All posts by Licketysplit

Panic in the streets

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Today is all about dread. Fear of the blinky red dot on my mail icon. Fear of the blinky red light on the phone. Fear of the clucking chicken ring on my cellphone, which means messages waiting. I guess it’s my own damn fault for picking that ring, I should switch back to the Bewitched theme.

I am short of breath, and my ears are humming. Now more than ever, I need a personal whitelist of who is actually allowed to address me! I don’t want to field a question from the assorted ding dongs that need to get all up in my existence today. The clueless freelance client who can’t remember where they bought their domain but still needs it pointed somewhere else. The real estate monster, calling to say “We-ell, you can still move in on the first, but you may not have a working elevator…” Verizon, saying “Oh, you would like a phone in your new place? How NOVEL.”

I also don’t want to give advice to people with poor life skills who won’t take it anyway.   Oh, you have baby daddy trouble? That’s too bad. You gained weight? Ha. I am getting a sore throat.

Did this entry stress you out too? I’m sorry. Really, I am. You shouldn’t have to suffer too. Why do we always hurt the ones we love? Let’s talk about a far more soothing topic: my hair. Oh, deep breath. I am soaking in it. I am getting a cut today, which always makes me feel like a squillion bucks. Yes, I know I just got it cut a month ago. But I am like a nappy little Shetland pony. If I don’t go today, when will I go over the next few hellish weeks? The terrorists will have won, and my layers will be shot to shit. Please do not bring up my grown out highlights. I will buy you a gingerbread latte if you just look the other way.

-xxoo

Bullseye

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Sadly, going to Target is not as high-spirited and monochromatic an experience as the TV ads would have one believe. There are no rockettes or dancing christmas trees, and Mark Mothersbaugh is not hovering up in the front office personally DJing over the PA system. I did not see Isaac Mizrahi either. I believe he is in his lair in Trenton, busy laughing, absolutely splitting a side over all the girls who are hoping “you can have high fashion at Target, really.” You can’t. Please do not embarass either one of us further by pretending it’s true. What are you, a communist? I love a bargain as much as the next gal, but crap is crap. It’s Mom Jeans.

But we still managed to make impulse purchases. How do they do it? I came for packing tape and cat litter, I departed with a fleece throw. I didn’t need a giant Toblerone bar, yet I left with one anyway.

It’s just as well, because I ate a few segments of that for dinner: a new level in culinary incompetence even for us. I thought butter noodles a few weeks ago was the absolute nadir, but I was wrong. We’re moving one week from today, and we’ve gone from eating off paper plates to just not bothering with actual food. Well, we did have some apple pie. That’s half a Cider Jack and half a Harpoon Winter Warmer. Spicy. The traces of apple in the cider will prevent scurvy.

Then I capped off the weekend by working on a particularly wretched DHTML-laden freelance project. It seemed like a great idea back in September, but of course the other parties involved assed around until November, and then the client demanded it be live on the 26th. Because the day before Thanksgiving is such a crucial time for web browsing. Why am I not better at saying no? Oh, right, I’m a whore.

-xxoo

Huzzah, huzzah!

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Unfurl the gossamer banners, and don your t-shirt featuring dogs having a tea party! Pipe lurid pink icing flowers on a solid slab of marzipan, and flood the streets with confetti, for it is Lambchop’s birthday! And not just any birthday, oh no. It is a special number, but I shall leave that for her to reveal in her own good time.

To celebrate, I have quite the surprise. I let us get pregnant a few weeks ago when she was passed out! No, kidding, kidding. But I did pick up a few gaudy do-dads, and when I purchased one of them the sales-slattern said “Oh, your daughter is going to love this!” What is more alarming: our truly infantile taste, or that this shrew thought I looked old enough to have a six-year-old?

Now I give you photographic proof that we are two heads sharing one body. This was taken in Barcelona a few years ago, atop a bus. Luckily we never forget which one of us is on the right in photos (Lambchop!).

Now what more can I say about my splendid pal? Hmm… no matter what I come up with, I am sure that ABBA has said it better at some point.

There was something in the air that night

The stars were bright, Fernando

They were shining there for you and me

For liberty, Fernando

Though I never thought that we could lose

There’s no regret

If I had to do the same again

I would, my friend, Fernando

Yes, if I had to do the same again

I would, my friend, Fernando…

-xxoo

Counterpoint: Bodddyyyy, I am tired of doing our taxes!

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[pictured, from left: Licketysplit, Lambchop]

Why do I always have to be the responsible one?

I always say to Heather “Just once I would like it if you laundered the money!” But does she listen? Oh no. She is usually preoccupied by a shiny pinwheel or some other geegaw, while I gnaw a pencil to a stub and readjust my green visor. She’ll never sweat over off-shore holdings the way I do!

And it pains my soul, because I am fun-loving too, you see. I enjoy gumming jawbreakers, tissue paper flowers on sticks, crackers shaped like animals, and dreamcatchers. But everyone thinks I am the stodgy one because I have the head for figures. Oh, the trials of being 10 minutes older.

Finally, I will say to Heather that just because a kitten follows us home does not mean we get to keep it. Who will end up cleaning the litter box? Me, that’s who, and you will not even let me use our other arm. Oh no, you will be too busy styling your hair with the Twist-a-Braid!

I am not even going to discuss the turtle you allowed to wander away into the heating duct. Also, I’ve made up my mind, from now on I will only remember to apply under-eye cream to MY eyes! Please save your crocodile tears, I am too busy playing with this tinsel garland to listen to you! La la la la. La.

-xxoo

Go go gadget gay marriage

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Well…it’s a start.

Massachusetts? Are you there? It’s me, Licketysplit. Why did you persist in electing Mitt Romney, who has gone on record saying he would veto pro gay marriage legislation? Also, God? Why are people still wearing open toed shoes in November? The cosmos is a baffling place. YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED.

In all seriousness, I am strongly in favor of gay marriage. None of that civil union crapola, although that’s a foot in the door. I was allowed to get “married” in Massachusetts outside of the umbrella of religious blessing (a whole ‘nother can of warms). Our actual legal marriage took place at some creepy guy’s house in Allston. We gave him $100 and our marriage license, and after subjecting us to a story about his own divorce and how his cat is his best friend, he said “I now pronounce you wicked married.”

The actual wedding day was another story entirely. It was full of love and joy and burning money and alcohol poisoning, and in attendance were several long term gay couples who didn’t have a shot at doing the legal bit by virtue of the wrong chromosomal arrangement. If the reason to keep marriage between a man and a woman has to do with morality, let me just say that I am weak of character! I enjoy deviant sexual practices*! But I still got a license, no questions asked. May I remind you that there are plenty of het couples who get married and still smush everything in sight. (We’re saving that bit for our five year anniversary cruise to the Mexican riviera. Oy gevalt. Equal opportunity emotional tearing down, please.)

I’ll be watching the development of this situation, and possibly standing outside Tom Finneran’s house in an animal suit. Tom Tomorrow is right, I should have married a goat.

-xxoo

*Er, I mean spooning, mom. Maybe a little closed-mouth kissing.

Le car, vroom vroom

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Two weeks ago, a butterfly flapped its wings in Moscow. Today I impulse-purchased a Volkswagen. And you know what? I instantly started to drive like a total asshole. Like I’m from Cambridge. For my next trick, I’ll pop out a few kids and let them pull shit off the shelves in Bread & Circus while I yap into a cellphone headset.

Oh, the car. It’s Galactic Blue (hooray for Science!), with lots of bells and whistles and even jimcracks and doohickeys. And technically it was not a purchase, but a lease. So at some point over the holidays I’ll have the pleasure of explaining to my parents and other older family members that I do not actually have “anything to show for it.” It’s the matrix, ma.

Another plus: we got rid of Mr. H’s Ford Focus. Now the family of spiders that lives in it is someone else’s problem. Shudder. I am certain Super Townie at the dealership plans to set the white whale on fire and roll it into a lake. And he’d be right to do it.

-xxoo

Hot 97

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Continuing our riveting streak of self-flagellation, here’s a goth polaroid! Enjoy, eat it up. That’s me on the left, Heather on the right. What is it about teen angst that makes girls press their heads together and take high-contrast self-portraits?

Our thing was looking like we were about to throw up. That’s where the Vomitola name first came about. We used to click off a zillion shots, wait for them to develop, and then cobble them together to make a story, complete with captions. Sample: “Helen spies the bucket…” or “Now it’s Heather’s turn.”

We were also pretty into the two heads, one body idea, as you shall see from tomorrow’s offering.

-xxoo

Get up on this

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So Heather came over tonight. We painted our nails and organized our sticker books. Then we busted out the 40s. Round two pictured here.

All Lisa Frank dreams aside, this picture was taken in 1996. It’s unflattering. We both had to use drastic mezures to hook up in those days. Hence the plastic knives. But that’s in the past, yo. And let the past be the past. Although that’s hard to do when one finds the PHOTO BOX. That’s right, we’re going to be taking a little trip trap through the misty watercolor memories in the corners of our minds.

I have to go take Lambchop’s bra out of the freezer. We havin’ a sleepova.

-xxoo

What would Martha do?

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Ugh. I’ve got a hangover, and I only just started drinking. No, not *that* kind of hangover, a wedding hangover. That’s right, we’re still not done with our thank you notes. So if you didn’t get one yet, that means we dislike you intensely, and we found your gift terribly unimaginative and downright insulting. Oh, I keeeeeed. The list is in fact alphabetical (we are somewhere in the R-S range, we can’t help being popular), and I was foolish enough to think Mr. H might actually help with birthing them.

But then again, I married someone with a limited vocabulary. Hey, I’m not being mean, it’s just the truth. If I were with a man as verbose as I am naturally, we’d never get anything done because we’d be too busy trying to out-conversate the other. Why, it would be like being married to Lambchop. We ruled out same-sex marriage as a possibility years ago. A) she wouldn’t get the donkey dingle graft, and my hips are far too slinky to carry it off, and B) we’d never have sex anyway because we’d each be too busy trying to put on more makeup than the other. So Mr. H and I, we compromise. I explain the big words, like “abutters” and “that other one from the other day he didn’t know,” and he makes dinner. But he does know enough to say “You’d better not be making fun of me on your stupid website.”

Now, Kitty Winn says that the secret to a good thank you note is to create your own custom attractive letterpressed notes, and also to lie, lie, lie. For instance, the truth is not always suitable for print:

“Dear Aunt Hilda,

thank you for remembering us on our special day. I’m sorry to hear that what you purchased to commemorate it is “too heavy to mail,” but I eagerly await the day you drop it off at my mom’s house several states away from me. I am sure it will make a lovely addition to her hall closet, be it a solid block of obsidian or a mastadon femur. I really hope it’s breakable! We’ll see you at Christmas.

kisses,

-Helen & Mr. Helen”

No, no, that simply won’t do. What am I going to say? I have no idea. But Mr. Man also knows enough to open a second bottle of wine, so I’m sure it will sort itself out. If you are in the lucky R-Z last name category, you can look forward to a sloppy, drooled-upon note in a few days time. But we ran out of the nice letterpressed ones, so T.S.. Note to self: next career — purchase letterpress!

-xxoo

There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west

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I’ve got “Stairway to Heaven” stuck in my head because some deviant was playing it on an acoustic guitar in the train station. Call me a Nazi (“Nazi!”), but people shouldn’t be allowed to play in public if they aren’t any good. There, I said it. It’s too bad there’s not a musical version of nanowrimo to keep those sorts otherwise occupied.

I also inadvertently confused the names of two ethnic characters in a thinger I was trying to code, which led to hijinks and me wondering why my shit didn’t work. Hi, my name is Hitler. Then my sister pointed out that I am terrible at recognizing people, just like she is. And it’s true: people frequently say things like “Hey, I saw you at blah blah (the cheese counter at Shaw’s, Starbucks) and you were blah blah (staring into space, trying on a bra), and I blah blah (batted my eyes, yelled at you) but you didn’t notice me.” I think it’s a symptom of late-onset autism.

(But really, if you were an art director, would you name your token ethnic characters incredibly similar names? Mary, John, Patty, Samir, and Samar? I think not!)

Heather mentioned the joys of being completely insane in her triumphant return post. These days, instead of skittering around worrying that the Hancock Tower is going to thwap down like a flyswatter and squash me, or goggling at how shiny the sidewalk is, I just stick with garden variety rage. I blame the MBTA, hormonal birth control, the downstairs neighbors, going to work, ill-fitting pants, the incredibly unexciting lunar eclipse, and solar flares for my rage. If I had managed to retain my propensity for ingesting random substances people hand me, things might be different. Curse you, aging process. And curse you, common sense.

But someday Lambchop and l will have to tell you about the time we huddled under a pool table for hours, only taking a break to watch Suddenly Susan and wrap duct tape around a computer monitor.

-xxoo