Satan's Rest Room

I immediately suspected the monkeys of installing a camera in my bathroom when I heard an odd clicking noise. More disgusted than anything, I looked gingerly around the room, henceforth known as Satan’s rest room, until I found the source. It pains me that this undertaking has become a familiar routine when it comes to that place. Every day now I have to prepare myself to enter, as I never know what I will find. With a deep breath I push open the door and hope for the best.

This new noise however, was not from a camera craftily hidden by the monkeys. It was from the toilet. Satan strikes again. It’s not enough that he’s been washing his feet in my sink and pulling at the pipes in my ceiling. No, now he’s gone and messed with the throne.

Granted the toilet itself is about 112 years old, I can think of no other reason why it would suddenly pick now to leak instead of say 12 years ago when it hit the big centennial, than Satan having something to do with it.

If not for the toxic blue cleansing tablet I dropped in the tank a few weeks ago, Satan’s rest room would have been flooded and another cute little rug disposed of. As it stands, the floor behind the toilet was stained a light blue, a fact I wouldn’t have noticed if the noise hadn’t been coming from that general area.

But I’ve one upped him. Now I collect the water in a little bucket and when it is full I dump it back into the toilet where it belongs. Take that Satan.

His brother, El Diablo, lives in our microwave. Some days when the electricity is running wild, he writes us notes in Spanish on the display.

Amy Sedaris is my idol

I will love her forever.

Talk about a star of the silver screen.

I've watched this 37 times today. Only 63 more to go.

Yeah? Well At Least Liubiju Will Go Grey Before We Do

Every Beijinger knows Liubiju, the 500-year-old pickle-shop.

Can we discuss?

There is a pickle shop in China older than The United States. We're just a spoiled, snot nosed pre-teen nation trying prove that we can yell the loudest.

A pickle shop people.

Last Politiking Picture #2

Sometimes, I just can't resist.

All I Need To Know...

I learned from Gramps.

Easier Said Than Texted

I finally took the leap and purchased a new cell phone as well as a new service to boot. Not that there are that many differences in how each company screws you out of money, but at least now I’m actually able to talk on my cell in my bedroom while emptying my pockets into their bank account.

I used to call the area by the right front window in the living room my phone booth because it’s the only place I got service. (See it could be worse for proof.) I still find myself wandering over to it when on the phone. Old habits die hard, no?

But no more!

Aside from all the outrageous fees I now have to pay in order to terminate one service and begin another, I need to figure out how to use my brand spanking new cell. You may be thinking, bukbuk, how do you not know how to use a phone? Well my dear, the phone part I’ve got down. It’s all the other various functions I really don’t need but will end up using because all my friends do and I just can’t stand to be left out of the techno circle.

Indeed.

And so I document here my first text message exchange (with wonderturtle!) using my new phone.

Wonderturtle: R u watching alias?

Hapabukbuk: so prISSdeede Moonmoonmoonmoonmoonon

I tried and tried but could not get the auto text setting to change, and so my intended message of “so pissed, missed the first hour” came out as nonsense. Too frustrated to change it, I hit send and hoped wonderturtle would figure it out.

Wonderturtle: WTF? I just wanted 2 know if now is a bad time 2 call. Weirdo.

Alas, she cannot read hapabukbuk and I had to call her.

I still have not cracked open the manual to figure it out.
It’s the principle you know? If I want the stupid thing to choose my words for me, I'll use one of the handy dandy templates they've provided.

Why they gotta waste my flava? DAMN!

This Is How I Feel Today

kim's picture reprinted without permission

Grab Your Paint Brush

Here's the paint:

a child's portrait
- i won the gold in a skiing contest when i was 7.
- i got a 'thanks for participating' trophy both years my mother entered me in a jr. miss america pageant. (i cried alot on stage. who would have thought i didn't enjoy being judged by a room full of strangers?)
- my best friend told me about tampons when i was 6 and she was 7. i didn't believe her.
- she also told me about sex. i didn't believe that either.
- i've only ever hit one person out of anger. i slapped danny gonzales when i was 9. i can't remember why.
- i got my first grey hair at 16.
- i confessed that i made fun of a girl named karen in order to complete the requirements for first communion.
- when i was little i always agreed to play this incomprehensible medieval board game with my older brother just to spend time with him.
- i took baton twirling classes for 3 years.
- i used to hook my hands over the top of the back of my dad's pants and swing between his legs when i small. that is, until one day i hooked my hands over a cowboy's pants and that ended that.

a modern portrait
- i cry in my sleep.
- i also laugh in my sleep.
- i suffer from bruxism and i think i'm developing gerd. (could they make these things sound any worse?)
- i refuse to eat mushrooms, brussel sprouts or avocado.
- sometimes i still miss my cat. it's been 4 years.
- i will not run for the bus.
- i never hit the snooze button. years of having the alarm clock across the room never allowed that habit to form.
- one of my first thoughts upon waking up every morning is what day is it?
- i'll try anything physically life threatening once. if it's fun, twice.
- i believe that life and death are manifestations of energy.

One Last Politiking Picture

I hold this truth to be self-evident.

Where's Monica When You Need Her?

I very much want to stay away from politiking, but this woman is my hero. Excuse me while I change my shirt. My bleeding heart you see.

Violent Impatience

Though my friends would disagree, I am not a violent person. Listen, it’s all bark and no bite. I promise. But the other day I had to internally calm myself down or I think I might have actually kicked someone. Hard.

I ran down to the post office around 4pm to mail one thing. The line at the self-help mailbox had a few people on it, but not too bad. In taking my time to prepare my own priority envelope, two more people got on line despite the fact that I was standing very close to it. Whatever.

I looked up the line and realized 3 out of the 4 people standing in front of me had multiple packages. This immediately irritated me because this was supposed to be a quick way to mail things, not take your time weighing packages and lollygagging. The guy mailing 2 things stepped aside and the girl mailing 5 stepped up. It was OBVIOUSLY her first time using the machine and I wanted to push her out of the way to do it myself. Each package was placed gently on the scale, then she looked back and forth to double check the input of zip codes as she typed on the screen, then placed them gently on the floor next to her after the postage was dispensed 5 minutes later.

Each beep of information she typed was like a drop of Chinese water torture on my forehead. I started to become fidgety which I’m sure the woman behind me didn’t appreciate. The workday was marching on without me. This was supposed to have taken 10 minutes at most.

I wanted to jump up and down on all her nice, pretty packages.

She finally finished her business and the next woman in line self-helped her two packages. It was less time than the woman before but it still felt like an hour. The woman in front me had 2 envelopes and it made me happy until I realized they were her taxes and she was going to buy insurance and confirmation and all that other crap the PO gets you to buy.

I wanted to scream.

When it was my turn, it literally took me 2 minutes to complete my transaction and I was on my way. During that time however, the 5 package girl was told by a Postal worker that none of her packages would get where they were going because she didn’t use the machine properly. I felt pity for a moment before it hit me that she not only wasted my time with her shenanigans, but she wasted it for no reason.

And I wanted to kick her. Hard.

It's Official. Crumbs Still Edible For Addict.

Ok, for real? I think I have a problem. Admitting it is the first step, no?

I bought two bags of Chips Ahoy at Target the other day (Nabisco or Targetcorp, I'd love some sort of swag for the mention...a lifetime of cookies? I would not be opposed) because they were 2/$5.00, a deal I physically cannot pass up. Being the cookie connoisseur I am, I felt along the top of each row to make sure none of the cookies were broken. It was as if a truck had backed up over them and then drove forward again! The Horror!! I actually went through four bags before I resigned myself to taking home damaged goods.

Because I am just that much of a cookie whore.

I sat down to eat them for dessert after dinner, thinking eh, it won’t be so bad. Only a few feel broken, I can live with that. I opened the package and a majority of my goodies were in tact. Much to my chagrin however, when I touched one to pick it up it just about disintegrated. Heartbroken, I scooped up the crumbs and tried to dip them in milk.

I actually tried to dip them in milk.

Savoring what I could, I moved on to cookie number two, only to experience the same heartbreak. I realized I couldn’t go on shoving my whole hand in a glass of milk because A) it's disgusting and B) my hand didn’t really fit anyway so the cookies and milk weren’t mixing, the sole purpose of consuming the two together.

Then like a flash of lightening it hit me! Why not use a utensil to navigate the crumbs through the milky storm? And thus, dipping cookie crumbs into milk using a spoon while hunched over the glass in the corner was added to my long list of character quirks.

I am addicted.

My Mom's Cooler Than Shakespeare

My mother has a saying for everything. And I’m not talking the regular clichés a lot of moms use. She used those too, but these unique sayings brand her like the megalocorporations can only dream. I’m sure other people may know them, or have heard people use them, but for me? It’s all my mom. The good thing about it is when I hear them fall from my lips it is a clear warning sign that I am becoming just like her.

Without fail every single time she took me anywhere when I was a child this is what she said:
Mom: Put on your shoes, we’re going out.
Me: Where we goin’?
Mom: To be a chocolate soldier.

Occassionally it was to Timbuktu.

Even today thinking about that response frustrates me. She never gave it up either. I had to wait until we pulled into whatever parking lot of whatever place we were going before I found out. Explains a lot about my impatience.

I IMed her yesterday and another one of my favorites was used:

Me: Good news! I got my vacation days! I’m coming to visit!
Mom: I’m so happy I could shit a cupcake!

Gigglefritz, tizzylish, sexpot, shrimpboats, piggywoggles, clodhoppers, skinnybalink.
I wish I could think of more, but I’m blanking. I got up too early this morning.

My mom rocks.

Landlord Hater Yes I Am

Reasons everyone should hate my current landlord:

~He refuses to acknowledge my bathroom ceiling needs to be fixed and painted.
~He refuses to acknowledge the fact that our water smells like dirty sweat socks.
~He refuses to acknowledge our kitchen ceiling is leaking and will one day fall on us, probably electrocuting us, while we cook.
~He's boinking a lady in the building and still refuses to tend to anyone's apartment (cuz we all have problems).
~He waited until the boiler literally broke one winter when it was colder than a witch's teat outside, and left a note on the door that said:
"The heat will be turned off tonight while the boiler is replaced. The good news is the weather forecast said it was supposed to be 45 degrees."
Good thing the wind chill that December only pulled it down to 16 degrees. Five days and twenty tenant calls to the housing authority later, we had heat.
~He refused to acknowledge the lease I signed and sent to him as per his instruction, and raised our rent 6 months into it, forcing us into a new lease which we finally got him to freaking sign.
~He's a lazy SOB who won't do a gadam thing until this entire building collapses and we all sue him for every last penny he's worth.

Reasons everyone should hate my ex-landlord:

~He's a thieving bastard who refuses to return my security deposit because he claims my roommate never paid her last months rent.
~He's a pothead asshole who keeps shitty records and sent me a handwrittten account of my alleged security account bank statement when I asked him for it, which he says was opened under some girl named April's name. I do not know this April and she was not on the lease.
~He's a smarmy liar who won't let you speak when you finally get him on the phone, out of what I can only guess is the fear that he will be proven a smarmy, thieving, lying bastard asshole pothead if you do get a word in edgewise.

But I'm not bitter. Ok I am. I am extremely bitter.
Bitter Bitter Bitter Bitter Bitter.
BUT, I'm even more bitter about the fact that I don't make enough money to buy my own dwelling place, so I am resigned to continue dealing with this nonsense until the Promotion Gods toss me a bone.

So toss me a bone dammit! What kind of ritual dance do I have to do?