heckuva job

How bad a president do you have to be to make that lying corporate-owned warmongering genocidal racist misogynist fuckwit sack of shit GWB look Presidential?

findin out that even if you have 1000 acres, you can't live on but a few square feet of it at once

So in all this fuckshit new world pandemic fuckery, I am finding joy in the little things, such as imagining how miserable life in quarantine must be for middle-aged dudes who cheated on their wives, got found out, and moved out to live with their 20-something side pieces. I do have two specific dudes in mind (their former wives are my friends), but I'm sure their numbers are legion -- and y'all, even a really epic blowjay can only last like half an hour or thereabouts, so what do these folks do with the other 23.5? I mean, technically, she's an adult, you can't just take away her iPad if she's being annoying ... and y'all can't go anywhere (no restaurants, bars, parties, movies, shopping, "romantic getaways," lol) and there's nobody else around. The gal is probably getting to the edge of insanity, looking at your neck wattles, waiting out your two-hour morning poop, putting up with your classic rock ... and if you already had another side piece, you can't sneak off to see that one, either! In conclusion, if there is a hell, you're already in it, thunderdick, and I ain't the least bit sorry.

Two weeks later, just before the old world ended, Miranda stood on a beach on the coast of Malaysia looking out at the sea.

Anybody else gettin that end-of-days feeling? That thing where you perceive a slight list in the decks on the metaphorical Titanic, juuuuuuuust enough that it's like one side of your body is working a little harder than the other, and but instead of the ship righting itself, and shifting the other way, the list keeps becoming more pronounced?

For all my joking around about apocalypses being my jam, I reeeeallly wasn't wanting to have to participate in one, but here I am -- trying to figure out what to do when (not if) my kids' schools are closed indefinitely, wondering how many sacks of dried beans I can buy without looking like a nut, going to gas up the car in case there's a supply issue, going ahead and booking that goddamn Disney trip for next month because fuck it what the hell idk man (but not telling the kids so I won't have to deal with the fallout if we cancel, and for DAMN sure reading the T&C on cancellation/rebooking before I hit purchase), avoiding my ILs (who are in their mid-80s and whom I love and do not wish to straight-up murder with germs), still going to the gym because I will lose my FUCKING MIND if I can't (working out is one of the two things tethering my frayed and battered sanity to my soul; the other is Pokemon GO), and, of course, thinking about how much reading and binge-watching time we'll have if we're confined to our house for the duration. All Mr. Gleemonex and I keep saying to each other is "WTF are we supposed to do, huh? Guess we'll ... [current plan for whatever specific issue / activity may or may not be happening bc plague]."

The elementary school this morning was a ghost town -- probably 25%, maybe more -- of the kids are preemptively being held out, and everybody who was there was playing Plague Tag (aka running all over the playground shrieking "CORONAVIRUSSSSS!" at each other and trying to slap-tag each other). Some douche in my kid's classroom said "It's only girls that have it!" and there was about a solid 10 minutes of uproar until the teacher hollered them all down. Bless, bless.

lol this post from 2009 didn't age well did it.

And then you end up at like, a Chili's, havin a bloomin' onion with a buncha secretaries

So, Chili's has come back into my life -- or, perhaps, I have come back into its.

The very same outlet I wrote about in 2011 (on what turned out to be just ten days before Danger Secondgrader's birth), in fact. And I've learned, finally, how to properly access its wares: A couple times a month, my friends and I will go directly from our workout at the trendy HIIT gym, cross the SUV-and-Tesla-filled parking lot, and skip the dining room for the bar area. We order chips (which are always delivered fresh and hot, if not salty enough, but that's what the shaker's for) & salsa, one small adult beverage each, and something off their $8 lunch menu -- the cup of soup and half a turkey/bacon/avocado sandwich is quite edible. It's a good time, the servers are always happy to see us, and we tip really really well (which maybe is why they're happy to see us? also we're nice and not the kind of middle-aged suburban women who Speak to the Manager). We avoid the rest of the insanely-long menu, and there's not a Chickie Nob in sight. It's actually kinda like when I was a teenager, except I don't get carded anymore -- just a fun, cheap hang with friends.

So like, this is not exactly an Endorsement, but it is a reflection on revisiting things and allowing them to have a different place in your life at different times in your life. Plus also, anyplace that can serve me a beer THAT cold is to be applauded, whenever and wherever it may be.

Florals, for spring. Groundbreaking.

OK so the Fashion silhouette of the moment is: Bad.

Got those high, high, HIGH-waisted pants paired with boxy crop-toppy things, often with sad 70s Office Working Girl ruffles (even if the top in question is a SWEATER, y'all) and weird flaps and tiebacks and shit. I mean -- not me, I'm personally not wearing it, but like. If it doesn't look good on teenagers, and ya can't make it look good on professional clothing models, then I just. Don't hold out a lot of hope for us Normals. Especially not for me, personally, who has a literal inch between hipbone and bottom-most rib. At 46, I'm in the best fucking shape of my life, my bod is ROCKIN, but I look like the most amazingly misguided/overmedicated child's drawing of a girl in those outfits -- it's truly an abomination unto the Lord who Made Me. Thank christ I'm old enough not to fall for that shit again, midway through my fifth decade on this boiling blue marble, right?

And if it's not that, it's Dresses. Why god why. I don't wear dresses, except on very formal occasions, for reasons I may yet detail here (where the fuck else would I, right?), but -- ok. Look. I like dresses in theory, they look really good on y'all, and DAMN I have the legs for a dress but I cannot and will not wear dresses as a regular thing, so all these cute dresses that like, fucking Gap and Boden and whoever the fuckall Kim France is loving at the moment (and don't get me wrong, I fucking LOVE Kim France, I just have no idea who she's talking about, designer-wise, at any given moment, on account of having lived an entire life of thinking $80 is a real lot to spend on a shirt) are just -- not gonna happen for me.

And so: Here we are again, with me in distressed black jeans, band T-shirts, a flannel as a stand-in for the Northern-California-Perpetual-Light-Jacket-Item, and whatever footwear is at the axis of my personal assessment of Cool vs. Comfortable that particular day. I have Fly London, and Frye, but also I have fleece-lined Cons. So ...

Fuck, man. My Birks -- yes ok I have them, this is who I am now -- need to be tightened after a winter of wearing them (IN THE HOUSE ONLY, I SWEAR) with socks. And y'all tryna get me to wear dresses, or Skinny Jeans with a gotdamn 11-inch rise and a shirt with the lines of a Chinese takeout box. [siiiiiiiiiiiiigh] Whatever.

I am WITH. HER.

Oh lord help me ... I'm gonna do a GOTV canvass for my girl Elizabeth Warren. You guys, this is SOFA KING FAR out of my comfort zone ... but I think that tossing $10 her way every once in awhile is not enough to beat back the Anxiety Monster that tells me at 3:12 in the fuckshit a.m. I'm not doing enough to fight back in this shitshow, and I'm gonna actually have to do the work. Fuuuuuuuuuck. OK. Imma do this. godDAMMIT.

bit of a sticky wicket, eh wot

Thought-Taco Thursday

--I'm boutta get into cricket, gods help me. Mr. Gleemonex got me started on this GD documentary series called Cricket Fever, which (at least the season we've watched) follows one team -- the Mumbai Indians* -- through a season in the IPL. I had, at first, no fucking clue what the goddamn hell was going on during the games (although I immediately got swept up in how exciting they are); by the end, I had like a tiny, asthmatic, wobbly-but-tryin-real-hard clue what was going on, although you could still tell me literally any cricket fact and I'd believe you, even if it was "Traditionally, every fourth guy who bowls has to do it ass-out, no pants on at all." I definitely wish they'd do it Pop-Up Video style, with context clues and further explanations, e.g. "Hardik Pandya is the Tim Lincecum of this team" or "The Mumbai Indians traveled 1,800 miles to this match, hopefully by air?" or whatever. And BOY do I have questions: How come all the players except the overlarge Aussie beast Mitchell McClenaghan are so THIN? and Where are all the women fans? and What in the White Cultural Hegemonic Nonsense made the team owner do that to her skin? and Oh so he's TRYING to throw it at the batsman's feet? and I'm sorry, what is an "over," again? and Ohhhhh my god YIKES this is a literal auction (to draft/build teams), English history of slave-trading WHAAAT??? holy shit, and (etc. etc. etc.). I fucking love it.

--I'm reading Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and y'all, it's really good, but wow, did she have a hard life. Harder than the Ingallses had it in the Little House books, by an order of magnitude. Yikes. (BTW, lemme also wholeheartedly recommend Caroline, A Little House Story -- basically a book-length fanfic of LHOTP from Ma's perspective, and I mean that in the very best possible way.)

--Mike Holmes is back! I went randomly looking at old posts -- I'm tryna get this thing going again, even if I'm the only one reading it -- and found one from 2010 that is all about my strange love for the man, the myth, the legend, just days after Mr. Gleemonex found the guy's new show (Holmes & Holmes, where he does projects with his now-grown son). Recurrence Phenomenon FTW!

--Just in case you wondered if my politics has changed since my last active years on here: Fuck yes, I'm way farther left now. And in the national arena: I'm for Elizabeth Warren, big-time, but I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WOULD YOU LOOK AROUND OH MY GOD.

--------------------------
*That cracks me up -- it'd be like, what, the New York Americans.