Always Drunk

Happy VD from AD

2025-02-12T15:02:00.005-06:00

I don't have much to say today.

It's probably better that way.

But Valentine's Day is coming up soon. And I have even less to say about that.

Still, if you have a sweetheart, and you want to express your feelings in a way that is unique, adorable, and geeky as hell, I found this comic from Bird and Moon. Share it with someone you love who is also unique, adorable, and geeky as hell, should you be so fortunate as to have such a person.

Remember, I love you all.

Searching My Couch Cushions in 3...2...1

2025-02-05T14:58:00.002-06:00

Just a short announcement, you guys.

I'm applying for a mortgage.

This is not a drill.

I'm really, really scared. And nervous. The little voice in my head that likes to screw with me keeps telling me that probably I won't even get approved. Probably the mortgage guy I'm working with will laugh politely and tell me to come back when my piggy bank is full.

Even the pig is laughing.

But I'm doing it anyway. Because apartment life is getting to be a drag. Because I'd like to stop shoveling every raise I get straight into spiraling rent. And of course, because I'd like to take on a debt that is several times my annual salary.

They always say "Never eat anything bigger than your head." But it seems to me that a mortgage is precisely the financial equivalent of swallowing a watermelon whole. And while no one is encouraging people to do that (at least no one in my social circle, but maybe I don't get out enough), everyone thinks buying a home is a swell idea.

And I agree...I guess?

So. If I can manage to convince some bank somewhere that I'm both solvent and sane enough to trust with its money, I'm going to do this.

Watch this space for my (hopefully hilarious) adventures in house hunting.

A Tale Too Dumb for The Twilight Zone

2025-01-28T16:06:00.000-06:00

I wear glasses. I have since I was about 10 years old. Yeah, I was one of those dorky kids that got called "Four-Eyes." Don't get me wrong, I wasn't dorky because I wore glasses. I was dorky because I was a dork. The glasses just made it easier for the mean kids to settle on a nickname.

In high school I switched to contact lenses, which wasn't the transformative moment that movies and TV would have us believe ("Why, Molly, if you'd just take off those glasses and let your hair down, you'd be beautiful." Not how it works outside of "The Brady Bunch" and softcore porn.) But it did make me feel a bit better about myself, which led to having a smidge more self-confidence, which helped me find my own personal style, which...you get the picture. True beauty, like flatulence, comes from within.

Just ask Marilyn, who I'm told was a fan
of beans.

Fast-forward to the present day. I gave up on contacts years ago because lenses to correct my astigmatic eyeballs would be hella expensive and also I'm too lazy to take care of them properly (the lenses, not the eyeballs...although probably them, as well). So I wear glasses every day. And I don't like my current frames. I mean, I really don't like them. They resemble the glasses Michael Douglas wore in "Falling Down," and I don't know why I thought that was a good look for a middle-aged woman.

My crew cut looks better, tho.

I had different frames a few years back. I hated those, too. Guys, I'm so bad at making decisions. I'll try on 30 pairs of glasses at the store, second- and third- and eighteenth-guess myself, and ultimately go with something that feels safe and unremarkable...and doesn't suit me at all.

This, by the way, bodes SO WELL for me trying to buy a home.

"OMG, it's perfect." - my dumb ass, probably

But the frames I had before all of those...I loved them. I really, really loved them. When I look at photos of me in those glasses, I look so good. And not just because those photos are almost 10 years old. I'm probably less cute now than I was 10 years ago, but not that much less cute.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

For quite a while I've wished I could take those frames back to the store, get new lenses put in, and be happy. But I can't. Because I lost them.

I don't throw old glasses away. I'm a pack rat. I still have 3.5" floppy disks and external hard drives that don't work with any computer manufactured in this century. Don't get me started on mixtapes that I lack a device to play them on (on which to play them...skip it) and that by now would probably sound like lo-fi whale calls if I did.

And are as fragile as my ego, to boot.

Yet I somehow managed to lose these remarkable frames. Oh, I've searched for them. Every time I stumble across an eyeglass case - in a desk drawer, a closet, a random box of memorabilia - I check it out. It'll be an old pair of mine, or an old pair of Precocious Daughter's, but never THE ONES. They're just gone...

...is what I thought until a few days ago.

One end of my kitchen island is home to a random assemblage of stuff. It's not a trash heap of impenetrable layers. I can see everything, and if there's something there I actually need, I can put my hands on it right away. I do mostly ignore it on a daily basis, because I'm good at things like that.

A few days ago I was tidying up a bit, and my eye fell on a glasses case sitting among the random items on my island. I've seen it before. I've opened it before, hoping my lost frames were inside. Which they were not. They abso-fucking-lutely were not, any of the times I looked.

Except a few days ago, they were.

Now, I'm a fan of "glitch in the matrix" stories that proliferate on the internet. They're good for a shiver down the spine, like reading a ghost story or kicking a heavy object in the middle of the night (bookmark that for future post, btw). But I don't really believe they actually happen, or that they can't be easily explained away.

So the glasses were undoubtedly there the whole time, and I didn't check the case because I assumed I had checked it previously. That's all.

But they weren't. They just weren't.

Look, it's far easier to believe that my resident ghost slipped them in when I wasn't looking, or that the very fabric of reality unraveled just enough to allow their passage between alternate planes of existence, than to admit that I'm as foolish and addled as I feel after making my discovery.

Me, now.

To whatever spirit or force or cluster of fried brain cells returned my old glasses to me...thank you. This makes me happy.

If you wanted to return my youth, my 26-inch waist, or my unblemished liver, I'd be OK with that, too.

Straw, Meet Hump

2025-01-21T15:25:00.001-06:00

Hi, Drunkards. I'm going to rant a bit today.

Hair may be pulled.

As apartment-dwellers go, I'm pretty fortunate. Over the last nine years, the property management in my building has seldom given me cause to get pissed off at them. Friendly people, great maintenance crew, good communication, all that stuff that I'm told can be rare in the world of renting from a corporate landlord.

People tend to be amazed when I tell them I've lived happily in the same apartment for almost a decade. While that's mostly the result of my Aergian* levels of laziness and extreme susceptibility to inertial forces, it's also a testament to the fact that my current residence has been a good place to live. I've seen no reason to roll the dice on a new place, given the horror stories I've heard from other renters.

This guy totally looks like he has a peephole
hidden behind a picture frame on the other side
of your bedroom wall.

(Also, when I moved Precocious Daughter and myself into this place, we didn't even own kitchen chairs. Or a kitchen table to put them around. Or a sofa to eat dinner on because we didn't have a table or chairs. In short, I've got way more stuff now than I had then. Moving seems exhausting.)

So I've stayed put, and life has been good. Except that, as of last summer, my apartments are now in the hands of a new corporate landlord. And, to put it as elegantly as I can, it's been death by a thousand fucking cuts ever since.

I won't go into details that I'm sure are boring as hell if you're not me. I don't know why anyone reads any of this stuff, frankly. But here we are and, you know, thanks.

For real.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure we've arrived at the straw that landed on the camel's hump and broke that bastard. Except it's not a straw. It's a fob.

I live in a secure building. The parking garage is gated, and the building entrances, including elevators and stairs, are access-restricted. Until recently, all of that was controlled by a fob, which hung from my key ring. One fob to rule them all, one might say.

LOL, you really can find anything on the Internet.

But my corporate landlord, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the convenience of a single electronic access device that goes wherever I go and provides instantaneous entry is, apparently, some kind of affront to decency. Or maybe the manufacturer kickbacks dried up or something. I dunno.

As of last month, garage access is now controlled by a coded sticker on the windshield of my car. A little electronic eye reads the code when I get right up to the gate and makes it slide open while I wait. Over the past nine years I've perfected the art of activating the gate from the perfect distance away so that it fully opened just in time for me to glide through without stopping. Now the perfect distance is literally six inches from the gate so the electronic eyeball can sense the sticker. While I wait. And while the cars in front of and behind me that also used to glide through without stopping also wait.

But there's more, oh lawd yes. If my car is in the shop and I have a loaner? I can't get into the garage without the permanently stuck sticker (or stucker, if you will). If I'm traveling and I want someone to look in on Tacocat? I can't give them my fob so they have access. My car, and not me, now has exclusive control over who gets into the garage that I pay for every month.

And my car can be kind of a bastard, tbh.

But it gets better. The fob also no longer works on the access-controlled doors and elevators of my building. Instead. We have. To use. A goddamn app.

Because why use a fob, which is attached to the key ring you're already carrying and can simply be waved at the door to open it? Especially when you're also carrying a purse, a coat, several bags of groceries, and the bottle of vodka you're going to desperately need by the time you stop, pull out your phone with your convenient third hand, open an app, and wait for a count of three-Mississippi for it to unlock the door? It's inconvenient and wastes time? Sign me up!

Don't forget - if you go anywhere on the property without your phone, you are locked out. If you go downstairs to check the mail without grabbing your phone, you are locked out. If, God forbid, you leave your phone at the office or a restaurant or a friend's house, locked out. Because your phone now has exclusive control over whether you get into the building you pay to live in every month.

Download me, I'm eeeeevil.

This turn of events is causing me to seriously consider moving. Which maybe is just a sign that subconsciously I was already wanting to go. Or it could be simply that this aggression will not stand, man.

It just won't.

Anyway, I'm looking at a lot of real estate listings these days. Because I don't think this is the end of my corporate landlord's shenanigans (see also: we're no longer allowed to put out a welcome mat, but that's another story). And I don't think I'll be able to find another landlord that isn't an order of magnitude worse than what I've got.

I just want a place where Tacocat and I can hang out and play fetch. And I don't have to download any apps I don't want to download.

Wish me luck.

* Aergia is the Greek goddess of sloth and idleness. She is frequently depicted lounging on a sofa or comfy chair and is totally my new hero.

Goodbye to the Zipmobile

2025-01-15T15:00:00.001-06:00

It's (almost) official.

I'm cutting the cord.

I'm selling Precocious Daughter's car.

Cute li'l guy.

She moved to the Big Apple two and a half years ago - sans car, of course. No one drives in New York outside of a Seinfeld episode. But all that time I've kept her little zipmobile so that she had a vehicle to use when she came home to visit. And, to a lesser extent, just in the case the Big Apple chewed her up and spit her out and she wanted/needed to come home.

Not that I would ever tell her that. Over the past 25 years I've done my best to shield her from her mother's worst neuroses. With mixed results, but hey, I tried.

If you know, you know.

But finally I'm convinced that she is home, and home is not here in Texas. And I'm tired of paying for insurance, registration, maintenance, tires, etc. on a vehicle that gets driven once a week, and then only because I don't want it to sit in the garage and calcify.

So I'm selling it. And it's actually working out well, because I have a co-worker who is looking for an inexpensive, reliable used car for his daughter. I'm giving him a good price, because I'm not looking to profit. In the past I've been the beneficiary of used cars from good, kind people who genuinely wanted to help me when I needed it. I'm happy to pay that forward.

When the sale goes through, I'll have a little money in my pocket, and PDaughter will have a little money in her pocket, and I'll only have one car to worry about again.

I'll be a one-car family, and a family of one.

Other than Tacocat, of course.

Which gives me the opportunity to end with this gif:

Best. Funeral. Ever.

2025-01-10T18:12:00.001-06:00

For the last couple of days we've been having our annual-ish winter storm here in Texas. This one was actually kind of a doozy: a repeating cycle of sleet, snow, and rain over two days that made driving a very bad idea (as demonstrated by the morbidly fascinating news videos of native Texans and West Coast transplants trying and failing to do just that). It was a great time to stay home, and I did just that.

One of the things I'm very grateful for (for which I'm very grateful...whatever) is the technology that makes it possible for me to do my desk job from my sofa. Another is having management who recognize that letting folks work from home occasionally is a perk that pays dividends, and not simply a lost opportunity to micromanage and browbeat their workers in person.

I don't take advantage of WFH all that often; when you're an office manager, a surprising amount of your work requires an office to, you know, manage. But I do a lot of other stuff that can be backed up, packed up, and taken home when necessary. And when various forms of frozen precipitation are falling from the sky in a place where that happens approximately as often as Jesus' birthday, I call that necessary.

So I've been tap-tapping away, much to the consternation of Tacocat, who can't understand why my lap is off-limits when I've got the glowing black machine in front of me. I took plenty of breaks to play fetch with him, don't worry. For the most part I've had the TV running while I worked, either keeping tabs on the weather or just listening to old reruns droning in the background.

But on January 9, the National Day of Mourning, I got to the watch the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who passed on December 29 at the age of 100 (an age that, frankly, I never, ever want to reach). As I watched the flag-draped coffin being carried into the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., it struck me that I was home on the day of the last Presidential funeral, that of George H.W. Bush in 2018. I don't remember if it was weather that day, or a stomach bug, or what. But apparently this is my thing.

Anyway, the funeral was, as far as a funeral can be, delightful. Solemn, celebratory, dignified, folksy, full of music and eloquent speeches...10/10, no notes. And you could tell that it had all been planned to the finest detail by the departed himself, a man who knew a thing or two about putting your heart and soul into making an impression.

I was impressed that former President Gerald Ford and former Vice President Walter Mondale both wrote moving eulogies for Jimmy Carter, knowing full well that they might end up being delivered after each of them were gone. Their respective sons read their words - words full of love, respect, and admiration for the man from Plains, Georgia.

I was beyond impressed that speaker after speaker extolled President Carter's faith, his integrity, his lifelong commitment to civil rights and human rights. I loved his grandson's description of his papaw answering the front door of his house in "70s short shorts and Crocs" and having "a rack (in the kitchen) of Ziploc bags hung to dry." Like many others, I was humbled by the image of a man who was once the most powerful person in the world declining the protection of the Secret Service while he built houses for the poor.

And I - a small, unimportant, and above all very petty person - I enjoyed the hell out of the fact that this heartfelt celebration of Jimmy Carter's life, before over a thousand people from all walks of life, played out in front of the incoming occupant of the White House. He wasn't there as President of the United States. He wasn't there as a cherished colleague, friend, or confidant of the deceased. He was there because of...protocol, and politeness. He must have hated every minute.

The prayers. The hymns. The outpouring of love and sincere grief for the man who was (unlike him) the focus of everyone's attention. It must have galled Donald J. Trump.

What was he thinking? Was he trying to tell himself it was all lame, or phony? Was he flipping through his mental Rolodex, trying to think of people he knew who might give a eulogy with a fraction of the sincerity and affection? Was he mentally redecorating the National Cathedral with fake gold leaf and velvet-upholstered pews? Was he paying any attention at all to what actually constitutes a legacy?

Ugh. Attempting to get inside Trump's head gives me a rash.

There were five former Presidents at Jimmy Carter's funeral - Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and (almost) Joe Biden. All of them will, in due time, receive state funerals. Each will reflect the character and legacy of the man it celebrates.

I doubt any of them will provide as much popcorn-worthy schadenfreude as this one.

I told you I was petty.

Rest in Peace, President Carter.

Dem Bones, Dem Public Domain bones

2025-01-06T14:48:00.000-06:00

Not gonna lie: 2025 has not exactly gotten off to a stellar start.

There has been violence. There has been dangerous political rhetoric. There has been the Dallas Cowboys finding a way to lose a game that I stopped watching at the two-minute warning because we had the win in our back pocket (not to mention beaning one of our own cheerleaders in the head with an errant kicked ball).

There is apparently a winter storm a-brewing here in the Lone Star State that may cover us in a ridiculous-for-Texas 5+ inches of snow later this week. You guys may remember how much I love winter weather.

My point is, we're six days into the new year, and it's already kind of a crapshow.

But there is one delightful bright spot amid all this nonsense. You may not have heard about it unless you lurk in the same weird corners of the Internet that I do. And it does make me happy in the face of everything that is trying to make me sad.

As of January 1, 2025, the Disney cartoon "The Skeleton Dance" has entered the public domain.

It's all ours, you guys. It belongs to us.

In all the animated short films I've seen in my GenX fever-dream life of media consumption, there are few that bring me such unbridled joy as "The Skeleton Dance." It's skeletons dancing in a graveyard. Twirling in unison. Playing each other's bones like xylophones. And that's pretty much it, for five and a half wonderful minutes.

Created by Ub Iwerks, who helped Walt Disney turn an unappealing character named Oswald into the trillion-dollar juggernaut that is Mickey Mouse and got almost nothing in return, "The Skeleton Dance" was released in August 1929, just before the world slid into the Great Depression. If I'd been around back then, the sight of four chummy skeletons with great rhythm probably would have kept me from jumping out a window when my entire stock portfolio suddenly became worthless. I assume.

Prior to January 1, it wasn't exactly difficult to find videos of "The Skeleton Dance" on the Web. Disney didn't seem to care about protecting the boney boys with anything like the vigor they apply to persecuting folks who try to post unauthorized footage of the Mouse, or the Angry Duck, or the Creepy Mermaid. But the skeletons are now fully released from the bounds of copyright. And that makes me happy.

In the interest of full disclosure, the landmark Mickey Mouse cartoon "Steamboat Willie" actually entered the public domain last year on January 1. To which I say, who cares? To me, dancing skeletons beat a mouse wearing gloves any old day.

Bones make me happy. Congratulations on your emancipation, "Skeleton Dance."

Great(ish) Things About 2024

2024-12-31T10:10:00.001-06:00

This definitely has the potential to be a very short post.

A lot of not-great things happened this year. Some of them had global ramifications, others only Baudelaireian. (My spellcheck doesn't know what to do with the word "Baudelaireian." But I like it, and I'm going to keep it.)

We lost a lot of fine, well-known people in 2024. Like, a lot. Maybe not as many as in 2016, which was a bumper crop of sadness as far as losing beloved figures goes, but still a lot. The New York Times has a lengthy, if USA-centric, list on its website, while Wikipedia's is more exhaustive and spans the globe. Obviously former President Jimmy Carter is front of mind today, but I only just found out from the NYT that in September we lost author Nelson DeMille, whose books accompanied me on many a business trip when I just wanted to immerse myself in something with a lot of action, humor, and few life lessons. I enjoyed his writing a lot.

These were not people I knew personally, but they touched my life, and I'm sad they're gone.

On the other hand, good things happened this year, as well. That's where this post might become a little brief, but the fact is there are always flowers among the garbage. Some things were good only in the sense that I choose to accentuate the positive, others were actually fond memories that I'll carry with me for a long while.

I recommend you make yourself a list like this, even if it's difficult. Especially if it's difficult. That's the best reason to do it. Here's mine (in no particular order):

I saw Precocious Daughter walk the stage to receive her Master's degree. I've always said I can't take much credit for what an awesome person she is, but I fully claim the status of proud mama.
I saw Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway, just before they both won Tony awards for Merrily We Roll Along. (A bucket list item I didn't even know I had until I checked it off.)
I watched the total solar eclipse with a crowd of people on top of a parking garage. The moment of totality, along with the awed response of the assembled as daylight disappeared in the middle of the afternoon, made me feel simultaneously part of something huge, and very small and insignificant.
Two people I know kicked breast cancer's ass, while a third continues to fight the good fight. They're all inspiring, and stronger women than I will ever be.
I allowed myself to be re-acquired by a cat, a year after losing two beloved felines two months apart. The lovely Tacocat is sweet and feisty, and a pain in the ass. He gives me somewhere to put my love, because love doesn't do you much good unless you can give it away.
I drove in a snowstorm. It wasn't fun, and it's not a positive thing per se (except that I survived it). But it gave me a story to tell. Since I'm not particularly good at making up stories, I'm always glad to add a new real-life one to my repertoire.

When all is said and done, we're the sum of our stories. For me, 2024 wasn't exactly an anthology of great literary works. More like a pamphlet with a few interesting pages. Maybe 2025 will be better. Maybe we'll live in interesting times, as the curse goes. But for better or for worse, I plan to stick around and see what happens.

To everyone who has paid me the great compliment of reading this little blog (even if you don't like it, you came by to see me), thank you so much. Have a happy and safe New Year.

P.S. I don't generally make resolutions, because I suck at keeping them and why do that to myself every year? But I do promise my readers monkeys wearing clothes in 2025.

Another Jam-Packed, Fun-Filled Friday

2024-12-27T14:56:00.000-06:00

It's the last Friday of 2024, you guys.

Imma probably going to do a year-end wrap-up between now and New Year's. Don't get excited: It's been a pretty mediocre year.

If this year were a .gif.

But hey, there's only one final Friday each year. This one finishes off a pretty easy week at work. When Christmas falls on a Wednesday, you get a lot of people who just blow off the rest of the week. That means an easy commute, plenty of parking spaces, and almost nobody expecting me to do crazy things like my job.

All day I've gotten exactly two emails that required me to actually respond/take action, and they were literally "Please send me a copy of this thing" and "Oh, also please send me a copy of this other thing." Then there was a calendar invite for something that's happening three weeks from now. Even I can't spin mashing the "Accept" button on a calendar invite into something approaching work.

James probably could. But I'm no
Godfather of Soul.

So, having rolled in early and skipped lunch, I'm going to take off just as soon as I've hit my eight hours. And I have a spectacular Final Friday planned when I get home. No, I do! I really, really do!

Yeah, no, I totally don't.

Aw man, remember Philosoraptor?
We were killing it in the 2010s, kids.

Here are some things I'll actually do to pass the hours until Final Friday becomes Swan Song Saturday:

Look for a better alliterative word to go with Saturday (the above is the best I could do on short notice)
Eat pasta (I'm looking forward to this one)
Play fetch with Tacocat
Adjust the color on my TV (backstory: On Christmas Eve, I wanted to watch my favorite movie adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," the 1951 one with Alistair Sim. All I could find was a [badly] colorized version, so I turned the color setting on my TV all the way down so I could watch it in gloomy b&w the way God intended. Only I didn't notice what the color was initially set to. And now it just seems...wrong. No matter how I adjust it, it's either "colors not appearing in nature" or "old Polaroids that have been sitting in a box since 1983." I will get the balance right, even if I have to risk my sanity by throwing the brightness and contrast settings into the mix.)
Play with re-designing this page (it's looking as tired as I feel most days)
Finish the Stephen King novel I started on the plane when I visited the frozen Midwest earlier this month (Holly, if you're interested)
Demurely sip a cocktail in my typical refined fashion

Whew, that's quite a list, and I haven't even scratched the surface of discarding the refrigerator contents that have sat untouched since 2024 was just a lad in a diaper.

However you plan to spend the last Friday of this ~~blasted~~ blessed year, have fun, be safe, and come back to find out if I actually did any of this crap or just watched clips from old 70s variety shows until I nodded off. No wagering, please.

Christmas Eve with a Middling Parody of Clement C. Moore

2024-12-24T09:55:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve with Chuck Baudelaire (and Tacocat)

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

Tacocat was cavorting with his favorite stuffed mouse.

No stockings were hung by the chimney with care

Because in my apartment there's no fireplace there.

The children weren't nestled - I've only the one,

And she's flown the coop, her new life has begun.

And I in my jammies - but not the cat, bless him,

I'm not risking sharp claws in my flesh just to dress him.

Then out on the street, I heard sirens wail -

Another drunk driver being taken to jail.

As I looked out and saw flashing red and blue lights,

I hoped all would make it home safely that night.

And when it got quiet, with nothing to see,

I turned my attention to what was on TV.

The usual suspects - Rudolph and the Grinch.

They were fictional, but hey, they would do in a pinch.

I poured me a cocktail and drank it down quick.

I poured me another - that should do the trick.

Then I made a toast to the ones that weren't here

And I thought of their names, and I wished them good cheer.

On Mom & Dad, Sis & Bro, Precocious Daughter,

On dear Southside Shelly, living next to the water,

On Allie Cat, Christopher, Miss Othmar, and Smee,

On Chris and BekS (with her college degree!),

On Pablo, and of course, on Bestest Friend,

And Drummer Boy, too (though all good things must end).

I wish you all love and a nice Christmas Day -

Then the cat snagged my sleeve and insisted we play.

This year I'm alone in this holiday season

Yet I'm content, for no particular reason

Except that next year will be better, I think -

Merry Christmas to all,

Imma have another drink.

Sad, But Also...

2024-12-20T18:05:00.000-06:00

Tonight I'm grieving a young man I never met. But he was someone special to someone who is special to me. So I grieve for both of them, the one who is gone too soon and the one who is left behind. Because there is, unfortunately, more than enough grief to go around when someone takes his own life.

I feel sad, but I also feel dumb. I ask myself inane questions: Did this happen despite all the holiday spirit whirling about, or because of it? Was it an act of passion or dispassion? Was there a moment when he changed his mind, but it was too late to choose survival over capitulation? The questions get increasingly desperate the longer I think about them, because the only person who could have answered them has gone silent forever.

I feel sad, but I also feel angry. Because suicide is an act of supreme selfishness, of self-indulgence, of arrogance. Goddammit, what gives you the right to decide that ending your pain in the moment is worth the pain that will be endured forever in your memory? I don't want to be angry, but anger is a stage of grief, and the only way past it is through it.

I feel sad, but I also feel solidarity. Because I've sat in a dark room in the middle of the night, crying because I couldn't find a reason to choose life. I've felt the sharp, quick fear that I could only see one choice before me, and I knew it was terrible and permanent but felt helpless to resist it. In the end I, many years ago, found just enough strength to turn away and make a different choice, as difficult as that was. Why didn't this young man find just enough strength? What if I had been just like him?

I feel sad. The life that was taken had promise, had potential. This was a person who was loved, not the way a celebrity or a statesman is loved, ostentatiously and ultimately impersonally. He was loved by real people, in the small ways that can easily be missed if you're too focused on the voids in your life. The ways that don't seem like enough when you don't feel you're enough.

We're enough. Every last one of us. And I wish it wasn't too late for this young man, and I wish I could say it to everyone who needs to hear it and believe it in their bones. Maybe everyone reading this can help spread the word.

Please call the Suicide & Crisis Hotline by calling or texting 988 if you don't believe you can choose life. You're not alone.

Swings (Temperature and Mood)

2024-12-16T19:33:00.000-06:00

I was out of town last week - hence, no new posts. I trust you all survived the devastation of not having fresh content from me.

I imagine you all looking just like this.

Full disclosure: I could have written new posts last week. Yes, indeed. I had my laptop with me, and jeebus knows I had time to write, even though I was technically on vacation. It's not as if my days were filled with fun activities that had me gamboling all over the place during the day and falling, happily exhausted, into my bed each night.

Here's the thing. I was staying at my parents' house last week. A house I left exactly twice during my visit. Once was to grab lunch in the McD's drive-thru. The second time was to meet the family at a restaurant to celebrate my Dad's birthday. We all had a nice dinner, did presents, chatted and reminisced, and then we bundled up against the cold and headed out into a full-on freaking snowstorm.

Mind you, just a couple of hours earlier, the handsome, smiling weatherman on TV had told us all that absolutely no snow would be falling that night. The handsome, smiling weatherman on TV flat-out lied. But maybe, technically, he didn't lie. Because very little snow was actually falling. It was instead being driven pretty much horizontally behind a gale-force wind directly into our faces.

It looked a lot like this. Really.

I was driving that night. I was driving a rental car, with my elderly parents in the back seat, on roads with which I'm only marginally familiar, in the kind of conditions that, here at home in Texas, would have literally shut down the city.

It was an absolutely terrifying drive through a near-solid wall of white. I think my hands finally unfurled from their vise-like grip on the steering wheel two days later.

But that's not why I didn't leave the house again until it was time to go to the airport. The snow, as fierce as it was, was dry and powdery, and the whipping wind blew it all off the roads by the next morning. What kept me inside the rest of my stay was the temperature, which dropped like a manic Plinko ball in the wake of the snowstorm.

Do you want to know how many degrees it was outside?

One. It was one single, solitary, frigid degree.

Shown here: WTF degrees.

I'm not built for that. I'll admit it, I'm not proud. And while I'm amply equipped with protective body fat, it's not rated for one degree above zero. It's rated for "I think I can turn the heat down to 70, as long as I wear wool."

But I'll say one thing for the single-digit trauma I endured. It enabled me to experience a truly impressive temperature differential this morning when I returned to work.

Let me just say that my place of work has never, for a single hour, maintained an appropriate temperature. For most of the year it's abysmally cold. Even in the middle of August, when you'd think a hyperthyroidal air conditioning system would be a good thing, it manages to be so unpleasantly cold that you actually enjoy going out in the Texas heat for a few brief moments before sanity returns.

The one time of the year when it's warm at work is during the unpredictable months of autumn, when you may want a sweater in the morning and a bucket of ice to pour over your head in the afternoon. The HVAC in the building doesn't know what to do in these changeable circumstances, so it just sort of blows out the most random, least appropriate temperature it can manage, as if thinking to itself, "If you can't please everyone, you should please no one."

Also my personal mantra.

Anyway, when I got to work the door to my office was closed, probably to signal to the cleaning crew that the slob who normally occupies it had given them the week off. I opened the door and was greeted by the warm currents of a Santa Ana wind, localized inside my office. It was seriously balmy in there.

I checked the thermostat. Eighty-two degrees.

That is not a comfy indoor temperature at any time of year. Fortunately, by mid-morning the a/c had remembered itself and resumed being an asshole on the cold side of the spectrum.

But I had achieved something pretty remarkable: I had experienced an 81-degree temperature difference in the space of a couple of days. It was a new personal record, I'm guessing. I mean, it's not as if I track how often I'm subjected to utter nonsense like an 80+ degree swing, both extremes of which were exceedingly uncomfortable and annoying. But I think I would have remembered such a ridiculous occurrence, right?

For the record, 1 degree is not nearly as cold as it gets in Wisconsin during the winter, and I've experienced much colder temperatures. Just not two weeks before Christmas and combined with a blizzard that Handsome McForecaster promised wasn't going to happen. Also for the record, any desire I may have harbored to return to my hometown and live in the Midwest again froze to fucking death last week.

Make Fetch Happen

2024-12-07T22:11:00.001-06:00

Let me tell you something about Tacocat.

Other than the fact that he's gorgeous.

He does something that no cat I've owned has ever done.

He plays fetch.

As in, full-on, throw the ball and bring it back fetch.

Tacocat has a number of stuffed toys - mousies, balls, etc. When I'm sitting on my couch, he will bring one to me and drop it next to me. I'll throw it across the room, and he'll chase it and bring it back to me, making little chirping noises to let me know he's back in the event that I'm doing something rude like watching TV or typing something on my phone.

I'll throw it again, and he'll bring it back again.

Repeat literally dozens of times.

This is the cutest thing I've ever seen.

He's very proud of his stuffie.

As I'm writing this, Tacocat has interrupted me at least five times to throw his stuffed ball. It's not as if I'm going to say no to a cat who wants to play fetch, right?

Make that six.

All cats are different. The Siamese Kitten never played fetch in her life. And let's make it clear - I certainly never taught or encouraged Tacocat to do this. It's just his thing. He brought it with him, and it's his.

I guess we all have our things. Take 'em or leave 'em, we have our things. To love us is to just...accept them.

I accept a cat who plays fetch.

I freaking love a cat who plays fetch, to tell the truth.

What is your fetch - your thing that makes you, you, take it or leave it?

Let me know.

Poem: December

2024-12-05T16:50:00.004-06:00

December

December counts off, screaming

Ready or not!

And not scurries out of the way of the lot,

While the confident ready is crushed by the rush

Realizing too late, as it does every year,

That the line between ready and not disappears

As the calendar's climax draws closer, and whether

We like it or not, we all get there together.

Some started the year

With high hopes for success,

Manifesting for more while depending on less.

Meanwhile others were late coming out of the gate,

But just like the tortoise, intent to prevail,

Took well-measured steps on a well-trodden trail

Just to find that in hindsight, no matter the pace

That we set, we all get to the very same place

At the very same hour

In the very same year

As the timelines converge until they disappear,

And the ready, the not, and those who forgot

There was even a race they were trying to win

Set their sights on the one that's about to begin.

And if there are regrets, by the time next December

Counts off, chances are we won't even remember.

- Chuck Baudelaire

12.5.2024

Resume Tips That Might Actually Work

2024-12-02T20:54:00.001-06:00

Let me start by saying I'm not looking for a job.

I'm content where I am. Even if I were less than content, I loathe the job-hunting process with the heat of twelve hundred supernovas. And at this stage of my career, when my job starts getting me down I think about my bank account (comfy-ish), my retirement savings (ouchy-ish), and my personal motto ("suck it up, buttercup") and simply hunker down to endure the next round of bullshit.

Of all the things in life that don't love me back,
my job is the least of my worries.

I sympathize with job seekers, though. My own Precocious Daughter is one of them. She's smart, talented, educated, and hard working, but she's currently underemployed and shooting out resumes like a damn t-shirt cannon, with limited success. And when she's finally successful, what will she have? A fucking job. As reward-to-effort ratios go, landing a fucking job is right up there with spending $30 at a carnival booth to win an inflatable clown hammer.

You can't even beat your enemies senseless
with this damn thing.

Nonetheless, a job is a pretty necessary thing to have for most of us, and a resume is the way most of us get our foot in the door with the companies that are handing out said jobs. That's why so much advice geared toward employment-seekers centers around crafting a solid resume.

Judging by the resumes I read, either as part of my own job or from frequenting subreddits devoted to resume writing, approximately 98% of that advice is routinely misunderstood and/or ignored. There are some seriously weak CVs floating around out there.

For instance, I saw a resume today where the job-seeker, in the very first sentence of their summary, referred to themselves as "seasoned, dedicated, and resourceful." Three words in (not counting the conjunction), and two of them were weasel words. That's not a ratio that will land you a job, Clyde. Here's why:

First of all, "seasoned" sounds like an attempt to find a fancier, cooler word than "experienced." But it's not. To the resume reader/algorithm, it comes across as either a euphemism for "I learned to type during the Carter administration" or a weird allusion to rubbing oil and salt into a cast iron frying pan. Neither is going to award you any points, and may in fact get you stereotyped as a little old lady/man who's preoccupied with cooking blogs.

On to "dedicated." "Dedicated" says nothing. Literally nothing. I can almost guarantee that no hiring manager will ever want to know if you're "dedicated." They want to know if you'll put up with a daily onslaught of bullshit from the multiple competing layers of management you'll be reporting to. That takes the opposite of dedication - it requires not giving a rat's scaly-tailed ass about anything but keeping your boss off your back. So don't use a word that implies you care, because the screening algorithm doesn't.

Then there's "resourceful." This is actually a very good word to use on a resume. It implies certain useful and desirable skills. It's a deceptively inoffensive word that can mean anything from "I will keep a detailed inventory of where the bodies are buried and deploy it as needed" to "My advanced Google Fu will make you look like you know what the fuck you're doing instead of the obvious truth." Your straightest path to success is to establish yourself as the person who gets shit done. Note: This is separate and distinct from being the person who actually does shit themselves. Strive to be the former without being the latter. That's a person who brings value to the organization. And that's why "resourceful" is an ace resume word. Highly recommended.

In that same vein, here are some other more powerful substitutes to excite the algorithm and make your resume stand out from those of your weasel-worded competitors.

Weak: Utilized

Strong: Smashed

Weak: Leveraged

Strong: Lightly blackmailed

Weak: Supported

Strong: Continually saved the ass of

Weak: Optimized

Strong: Un-fucked

Weak: Discretion

Strong: Screaming silently

Weak: Tact

Strong: Screaming silently

Weak: Facilitated

Strong: Slapped sense into

Weak: Contributor

Strong: Shit-shoveler first class

Weak: Learned

Strong: Tempered in fire

Weak: Provided

Strong: Handled like a fucking boss

Go ahead. Introduce some of these words into your next resume. See if you don't have prospective employers lining up to offer you a life of stress and limited recognition.

But if all else fails, type all the weasel words in white 4pt text into the bottom of your resume before you upload it. The algorithm gods will be pleased.

Fancy Feasts Come in All Sizes

2024-11-27T12:53:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Guys, if you've made it this far,
you're probably safe.

I'm not making turkey this year. Or stuffing. Or mashed potatoes. Or cranberry sauce. In short, not making a traditional turkey dinner at all.

It's just Precocious Daughter and me tomorrow. And we don't want to mess with all that just for the two of us. Well, there's Tacocat, but I don't think he's ever seen a Thanksgiving dinner before, so we'll just toss him a few extra treats and tell him that's it, that's the holiday.

Don't anybody show him this, though.

Instead we're making a couple of family-favorite dishes together that are delicious, nostalgic, and hard to screw up. And don't create a lot of dirty dishes, which is just extra-thankful.

But I have a co-worker...I'll call her Edith, because with all affection and kindness, she's kind of a dingbat.

Look it up, children.

Like me, Edith is also planning a quiet Thanksgiving with just her, her spouse, and a pet or two. Unlike me, Edith is going pilgrim-shit crazy over Thanksgiving dinner.

Candied whole cranberries. Roasted sweet potato medallions. Probably something made with phyllo dough. Hoo-boy, nothing jacks up your effort-to-results ratio like making shit out of phyllo dough.

Don't get me wrong, I love phyllo and phyllo-centric dishes. But if I'm going there, I need there to be a house full of people to congratulate me on the lighter-than-air delicacies I've created. PDaughter is totally worth the effort, but her GenZ default enthusiastic reaction of two head bobs and a "Yeah, nice" does not provide my USRDA of validation.

I slaved over sheets of premade frozen phyllo
and all I get is a goddamn thumbs up emoji?

Also on Edith's Thanksgiving Day menu: A salad that has more than three ingredients, rolls that didn't emerge from a cardboard tube that was smacked against the kitchen counter, and an appetizer involving foreign cheese and artisanal shaved prosciutto. And I'll bet her stuffing has sausage and hand-scraped thyme in it.

No hate to any of this food. It all sounds pretty delicious to me. (Except for stuffing with sausage in it - why does that mess seem to have gone viral this year and how can we stop it in 2025 and/or perpetuity?) Yet in almost exactly the same way that I wouldn't hire Timothée Chalamet to scour my bathtub in a g-string and not livestream it to all my friends, I can't be arsed to put all this work into a feast that only two people will ever see. Never mind the fact that my refrigerator wouldn't hold a fraction of the leftovers generated by this meal. If I can't shovel it into Rubbermaid containers and send it home with six different people, it's going to get fed to the neighborhood raccoons.

And I don't even mean throwing it in the dumpster for the trash pandas to raid - I'm talking about heaping paper plates with food and sailing them, Frisbee-style, off my balcony to their little waiting paws.

Ermahgerd, charcooteries!

So, while I wish Edith all the best and an enjoyable high-end Thanksgiving meal, PDaughter and I will be happily eating peasant food and treating Tacocat to a can of Fancy Feast turkey-flavored slop in gravy. I think we'll all be happy.

And to all my Drunkards I wish a happy, healthy Thanksgiving that is just the right size and shape to hold your gratitude. Internet hugs and sweet little raccoon kisses.

My Coat of Many Cookies

2024-11-24T13:18:00.001-06:00

A long time ago, in a marriage far, far away, my mother-in-law gifted me a black London Fog trench coat. It did not come with three raccoons pretending to be a person, but it was still really nice.

You can get this awesome pin
from strikegently.co, and honestly
you should. (Not a paid endorsement.)

I don't know exactly how long I've had this coat. Twenty years, at least. Possibly 25. I don't remember if I got it before or after Precocious Daughter was born.

(As an aside: PDaughter turns 25 today. I've made the conscious decision not to devote an entire post to it, mostly because she's a whole-ass adult and entitled to more privacy than I afforded her when she was under my roof and easy blog fodder. Suffice to say she was a sassy 10-year-old when I first introduced her here, and now she's halfway through her 20s. Yes, I feel old, thanks for asking.)

Anyway, if you've ever owned a London Fog trench coat, you know that they last forever. They're well-made, well-wearing, and don't ever go out of style.

Exhibit A.

What they can't do, however, is physically increase in size as their owner, well, gets older and fatter. My trench coat, which was a bit large on me when I first got it, no longer closes comfortably over my various middle-aged body parts. And so, several months ago I embarked on a search to replace my beloved trench.

I had two criteria for a new coat - just two: It had to have a hood, and it had to have a removable liner. And I guess there was an unspoken third criterion: It couldn't cost the equivalent of a car payment. I don't have a car payment right now, and I'm not about to spend that kind of money on something that doesn't even have cupholders.

This has been a surprisingly difficult quest. It's taken months. I just couldn't find a trench coat that met my (I thought) pretty basic requirements. I was reminded of an old Sesame Street skit where a lady is shopping for a blue furry coat. First the salesperson shows her a coat that's furry but not blue, then one that's blue but not furry. Just as she's about to give up, along comes Cookie Monster, who of course is furry and blue. Delighted, she ends up wearing him out of the store, and yeah, that's actually pretty damn weird, isn't it?

Well, the other night I finally found my Cookie Monster. I took the drastic step of going to the mall (which was a pretty sad experience, a topic for another post) and combing through the coat racks at various brick-and-mortar stores. And at last, there it was: Lining, removable. Hood, present and also removable. Brand: London Fog (which wasn't a requirement, but still a score). Color: Classic Columbo tan. Buttons: All able to close without making muffled groaning sounds.

The price was...OK, it was more than I was hoping to spend. On the other hand, when I amortized it over the next 20 years, it was almost ridiculously affordable. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So I finally have a sweet new three-season coat (ain't nobody wearing a coat in Texas in July, and it doesn't rain anyway). It only took six months and a pile of my disposable income to find it. But it's almost perfect. If only it came with cookies...

I Didn't Even Have Time to Make Fun of This!

2024-11-21T13:16:00.001-06:00

Goddammit.

I had a great post almost finished about former Congressman and perpetual creep Matt Gaetz being nominated for (snort) Attorney General of the United States (wheeze) by President-Elect Skinwalker (BWA-hahahaha).

What the Mary Kay Peel-Off Hydrating Mask is that???

In a Presidential transition period where the list of proposed Cabinet members and department heads resembles nothing so much as next season's contestants on "The Masked Singer," Matt Gaetz stood out as a bizarre choice. His bona fides as an expert in law amount to being credibly accused of sex trafficking and being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for a laundry list of crimes and violations that make him more qualified to be Diddy's consigliere than the top law enforcement official in the nation.

My personal theory is that Gaetz never had a snowball's chance in Juarez of being confirmed by the Senate. But since he's been a loyal buttlicker (bootlicker? booblicker? he's been licking something, surely) of Leatherface McTinyhands for so long, he brokered a deal whereby he'd get the AG nod and use it as an excuse to resign from Congress. Since the Ethics Committee has no authority to investigate an ex-Representative, its (surely damning) report on Matty's shenanigans would be shelved forever. And then he could take on some paid lackey role in the Trump orbit that didn't require confirmation hearings, and his warped little world would keep on turning.

It was Plan B after nobody believed Jack Nicholson
had quietly taken over Florida's 1st Congressional District.

But something changed. Somehow the Chinese knockoff brand of Chutes and Ladders that passes for 3-D chess in Trumpworld got knocked to floor before the game was over. The key to what transpired behind closed doors likely can be found in this sentence from Gaetz' withdrawal tweet: "I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback."

I'm not sure which member(s) of the Senate finally grew a pair and flat-out threatened Gaetz with exposure, but bless 'em. Once it was "thoughtfully" explained to him that 1) the report was coming out, even if it had to be leaked one line at a time and 2) the Orange One was going to leave his skeevy ass hanging out in the wind, Matty folded like a dollar bill stuck in a pole dancer's g-string.

My guess is that whether the report comes out or not, Trump will distance himself from unemployed politician Matt Gaetz. He doesn't like losers, as we all know. Bye-bye, cushy advisor role.

Maybe he and Dan Bingo-Bango-Bongino can start a podcast together after Dan's equally ludicrous nomination to head up the Secret Service crashes and burns. Too bad that Alex Jones's studio is no longer available. And that the name "Dumb and Dumber" is already taken.

Anyway, I'm bummed that I couldn't write about Matt Gaetz today. Better luck next time.

Breaking Up with My Stuff

2024-11-18T16:07:00.002-06:00

I threw away my inkjet printer today.

RIP, HP Envy 5450.

No biggie. I won't miss it (more on that in a moment). It stung a little to throw away an unused $40 ink cartridge, but it's not as if I had any desire to post it on Facebook Marketplace so I could sell it to some rando for $5.

I'm a huge fan of the concept of
opportunity cost.

But as I hauled the old girl to the trash chute, I got to thinking generally about the labor involved in acquiring vs. discarding things. One of my goals for 2024 has been to get rid of stuff I no longer need, objects that no longer "spark joy." Alas, with six weeks left in the year, I've made only middling progress toward de-cluttering. Some of that is due to chronic laziness. Some is due to the fact that only Tacocat and I see the inside of my apartment these days, and he is amazingly tolerant of my piles of stuff (also, being a spoiled cat, he has his own surplus of possessions that I wouldn't dare criticize).

Would you criticize this??

There is another dynamic at work, however. I've found that the decision-making process used to acquire things is far less complex than what's involved in discarding them. The former has three simple steps: 1. I see a thing. 2. I decide I want and/or need the thing. 3. I buy the thing. Easy-peasy. But once an item is mine and floating in my physical orbit, suddenly I have a multilayered relationship with it, and it takes way more than just reversing the steps to not own it any more.

I can look around me and identify a dozen things in my immediate surroundings that were impulse buys, snap decisions, and of course drunken Amazon purchases. (I'm looking at you, Loch Ness Monster in a bottle.) Some of them are items I still want and/or need. Others have definitely outlived their usefulness (if they ever had any). Yet they all continue to occupy space in my abode. Why?

Well, let's see why some of these things still have a place here:

1. Memories. I don't need a statue of King Kong clinging to the side of the Empire State Building. But it's a memento of my first trip to New York to visit Precocious Daughter. It's also cute as hell. Verdict: Staying.

2. Delusions. I have a dressmaker's dummy whose measurements no longer match my own. Even if I still sewed regularly, she'd be no good to me, because she's a skinny bitch and I'm not. But I simply can't silence the inner voice that says I might be that size again. So I keep her, because I'd feel foolish if I lost 30 pounds and didn't have the right size dummy. (See also: sewing patterns that are 2-4 sizes too small.) Verdict: Hanging around.

3. Lack of imagination. I have a floor lamp in my living room. It's not plugged in. It's not needed as a light source. It serves only one purpose: It has a glass shelf that is the perfect height and angle for my digital TV antenna, which doesn't work if I place it anywhere else. And so, instead of discarding this useless lamp that takes up valuable floor space, it remains, because I can't think of any other way to get my local TV channels. Verdict: Still here.

4. Misplaced nostalgia. Way back in the day, my dad had a set of encyclopedias. They're long gone, but somehow I ended up with the small, cheap bookcase that used to hold them. Like the lamp above, it serves no purpose except to take up floor space - there's nary a book on it. But I remember it once was my nightstand in the first bedroom I ever had to myself, and apparently that means something? Verdict: Afraid to get rid of it.

5. Laziness. The big one. The reason I held on to an inkjet printer that hadn't worked in probably two years. Because I had to reach behind a bookshelf to unplug it. Because I had to carry it down the hall to the trash room. Because I had to move a couple of pieces of furniture that I promised myself I'd move if I ever didn't have to accommodate the printer any more. Verdict: Mission accomplished, finally.

In short, breaking up with things is at least as hard as breaking up with people, and for the same reasons. At least I rarely dream about the stuff that got away.

Next challenge: The shoes that don't go with anything and hurt my feet but still lurk in the back of my closet and mock me.

Local Blogger Declares: Karma Is Onion-Flavored

2024-11-14T19:40:00.000-06:00

I for one was surprised and delighted to learn today that the website, physical assets, and intellectual property of the worm-infested journalistic horse apple known as Infowars have been purchased at auction by America's Finest News Source, The Onion.

Says so right there.
And as the US Constitution states, "Thou shalt not lie
on the Internet lest ye be voted off the island."

This is an actual true story. As you may know, Alex Jones, who I firmly believe is insane and is also the biological offspring of a feral hog and an oversize sentient human thumb, is on the hook for a soul-quenching $1.4 billion for being an absolute asshole to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting. Imagine spending 10 years trying to get your dick hard at the expense of murdered children, only to be fined approximately a billion dollars for every inch you were actually able to achieve. No wonder he's always crying like a little bitch.

"I regret that I have but one inch to give to
them hookers."
- American patriot Alex Jones

Anyway, I am a longtime fan of The Onion, which was started in my very own home state of Wisconsin in 1988 as an actual (sort of) newspaper and made the leap to the Internet in 1996. Since then it's provided endless entertainment from two primary sources. First, there are its amusing, satirical headlines (such as "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job" and my personal favorite, "Kitten Thinks of Nothing But Murder All Day"). Then there are the hordes of people who, with great sincerity and zero critical thinking skills, believe that its amusing, satirical headlines are real.

Imagine the Venn diagram of "people who believe The Onion is real" and "people who base their world view on Alex Jones." Just a round, smooth circle, much like their cerebral cortices.

"It's like kissing a peanut."

I don't know what Onion parent company Global Tetrahedron LLC (also a real thing) paid for the toxic assets of the Infowars brand. One can only imagine how much over that price it will cost to get what must be the goatlike stench of Alex Jones' ass out of the host's chair and other soft furniture that conveyed with the purchase. But they must have done some cipherin' and figured the ROI was worth it. It can't all be for the sake of trolling the bastard, can it?

On that same note, I also don't know what The Onion plans to do with their newly acquired empire of conspiracy-mongering and hateful chucklefuckery. Charge lamebrained Jones followers $20 a pop for microphone rides? Sell photo ops at his erstwhile desk with a cardboard cutout of one of his most flattering poses?

I saw a version of this where someone
had photoshopped boobs onto him,
which just seems redundant.

On the other hand, The Onion has also taken possession of the vast trove of audio and video clips of Alex elucidating his most compelling theories. These include top hits like "government chemicals are turning frogs gay," former Special Counsel Robert Mueller is "a literal swamp king creature come to kill America," and of course the godfather of them all, the one that brought him to where he stands, lumpy and destitute, today, "the shadow people populated most of a small town in Connecticut with actors pretending to be schoolchildren and their families for the purpose of [unintelligible rage-drooling]."

The value of repackaging and replaying such content is immense to a satirical publication like The Onion. The staff may never have to work hard again. No more toiling to create headlines so outlandish yet plausible that only a bunch of mono-toothed mouth-breathers would believe they were true. All they need do is publish a transcript or upload a clip, and boom! Time to crack open a White Claw and call it good.

Good luck, Onion. I can't wait to see what you do with the rotting carcass of Alex Jones after the hazmat teams have finished their work.

One last thing: In my research for this post, I found this article from The Onion. It was published exactly 15 years ago today. They're not just clever, they're goddamn clairvoyants.

A New Cat to Be Crazy About

2024-11-12T20:14:00.003-06:00

Hey, everyone. Here's my cat. For the purpose of this here blog, Imma call him the Tacocat.

Longtime readers may recall that I previously had two cats - one was the Siamese Kitten, who was my constant companion and official Best Cat Ever. The other was the Chongers, the sweet tuxedo cat who came to me and Precocious Daughter in a strange and wonderful way right before the pandemic started (hey! remember the pandemic?) and was the bestest boy until his sudden and untimely passing in February 2023.

Two months after the Chongers left us, and not long after I did my last post before my extended hiatus, the Siamese Kitten left us. She was 16 1/2, and she was just an old girl who tried her best to go on, but I made the decision to let her go before she could suffer.

In the space of two months I went from cat-mom of two to empty nester. Coming on the heels of PDaughter moving to New York to pursue her dream of not living in Texas, it was a lot to get used to. I do firmly believe that the Siamese Kitten's tiny little ghost still lives with me, but that's another post. And anyway, a ghost-cat isn't the same as an actual live cat. For one thing, ghost cats don't wrap their needle-tipped paws around your arm and bite you for no damn reason at all.

Not my cat, but definitely the same vibe.

So I got used to living really, truly alone. I also got used to other things, like not having to sweep cat hair out of every corner of every room every day. And not constantly stepping on little pebbles of cat litter. Also, not having to haul big jugs of said litter from the car to my apartment every few weeks. Ooh, and not having bowls of food and water on the floor to attract bugs.

No, look, I was totes sad. But the point is, life goes on, and we all adapt to change. And I just wasn't emotionally ready to welcome a new kitty into my life immediately after losing two in a short space of time. The other stuff was just gravy. Sad, non-messy gravy.

Well, a year went by, and PDaughter decided I had had enough time to grieve. She came home for a visit, ostensibly to see family and friends, but with a very ulterior motive. On a Saturday morning, she marched me out to the car (it wasn't much of a march, I was a bit hungover) and drove me to the local no-kill shelter. It was time, she said. Time for a new cat.

And there, the Tacocat found us. My resistance was low (again, hungover), and he looked deep in my eyes and said, "There's an easy mark."

Look at this photogenic bastard.

So they boxed him up and we took him home.

His first day home.
He had just peed in a closet.

You guys, I've always wanted a tabby cat. So it's pretty lucky that he is. It certainly wasn't his personality that drew me to him. That came later, and it went hard. More on that in future posts.

For now, I just wanted to introduce my Drunkards to this stripey boy who has totally won my heart.

I may write a poem about him. You've been warned.

GOOD Things About the Trump Win

2024-11-08T18:36:00.003-06:00

There are lots of terrible, awful things about Donald Trump's election victory the other night. The biggest is that he's going to be President again. As awful, terrible things go, that's the apex predator of craptacularity.

(There's a little red squiggly underscore trying to tell me that "craptacularity" isn't a word. It is too a word. I have the best words.)

Yeah, all that stuff.

Among the other terrible things that will inevitably happen, he'll assemble a Cabinet of unqualified toadies who will range from the merely incompetent to the truly malevolent. He'll roll back environmental protections that were restored by President Biden after Trump rolled them back the first time around. He'll impose potentially disastrous tariffs that will antagonize our enemies and punish our allies.

(Or he'll try to. I can't believe that a sane Congress - even a Republican-controlled one - wouldn't push back on such an aggressive, ill-advised economic policy. Someone would take up the mantle of the McCain thumbs-down. Wouldn't they?)

And I could go on about immigration policy, LGBTQ protections, blowing up the national debt, and the like. But I won't - not today. The title promises some positive things about the 2nd Trump presidency, and I'm going to deliver them. So here we go.

So first, there will be no return to the horror-movie stylings of the Melania Trump Christmas decorations. Mark my words, Ms. Thang is not coming back to the White House. She's not going to play First Lady. She successfully cashed in on Trump's first term, but I'm positive the contract she signed won't extend to the second. That means she'll keep her manicured claws off the Rose Garden, too.

I still have nightmares about these things
sprouting feet and roaming the West Wing
at night.

The Trump Kidz will be blissfully absent, too. The Kushners - Ivanka and Fish Lips - have basically built a moat around their castle and pulled up the drawbridge. Barron is all grown up, and while the jury is still out on how much parasite DNA he inherited, the fact is he's going to be a college student for basically the entirety of Trump's term. Eric is stuck running what's left of the family business with a "Kick Me, Daddy" sign permanently tattooed on his back. Tiffany is still trying to decide whether she wants to be a Trump or a real person. And Don, Jr? I actually don't mind if he sticks around in the public eye, because at least he's entertaining, in a "what if we raised a feral hog on nothing but caffeine and Pixy Stix" kind of way.

Then there's the Don and Elon Show. A lot of people are nervous that Trump is going to place Elon Musk in close proximity to the seat of government, where he'll try to wield power while making pew-pew noises and doing those weird little jumping-jacks he does. And he will. But here's what Trump doesn't understand about Elon. Elon is very good at surrounding himself with talented people who create things he can then take credit for. For which he can then take credit. Whatever. But I don't think it goes both ways. Elon isn't the kind of guy who surrounds others. He and Trump are going to spend a lot of time staring at each other across the Resolute Desk, each waiting for the other to do something that will make him look brilliant. I think their working relationship is going to collapse quickly, and in hilarious fashion.

Look, Daddy, look at me fly!

Of course, there are other, more sobering things to think about. I am worried about the people of Ukraine. They've done an incredible job of fighting for their freedom and autonomy, but let's face it, they need the continued support of the United States, and and Vlad Putin spent a ton of money to reinstall his puppet Donald, who will try his best to leave the Ukrainians to fend for themselves. On the other hand, Putin and Co. hasn't been doing great of late. Lately Russia has been compelled to import soldiers from fellow wasteland North Korea, and those soldiers have made an instant impact by becoming addicted to porn. This is a real story, and even if it turns out to be less than 100% true, it's certainly a lovely way to usher in the Trump administration.

It's hard, but let's try to think positive thoughts about the next four years. Who knows, if we're all good, we may get an updated version of this (RIP, Liz):

And...We're Back

2024-11-06T08:34:00.001-06:00

Hi guys, I'm back.

Since our country decided that an old, fat, ugly, stupid gullible wannabe dictator should be given another shot at being the leader of the free world, I'm going to have to jump on the bandwagon here.

Yeah, I don't do podcasts.

I'm so fucking old school that way.

But I'll commit to doing at least three blog posts a week. They may touch upon the Orange Asshole.

They may touch upon my cat, Choco, whom I received earlier this year when my Precocious Daughter decreed that I replace my dearly departed Siamese Kitten and the Chongers.

They may touch upon PDaughter herself, who now has a Master's degree and is living the dream in New York.

But mostly they'll touch upon how the USA as a country has decided to give itself over to this...thing.

Follow if you want, and post suggestions are always welcome, no matter how dumb or silly they are.

Let's do this, OK?

I'm Running a Sh*tshow, Part 4

2023-03-23T19:20:00.010-05:00

Guys, I think...this is the last installment of the Great Office Move of 2023!

Here are the first three parts if you want to review:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

So. We are moved in. Those of you who have moved home or office before know what "moved in" means. We are fully out of the old place. We are fully in the new place. All the boxes are unpacked. Their contents are spread out in an ungodly patternless mess, and nobody quite knows where to put it all or where to find it in the meantime.

You know, moved in.

Or, everything everywhere all at once. As it were.

I'll spare you the details of the long days and the 10,421 details I've been chasing. They're not interesting, not even to me. But here are a few tidbits to tie off this stressful, difficult, maddening, weird experience for good and all. Enjoy.

People who know what they're doing are amazing, no matter what they do. I benefited from the experience and skill of so many people, from furniture installers to electricians to construction workers who somehow turned a cavernous empty space into a beautiful, modern, perfectly put-together office. I couldn't do one percent of what these talented men (and they were almost entirely men in this case) could do, and they all have my mad respect for their hard work.

Making hard decisions is hard. The day before all 100+ people were supposed to report to the new office - a Sunday afternoon - I received word that a number of electrical and other problems hadn't been resolved. All through the buildout process, my boss had been adamant about our move-in date. Adamant. And he had left it in my hands to make it happen. On that Sunday afternoon I conferred with several other people who 1) believed it couldn't happen but 2) had no intention of saying that on the record. It was, without a doubt, the biggest and most difficult judgment call I ever had to make in my 350-year (or whatever it's been) career. In the end I made the decision to recommend pushing back the sacred move-in day. And my boss acted on my recommendation. And...it was the right call.

Artist's rendering of my boss hearing
the bad news.

People's priorities are...weird. Our new building has some sweet amenities, including a state-of-the-art gym that includes a yoga studio and showers with towel service. I had people asking me a week before we even moved in when they could start using the facilities. And when I sent out the forms required to get access, it seemed as if the entire business of unpacking, not to mention the actual, you know, work that we all do, stopped dead. I was inundated, first with forms and then with people asking when the access they'd requested 30 minutes earlier would kick in. Never mind that some people still didn't have internet or couldn't find the boxes containing their belongings. All they wanted was to ride the communal sweaty Peloton. For the record, I'll bet an internet dollar that 80% of those people will never use the gym.

Office fixtures are stupid expensive. The whiteboards in our conference rooms cost $700. Each. Those are the smaller ones. The larger ones were over $1,000 each. We spent $60,000 on window shades. The chair at my desk cost $900, and there are more than 60 of them in the office. This is a racket. OMG.

I developed a moderate crush on our construction superintendent. I'm going to call it moderate. Not like a "I have dreamed of him" crush. OK, that's a lie, I have totally dreamed of him. He is super-competent, he is kind, he's smart and funny, and he comes by almost every day to make sure all the little things that need fixing are fixed. He's also so cute. He is married, he has adorable kids, he's 20 years younger than I am, and oh yeah I'm in a committed relationship with a Drummer Boy whom I love with all my heart. But I can, you know, dream.

I'm a dirty old lady with the heart of a child.

That's the end of this saga. Back to the daily grind, albeit in much nicer digs than before. Was the extreme stress worth it? Probably not. But it gave me four blog posts, and in my world that's a win.

May you live in less interesting times than mine. Thanks for reading.

I'm Running a Sh*tshow, Part 3

2023-03-07T21:09:00.000-06:00

The continued saga of being in charge of the office move.

AKA, "I wish I had a dollar for every co-worker who completely ignored my emails."

"This email seems important and relevant
to my interests. Better pretend it doesn't exist."

I'm a firm believer in communication. Here's the thing about communication, especially in a business setting: Taken to extremes, it can make you seem anal, or overbearing, or like a nag-hag. But it rarely results in a situation where anyone can blame you for not communicating.

Conversely, failure to communicate is almost always the fault of the person who fails to communicate.

Ask Strother Martin.

Especially in a situation where you've got over 100 people scattered to the remote workplace winds, all of them waiting to report to a brand-new office, with all the logistical challenges that presents, it should be incumbent on everyone to not only communicate, but to pay attention when other people communicate with you. This is common sense. It is also, apparently, complete unreasonable nonsense.

I've been updating my co-workers to within an inch of their lives for weeks now. I thought, modestly, that I was doing a good job...being clear, concise, comprehensive. This is what I learned, over decades of technical writing, that communication entails.

Let me give you two examples of how freaking wrong I was.

First example: I sent an email letting people know how to obtain access cards for the new office. Basically it said, "You can pick up your card on xx days at xx location. If you can't do that, you can show up at yy location at yy time. If you can't do that, you'll need to come to zz location."

Plenty of options, all very specific and plainly stated. (Keep in mind that I work with engineers, who are supposed to be, like, all straightforward and literal-minded and shit.)

Almost immediately after sending this email to my team, I received a reply from one of my co-workers that said, and I quote: "How do I pick up my access card?"

Urge to kill: Rising.

Second example: As a courtesy, I sent an email to all of my counterparts across the company, letting them know the schedule for our office move. Specifically, I emphasized that we were shutting down the current office and that EVERYONE would be working remotely for a couple of weeks until our new space was ready. I gave the date on which our server would be shut down and our furniture would be removed. I said we would not be able to accept deliveries or receive visitors after X date, because *no one would be there.*

Yesterday I got a message from one of those counterparts that said, and I quote: "[Big Shot Executive] is scheduled to visit your office this week. Will there be people there for him to meet with?"

My response: "The office is empty. Everyone is working from home."

The response to my response (again, I quote): "OK. Is that going to be all week?"

Here's what I would have written in a perfect world: "No, we're going to reconnect the server and put all the furniture back on Thursday, and everyone will be back in the office for one day for BSE's visit."

Fortunately, our world is imperfect, so I simply politely emphasized the meaning of "empty."

Empty.

I've aged approximately 476 years during this relocation process, Drunkards. If I still exist this time next week, I'll let you know how move-in day went.