Category Archives: Uncategorized

Victoria’s Real Secret

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Dear Kitty Winn,

I’m all for taking a surreptitious crap on the clock, but where does one draw the line? Today I saw a middle-aged woman from the investment banking company across the floor take a newspaper into a stall and prepare to have at it, sighing mightily! I have seen her before, sometimes she talks on her cell phone while she’s peeing. Ew Ew Ew. Sometimes she goes in with a stack of photochopied handouts, which I know some lucky fucker is going to get in a meeting! Should I say something to her? It’s not any of my co-workers who will have to handle poopy pie charts, but it’s the principle of the thing!

-Disgusted at my desk

Dear Disgusto,

Kitty Winn is all for maintaining the Victorian era style illusion that females have no function of the bowel or bladder. Secretion?! You must be referring to that fine mist of rosewater at the nape of our necks. This person is throwing a massive brick of dung through our carefully constructed hall of mirrors. She should be forced to live abroad in exile and squalor. Then again, what are we even talking about? You beleaguer Kitty with such terms as “crap” and “poopy pie charts”. I have no idea what you mean, as I am Female and Perfect.

-Kitty Winn

Shag me rotten

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Licketysplit

Back in 1986, we moved into a new house in Richmond, Virginia. Coming from a trailer, something without wheels was in itself a big deal. I explored eagerly, amazed at the stairs to a god-honest basement, the closet space, the linoleum in the kitchen instead of carpet. In a closet in a bedroom, I found a plastic garden rake. I asked my mom “Why did they leave a rake?”

“It’s for the shag!”

Yes, the cherry red shag carpet. So we’d rake the shag, as if it were a lawn.

Even though I was the oldest, I took the smallest bedroom to avoid the shag. My carpet was olive green. But it was low-pile. Even at eight, I instinctively knew shag was tacky. Meghan Daum has a great essay about the class implications of hardwood floors. To this day I refuse to rent an apartment with carpet. I am a floor snob.

Eventually my sister and I would use the shag rake in vicious one-sided jousting matches. Then I got a field hockey stick, and the shag rake was no match.

My parents ripped out the shag a few years ago. I was long gone, and I think my sister was too. They left the mirrored walls in the fireplace, though. And the purple “gro light.” Sometimes they put plants in there, as intended, but usually it’s just lit up, reflecting the room in a purplish glow. Confusing the occasional cat. The ghastly fireplace came with the house, and my parents aren’t really big on altering their surroundings if they don’t absolutely have to. Property value be damned. The house is unwittingly maintained as a1960’s pleasure dome. I hope to come back one day and find my mom wearing a lamé turban and serving rumaki in the grotto.

xxoo

Thel’ About Town

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thelma haney

Last week was March Madness here in Epsom Square. This year’s theme was “Diversity” so they had booths for ethnic foods like burritos, falafels and even Jumbalaya. I usually bake a marble cake or chocolate chip cookies but Flora and I decided even with chocolate swirls it wasn’t very ethnic. I did find a nice lamp at the antiques table though. It has a shepherdess sitting at the base with a lamb, listening while a shepherd plays to her with his miniature guitar. I go for the old fashioned stuff. I also bought my son a tie from Hypno-ties with an American flag on it. Come to find it has little skulls on it instead of stars. I didn’t want to make a fuss on such a fine day, so I just dropped it in the clothes drive box on the way home. People who can’t even afford ties probably won’t mind.

Yesterday brought some bad news. My daughter Jessica- she is studying to be a nutritionist over at the Epsom County Community College, called and she said something about McDonalds “losing it’s market share”. Apparently the young people are going to the coffee joints instead, which I don’t understand. They charge three dollars for a cup of coffee and if you want a roll they want another two dollars and it doesn’t even have raisins in it! That’s a darn shame about McDonalds. I think they should bring back the Lobster Sandwich. I must have had ten of those a day when they came out, must have been the summer of ’92. I know because I had the corns real bad that summer and I used to sit with my feet in a bucket of salts.

It’s a good time for that great taste!

God Bless,

Thelma Haney

Run roughshod over me

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Licketysplit

I just called someone an “imperious whelp.” That was satisfying. I’m getting a lot of mileage out of that one lately. And I just may have procured a new love seat for my office. You know, for office love. If I have actual furniture, I may have to finally decorate beyond pasting up the ready.gov print-outs. Some flounces over the window, perhaps a bear skin rug… a cone of silence!

While checking out the recent search strings for Vomitola, I discovered the following alarming morsels: gumjobs, bronze buttocks, anal leakage iced tea, and perhaps most disturbing of all: “bridesmaid shoes in color teal.” Sweet frosted globes of the virgin! The gumjobs are perfectly understandable. That’s a Lambchop term if there ever were one. I’d better sneak in a manchowder mention while I’m at it. Bronze buttocks, well, we can’t help you there, unless you were looking for a peek at Steele’s hindquarters. I can’t personally attest, but I’m sure Steele’s rump has a sheen like a new penny. Anal leakage iced tea? Dear reader, if you find out which brand causes anal leakage, do alert me.

Now, the bridesmaid shoes in color teal…those are a real atrocity. I am getting mawied in a few months now. I may have mentioned “wedding” at some point. Certainly I’ve mentioned shoes. But I can’t help you in your misguided pursuit. I wouldn’t tell you where to find those even if I did know! My one or two pals who will stand next to me have been instructed to “wear whatever the hell you want.” I’m not saying it won’t be a posh affair, but I trust in their impeccable taste and have no need to make them wear taffeta ruffles in the color of Circus Peanuts. I don’t need a photo of myself surrounded by grown ladies decked out like Easter Peeps. Matching is way overrated anyway. If my own socks do not match, how can I insist anyone else make such a concession?

Anyway, assembling the trappings of a garden-variety wedding isn’t really that bad. It isn’t that good either. I am not into weddings. In fact I pretty much loathe weddings. I never sat around dreaming of mine when I was a wee be-ribboned tot. But unfortunately the person I am legally and fiscally allying myself with did. Dream of his perfect girlish fantasy wedding. 😛 If I had it to do over again, I would stomp my feet and howl until I found myself boarding a flight to Vegas. But as soon as I start drinking, I am sure to enjoy myself. Most of the niggling details are out of the way, or left up to Mr. H. And registering is FUN, man. I only wish it were not limited to housewares. If I could register for a home submarine kit, or his n’ hers pith helmets, we might be on to something. Or sidearms, those could come in pretty handy these days. I thought a nice concept for the invitation might involve letters pasted together ransom note-style to say “SEND CASH. UNMARKED BILLS.”

xxoo

Corrections, mea culpas, addendums

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Licketysplit

It has been brought to my attention that the proposed title for my novel, Portrait of the artist looking real fine, is one of the most egomaniacal monikers since Peter Murphy had the spleen to name an album Deep.

I certainly do not mean to toot my own horn. I would be writing about hypothetical (yet comely!) characters. It’s not like I’m Peter Murphy, presumptiously assuring you that I am DEEP, and my intellect is VAST. I’m not even like that Zadie Smith, running on about my flawless dental hygiene. I shudder to think.

Aaron piped in again to tell me more shocking separation of church and state news. Those folks who were so into the national day of fasting? Their resolution PASSED! By a huge margin! Do email your local wonk and tell them you are most terribly distressed if they voted for this. We go on and on about theocracy being so terrible in Islamic countries, but what are we shooting for here? It’s A-OK to dictate the religious actions of an entire nation as long as the god in question isn’t swarthy? People may certainly pray and fast all they want, and I’m sure every little bit helps if such things are possible. But please don’t tell me how, when, and where to beam my own brand of goodwill into the cosmos! Although I prayed just this morning: “Dear lord, please let me always be able to afford professional hair color.” I’m just kidding. Sort of.

In other news, I got highlights.

xxoo

Portrait of the artist looking real fine

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Licketysplit

There’s my title, now all I need are some characters, a plot, and umpteen thousand adjectives, verbs, and conjunctions. Oh, and articles, both definite and indefinite. Maybe some adverbs or prepositions. Punctuation. Why, this practically writes itself!

My younger sister is writing a book. And she’s not even out of college yet. I have scarcely the motivation to write a check to my mobile service provider, and there she is, poised to be the next Eggers, Eggers, Leggo my Eggers. See, I suck. I even stole Leggo My Eggers from her. Ah Grasshopper! The student has surpassed the teacher.

Anyway, she suggested my book should be about a post-bohemian self-actualizing in the face of a life-changing event. OF COURSE she was kidding. Still, I think I’ll just write about how annoying hipsters are. Po-Boho. Huh huh, Beavis.

Oh, a few housekeeping announcements, then on with the news of the day! You may notice a strange new box on the left. A coalition force from Amazon.com seems to have installed it in the night. Please use it to buy lots of things, as hosting costs money, and so do tampons and Lee Press-On Nails.

Secondly, we have secured the services of a music critic! Mr. Howell Fairly will debut shortly. I believe he’s working on a review of the new EP by Snout, a promising group of tow-headed, tie-wearing youths. Also a real think piece entitled “Emo: Tears like grapes squashed on the supermarket floor.”

Now for the news: Aaron tells me that some wackadoos from particularly fundamentalist-leaning states have proposed a resolution asking the president to designate a national day of fasting and prayer, so that God may shine his heavenly light of favor on America.

In other masticating developments, New Yorkers are staying home from restaurants [NYT, reg. req.]. People are opting to stay at home, eating massive quantities of cheap takeout, keening softly until they fall into a bloated slumber. Heather was just saying that the new trend won’t be Terror Sex, but the Terror 15. See, that’s obviously where the fasting and prayer is supposed to come in! “I pray my ass won’t spread as I watch all this war coverage.” Balance in all things, we say.

I checked my favorite snack portal, Taquitos.net, to see if they have any stress eating data. They don’t. But they do have this article about Krispy Kreme’s inexorable advance into Massachusetts, a topic near and dear to my ass.

Oh, for the record, we are not a bunch of bulimics just because we like to keep slim and trim and happen to have a site called Vomitola! I know the deck appears to be stacked against us, but we are prepared to be hated for our natural beauty. That’s nothing new anyway. If we don’t exfoliate, the terrorists will have won!

xxoo

Problem with Pants

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Dear Kitty Winn

My husband has this annoying habit of putting bottlecaps in his pockets. Everytime he cracks open a beer, there goes the cap in his pocket. We are talking pockets constantly full of the damn things. Usually nestled in a fat wad of filthy napkin. Sorting out our laundry has turned into a garbage pick, a lint harvest. I have tried coaxing, begging, and screaming at him. Should I sew all of his pockets shut?

-anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Whoa, have a xanax, lady! I bet anyone who could see the crumpled receipts, cracked powder case, crushed breathmint, and stray hair clips and safety pins at the bottom of your purse would be none too pleased. Your mate suffers a bizarre form of pack rattage, I grant you. Kitty would never lay hands on someone else’s greasy serviette! Not very sexy, either, to have these things emerging from his pants during intimate moments. Sadly, a person cannot be browbeaten out of their foibles. But there are methods of persuasion. Perhaps you ought to suggest that you will be going nowhere near his pants until they are free of such items. A week or two without a) clean trousers and b) blowjobs should be enough to convince your mate to rethink his entire pants-as-receptacle model of the universe.

Trust me. No one knows pants like Kitty.

-Kitty Winn

Obla di Indeedy

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lambchop

The video of captured american soldiers was impossible to escape on television here in Europa. But tears and hours of shaking my fist at the screen, enraged at the folly of humanity, was not doing any good. My usual civic philosophy is that you cannot change people, make them less apt to failure and unmerciful behavior. That the most you can do is arrange the world to make the best of our given nature. In this case, we have the opposite- everything is giving way to hunger for dominance, fanaticism, and brutality.

To combat such lowly thoughts, Steele shanghaied me from my television and my overflowing ashtray and took me for a ride on his BMW motorcycle. Its a high powered touring bike that he got for desert racing in Dakar. Vroom vroom! We would have kept going all the way to France, but I was getting a bit of a chill, and we had an oscar party to go to! Sunday night found us in the Hollywood hills toasting with Harvey Weinstein and chuckling amongst ourselves over Nicole Kidman’s oratory skills, which go something like “the world situation is ummm crazy. and umm, uhh, I believe that people are getting hurt in other countries, for example”.

Lunch is served, America, and it’s a giant shit sandwich. But darned if Steele didn’t look marvelous in his oscar night suit.

smooch

The humanity

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Licketysplit

In these times of “AUGGGHHHHH,” it is somehow less appealing to natter away about boys and makeup and low-fat yogurt, but I’ll just have to give it the old college try. I just got an email about a mass “die-in” scheduled for this Saturday in the Boston Common. Hoo boy. Guess I will be avoiding that area. So much for walking uninterrupted between my house and the gym! Shouldn’t I be fit in case I’m called to serve my country? Perhaps in the Miss World pageant, or an international swimsuit model-off? Americans have the poweful Mother of All Bikini Waxes on their side. Not to mention Pilates and numerous Sephora locations. It would be a slaughter.

But the gym is depressing. Everyone stares bug-eyed at CNN on the individual TVs on the cardio machines. It is pretty hard to slack off when you’re watching marines slinking around on their bellies via a night vision cam. There is nothing you can possibly think but “Damn, do I have it good right now. Now I must PAY.” So everyone is limping pitifully when they get off the machines. And no one is obviously picking each other up, phooey on terror sex.

My actual opinion about current events changes every 10 or 15 minutes. I am in no way an accurate barometer of American pacifism or jingoism. Right now I’m wavering in the camp of “Enough of this shit, I’ll personally go over and rip off some moustaches and berets.” Just get it over with. I know people who are serving in the middle east, and I’d quite like to get them back. The TV news is also stepping up Iraqi human rights atrocity footage. The best story so far was unquestionably the human meat grinder with direct outlet to the sewer. You have to wonder how much is true, but Barbara Walters has recruited a prodigious amount of people with hideous scars. I am certainly all for ending torture (who isn’t! Well, maybe Barbara Walters.), but we are establishing a dangerous precedent of intervention, and we all know that Iraqi human rights are not the real motivation for this war. Ugh ugh ugh.

Oh, what was I talking about? Makeup! Yes. I may have to totter over to Sephora at lunch and spritz myself with various fragrant potions ’til I reek like a French whore. Or I could just sniff this whiteboard cleaner….mmm tolulene. I believe that’s the stuff that melts styrofoam.

Ah, but let’s not forget my real port in a storm! Heather has introduced me to Steele’s twin brother Sloane. Sloane is a pillar of the community. He looks good in bike shorts. He makes a stunning spring vegetable risotto. Sloane is always available for consultation on matters of fashion. He plucked my eyebrows the other day, and I must say he uncovered a natural arch I never thought possible.

xxoo

Some people just buy corvettes

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Licketysplit

George: thanks for involving us all in your mid-life crisis! Aging is tough on anyone, especially on those with a prodigal son complex. So I feel for you, I do. Dad’s going to be so proud at long last! Some people just bang a secretary, some people start riding a Harley. But you are doing such a great Yosemite Sam. Whatever works for you! Pow! Pow!

But sillyness aside, folks, I have gotten my war on, and I have taken Kitty Winn’s advice. I sallied forth and bought a fetching pink shirt. I got my hair did. I have informed friends and loved ones of favorable language to be used to describe my life to date.

After work today, I went over to the Gap on Newbury to get one of those fancy t-shirt bras. They are on sale, by the way! As I was walking home, I heard cow bells and hooting coming from Copley Square, so I meandered by. I passed a batallion of cops in riot wear, well stocked with those plastic handcuffs. I stood towards the back of the crowd looking on, and I kept getting accosted by grubby socialists. After the 5th or 6th be-dreadlocked urchin asked me if I had my copy of Worker’s Vanguard yet, I said “I am carrying a Gap bag. What do you THINK?” I got a hearty “fuck you!” and she scuttled off in a huff.

I perused the various signs and pondered the general lack of credibility of the assembled throng. My photo was snapped multiple times, and I hope to god it doesn’t appear anywhere newsworthy. I’m not worried about the Feds since I pretty much get cavity searched any time I fly already. I am against the war but against the anti-war movement, if that’s possible. These kids strike me as opportunistic protestors, forsaking their devil sticks for the latest trendy thing, be it IMF or WTO. It’s not the 60’s, and you can’t get stoned in public, as nice as that might be. Sure, the Unitarian lesbians were sincere and respectful, but the “face” of this movement that attracts the most media attention is largely young, grubby, and unruly. It’s a PR disaster! Middle America sees these candy-ass hijinks and recoils. They aren’t going to stick around to hear the message when the messenger frightens them.

What really sticks in my craw is that these well-intentioned people were nowhere to be found when the presidency was finagled two and a half years ago. Were there demonstrations? I don’t remember any in Boston. Why is it so surprising that our president does not heed popular opinion when he wasn’t installed by the popular vote? I hope this same kind of enthusiasm for activism is still in place when the next election comes around. The irony is that a lot of these kids probably voted for Nader anyway. I recall people saying things might get worse, but they’d get better. Well, they are worse. I can’t wait for the better.

Who knows, maybe in ten or twenty years people will vacation in a rebuilt Iraq. The entire peaceful Middle East will be a holiday paradise. Surf’s up in Tel Aviv, booty be shakin’ in Baghdad, duty free in Dubai! Hussein and his regime are evil and corrupt, no question about it. But there has to be a better way to do this. Even if there were no alternative, having the effort led up by an oaf who can’t even pronounce “nuclear” and his band of profiteering henchman does not exactly inspire confidence.

Enough prattling for one night.