Lucy's Spleen

Day 29 (tipsy: unedited)

Look how close to being almost over this is! I was going to cop out at the end here and say that were too busy drinking beer and listening to Ween* for m to blog tonight. Thhen I was goingto give you something something better to look at rather than present any atual ideas (Stan says his ideas are "beauiful, crystalline orbs" these days, but the guy gets paid to think. Anyway you won't see any of that here, this is my blog). Now it occurs to me to also anounce that total hits to this site generated by pornographic search terms are down to a mere 1/3 or so of all the hits I get. The top two searches being: 1) something I can't actually find on the internet despite routine searches by me** and 45% of people who mistakenly wind up viewing this website daily; also B) search terms that produce this tonguey image of me hamming it up on my firt 30th birthday.

What's more I was going to write about... something. Would it have been how I am peeved at someone I work with right now? Nope, i am purt careful not to blog the job. Not that so I can't remember but lease excuseme while I fi x a nother tea toddy. That's our stylings aroung her b'wintertimes: nonstop hot beveraverages, tea mostly, sometimes brandy tea toddies or tea and whiskey. One search term that hot a lot of hits to this site in the past 24 hours was "wiskhey." "Wiskhey" is not a real thing you know, but if you image search it you will find a picture of me turning 30/27! I'll leave it to you to figure out what you'll find if you search for "hot a lot" like iI just typed right there.

What you should really know is that I am a very serious person (snort!). I hae a job where people take me seriously and all my friends live 2,000 miles from here. I try to get them (job people) to take me not quite so seriously, as I, EMily, am actually a merry, casual person! Alas, this is a very traditional firm/town. Wer're liberal politically but socially parochial.  BTW Have you heard of "Massholes?" This is the true phenomenon of native Massachusettsans who act like jerks from hell for no reason. If you come here you will find these people  all over the place; most are found behind the wheel of a car or in a position to provide customer service. Probably if my job peple read this blog entry they would take me not so seriously at all. Perhapd they would even go so far as to take me for FIRED. Fortunately I don't believe they have hearod of blogs there yet.

By the way, The other reason this is spelt to fukt is that I don't do so well on the mini laptop keboard but I'm usuing the laptop tonigt because Stan's in the other room on my PC transcribing the lyrics to Learnin' to Love.*** (The main lyric goes: DOO DOO DOOBELEP Read it and weep.)

We are a proud people, my people and me.

I'm inebreitating in NaBloPoMo. (Why is there not a queer blogging event called NaBloHomo? It could be like a big public awareness campaign or something. Hello! Free idea! Somebody take it while the getting is good!)

* In certain ways the weekend still starts on Thursday, even now that I'm old.

** This just in: the possibility exists of a thing tht cannot be found on the Inetet.***

*** Blue ribbon for Least Effective Recent Spelling of the Word "Internet"

You know that feeling?

That feeling when you're like, "Damn, it's only Wednesday night. Maybe I shouldn't have had that last shot of absinthe?"

Me too.

Several Highly Disconnected Paragraphs of Unrelated "Information"

Guess where I am all up at?

I'm in a BREWERY! It's where you can eat the hell out of some fried fish since you're about to start your period, drink beer (more than 3.2% beer!) AND use the Internet AT THE SAME TIME. Not only that, but it's really fresh, local fish (not-in-the-least-bit-rubbery Monterey Squid), from the nearby OCEAN, which I was just looking at five minutes ago. When I came out of my acupuncture session I felt I needed a dose of watery goodness so I drove to the shore, where I spent a few lovely minutes enjoying the kind of plump, slow waves and that thing of the almost-full moon making a long, shimmery pattern on the water, but mostly it made me really have to pee, reminding me of another thing that makes you pee and that thing is beer! So I came here. Oh my God this is good calamari.

Did you read the post Heather wrote about the sweet Salt Lake City grid system and how easy it is to get everywhere? Well it made me want to tell you about here, and how much less easy they made it around here. There are things about getting around that are not hard, like if you know the major streets than you know that pretty much everything is located on one of those, so if you can find a major street then you're all set. Unless you need a way to get from one major street to another, in which case you're fukt. Salt Lake is laid out in something like a square, where the square is based on its center, not its perimeter. Directions are easy to remember, the mountains are east, and the lake is west, and you can see the mountains from anyplace in the city, so it's not like you can get turned around. Here the town is shaped like a crescent moon, and the ocean selected an alternative to its traditional location WEST of the continental landmass and went ahead and opted to hang out to the SOUTH. Notice how no streets run parallel to one another, how several vital ones share the same name (just replacing "Avenue" with "Drive"), some start out as one street and then split into two, and add in the fact that a couple of them have the names of major nearby suburbs and well, you're LOST. I keep a map in the car and use it only all the time. It winds up that without it it may not be that hard necessarily to get to a place, but then getting from that place to another is a major challenge. For the first time in my life I actually appreciate the freeway, as it seems to remain somewhat consistent and from time to time features SIGNS assisting one in determining wut's about to happun.

Whups. This have not been a Utah beer. These are California bieren, with percents of four and more!

I would just like to say that me and Eazy think that the execution of Tookie Williams is a WHOLE bunch of bullshiznit. I would not, however, like to say we think he's innocent, because we/I probably don't. But being for the first time a little near to it, because if you can believe this fucking joke ARNOLD IS MY GOVERNOR NOW, I decided I am adamantly anti-capital punishment, which I guess I was before, too, but never really felt up to taking a major stand on til now. I'm against it! There you go.

I got a haircut, which is not the best haircut, but I like the color of it, so I took Antes y Despues pikshers which I will reveal to you anuther taym, but for which, while I was at it, I tried the method of using the flash in the bathroom mirror but covering up the flash with your finger so it doesn't bling, er, BLIND you in the photos and I came up with an array of these Rather Arty (I think) pics. I ended up taking pitcures of msyelf for a long time, long enough that I began wondering, "am I VAIN? Cause this makes me question whether or not I am VAIN, when I take all these pictures of myself and I want to keep taking them." But maybe it is not vanity, maybe it is a matter of trying to get the right picture, because none has revealed the true subtlety of your color job yet, and because it is hard taking pictures of yourself in the mirrow and because hey! I dont hate the way I look in thesefor once! Let's take a million of them! Do you know wut I mean? Is it vain or is it no? Is it drunken? You be the judge; for your viewing plezher, here are the arty ones (of course I assume that viewing them will be a pleasure because I SAID I'm VAIN. Didn't you hear me?):

Did you check out the one I took UPSIDE DOWN to get the flash away from my face? The tiny distant first one is my fav'rit, second is the one where I'm squinching my eye. Look at my illuminated E.T. finger over the flashbulb- it looks molten, I love it.

Beers the 3.2 they arunt!

I decided to use the other arty one for my new MySpace profile. I am to my embarrassment officially joining MySpace so I can look at the friends-only sections for friends of mine who I miss and, secretly, so I can look for new friends in California because I am LONELY. I miss girls. In particular I miss three very certain girls who happen to share this birthmark:

Can you see it? It is our Gang Symbol. see how there are four arms but only three birthmarks? That is a mistake in photography, for really there are four of us, and we are attached by many squid-like arms to a network of other amazing women who love us, and who we love so dearly. I have this urge to list them all by name, right here, but I am tipsish so please don't listen to me. Thank you. We had to get Nina a little drunk to convince her to relent to that tattoo, remember? That wuz when we were having breakfast with our mimosas every weekend, before we suddenly got all grown-up and busy. I miss you. I can't wait to see you this weekend, for breakfast, like in the olden days.

Did you grow up saying that? The "Olden Days?" Why did we say it that way? What is the"en" for? Wut were we talking about? It's like, "I beggeth you." Like when I was a kid and I would pretend to be Princess Leia; I'd tie myself to the big brown vinyl La-Z-Boy and it was Jabba the Hut, then I'd try to be sexy and thrash around with my pretend leather bikini and pretend long Carrie Fisher braid (a blue polyester skirt) sprouting from the top of my head and plead, "JABBA, NO! I BEGGETH YOU!" really earnest and sexy and terrified, and then the La-Z-Boy would reach out it's stubby arm to a nearby fishbowl and slurp up a snack of some kind of enormous squeaking alien tadpole.

I have my dates all set up for my visit home this weekend; an appointment with our family eye doctor, then drinks or lunch or something with Chuck (oh yeah, and Heather, Jon and Leta), then Eazy and I want to hear Erin Haley sing somewhere along the Gallery Stroll, we'll probably hit the "Gentleman's Party" (fake moustaches, anyone?), Saturday morning breffus with the gals and the holiday party that is our whole point of going home in the first place. I have no idea what I'm going to wear. I'm also going to visit the Ticket Store, where I hear they've finally replaced me, and we'll squeeze in a whole lot of coffee from Salt Lake institution The Coffee Garden, which we miss with all our hearts. I'm looking forward to home, but not to it's horrible winter inversion pollution which, according to Garling, looks like this:

  See all the gunk in the air? Ick.

Last spring it lukt like this:

and I liked that better.

Have a beer, everybody! Three-to-the-minus-point-two! Do all the math and you get 5.6!

Here is the letter Seth wrote me, printed on ticket stock from the work-hole like I ax'd for:

i'm not a bad guy

i just forgive myself

very easily. okay i am.,

i break my girl friends

heatr or heart and

possibly her heater or heatr

every time i drink.,

mariah carey is still alive

yeah that's dumb to say

would you believe that there

are people out there who hate

me? I'm serious, I am like

so intense. They can't stand me.,

-Seth

,

Isn't it a pretty poem? To the wetted eye it is. Goodnight.

Emptying the Brown Paper Bag So I Can Breathe Into It

I include this photo of Campy and Meredith ripped from my friend Heidels's website and entitled, "Squash, A Portrait," to illustrate why I am drinking alone in the Internet cafe on Saturday night:

It's because I'm lonely! I miss these girls and other girls like them! Look at how they pose with the squash (a gift for a friend on the opening of his play)! Surely they were drunk! Or anyway if they were not drunk before the play, they definitely became drunk afterward. Meredith and Heidels and I recently missed a play we had arranged to attend because of drunkenness and the urgent need to talk for hours about sex and boys and whatever. Heidi! Meredith! That night was so fun! I am lonely and I confess- I signed up for the mailing list for the local Knitting Meetup group AND (and this is embarrassing, but wut the hell) I also signed up for Scrabble Meetup, just in case I never make friends and have finished every crossword puzzle and read all our books and don't have enough knitting projects on my hands and I get really desperate- desperate enough to assemble at a local coffeehouse or other such establishment with "Scrabblers of all ages and skill levels" which I am forced to believe really translates to middle-aged folk who spend their toilet-reading time studying words with two letters and those beginning with q with no u after it. It will be like a Singles Ward for secular, competitive people! Aauugh!

Truly I'm not drunk yet (you'd have recognized my signature intoxitypography); I'm just waiting for my guy so we can go to the movies, which I often like to do a little bit whoo!asted so I'm not as pathetic as I have made myself appear just because I signed up for Scrabble Meetup (board games are fun! Come on!). But the point is: my dog died this week, and she was my only other friend in this town and I effing MISS her. I miss her a lot, and I haven't been able to compose a beautiful poignant heartbreaking post about it for this website which, as you may have gathered, was named for her spleen.

So what I'm telling you is not that I'm unhappy, and I'm not freaking out. We got an offer on the dark cavernous but perfectly acceptable apartment for a month-to-month agreement we can sign tomorrow and move right in; which is important since we must be out of our place by the end of Tuesday. Not only that, but I found another apartment which is GOOD and I covet and we're going over with our broadest smiles and an open checkbook to try to woo the landlords into renting it to us on the spot tomorrow before we sign anything related to the Cave Apartment. Anyhow it's all very up in the air and now I'm going to the movies.

Til next time!

-en, I mean em

Don't Do It At Your All-Day Go Away Party!

And by "it" I mean this:

I just wouldn't be me if I didn't achieve a very grave sprain just in time to have to move like nine million boxes up and down (mainly down) the three flights of stairs to my apartment! These pics are from before I re-destroyed my ankle/life this "Halloween Weekend" (that's what we celebrate here in Utah because there's no partying on Mondays); the colors are much more vibrant and exciting now!

This is the second time in two years that I've rolled my right ankle seriously enough to require crutches, and the second time I've had no idea how it happened. As my boyfriend said, "Flip-flops, sunglasses and blackout drinking are the perfect combination to achieve such an injury." Pretty savvy for a guy who was 900 miles away at the time. I don't recall taking the step that caused this harm, but I do remember the flurry of activity that followed and all the lovely people who tended to me.* They do that for you when it's your Go Away Party, you know. Anyhow since apparently I was not around when my ankle injury occurred, I feel lucky when someone asks me what happened to be able to turn expectantly to my brother, and he'll provide a description of events; like how I stepped like that and my foot went this way. Or something. I'm just happy somebody was around to see it.

 

One of these things is not like the other, but hey- the party was fun! A new picture gallery will be posted soon, but not too soon because it won't be til after we get there. Okay!

* Thanks: JB and Pablo (or Dan?) for carrying me into the house; Doc and Sparky for cleverly suggesting ice and elevation; whoever brought and applied the ice; Tessa and you-know-who for holding my hand and wiping the tears I didn't know I was leaking; JT for the four Ibuprofen and the whiskey with which to down them; Derek for helping me get up and dance when I was ready; Allison for sitting at my side on the sofa; Teaspoon and Johnson for the party- prep and cleanup.

Iron Hung

There is a remnant from a long-ago party during a cold winter in a fancy house in Deer Valley that involved getting into a lot of hot water (hot tubs, hot baths, hot saunas...) and putting up with a lot of a certain rather obnoxious gay boy climbing into the beds of hetero couples and wanting to talk the night away, not taking clues that he wasn't very welcome, and narrowly avoiding having his lights punched out by the surly, burly, SOBER and sleepy fellow I was snuggling.

There was also a lot of singing, for some reason, of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" which the next morning when the lyrics transformed to the following:

I.

Am.

O-VER-HUNG.

DA DA DA DA DA DA DA!

O-VER-HUNG.

I went home that morning and sang it to JAK! and it became a kind of code for when we were both still living at mom's house. If one of us stumbled into the kitchen wearing sunglasses and moaning the riff to "Iron Man," the other would pick right up on the signal and hurry to start scrambling some eggs.

This morning, after going to the bar last night to hear Smashy Smashy and The Tremula (and dance like a banshee with Alexa) I dragged myself out of bed feeling well below par, found I missed living with my brother, and was very tempted to call him up and yell "Da da da da da da da!" into the phone. Instead I'll just wait til tomorrow when both of us roll into the bakery after an hour or so of sleep apiece and we'll sing it to each other.

Outer Space: Couleur Rose

Hey it's six o'clock, I'm home from work and I've painted one wall of the dining room a violent and frightening shade of pink! Time for a cosmopolitan! Or two! They're tasty and they match the color scheme!

It's become clear that cosmos are going to be my drink of the summer. I just wanted to let you all know, so when I invite you to my birthday party there's no need to ask what you can bring, just show up with some vodka and cranberry, and don't forget to wear something pink!

Spanks

Whoa! What was I thinking!? I have to go to work today! This is terrible! I'm rewording my list of shout out's to people I'd want to thank for their involvement in my Friday Night Drink Fest. Now it'll be the list wherein I shout AT a few people I'd like to BLAME:

• SARAH! For giving me the idea in the first place...

Dranks

I'd like to thank a few people who serve a veryr special role in my life, it's the same role, but each fills it a ltitle differently. This role is that of The Enabler. If this team of unique folk din't do it, who would?

So- a big fat shout out to:

• Sarah, for giving me the idea in the first plaec. The idea being to come home and make drinks my drinks myself this fine Friday night after one effing looong day of work.
• Elena, for turning me on to Monopolowa vodka, because it's cheap and it's good and I trust a Russian.
• Nina, for agreeing to come over for beers later when she gets off of HER long day of Werk (for Jerks).
• Bogart, for helping me feel that it's perfeckly okay to just grab the vodka out of the freezer and chug directtly from the bottle, if that's what you need to do at the moment.
• Mu mother, for telling me I can spell "perfeckly" however i damn well want to, thank you very much.
• Bogart again, for being named Bogart.
• Sarah! How them sugar cookies tasting in the bath? Friday night drinking at home alone! Yip!
• Roger, fro leaving that whiksey in the flask in the cubpoard.
• I'm talking about last night now, but does that rilly matter? I needied that wiskhey last night, and you came through for me, Rog.
• (Also ROGER CURSE YOU! For taking the martini shaker when you moved out! You left me many lovely accoutrements! You left me all the other silly needless gear that goes with the shaker! You left me that flask full of whiskey (how DID that get looked over, by the way?) You left me a closet full of your shoes, assorted keys to God-knows-what locks, and not one but two guitars, knowing full well that I don't PLAY the guitar, and then you up and packed the martini shaker! WHY!?)
• Date Guy! Hay how's California? I miss you! This is an announcement! I worked for fourteen hours today! I am slightliy tipsy! Did I mention i miss you? This is my new life! I will make another martini!

Okay thnaks to you all! Now I will go tear up the carpet! I'm fuckin' Bob Vila over here! Only wasteder!

Friday night!

Chrons!