The first time Eleanor Olson opened her fabulous cabinet to Daniel Poor he was a boy of 7 and newly orphaned.
In an act of graciousness and charity the Esteemed City of Lucky Bai had seen to it that the many thousands of starving, terrified children of the neighboring war torn state be given into foster homes for a more cultured upbringing and education. Many of the children either sent by desperate parents or by mission houses for the orphaned came to have happy lives. Adopted into families and given citizenship. As they grew these fortunate ones would take on trades and usher in a prodigious economic boom to Lucky Bai. In the future many would look back on what they called the Delivered Generation and hail it as one of the most excellent political moves of the city's then leaders.
So it was that Daniel Poor was delivered to Eleanor Olson's doorstep, weeping, terrified and barefoot. The mission house he had been sent from was horribly short on funding and supplies. His case worker hadn't been able to find a pair of shoes in his size.
Eleanor Olson stood on the top step to her immense manse and looked down on the dirty little boy who was to be her charge with an unreadable face. She leaned on her cane of carved mahogany and agate, uttered a sigh that could have been of vague annoyance. Daniel clung and snotted into the skirts of the matronly mission worker.
"Awfully sorry, Madame Olson." The mission worker managed to pull him off of her apron. "Just lost his family a bit ago. He's only a little scared..."
"Of course." Said Eleanor Olson.
She extended a hand. The mission worker pushed Daniel up the marble steps. He bit his tiny fists and cried harder. Eleanor Olson took him by the shoulder as the mission worker stepped back, bowed and scurried away.
Eleanor Olson steered Daniel into the doorway of her home that yawned like the mouth of some starving, terrible beast. When the ancient door clicked shut behind them Daniel thought he may never see the sun again.
She turned to look at him. The choking, tattered little boy and the slender woman who walked with a limp, who's face was just beginning to show signs of the years faced each other. The silence broken only by his sobs. He looked back at her with enormous, wet eyes. She blinked slowly. He hiccuped.
"Daniel," Said Eleanor Olson. "Would you like to see some bees?"
The tears started anew. No. No, he did not want to see any bees. Never the less she pulled his hand away from his face and lead him by it to a sealed set of double doors carved with elegant lions only a little way down the gloomy hall.
Daniel wept and wept and wept as if it would some how stop her slow persistent tug. It didn't. He was hauled closer to the snarling carved lions with their arched backs. Why did it seem to him as if this whole house was full of sharp teeth?
Eleanor Olson turned the brass handle of the door and pushed it open. Daniel made a noise between a whimper and a squeal at the first creak of the door's hinge. He clutched Eleanor Olson's hand tightly because in lieu of his mother's it was the only thing left to hold onto. His eyes were squeezed shut at she guided him over the threshold and into the unknown that would be the rest of his days.
But then light. Light and warmth so unexpected he could not help but open his eyes. Through the glaze of his bewildered child's tears the glow of the high golden lamps made it as if he'd stepped into a rich honey comb.
He blinked the water away and saw them. Long, flat cabinets filled with winged jewels. Bee's and wasps and hornets and all manner of stinging insects pinned to soft creamy paper behind sheets of polished glass.
"These are my bees, Daniel" Said Eleanor Olson and swept one of her long elegant arms across the breadth of the massive room and it's floor to ceiling cabinets. "From every forest and field I've collected one of each."
She guided him through each cabinet, each specimen and for every name she had a different story. By the time they had circled the room to another somewhat smaller door at the end of the hall his tears had stopped and so had his breath. But from wonder this time and not from fear.
"Ahh. And this one." Eleanor Olson stopped in front of a single pedestal that stood apart from the other cabinets. On top of the pedestal was a bell jar and in that bell jar was the largest hornet Daniel Poor had seen in his life or in pictures. It was the size of his spread hand, banded with black and riotous yellow and on it's thorax a bright curl of blue.
Daniel pressed his fingers to the glass of the jar without thinking and quickly snatched them back in fear of reprisal. There was no mark on the glass.
"The Vesper Wasp." Eleanor Olson continued in her smooth, dry voice. "They build nests in the gum trees about an hour east of Lucky Bai. They have the most deadly of venom. This is the first insect I ever collected."
Eleanor Olson leaned her cane against the pedestal, lifted the bell jar from the pinned hornet and urged Daniel to lean in for a closer look.
"I thought they were beautiful when I saw them as a girl at one of the chapel picnics outside of the city. A boy who liked me thought to impress me by catching one. I found him dead on my doorstep in the evening with this wasp clutched in his fist. It had stung him to death."
Daniel looked up from the Vesper Wasp to Eleanor Olson. She placed a hand on his dark head.
"If that boy had lived I would have said to him 'I am very impressed'."
Eleanor Olson placed the bell jar back in it's place.
"Every collection begins somewhere." She said and took him by the hand again to lead him out into the main hall.
"Did you like that room, Daniel Poor?" Eleanor Olson asked.
Daniel nodded and sniffed.
"My estate is very large and I have many rooms, many collections." Eleanor Olson let go of his hand and flicked commanding fingers at the shadowed curtains in the hall. A veiled serving woman appeared from the gathered dark. "Be strong, learn my lessons well and I will show you more. Be even stronger and even smarter and I may show you everything."
The veiled serving woman stepped forward and took Daniel Poor's hand. The serving woman's hand was cool and grey.
"But for now it is late and supper will be ready shortly. Fidileaus will show you to your room."
Eleanor Olson left him there with the veiled serving maid and leaning heavily on her mahogany and agate cane, limped in the cavernous recesses of her mansion to go about her business.
Whatever business that may have been.

And that was the first time Eleanor Olson opened her fabulous cabinet to Daniel Poor.

All of the time I've spent watching procedural crime shows has really helped me put together the details of my weekend binge drinking.

It's like the start of CSI. SOMETHING has happened but I am not yet clear on what. There are vauge hints. The coffee table has been dragged into the kitchen, There is a bruise across my ribs, My wallet is empty save for a bar receipt from the Tunnel Top. A string of events stretching back to my doomed Friday sobriety that spools out across Saturday and Sunday leaving a gore smeared wreckage in it's wake. Now if I could only figure out WHAT those events were.

Crime shows have taught me that interviewing witnesses is essential. Last monday I messaged my friend Ali, a fellow participant of an excellent Sunday Funday pool party. She would have the information I needed to fill in the gaps between backflipping into the hot tub and waking up.

"I need to know three things." I began. "One, did my tit fall out? Two. Did I lick my contact lens and put it back into my eye? Three, Did I weep openly on public transportation?"

"Yes to all three." came her reply.

Fuck.

Technology also plays a role in crime solving. By checking the call list on my cell phone I get an Idea of who I was out with, who I attempted to have sex with and who I called in a different time zone early in the morning to tell about the martini I was having. A quick glance at the logged Facebook chats records what was on my mind at the time and also provides the list of people I need to apologize to. This is essential. How can you apologize for calling someones girlfriend a hooker if you don't know who the boyfriend was? See? Elementary my dear Watson.

But let us not forget the importance of physical evidence. For example, The coffee table is in the kitchen, There is a smear of blood on the doorjamb, two magnum condoms are strewn across the floor and one of the carpets is hanging half off the bed, there are tortilla chips on the sofa and the TV is set to VH1.

What happened after coming back from happy hour?

I stared at the detritus, picked up one of the unwrapped condoms. Did I get laid last night? No. Impossible. They hadn't been used for that and I would have woken up next to someone... I dragged the rug back to it's place in the living room and stared at that. If just one piece of the puzzle falls into place then the rest will follow. I put the coffee table back on top of the rug and set to scrubbing the blood off of the door and got windex in the gash on my thumb that I somehow hadn't noticed.

Then it clicks.

I had two long island ice teas at Sugar Bar, came home convinced I had a bottle of wine hidden on top of the cabinets. Dragged coffee table into kitchen to stand on. No wine. But then I wanted natchos. Cut my self while attempting to slice the cheese and slapped hand on the doorjamb in despair. Ate natchos while watching TV and see an ad referencing Cleopatra. Wonder if I could recreate the scene where she rolls herself in a carpet to be presented to Mark Anthony. Drag rug into bedroom and attempt. Fail. Fall off of bed and knock over decorative box containing condoms left by old lover. Hold magnums in hand and mourn the loss of said lovers large penis. Move on from self pity and wonder if the condoms would fit over my entire leg. Attempt twice. Fail. Pass out.

Granted it's not as entertaining as watching an episode of Special Victims Unit where some one is raped and set on fire but it's close.

Today I went onto the ladies room at the Illustration building I work at to treat myself to a tampon. Sometimes it's nice to have new things. I put my quarter into the little slot and twisted the knob of the boxy poon padding dispenser.

A Playtex shot out with suprising force and hit me in the right tit. As if the Machine had spat it forth and said: "THERE'S your FUCKING Tampon." It was terribly rude about the whole thing, really. You know, it had been a long day for me too and I wasn't being a dick about it. Besides it's sole function is to give bleeding ladies tampons. I almost deserved a refund for this kind of service.

"You sanctimonious little vadge-plugging fuckbox..." I said and bent to pick up my hurled tampon.

It was then I noticed a student was behind me fixing her hair in the mirror and she had just watched me cuss out a feminine products vending machine.

I'm not sure if any one is aware of this but I'm writing a fashion, style and beauty column on Girlamatic.

Yes. Me. Someone entirely unqualified.

http://girlamatic.com/blog/category/features/geek-chic/

It generally accepted knowledge that as people age they become more rigid about some things. It's not uncommon to hear your friends mention a visit to the family homestead along with something like "Oh, you know, We can't do much about grandpa hating Koreans. He's pretty set in his ways..."

My fathers particular hang up as he's gotten older, fortunately, doesn't have anything to do with other ethnicity's but with profanity. He never swore a huge amount when I was growing up but he never had a problem uttering a heartfelt "SHIT" during tax season. Maybe it's because he has returned to the genteel deep south where certain language just isn't used in public he's now forsworn four letter words. All I know is that when I slough casually through my parents house in a visit to New Orleans and mutter "Where are my fucking sunglasses...?" I'm sharply reprimanded from the other room. And then there are the emails I get after writing something new:

"Very good. Could be in a newspaper if not so much swearing."

But his new refusal to curse coupled with his ever present calm, unflappable demeanor make the occasions he snaps all the sweeter.

On vacation to Florida this summer we pulled into a Chevron somewhere in candy colored tourist town of Panama City. We'd driven through on our way to the family farm in Alabama so Dad could point out where the giant waterslide owned by one of his uncles that he would work at in the summers as a boy. His tour of water parks, 60's hotels and giant plaster of paris sea life finished I'd returned to reading my book in the back seat. My head snapped up though when our CRV lurched to a halt.

"What is he DOING?" My father said angrily.

Craning around the front seat head rest on the passenger side where my mother sat I could see a Buick the size of a yacht had pulled into the row of pumps haphazardly, effectively blocking Dad from pulling through to the other pumps.

"Well, waitaminute, Chris." Said my mother. "He's probably going to move..."

But the car did not move. It stayed. Skewed at a diagonal the Buick squatted fatly, resolutely, in the way.

Dad pulled up in an effort to try the pumps on the other side only to find they were out of service. Mom tried to convince him that the Buick would still move. It did not. An ancient man slowly rolled himself out of the drivers seat. He looked to be a veteran of both World Wars and the giant trucker cap with the navy logo perched on his wobbling head seemed to confirmed this. The man inched towards the pump and struggled to remove the nozzle.

Strangled noises began coming out of my father.

"What...FFFFFFF...WHAT FFFFFF... What is this Ffffudgeing...FFFFF..." Dad fought desperately to find some word that started with an "F" other than "Fuck" to articulate his rage. I sat up further in my seat. I knew something delightful was about to happen.

"This...Fornicating..." Dad floundered and then gave in. "WHAT IS THIS FUCKING IDIOT DOING?"

A small squeal of glee escaped my lips. Dad wasn't done.

"LOOK at him! Look at him! He's wearing one of those goddamned hats! Men wear those hats and and I swear their testicles SHRINK." Dad threw the car into reverse and managed to back into the last and only working pump. "I hope I NEVER get that old. SHIT." He spat.

"This is the best vacation of my life." I thought.

Dad turned to my mom "I hope he didn't have kids cuz' he FUCKED the gene pool."

"GLORIOUS." I thought.

Dad shoved open his door and filled the tank. When he was done he strode in to the store to pay and mom and I let loose. We managed to get our hysterics under control by the time he got back in the car.

He continued as he tried to back the car up, "I mean, SERIOUSLY why would you even...OH OK AND NOW THAT GUY IS PARKED BEHIND ME AND HE'S TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE."

"Calm down, Chris." Mom soothed and dug through her purse. "Do you want mint? Or a Pez?"

"Gimme a Pez." Dad held out his hand.

"Ok. Pink or Purple flavor?"

"Both."

Mom unwrapped the two packages of mini-Pez and dumped them into his hand. He crunched, I giggled, Mom ate a mint and the three of us waited for the Buick to shudder out of the gas station lot.

I can't wait until our road trip to Oregon next spring.

I like to learn new things! Take for instance I woke up this morning to a video in my Facebook of amorous Box Turtles which was sent to a group of us by a friend who I will leave nameless because she probably doesn't want to get a reputation as a herpetalogical smut peddler.

I learned in that video and subsequent YouTube research that the turtle will attempt to fuck anything and will make the most horrible noise while doing so.

Shortly after this conversation occured on AIM:

WEATHINGTON: are you at home?

BYERS: no i'm at work

WEATHINGTON: oh.
I was going to send you the turtle shoe vid.

BYERS: lol

WEATHINGTON: ill post it on FB

BYERS: ok haha

WEATHINGTON: I worry about dying suddenly at moments like this and people will check my browser history.

BYERS: hahahaha

WEATHINGTON: and see that i've watched like 30 videos of turtles having sex.

BYERS: everyone loves that shit
they're just too ashamed to admit it

WEATHINGTON: I just saw one try to fuck a wok.
what facinates me is these home videos follow the exact same formula of human porn videos.

BYERS: haha of course you would know the "formula"

WEATHINGTON: The the set up.
The insert.
The facial expression shot.
The money shot.

BYERS: lol



For further proof of my theory that strange animal coitus brings people together please refer to Common Ground Part 1: http://solmaru.livejournal.com/153431.html

Flying used to be all right. But then again I felt that way when I was about six years old and able to curl up in the shoebox sized seat and sleep through a flight with the help of a benedryl administered in a complimentary Ginger Ale by one or both of my parents. By the time I'd come around I was in Hawaii or Mexico or some cherry place.

Now though I'm staring twenty five in it's beady jaundiced eye and I fly alone.
No one will secretly drug my sodas and carry me to the hotel once the plane lands anymore. No. Now I am a grown woman who must do what claustrophobic grown women do. Which is buy enough Bloody Mary's to black out for a few hours over the center of the U.S. to, hopefully, come to when the plane lands, sober enough to find my connecting gate.

I'm typing this right now at an altitude of about 34,000 feet from a Southwest Airlines window seat. I like the window seat because if something horrible happens, and I'm always nigh positive it's going to, I will be sucked out and die a mercifully swift death. The only optimism I will allow myself is that maybe a fat man will be sucked out with me and I'll cling to him like a monkey in hopes that he will take most of the impact and I can walk away with only a couple broken bones. You may laugh at this but I'm convinced it could work. Remember that scene in The Bourne Identity where Jason Bourne jumped on the back of an obese gangster and rode him down 5 flights during a gunfight to land unharmed? Just saying.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to tell you. Is anyone familiar with Southwest Airlines? Or as I have come to know them "the toilet of the skies"?

You know what. That's not fair. Southwest is fairly efficient, fairly cheap, fairly timely. Other than an incident a few weeks back where a Southwest plane suddenly developed a "Cocksucking hole" as Hamilton Nolan at Gawker put it, the problem I have with this bastard airline is such:

The stewardesses sing. Songs. They sing fucking songs, do you understand me?

I'm currently on my last leg of the journey from New Orleans back to San Francisco and this was the bullshit I had to listen to while desperately trying to slip into unconsciousness,

The hostess chirped into the intercom. "Hey there, Passengers! So we're a little tired here today so we're gonna get right to passing out your complimentary peanuts!" Then burst into a wretched ditty. "OH I WISH I WERE A SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PEANUT, OH THAT IS WHAT I'D TRUELY LIKE TO BEEEEE. FOR IF I WAS A SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PEEEANUT, THEN I'D GET TO FLY AROUND FOR FREEEEEE.

I caught the eye of the man sitting next to me.
"If this continues I will cut my own throat." I said.
The man only blinked. "Haven't you flown Southwest before?"

He's right. I shouldn't be surprised. On the 8 AM flight from Louie Armstrong in Louisiana to Houston airport the attendants wanted us to sing happy birthday to Doug, the pilot.
Hey, happy birthday and shit Doug, but it is EIGHT FUCKING AM. My pants are only half on from the security check point, most of the mornings coffee is spilled down my cleavage. I've just been seated between a teething infant and an obese man who flips his mullet into my eyes every time he turns his head. At this point, Doug, I hope you never have another birthday again.

During preflight checks the flight attendants with their terrifyingly sharp cheek bones and waxy lipstick on their teeth openly condescend to you.

"If you had to spend your money on cramped seats we're GLAD you spent it on us!" squealed one bleached, horrible attendant.
Wonderful. You have openly admitted to me that you know I'm going to be miserable during my travel and you are not hiding that fact that it makes you HAPPY.

But what can you do save ordering another Bloody and hope the plane springs a hole before another Southwest sing along starts?

Guess who got her haaaaaair did?


And an eeeeeyebroooow wax???


A piece of advice. If you need a Haircut or a Wax look up the nearest Aveda salon college. The students will turn you out with a sweet do for super cheap. I mean look at this:


The girls there made me look so pretty that in the space of an hour I've become dangerously vain. I now make kissy face at all reflective surfaces I pass.

In other new my Southern Odyssey ends tomorrow and I fly back into the arms of San Francisco. I was going to write several posts WHILE I was down here but then I remembered I'd be busy drinking Newcastles in the pool and eating muffulettas so I'll do that when I'm back in the real world.
Here's hoping nothing is on fire when I get return.

Whoa. Let's all just ignore that last one. Clearly if you take 2 benedryl and try to finish up what was supposed to be a lighthearted post it turns into a bitchcakes one.

Yes, I am pleading Paula Abdul here.

Thank christ for a four hour time difference that allows my mother to see the shit I write before almost anyone else does. You should have heard the phone call at 7 AM:

"LEIA."
"Mmmph."
"Are you not TRYING to seek gainful employment?"
"Eeeenph?"
"Because what you wrote last night makes you look CRAZY"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"YOUR. LIVEJOURNAL."

I could dimly remember hitting the "Post" Button.

"Calm down. Jesus. I'll take it down or something."
"PLEASE. DO."

So I hang up an slough into my office to check up on my wrongdoings. Because I just didn't think it would be that-OH MY GOD.

I had not written anything that garbled and maudlin since HIGH SCHOOL. Oh my god. I couldn't even remember typing past the third paragraph.

The noise I made was something like: "AWK." and the great LJ/Facebook purge of 09' began.

So hey, my bad about any distress caused. To everyone who responded to that, Thanks. It was really sweet. But if we can take anything away from this it to not trip balls on cold medicine while in proximity to your laptop.

I didn't manage to get along with other kids very well. But to be fair all of the children at Ringing Rocks Elementary School, PA were vicious motherfuckers. A horde of tiny uncivilized people, forming disparate tribes to make war against one another, eyes wet with conjunctivitis and hatred, Mouths red with Kool Aid. Or the blood of the weak. It really depended. If there were curly fries being served in the cafeteria then it was blood. Curly Fries to seven year olds are like what Cacao Beans were to the Aztecs. If there was only one tray of curly fries then you were bound to see some Gangs of New York shit go down.

The play ground was not so much playful as it was reminiscent of the yard at Sing Sing. Turf was drawn and redrawn according to race or class or gender or some subtle social shift in the wind that I could never fucking understand. Cruelties were hurled to faces or behind backs, bigger kids shoved the smaller off the swingsets, rocks were winged at soft, still developing skulls. The one thing keeping us from going fully "Lord of the Flies" was a single listless chaperone who'd blow a whistle and kind of scream at us when he saw bullying.

The hostility was only tuned down to a dull simmer when herded back into the class room. Still 20 to 25 kids agitated against one another in an ever present effort to undermine and assert dominance.

You know, thinking back on grade school it really was like a jail. One time I shivved a boy with a fork because he tried to kiss me. He just didn't understand I ain't nobodies bitch you see? I don't just give my shit out fo' free. You gotta get momma a pack o' smokes or summa them tasty ass curly fries first. Shiiit.

Almost nothing could bring us together in a lasting harmony. Except one thing.

Ripple's dick.

Ripple was the male hamster we kept as a class pet. And for some goddamned reason when we had a spare moment all of us would crowd around the cage and put our differences aside to look at adorable Mr. Ripple, maybe pet him a little bit but always, inevitably, flip this hamster over and look at his junk.

"Look at his boner!" One of the boys would snigger. And that, boys and girls, is where I learned the word "Boner".

"Kids. KIDS. That's enough. It's time for geography." A frantic teacher would hustle us away and put Ripple and his shlong back in the cage. But for that tiny moment we were all united in puerile fascination of rodent willies.

I may be grown now but still sometimes experience a Ripple effect. I was on YouTube a while back looking for cute animal videos because I have a vagina. Ownership of a vagina causes irrational behaviors like the purchasing of hundreds of decorative pillows, weeping and the need to view fluffy bunnies and shit while imbibing merlot.

Anyway, I'd just gotten done watching an anteater in a flannel shirt drink fruit juice out of a champagne flute when on the side bar of related videos the words "ECHIDNA PENIS" stood out from the pile.

"I...Well...Fuck." I thought staring at the thumbnail, trying to make out details. "I guess I'm going know what an echidna's penis looks like." So I clicked on it.

Now when your first reaction to seeing a monotreme's gigantic cock is "Not bad..." then you need to come to grips with the fact that you deserve to be alone forever.

None the less I emailed that magnanimous wanger to friends and family and felt immidiatly vindicated in my belife that sometimes the sharing of disgusting, wretched things is a way to bring people together when I received this reply:

"This is the craziest dick I have ever seen. And I've seen a lot of dicks. That is amazing."

Perhaps this is what could end world conflict. If we all collectively sat down for a little while at a global table and realized that whatever our differences are, whatever has happened in the past we will all agree that an Echidna's dick is the WEIRDEST fucking thing ever and from that point of commonality we would all link hands and swear to stop nuclear proliferation and solve world hunger. A utopia would follow in less than a decade.

I mean ok, Australia probably wouldn't be that wowed but then they're used to Echidna dick. Wouldn't matter. No one wants to play with those kids anyway.
~~~

("BUT LEIA?" I hear you howl to me like hungry babes "HOW CAN YOU TALK ABOUT MONOTREME PEEN AND NOT SHOW US THE GOODS? PLEASE SAVE US FROM TERRIFYING IGNORANCE."
I can do this thing for you. Below you will find a video detailing the horrible machinations of the MonoPeens. Do not look away from this educational film at any moment, for while what you see may disgust you, may cause you to weep openly, in the end it will make you strong.)

My sense of Identity has always been fairly shaky. I find my own impulses and behaviors bizarre. At least once every hour of the day I think: "Why the fuck did I do that? Reaching into the pot of boiling water with my bare hands to pull out a bay leaf? That was crazy. Only crazy people do what I just did."

So not finding the answers in my own introspection I look elsewhere. Namely my relatives, to put the blame on them. I talk to my mom almost every day and we find ourselves not infrequently nostalgic for events from my upbringing or hers. My mother lost a lot of her family too soon. A lucky couple managed to make it long enough to see me born, but none long enough for me to have any real memory of them.

But mom remembers them. And she would tell me their stories, the family history. In our talks the anecdotes come together and a more solid picture of who I am emerges. Why I am the why I am and why I do the things I do. The saga of generations of the women on my mom's side build brick by brick into a sometimes drafty but solid structure.

Although to hear my mother talk you'd figure the foundation was built on one of self inflicted physical trauma...

GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER, ALMA~1964
Alma was a massive woman. A swedish immigrant, she stood about 6 foot and had a size 12 shoe. She wore massive thick glasses now that she was getting into her sixties. Despite her brawny stature she loved feminine things like interior decorating. As a matter of fact Alma's favorite hobby was to go out at night fall in her Baltimore neighborhood when the homes are lighted and she could see through the windows at how people had done up their living rooms.
One night she was engrossed in her walk. Walking slowly enough to get a really good eyeful but quickly enough to not look like someone casing a joint for home invasion. She was passing a house, head turned fully to the picture window and thinking something along the lines of: "I would never have put that tiffany lamp next to that painting..." When she faced it into a "No Parking sign. Hard.
Alma put the entire right side of her body in to the pole of the sign, breaking her giant glasses and bruising herself from hairline to knee.

"She had to walk around like that for weeks explaining to people what had happened." Mom said. "She didn't want people to think granddad hit her so she wound up telling the truth."

GRANDMOTHER, ELEANOR~ 1955
Eleanor and her husband Barney had just bought their first home in Glenn Park, Baltimore and were celebrating and doing a little home repair. Eleanor LOVED whiskey sours and had had about three of them when she noticed that the kitchen ceiling could really use a new coat of paint.

So she fixed her self a fourth, lit a fresh cigarette and got out the oil based white paint and roller and climbed on top of the big gas stove. She rolled on the paint with one hand and drank her whiskey sour with the other, cigg dangling form her lip all the while. A combination of liquor, paint fumes and new home owned euphoria made her giddy.
She finished as much of the corner over the stove as she could reach and slurped her fifth drink. With great satisfaction in her domestic skill she turned on her heel and walked straight off of the stove and hung in the open air for a split second before belly flopping onto the linoleum.

"You mean she COMPLETELY forgot she was on top of the stove?!" I asked my mom after she told me this story.
"Oh, yes." She replied. "Mom told me she was pretty surprised when she saw the ground rising up to meet her."

MOTHER, GWENDOLYN~ 1988
four years after I was born my parents moved us to Pottstown, Pennsylvania, located in a rural area about an hour outside of Philly. We had lived there for maybe six months when the day for bulk trash pick up came around. People would huck furniture, dead refrigerators and other unwanted items onto the street to be taken away by the trash men.
Now there was an enormous, ancient steel trashcan in our garage that Mom wanted to get rid of but she was a bit worried about just putting it out on the curb. What if the trash collectors thought it was just a regular trashcan and left it? Then she hit on an Idea. Crumple it! That way it would really look like garbage!

Now my mother is not a big woman and yet for some reason she is under the impression that she is. It was this misguided self perception that led her to figure that she could somehow crush this 90 gallon steel bin with her own body weight.
So she dragged a chair over next to the can and climbed up. She readied herself for a moment and then leaped in to the air, right into the middle of the trashcan. The can, instead of buckling neatly in the middle, acted as a trampoline and catapulted my mother ACROSS the garage and into the opposite wall. She laid on the floor in a heap for a few minutes then gingerly got up and limped past the defiant trashcan back into the house.
She sat on the sofa with an ice pack and watched cartoons with me as I played with my new happy meal toy until daddy came home.
When she told him what happened he just looked at her for a minute.
"Why...didn't you just tape a sign to it that said, "TRASH, PLEASE TAKE."?"

"Oh, I don't know, Chris." My mother looked resentfully at my father and shifted her ice pack to her shoulder. "Maybe because I'm STUPID?"

DAUGHTER, LEIA~ 1991

We were still in Pottstown. The property we lived on was vast and beautiful, especially in the summer. every thing was in bloom and flowers bobbed in the sultry heat, the grasses and leaves a shade of green that was so vibrant it hurt the eyes. But my favorite part of our yard was the Dogwoods. There were about seven of them dotting the front and back of our house and all of them proud and strong, the branches stretching wide and heave with four petaled white blossoms. All except one.

A few yards away from the front door was a dogwood that was close to death. It had been pruned back several time and most of the bark had rotted away. In the hollowed interior of the trunk a hive of Yellow Jackets had built their nest. The flew in and out of a knothole about half way up. I watched them on their errands for about a week in mid july until one day I decide I was going to fix their little red wagon.

Now I tell people that what came next was born of a scientific curiosity. That both of my parents were scientists and had instilled in me an interest in the natural world and how creatures react to new stimuli.
But more likely an explaination is that I was full of piss and vinager and just wanted to pick on something smaller than myself.

Which is why I picked up a small stick and wedged it into the entrance of the nest and stood back a few feet to see what would happen.

A slow trickle of yellow jackets formed at the blocked entrance, confused as to why the front door was now firmly blocked. Then a swarm accumulated.

Then one of the little fuckers got wise and realized the JUST MAYBE the little flesh beast standing nearby was the culprit and stung me on the back of the calf. I jumped and yelped, at which point the entire cluster of bees turned their multi-faceted eyes to me at once and began pursuit.

Our kitchen looked out over the backyard and my mother was washing dishes when she saw me come sprinting and wailing around the house to go diving into the playhouse they'd build for me and slam the door.

"She's SO excitable." My mother thought and put another dish in the drying rack.

After about twenty minutes of hurling their little exoskeletons against the playhouse door they finally lost interest and I dragged my swollen leg up to the house to cry on my parents. Dad dutifully avenged me by taking a can of raid and wreaking destruction upon the hive.


...I may not have known my Great Great Grandmother or my Grandmother but they come alive when my mother talks about them. The way she spins their histories I feel like maybe I can know them and that the four of us are bound in blood and similarities that disregard time or mortality.

The two of them reach from the grave and out across generational differences with their smooth dry hands and clap me on the shoulder when I fuck something up badly. With their massive palms, their cigarette stained fingers or cracked knuckles the give a reassuring squeeze and say: "It's ok, kid. Sure, you just broke a heel and fell off the curb in broad daylight while a crowd of people watched. But you're gonna be alright. You're gonna be FINE."

"It's happened to all of us."

I started getting email notifications that people were friending my blog sometime on Friday. I was wondering what the hell was going on until someone messaged me and said that Erika Moen, of the comic DAR, Kindred spirit in filthy living, my long time crush object, had twittered about my blog.

Now I do not understand really what a "twitter" is exactly but it has brought unto me the human validation that I constantly crave. Now see, people told me that doodling hearts with "Mrs Leia Christine Moen" in my notebooks was creepy but clearly she felt my deep passion for her all the way out in Portland and decided to repay my affections with a twitterpated shout out.

So I raise my Shmirnoff Ice MANGO (Which doesn't count as drinking before noon because it is the most pussy drink ever.) to you, Cupcake. It warms my cockles, and by "Cockles" I mean "genitals", that you thought of me.

Cheers!

PS: Erika, Did you get that blanket I wove for you out of my own hair? I put a lot of effort into it....

My heterosexual life mate, Pancha and I have a unique ritual. We go out, maybe engage in some feminine activity, Getting out hair did, shoe shopping, whatever, then find the nearest foreign grocery store and peruse the booze. Pancha is a more discerning drinker than I am. She likes to use words like "Infused" and "Undernotes". Where as I use mostly words like "What is the" and "Proof?" to make my choice between bottles.

But we have reached a gentleman's agreement on one thing. If we look at a suspect bottle of liquor and exclaim at the same time: "What the FUCK is THAT?" Well then that's what we'll be drinking tonight. The more obscure the better. "Does that Vietnamese bourbon have a monkey's paw floating in it? It's only $35! Girl, I'll go halfsies with you!"

So after her haircut on Friday we drive over to Chinatowns auxiliary wing over on Clement Street to hunt through the asian markets for new untried types of firewater. We stood in front of the massive row of shelves stocked high and deep with soju, sake, whisky, wine, our eyes flicking back and forth. Surveying the various brands like Ospreys perched in the high branches waiting for a careless fish to wriggle too close to the surface to be snatched up by our unmerciful claws.

Except these ospreys were looking to for something to get crunk to while watching Tropic Thunder.

Pancha picked up a frosted green bottle. "Do we want soju?"
"I like soju but it never really does a lot for me." I took the bottle an put it back in the wrong place. "It's just like really expensive juice." I lean down to look at a row of fruity wines. "I do want to buy something Korean though..."

"Oh my god, what is THIS?" Pancha plucked up some strange brew in a ceramic jar with a branch of red blossoms painted on it. She turned to me. "So here's what we do. We get three. A Korean one, a Chinese one and a Japanese one."

"That idea is not broken." I said and snatched Bohae Black Raspberry Wine off the shelf. Pancha secured a decent sized bottle of filtered sake and a smallish bottle of something Chinese.

"What's that?" I asked.
Pancha glanced at the label. "Fen Chiew. Distilled from Sorghum, barley and pea."
"What's the proof?"
"53%"
"Get it."

Back at my place we decided to start with the Bohae "Bokbunjajoo" as it was called in Korean. I poured it into two glasses with an ice cube in each and brought it to Pancha who was on the futon engrossed in the first 20 minutes of the movie. We took a sip at the same time.
"Oooh." She looked up. "Ohhhh. That's good. It's not just Raspberry though, it taste's like there is a hint of cherry in there..."
"Why, yes. Subtle notes of...Cherry."

We sipped our wine and relaxed, confident that we were masters of drink selection. Ladies of sophistication who could navigate an alien territory of booze and pluck out only the finest gems.

We polished off the Bohae and Pancha got up from the futon. "I want to try that Fen Chiew shit" She came back from the kitchen with two of my little black tea cups, handed one off to me and plopped back down. I was paying attention to the movie so Pancha raised the cup to her lips first and caught a wiff.

"Oh, Jesus."
"What?"
"Smell it. We may have made a mistake."

I raised my own cup and inhaled. It was brutal and corrosive. Like ammonia. It smelled like a substance you could kill yourself with by pouring it into a bucket, sealing yourself into small bathroom and waiting until the fumes lulled you into unconsciousness and then death.

"Agg" I said and blinked away a tear.
"What do you think?" Pancha asked staring at my face with bulging eyes.
"I think I just grew a dick."

She fixed her worried eyes on the contents of her cup and then back to my face. I sighed and looked my little cup full of what I was now thinking of as "The Milk of Sorrows".

"Fuck it. We bought it. We're drinking it."
"Ahhhh..." She hesitantly raised her cup again.
"Ok, Ok. On the count of "three" we drink." I raised my glass in a toast. "KANPAI."
Our cups made a dull clink against eachother. We took a deep breath.
"One...Two...." Pancha was still looking unhappily from her cup to me. Hoping I would abandon this foolish idea.
"THREE!"

We drank.
And then performed a duet of gagging.

"Auuuuunnnuggg. AUUUUGH. Nuuuuuu...."
"Urgghhhhh. Huk, huk, hukkk..."
"Did we...Ukk....Did we buy rubbing alcohol by accident?"
"Hic" Was the only reply from Pancha.
"Oh, god. Oh, Jesus it's burning. It's ruining all of my organs as it goes down. Agggggh."

We leaned forward at the exact same moment and slammed the cups down on the coffee table as far away from us as we could get them. The bottle of Fen Chiew glinting with a crystal clear, distilled malevolence. We sat in silence for a moment.
"Why is it making me drool like this?" I asked.
"Because you are probably about to throw up." Pancha replied and belched.
"OH GOD. I just burped and I can TASTE IT." She moaned incredulously. "AND IT TASTES LIKE GASOLINE."

I grabbed the traitorous bottle by the neck and headed back into the kitchen.

"So what are we doing with this?" I started twisting the cap back off. "Am I putting this down the sink or are we going to save it for when someone looses a bet?"

She leaned through the doorway with the light of new life in her eyes. "No, no, no! Save it! I want to see if we can get Konstantin to drink it!!" She squealed with glee.

Konstantin is our Russian born friend. I have watched him eat a slice of pork fat and chase it with a shot of vodka. Pancha was at a party with him where after the booze ran out he drank straight up Triple Sec. After a Comic convention we went to dinner and he ate an omelet the size of an infant, two belgian waffles and the left overs of about six other attendees, washing it down with four beers. He is something of a legend in our circle for the things we've seen him put in his body.

So of course I want to see if he'll drink this shit. Back into the fridge it went.

It lays in wait there now, like the serpent in the garden. Waiting for the day it is sprung on upon an unsuspecting man we claim to love like a brother.

I have a new post up at our Couscous blog. A review of Joanna Estep's new comic, Happy Birthday, Michael Mitchell.

http://www.couscouscollective.com/

I had skidded back into the room when I heard Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" come on the CD player.

"Is that Warren?? I FUCKING LOVE WARREN."
Matt looked up. "You know Warren Zevon?"
"I FUCKING LOVE WARREN ZEVON." I repeated and went back to the mirror to finish putting on my raccoon eyes. He came up behind me and grabbed my ass.
"You have no Idea how hot it makes me that you know Warren."

Turns out he was a recent convert to the Church of Zevon. I had been a fan for years but we both had some gaps in our discography. I introduced him to "Mutineer" and he played "Hostage-O" for me.

It was a lesser known track and Matt explained : "I love this song so much because it so perfectly illustrates the absurdity and desperation of love."


It's a little over a week after SeriousGate '09. I was just listening to my Ipod on shuffle and guess what comes on?

"I will stand in line
For the sacrifice
For the shamefaced love
Of the ugly vice
I will pay the price to see how far you'll go
Let me be your prisoner
Let me be your hostage-o"

AUGH.
I flinched and my fingers jerked towards the skip button. But I stopped myself and remembered to breath again after about 10 seconds. That's down from the last time, when I saw a red motorcycle in the street and didn't inhale for about 25.

Then I very deliberately Put my hand back down and listened to it again. Then I listened to it again. Then again. Until the tightness in my shoulders went away. Then I listened to it again. Why? Because I was here first, Motherfucker. Warren and I have been going steady since I was 17.

But Matt was right. It does perfectly illustrate the absurdity and desperation of love.

Everything I learned about being verbally cruel to others I learned from my mother. On meeting certain friends or boyfriends she would smell blood in the water, the timidity of a weaker animal, and lo! the judging would begin. My mother does not swear as casually as I do but then she didn't need to. She had the vocabulary and the tone of voice to stop men twice her size dead in their tracks. This is why I can only aspire to her levels of greatness. I have to use words like "Fuck" and "Shitting" and "Thundercunt" to get my message of loathing across. Mom needs no such corse crutches.

She's gotten over most of the hatred of social interaction she had when I was little and every now and then resists the natural gut urge bred into the women of my family to evicerate. Now when confronted with the inoccently stupid for the most part she manages to bite her tounge. For example she related to me the other day an incident at the salon.

The death of Farah Fawcett had just been announced and my mother and her stylist were chatting about how sad it was that she had died too young.

"What did she die of again?" The stylist asked as she delicately shaped my moms chin length bob. "It was cancer, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, anal cancer." Mom said a little sadly.
"Anal cancer?" The stylist said, puzzled.
"Yes... of the anus?"
The stylist didn't stop her work but was still clearly chewing this information over and frowned.
"What part of the body is that?"

And with that remark the blood was in the water. My mother shifted a little in her chair. A thousand quips rolled in the cavern of her mouth, agitating like a hive of african bees. How does a grown woman NOT know what the anus is? How can someone get to be approximatly the same age as my mother and not have been hepped to that kind of info? After all it's not as secret and mysterious as say, the clitoris.

My mother decided that alienating the woman on whom the intergity of her hair depended was not the best move and swallowed her incredulous bile. Instead she just said:

"It's um...It's the butthole."

I gagged on my coffee when she told me this.
"You said "Butthole"?? That was the EXACT term you used?"
"I couldn't THINK of anything else!"
"Oh my god, mom." I was still trying to breath. "I have NEVER in my LIFE heard you say anything like "Butthole"."

Over the phone I could hear the crackle as she sipped her Lipton's tea and said dryly, "Well, Leia, there comes a time in every woman's life where you just do what you gotta do."

My proclivity for making the same mistakes twice is aided and abetted by a susceptibility to flashy advertising. One time I saw an add for Burger King and went on to walk into the closest location and eat not one but two double whoppers with a large fry. It's an experience I still regret living through.

Then there was the time with the Nair.

Nair for those of you unfamiliar is a product that promises to remove unsightly body hair with out the hassle of razor burn. As a pubescent girl I fell for it hook, line and fuzzy leg. Somewhere in my simple head I thought being the smoothest bitch in the gym locker room was going to repair my reputation as an ugly duckling and earn me the admiration of my peers. So I managed to get my hands on some.

"I don't think you want to do that." My mom looked up from her Better Homes & Gardens to say.
I just huffed my way to the bathroom in my oversized bathrobe, clutching my Nair. After all I was 13 goddamned years old, what the hell did SHE know?

Thirty minutes later I was on the sofa whimpering as my mother dabbed at what seemed to be a pretty rad chemical burn that stretched from ankle to thigh on both legs. She laid a cool compress over the worst of the oozing flesh and repeated the mantra of my entire childhood:

"So what did we learn here today?"

Well the answer is not a fucking thing. About a month ago I sat wadded up on my futon watching a Flavor of Love rerun and a Nair ad comes on.

Five hot women dressed like it was the 70's are doing a cute little dance in front of what looks like a vintage neighborhood backdrop. The most irritating song is playing.
"Who wears short shorts? WE wear SHORT SHORTS."
I've reached for the remote but then everything changes! The dull 70's colors are ripped away and the tacky ass clothes along with them! All of a sudden the music is a hip club beat and the women are all in modern hoochie shorts and are now even a million times hotter! So hot that if I had seen them at a bar I would have stood really close to them so that people would at the very least think I was their ugly friend.

It's a ad for the NEW Nair. This one promises it's perfect for sensitive skin! It would never hurt me the way the old Nair did! And it's super easy. Just apply then wait a couple minutes, hop into the shower and wipe away with the cleansing sponge provided!

Now I ALMOST didn't bite. ALMOST. But there was just one thing. I had an underwear party to go to that night.

And if you are going to go to a party where the dress code is nothing but underwear then you wanna bring your A game when it comes to the pubes if you know what I'm sayin'.
So who wears short shorts? Why, *I* wear short shorts! Off to Walgreens I went, hope in my heart and song of silky calves on my lips...

On getting back home I laid out my hot little boy shorts with the matching bra and went whistling to the shower.
I slathered on the cream. Did it smell like a refinery the last time I did this? No no, I thought, don't worry this is the sensitive skin shit. It'll be fine. I applied it to my bikini line. Glancing at the tube the words "DO NOT USE ON SUNBURNED, INFLAMED OR BROKEN SKIN." popped out at me.
I looked down at my knees, which were not only sunburned but also covered in a thick layer of the cream that I now know is not to be used in concert with a sunburn. I thought for a moment. Then shrugged.

"Well, go hard or go home I figure." I waited three more minutes and hopped in the shower with my exfoliating sponge. Cautiously I put the first leg under the spray and began rubbing off the goop in a circular motion just like the instructions said, wincing in anticipation.

Nothing. It felt like nothing. No burning, no blistering, no redness...and best of all when I felt the area I'd cleaned away? Smooth. Smooth like a duck. I'd done it. I'd triumphed. Surely the last time was a fluke!

I was just thinking about how my hotness was going to overwhelm everyone at the party and rinsing the last of the Nair from my left thigh when a tingling began at the back of my knee. As the tingling turned into itching the low keen that had started in my throat turned into a desperate plea.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck me dead...No, no, no, no, no, please god don't let this happen..."

But I think god knows I have had sex before marriage and drink on Sundays because he totally fucking blew me off. The itching was now burning.

Leaping from the shower I scuttled into my bedroom where there was better light to survey the damage by. Inches of leg were a disturbing shiny pink, other places patches of fuzz clung twisted and burned but tenacious. You know the way the trees looked after the Tunguska Event? That is an accurate simile for the ruins of my legs.

Then I looked to my bikini line.
"Oh, Jesus. I have ruined my pussy."

There was no preamble for a blister here. It was just fucking bleeding. On either side of my attempt at a vroom-vroom pubic racing stripe were angry red clouds transforming my sweet kitty into something more like an angry badger. I dabbed at it mournfully and ran my hand down my legs again and debated shaving. That Idea was quickly discarded as being foolhardy in the extreme. Besides it was pretty smooth in most places... I bent down again for a closer look.

Now what had happened in the smooth bits, and I did not know this was possible, my leg hairs seemed to have withdrawn under the uppermost surface of my dermis like the necks of startled clams. They lurked there like sunken ships under the surface of an uncaring, furious sea.

I glanced at the clock. One hour before my ride to the party showed up. For two weeks I had been looking forward to this party.

I glanced back down at the carnage of my lower half. Then back at the clock, then to my little outfit.

"Fuck it, I'm GOING."

My ride called for me right as I was applying mineral foundation to my tender bits. I stood in front of the mirror for a beat before throwing on a pair of jeans and a tank top. "Nah," I thought and slipped on my black pumps. "Nah, It's fine. It doesn't look that bad." So out the door I went.

Two hours later I'm at the party talking to one of the most beautiful boys I have ever seen. Big, clear, blue eyes that squint and crinkle, roman nose, cheek bones you could slice deli meat on. All wiry and lanky. If I had a B-52 I would have him airbrushed posing on the side of it. I think his name was Andrew...

He must be enjoying my company because we've been talking for about twenty minutes. We lean against the wall nursing beers as the rest of the party mills around us.

"So are you having fun?" Andrew asks. "I was kind of nervous. I haven't been to a party like this before."

"Aw, Yeah! This really fun! But dude, I was nervous too. Haha. I used that Nair shit, You know that shit that's supposed to make your body hair, like, POOF VANISH?"

Andrew stares at me hard. I know at this point I'm talking a little to loudly but I just cannot seem to stop vomiting out more awful words.

"And you know," I gestured vaguely at my genitals with the beer bottle. "I really burned myself with it and almost didn't come tonight because who want's to show up to an underwear party looking like they have some sort of horrible new form of Herpes, amiright? Hahaha...AHAHAHA."

Andrew looks slightly off to the side. My face instantly deadpans.

"But I don't have Herpes though. Like I've never had herpes. When I say I don't have it I don't mean that I don't have it like it's just in remission right now, Like, I just DON'T have herpes." I take a take a desperate pull of my beer. "You know I'm very safe with that kind of shit. I mean safe with activities where one could pick up some herpes."

"Ahahaha" He makes a wary sort of eye contact with me again. "Ahaha. That's good. I guess."

We stare at the potted plant between us. The dim light falls on my knee and I can see the rosy halo that falls on a spray of missed leg fuzz. Motherfucker.... What is about the knees that you can never get rid of the fuzzies?

I give up and drain my beer completely.
"Soooo... What did you study in college, Andrew?"

Hey modern age! Do you have a music video to sum up my emotional state in a veiled, poetic way?
Why it seems you do!

It's incredibly inconvenient to date someone you give a shit about. The usual blase apathy with which interpersonal relationships are approached is replaced with something crawling and desperate and so painfully hopeful It feels as if your organs have been wrenched from their proper place. You'll give not going totally crazy a shot but let's face it, You won't succeed. And when your hopes for the true love you wanted are sunk by your own bastard personality and circumstance you'll wind up like me. Shaking and calling your good friend and neighbor at 10:00 PM when you know she's fucking asleep.

"Hello?" Teri mercifully answers the phone.
"Unnnngh...ffft...fttt. He. Dumped. me." I hiccup. Snot and tears and other residue of shame caking my face. And Teri, half awake says:
"Do you want to come over?"
Yes I do. I do very much. I want to run to someone who will listen to me blubber. This is why I drew a hard solid line between the people I loved and the people I fucked so when I made the mistake of blending the two I had somebody to go to.

I walk across the hall and knock on the door. She answers to my wrecked face in her yoga pants and sweatshirt and wraps my heaving body into her own.

"I'm sorry." I choke. "I'm sorry. I just want to binge drink until I don't feel this way."
Teri guides me gently into her studio. "It's fine, babe."

She opens beer after beer for me and I am so grateful as she watches me cry out the details of what I knew was doomed to begin with.

"This...fucking MAN. Makes me feel this way. And I can't deal with it..."
She asks what happened and I relive him looking down at the bar room table we sat at as he spoke, raw, bleeding, fresh because I just came from it less than an hour ago.

"So, I have a problem." He says.
I lean in. "Tell me about your problem." I say.
"So, I really like you..." He says.
He says this and I know I'm totally fucked.
"You really like me, BUT?" I ask. "Are you still hung up on your ex-girlfriend?"
"I wish it was that simple..." He placed his hand out on the little round table we sat at in the the local Nob Hill dive as if he wanted me to take it. I kept both of my own hands in my lap, nails digging into the flesh of my crossed thighs.
"You wish it was that simple, BUT?"
His fingers flinch on the stained wood. "You're really fun and I have a great time with you..."
"BUT??" I snap. My face is hard like the old wood our beers sit on.
"I'm sorry." His eyes roll to my face briefly, guiltily. I hate what I know is coming up but I still look at his jaw line and think about how handsome I find it. "I'm sorry." He says "I'll stop patronizing you. I like you a lot but the next relationship I want to be serious...And I just don't think anything with you will be serious."

I looked at him. Then picked up my jacket and shrugged it on with out making eye contact. To be fair he didn't either. I placed my hand on his curly hair and felt his scalp under my fingers. I pressed down harder than I really meant to.
"Well, hey. Thanks. It was fun for a while." I said and left the bar, down the stairs, in front of all the old lonely drunks. To my credit I didn't start to cry till half a block back to my apartment.

This is how I end up at Teri's late on a workday evening, three deep in Heinekens and sucking on an American Spirit.

"I can't believe this. I haven't been dumped since I was thirteen and here I am being dumped." I rest my head on the cool surface of her coffee table and leak tears.

"Sweetie. it's okay." Teri says and pushes the pack of cigarettes towards me. "It's going to be better tomorrow."
I belch and snivel out my words. "But why did I let this one get to me? I've tried so hard NOT to let these things get to me..." A snot bubble pops on the glass surface and I discreetly wipe it away. After all in movies when people experience heartbreak they don't goddamned snot all over the place. They cry artfully, mascara painting their delicate cheek bones! This is how I imagine my self getting over it. As an actor filming a scene. Talking to Teri is just like doing the promotional tour about my new dramatic performance. I pretend I am on a talk show.

Teri takes a drag and swigs her beer. "Yeah, well, sometimes you find someone worth caring about and it's worth it to go after it." She is most sage as usual. " It's good that you had it for a while. It's better to feel these things than not."

"But I don't want to feel like this. I've felt like this only three times. I hate it. I can't stand it." I started to blubber again the second I pick my head up off the coffee table. "I don't want to feel anything."
"But you have to. The other option is worse." Says Teri.
"How is it worth it? This isn't worth it." I drain half of my beer in one gulp. "Why do guys like this get under our skin?" I squint at her before continuing. "Why am I even asking you that? you're older than me. You've been in my boat."
"Oh yeah" She says. Her hands sweep to illustrate gross acts of sexual whupsie daisy. "I know about when you say, "Sure I'll do you on the roof of the building I work on. Sure, it may end my career but I'll do that. You want a BJ in under the fire engine? Okay!" I know."

I slam my head into the table yet again. Teri threads her hand though my hair and scratches my scalp.
"Gonna be okay, princess. Most people are shit but the worthwhile ones are still out there. You'll find another. You are too awesome not to."
I just gurgle in response and lay on the table for a little longer.

"You want another beer for the road?" She asks.
Of course I want another beer for the road. I need a frosty beverage to sip on when I go back to my apartment to delete all of this cocksucker's info from my contact list on Facebook.

At some point I blackout face down in bed with my Ipod still playing the tragic music playlist I compiled before losing motor functions.

I wake up about 7 AM and call my mother at 8 AM for that unique flavor combination of sympathy and ass reaming only the woman who birthed you can give you.

"Oh, Sweetie..." Mom says when I tell her I got chucked. "I KNEW when you told me his parents were coming into town. I almost told you that you were probably going to get dumped."
"Oh, hey, that's great. How do you know all of this shit before I do?"
"Because of my natural pessimism." She says.
Sure enough I start blubbering again and give her the full details. Or at least as full as I could while crying like a pussy. Of my exit I ask:
"So at least my departure was classy, right? At least I maintained some dignity, right?"
"It was VERY classy sweetie." She says.
"Okay." I fling myself back into bed and crush my glasses and scatter a pile of hair clips. "I'll be fine. I'll cry about this most of today and then move on to the "Make out with strangers" phase of things."
I hear my mom balk on the other line. "No. That is NOT what you should do. You need to stop doing that. There is something to be said for withholding what you have."

Jesus, It's a low moment when your own mother gently suggests that maybe the reason no one loves you is because you dole out your musky treasures a little too frequently.

"I know. I just really liked him." I say repeating what is fast becoming a catchphrase for me.
"Well, I KNOW sweetie." My mother says in a watery voice. "I'm just sorry it didn't go the way you wanted..."
"Are you...are you CRYING? Are you fucking crying right now?"
I'm answered with a sniffle. I roll out of bed and snatch up my keys and credit card.

"No, no, no." I state, my own dribbling tears suddenly gone. "No. You are not going to cry about this. I am getting off the phone. Call me back when you've pulled yourself together so we can get back to what the real issue is here. The real issue being feeling pity for me."
Mom laughs a little between a hiccup. "Okay, call you in a little."

We get off the phone and I go to the market and buy a bottle of wine. No one really looks at me to long for buying firewater at 9 AM. I think because I had the look of some one ready to start a fight for no good reason. This didn't keep the clerk from being annoyingly chipper when buying my shitty merlot.

I got back home and corked that fucker, dove straight back into bed and drank form the most prone position possible. I replayed the occasions my short term lover and I spent together in my head.

Making dinner together...going out to dinner...talking about what we liked to eat for dinner...That time we went to an orgy.

And I remembered waking up after we'd made love and looking at his his sleeping form. The light of the street lamps high lighting his face, his muscled arm thrown up over his head. I laid there and let a string of thoughts roll through my mind.
"You are such a lovely person." I thought then. "I am having so much fun with you. I could see myself being with you. I think I love you. I know I love you. When I see you, when I even think of you I burn like a fire in a coal mine. My love for you burns subtly but it disrupts my geography and opens yawning pits from witch steam and fire erupts. Oh I hope I can make you love me as I love you."

I had finished my litany and laid there looking at they way his eyelashes rested upon his cheek.
Then he farted. Farted with such force I thought someone had discharged a hand gun in the street. I would swear the duvet was blown back.

I took a giant swig of Sutter Home and wiped the new tears off my face.
I may just be able to get over this.

Ok, so this is pretty much the final color version of Jason Thompson's beautiful Bold Riley map. What I need all of you to tell me is this, Does it look to dark? Are the grungy age marks I made on it to distracting/ugly? Also I dropped in a beige layer over the whole thing to dull the white areas. Does that look shitty?

Friends! Cartoonists! Innocent bystanders! Save me from myself!