying because they knew that this was not normal and that Mrs. Flynn had lost her marbles, and that she was an adult and what were we supposed to do now.  I didn’t cry but sat there staring, freaked.  What a crazy scene!

I think about those stupid kids today, the ones who just ran around enjoying it.  Are these the ones who grew up to take advantage of the moment, to live life to the fullest?  The bungee jumpers, parachuters, and Polar Bear Club members?  Or maybe they’re in prison.  I think I heard that Mrs. Flynn found out that she had a brain tumor.  I think she had just found out and had a nervous breakdown the day she told us to run around.  But still I mean come on, why take it out on little kids.  But the poor thing probably had a weird time of it with life in general, what with her aversion to being touched and to sharing her Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies.

Mama’s Getting Fat

I must cut back on cake.  Maybe I’ll start eating Cumberland Sausages like Dotty Head Banger.  The jeans that I buy that flatter an old woman’s shape can only work but so much to do the trick…

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I would be visiting my lovely sister and her family in MA tomorrow.  They are not Luddites like me.  They have a nice modern camera.  I want them to take pictures of me so that I can see truthfully how big my ass is.

There’s a strange mechanism in the brain that clicks in when you’re at home.  The mechanism is for survival.  It controls the image in your mirror at home, displaying you in a way that’s not so fat, so that you feel more confident when you go outside.  But in the bathroom at work, you look in the full length mirror and say, “What the hell is this shit?!”

This has been a vain post by Sandee Harris.

Computer Dating

I know friends, coworkers, and acquaintances who have met significant others online.  “Hell no!  I’m not doing it!”  I say.  Pride.  Sheer pride.   I’m also not one to go running after boys.  Only once did I do something mildly resembling pursuing.  In high school there was a boy I saw hanging around the school, never in it.  I told a few people that I liked him.  “Who IS that guy?”  I would ask, knowing it would get back to him.  And it did.  So he came to my house.  I gave him a shot gun with a joint.  Later on I told him how I thought that it was so hot to be that close to him like that.  He told me that he liked it when we talked in adjacent chairs and I put my foot on the chair between his legs.  He was gregarious, very attractive, very wild.  He cowed a guy who took out a gun and threatened to kill him.  “You better put that fucking gun away or I’ll bust your fucking ass!”  He told him and the guy just ran off.  I also enjoyed somewhat of a wild style and liked boys who looked rocked out, dirty dirty boys.  The boy I’m referring to was named after the astronaut who went into orbit the same year that he was born.  He was named after an astronaut and I was, as my friends called me, a ‘space cadet’.   He had wild parties in his parents’ house, smoked lots of weed, and played in a band.  He introduced me to the music of all these cool bands like Mahavishnu, King Krimson, and artists like Annette Peacock.  A lot of elements of what I wanted were there but we were not mature enough to be connected to anything solid.  It was two and a half years of not quite getting it, especially with all the alcohol and other stuff involved.  He had all the pieces of a type that I like.  I suppose I’d punch those elements in today if I were to do the online dating thing.

But fuck that shit – I’d rather die!!  I’m fifty in November.  It’s THAT age.  I know people still hooking up anew at this age.  But I don’t, as I’ve said before, want to be one of these poor old women pining for a man well into her 70s.  Gotdammit I’ve had my chances!  And I have the enduring love for my family, friends…  I absolutely want nothing but to continue my relationship with writing…  But…‘twould be nice if the right fella came along, old, young, hung, not so hung…  Eh…

About a year and a half ago I was in Dunkin Donuts talking on the cell with my Mummy.  A man slipped me a note on a Dunkin Donuts napkin that said:

I’m so sorry to bother you but I find you to be the most beautiful, well-spoken intelligent woman I have ever seen.  I’m not sure if you’re talking to your significant other but I must give you my resume.  I’m single, 43, employed, live alone, I don’t have any children and want to have lunch with you if you allow me to treat you.  My name is ________.  [phone number]

As a writer, I save all letters.  I stored this one away thinking I’d put it to good use.  Of course ________ wouldn’t think that I put it to good use because I never called________.  ________ was…okay looking.  I was highly flattered.  Hell, I ain’t got nothing else going on now – well, there is this twenty-something kid I’m wondering if I could “cougar” for a couple of hours if you know what I mean —  wink wink…

Euthanasia Mobiles

 

Once this has been totally legalized, these would be a great idea.  The mobiles could be painted in bright designs, to take the stigma out of euthanasia – inside the mobile could be a party atmosphere.  We could have some with pictures of beautiful women and men surrounded by clouds, hands out, beckoning, calling those thinking of suicide to ‘come, come’, ‘you can do it.  I did!’  The truck could have a theme too, like an ice cream truck.  It’d be rolling down the street playing Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’.   The slogan would be ‘Come, let’s just put you out of all of that ‘ol misery.’

You see my biggest fear is that I’d shoot myself in the head, miss the important artery and wind up being a vegetable.  Or I’d hang myself, the rope breaks right where my brain’s been starved to the point of no return, and I’d be the drooling idiot nauseating the entire family at Thanksgiving dinner.  Auntie Barbie would have to feed me.  For some reason she’s the only one that I’d take to without writhing in protest since I’d be unable to talk.  My sister would be mad and would shove the fork into my mouth with the intent of stabbing me I’m sure.  My brother, well, he’d say, ‘She did this to herself.  Let her starve to death!”  I wouldn’t even be able to laugh at the irony of that.  Auntie Barbie’s the most sensitive of all of my mother’s sisters plus she’s a nurse.  The food would roll out of my mouth back onto my plate in a heap of mush.  Everyone’d try to be evolved about it but in reality, they’d think it was gross.  Auntie Barbie would roll her eyes at them and keep feeding me, martyr that she is.  She’d tell them that God spared me from death for some reason because he had some special purpose for me then she’d prop up my bobbling head and wipe excess saliva from the side of my mouth.  But regardless, some of my relatives, ever so quietly in the back of their head would still wish that I hadn’t missed my shot.  If you think about it, after all this was a goal that I’d sought that I hadn’t been able to achieve.  But oh well.

So you see, the mobiles would eliminate the possibility of this kind of an error.  They’d be staffed with the finest experts in the medical community.  And the mobiles would be great because they’d come right to your door.  All you’d have to do is call 1-800-U Kill Me and they’d be there lickedy split.  Because face it, most people thinking of killing themselves are too depressed to drive or to take the bus anywhere to some kind of a euthanasia center.  The mobiles would even encourage more people to kill themselves perhaps.  People who normally wouldn’t consider such a thing would entertain the idea now because it would be so darned convenient.  We could rid ourselves of all types of nuisances who need only a nudge to go through with it; the self-pitying depressives that suck the lives out of us, the ones who go around blaming others for their misfortunes; people who call you ten times a day because they can’t figure it out for themselves – you know, those people David Byrne talks about in ‘Psycho Killer’, the ones who start a conversation they can’t even finish, the ones who talk a lot, but aren’t saying anything.  What about those miserable gossips who can’t find any value in their own lives?  And then there are the ones whose looks you don’t like; people who stink; people who look at you funny; people who let their car alarms go off while they’re standing right there; people you see everyday who don’t say hello; people who don’t deserve the good fortune they’re receiving while you haven’t gotten shit that you’ve asked for…okay, okay – so I’ve gone a little off track with this last group, but you get my drift about the other ones, don’t you?