If I Seem Sluggish

You guys, the Butcher has been in such a cleaning frenzy for our company (let me be clear, his company) this weekend that he didn’t buy me any Diet Dr. Pepper yesterday, which meant that I was forced to drink A&W Cream Soda for the minute bit of caffeine it contains.

I have never, in my life, had a cream soda. Frankly, it sounds disgusting.

But it was, actually, not quite that bad. I mean, it was fine. It’s just that I’m used to starting my day with the metallic taste of artificial sweeteners and it didn’t have any.

But I’ll note that the cats got their favorite kind of food. Somehow he remembered that.

Happy Birthday from the Butcher

I’m not saying that I’m going to send this thing to staff meetings as my proxy. But I’m considering it.

Cake

You know, suddenly, I have a hankering for a box cake. I wonder if I can impose on the Butcher to make me a box cake for Wednesday.

Sure I can!

Yardwork

The Butcher’s friend is coming to visit, which has put him in the mood to clean out the gutters, trim the bushes and, he claims, clean the house. Things like this make me wish the Butcher were more promiscuous. Sure, this friend gets clean gutters. Might there not be some woman out there who would finally get my garage cleaned up?

Oh. my. god. Do you think there’s someone out there, somewhere, who might make the Butcher trim the yard?!

If you have ever considered smooching the Butcher and have not, I hope you sleep well knowing you could be the reason my yard hasn’t been trimmed in two years.

A Little More on LA from Last Night

The Butcher’s friend who he went to visit and accompany to 80s Prom was once an extra on How I Met Your Mother. And he went to the Griffith Observatory, which he tried to convince her he only knew from “that Paula Abdul video.”

She’s a stand-up comedian. I asked him if he was going to get to be in her act and he said “no.”

I said, “I know that’s hard for you.” And he wrinkled his nose and looked at me in a questioning manner, and I said, “Because no Phillips likes to hear they’re not entertaining enough to be talked about.”

Meanwhile, the Redheaded Kid was rambling on about his trip to Morocco. And I have to tell you that I’m still not sure if this was a real trip to Morocco he took at some point in his life or if he was just making it up to pull my leg, but he insists that you’ve not lived until you’ve eaten lunch in Morocco. Why lunch? Like, oh, breakfast in Morocco is nice, but nothing to write home about. Supper, fine, but again, nothing that is going to complete you. But lunch! My god, lunch in Morocco! That’s all there is to life. Lunch in Morocco.

Ha ha ha. I just looked up Moroccan cuisine on Wikipedia to see if it could shed light on this whole “lunch in Morocco” weirdness and I’ll be damned. Lunch in Morocco does sound fucking awesome. “The midday meal is the main meal, except during the holy month of Ramadan. A typical meal begins with a series of hot and cold salads, followed by a tagine. Bread is eaten with every meal. Often, for a formal meal, a lamb or chicken dish is next, followed by couscous topped with meat and vegetables. A cup of sweet mint tea usually ends the meal.”

I really should stop doubting the Redheaded Kid. It’s just hard because he always seems like he could be pulling your leg. Last night he ate a whole can of Pringles, some of the worst chocolate chip cookies known to man, and some pizza. And then complained about feeling sick, while also raving about lunch in Morocco and then quietly making fun of Kenneth Branaugh and how dude could never be on CSI.

Where in the World is the Butcher?

The Butcher is always having weird adventures. On Thursday, he came home and said, “I’m thinking about going to LA.”

I asked, “When?”

And he said, “tomorrow.” And so he did.

I haven’t heard anything about his adventure yet, since he got back after I went to bed and left for work before I got up.

But it has made me decide that I need to have an adventure. I don’t know of what sort. I haven’t even really thought about doing anything exciting in a long time, but the Butcher always comes back from them so happy.

Now It’s the Dog’s Turn to Look at My Butt, I Guess

So, even though the dog enjoys walking at the park, which is a much more challenging walk than our morning walks, she has started being a big baby about walking in the morning. She walks behind me like a recalcitrant schoolgirl, who’s not that anxious to get to class. But then, when we turn around, she still walks behind me like she regrets having to make the effort to get home. And then, when we get back to the yard, where she can run free, she still walks behind me like that’s just where she wants to be, creeping up on me.

And today, guess who hit her?

No. Not New Kitty. The orange cat. Who also waited yesterday for the Butcher to put down his glass of milk so that he could stick his whole face right in the cup.

No more Jason Statham movies for that cat. He just starts strutting around the house like he might fight any one of us at any minute.

Speaking of Jason Statham movies, we watched another movie where he kidnaps/rescues an Asian chick!

It’s gotten so noticeable now that the Butcher was all “He’s our generation’s Jessica Fletcher, isn’t he?”

And our friend, T. was all, “What do you mean?”

And the Butcher said, “Where you start to think maybe he just fakes solving the crime he’s busy committing.”

I’m just saying, if you’re an Asian woman and you find yourself in a Jason Statham movie, just go ahead and get in his car. You’re going to end up there anyway, so you might as well save yourself the effort of trying to escape your fate. Hell, maybe if you get in his car before the gun fight starts, he’ll have time to run you through the drive-through at McDonald’s before the bullets start flying.

In all seriousness, I would love to read someone’s commentary on this. It’s apparently a pretty appealing fantasy to Statham’s audience, seeing as it’s featured so often. But I’d like to read someone smart’s thoughts on why.

I’d Take Morphine and Die

Let me repeat that this is the Butcher’s friend and I don’t know her or anyone in the band. They could be terrible people. Possibly made completely of boogers. Crusty boogers, most likely.

But I still like the hell out of their music and I invite you to listen to them doing a wonderful cover of Skip James’s “Drunken Spree.”

You Can Kickstart Buffalo Clover!

So, you know that The Butcher is friends with the one chick from this band, Buffalo Clover, which put out one of my favorite albums of recent years. Well, they’re doing a Kickstarter to pay for their next album and for twenty bucks, you can get the new album and the last album. Hell, for two thousand bucks, they’ll write a song about you.

You and your ill-fated affair with John Rich.

Yeah, you were all “Who would give two thousand… oh, they could do a love song about me and a star-crossed romance with John Rich? I get it.”

Or, I guess it doesn’t have to be John Rich, but it’s hard to understand why you wouldn’t go for it.

Anyway, I don’t know them. The Butcher is, after all, quite a bit younger than me, so, if he knew them in high school, I was already in college. So, they could secretly suck. Or be made entirely of boogers. I don’t know.

But I did love their first album and hope to get to hear this one.

Things, Glorious Things

–I’m guest-blogging again at Think Progress. Just today and tomorrow. Today’s post is a little nerdy. Tomorrow’s post is better, I think. Still, I found today’s post interesting, so hopefully others will, too.

–I’ll link to it when it’s up.

–We went to a birthday party for a family friend this weekend. I laughed when the Butcher said, “It starts at five but [family friend] says we should come at three.” Is there any clearer message that you’re needed to help cook?

–I was right, and while we were cooking, I announce that I would gladly cook at our house if someone else did the dishes.

–Someone else enthusiastically did the dishes yesterday.

–But someone else’s idea of “doing the dishes” does not seem to involve throwing things away, recycling things that need to be recycled, or wiping down the counters.

–So, someone else is going to have to learn those things, I think.

–Our family friend’s six-five three hundred pound dad walked through the party a couple of times trying to get everyone to sing a song he’d made up called “Kill Whitey,” which was also, after “I’m Gonna” 50% of the words of the song. The first time, everyone at the party just stared uncomfortably at each other, as if no one was sure how seriously to take him or whether they’d be asked to join in. And then, from the porch, when he realized what was going on, came the Butcher’s loud laugh. I believe this laugh is the basis for the Butcher’s pleasant acquaintanceship with our family friend’s dad.

–Later on, the dad and I were talking about the Butcher and I said that one of the things the Butcher does so easily is that he gets along with everyone and I have tried really hard to learn that from him, how to be at ease with anyone in any situation (which is not my natural way), and the dad said, “I’m that same way, too. I can get along with anyone,” and I said, “Really? I would have thought a man who walked around singing ‘I’m gonna kill whitey,’ might have problems making friends.” And he looked at me, just for a long second, and then he tilted his head back and laughed so beautifully that I believed him–everyone who meets him, who has heard that laugh once, must want him to laugh like that again, over and over.

I Picked the Wrong Day to Be Out

Have you been outside?! It’s amazing. Why did I take yesterday off, when it was wet and raining and depressing?

Oh, right, because I had to be there for a load of dirt.

Did I tell you guys that the Butcher got the new Sim City? Yesterday, he said, “I’m glad my people don’t have churches. I’m fine with them worshiping me anywhere.” And then he laughed the most maniacal super-villain laugh I’ve ever heard out of a person in real life. I mean, genuinely. I’ve heard people do the super-villain laugh self-consciously, but this was the first time I’d ever heard “Mwah-ha ha ha ha” in the wild.

“You know God doesn’t build cities in real life, right?”

“Are you saying that I am greater than God?!” (He’s, of course, delighted by this.)

And then he laughed again.

I may have to change his name from The Butcher to The Blasphemer, because he hasn’t actually been a meat-cutter in years, but motherfucker is apparently taking up blasphemy as his new hobby.

Dad is going to be so proud. A fornicator, a blasphemer… and me, doing my best impersonation of a witch.

Poor Dad.

Desire in an Age of There Being Nothing Left to Want

Ha ha ha. You know that’s how you’re about to get sucked into some terrible academic treatise. If there’s a “in an age of” in there. Project X is with the Head of Project X. I still want to have a “real” book published. I guess I want the whole nation to have a chance to hate me. I don’t know. But look at this–

Just as her new novel, “Doc,” was being released in 2011, she got word that her publisher was not interested in any more books from her. She had been with Random House since 1996 and published five novels with the New York house. During that time, she had won an Arthur C. Clarke Award and an American Library Association Readers Choice Award. Entertainment Weekly had chosen “The Sparrow” as one of the 10 best books of year.

and

Stunned and confused, she remained quiet about Random House’s decision because she had to begin her book tour for “Doc,” a western about John Henry Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Ironically, given her publisher’s termination of their relationship, the novel received very positive reviews and was chosen as one of The Washington Post’s top five novels of 2011.

And, yes, I know, it’s borrowing trouble, at least somewhat, to worry about this shit. But I feel like the thing I aspire to is vanishing as I aspire to it. And I don’t know how to adjust my wants so that I want something more plausible, more actually possible.

I don’t know why feeling like I do good work isn’t enough, but it isn’t. I want people I don’t know to think I do good work. I want to read stories to strangers.

And yet, I’ve done that.

So, I don’t know what my problem is.

When we were younger, half a lifetime ago, I taught The Butcher to drive. We went out in my car after I got off work and took off through the country. We were right on the western edge of Illinois then, so it was common to be driving flat and straight for what seemed like eternity and then, without warning, you’d curl down into a landscape defined by the whims of a river–bluffs and crooked roads and trees–and then, just as quickly, back up and out into that eternal flatness again.

When we were down among the river’s things, it sometimes felt like we were just missing something that would blow our minds–that just around the next bend, just over the next hill, something beyond what we could imagine for ourselves was waiting. And we never did come across it. Not once on any of those drives. It was just us and the longing for something we couldn’t articulate, something no one else had or knew of. Something that would say this drive, this day, this life was worth it.

That’s how I feel about writing sometimes, like I hope I’m doing something that will take the Butcher and me someplace we didn’t even know we wanted to go. When I’m feeling incredibly reckless, I hope our other brother will be there to meet us.

But other times, I feel like I’m chasing ghosts. Nothing left to be caught.

The Old Dog has her Routines

She gets up. We either go for a walk or we don’t. But she does go outside. Then she gets a treat. Then she waits for me to be done in the kitchen and she gets to lick out what’s left of the wet cat food from the can. Then she either joins me on the couch while I blog, or she goes and sleeps in the Butcher’s room. Today she wanted to go sleep in the Butcher’s room.

Yesterday, the Butcher got a new bed.

Oh my god. That reminds me. Did I tell you all about my parents’ crazy obsession with getting the Butcher a bigger bed?

Their last two visits, they’ve been talking incessantly about how much they enjoy the children at their church. And they’ve been calling me trying to suss out any information they can get about whether the Butcher has any special friends. And then, out of the blue, they decided to buy the Butcher a bigger bed.

I’ve been teasing him about this for weeks–since they announced the bed-buying scheme–because it could not be any more obvious that they are doing everything they can to get some more grandchildren short of starting a rumor that the Butcher is the Greenman and letting him loose around a bunch of chicks dancing the Maypole.

His response to the teasing has been “It’s not like they erased my memory of how to use condoms.” Yeah, try using a condom in a magical woods full of dancing Maypole fairies, the Butcher. Come on. Don’t be ridiculous.

Anyway, where was I? Yes, the bed. It’s too tall for the dog to get in by herself. So she paced around until I lifted her into it. We’re going to have to get her some steps.

Which, yes, the Professor did say we should do about my bed years ago, but that was obviously silly and this is obviously a good idea and a necessity.

Black Hairy Tongue

I woke up this morning with a black tongue, like I’d been sleep-eating licorice. I wanted to coin the term “Black Tongue Disease,” but the Butcher insisted I had moldy tongue.

Then, at breakfast, he found on the internet that “black hairy tongue” is a side-effect of Pepto-Bismal. So, everything is fine. Except that he keeps making fun of me for having a black hair tongue.

In This Way, I am Like the Dog

This morning, the Butcher locked his keys in his car, so I had to meet up with him in his work truck to hand them off. It was all I could do to not play hookey and ride around with him all day. It smelled slightly of burning oil. When he went over the speed bump, he flew up in his seat until the seatbelt caught him and sent him back down into the cushions. And the whole thing sounded like a burping dragon. Not to mention that the drive shaft hung low, like a dachshund’s belly, which is probably not that safe. But it seemed like a good day–driving around in that smelly thing, in the sunshine.

I keep thinking about that dude at the store, able to size someone up before he even gets up to them. Able to remember numbers he’s heard just once. And how that didn’t maybe seem like that great a life for him, like it hasn’t actually been a benefit.

Did you know someone broke into The Goddess & The Moon and stole jewelry? I feel like it takes some kind of cosmic chutzpah to rob from a woman who can curse you. Not saying that there aren’t people in Nashville who can’t lay or remove a curse more powerful than T. could lay. There may be. But I do believe that, unless you already know one, you’re not going to find him or her. T. has to be the most prominent powerful magic worker in town. So, if she does succeed in cursing you, you pretty much have to go back to her to get it removed.

That’s pretty hilarious. “Hi, I’m the guy who stole all your jewelry. And then my life went to shit. Um, what would it take for you to fix that?”

Ha ha. Notice how my brain is thinking about this stuff in order to skirt right up to the edge of things it is not allowed to think about. I’m on to you, brain, on to you.

Did I Tell You the Weirdest Thing?

The Butcher cleaned the house. He even did the dishes.

Which is the wierdest goodest thing.

A City of Idiots

So, I say to the Butcher, “Be careful on your way to work. You know we become a city of idiots when it rains and the ice is just going to make it worse. ‘A city of idiots.’ Possibly that should be the title to my next book.”

And the Butcher looks outside at the icy conditions and says, in a dreamy voice, “They thought they heard a strange noise, but they didn’t notice that they’d left the window open and so could hear more ambient sound. When the curtain billowed in the breeze, they closed the door to that room and vowed to never enter it again. They left it to the ghost, which wasn’t a ghost at all.”

Now I’m sitting here stunned, because that’s the most wistful, funny, wonderful bit of flash fiction. And it just blurted out of my brother’s mouth like no big deal.

And then he shrugs and says, “Well, I better get going if the roads are going to be shitty. Have a nice day, Betsy.” Exit the Butcher.

The wrong person in my family may be writing.

I have only the vaguest idea of who these people are, but this card is so cute I am now rooting for them! Have a great life together, kids! But don’t trust the squirrel.

Everyone at My House is a Jerk

The Butcher–still making fun of me for Silver Bullet-ing my story.

The dog–woke me up at some ungodly hour so she could go stand under a bush in the front yard while I yelled at her to come back in the house. Now she’s back to sleep.

The new kitty–I was trying to count out 212 small afghan squares while this asshole laid right down in the middle of my pile and began to fling squares around until it exhausted her and she had to fall asleep, again, right in the middle of my squares, which I was trying to count. Jerk.

The orange cat–No new jerky behavior, but I swear, every time you’re petting him, and he’s totally into it, eventually he’s like “And now I’ll bite you.” What a fucker! You came up to me. You asked to be petted. And I get bit? I should bite him back.

Me–The Butcher announced that he’s going to the Titans game and I said “Oh, fun. You’ll be easy to see on TV, since you’ll be the only person in the stands.” and “Oh, maybe they’ll get you and [his friend] great seats and a bunch of puppets to sit with so that it’s not so terrible looking when they get accidental crowd shots.”

Progress on All Fronts

The story I was working on for Project X is finally out in rough draft form. The ending went down so exactly how I hoped it would that I literally typed the last period and said “Yes!” like some kind of golfer! When the Butcher got home, I told him all about it and he was like “Oh, so it’s like Silver Bullet, where the priest is the werewolf.”

Ugh.

Yes.

Yes, it is. But in my defense, if you’re going to be a priest in a supernatural story, a hazard of the job is that bad supernatural shit is going to happen to you. You don’t have a lot of airline pilots killed in mining accidents. Not a lot of ministers get shot arresting criminals. So, when things go wrong supernaturally, who’s likely to be there doing his job to have it go wrong in his direction? And priests more so than most clergy because you know who I don’t trust to cast my werewolf out of me? A Protestant.

At least demon-possessed people exorcised by Catholic priests get to puke up pea soup, which, while unpleasant, is a liquid. It’s a little known, but true fact that Protestant-attracting demons force you to throw up casseroles. That’s not going to come up easy. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s considered this.

I’m just saying it’s an homage to Silver Bullet, even though my story takes place before silver bullets were the only way to kill a werewolf.

I’ve also started reading Carole Maso’s Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing, and Moments of Desire which is not very long, but requires a kind of slow, thoughtful reading that means it takes a while. But it’s really cool to read her meditations on living in Normal.

I always knew I wanted to write, but had I given better thought to how one develops a life as a writer, I should have gone to Illinois State. So much talent right down the street.

And yet, obviously, the people I met at Wesleyan changed my life in ways I would not trade for anything. Still, it’s funny to think that all that was going on right over there and I was, except for rolling my eyes at all the people in love with David Foster Wallace and them sitting in on his classes, almost completely oblivious.

It takes me a long time to get thing, sometimes. I guess that’s all I can say about that.

 

The Butcher Comes Home!

The Butcher comes home from his exciting adventure today. He said he was going to Vegas, but when he got there, he texted me that he was on his way to Utah. And then the pictures he sent were all of grand canyons and, well, I think the literal Grand Canyon. So, I will wait for the Butcher to get home to hear where he’s actually been.

It’s one of my favorite things about the Butcher. Well, I have lots of favorite things about him. But I love that he is not afraid of the big world. That’s not something I can say about myself.

Also, I was reminded yesterday of the not-so-illustrious career of the pirate Captain John Phillips, whose pirate captain years were fairly short and unsuccessful, what with his crew of eight guys (eleven at the height of his power). I mean, I’m sorry, but a pirate ship with nine crew members is just an angry canoe. He’s only well-known because his was an angry canoe with a surviving list of things the pirates could and could not do.

Here’s the thing. I found some Phillipses in Connecticut who had his stuff. A woman had some gold rings of his. A man had a letter he’d written (this would be in the mid-1700s and he was a pirate a little earlier than that). And the family lore seemed to be that John Phillips was these Phillipses’ either father or grandfather by way of his second wife.

But I couldn’t find anything on my brief internet search about whether his family ended up in Massachusetts.

Still, of course, I am dying to be related to him. We are related to a lot of scoundrels on my dad’s side (and a lot of ministers, with some overlap)–Lizzie Borden, Johnathan Moulton, Mary Sibly and Mary Wolcott. Why can’t we have a pirate in the mix?

If it turns out we are related, my first act will be to capture eight people, put them in a canoe, and force them to listen to things I’ve written!

Don’t ask me, “B. why are you mean?”

“Why do you write stuff?”

“Why do you get angry when I spit out my snuff?

Stop and think it over. Try to put yourself in my unique position.

If I get mean and read you stuff against your will and make you steal from other people, I’m just carrying on an old family tradition.

It almost works.

 

Leaves You with Nothing, Sister, But Boring Stories of…

My Saturday night officially ended when I watched the Butcher eat the brownie/Oreo/peanutbutter thing that had been sent home with me for him. He was speechless for a second and then he said “That was good” with such richness incredulousness in his voice that I laughed. It must be weird to eat something that was unknowingly designed to be the perfect dessert for you. But that thing was made for the Butcher, though neither he nor the baker knew it.

I had a really lovely evening hanging out with friends and getting to know some cool new folks. Every once in a while–and by that I mean a lot of the time–I am amazed by the really awesome people I get to know here. I mean, I know the obvious explanation is that I, too, must be so awesome or something, but you know, I’ve lived a lot of places and never had this kind of huge community of awesome people and I know amazing people who live in communities where their awesomeness goes unrecognized.

So, you know, as much as I’d like to be “Yep, it is because I am the shit,” it’s really not. It’s something special about this place at this time and these people. I’m just the lucky beneficiary. Ha ha ha. Is it too late to have Bruce Springsteen write me up a follow-up to Glory Days about a gal who is living them now? Can I hope I get more than four years’ worth of said glory days?

But most importantly for my goal-achieving, I had a long talk with the Professor (in which I learned that the Starbucks at MetroCenter will–and I am not even lying–heat up your banana walnut bread for you. I’ll give you a second to come to grips with the awesomeness of this. I will take that second to reminisce about that banana walnut bread. Okay, let’s carry on with this paragraph.) about the Sue Allen project. I told her that my difficulty with the thing at this point is that it is here and the version that could be shopped is over there and I know what I’m sitting with is not the version that is ready to be shopped, but I have no sense of what isn’t working, just that something is not.

And so we sat in Starbucks for three hours talking about the things she liked and the things she didn’t understand and what worked for her and what didn’t. I think the conversation was one that could be divided into thirds–1/3 of it was me being surprised by the things she pointed out (though once she pointed them out, it made sense to me that they were problems); 1/3 was me being unsurprised by things she pointed out, as I thought they were maybe problematic, maybe not; and 1/3 being surprised by the things she thought worked great, which were things I was worried didn’t work.

My biggest take-away is that the ending is still not quite right and that I’m right to suspect that William goes from being a kind of morally ambiguous badass to Shaggy and Scooby-Doo rolled into one. And that I might need to flesh John out a little more.

I had lots of smaller take-aways, too, but I won’t bore you. I’m going to write up a list of big structural things I want to not forget to take a look at and then sit tight and hear from my other beta readers.

But it was so helpful. And really gave me a sense of the shape it could take.

Divorcing Your Parents

I was telling the Butcher about Tom Smith and he was like “Oh, the guy who thinks getting pregnant from a rape is just as bad as getting pregnant out of wedlock?”

“Yeah, that dude.”

“You know, I was thinking about how much it must suck to be his daughter.”

“I know, right? Imagine discovering that a person who might someday be called on to make medical decisions for you–like if you’re in a car accident or something–can’t tell the difference between you having sex because you want to and when you’re raped, because both are embarrassing to him.”

“Can she divorce him?”

And you know, I don’t think there’s a legal mechanism to sever familial bonds like that. But then I was thinking about how some gay families still face instances where, even though they’ve tried to set up all these legal contracts that would force the world to treat them like they’re married in places they legally can’t be, some douchebag family member will still swoop in and try to claim the ability to make medical decisions or to inherit instead of the loved on.

It might be a useful legal mechanism to be able to say “No, these people have no ability to make decisions on my behalf. They cannot inherit from me.”

And then, on MSNBC, a commentator named Krystal Ball began to speak and the second her name appeared on our screen, the Butcher said, “See? There’s another person who needs parental divorce.”

The Butcher

I’m having… let’s call it an interesting day. I don’t want to go into the particularities, though believe me, I had a whole post devoted to it, because I’m becoming more aware of how public this place can be.

But interesting.

And the Butcher came home, listened to me talk about the interestingness, and then said, “Hey, things are going to be a little tight around here, but it will be fine. We can do this.”

And you know, I believe him.