Don't waste your money. I will fix all your problems.

I just noticed my age listed on Goodreads.com. This is not to say I didn't know I'm 31, but seeing it in print is jarring, especially when I sometimes forget how old I am.

I don't really feel a lot of the pressures of age that some people my age are starting to feel. I always say that I'll know I'm headed down hill when I get my first grey hair and start using eye cream.

Truth is, I find most health and beauty regimens to be ridiculous. I like to pretend I'm a pioneer. And did pioneers worry about fine lines? No. At least not according to the only Pioneer Handbook I've ever read.

Bry's Pioneer Handbook

A few mornings ago, I woke up to some interesting coupon offers in my email inbox.

The first was an offer for some good old sea salt therapy. Sit in a room and breathe in the sea salt fumes. But wait! The sea salt is from the Dead Sea!

Now I will stop myself from completely making fun of the therapeutic values of sea salt, because I know I always feel better after a trip to the coast, but the idea of spending money to sit in a lawn chair in a room with a floor covered in salt seems a little silly.

One session costs $30. I've got a better deal for you. For $5, you can come over to my house and use my sea salt shaker as a bong. Then we'll use the $5 and get drunk.

I specialize in redneck therapy.

The only salt you need is the bit you lick off your thumb before shooting tequila..

Really, these two coupons just remind me how Portland-y Portland seems sometimes.

Pirates.
Naked Bike Rides.
Open Air Hot Tubs**
Darth Vader playing the bagpipes while riding a unicycle

Portland, Oregon. Get your weird on.


**This is the only Tubbs you need.

Pancakes and Bombs: Suburban Living 101

I believe I've told you a time or two that I do not like pancakes. Turn your head to the right and there, in the margin of this website, you will see "pancakes" on the list of things I hate.

They are gross, the devil's food I like to say. And maple syrup is even worse. Don't get me started. They are little sponge pads covered in poison.

While I do not like pancakes, I am aware that most people do, and I'm aware that "most people" are actually children and Marshall Eriksen.

So when little IK, age three, asked me to make him pancakes on Friday morning, of course I said no.

I really did. Mostly because he was supposed to be going to school within the half-hour. Then I tried to tell him pancakes are gross.

"Will you make me pancakes?"
No.
IK looks genuinely confused for a moment. Did she really just say no?
I think pancakes are gross. 
"Why?"
They are mooshy and taste yucky. You should eat an egg-in-the-hole instead.
"No, I want pancakes."
Well go ask your mama, I'm not making any.

I went to my room and was reading a bit when I realized I could still hear IK mucking about which meant he had not left for school and also meant that MK was probably unaware she was about to be late for work.

After a brief conference, it was decided that I would take IK to school and MK would go to work.

IK was a bit fussy about this change of events. Well, it looks like I have time to make you pancakes, I told him, immediately cutting off the fuss.

I survived making the pancakes. I didn't gag as I mixed the batter and it didn't make me gurggly in the tum-tum to pour the syrup on top (especially since I piled a bunch of strawberries on top).

not the pancakes I made, but I think pancakes all look and smell the same...like death

Immediately after the pancakes were eaten, we got a knock on the door. It was the cops. I kid you not. They were there to arrest me for making pancakes.

Or they were there to tell me there was a maybe/sort of/probably/we are not sure, but just in case, BOMB across the street.

"Get thee to the furthest corner of the house until we knock again," said the Victorian Portland Police Officer (or not).

Was it the pancakes? I wanted to ask. But instead I said, Oh my gosh! Okay! Thanks. 

Like a crazer, I grabbed IK and shouted for AM to meet us in the back bedroom. Cut to AM and I cooped up with a three-year-old and three dogs for more than an hour.


(Somewhere in there is an Anne Frank joke I won't make because that would be in poor taste.)

How neither of us lost our minds, I do not know.

I can only conclude that making pancakes could possibly piss someone off and force them to plant a bomb in front of the house. I completely understand, pancakes are very irritating. And though the suspected bomb turned out to be nothing, it served as a reminder that we are living in tumultuous times and sometimes the terrorists win.  The solution is to never, ever, ever make pancakes again.

Later that night, after picking him up from school, I asked IK what he wanted for dinner.

"Pancakes," he said.

Wherein you should probably stop reading right now.

I feel like I have 1000 secrets that all might burst out of me at once. But really I have none. Nothing is a secret, just private.

I just woke up, at 4am, and stared at the ceiling for about an hour. I have two days of conversations with CJ running through my head. Tonight, at midnight (that's right, four hours of sleep), when I got back to my little couch oasis, I was a bit perturbed and it is just late (or is it early?) enough and I had just enough glasses of wine (two point five) to get up in the middle of the night to post a junky rant on my junky blog.

And it is not even a rant. There are two things I do when I am stressed, 1. Make everything into a list and 2. Turn every sentence into a song lyric.

So here goes.

1. This is my least favorite time of year. We are past fall. Fall is September, October, the first part of November before Thanksgiving. We are no longer in the fall.
2. I am tired of being a hobo.
3. I am not a control freak.
4. I miss my mom and I miss RF and I am tired of missing people.
5. I'm not ready to make nice.


And that is all I got. Mostly because I'm pretty sure there is someone staring at me through this window. Or maybe that is just my reflection. I can't really tell.

After work tonight, as I was walking to the bus stop in the dark, I was trying to imagine the number of home robberies that occur when the intruder knows the family is most likely home. Then I mentally removed the incidents of which the intruder is on some sort of drugs or alcohol. Then I mentally removed the incidents of which the intruder is probably a fucking nut job.

Then I decided I was probably pretty safe living alone.

Or that I could always get an attack cat. If I could get a fatty like Buttons, I would do it tomorrow. But cats, like men, are deceiving. You might think they are fat and cuddly but then they tear your face off.

Le sigh.

Dark and twisty. I'm going back to bed. This blog proves two things: 1) never blog in the middle of the night when you feel sad and can't sleep, and 2) I take the morning train / I work from 10 to 7 and then / I take another home to find Snuggie waiting for me.