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Pre, post, and currently traumatic

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Internet, you jerk. I am trying to decide if I should go back to the therapist I saw last year or the year before or maybe the year before that for Wanting to Throw the Ybab in the River Syndrome. I want to throw the ybab in the river again. I am starting to think this is a personality flaw on her part, not mine. Can you have a two-year-old treated for Total Asshole Syndrome? Is there some kind of off-label use for animal tranquilizer everyone else is in on but me? I am so sorry that jerkism is hereditary. It is really biting me in the patootie.

But anyway, the therapist I saw back whenever that was happens to drink lots of soda with real calories, and that used to disturb me to no end. And I couldn’t just tell her that (because I’d sound crazy, wokka wokka), but jeez, I can’t watch someone drink two Mountain Dews or Pepsis in a row at 10AM. Am I really that boring with my petty neuroses that the woman has to prop her eyelids up with toothpicks? Don’t answer that.

I idly considered finding a new therapist, maybe one of those fancy CBT ones who will snap me with a rubberband every time I consider peeing on the floor. I wonder how therapists of that ilk feel about how cock and ball torture comes up ahead of their professional organization in the Google? Does this give them a complex? Do they just move their no-complainy bracelet to the other wrist and blithely move on? I’d like to know what that’s like. I require a full day of rumination if someone is a little hasty at a 4-way stop! And do not even talk to me about the grocery store. I couldn’t find the wheat germ. It was awful.

Oh well, if I can’t have low calorie mental health, at least I finally convinced someone at Saab to put a new liger on the back of the car. Someone stole the original one! Can you imagine? What must they be doing with it?

Gorgeous ladies of Craigslist

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It’s that time of year where I troll for summer help on Craigslist, a process not unlike slamming your head in a storm door. The storm door emails you in pink capital letters, eschews punctuation completely, and inquires “What is this job for? How much does it pay? When do you need me to start? Why am I emailing you again? A/S/L? Is it OK if I commute from another state? Is it OK if I am only 12? Gas is expensive: can you pay more than you stated you would in order to assist me in my unreasonable commute to your town?”

Well, you get the idea. Pesky storm door. It’s only a slight deviation from the “selling something on Craigslist” response template. Of course some people shock me by being competent! I don’t know what to do with that! I fear success! But not exclamation points.

My personal formula for Results seems to be “email address with some combo of numbers or xnamex” + “lack of standard English” = “hilarious inappropriate Myspace profile.” Do people really think that a prospective employer can find Craigslist but not Facebook and Myspace? Is it that hard to refrain from putting a photo of your butt smoking a cigarette on a public website? The formula is never wrong.

I keep forgetting to call about the results for my back scab hole. Wouldn’t they call me if something were awry? Surely this is need-to-know stuff. Uh, it’s not getting any smaller. Does skin stop regrowing at a certain age? After all, this year I will be 25 again.

Also, ybab said “Go to store. Buy cake.” Uh, twist my arm!

If, when, why, what?

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My ass has been kiting checks again, if you know what I mean. And I hope you don’t. I have a series of impossible choose-your-own-adventure dealings with which to deal. Please pull up a chair.

The largest problem is probably our ridiculous living situation. Let me tell you it: we live in a beard of bees. No, we live in a loft in a charming old mill with a recycling program and a contentious owner message board, steps from a body of water that did not even flood this year, a lovely park, and old world charm-y cobblestone streets! There are now restaurants where you can get shiso on everything, if that is a kind of thing you like.

In short, my lovely home is a fantastic place for anyone who does not own a toddler. It is RATHER SMALL for raising a team of helper monkeys as well, so be warned. But people are all concerned with “mortgages” and “credit” and “interest rates” and do not seem keen on buying anything these days. That’s too bad. I would like to sell you my bee beard. The bathroom was recently painted by a man who could pass for Perez Hilton. There are numerous other selling points, including the fact that we would get out anytime you wanted, even in the middle of the night, and we would leave any items of furniture you fancied. I might do your grocery shopping and other unpleasant errands for a year. Do you need your taxes done? I got a guy. We recently discovered the image of the Blessed Virgin in the ceiling over our bed, if that helps.

We have hit upon a plan to kidnap Ricky Gervais, namesake of a local car dealership and famous actor/director, before he leaves this lovely town when his movie finishes shooting. He taunts me with posts about using a private jet and house hunting in New York. He clearly has no idea he needs a Lowell pied-à-terre. We will convince him of the beauty of this area by taking him to the Blue Moon, a windowless cinderblock strip club out on 3A, and then to Club Thirtysomething across the way for a nightcap. There you will be able to find a woman with a tattoo reading “The only things getting between my legs are a hard dick or a Harley.” I assure you, she is out there. Then we’ll take a tour of where they print The Lowell Sun. We could start with the proofreading department, but the donkey died several years ago. Very sad.

From there, we’ll attend a Lowell Spinners game, participating triumphantly in dizzy bat, and after this, some skanky townie friend of a relation is probably having a “Jack and Jill” shower at a VFW.

Perhaps some of you more worldly types are concerned and wondering why I am not pushing the martinis and the shiso a bit harder, but honestly, you can get that anywhere. I moved here for the local color, or colour, if you must. I moved here to live next to a minor league ballpark and a methadone clinic. It speaks to me. You just can’t make this crap up, except when you exaggerate a little. You people who can have nice things don’t know what you’re missing.

The Halls of medicine

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Bless, but there is a giant disgusting hole cut in my back! An actual doctor did it, so at least this time there is an explanation.

He was going to remove another thing while he was at it, but I asked him if he was going to cut it the same way as the other one, and he said “Oh, no, that’s just a skin tag. I’ll just snip it off with scissors.” Well, to hell with that. I can boil water, and I have a pair of scissors. That is not going to count against my deductible, no thank you! “You’re not going to try this yourself,” he asked when I declined assistance. “Uh, no, I’m going to pray about it.” Ybab is boiling water right now.

Mr. H has gingivitis. He claims the dentist told him he needed prescription mouthwash. I asked if the dentist also suggested that he start flossing. “Oh, uh yeah, I guess.” I JUST LIVE HERE. In a land where nobody puts anything back where it belongs, and everyone manages to climb on me and jab me in the band-aid covering the gaping crater that a professional burned to crispy blackness as an afterthought of sadism. I sure would like one of those hyfrecators for my home kitchen. I’d make the tiniest Baked Alaskas.

A ybab screams bloody murder and refuses to brush her teeth, and we have to wrap her in a towel like we’re giving a pill to a cat. I say “You don’t want gingivitis like your father, now, do you?” And she glares at me and plans to kick me in the kidney after I fall asleep. These people have no respect for the gums and other soft tissues.

The rain in Spain

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Fellow humans, I am living proof that all it takes is one rainy day to undo a month’s work of feeling pretty spiffy! I should just live in a gro-light.

Instead, I live in a place where someone parks lengthwise across three parking spots, one of them being mine! I live in a place with a husband who snores and refuses to get his sleep apnea mask properly fitted to render it comfortable enough to wear and thus stop the snoring. I live in a place with a small child who pitches an unholy fit about sleeping in her special big girl bed, preferring to climb on top of me at 2 AM and 4 AM. I heard tell that at 4 AM, I actually snarled “You and your waking up and you and your snoring! I hate you all!” before jamming a pillow over my head and crying myself back to sleep. Or I don’t know what I really did, because I don’t remember even saying this. Someone claims I said this. Maybe someone is lying. Maybe someone is delusional due to oxygen deprivation from extreme sleep apnea.

The small child had a fit at the library this morning. Last time she assaulted the sign language bear, and this time she wept 10,000 tears when transparent scarf time ended. I am enjoying a fine cocktail of “Am I horrid parent, or is there something legitimately wrong with her?” This cocktail is a multivitamin and a glass of water and empty promises that someone is going to bring me back lunch soon.

While at the library, I overheard one lump of a woman say “Oh, I never know what to order at Starbucks. Everything on the menu is different.” Starbucks should take a memo and introduce a menu with only one thing on it. Or 30 things with the exact same name and constitution. The other lump who was the target of this declaration replied “Lattes! I love lattes! Get a latte!” And then I wept 10,000 tears, and I fell on the ground and kicked my legs in the air until a janitor came and removed me. That exchange, plus the fact that the LOL, MA newspaper, the Lowell Sun (motto: “We never spellcheck, and we call hot dog restaurants gourmet”), reports that a new wine and cheese shop called “Cest wine, Say Cheese” [sic] is opening, causes me to fling myself on the bed like a be-kneesocked school girl and scream “Get me out of this god-forsaken town!” Can’t you see that I am destined for bigger things? I’m packing my bag and heading to the bus station right now, like Axl Rose in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video. You’ll never take me alive, LOL, MA.

Is there an awareness pin for this too?

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The weather has been delightful for a change, so ybab and I are making the most of it. We were at the park, and a ybab dominated the top of the slide like a 33 inch colossus. Some antsy pantsy older kid scrambled up behind her and started crowding her, and then he started whining and muttering. I was thinking “You little shit,” and I looked back at him and saw he was wearing a button that read “I’m not misbehaving. I have autism. Please be understanding.” Oh, oops. No arguing with that. But where can I get a helpful button for myself?

“I’m not disdaining you. I’m aloof and avoidant and afraid of you because you seem nice.”
“I really don’t recognize your face out of context. I would say hello if I realized I knew you.”
“Your parenting style makes me uncomfortable. I am not going to talk to you at all.”
“Your child is simply horrid. Would you like a paper bag and some rope for that?”

I’m imagining this working more like an L.E.D. belt buckle, I guess.

Situations

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A ybab has learned to say “I don’t like it!” this week. Now everything is “I don’t like it!” Mr. H speculated that she’s just saying it because she can, but I believe that she has been seething for months and has a backlog to work through now that she can express the sentiment properly.

We can’t go do our normal crazy crap this week because there is a movie shooting in LOL, MA. There are trailers and giant heaps of equipment and security guards blocking the way to our STUFF. We have to do our STUFF. This is not fair. If we even attempt to do our stuff, we look like the rest of the slack jawed yokels lining the streets hoping to see people half of them never heard of before. I do not wish to bother anyone, but I do wish to get a snack once in a while. Snacks make the world go ’round. And obese, for that matter.

Yesterday I asked a few different yokels in the space of a block what was going on at the place being filmed. I knew exactly what was going on, but I stayed for the Rashomon-like variations. Apparently there are about 72 different people starring in this movie, for starters. Then I asked if the yokels thought there would be any dogs in this movie. Oh, the opinions! This will be less amusing after a few more days of this.

Busting out all over

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It was the first really nice day of Spring yesterday, and ybab and I ventured out for a cup of batshit crazy. We passed by a local bank right after it got robbed. I wouldn’t have stopped there anyway because their ATM charges $2. Can you imagine! I go to the one two blocks away. We were just in time for every cop in town converging on the scene and throwing the guy on the ground, as depicted by Norman Rockwell. Ybab tried tripping him first, but he was just too fast.

We watched the prodding for a minute, and then we strolled to the coffee shop, where we ran into one of the cops who helped with the slamming on the ground. His throat was hoarse from running, so he changed up his regular drink and got an iced mocha. Again, can you imagine! He regaled everyone with cop stories, but we had to leave because someone had opinions.

Opinions are a condition shared by the residents of the neighborhood we walked through to get to the playground. They are a giving lot: rolling down their car windows so you can hear their music, fancy free with favorable input on one’s physiognomy. I still test well with certain demographics, it seems. Ybab still tests well with drunks, one of whom chucked her under the chin at a stoplight. She bit him, no doubt feeling like she had something to prove after letting a marginally armed robber get away.

At the playground, we made the acquaintance of a woman with two jailhouse tear drop tattoos under her eye. And cell phone dad was there, blissfully unaware that I pulled his toddler out of the street several times while he was busy chirping people. Father who throws a ball at his own son’s head on purpose was there too. Father had either poor or exceptional aim and also managed to hit Vomits truly in the temple, knocking my sunglasses askew! At this point, I called Officer Mocha, and he settled the whole thing on the ground. You go to the playground with the army you have.

The moral of this story is that we live in a very good town. You should move here too. I have a condo to sell you.

My filing technique truly is unstoppable

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You do not want to know what I did with three days of naps, one father-supervised walk to feed ducks, and a P-Touch. I feel a deep sense of calm in my soul. A place for everything, and all the other stupid crap shredded and recycled.

I even went through a stack of proxy cards and voted them, generally installing incredibly old rich white men on boards everywhere. Sample additional question: “Some tedious meddling killjoy shareholders feel we should not invest in companies that profit from genocide. The board recommends a vote AGAINST this measure, as we wish to swim unfettered in our money bins.” Well, a vote for genocide is OK with m— whoa, wait a minute, reading messes things up again! I voted against profiting from genocide. So far, I’ve lost 3% for the year, so genocide can’t be that lucrative anyway. Don’t worry, the 3% was in retirement accounts, and I’m only 25. Indefinitely. The government is going to have a tough time making me take mandatory disbursements. I have a portrait in the attic I’ll use as ID.

OK, I made the 3% back last week. But still. Genocide!