the slack daily

Please Don't Encourage Them...

I'm at Pointless Banter today with Please Don't Encourage Them: Celebrity Hobbies That Must Be Stopped.

This is the Story of Two Terrible People...Who Found Each Other.

Will and I were watching The Tudors last night. (Which could alternatively be called, Rich People Fuck and Poor People Die. Come to think about it, you could cover a good part of history with that.) We're at the part when Queen Jane is giving birth to her son but having a difficult time of it. The King's Physician says to King Henry VIII you may have to decide between the life of the mother and the life of the child.

Will turns to me. Oh, that's easy.

Really? I said skeptically.

Sure. I'd choose you. I'd always choose you.

Why's that? I asked.

Because I know you. That kid of ours could turn out to be a jerk.

Well, if it is our kid... I thought out loud.

You know he'd be a jerk, Will continued.

You're a terrible human being.

I know, he said. But so are you. Isn't it great we found each other?

The Question Is, Did They Stop at Weinerschnitzel?

As some of you read on Twitter last night, Daisy J. Dog developed a severe limp at about 7pm last night, so Will and I took her to the after-hours emergency vet. Limping isn't exactly an emergency, so we were relegated to take a number status while the more serious cases went ahead of us. Finally, Daisy was taken into the back and we sat with the vet while he gave her an exam. Daisy did what she did best, which is let him poke and prod and twist her this way and that, indicating that she was in no pain (except for a severe limp.) When he was done we decided to go the x-ray route, so he took her into a room in the back while we went back up front to the waiting room.

Coming in was a dachshund who had swallowed something that was clearly giving him physical distress. Brought in by a woman in her 60s and her elderly mother, we listened as the woman described how they were visiting her mom at the nursing home when the dog started acting strange. He eats anything that's not bolted down, she told the vet tech at the front desk.

The dog was whisked to the back while the woman and her mother sat, hands clenching into fists with worry. Up next was a Police Officer and his drug-sniffing dog. He's got a hematoma on his ear, he explained to me.

I nodded and was thankful that I hadn't been hanging out with Jessica earlier that day.

The vet tech called the woman who owned the doxie. She went up to the front desk, and the vet tech handed her the phone. The vet wants to speak with you.

The woman grabbed the phone and looked back to her aged mother for support.

Yes? She said into the receiver.

I watched as her features turned from worry to confusion.

He's ingested...marijuana? But how could that happen? He was at my mother's nursing home!

The mom clutched her frail sides and slumped down in her chair. I was worried she was having some sort of attack when I heard it: laughter.

MOM?

It's my roommate's, I swear! she said between cackles.

Your roommate has...her voice trailed off as she realized that the Police Officer with his nice, drug-sniffing dog were sitting right here.

We'll be right back, she whispered to the front desk. Mom, let's go!

It's prescription! Mom yelled as they made their way out of the clinic.

I turned to the Police Officer, who shrugged. Hey, California Voters voted to make that legal, who am I to argue?

I nodded. You'd think the fact that the dog wanted to stop at the 7-11 for some Funyuns before the vet clinic would have been their first clue.

Epilogue: Daisy J. Dog had nothing untoward show up on her x-rays, so the thought was that she had pulled a muscle. We were sent home with some anti-inflammatories, some pain meds, and instructions to restrict her exercise for the next few days. Oh, and a $400 vet bill, but we're sure that she's got that saved up in her snuggle ball somewhere.

   

Or not.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words and concern! She's not limping at all today, so I'm sure she just pulled a muscle.

Meanwhile, in Internetland...

• Will wraps up the weekend, which includes a surprise visit from the Wenis Commissioner.

• The Tell-Tale Fart, Part Two: Jessica holds a Pep Boys Manager hostage.

• Friend o' Slack Ivonne Carley finally starts an artblog! She does commissioned work, like this beyond adorable elephant print.  

• Another Friend o' Slack Felicia Sullivan has the paperback version of her memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible From Here hitting bookstores tomorrow! Click here to enter to win a signed copy!

• And yet ANOTHER Friend o' Slack Lenora Claire's show Bettie Page: Heaven Bound opens at the World of Wonder Storefront Gallery this Saturday. Read the interview here.

• Finally, Vintage Caveman's partially digested twin has escaped and is doing Schick Quattro ads.

Urf Day

Today is Earth Day, where we're all supposed to don hemp panties and write a post about how green we all are. Then someone is supposed to comment that we're doing it wrong, that they're greener than us because they not only separate the paper from the plastic but they also drive a Prius. And then someone else is supposed to interject that we're both full of shit, because not only do they separate the paper from the plastic but they don't even own a car. And the someone else is supposed to jump in I'm a breatharian so I don't even rape Mother Earth for her delicious, delicious vegetables. PNWED!

A friend of mine once asked me if I was green and I said yes, and in fact when I was growing up I hated my olive complexion so much that I used to slather on this lavender goo to give me the peaches-and-cream complexion that my WASPy brethren had.

She doesn't speak to me anymore.

I'm not anti-Earth Day. I love the Earth. Without the Earth I'd be floating somewhere in the atmosphere and you can't breath out there without a special suit and while I love dress-up, an astronaut suit would make my ass look fat, and when I'd ask Will if my ass looked fat in this astronaut suit he'd be all you are the most beautiful woman alive and then I'd know he'd be lying and then we'd get in a big fight so let's keep the Earth around, mmkay?

To sum up:

Earth = good.
Will = good.
Astronaut suits = puffy.
Breatharians = hungry.

 

With Hilary Duff  at the Environmental Media Awards in 2001. We won for the Lizzie McGuire episode "Obsession." (This picture is pre-jaw surgery, so yes, my smile looks different.)

A Parable (Of Sorts.)

Back in 1994, I was volunteering at the Santa Barbara County Animal Shelter (where I met my beloved Thurber.)  I'd don my bright green "VOLUNTEER" vest and walk dogs, hose down cages, and talk to the public about new canine companions. I was fresh out of college and looking for my first (Hollywood) job but needed something to make me feel useful during the day.

A woman walked into the shelter and started to peruse the cages.

Can I help you? I asked.

She waved me off, so I watched as she made her way up and down the rows of dogs. She would lean over the guardrail (we had indoor/outdoor kennels) and peer at each dog. They would run out and wag their tail at her expectantly, and she would grimace and move onto the next cage, repeating the process. Cage after cage, dog after dog, her face growing more and more sour.

She made her way around the entire shelter - 50-some dogs in all and then returned to me.

Her face was pinched in a perpetual grimace. Her stubby fingers tucked a piece of strawlike hair behind her ear and wiped at a bead of sweat that trickled down past the mole on her chin.

All of your dogs are ugly, she spat out. No one's going to want these dogs.

Thanks for visiting the Santa Barbara County Animal Shelter! I called after her as she lumbered away.

I thought you should be glad your mother didn't think the same thing.

Moral of the story: If you don't have anything nice to say, blog it instead.

The volunteer organization that I was a part of in Santa Barbara is the Dog Adoption and Welfare Group (DAWG.) You can visit them here.

BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice) Tonight! Will is Back (or is He?)

We're live at 8pm PST tonight - or at least I am!

(Click the image to get to the show!)

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Five TV Shows That Should Be Movies!

I'm at Pointless Banter today with Five TV Shows That Should Be Movies.

(Also: those of you who make a living by using Photoshop have no worries about me stealing your job.)

Hit "Snooze." Twice.*

This morning, 6:32am:

Will wakes up. Rolls over.

My alarm is going off in a few minutes, he tells me.

Urm, I respond

We look at each other with evil in our hearts. You know what sort of evil I'm talking about.

Later:

He grabs his towel to go shower.  Hey, I'm not even going to be late for work!

...

Wait, that's not something to brag about, is it?

[*Blogged with permission - by suggestion, even!]

Miss Havisham, Revisited.

Last night, Daisy J. Dog was nosing at a box.

Careful, Daisy, Schrödinger's cat is in there.

She looked at me.

So I explained the joke to her.

It's a good thing Will is coming home today.

...

If you missed Saturday Night's show, you missed our "alternate opening" created by Rob and Kelly:

Thanks again to my guest host Oslowe and special guest Kathryn! You can check out the entire night's hijinks here:

 

...

Apropos of nothing, I'm constantly being added by people who are into Mistresses. Now I am being added by people who are following an army of slutty Ninas.  I remember when I was growing up I was pissed that I could get nothing with my name on it, and the only characters named after me in a book were hunchbacks. Am I being recruited to be a part of some slutty Nina revenge?