This just in

A letter from the Bureau of Foolish Decisions arrived to tell me to buy flood insurance. Apparently there is a 1% chance per year of encountering a Hundred Year Flood, based on the fact that the place is basically a fucking houseboat. I don't get it, because it's not a 100 year mortgage, so, duh, we'll never make a 100% chance. At least that's what I think I learned in seventh grade math.

I don't even know what term the mortgage is. We're giving them some money, and then that continues until we get tired of the place, just like renting. In the end, we don't actually own anything, because only $12 a month goes to principal. But theoretically we'll make money via this not owning anything since the non-owned property becomes more valuable when other people pay more to not really own in it in several years.

I need to lie down. I done thought too much. I am going to see if buying a canoe would count as flood insurance. It seems like a handy thing to have anyway. And I could beat bird flu victims to death with the paddles.

Posted 2:44 PM by Licketysplit

This world is full of what?

Crashing bores you say? I hear you, Morrissey!

Right now I am using the power of my mind to make my most troublesome client explode. If you hear a hideous screech and a wet pop from Westchester County, you'll know I've done it for the team. Why is it that the smallest jobs are always the most painful and demanding? It's like the difference in getting your leg shot off and a papercut, I guess. At least you go into shock with the gunshot.

This breed of client is composed of people who hem and haw, who don't know a decent font from a hole in their butt, but magically they are qualified art directors. They may take it upon themselves to send you color swatches they made in MSPaint. (Although someone from a Fortune 500 company once did this to me as well.) They follow the legendary clueless Si Newhouse school of thought (oh no, this is going to prevent me from ever working for Conde Nast), glibly tossing off direction like "Can you make it more 'fall?????'" Each extraneous piece of punctuation is like a knife in my gut. Whatever, this person is SO FIRED. As soon as the invoice comes back paid. It's like I'm Razorfish, and it's 1998. Wow, I'm wearing a long sweater coat, and everyone on the train stinks of Gucci Rush. Diddley doo, diddley doo, diddley doo.

Posted 10:47 AM by Licketysplit

Very well

It's Sunday, which is apparently a day for mealy apples and horrors with slab serifs. It is also the anniversary of my sister's birthday! If you see her, smack her.

Mr H is interviewing today, because work never stops in our home sweatshop. His subject is a man named Hung. A co-worker warmly endorsed Hung from a previous job.

Apprently Hung is very polite, and every morning when he came in to work, he would great his office mate by saying "How are you today, Steven?" And Steven would say "I'm well, Hung! Very well, Hung."

I'd hire Hung on the basis of that testimony alone. This is America!

Posted 2:16 PM by Licketysplit

Did you ever see "The Fly?"

Goddammit, internets, I've picked up a parasite. I am not sure how I acquired it. Maybe at the bus station. Maybe at the Olive Garden. Of course my mother assumes it must be sexually transmitted, and honestly, she's probably right. But at any rate, I toss and I turn, and the room pitches and yaws, and then I vomitola.

So I have taken to wearing these ridiculous powder blue knitted accupressure wrist bands. I look ready to suit up and join Team Zissou. Retro! Is there a David Bowie song about barfing to add to the soundtrack? "Blackout?" "Ricochet?" "It Ain't Easy?" "Hang on to Yourself?" "Looking for Water?" Really, I can throw up to any Bowie song. It's a knack. Like dolphins can swim!

I was searching for "David Bowie barf" on Google, natch, and I came across this:

My little sister Laura, has an irrational fear of David Bowie. This started when she first saw one of the last scenes in Labyrinth, where he has very big hair and is wearing very tight tights.

Being the loving sister that i am, i started playing her bowie songs so she became petrified of his voice as well.

Then i told her David Bowie lived under her bed. before she went to sleep at night, dad had to look under her bed to make sure that David Bowie wasnt there.

That was fun enough, but i had to take it that little bit furthur.

I heard the song 'Under Pressure' which is Bowie, but also Freddie Mercury...now laura didnt know who Freddie was, so i showed her lots of pictures of him looking relativly scary...and being about 6 or 7, she was scared. I then made sure she knew the song Under Pressure, and also realised that it was Bowie and Freddie. She became rather scared of the song and would cry every time it was on.

I then told her that Freddie Mercury lived in her wardrobe.

So now we have a young girl who is scared that David Bowie is under her bed and Freddie Mercury is in the wardrobe. Thats scary, thats mean enough...but it wasnt for me.

One night, after reinforcing her belifs about the monsters in the closet, I got up at about 3am. I sat in the hallway outside her room, and plugged in a tape player which had been set so that when i pressed play, it played about 10 seconds of silence, then Under Pressure started. I then opened her door just a crack, enough to be able to slide the tape player in, but no lights on in her room or the hallway.

I then pressed play.

She had nightmares for years.

She hates me telling people this story, but she's 19 and is still scared of David Bowie to the extent that she will cry if she sees him on tele.

This is all wrong on so many levels! You know, come to think of it, David Bowie made my sister pass out once. The security guard had to lift her over the barrier and revive her. I would have helped, but I would have been insane to leave front row standing room at a Bowie show! I had to hit a Brazillian girl to get us there in the first place. We never did figure out that whole episode. His voice must have the same frequency as Mary Hart's.

Posted 3:43 PM by Licketysplit

A harrowing experience at the grocery store

Today I went to the store, and there I spied an unmannerly child running around licking all the apples. Imagine the odds of finding a child beyond parental control at the grocery store.

ALEX, ALEX, DAMMIT! asked me where the carrots were, so I told him to go stand in the frozen foods cooler and wait for the next delivery. His mother started to chew me out, but then she realized she couldn't hear him from in there. I nodded cordially and pushed my cart away. I wonder if he'll ever get out?

This was all nearly as repulsive as the time I saw a mother spooning mints from a restaurant lobby communal bowl directly into her child's mouth before replacing the spoon in the bowl. There's a moral in here somewhere. Perhaps it will occur to me after a restorative nap and a fall down the stairs.

Posted 1:28 PM by Licketysplit

Breakfast: what a fucking bitch

Man, I have been chewing for about an hour, and I am still not finished with this bowl of cereal. Kashi Crunch is the Bataan death march of cereal eating. Is that a rock in there? I think it's an igneous rock.

Yesterday Mr. H and I put on hip waders and slogged upstream to check on our hovel. In theory, we can give the developer more money and start living in it (the loft, not the money, although I have always wanted a money bin) next month. But there are only about four feet left before the foundation floods, so it's really anyone's game. We met two dudes boosting each other to peer in the windows, and it turns out they will be our upstairs neighbors. Those grandiose maniacs have purchased two units and are planning to knock out the wall between them. The developer is still forcing them to accept installation of a kitchen in each unit, so they will have to rip one out. They offered us an extra fridge. I guess I could set it on its side and nap in it. We made fun of the color of the hallway and vowed to reconvene later to hate on the drapery choices of others. Too bad this friendship will be all over once they see that we live like animal. I don't even own a pastry marble!

On the walk back, I found a pair of washed up thong underwear and a Precious Moments change purse. If that's not lucky, I don't know what is.

Posted 10:04 AM by Licketysplit

Is it raining in here?

Oh, why, yes it is! Up above my head. I hear music in the air. I'm going to chalk it up to demonic activity. When I serve decaf, the house spirits get so bent.

What a vexing day. Faxes don't send, and seeds get stuck in my teeth. Also, I am pretty sure I saw our future house floating down the river this morning. Flood insurance, you say, flood insurance. How about that. Don't mind me, I live on a raft. Huck? Is dat you?

Replaced comment system since the last one had the nerve to close. All of David's wit and wisdom is down the drain. Dust in the wiiiiind. All we are....

Posted 1:31 PM by Licketysplit

Several days ago in cats



Things get away from some of us. Especially when we open our mouths to ask someone else to open the damn door.

Posted 4:50 PM by Licketysplit

What was I thinking?

How did I live this long without nutritional yeast? I want to eat the whole jar. Like animal!

Posted 1:50 PM by Licketysplit

is good to be beautiful

I went to Russian Dentist this morning. He is a rare delight beyond comprehension. He changed the poster on the ceiling above the chair to a print of Dali's "Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano."

So we listened to opera, and he half-heartedly tinked away at my teeth with a scaler, muttering that my teeth are too good for his business. Yes, my teeth are exquisite. I can't help it. Don't be jealous.

He said that people must eat only fresh vegetables and spend more time listening to beautiful music and looking at beautiful things. "Go, go to museum of art!" He said looking at ugly things is a terrible idea, and one will have mean, ugly children if one does this. At last, I said, medical advice to divest myself of all my unattractive friends.

And then I thought about it, and I realized I actually don't have any of those. Prevention is the best medicine! We laughed and laughed together, and then he commanded "You spit now!" When in Minsk.

Posted 12:40 PM by Licketysplit