I don’t even know where to start

On this guy’s comment.

I mean……..?

Local paper covers a gay marriage ban protest.

The weekly

Maybe you can figure out where to start?

xo,

LB

I Have Been Friggin Meme’d (what the hell is a meme?)

By Starrhillgirl who IS the boss of me. I have to write an opening paragraph of the novel version of my life starting with last night.

She sits perched on the edge of a low slung leather couch. Around her, the other musicians and singers chat, waiting to begin the night. They have gathered for a benefit show and are clustered back stage. Some are eating, when it is free musicians always eat, others sip wine and bottled water. Over the dull roar of the well heeled crowd, you can just about hear the sweet sounds of the first performer. She barely stands a chance. The crowd is full of parents whose children attend the school that will benefit from the music tonight. They seem eager to squeeze the most out of their night. Quiet listening is not on their minds as they giggle and chatter through their first few drinks. The air is dark and cool backstage. The door to the alley is open and covered with a thick black curtain. At irregular intervals the warm air and bright light outside sneaks in at the bottom corner. She shifts her weight from one cowboy boot to the other getting more restless as her turn on stage draws near. As the other singers drink water and spray their throats, she makes her way to the door, briefly flooding the room with light she steps into the alley for a cigarette.

Now I get to tag someone so I tag Wistar and KP.

xo,

LB

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How to be “Jedidiah” (Name changed to protect me, not the innocent)

I have a friend named “Jedidiah”. We work together at a terribly posh wine shop. Today, “Jedidiah” expressed mild concern that perhaps not enough people were blogging about him. Because he is my friend, and because our friendship never involves name calling, violence, or soul withering insults, I am here to put things right. I want to increase his presence in the blogoshere. So I have prepared a brief tutorial on how to be more like my wonderful friend.

#1 Learn the definitions of cravat and ascot, and the appropriate occasion to wear each.

#2 Be more than a little embarrassed about your inherent liberalism and try to cover it up with an extremely conservative appearance and a fondness for rich people.

#3 If you do not already own a pair of driving mocs (WTF?!) run, do not walk, to get a pair.

#4 Be a writer. Be a good writer, but one without the good sense to listen to all my ideas and immediately turn them into articles for The New Yorker. I think this has something to do with not wanting to ride my coat tails but, whatever.

#5 Do not under ANY circumstances express anything that even sounds like spirituality. Ever. Never.

#6 Tell people around you how neurotic and crazy they are but follow these declarations closely with your own swirling, black and despairing moods.

#7 You should be able to enjoy a good cookie.

#8 Cultivate the ability to notice when the women around are having a good hair day and/or have on a cute jacket or pair of shoes.

#9 Have a jacket fetish.

#10 Be intelligent and well read but find it difficult to decide what to have for dinner.

I hope this helps you all on your path to being “Jedidiah”!

Love,

LB

Embarq Chat, Baby, Why You Gotta Do Me Like That?

I am having ongoing turmoil with Embarq, our preposterously named local telephone company. Crazy charges have been showing up on my bill. Hundreds of dollars in long distance. It’s a saga that would take years to explain in writing. Today, I will give you a glimpse into the business processes that make Embarq the well oiled trainwreck it is. Since I’ve had such difficulty getting someone to help me when I call the company on the telephone, I decided to try their online “Live Person” customer service agent chat program. I present to you the transcript. While you’re reading, I’ll be over in the corner slitting my wrists.

KP
Hi. I want to send you a letter detailing my recent troubles with Embarq & Sprint. Can you please give me an address?

System
David C has joined this session!

System
Connected with David C

System
Welcome to Embarq! I will be glad to assist you today. Please give me a moment while I pull up your account.

David C
Welcome To Embarq, the reliable choice for all of your communication needs. My name is David and I will be more than happy to assist you today.

David C
I will send you a link to our web page where you can view the address.

KP
I’m on your web page on the “Contact Us – Residential” page and there is no physical address listed.

David C
David C pushes page, http://about.embarq.com/headlines/container.html

KP
I don’t see an address on that page. All I see is “Media Coverage” and some links.

David C
You’re very welcome. Is there anything else that I can assist you with today?

KP
I didn’t say thank you. Did you read what I just said? There’s no address!

David C
Thank you for contacting Embarq and have a great day. If you require further assistance, Embarq chat agents are available 8am to 8pm Eastern time Monday through Friday and 11am to 8pm Eastern time on Saturdays.

System
David C has left this session!

System
The session has ended!

Guess It’s Up To Me.

Well folks,

I think if we are going to get to look at a new post around here, I’m gonna have to post it.

First, I will follow the last post with the final word on my “modeling” job. That week of hour long “blow outs” and enough makeup to make a drag queen squirm has resulted in today’s reveal. If you are a totalfriggin genius you may know my other identity, in which case you will be able to see me in all my faux warmth glory. Today. I appear in an insert in the local weekly paper. Look how happy! Look how sincere! So, would you spend your money on any of that stuff?

Also this week, the KP an IC head out of town for Thnxgiving. I will be holding down the fort here at Crazytown. I have just received an invite to someones dinner. I will have to turn it down. I have a bath planned. Girls gotta bathe.

Random

Saturday:

So, as you may have noticed the KP isn’t doing any “blogging”. I am having to pick up her slack and post again so that you will have something to stare at while you wiggle the saliva in your mouth around with the tip of your tongue.

You’re welcome.

I have used almost every category we have so I can wander aimlessly as I “write”. It is the last day of my work week and a good time to reflect because I try hard not to work on this day.

First, can someone explain something to me? I am wondering what is the appeal of, during a transaction of money for product, arranging the precise amount of money and coins you give the cashier so that you receive an nice round number back? Some people go to extreme lengths to make it so they receive no coins back from me at the register. Even if it means giving me a huge excess of money for what they are buying. Now, I’m not gonna judge (yes I am) I just want to know, is it worth it? Anyone out engage in this behavior? Do you feel fulfilled?

Sunday:

I managed to get out of work early on Saturday so that I could go to the Vintage Apple Festival. Our good friend Stank Williams was gonna be playing music with his band and there was Virginia country fun to be had. It was driving me crazy that I was not going to get to go since my Sister was going with my nephew, my mother, Stank’s family, the KP with IC, our friend Starrhillgirl. and many other friends. A last minute miracle (over staffing) occurred and I was good to go! So I crammed in a tiny fuel efficient vehicle with my family, Tay at the helm, and we headed south of town.

I was so glad I could make it. The day was beautiful. All my friend’s funny little kids are beautiful. Starrhillgirl looked beautiful in her modified T-shirt. The music was great. It was good clean Virginia fun. I really like where I live. I’m with Starrhillgirl on how pretty and fabulous it is around here. Even though we are lousy with republicans. My family took a hay ride. They reported it was a little scary and a lot of fun. The old folks sang along to Stank’s music, while wearing their John Deere hats. There were animals to pet and kiddy games to play and things to buy. Pickles, cider, apples, honey, plants, baskets etc.

We are all still sick in this house. Currently the KP and I are on two different computers. One up, one down. We are “IM-ing” one another so as not to have to get up. The Insolent child went off to the the safari park with Wistar and Darren. It is a weird place that doesn’t seem like it should be legal. I’ll let Wistar tell you all about that. I am fixin to have some coffee with the family before they hit the road back to NOVA. I might wash my bathmat. That is Sunday for ya.

You’re sitting on it (and other things I learned while traveling)

Who among the vast swath of greasy humanity does NOT know that, on an airplane, your seat doubles as a flotation device??? In case your airplane crashdives smoothly into a body of water and mysteriously floats long enough for you to remove the seat and walk outside? Well, it appears I shared a plane with that one person whose ears never heard and brain never retained that crucial and useless detail. After an uneventful car trip from my hometown to the airport with KPdaddy and KPstepmommy, I plunk down in a tiny commuter plane for my trip to New York Shitty as LB so neutrally calls it. A middle-aged woman behind me calls out to the stewardess who’s standing at the opposite end of the plane: “Where’s my flotation device? Where’s my flotation device? I can’t remember!!” She’s so panicked that I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull my oxygen mask down and service myself before helping her. The stewar–sorry, flight attendant saunters down the isle. She’s hovering around 55 and has long dyed orange hair and is chewing nicotine gum (at least it’s nicotine gum in my fantasy). You just know she takes aerobic pole-dancing classes for fun with her girlfriends. Anyhooters, I digress. The flight attendant saunters up to the panicked passenger and says rather tersely with a New York accent: “You’re sitting on it, sweetie, but we ain’t gonna need it.” Well, that’s just cocky (and accurate) enough that I look around for some wood to knock but airplanes are no longer made of wood it seems, so I just knock my number 2 pencil against my inner thigh. Mostly because it feels good. But that’s another (albeit titillating) digression. After reading an entertaining, but outdated, but still accurate essay about how Britney Spears is the perfect symbol of Americanness in Chuck Klosterman’s Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade Of Curious People And Dangerous Ideas, I look up and I’m in NYShitty.

Because I’m a badass traveler I walk off the plane with my one tightly packed backpack which contains all my belongings and some key handy travel implements: a fork, a knife, a coffee mug, 8 pairs of sexy underwear, a water bottle, and some shiny trinkets to trade with the natives. In mere seconds, I’m out the front door of Laguardia and immediately a woman surrenders her taxi to me. I know it probably just looked like she was already getting out of the taxi to go into the airport, but I’m sure she was intentionally surrendering it because I’m rather physically imposing. They don’t call me the KP for nothing.

I get in and the cabdriver sounds and appears to be from somewhere in Africa, though I don’t manage to find out where because I’m never sure when he’s talking to me, to himself, another driver, the taxi HQ, or to his Bluetooth earpiece. I awkwardly start and then abort a half-dozen conversations when it becomes apparent he’s talking to one of the other parties. He’s never not talking. He mentions as soon as I get in that the taxidrivers are on strike. As he’s driving away. The fact that he’s driving and apparently on strike confuses my brain so much, which is already a little muddled from the high-altitude depressurization process, that I smile and nod. I ask him what the strike is about, and he says “I’ll see you later.” I realize he’s talking to someone on Bluetooth, but he hangs up and says, “The city of New York wants to require us to have GPS and credit card machines in our cars. That way, the city can calculate its taxes exactly. I have no problem with the GPS because I have nothing to hide. I do have a problem with the drivers having to pay the 5% transaction fees on the credit cards.” I do not understand why he’s driving today and not striking, despite my best efforts to clarify. His accent is very thick and all the windows are down. He’s agitated at the stalled traffic on the expressway because he has to be in “motherfucking Bronx at one thirty.”

Just then a car pulls alongside us and a man looks across at my cab driver, waves his fist and says “Shame on you! Shame on you!” My cab driver looks across at him, laughs, and says “What? What? No speak English– What?” The man who appears to be Middle-Eastern continues to shout “Shame on you” until my cabdriver shouts back to him with the nastiest delight, “If we’d had GPS in Boston your brother Mohammed Atta would never have gotten that bomb.”

Huh??? Here I am witnessing the sort of outrageously racist, nonsensical thinking that is no doubt responsible for the endgame state of our civilization. Then my cabdriver says to me, “Those Arabs just don’t want the GPS because they’re all cheating, sharing medallion numbers because they all look the same. If they don’t like the new way, why don’t they just do something else?” Wow. I had no idea there are African immigrants in the neo-conservative movement. Here I am, a white DAR, in the middle of the sort of open conflict I’d only read about. And what the fuck do I know about what either of these guys has to deal with on a daily basis being from Africa and the Middle East. I found myself definitely siding with the striking Middle Eastern cabdriver, but the African cabdriver held my life in his hands so I said nothing more. He even got lost trying to deliver me to my friends’ apartment in Williamsburg and seemed angry at me for not knowing where the neighborhood was more specifically. Even though I told him I’m not from here and I’ve never been there.

Hooper Street in Williamsburg is pretty gritty and working class and, thankfully, not hip or clean or fully gentrified. I’m sure it will be in about 3 months. Come enjoy those colorful ethnic Dominicans while you can!

Okay, I’ve now spent the better part of an afternoon of my vacation writing about my vacation. I’d better get off the computer and back out there vacating so I have something to write about later. Miss you, LB and IC and OneStarWatt and Caved and ….

During the Silence…..

Family Visits. Birthday Psychosis. New Baby Birthing. Jet Set to New York.

Over the weekend the insolent child turned 3. All the Grandparents arrived to whip her into a frenzy of glee and over-stimulation. A dash of brat was thrown in for good measure. Really though, how could a kid avoid it? She was positively drunk with power . All that love! All that pride! All those high-pitched lovey voices! Finally the plan was complete!

O.K. it wasn’t that bad. She is a perfectly charming tyrant. We cranked it into high gear on the day by having a party with 8 million guests and their squirmy weird little offspring. This ,of course, was the Kingpin’s doing, though she likes to say it is Wistar’s fault. So committing what most people would consider a suicidal act, we headed to a public park to host an frighteningly well attended 3 year old’s party. We loaded up Tables and Blankets and paints and face paints and drinks and snacks and pumpkins(?!) and paper and chairs and enough cake to wreak havoc on the homes of most of the town’s Montessori mummies. The cake, F yer I, was chocolate,vanilla and cherry with a Halloween scene. KP received explicit instructions from the insolent child on that front. It was a beautiful day. They laughed, they cried, they played in the water like tiny well heeled river nymphs. Some got hurt. Most painted something or someone. The IC announced it was “her day”. They kissed etc. etc. Really, tres cute! Stank helped me serenade the IC, much to her dismay. Then we all got sugar headaches and went home………. well that is what we should have done. Instead, we went to the grand unit’s new pied a terre to open all the presents. It was a frenzy of technicolour pressie delights. Each one being ripped open the second the last hit the floor. None more delightful than the brand new pink ballet outfit complete with tutu. After we managed to eat, we dragged IC out the door and home. After a quick story, one REALLY pathetic bedtime song, I collapsed on the floor. The IC had several more minutes worth of energy before finally giving in.  After a brief overview of life and all it’s lessons, KP and I abandoned Grandma KP and hit the road over the mountain to watch Stank play music. In the very same town where we were rockin’ out, our friend was busy trying to get a baby born. As it turns out, a tiny baby girl was born just as we were heading back home. The next morning KP headed out to New York Shitty and IC headed off to the grandparents with the in town flat. AH! Rest and relaxation! Then this morning KP calls from NY to give me the heads up that Granny needs to come get something the IC needs for school. No problem, I’m up a bit early but now I have the chance to get the goods out on the front porch for Granny.This way I can create a “no muss, no fuss” hand off. I carefully hide the ashtray I had so boldly left out the night before and leave the booty on the porch. Done and done, as we say. Uh huh, a little bit later I am on the back porch drinking my coffee and smoking a cigarette when who should appear around the corner of the house? Granny! I helpfully offer that what she needs is ready on the front porch. “Oh? there was more? O.k. I’ll let you in. Oh? you have a key? Oh good”. Totally busted and ambushed I get on with my day. The rest is the usual except KP is roaming round the city and I think the cat might have a bladder infection. Onward!

Things People Do, I Do Not like Them.

LB, here. Everyday I go off to work,( everyday meaning four days a week) I go off to work so that I can put coffee in the KP’s cup and wine in the goblets, and pay my way like a good LB. I work in a retail enviornment. This is easier to handle than waiting tables. I had lost my patience with that and had become a menace. I have moved myself to the more easy going retail track where I barely manage to remain calm. It is a place where I am forced to share information with the general public. Mostly though, I talk to the other workers. To celebrate my job and the coffee and wine it affords me, I have put together a little list.

Things people do, I do not like them :

Standing on the other side of the counter while I ring up their purchase holding their credit card in anticipation. “I haven’t even rung up all your booze ya friggin lush, gimme a friggin minute will ya? The way you hold that card at me feels like abuse!”

Putting all their measly change on the counter instead of in my hand, so I have to pluck at it desperately with my fingernail-less hands,trying not to take so long the next person gets angry.

Walking up to me and blurting out a noun and nothing else. No other words. It is the most cold, bare-bones way of asking for help. In fact it isn’t asking at all, and I think they prefer not to think of it as help, either. Like this:

Jerk: Burgundy!

ME: I’m sorry?

Jerk: Burgundy!

Me: Burgundy?

Jerk: Burgundy!

Me: Oh! Are you looking for the Burgundy’s? (sickly sweet smile is crucial)

Jerk: Yes, can you tell me where the Burgundy’s are? (looking confused and ….guilty?!)

Trying to help me pack their purchase or, putting their hands on my part of the counter work space. I AM A HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONAL!!! Please, just let me do my job.

Asking for my help, explaining that they know nothing, then disagreeing with everything I say.

That is enough for now…………

Alert: Stank Williams III can tuck himself in … his own self

If this doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry. It doesn’t make sense to us either. When we offered to tuck him in for his birthday, our own Jack Tripper (AKA Stank Williams III), said he can tuck himself in, “with a string.” We’re all like HUH?? We’re used to a moment each day when we’re shocked and uncomfortable with something he says, but today we’re also confused. When we “probed” further (sorry), he explained that he tucks in his lil Stank by wrapping a string round it and tucking it. And we’re all like HUH? Where does the string get attached? Where does it end up? And Stank says, “I think I’ve told you enough. It’s your blog.” Well. Not exactly the best way to talk to ladies, eh?