They Know Their Time is Coming and They Are Attacking

The exterminator arrives in the morning and not a moment too soon, because I thought I’d seen all the kinds of bugs possible in this hood, but I was wrong.

Not five minutes ago I was sitting here, reading Go Fug Yourself The Financial Times when something long, black, and completely unidentifiable landed, legs buzzing with aggression, on my arm. I screamed like a girl, terrified my husband, and then smashed the offending bug with my bright blue Steve Madden round-toe heels. I guess that means I killed it like a girl.

Speaking of “like a girl,” there’s a guy at work who during the last month’s golf tournament suggested that I golfed like a girl. True, my clubs are shorter than yours. Also, I’m a girl. It simply stands to reason that should I play a round of golf, I would, with the highest degree of probability, golf like a girl.

He continued this train of thought mentioning that I dressed “like a girl” every time he saw me at work. I don’t know how to respond to that. I am female, affirmative. I often dress in clothing that is exclusively meant for women. Many times those clothes are relatively clean, and betimes, matched. I lack a trucker hat in any capacity: ironic or sincere. I have a deficit of sports logo related togs. I haven't worn swim trunks in years.

So, yes, point? Color me flummoxed. That leaves me to respond to every “like a girl” statement with, “Yes. You are correct.”

And then I feel a little like Ed McMahon.

But with no Johnny.

And because I never watched The Tonight Show as a child, those last two sentences have absolutely no resonance with me and I merely used them to elicit an emotional response from you.

(Like a girl.)

Niçoise and The Other Inhabitants

Last year when I stayed at The Paris in Las Vegas I ate a Salade Niçoise from the cafe downstairs. It was about the worst Salade Niçoise I've ever eaten. Ever since that day I've felt a slight longing to have a proper Niçoise, but things reached fever pitch a few weeks ago.

And then I moved and I couldn't cook anything for two weeks.

A few days ago, when my new kitchen opened for business, I gathered all the ingredients for a Salade Niçoise and tonight, I assembled. I also improvised slightly: left off the tuna, red pepper instead of tomato, the anchovy off the egg, but I did use green Spanish olives stuffed with anchovy. (If you've never had an anchovy-stuffed olive your life is not yet complete.) (I'm serious.) Finally, a really good salad with perfect haricot verts, crisp greens, small potatoes, and a homemade dijon vinagrette.

Now for the serious business,

YES WE MOVED WE ARE MOVED WE MOVED INTO A HOUSE AN ACTUAL HOUSE WITH A YARD AND EVERYTHING I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT.

We keep wandering about, not really sure what to do with all the space--well, other than decorate it with late model cardboard boxes.

And really, we ought to be more contained with our moving about, because it's really causing a strain on the spiders that have called this place home for the past year. Yes, my new house has been empty for one year and two months, which means that we are surrounded by spiders and bugs. Mostly spiders.

The other night, after the two of us had unpacked more boxes and finally set up the wireless network, we retired to our pepto-pink bedroom. I was moving around when I saw the big black dime shaped spider skittering across the edge of the ceiling. I am short. Our ceilings are not. So J reached up and killed the spider, but being proponents of equal work, it's my job after his killing to clean up the remains. I am still short, prompting J to suggest climbing into a large box filled with clothes to try to get a boost of height. (This was all happening around 1:30 am, so we may not have been thinking entirely straight.) I got a boost of height, and with J holding my left elbow for support, I reached up to tissue the goo when THE BIG BLACK SPIDER SKITTERED TO THE SIDE BECAUSE IT WAS STILL ALIVE and I screamed, fell backwards, into the side of the box, all the way down, halfway onto J (because really, who could have predicted that a few fingers to my elbow wouldn't totally stabilize me,) and thought, thankfully in vain, that I might have broken another toe. So we killed the spider, again, this time for real, and resolved to call an exterminator in the morning.

But the Salade Niçoise from my very own new kitchen?

Super delicious.

Dear Gentlemen in the Nissan with the Bullhorn,

Yes, you.

As much as I appreciated your request to remove my blouse, climb over the driver's seat, into the back seat, and press my mammary glands to the rear window, I had to decline. You see, although I was at the light, I knew it would change soon and I simply didn't have enough time to accomplish your request and still remain a courteous driver.

I wasn't exactly sure where the extremely loud voice originated as I pulled up to the light. I heard a massive voice snicker, "How was the Slipknot concert?" followed by an oblique reference to a male appendage. I assumed you meant to address the skinny, dejected kid with the black shirt and shoulder length hair that had recently walked past my car. There all four of you were, in your sad, late model Nissan, clad in primary colored polos and sporting slick hair, right behind my car. I heard another disparaging remark tossed at a grandfather in another car.

"HEY, are your windows down?" One of you wearing white aviator glasses boomed in my direction, followed by the request to doff my duds. It's no exaggeration to say that I was rapidly descending into an overwhelming fury.

I contemplated the situation: there was always a bird or two to flip. However, upon further review, I determined that extending that finger would simply please you. If it came to a battle of verbal acuity, you would lose. I may not appear to have mastered the vocabulary of a stevedore, but I worked in kitchens, and have an expansive library of barbed insults at my employ that would leave you gasping with fear and shock. But no, words were not enough. The light changed, we all advanced, and my plan was set.

You see, you harassed the wrong girl.

Don't worry, it happens sometimes.

You think you can toss out such remarks with impunity, and perhaps with any other girl you could. But you don't know me, and you don't know how I despise the kicking of the weak by bullies of any stripe, let alone the disgusting harassment of my gender. You see, I'm not 14 anymore. Nor am I 19. In fact, I'm at an age and of a mind that no one can tender such offensive nonsense in my presence or in my society.

And that is why I called the police.

And why I told them you were driving with the bullhorn out the driver's side window. And why I gave them your license plate, and yes, I did it while boxing you in to your lane. And as you turned into the gas station while informing another girl, this one younger and far more intimidated than I was, that she, too, should consider her clothing optional and her body public property, I told the dispatcher exactly where you were.

Can you imagine my sense of satisfaction to see that cruiser turn left into the parking lot? Probably not. It's probably beyond your ability to comprehend. I can't wait until you have to explain to your mother what happened, because your shame will be overwhelming. And if it's not, maybe you'll just think twice about casting stray comments in the direction of women, because we're not all nice, and we're not all doormats, and we won't all ignore your depraved ilk.

If I'm telling the total truth, it's not just about your callous lack of respect for my gender (which is abhorrent enough,) it's not just that you're yelling at elderly people, it's about that kid.

Oh, you remember, the skinny kid who looks like he doesn't have a friend in the world. Yeah, that kid, because that kid looks like he's been on the receiving end of your punches, your insults, and your jackhole-ness, and you know what? He doesn't deserve that. You're the disparaged male appendage because you use your popularity and social advantage as a cudgel, and I won't have it.

So suck on that, you popped-collar failures of hooligans, I can't wait to meet you at a light again.

On Being a Blogging Celebrity

My entry into the Whrrl contest. You like? Go vote here.


It’s hard to describe just how famous I’ve become since I started to blog. First, like most artists of any note, I toiled in years of obscurity. There were the lonely days of 2003 when no one but my mother in law and at least one of her friends read my blog. However, much like Van Gogh moved to Arles, I moved to Blogger in 2005. Finally, a community of artists whose chosen medium, the blog, evolved into the extraordinary art form it truly is. How else can you explain a blog that starts like this: “Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t blogged lately but I’ve been SO BUSY!” Striking, isn’t it?

A couple years ago I was at a park for my parent’s church picnic. There I was, helping my child get a drink from a fountain when a woman walked up to me. “Hey, you look like a girl on the Internet.”
“Oh?,” I responded.
“Yes! Wait, you write The Jet Set! You’re Azúcar, aren’t you?”
I smiled and confirmed her suspicions. Look, sometimes celebrities are just like you and me. Well, like you and you. We take our kids to the park. We wear overly elaborate clothing in everyday life. We’re spotted eating potato salad, or imported chocolates and boutique baguettes. Is it trying to know that I’ll always have the public watching? Absolutely, but it’s my duty to be kind and slightly aloof. What can I say? I’m a role model.

We moved recently, and I found that like all famous people, I reaped the rewards of notoriety. One of our two moving men took a smoke break (after moving our opulent Serta mattress) and when he was finished, he only threw one cigarette butt onto my front porch. I bet if I wasn’t a blogging celebrity it might have been double or triple that amount! I know most people can’t ask for that kind of attention, but yet, it’s afforded to me just because of my writing. I almost feel guilty.

My husband insists that blogging is nothing more than high school in digital form. All celebrities have their tabloid nemesis, and J’s constant rejoinders of the medium are exactly what Kate Gosselin has to go through with US Weekly. Is it difficult? Of course, but if you’re going to take the good (cigarette butt) you have to accept the bad (gleeful contempt.) It’s a package deal, folks!

There are the other downsides to blogging celebrity. I am photographed in my car, whether I like it or not. I have to pretend I am listening to NPR instead of Fergie (see: role model.) It can be so taxing.

And, like every entitled child of a star, my children haven’t been able to reconcile their famous mother with their own identity. How else can you explain their propensity to trash their rooms?

Exhibit A:
Broken glass door on the entertainment center.

Exhibit B:
Parmesan cheese, chocolate syrup, lemon juice

Exhibit C:
Nesquik Fractals

As with most celebrities, I’m going to play off my children’s obvious shortcomings as merely the expression of an artistic mind. Basquiats for the Internet age.

There’s so much that my blog has brought into my existence: friends, enemies, and an obsessive relationship with Google Analytics, or how one time when I went out to Carrabba’s the server gave me a free drink, that sometimes I forget the little straining reminders of my celebrity. For example, having to wear sunglasses at Costco to cut down on admirers, or how the neighborhood children prefer my granola bars over everyone else’s; it's a blessing and a curse.

I simply document my life, well, my complicated, extraordinary, bon vivant yet humble and sincere life for the whole world to read and cherish. I truly am no different than the non-blogging plebian masses...

Only a lot better.

I Lose it and Then I REALLY Lose it

source

At the house closing last week our real estate agent made a crack about Obama. I laughed and told him to watch it. That, apparently, cued our loan guy to also make cracks about Obama. Then I forced a laugh and asked him if he wanted to lose a deal.
Normally I’m not really defensive, but living where I do, you get to hear a lot of knocks on our new president, and I can only take about ten a day before I start getting annoyed. Plus, my emotions were running high last week, like jilted Southern belle high. I’ve been uncharacteristically calm on the whole. I’ve been so calm that I didn’t sleep for most of the week. Selling and buying never go smoothly, and there was a roller coaster at the end that rode over our exposed synapses (see here.) Additionally, there are about 4,000 people who stick their hand into the transaction for their piece. I had a great agent and would recommend him to anyone, but almost everyone involved in the transaction seems to be superfluous; it all seems like such a racket.

Just to be clear:
Obama cracks
High, yet repressed emotions
Lots of people with hands in the cookie jar

So by the time the title guy jumped in and made his oblique Obama crack, I just about lost it.

“Listen, if it weren’t for YOU PEOPLE we wouldn’t be in this economic mess in the first place and Obama wouldn’t be spending his first term cleaning up after your industry.”

And then there were some cleared throats.

And then the loan guy started in on me again.

And then I brought up that maybe the government should take over the entire real estate industry.

And there were shocked looks from the rest of the table.

And I had to take a bite of cookie to stop myself from talking.

And then the loan guy apologized.

Because really, you need to know your audience, and dude, I am not your audience.

So with my emotions on strong undertow bordering on riptide, I went back to work. A couple of friends asked me about Steve and Catheryn, who died on Strawberry Reservoir a few years ago. As soon as I finished telling them the story I started crying, and kids, I couldn’t stop. It all felt so raw and I missed them so badly. I sat at my desk trying to finish my work for the day and the tears just wouldn’t stop. I kept thinking of walking the shoreline trying to find them. I developed the awesome I’ve Been Crying puffy face with the sniffle sound effect to match. I could no longer concentrate on my pressing work with those stupid tears flowing and had to leave--because nothing says ‘I am fantastic and together’ like crying at work!

KABLAM! Wasn’t that an upper of a blog? Veiled threats, dueling political philosophies, and uncharacteristic emotional displays—the only thing this blog needs is some sort of Whedon/Twilight reference.

No, but seriously folks, you know what I need? You. You have great moving ideas, hints, and pitfalls. We’ve lived in this place for 10 years. We threw out 7 bags of garbage just from the kitchen yesterday. What do we need to know for our big move this week? If you had your last move to do over again, would you change anything?

But no crying on this blog, no one wants to see your puffy face.

Things I Did Today That Were Awesome

1. Forgot my wallet in my other purse. This is what happens when you are vain and switch around purses every day.

2. Didn’t know I forgot my wallet until I went to pay for my lunch.

3. I made Jenny pay for my lunch.

4. I couldn’t find a mint after lunch so I ate half of the emergency cough drop stashed in my desk.

5. I have an emergency cough drop.

6. I ate only half of the cough drop so I could save the other half FOR LATER.

7. Drank two Diet Pepsis and couldn’t stop fidgeting.

8. My foot tapped so fast that I’m pretty sure I contracted Dance Fever with its accompanying rash.

9. Got my kids to eat salad by not chopping the leaves and telling them that it was giant salad. It worked.

10. Gave up cleaning my house. I’m going to have to do a massive clean next week, why waste that time now?

11. Informed someone that the number one killer of domestic cats is feline AIDS.

12. Decided for no particular reason (except my kids were still awake two hours past bedtime) to change their sleeping arrangements by putting in Proximo into the same bed as El Guille.

13. I did not chase them when they abused the privilege by running around the place and hiding behind the toilet (see number 9.)

14. I did, however, totally laugh.

15. And gave up.

16. I may have started a trashy book club to read the books you should be embarrassed to be reading. First up: Nicole Richie's The Truth About Diamonds.

This is What I’m Doing Instead of Blogging: Reading Your Blog

Probably the most boring thing I could write about is how the sale of my condo and purchase of my house is going. The shortest thing I can say is that we’re currently engaged in NASA-level nail biting and professional finger crossing at the same time (which is killing my manicure, believe me.) We closed on the house today, but it’s not over yet, and we aren’t going to have news until Friday.

We had an hour this morning between 11am and 12pm that was one of the most stressful periods of my life, and that includes the time that we fought over whether or not our month-old family would be one of “those” families that had Christmas trees (His argument: Couldn’t we just drive around and look at lights? My argument: I WANT A DIVORCE.)

The next most boring thing I could write is how cute and awesome my kids are. But they just are, and you need to deal with that or stop reading this blog. Like how E.G. asked me tonight as we were walking up the stairs, “Do you hear the wind, mom?”
“Yes.”
“Those are just the words coming in from another state.”

DID YOU DIE? BECAUSE I TOTALLY DIED. And then I decided that he can also be a poet-philosopher along with an architect, physicist, engineer, neurosurgeon, and, if he has time, an ambassador.

I could also tell your bored self about how I made a fool of myself at Book Club 2 last night, including inappropriate references to an email forward I once received that had a picture of a fairy and a certain religious figure. Not Mohammad. And then how I tried to tell a story of something that happened at church the other week and instead of it coming out respectful, yet conscious of the inherent humor, it came out mean and nasty (which of course I am, but who wants to show that side to people?)

The last most boring thing I could write is how Other Half is watching Point Break, again.

It turns out that I’m flat-out boring.

You should probably just go find a chore chart instead of reading this.