Lucy's Spleen

Revivification

Okay we are back in action! You will notice we have a new look here at the House of Spleen, not to mention a new photo album (but of old photos) over along the west wall there, and an updated About Page, providing relevant and up-to-the-moment information! There is a post about my birthday here, and the original contents of my first-ever About Page has been archived in post form here. Some of you know that I edit obsessively, so expect more changes to things you have already looked at over the course of the next couple of days. In the meantime, here it all is, and we will attempt to avoid such mishaps in the future.

Most Sincerely,
The Management

Quatorze Juillet

Okay, catching up- quick!

My birthday! July 14th! Also Bastille Day! Which came first- me, or La Première République? See if the following clues lead you to the answer.

Here was birthday lunch with the goyls:

I love this picture because of our hands. Those are Teaspoon's down there on the bottom, creating order as they do; and that's mine up there pouring the dranks, of course. And with such purpose! Check out my index finger! So firm and steadying!

Speaking of the dranks, have you tried Tortoise Creek's Rosé D'Une Nuit? Check out the label: evidently those are little tortoises, but what with the beret and goatee and lipstick and glass of pink wine, don't you think they should really be frogs?

Okay, moving on. Dig Leaux's birthday pompadour:

I had a lovely afternoon, spent with my favorite people, them gals and them dogs. We ate and drank and took a little snooze and went swimmin'; so relaxing! Here are Nina and the angibals demonstrating how relaxed we were:

(P.S. the light through the window! Celestial! Did I forget to mention that Jebus stopped by to be all like, happy birthday yo? This picture proves it.)

And here's me demonstrating- well, something... I figure this picture was taken after we were pretty well into that pink wine. Maybe I'm trying to form a numeral with my tongue- three for 30, since that's what age I decided to turn. Chronologically I'm twenty-seven, but I figure I'll just start saying I'm thirty now, and keep on saying it for the next ten years or so. Economical, don't you think? And easy to remember! Anybody asks you how old I am, the answer's thirty. Thanks.

Here was the highlight of my day. Will you just look? Wow!

I know I posted that other (less blurry) image of these fleurs already, but I'm telling you, when Nina walked in the door with this arrangement from Date Guy I just burst into tears. It was the size of  our sofa, and look how glorious it was in our dining room! These flowers are the single reason Tiny and I decided we love our pink walls after all; saving me days of laborious painting! Thanks, Date Guy!

To summarize: good day, great friends, very hot, slightly drunk, beautiful flowers, turned thirty.

Not twenty-seven, it's THIRTY. Got it?

J-e-r-e happens to spell, "hurray."

Almost Reddy

Okay we've just about got it figured out here. Bear with us, folks, we'll be back online shortly. Thank you for your patience and thanks for flying TWA.

Original About-Page Stylings: December 15, 2004 - July 28, 2005

"My name is Emma. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah with my mom, her wife, our three dogs and a guinea pig, Oink Benjamin, that we keep as a pet, not as dinner. I will write a lot about the dogs (herein referred to as The Bitches, and not to be confused with my three best girlfriends, The Bitches). My personal dog is Lucy; this site is named after her spleen.

I was born in Salt Lake City, raised in Salt Lake City and, apart from the year 1997 when I lived for a time in a very SMALL town in Kansas, have always lived in Salt Lake City. Yes I was raised in the Mormon faith; no my father was not a polygamist; NO MORMON WOMEN DO NOT WEAR LITTLE BONNETS, and no I do not attend church (of any type) anymore.

I try to take one Major Trip (temporospatial, not psychological) every year. This, combined with acute financial retardation, is the reason for my current debt. Said debt is the reason that this will be the first year since graduating high school that I will not have taken a Major Trip. I am very low on the totem pole in a non-profit, but not ALL the way at the bottom as I still get to be the boss of people there. Lately I have taken a second job as a barista in a small cafe, where I am routinely courted by a passel of lonely and clueless older men, and the occasional pervy lech.

I have enjoyed learning, here and there by bits, some components of French, music theory, the Bible, Phonetics, genetic disorders and organic gardening. I remember next to nothing about any of these subjects.

I have trouble finishing what I start and knowing the difference between Being Candid and Revealing Waaay Too Much.

I love: swearing, all animals and babies, cooking, throwing Dance Parties, and talking about sex whenever possible.

On this website I will publish posts:
1) wherein I gush about my (sex) life
2) wherein I gush about my dogs
3) wherein I bitch endlessly about my (sex) life
4) wherein I! use ma!ny exclamation points!
5) wherein I punch my dogs in the face

Also, look for yourself in my photo galleries where I label pictures of my friends with actual subject lines from junk email I get spammed with daily!"

Spleen is experiencing technical difficulties.

Please bear with us while we work this pynch out.

Goin' Goin' Back Back to Cali Cali

Hello why am I not posting? Because I'm in California! Again! I'm visiting Date Guy! He sent me these flowers for my birthday! See? We must love him!

Powered by Typeshaft

Holy God! Typepad is calling these "improvements?" Sorry about the million posts of the same thing. They have been removed. Hopefully this won't be happening again.

Also Credited by Some Sources as the Inventor of "Mayhem"

Come on, Gar! We all know you stole the idea for "Wearing the Pabst Box on Your Head at the End of the Night" from Henri Beauregard!

Henri's other major invention, "Sporting an Aluminum Foil Helmet and Swilling from a Bottle of Warm Czech Liqueur While Wet," is less well-known, but analysts predict the concept will represent a major trend this fall- spreading eastward across the country from Salt Lake City, Utah- and will spur an upswing in the economy through elevated sales of aluminum foil following the release of this photo:

Happy Bidet yesterday, Nadrew.

I love you always very much,

Emma

Wherein I Finally Get Around to Writing About the Rest of My Trip, Mainly to Shame Myself by Mentioning How Embarrassingly Sick I Got

And then...

• It became Friday night! We assembled, with the addition of a rather acerbic fellow I'll refer to as Bill (I was going to call him "Bile," but I'm thinking just "Bill" is a bit nicer), and, because I have a motto dictating that one should Never Arrive Entirely Sober and Sparky's motto is something more like Never Be Entirely Sober At All If You Can Help It, we got a little bit ready to go out at Date Guy's house, and then out we went!
• My three dates took me to a bar where everything was upholstered red and sexy. We took the (red-carpeted) elevator upstairs, which eliminated the whole pass-the-bouncers-get-your-ID-checked-pay-a-cover thing (do you have to pay a cover in California? Who knows? We didn't.), and rather enhanced our flair. The elevator doors opened, we strode out, and it was all happening for us; people were smiling, (red-upholstered) lounge seating was just offered right up, when the place was super crowded and no one should have been able to get a seat, Sparky and Date Guy barely had to jostle for a place at the (illuminated red) bar to procure drinks, while-
• Bill and I got to know each other across the table. It was an unusual conversation in that the topics that most enthused Bill were: Being All Alone in the World, Having No Family or Friends to Speak Of, and Dying Alone- Utterly, Utterly Alone. Yet at the time I found him quite enjoyable! Me and Bill: Best New Pals in Loneliness! Whatever! I was wasted!
• The boys came back with drinks, and then our server appeared. She had short red hair, she had a short red skirt, she had three fine metal circles going down her back in lieu of a complete shirt and she had a pair six-inch diameter thighs hugged in tall black stockings. She had all four of us from the moment we laid eyes on her. She said her name was Austen, after Prefontaine's grandmother or fiance or somebody, and we said let's take Austen along with us everywhere we go. Austen had money piling up on her tip tray in unholy volumes to ensure that she'd be coming back to our table again and again and again. She brought us drinks, she brought us olives, she stopped by just to say hello and probably made about fifty bucks for the effort, she gave us chocolate souffle and some girl came along asking for a bite of it and we gave her a bite and her eyes rolled back in her head cause it was sooo good and we LAUGHED! O the merriment! Have a bite of souffle how delicious of you! Have you seen our waitress? Ho ho here's some money! Give us a bite of your ha ha ha ha ha!
• Austen brought us many waters and then the bar closed and we stumbled out into the night and did not wind up taking her after all.
• We wound up at Sparky's studio where Date Guy performed some mysterious ramblings around in the yard while I put on some hit bossa nova selections and danced with Bill (who is probably better at dancing alone) and Date Guy was still away in the yard so I drank some whiskey and after Date Guy came in for a moment but went back out again (still mysteriously) I danced with Sparky for what seemed like a very long time and then at last came Date Guy really, at which point my memory gets all muddled and I have very little idea of what happened next so suffice it to say sometime somehow we arrived home again.* I'm sure of this because that is where-
• I spent the entirety of the next day vomiting.
• Except for a few episodes of fitful sleeping or laying there quietly moaning into my pillow.
• But you know what? Every time I opened my eyes (or just my one eye, usually), there was Date Guy fretting over me and saying "Sorry we broke you." He didn't leave my side the whole day. That was very nice of him.
• We had been fabulous enough. Once I recovered we spent the rest of my visit in a quieter, more intimate way. We did activities such as Just Hanging Around the House Together and were so relaxed about that and each other that I'd get a little shock from time to time realizing I have known this man for no more than two Hair Phases, which is practically no time at all, yet here we are so relationship-y, and wondering how that came to happen.
• I haven't figured out how yet.
• Per my request to "save something to do in your house so I can leave my mark on it," we shopped for some gear for Date Guy's home; and we went to the movies and out to eat, took a few walks, and drove around the gorgeous forested California hills and had a generally lovely time together, all the while with me thinking, "Wow! I could totally live here!"
• Not that that's in the works, so don't go getting any ideas...

The end.

• Oh yeah- then I came home, and it was hotter here than in California, and I wished to go back immediately.

The end. Really.

* I assume Bill also made it home- utterly, utterly alone.

How Not to Get Hired

Hey everyone, did you read what Mimi Smartypants A Chicagoland Institution wrote about the person who chose a very unfortunate email address and made the further unfortunate mistake of using it as the contact address on his or her RESUME?

Well, from the time I worked for the Chair of a major department in Health Sciences at a university, and I was sorting and processing and filing a stack of candidate CV's for some type of study fellowship or possibly a position for like, Division Director or something, I must respond to Mimi's post to say:

Dear Mimi,

I'll see your "SacredElvenPath" and raise you one ButteredCornHole@(provider); and no, sadly, I am NOT kidding!