the slack daily

The Straight Poop.

If you follow this-here blog, which according to my stat tracker (which tells me things like 'what happens if you keep pretending to have sex with a pillow for years?' is a search string that brought one of you here, yes, I'm looking at you) is always shockingly more than I would have thought (although my expectations remain low as far as that's concerned), you would have noticed that I neglected to write yesterday. 

Why?  Because I was in the shit.

Literally.

No, it's not another poop tub (the horror...the horror!), but a SlackDailyReader dropped out of the sky and offered me a monthlong freelance copyediting/writing gig.  Why yes, I said, I'd be happy to,  and I did the little Freelance Dance of Glee (which is similar to Will's Naked Dancing Shaving Cream Man, but minus a penis).  Monday morning at 6:30am (said job is on the Right Coast) found me posterior plastered to couch and prepared to copyedit 'til the cows came home. 

Which I did.  On over three hundred pages.

About diarrhea.

As I added periods and removed dashes and corrected spelling and eyeballed formatting, I stashed away a bevy or fecal funnies to be hauled out for blogtime.  But then it was 4:30pm and I needed to shower and walk a WonderDog and head to Job #2.  9pm found me returning home, exhausted and sweaty and headachy.  A few moments with Mr. Boy and then I crawled back into bed to start the process all over again.

I adore feeling useful.  It's even better when I'm getting paid for it.  And poop?  Icing on the cake.


*****

And now for something completely different:

Occasionally I am asked about my 'process' when it comes to writing scripts or creating pitches to sell.  My process is that I sit down and write something.  I don't really talk about it, because I find talking about writing - much like writing about writing - insanely boring. 

I feel the same way about blogging in that this is such an inherently navel-gazing medium that the desire to get all meta about it seems beyond self-indulgent.  But I'm going to indulge for just a moment.

People have been cropping up everywhere complaining about how boring Will and I are, or how they're sick of hearing every last detail of our relationship.

My question is: who's forcing you to watch?

Are there Detective-Agency-Camps where you're strapped down, Clockwork-Orange style and made to endure hours and hours of me babbling into the camera or Will musing about midgets?  Yes, I know about trolls but do they not understand that even if you don't like us, you feed our ego by watching? Reading?  Paying attention?  The response is usually akin to you suck so much that I can't look away which trust me, I totally understand (helloooo hatecrush!)

But in Blogland, there's no such thing as a bad touch.

I can only assume that said people haven't figured out how to close their browser window or tabs, so I've included a handy keyboard-shortcut reference guide below. 

Internet Explorer: Ctrl-W will close the current window.
Firefox: Apple-W will close the current tab.
Safari:   Apple-W will close the current tab.

You can call me boring and dumb and fat and ugly and unfunny...but don't ever say that I don't care!

 

Up, Up and Away...

I'm up.

If you check the time code, it's 4:45am (or thereabouts).  Although I was in that state of half-consciousness when Mr. Boy came home from poker, I never really managed to fall asleep - either before he got home or after.  I spent the hours staring at the ceiling, at the back of my sleeping husband, and at the clock before I finally gave up at 3:30am and retreated to the couch.  I'll get some work done, I thought, but instead I repeated the same process, substituting sleeping dog for sleeping husband.

I have to be up in about 15 minutes, ready to hop in the shower and head out to work.  While Fridays are my easy day, they're also a long day and it's mornings like these, on an hour or two of sleep I think perhaps this work thing wasn't such a great idea.  Except for the money part.

Anyone who's ever had trouble sleeping will tell you that the thick of the night is different when you can't sleep.  It doesn't have the virtuous nature of pulling an all-nighter or the devil-may-care attitude of the stay-out-'til-all-hours.  Even with a person breathing next to you it's horrifically lonely as you silently calculate how many hours you could catch of shut-eye if you feel asleep right now. But you never fall asleep right then, you make lists: grocery lists and project lists and lists of your faults and lists of your flaws and lists of your fabulousness to try and keep an even keel.  Cataloging and criticizing, anything to make the time pass until you either drift off or have to wake up.

I guess it's no secret that I'm going through a bit of a rough patch, and if I could pinpoint exactly why I think I'd be on the way to fixing it except that I can't totally figure it out.  My guess is that it's an aggregate of small things, things that individually I'd shake off but in greater numbers I can't seem to do so.   I'm still trying to scoop the last bits out and come up with something remotely witty to say.  I used to think I was good at this.  Lately I'm feeling like that it's just not the case.  Today's random thought: is it worse to think that you're meant for something more and always fall short, or never think that you'll amount to much at all?

And that's my alarm.  Off to work.

Beatles Times Two.

It's no secret that I'm interested in the not-so-attractive side of human nature.  Forensics Files, Cold Case Files, The New Detectives, Law & Order SVU are all a part of my regular TV viewing.  Each night, before I drift off to sleep, I have visions of serial killers and decomp scenes and hit men in my head.  I don't know when or how it started, although it could possibly be traced back to when I was 12 years old and slid Helter Skelter (the book, not the song) off of the SlackFamily Bookshelf.  From there it was a short jump to The Family and Rosemary's Baby and a love for hard-boiled crime fiction, the type that I could never write but that I devour greedily.  The human brain is a Living Gobstopper and I like to chip away at each level to see what lurks there.

No matter what images filter through my own consciousness pre-sleep, I'm always blessed with bizarre or unremarkable and unmemorable dreams. This may be due to the fact that I'm not a great sleeper - it takes me awhile to fall asleep and I wake at the slightest noise - but I'm able to keep the vile and the violent out.

Until last night.

I was running away from something I couldn't see.  Barefoot, clothes torn, I knew that I had go faster, faster and I willed myself, even though my bare feet were cut and raw.  I saw a dark spot ahead, and I ducked under a balcony, only to discover they were waiting there for me.  There were three of them, and the horror of what was about to happen crept over my flesh as they cackled and hands came out of everywhere and they were shoving me to the pavement and ---

--- then I woke up.

Breathing short, ragged breaths, eyes wild, realizing that I wasn't back there, I had woken up, Will was snoring lightly next to me and I was okay.  I was okay. I considered waking Will up but I felt silly, so I inhaled slowly, easing my heart rate down and unclenching my balled-up fists.  I drifted back to sleep to have another nightmare or two, but nothing as terrifying as the first. 

This morning I slept fitfully until 9am, trying to reclaim my rest from the night before.  As I crawled out of bed, I thought about what did we do before we fell asleep.

We walked to Canter's for dinner, then came home, had a glass of wine and listened to a Russian copy of the Beatles' White Album on the record player.  An evening lacking in murder or mayhem.

It doesn't make sense to me either.

(ex)communicated.

The title of this post was original supposed to be for a commentary on Exes Not My Own.  But those stories aren't mine to tell, and to be honest, they really aren't even stories at all.  More like just small flashes of annoyance - or even jealousy - that occasionally bubble to the surface.   I'm (barely) evolved enough to understand that these moments say more about me than anyone else. 

When I get this way, I struggle to figure out why, although the whys of it all are simple enough for even an amateur detective to deduce.  I'm tired. I'm sore. I'm starved for contact with my husband and my friends. I am so incredibly grateful for my job and I don't even work full time, but the hours I work all are over the place.  Sometimes I have to be there at 5:30am, long before Will wakes up. Sometimes I have to be there at 5pm, right before he comes home from work.  I stumble in at 9pm, filthy and smelling like used gym towels, with a few new bruises (I have a knack for running into things) my cheeks strained from smiling (good customer service, y'all) and my pants stained with oil and cleaning solution used to wipe down the bikes.  After a shower we get a few minutes of quality time, then it's off to bed for me.

During the day, I'm trying to get the business of living done - working on a couple of outlines I have due, working on new projects, finishing up thank you cards (which are in the mail, which means if you don't get one by the end of the week we didn't get your present), grocery shopping and Daisy walking and I have a freelance gig for the month of August (thank you Ninja Jesus).  The floors of the Detective Agency are coated in dog hair and there's laundry multiplying at an exponential rate and I'm actually losing weight because I'm too tired to eat (!!!).  Usually during these times (like the move) I just buckle down figuring there's an end in sight but there isn't an end in sight, and on top of it all I have the looming question of how long to I work to keep my head above water?  If one of these things doesn't break, what next? 

Those questions are always there, it's just lately that they've been highlighted through lack of together time with Will and hangout time with my friends - our friends - some who I haven't seen since before the wedding.  I feel cut off.  Isolated.  Excommunicated. 

I know other people feel this way. I know that there are couples who work five jobs between two people and have it much, much worse. 

It's just that I keep feeling like there's some puzzle piece, some jagged part that will make the rest fit together and give me a clear view of the picture. But I haven't found it yet.

A Duo of Poop.

A duo of toilet-training tales for you today.

When I was but a wee babe (that's not like, a babe-in-training, but more like a toddler) SlackMom had the worst time potty training me.  I was reading way beyond my years, but I just didn't have the attention span to just sit there and do it.  She went through her bag o' tricks and then some, and finally it hit her.  She handed me a book and said you can read on the toilet, y'know.

That was my last day in diapers.

...

Flash forward to yesterday.  SlackNiece J. is running the potty training gauntlet herself.  Some days are better than others, and while Everybody Poops, she hasn't been able to do it in the grown-up potty.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday evening, at approximately 9:30pm CST, SlackNiece J.'s #2 made her #1, as she deposited her kids at the pool.   According to SlackMom, Lil' J. ran downstairs very excited and pleased with herself, and wanted her dad - Older SlackBrother J. - to see her handiwork.

Off he went and he ooohed and aaaahed and he told her how proud he was. 

She beamed, then looked at him, her face a mask of utter seriousness and said.

Daddy, don't eat it!

Neighbors, Part Two: Electric Boogaloo.

Will's discussion with our next door neighbor reminded me of a conversation I heard a few weeks ago.  I was getting ready to leash up Daisy for a walk when I heard L. outside out front door.  L. lives directly above us with our landlady, P.  He looks like a deranged elf, tiny and compact, the sort of person who you can easily see as a toddler, all knees and elbows.  Except that he's now in his 60s, and the voice that emanates from his wee frame would be one suited more to God delivering the commandments from on high (if God was a wee elf living in Los Angeles, that is.)

I hesitated, not wanting to open the door as conversations with L. are always single-spaced and single-sided, as he stands too close and talks too loud and doesn't give you a chance to respond.  Even Daisy hung back, as if sensing imminent danger in the the tidal wave of vocalizations.  Thankfully, our next-door neighbor cruised up to his front door.  J. is 40 but looks 30, the sort of guy who'll either fix your leaky sink or punch your lights out - or both.

Hey, J. L. calls out.

Hey L.

J., your girlfriend's been around a bit.

She has.

She's quite attractive.

She is.

I mean, L. continues, I find her quite attractive.

I hear the in J's voice.  Uh-huh.

What I'm trying to say is that I find myself quite attracted to her.

J. unlocks his front door but doesn't go inside.

Y'know what I'd like, J.?

What?  I hear J. ask tightly.

I'd like a fanny pack.  One that says "America."  Or maybe "CASINO!"



The Detective Agency is a lot of things, but boring is never one of them.

...

This week's BetheMarriage can be seen here.

 

BetheMarriage Episode Nine!

Two minutes? I asked increduously.

Two minutes, he responded.

You summed up our entire marriage in two minutes?

It's not our entire marriage, he said, it's just what I wanted to say this evening.

Okay, I replied, clearly perturbed.

You're upset.

I just thought I'd rate more than two minutes!

I do this different than you do.  Just watch it.

It's against the rules, I reminded him.

I can redo it.

No, no, that's unfair, I told him.  As long as it's honest.

It's honest.

That's all I can ask for.

Those who know me will understand that it's even better...

Previous episodes of BetheMarriage can be viewed here.

...

A few of you have asked what I've thought about the whole Michael Vick Dogfighting (read: pit bull fighting) nightmare.  I haven't commented on it because I didn't think there was much to comment on.  Whether you're a fan of the pit bull or not (and I have closed comments entry because I do not want to get into a debate about it), I'd hope we can all pretty much agree that dogfighting is a horrific, cruel and inhumane.  Dogfighters are notorious but training their dogs by starving them, beating them, burning them, feeding the gunpowder and dragging them behind cars, all in a attempt to "toughen them up."  You think human beings can't sink to a lower level of depravity until someone gets a pickax and proves you wrong.

It's not just that the laws prohibiting dogfighting (and animal abuse in general)aren't tough enough; the laws aren't enforced.  I sincerely hope that the Vick Prosecution  is a step in the right direction, because I don't think my fantasy of putting them through the same sort of torture that they made their dogs endure is going to come try any time soon.   

In the meantime, here's some photos of my fighting dog.

Fighting for room.

Fighting for dignity.

Fighting to stay awake.

So fuck you, Mr. Vick.  You were in a unique position to help this breed.  Hell, you could have just been another macho idiot trying compensate with his (lack-of)  manhood by getting a "tough" dog, that'd be a-okay. 

But dogfighting?  You should be set on fire.  For sport. 

I'd even light the match.

Sweet Little Lies...

Last night I had a dream. I was at a high school reunion somewhere in Las Vegas.  Will and I were walking through a maze of psychedelic-carpeted hallways until we reached the auditorium where an awards ceremony was taking place.  We threw open the doors and it was my high school theater, relocated to a Vegas hotel.  I nervously shoved a wad of gum in my mouth and began to chew when I felt an odd tug at my gums.  I ran to the nearest mirror to discover that the gum had loosened and nearly pulled out my front four teeth (all veneers.)  Will tried to calm me down as I tried to extract the sticky mess from my mouth.  A tooth popped out just as one of my high school friends, JJ, came running down the hall.  While most of my high school group is still connected via the Internet, JJ sort of fell off the map.  Partially due to a Little White Lie he told our senior year of high school.

We had all been going on our various college interviews, Northwestern and Brown and Wesleyan and U of I and Boston U and the like.  I hadn't gotten into my first choice (Yale), which was more than my 17-year old brain could handle.  Northwestern was my backup (I had a tremendous sense of ego, even back then) and it was suggested that I should apply somewhere else.  JJ was applying to B.U., so I thought what the hell, Boston seems like an excellent place to go to college.  He told us all he was flying out one weekend for his interview and he came back brimming with excitement.  I scheduled my interview next, but with an alumni who lived a couple of towns over.

She greeted me at the door and we sat down in her kitchen and over coffee she grilled me about school and my social life and my plans for the future.  I wanted to be a Filmmaker, preferably a Documentarian or someone who tackled Tough Social Issues (c'mon, I was 17!).  Forty-five minutes later she told me that she was going to recommend me, and commented that she was excited to be able to recommend two students from our school.

Who else? I asked.

JJ, she responded.

Oh, you were in Boston when he was there? I said, still not getting it.

No, I interviewed him right here at the kitchen table.  She paused.  Did he say he went to Boston?

Uh, no.  I must be confused. 

I shook her hand and left.

I was confused.  Why would he lie to his friends about something so inconsequential?  The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.  Sometimes he tried to impress with tales of designer clothes and lost riches.  And I actually didn't mind that he did it - I minded that he did it to us.  We were his friends.  He should have been able to be himself.  I would have backed him up to strangers (or people we didn't like), but the insincerity with people that liked him for who he was - that was just a bit much to bear.

We all tell lies, lies big and small and silly and serious and sometimes they get us in trouble and sometimes they get us ahead.  We tell them to our friends and our family and to strangers and our boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives.  We tell them to ourselves just to get through the day.  Truth is a jacket left in the lost and found.  It's there, it's just buried under orphaned scarves and unpaired mittens.

I don't think lying is necessarily a bad thing.  I've told a couple of whoppers in my life.  Both times were an act of self-preservation, as the truth wouldn't have set me free.  However, those lies led to more lies.  Prevarication became easier with practice and soon I couldn't tell the difference between the truth and a fabrication anymore.  That continued right up to the point when the slack began (1997) and suddenly I had a practically-anonymous  outlet for the Truth.  I promised myself I wouldn't lie to my readers (all four of them) and slowly I made my way back to the Honest Life.

Of course, it would be a lie to say that I never lie.  Hell, the topic of yesterday's post  might be construed as lying to some.  But I make a concentrated effort to walk the straight and narrow.  I fear that it may be boring, but at least I can keep my stories straight.

I never confronted JJ with his lie, and I know that's the reason - at least for me - that he just faded away.  I can only hope that he had the same reckoning that I did. 

Catty Corner.

I was raised Catholic - not a no-meat-on-Fridays-ever Catholic - but the  First-Communion-and-Confirmed Church-Every-Sunday kind.  This was on the direct orders of SlackMom, who would have been brought the SlackKids up Russian Orthodox (like she was) but at that time, there weren't any convenient Orthodox Churches in the suburbs.  So every Sunday, we loaded up the family car and drove to St. Pet's, where we knelt and bowed and sat and genuflected, and SlackMom nudged me in the ribs to keep my knees together because I had a tendency to sit like a boy (clearly I learned, though) and not pick at my nails (which I still do when I'm bored.) 

Eastertime had us getting Palms on Sunday and Ashed on Wednesday, but Lent was when you brought in the Big Guns.  Every Lent you were supposed to Give Something Up.  SlackDad, however, presented us with a twist.  For 40 days and 40 nights (plus Sundays) we were to take someone that we hated, disliked, or were just plain annoyed by - and pray for them.  Unkind thoughts were to be replaced by kind ones. If we ran across them, we were to be nice to them.

It was much harder than going without chocolate.

SlackDad might be sad to hear that I no longer go to Church and I think of my Catholicism as cultural more than religious (although I'm pretty sure he knows by now).  However, he'd be happy to know that being extra-nice to people I'm extra-annoyed by is no longer a 40-day practice but a life philosophy that I work at Every.Single.Day.  The fact is that I'm easily annoyed by people (ask my husband!) and that in and of itself annoys me.  While it's rare that I completely write someone off (although it does happen), it's difficult for me to return to neutral ground once my Irritation Meter has been set off.  So I work the principle of Be Extra Nice. 

Occasionally the sheer act of being nice to someone over time makes the act of being nice to them no longer an act, but a habit, and I end up getting over whatever I was annoyed by to begin with and make an effort to be friends with them.  I'd like to tell you all that this is my true goal.  But I'd be lying (which is also Not Nice.)  It's my own damn fault I'm such a Bitch, so my penance is to Be Nice.

Why am I even writing about this?  Because I want to be catty today.  But I'm not.

I AM BEING NICE.