"merry christ-x"

at the shop, i get all sorts of useless publications. my favorite one is this whole catalog filled entirely with hats made of raffia that come in either purple or red only. some have appliqué, some have rhinestones, some even have a sparrow or other aviary creature constructed of the same purple or red raffia. to think of an entire business built on the demographic of middle aged black women who go to church! other publications include tan-thru swimsuits, arch inserts and wig supply. i don't really take the time to cancel these, as it's mildly entertaining and i have better things to do than to sit on the phone all day canceling the hundreds of catalogs that come through the mail every week.

the most peculiar catalog i receive is from a company who specializes in t-shirts with crass humor, drug paraphernalia (my only explanation is that selling drugs is illegal but not the associated accouterments?), skateboard stickers, kool aid colored hair dye and some varieties of sex toys. i looked at the first one that came through, purely out of curiosity, but now, when i receive them, they are ditched in the garbage without another thought, along with the window cleaning supply catalog, the plus size sweater catalog and the magician's supply trade book.

this morning, said catalog was handed to my by my postal carrier. usually i have a pile of mail on top of it so it seems harmless enough. but today, this was the only thing he handed me, and it happened to feature a disproportionately large busted woman on the front, suggestively looking and posing for the camera. yeah, embarrassing.

in fear that someone else might see it if i disposed of it in the garbage can by the counter, i threw it away in the trash bin in the back and forgot about it. a couple of hours later, the ozarka man knocked on the back door. i opened the door and notice that he looks directly down at my garbage can. i look too, only to find the top half of the magazine covered up and the only thing now visible is the inhumanely large boobs of this woman. it was awkward.

and now i am faced with calling to cancel the subscription. the problem is that it's not even addressed to me but to the former owners of this store. i don't want to have to jump through hoops just to get this taken care of. that would make things far worse.

but it has been a surprise to me how little i care of what my mailman or waterman thinks of me. maybe next christmas, i can get them their own monogrammed bong. . .

moonlighting

bradley is not the runaway type of dog. but he is a wanderer. neither chad nor i have an enclosed fence so we've had to devise ways to keep him from wandering past our property lines. at my house, his scare with animal control (an hour long chase, 3 tranquilizer darts, an overnight stay in the quarantine section of the pound) created an fear association that prevents him from going into the front yard at all. but at chad's, where mean, street smart dogs and dog catchers run rampant, we had a hard time thinking of ways to keep him in the small plot of land behind chad's house that he is alloted to roam.

until now.



you're probably confused. too morbid to be a superhero. too pervy-looking to be the dog whisperer. too scandalous to be part of law enforcement. i was too. and, as you either guessed from association or posture or the random camo long johns (or that his elbows never touch his sides due to his huge lats), this is actually chad. dressed in this get up, when bradley tries to wander into the front yard, chad, hiding behind his truck, jumps out and screams, which actually ends up sounding like something between a moan, cough and roar.

but it does the trick, apparently, and i guess that's all that matters.

rolling in my 5 point oh with my rag top down so my hair can grow

well, i know that everyone has been shaking in their trousers worried about my orchid, and, by inference, the dying love between chad and me. so to my surprise today, i happened to look at the orchid to find new roots and leaves growing in! not only that, but the one bloom is not just surviving, it is casting a glow of life and hope onto the whole room. so there.




and, yesterday, mimi and i were talking about the fact that just because you are complimented on something, it doesn't mean that the complimenter really likes the object of deference. for instance, a good customer walked in to pick up some alterations. i thought she was dressed pretty normally until she pointed at something and i spied a wing of tie-dyed fringe emerging where the disconnect between arm and body should have been.

before i knew it, i said "...., i LOVE your top, that is so cool!" and i didn't mean it at all! maybe i thought she saw me looking at that sartorial disturbance with a furrowed brow and thought i had to save myself. or maybe i thought that something like that couldn't pass without being noticed and i couldn't get myself to say "wow, that's a really weird and sort of dumb shirt".