"...and it's all a mystery"

While driving home from work one day last week, I stopped the car in teh middle of the road to call Indie 103.1. Boy, was it ever worth it. I won tickets for Laura and me to see The Flaming Lips with Gnarls Barkley and Cat Power on New Year's Eve. We are So.Fucking.Excited.

Today on my lunch break Laura and I are going to Joann to buy quilters' scraps. We have plain black tank tops, and are going to decorate them with robots and aliens for the concert. I know. I’m actually going to be wearing a homemade shirt on New Year’s Eve. It’s worth it, though, because this is really special for Laura. We’re going to take a disposable camera and get people to take tons of pictures of us together for Laura’s scrapbook.

Hey, that’s another thing: since when does Laura scrapbook? Isn’t that an old lady hobby?

Oh, and in case you missed it: I will be wearing a home-made shirt on New Year’s Eve. I’m just that cool.

Of Spiders and Men

So a few days ago, Laura woke me up in the middle of the night because there was a spider on the floor outside my bedroom. I yelled for her to spray it with hairspray and cover it with a cup. Then I opened the door, and she was just fucking shaking. So I got a wine glass and replaced the mug she had used to cover the creepy so we could see what was going on with him. He was not moving. He looked dead. Laura walked away and started crying (she was very, very tired). I didn’t’ trust mister creepy, so I took a Macy’s box and slid it under the glass to pick him up with the glass still trapping him, and he freaked the fuck out and started running around in circles. I stifled a scream. I closed my eyes, pressed my temples, composed myself (somewhat), and then sat there for probably an hour doing battle with cardboard and such before getting him into the toilet for flushing.

If Laura and I were normal, we could have squashed senor creeps with a shoe and been done with it, but that’s not how we roll. We roll pussy-style, and probably always will.

So: yesterday.

Laura called me at 4-ish, freaking the fuck out because she tossed all the Christmas stuff in the box the Christmas tree goes in to get it out of her way while she cleaned (we will, on occasion, clean our place of residence--maybe once or twice a year). Then, she saw a spider on the box and tried to spray him with poison...but did not succeed before he crawled INTO THE GODDAMN BOX THAT I HAVE TO FUCKING EMPTY TO PUT AWAY THE TREE. You cannot comprehend how horrible this is if you don’t have at least a basic understanding of my terror of all things with legs numbering >4.

Our solution? We're going to go ahead and clean the whole apartment; then, when the last thing to do is put away the tree, Laura's friend Matt is going to come over and empty the box for us. Yeah. We are just that pathetic.

Oh, one more thing: Laura woke me up at 3:00 last night because she couldn’t find her Starbucks hat. She’d been looking for two hours. I got out of bed and started looking, and she found it within four minutes—literally four minutes. It was funny.

Honestly, though, I think she found it before I got up. It was behind the couch, and I think she was too scared to reach behind there and pick it up without me out there. Because of, you know, the spider thing. She is so, so, so, so cute.

Jesus. Pick a season. Fuck!

I have basically no money right now. Like, seriously…I’m super poor. I make plenty of money, but until Little Maggie Mae starts making some money she can’t really afford to chip in for bills, so I’m just kind of paying for everything.

So to save money, I cooked for us—for like, a week. Then I realized that I’m 22 and don’t want to have to cook every night until I have a passel of brats to fatten up…so I set about finding the perfect inexpensive pre-prepared meal.

Aside: Trader Joe’s has some delicious shit that you just have to heat up for 15 minutes in the oven, but that feels suspiciously like cooking, you know? I was looking for something that required absolutely no effort on my part.

Guess what the perfect food is. No, really—guess. GIve up? You'll never guess it. The perfect food is a McDonald’s Happy Meal with Apple Dippers (yum!) and milk. Plain cheeseburger for me, McNuggets for Maggie Mae.

So it’s last Saturday, Laura and I buy our Happiest of Little Meals and head out to run errands.

By the way, the adorable toys McDonald’s is giving out right now are these hilarious little creatures that play music. And by “hilarious” I mean “fucking annoying”. Particularly when my little sister gets her hands on them. I spend a lot of the time in the car gritting my teeth.

So we’re mid-errand when we get a call from our (my) friends Andrea and Lucie. These are two of my favorite girls, like, ever. I adore them. So they’re about to go to IHOP to eat and want to know if we would like to join them. We’re stuffed to the fucking brim with Everything that is Wrong With America but want to see the girls, so we agree to go to the blue shack with them.

We had tons of fun. They have dubbed Maggie “The Angry Cupcake” because she is either sweet, bubbly, and hilarious or the most dreadful, irate swamp creature you’ve ever met. And she can switch between the two in a second. It’s charming, really.

So we’ve been sitting at the table for about ten minutes when Andrea gets a phone call. She talks for about 10 minutes, then covers the mouthpiece and says, “My cousin’s psychic! Isn’t that great? It runs in my family.”

I L.O.V.E. my friends. This was one of the most perfect moments of my life. Seriously. I mean, who says shit like that?

So Maggie, Lucie, and I chat for a while, Andrea gets off the phone, and we pay the bill and leave.

As we’re driving out of the paring lot, Lucie comments on the unseasonably 75 degree weather. Andrea’s response? “I know. Jesus. Pick a season. Fuck!”

Cutest.Thing.Ever.

Darwin stuck in the tree.

Halloween Update

I didn't end up dressing up for work. I'm just that lame. Seriously--I even drive a green Taurus. I should just kill myself and be done with it.

For Mike's agent's party, however, I did dress...as sexy Cinderella. Super cliche, right? I didn't even care. I looked hot, and that was all that really mattered at the time.

My Gradual Descent

Rilo Kiley has this song called “A Man/Me/Then Jim”, and the Chorus goes, “It’s just the slow fade of love/And its dark mist will choke you/It’s my gradual descent into a life I never meant/It’s the slow fade of love.”

For about the last year, every time I heard that song I cried. Every single time. I was just listening to my Rilo Kiley CD, and when that song came on…I smiled. I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved I am by this.