Behold, thrill as I pull ZIP codes out of thin air. There is just nothing more satisfying than issuing invitations from a spottily assembled guest list. At first I’d call or email the postally neglected person, but now I’m just making stuff up. It’s for a baby shower, and it’s not like I’M going to get any presents out of it. Now we’re down to the question mark section of the list. I think I’m just going to write “Aunt Broomhilda, Massachusetts” on the envelope and see who shows up.
-xxoo
I thought it was Wednesday, I had to check! Being a woman of leisure is not all it’s cracked up to be. First, I haven’t encountered any actual leisure yet. Instead, I’m mired somewhere else entirely. Oh right, Dracut, Massachusetts. I keep telling myself it would be better if a) I weren’t working on a million piddly, stressful freelance jobs, and b) I weren’t living out of suitcases (more like off piles on the floor), and c) I weren’t still secreting ghee in my lungs. Also, since I “work at home,” everyone assumes I am doing nothing all day. So I scrabble around and prepare dinner for four, like a proper hausfrau. My revenge? Lots of roughage. My poor victims run from the table, groaning, filled to the gills with brown rice and broccoli.
Also, I now know that I definitely couldn’t stay home with a baby, although I suppose a baby would be more interactive than the cat. Even the cat is depressed; she deposits herself in the chair closest to the radiator and lolls there all day, not moving a muscle, not even for mousie.
So my question is: at what point do I give up and take off for the Mexican Riviera? Do advise.
-xxoo
I’m taking a break from packing, my face blackened and smeared from newsprint. I make a great guttersnipe. In other fashion news, I accidentally dyed my hair burgandy. Does “Brazillian Bronze” sound like burgandy to you? Me neither. The picture on the box looked frigging chocolate brown to me. This is my karmic reward for taking matters into my own hands. I thought I’d save a few bucks (now that I’m unemployed in the future) and cover my sadly grown out highlights. I just never expected to turn into Shannen Doherty! I know this is a highly prized color amongst filing secretaries and teenage girls, but it’s just not right for me. So back I shall slink to my colorist. She will twit me mercilessly and leave me under the dryer a bit longer than necessary. Spiteful witch.
We’re down to the pile of strange wires and incomprehensible electronic bits and discs, so I’m letting Mr. H take over. I already packed 6 million pounds of glassware. You know how we roll. Like Crate & Barrel, apparently, with a sheet of butcher paper on the diagonal. Speaking of rolling, I also found a long forgotten bong! And my highschool yearbook! I’ve been throwing things away ruthlessly, because I realized my number one favorite pastime is trading stuff in for better stuff. Even Mr. H has caught the fever;I just saw him fling a framed baby picture of his neice into a Hefty bag. “I know what she looks like.” Applause! Applause!
-xxoo
I think it says “Abuse me.” Why else would I be doing work on a saturday for a job from which I’m fired in the future? While my christmas shopping goes undone, the laundry stays filthy, and my husband is a shivering, hacking heap in the spare bedroom. Where are my candy suckers and visits to the petting zoo? I’m resigning myself to the fact that I obviously perpetuated some atrocity in a former life. Or possibly three weeks ago, I’m just not sure anymore.
-xxoo
Overheard, stomach competition between two grandmothers. “Your pictures are AFTER UTERO, hers are better because they are IN UTERO.”
So, Thanksgiving, as we do in my family. A lot of deep breathing, counting to one hundred, drinking, and stepping out into the bracing cold, usually to find another family member out there, cradling his or her head in hand. For Christmas, I hope to be on a plane to a place with umbrella drinks and cabana boys. Or I will beat someone to death with a bottle of rum.
-xxoo
Dear Kitty Winn,
I am a single girl and I keep going to parties where I wind up drunk and passing out my phone number like it’s Pez. Then i live for a few days in fear and paranoia that boys with neck tattoos and wives are actually going to call me. Now, this would be my problem, except that none of these bedraggled suitors have even called! What gives?
-I know I’m unloveable
Sheila Take a Bow,
Buck up. Kitty herself was stalked by a mad Russian she entranced while doing a kicky Serbian folk dance at a party. But I mostly find that blacking out has the virtue of erasing all unfortunate acquaintances, and leaving me to start each day afresh, blissfully unaware of the doings of yesterday. You are lucky that Mr. Neck Tattoo does not lurk upon your doorstep- what would the neighbors think of your taste?
I am sure you have many charms in addition to being an alcohol sucking tartlet. If you can name at least two you can stop hurling song lyrics around. Try bowling instead.
-Kitty Winn
To those of you who just tuned in, Dan Savage left our Lambchop in the lurch on a very important intimate matter. But David has come to the rescue. I am reprinting the entirety of the correspondence, which contains a letter within a letter with a letter. As you are all so gosh darned clever, I am sure you can sort through it to get to the Naughty Bits:
“Honestly, I cannot leave you people for a moment. I take one little trip to Arizona to watch my boyfriend get inducted into his high school’s Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame, and everything goes to pieces.
Here is the sort of thing you were up to while my back was turned:
Dear David,
I must tax you again for your opinion. You see, I wrote Dan Savage ages ago and even asked very nicely a second time, to no avail. I don’t want to plague Dan with some kind of Marathon Man reenactment “Is it safe?…Is it safe?”, so I turn to you for help:
“My friend wants to put me in an empty bathtub and pour bottle after bottle of champagne over me. To which I would happily consent, but I fear injury to my tender bits when sitting in all that alcohol. And though I hate to repeat unsubstantiated lore, I even heard *somewhere* that Natalie Wood ended up in a hospital after springing into just such a cocktail.
So help a young floozy out–is this risky business or can we pop our corks and have at it?”
-lambchop
David responds:
Good lord, I hope my mother is not reading this one.
All right, all right. As you might have suspected, the female anatomy is not something with which I am intimately familiar, so even though I was in the throes of agony recovering from severe dehydration and dashing off my taxes at the last possible moment, I took the time to consult with not one but two physicians on your behalf.
One, a gynecologist, said that nothing should go dramatically wrong, although the alcohol in the champagne might kill some of the beneficial bacteria in your vagina, resulting in a yeast infection. The other doctor said that the bath probably would not cause any harm, but she warns against getting up to any funny business with the bottle, as there have been cases of such things “becoming trapped due to the suction effect.”
So pop your cork, floozy. Christen the ship of love. But if anything unforeseen should occur (Natalie Wood did drown under mysterious circumstances), I trust you will tell the authorities you got this advice from the much put-upon Dan Savage and leave me out of it. ”
Well now, gentle reader, Vomitola has done its part! I bid you all smooth sailing!
xo
Dear Kitty Winn,
I’m all for taking a surreptitious crap on the clock, but where does one draw the line? Today I saw a middle-aged woman from the investment banking company across the floor take a newspaper into a stall and prepare to have at it, sighing mightily! I have seen her before, sometimes she talks on her cell phone while she’s peeing. Ew Ew Ew. Sometimes she goes in with a stack of photochopied handouts, which I know some lucky fucker is going to get in a meeting! Should I say something to her? It’s not any of my co-workers who will have to handle poopy pie charts, but it’s the principle of the thing!
-Disgusted at my desk
Dear Disgusto,
Kitty Winn is all for maintaining the Victorian era style illusion that females have no function of the bowel or bladder. Secretion?! You must be referring to that fine mist of rosewater at the nape of our necks. This person is throwing a massive brick of dung through our carefully constructed hall of mirrors. She should be forced to live abroad in exile and squalor. Then again, what are we even talking about? You beleaguer Kitty with such terms as “crap” and “poopy pie charts”. I have no idea what you mean, as I am Female and Perfect.
-Kitty Winn
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It’s a strange, skull piercing event when the sun shines in Berlin in winter. Yesterday was one of those warm-ish days that drives everyone out into the open, forcibly exuding good cheer. I took a walk in Kreuzberg to take in the air of the first great thawing of dog shit. It’s a harbinger of spring when everywhere doggie briquets are defrosted and their richness permeates. I played bocci in the park and went to a horror movie on a snootful of sudafed. I drank myself under the table for a second day.
If you’ll excuse me now, I will continue my richard burton impression elsewhere.
smooch
Dear Kitty Winn,
I’m a bright, affable gal, and I’d like to think I have a good outlook on life. The only trouble is the incompetent dugongs who surround me, bleating and secreting their sticky juices of mediocrity. Why can’t I find my peers? I don’t think I really am superior to the entire rest of the rest of the world, but where, oh where, can I find my equals?
Desperate in Delaware
Dear Desperate
Like a girl trying to lick a lolly with the wrapper still on, you are going about this all wrong. A bright little pop like yourself is doomed to be surrounded by grunting, lumpen troglodytes. You’d like to think your outlook on life is good, but you’d be wrong. Abandon all hope of being surrounded by your equals, and take pleasure in that very circumstance. Which sounds more well-adjusted to you: “Ugh, everyone in this room is practically unicellular.” or “Hurrah! I am the smartest person here! May my cynical wit and wide variety of fascinating pursuits enlighten the few that scrabble after my words like so many crumbs, and let the rest be crushed in fearful pain and self doubt!” ?
In other words, quit being such a Negative Nelly. Reality, like Emo, is for twerps.
-Kitty Winn