here, have a rerun...Second Cousin Leota

You have BEAST to thank for this one. Go bitch at him.
________________

I have no idea if Bill T was really related to us. What I recollect is that he was supposed to have been some kind of cousin on my grandmothers' side. Anyway, he was a nice old guy. He used to come over to our house quite a bit, his wife in tow, and play cribbage with my mom and her friends until the wee hours. Every hour or so he'd slip off outside to the trunk of his car where he had a bottle of Canadian Mist stashed and sip on that while he stood in the driveway and admired the stars.

His wife's name was Leota.

She was 5000 years old, had eight hairs left, weighed maybe 75 pounds and stood four feet tall.
Smoked constantly. Sometimes she'd have a cigarette going in each hand and one in the ashtray. We would find more of them smoldering away all over the house, long black foul things melting a line in the counter top or the arm of a chair, or lying on the wool carpet in the middle of a glowing patch of nap.

Little Leota wasn't much for conversation. The complete lack of teeth was a barrier, as was the advanced senile dementia. Being perpetually pickled in vodka didn't help.
You have to stop and consider that for a moment. I can guarantee you she wasn't driving down to the liquor store even before the Altzheimers' set in because she couldn't drive and wouldn't have been able to see through the windsheild anyway. Where was she getting the stuff?
Every morning, Bill would get her up, run her through the tub, get her dressed,
shovel some Malt-O-Meal down her (very occasionally Maypo...she refused to eat anything else) and then set her in a chair out on the porch with her fifth of vodka and let her wave at the cars going by.

This was how a lot of poor, older people coped with a loved one's dementia, and still do.
She was loved. She was cared for. And as far as I could see she didn't have a bad life at all. What the fuck, you know?
__________________________

Now Bill and my mom would get playing Crib and nothing could stop them. They played like demons. My dad and I weren't big card players, and we would have had to have been real hot shots to keep up with them anyway, so dad napped on the couch and I hung out in my room listening to records.
Dad could fall asleep anywhere, anytime. And when he did, more often than than not he would have really interesting dreams. I grew up with it so I didn't notice so much but it could really freak a visitor out. From a dead sleep he'd suddenly burst forth with something like"Gahno farah muld gahyub! Call Jim!"with his arms waving around randomly.

Leota would sit at the kitchen table, watching the card playing. Occasionally she'd giggle. No reason, just joie d' vivre. Other times she'd come out with a brief statement and end it by saying Ha!
"You horse you, get that ol' cat! Fan room the store. Ha!"

Evenings at my house could be interesting.

The only thing she ever contributed regularly to the conversation was this kind of a verbal tic. She'd WUP.

Just out of the blue. No reason. She'd just be sitting there smoking quietly and suddenly out would pop 'WUP!'

Some days, you'd only hear one every two or three minutes. Other days she'd be wuppin' all over the place.

Sometimes she'd come up missing during the summer, when we kept the doors open. But all you had to do was be very quiet for a few minutes, and then off in the distance you'd hear 'Wup!' and you'd follow that. My parents were rather impressed when I showed them this discovery. You'd find her over in my Grandma's yard, looking over the fence at the neibors having a barbecue, take her by the hand, everyone would wave 'bye', and home you went, wuppin' all the way.

One night I was lying on my bed reading and listening to the intermittent 'Wups' coming from the kitchen when I was struck by a bolt of inspiration so hard it hurt my brain. Inspirations like these came frequently the year I was thirteen.

I crept down the hall into the entryway, where I was hidden from the view of anyone in the kitchen, except Leota.
Leota went 'Wup!'

I went 'Wup!"

Then she said 'Wup!"

I answered 'Wup!"

And she replied 'Wup!"

Everyone playing cards at the kitchen table was totally oblivious. Leota was having fun. I was having fun too when dad caught me.
He thought it was hysterical. I mean, yeah, he sent me to my room, but he was laughing.

An hour later I happen to glance up towards the living room and there's dad on the couch, peeking over the easy chair towards the kitchen.
'Wup!" said my dad.

The ensuing silence was so thick you could cut it!

"Wup!" came from the kitchen.
"Niilo! Now stop that! That's not funny!" yelled my mom.

Man, I fell OFF THE BED. I laughed so hard I think it stunted my growth.
________________________________________________________

You couldn't help but like Leota. She was in a happy, simple place, like a (really really wrinkly) baby (who smoked) enjoying a sunbeam.

Now, ninety-nine times out of a hundred Leota was happy to watch the card players; but sometimes she wanted a change of scene. However, because she had a form of Tourettes' that caused her to chirp "WUP!' at regular intervals like a smoke alarm with a failing battery, she was fairly easy to ride herd on.

The thing was, you had to be paying attention. She would go into closed rooms and stand quietly in the dark, nothing evident but the ember on her smoke and you'd never know she was there until you happened to hear 'wup!' float out from behind the door.

Once in the bathroom I heard a cheery 'wup!' coming from the cabinet right next to where I was sitting and about died of a heart attack. We found her in the basement standing under the metal laundry chute, wupping away, entertained by the echo.
________________________

This is what happened the very last time she visited:

One November afternoon, everyone was sitting around the kitchen table, my mom and all the other card sharks, partying it up loud and happy, knocking back the 7 and 7's. As usual I was avoiding all this by hiding in my room.

My mom came knocking on my door. "Leota's gone. Is she in here?"

Nope.

Since it was cold, and I was the kid, I got sent outside to look for her while everyone else staggered around the house hooting 'LeOOOOTaaaa....'

Me, I glanced around close by, listened for her, didn't hear her, and promptly put all thought of her completely out of my mind. Evidently everyone else did too, because when I returned they were all pretty surprised to see me. "Where'd you go?" asked Mom.

I needed to hit the Ritz. The half bath was for the card players, so I went down the hall to the master bathroom.

Knocked on the door. Nobody answered. I opened the door.

I found Leota.

My moms beautiful pink bathroom with the pink fixtures and the pink towels and pink curtains, yeah. Not any more.

Leota had been fingerpainting.
She had decorated the entire wall, from the floor up as high as she could reach, with shit.
She had painted the entire side of the bathtub with shit.
She had painted the entire inside of the bathtub with shit.
And the faces of all the cabinets.
And the mirror, the counter, the sink, and the floor.

Everything except the toilet, oddly enough.

The entire bathroom was covered in shit. And so was she.

She had a smoke going. She smiled at me toothlessly from where she sat on the bathmat. 'Wup!' she said.

Complete disaster. Yelling, buckets, throwing things out the bathroom window onto the lawn, people running in and out of the house brandishing Pine-Sol, playing cards on the floor, forget it. Total chaos.

I was gone when it happened, but I understand Leota got her very first shower that day at our house and didn't care for it much. She went home in a bathrobe. She got to keep it.

I was outside at the time. My parents put me outside. They were pissed off because I wasn't helping. I wasn't helping because I could not stop laughing and I couldn't walk. I laid on the back stoop with the tears streaming back into my ears and lost my mind, man; I howled. It was not my finest moment.

Yes I know that lacks class. But I was 13 years old. I had no class.

Not like I do now.

MISSING ANY HOUSEPETS? LOOK NO FURTHER!

Halloween is the best holiday on the calendar, always has been, always will be. Unless you are a pagan and live in Washington, in which case you have to go over to Sucia Island and stand around naked in the rain all night chanting. Me, I would rather dress up in my death metal outfit and hand out candy to little kids.

I have this whole decorating scheme that I've done for the last few years that I think is pretty effective. There's a carved pumpkin on the front railing, nothing spectacular, maybe a line of lanterns leading up to the front door...ah, but once that door opens!

...rancho FirstNations...the deceptively charming exterior .

The whole room is lit with candles. Candles everywhere. Standing in the center of the room is a small table, draped to the floor in folds of black velvet and covered with ANIMAL SKULLS. In the center is a 'grimoire' with a goblet full of 'blood' (Mountain Dew Code Red) glimmering next to it. On each side of this book a coyote skull rests on it's fangs with bundles of incense tapers stuck in the eye sockets, smouldering away.
The centerpiece at the top of the display is a deer skull complete with a full rack of horns. You would not think it to look at a deer, but Bambi is one scary looking sonofabitch once the flesh is gone, lemme tell ya. I stick a red candle in the center of its' forehead and let it drip. This, I must say, looks fucking cool as hell.
In the center of the table is the 'evil grimoire'... this huge old book that I found at a garage sale. It's full of medieval manuscript reproductions, and I have it opened to the freakiest looking page.

I stand behind the door and open it up slowly so all anyone sees is the room. Then I step out from behind in full death metal costume, holding a bowl of candy.

One year the whole group of kids backed all the way off the porch and out onto the lawn. I had to follow them out with the candy bowl and convince them to take some. And we give out really good candy too-none of your cheapo 'Smarties and a handful of Brachs' here, we've got Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups! And Almond Joys! These poor kids RAN down the sidewalk going 'Did you see that? DID YOU SEE THAT?'

One year nobody said a word when the door opened. I peeked out from behind and mom, dad and all three little pirates were standing there with the white showing all the way around their eyes. I gave everyone extra.

Everywhere I've lived there's always a rumor about Satan Worshippers. I grew up with this. In fact the nearest local Satan Worshipper house was purportedly right down the street from my grade school. We'd go up their driveway and stand there looking at the place every day as we walked home from school. Now I can just imagine some poor old soul in there peering out through the privacy curtains at us little doofuses as she talks to her friend on her princess phone: "Yes they're out there again! Yes, again! No, just standing there! Every day at the same time, Shirley! "

If a pet went missing, it was blamed on Satan Worshippers. If some particularly egregious act of vandalism occurred-particularly if it happened on church property-it was the fault of Satan Worshippers. Everyone believed this. I believed this. You'd go over to a new friends house in a different neighborhood and eventually someone would ask 'Do you guys have Satan Worshippers?" and the house would be pointed out and the stories of pet mutilations and nighttime chanting would be told. The explanation "They moved here from California" was usually somewhere in the narrative.
Maybe they migrate north during Santa Ana season or something. I don't know.

Years later in high school when I was getting wasted regularly, the guy I bought from told me about going to some 'Satanic ceremonies' at his suppliers' house, and how it was all an excuse to get kids wasted and have an orgy. (This bunch were finally arrested in 1977.) The thing was, I remember hearing about them when I was in grade school...in fact, they were known as the "Stanley Avenue Satan Worshippers" to differentiate them from the 'Logus Road' Satan Worshippers'. So 50% of the rumors, then, were TRUE...after a fashion. This never ceases to amaze me...this was a small, ordinary town in OREGON for the love of Mike.

... oregonian satan worshippers worshipping satan satanically.

Out here in 'The Ozarks of the Northwest' there is a strong movement against the celebration of Halloween as such. Lynden, of course, leads the way. Out in Lynden they steadfastly refer to it as 'Harvest Festival!" and scatter the pumpkins and scarecrows about. Of course this is REALLY returning Halloween to it's pagan roots and it always cracks me up.

...baby Jesus says 'this party sucks. would somebody hang a couple of bats up in here please? my birthday isn't for another two months.

The celebration of Halloween 'as such' is the celebration of a CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY, dumbshits; the whole concept was invented by Christians in order to make people STOP CELEBRATING HARVEST. Oh, I love ignorance; I really do.

At one point in time we were the Satan Worshipping family for the Mt. Baker School District. Oh yes! Back when the kids were in Jr. High, one of my daughters dippy little friends came over for a Halloween slumber party and old mom here made the mistake of bringing out the Tarot cards.* I was a twelve year old girl once; I thought that kind of thing was cool, right? Oughta be a big hit, right?

...we could have games! and cake! and balloon animals!

My God I didn't hear the end of that one for years. The little idiots' idiot mother couldn't even look me in the eye the next time she saw me and refused to let her daughter come over any more. That went around that whole circle of kids and moms, too.
That's when I started doing the 'Satanic Altar' display. You want Satan Worship? I gotcher Satan Worship RIGHT HERE, baby. Look at the deer skull! THAT'S RIGHT THERE'S A CANDLE ON THE DEER SKULL! OH YEAH! IT'S BURNING! THE BIKERS ARE WORSHIPPING SATAN!

Here in town? My house is the most popular stop on the trick-or-treating circuit.



______________________________
*the same good christians who think nothing of 'seeking a word of leadership' from the bible. ever seen that done? you pray for the answer to a particular question and let a bible fall open. one person in a blindfold holding a pin stabs it down onto the bible and whatever quote it lands on is your 'word of leadership'.
...and no, i don't believe in tarot cards. but i had them. yup...the same ones my mother gave me before she found the lord...and started speaking in tongues, being a prayer warrior and 'seeking a word of leadership' instead of doing the ouija board.

ok, back to sex. GO GET LAID...AGAIN!

Google, y'all. GOOGLE.

So then.
What I've learned in 47 years about meeting prospective partners:

... and no this is not bullshit, this is completely serious, I mean it, it's all worked for me and it still works for me even though I'm no longer looking...

1. Be female and married. Nothing brings the men parachuting down from the fricken' skies like being an unavailable fat woman married to a large, dangerous man. WTF?

2. Shop in the right store. Do you buy socket wrenches in the lingerie section at Sears? No. So then, if you want to meet serious minded people with jobs and money, the loud redneck dance bar on 'Bodyshot Thursdays' might not be the best place to go looking to meet one. This might be a fun place to take someone on a date*, yes... but not such a good place to meet that someone.

Example: Looking for a man with a job who doesn't spend all his time partying? Straight or gay, your chances will be better if you look in places where single men who are not partying are. Auto parts stores, car dealerships, the Harley place (which is a total meat rack anymore; its embarrassing. I strongly suggest that if you're middle aged and you're looking for a single person with dollars, GO NOW.) union halls, construction companies, sports equipment stores, the outdoorsmans' show... or simply go to the number one place to meet single men with jobs and cash: AN ANTIQUE CAR/MOTORCYCLE SHOW, SWAP MEET OR BLESSING.
YES.
Finding an available man at one of these events is as easy as dropping your keys on the floor. It's like a department store. Want a late model? Vintage? Looking for a Rolls Royce person as opposed to a Harley-Davidson person? Pick your 'vehicle'; there's a swap meet happening nearby. The only thing easier would be whapping them over the head with a pitching wedge.

STUDLY RAT FROBISHER ADDS THESE TOP TIPS:
Lorry/Truck parks long distance truck drivers have to park up. Go along to your local and strike up conversation with these men, they are probably lonely and could do with the "company". You'll be surprised how friendly they are. The motto is what happens on the road, stays on the road

become a Taxi driver do the night shifts, this way you can meet like minded people, especially when the pubs/clubs chuck out. If they can't pay the fare demand sexual favours.

become a Policeman/Fireman wear your uniform all the time. You instantly become a cock magnet.

Army camps/Naval bases travel broadens the minds, and if your going to a war zone your not going to be worried about a bit of leapfrog. Also drinking games and unusual male bonding practices can make for a fun evening.

HENDRIX ADDS:
"...guitar shops are a good place to meet guys too (it worked for me). But in order to meet guys with cash keep away from the cut price Japanese Fenders... you should aim to loiter near the Martin twelve string or the Gibsons."

3. Used book stores are dens of SIN. Honestly, trust me on this. I have done REAL WELL at these places, boys and girls. Horny, sex-obsessed book nerds are just waiting to drag you behind the stacks and show you their Edgar Allen Poe tattoo. Hang around your favorite titles and look thoughtful. Men: Be outgoing and approachable. Pick a target and ask book-related questions (and for the love of God AVOID THE SUBSEQUENT TEMPTATION to be a bombastic ass and 'impress' me with your superior knowledge, because it ain't, and you won't.) Wear tweed, a leather jacket or adopt the (recently bathed) emo look and you will be fine. Women: It's easy: anything low cut will do. In fact, simply being friendly and recognizably female will do over by the 'Science Fiction' paperbacks. Otherwise, simply pick out a likely prospect and ask them a book question or where you might find something. You'll be bent over the encyclopedias calling on God before you know it. Better yet? WORK at one of these places. Because, just, yeah.

4. Another place I've done really well is THE MUSEUM. You already have something to talk about, and you can wander around smiling and doing the 'Ooo, you caught me looking at you! Whoopsie!' flirty thing to good effect as you pretend to admire the Honore Dumaurier cartoons. Think about it - who WOULDN'T be flattered thinking that you find them more fun to look at than the priceless works of art on display? Even if you don't score you'll not have wasted an evening. It's a win-win sitch.

5. ART STUDENTS are ANIMALS. You get a roomful of people at evening figure study class all in one room drawing naked starving college students, with the smell of charcoal fixative and linseed oil lingering in the air....it's like mating season at the boner chihuahua ranch out in the parking lot afterward. And during the breaks. And in the hall outside the restroom. And during class when you ask someone to help you with the highlighting and they come over and you stand close together and speak softly and you can smell their hair and....mm-hm. You don't even have to know how to draw. In fact, it's a given that you draw shitty. Why else would you be there?


NOW GO FORTH AND BE FABULOUS!

p.s. DATE MUTTLEY he is red hot like LAVA.
_________________________________
*except on 'Bodyshot Thursdays' because that's just asking for trouble.

WHAT IS THE BEST E MAIL SERVICE???

DO NOT USE YAHOO MAIL.
unless you like lots of advertisements. if dat's you thang then yahoo mail is de place.
give them your money. nobody wants to see yahoo lose any money. good gracious me no. nope, not me. ever ever ever.
YAHOO MAIL IS BULLSHIT.

I have SO HAD IT UP TO THE TITS with Yahoo Mail. The list of indignities just keeps getting longer...dragooned into 'updates' that I don't choose, losing options every time, and the ADVERTISEMENTS ARE INSANE! That's all these supposed 'updates' are; is inserting more advertising space into the home page. JESUS H. CHRIST ON A RED BICYCLE. You're supposed to be able to go in and edit the advertising allowed your space; yeah, well, once you do that you get 'upgraded' to NEW mail where that option seems to be AWFULLY DIFFICULT TO FIND. I just changed my homepage to Google News; damned if I'm probably not going to switch to their mail too. Or somebody's mail.

Anyone just getting into this game? AVOID YAHOO MAIL LIKE THE VERY PLAGUE*. They have popups that WILL NOT STOP PLAYING and jump all over the page like some cheapass EBAY bullshit. The new advertisements come up in front of the drop-down menus in the toolbar so you can't access the options. The animated ads make you wait while they play until the very end until you can access your mail!

Yahoo used to be a great service. Now it's like an online 'People' magazine that follows you around like a two year old screaming VIAGRAVIAGRAVIAGRARAVIAGRAVIAGRAVIAGRA!!
BOTOX BOTOXBOTOX!!! MORTGAGEYOURHOUSENOWNOWNOWNOWNOW!!!
GETACHEAPLOANGETACHEAPLOANGETACHEAPLOANGETACHEAPLOAN!!!!!!

...fuck it.

I am outta there.

So, my darlings, I am actively soliciting advice and assistance. Who has good, no-nonsense e-mail? How do I transfer my saved stuff?

________________________________________
*unless you like lots of advertisements. if that's vous thing then yahoo mail is the place.
give them your money. nobody wants to see yahoo lose any money. good gracious me no. nope, not me. ever ever ever.

GO GET LAID updated! a couple times!

What I've learned in 47 years about meeting prospective partners:

... and no this is not bullshit, this is completely serious, I mean it, it's all worked for me and it still works for me even though I'm no longer looking...

1. Be female and married. Nothing brings the men parachuting down from the fricken' skies like being an unavailable fat woman married to a large, dangerous man. WTF?

2. Shop in the right store. Do you buy socket wrenches in the lingerie section at Sears? No. So then, if you want to meet serious minded people with jobs and money, the loud redneck dance bar on 'Bodyshot Thursdays' might not be the best place to go looking to meet one. This might be a fun place to take someone on a date*, yes... but not such a good place to meet that someone.

Example: Looking for a man with a job who doesn't spend all his time partying? Straight or gay, your chances will be better if you look in places where single men who are not partying are. Auto parts stores, car dealerships, the Harley place (which is a total meat rack anymore; its embarrassing. I strongly suggest that if you're middle aged and you're looking for a single person with dollars, GO NOW.) union halls, construction companies, sports equipment stores, the outdoorsmans' show... or simply go to the number one place to meet single men with jobs and cash: AN ANTIQUE CAR/MOTORCYCLE SHOW, SWAP MEET OR BLESSING.
YES.
Finding an available man at one of these events is as easy as dropping your keys on the floor. It's like a department store. Want a late model? Vintage? Looking for a Rolls Royce person as opposed to a Harley-Davidson person? Pick your 'vehicle'; there's a swap meet happening nearby. The only thing easier would be whapping them over the head with a pitching wedge.

STUDLY RAT FROBISHER ADDS THESE TOP TIPS:
Lorry/Truck parks long distance truck drivers have to park up. Go along to your local and strike up conversation with these men, they are probably lonely and could do with the "company". You'll be surprised how friendly they are. The motto is what happens on the road, stays on the road

become a Taxi driver do the night shifts, this way you can meet like minded people, especially when the pubs/clubs chuck out. If they can't pay the fare demand sexual favours.

become a Policeman/Fireman wear your uniform all the time. You instantly become a cock magnet.

Army camps/Naval bases travel broadens the minds, and if your going to a war zone your not going to be worried about a bit of leapfrog. Also drinking games and unusual male bonding practices can make for a fun evening.

HENDRIX ADDS:
"...guitar shops are a good place to meet guys too (it worked for me). But in order to meet guys with cash keep away from the cut price Japanese Fenders... you should aim to loiter near the Martin twelve string or the Gibsons."

3. Used book stores are dens of SIN. Honestly, trust me on this. I have done REAL WELL at these places, boys and girls. Horny, sex-obsessed book nerds are just waiting to drag you behind the stacks and show you their Edgar Allen Poe tattoo. Hang around your favorite titles and look thoughtful. Men: Be outgoing and approachable. Pick a target and ask book-related questions (and for the love of God AVOID THE SUBSEQUENT TEMPTATION to be a bombastic ass and 'impress' me with your superior knowledge, because it ain't, and you won't.) Wear tweed, a leather jacket or adopt the (recently bathed) emo look and you will be fine. Women: It's easy: anything low cut will do. In fact, simply being friendly and recognizably female will do over by the 'Science Fiction' paperbacks. Otherwise, simply pick out a likely prospect and ask them a book question or where you might find something. You'll be bent over the encyclopedias calling on God before you know it. Better yet? WORK at one of these places. Because, just, yeah.

4. Another place I've done really well is THE MUSEUM. You already have something to talk about, and you can wander around smiling and doing the 'Ooo, you caught me looking at you! Whoopsie!' flirty thing to good effect as you pretend to admire the Honore Dumaurier cartoons. Think about it - who WOULDN'T be flattered thinking that you find them more fun to look at than the priceless works of art on display? Even if you don't score you'll not have wasted an evening. It's a win-win sitch.

5. ART STUDENTS are ANIMALS. You get a roomful of people at evening figure study class all in one room drawing naked starving college students, with the smell of charcoal fixative and linseed oil lingering in the air....it's like mating season at the boner chihuahua ranch out in the parking lot afterward. And during the breaks. And in the hall outside the restroom. And during class when you ask someone to help you with the highlighting and they come over and you stand close together and speak softly and you can smell their hair and....mm-hm. You don't even have to know how to draw. In fact, it's a given that you draw shitty. Why else would you be there?


NOW GO FORTH AND BE FABULOUS!
_________________________________
*except on 'Bodyshot Thursdays' because that's just asking for trouble.

Good enough

Back during the 3 1/2 years* I attended high school the number of guys who asked me out could be counted on the fingers of one hand and leave two fingers to spare. Why? Did I have a bunch of ticks stuck to my face? Did I vomit tapeworm segments? Not usually. I was a nice looking young woman. I was relatively popular by my senior year, I wore OK clothes...I bathed...girls uglier and bitchier than me were going out...?

The answer? Apparently I was not 'cool' enough.

Ah, but once I graduated and it no longer became a matter of qualifying as a peer trophy, all of a sudden the same guys who never gave me a glance were hitting on me like a pack of boner chihuahuas.
Boner chihuahuas who all went home alone.
HA.

Yes, once free of the gulag-I mean, once I'd graduated-I discovered an amazing fact: Adult mammals want to have sex with other adult mammals. Even if the other mammals had never been in Varsity Cheer.
Huh.
All that worry and torment and yecch I'd put into fearing that I'd never be 'worthy', that I was damaged goods or I wasn't pretty enough or cool enough; whoosh, out the window. Gone. Everyone into the pool! Even girl nerds!

Here's what I mean. Try this fun** experiment:
1. Disable the 'Safe Search' function on your browser. Completely. 'Safe Search is OFF'.
Search the phrase 'fat women'.
Uh huh.
Now 'fat men'.
'Sex Clubs [your town]'. 'Adult Only Nudist [your town]'. 'Old man'. 'Old woman'.
WOW! LOOKIT ALL THE PORN UNDER THESE CATEGORIES!

2. Flick through the galleries of some of those sites you find (quickly.)

Those aren't hot models. Oh Lordy me, those are NOT hot models.
Despite which they seem to be -ahem- enjoying themselves, don't they?
And there sure are a lot of them, huh? Having lots of fun in their less-than-perfect bodies with their less-than-perfect partners.

Gracious! Might 'youthful perfection' not really matter quite as much as we've been lead to believe?
Could it be that, unlike health, cleanliness and approximate bilateral symmetry, it might not even HAVE to matter?
DID MY TELEVISION LIE TO ME?

Pretty much.

Need more proof?

George.

Remember George???*** Raving batshit nuts, ugly, chain smoking, teeth falling out, smells like a butthole, Jesus somebody Febreeze the furniture after George?
Him.
He was married to a woman who looked like Alley Oop.
Since last we visited George, he traded up.
George is now banging an educated, attractive woman with a job and a house.
Believe me when I tell you that youthful perfection was never a factor for George, let alone health, cleanliness or approximate bilateral symmetry.
Still.
George is getting PLAY.

The option of emulating Barbie and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on plastic surgery exists, true. But what does that get you in the end?
Besides the Vicodin? Exactly what everyone else gets.

Pamela Anderson has been the victim of repeated domestic assault by a junkie.
Paris Hilton is on her third suicide attempt (and everyone's seen what she lets come in her mouth. Bet she's done George.)
Kenny Rogers is still a drunk and a wife beater, and now he looks like he thawed out inside a plastic bag, too.

Youthful perfection, no matter how much you buy, makes no difference.
Money makes no difference.
Celebrity makes no difference.
Furthermore, if you expect people to be so obsessed with YOUR looks that you find it necessary go in every three years to have your face peeled off your skull and then reattached with fucking SCREWS AND WIRE, then you exponentially increase the chances that you will get...what?

Someone so obsessed with your looks that they REQUIRE you to go in every three years and have your face peeled off your skull and reattached with fucking SCREWS AND WIRE.

And you know what the punchline is? YOU GET OLD ANYWAY.

Unless you are my father-in-law.




________________________________
*I graduated early. Doubled up on those credits and lit out of there like my ass was on fire. I didn't even attend graduation.

**Providing you define fun the same way I do. Is this too much information?

***Oh go ahead. Get re-acquainted with George:
Paul. Because 'Paul' is a nice name.: more fun with george

Black Lynx Caution the Five Angry Diatom!

q: What is a dugong?

The dugong is a member of a small group of aquatic mammals known as 'Sirenia'. Other members include the manatee (which is not nearly as fun a word to say as 'dugong' so we'll just pretend that it doesn't exist) and the (now extinct) Stellars' Sea Cow.

...yes, it's two you-know-what-atees. it's my blog and i'm calling them dugongs.


...which was in fact not terribly cow-like; it was more like a big hippo-seal type thing.
Although it would be really cool if it HAD been like an aquatic cow and it gave milk and said 'moo'? and like maybe it had these huge horns that stuck out REALLY FAR and they would stampede and they'd get in cool fights and stuff? and divers could go down and have rodeos and the seaweed would be like tumbleweeds?
Yeah.


Centuries ago, the first Dugong sightings were reported in the logbooks of Spanish sailors who (upon seeing the bald, grey, flippered animals swimming around chewing on seaweed and burping) immediately mistook them for a race of seagoing human women.






This may say more about Spanish femininity than we care to know.



q: Where do dugongs come from?
a: Duh; the ocean.
q: Oh Jesus fine. What is the life cycle of the dugong?
a: Ah. Well then. That's an interesting question.

When a mommy dugong and a daddy dugong love one another very much, they want to share that love with a baby dugong. So the Mommy dugong lies on her back, and the daddy dugong orders one from Ikea.
But ordering from Ikea can take time, and sometimes the quality sucks, so the smart mommy and daddy dugong usually go to the KING OF THE DUGONGS and ask him for one.

...click; it gets bigger. waaaaaaaay bigger.

This is the beginning of a magical, mysterious process that has very seldom been documented on film. Are you paying attention? I said put down the damn ocarina and pay attention. I don't care if it's called a sweet potato in the rural South put the damn thing DOWN.

Opie, King of the Dugongs, goes out to a sacred place far, far back in the woods where small dugong bulbs lay dormant in the soil. At his command, a small gnome-like creature emerges from the grass and begins excavating.


It digs and digs and digs and digs, throwing soil everywhere and getting exceedingly filthy...soil in its ears, soil in its butt crack, soil absolutely everywhere.






The gnome-like creature flings dirt up in a huge circle, digging furiously, like a small cat trying to bury a large poo.
A lot of the dirt goes into its mouth. A lot of it ends up on the roof of it's grandmothers garden shed.












...until finally, the first tiny newborn dugong emerges.








Close enough.




q: Is communication with dugongs possible?
Yes! Recent experiments using extra sensory perception have yielded undreamed-of results in the field of dugong-human communication.


Here a diver uses the 'mind meld' technique.


"Can you understand me, fellow earth dweller? Gentle giant of the sea, can you understand me?"







"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF HERE. RING RING PICK UP THE CLUE PHONE. LEAVE. ME. THE. FUCK. ALONE."



Q: Do dugongs spy on America and then give all our secrets to hostile foreign powers?
a: Yes.





....plus they sneak up on your when you are swimming and yell "DUGONG!" in your ear real loud and then swim away.

Dugongs SUCK.



q: Do dugongs migrate?

a: During certain times of the year the trans-oceanic currents shift, and with this shift comes a subtle change in the temperature of the sea. ...image of migrating dugongs thanks to KYAHGIRL

This is the signal that the dugongs have been waiting for.
Once a reliable source of medical-grade helium has been found and the deliveries completed, they line up along the shore in the light of the full moon, wait for a favorable wind, and ascend towards the stars.

What you should know about...FLUFFY KITTENS

The human race may not agree about many things, but everyone loves a sweet, fluffy kitten! Nobody who has ever cradled one in their hands and listened to that sweet, miniature purr can disagree.










No matter the breed...from the plainest, rough-and tumble- barn tabby to the pampered elegance of the pedigreed Persian, there's just something about a tiny kitten that makes the human heart melt.



So you want a pet? Thinking about a kitten? A place by the fire and a bowl of milk may have suited old Tom, but there's more than that to caring for a young kitten responsibly.

...EARLY CARE








Immediately after birth, the kitten should be examined carefully and the venom extracted. The amount will vary according to factors like gender, breed and order of birth.












A kitten from which the venom has not been successfully extracted will develop some troubling physical characteristics by the second week.













Once again, the traits your kitten displays will be influenced by a number of variables. The deadly 'Cthulhu' form is a rare recessive and is found mainly near the earths magnetic poles.










'Carniverous Lemurosid Bipedalism' in an unsuccessfully expressed kitten, New South Wales. Remodellers later discovered it, already midway through it's first pupation, in a cocoon beneath the house. Stinger and clasping mouthparts were present.






Mephitic Alopecia in a 2 week old kitten, Bournemouth, Dorset, UK. This family lost several dogs before the disorder was properly diagnosed; although not before the blood-sucking proboscis had developed.






...FUN WITH YOUR NEW PET


Old wives tales hold that a kitten cannot be trained. Nothing could be more far from the truth! Countless people have enjoyed the hours of companionship and fun that raining a kitten affords! And nothing is more engaging than to have the smallest and cutest member of the family do a 'star turn' when company comes to call!






For years French children have trained their kittens to jump through a hoop. This simple trick is accomplished with a willow hoop and a stick, which is used to 'persuade' the kitten that this is a good idea.















Remember: proper technique is important...a fact which beloved mime Marcel Marceau discovered much too late.






Your kitten can be trained to use the toilet-it's a fact! Using methods originally popularized by jazz legend Charles Mingus*, relatively inexpensive products are now widely available that include everything you need.











More than likely you'll find this process a lot more entertaining than your cat will.






...HELPFUL HINTS




Even though your new kitten may be cute enough to eat, we don't gnaw on our kitty.









Have you ever tried to make a man lactate by putting him in a training bra and sticking a kitten on his tit?




It doesn't work.







Remember to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY before you use your kitten as the meat component in a cybernetic organism.










Threading the kitten is tricky. HAVE PATIENCE...and don't forget your sense of humor! Soon you'll be making beautiful area rugs, bathmats and hall runners that your family will admire for years to come!







...IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE

Using a little good sense and a lot of love, your kitten will give you many happy years of companionship. Nothing rivals the feeling that you get from nurturing a small, helpless life, watching it change, and grow...















...and grow, and divide, and shed toxic spores, and


________________________________________

*Bullshit, right?
Hint: his cats' name was 'Nightlife'.

SUPER EASY CELERY FOR THE HOME GARDENER

So. To sum up, my 82 year old father-in-law is SUPERFLY.

How in the hell am I going to follow that?
With a post on celery, bitch.
Oh yeah? Oh HAIL yeah.

You see what I do here?

"Why no. Just what is it that you do here?"

JUST EXACTLY WHATEVER the living, breathing motherfuck I want to do, is what I do here, dogaroonie.

If I want to do a post on the lint I find in my dryer I'll just do that humbear. If I want to do a whole cockalockin' post on soil bacteria I'll just DO that rasty bastard. Picture of my dog's butt? HA! DONE ALREADY DONE THAT ONE, BABY! SUCK ON IT!!!!!

I could sit here and just type the letter 'A' a whole bunch of times if I wanted to.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAa
]
Oh yeah.
And I'll leave that bracket too. FUCK yes, D.B. Cooper. Hijack THAT plane ya little bitch.

*takes medication*

__________________________________

Your soil must be rich, neutral and on the damp side...a clay loam is perfect.

1. In the fall, buy a regular head of celery from the supermarket.

2. Use the whole head except for the very center where the stunted, yellow-white leaves are.

3. Leave as much of a root stub on this 'heart' as possible. Using a very sharp knife, shave a fine, fine slice off the bottom of this stub, leaving the end clean and white.

4. Wash the whole thing carefully under cold water, and trim off wilted or damaged parts.

5. Place the cleaned start in a glass of clean, cold water on a north-facing windowsill so that the root stub is well immersed. Don't let it contact the bottom of the glass.

6. Change the water frequently, and keep the glass clean. You might notice cloudy goop forming around the root stub; simply wipe it off gently under the faucet in cold water.

7. In a few WEEKS you will notice small white rootlets beginning to form in a circle around the base of the stems. The stems might also have grown an inch or so. This might take all winter long, so don't panic if you don't see any action for a long time. As long as the leaves and stems are still healthy looking, you're good.

8. In spring when the last frost has passed, plant the rooted celery in a raised mound of really rich, well-cultivated soil (the same way you plant zuchinni and pumpkins,) and keep it moist. NOT SWAMPY. It needs to drain. Later in the summer you can make a moat around the crown to help the water soak in instead of running off the surface. The more water the celery receives the fatter the stalks will get and the taller the plant. However, this increases the chance that the plant will suddenly decide to send up a flowerstalk and die (bolt.) Just give it a nice shower in the evening (unless it's rained the day before) and call it good.

9. Otherwise, ignore.

10. Clip stalks off the side of the clump all spring, summer and early fall whenever you need some, leaving the central bunch in the ground.
Homegrown celery tends to run smaller and darker green than store-celery. It also tastes far more aromatic than store celery, so you need less.

11. Come fall, after the first light frost, pull up the whole plant and cut off the root ball to within an inch of where the stems begin. There will be 'offsets'; mini-plants that grown off at an angle out from the central root and the main crown. Just crack these away from the main root. Select the smaller, healthiest offsets, the ones with the most root, and repeat the process at one.
_______________________________

But no, 'Nations! That's CHEATING! That's not REAL GARDENING! Real gardeners grow things from seed! If you don't grow it from seed you're NOT A REAL GARDENER! You're BREAKING THE RULES! You're doing it the EASY way! Furthermore, you're not maintaining GENETIC DIVERSITY! You're only creating CLONES! And, and, a big DISEASE could come along and wipe out your whole crop! And then move on and wipe out everyone elses' crop that's growing the same variety! And then get stronger and stronger and mutate and breed! And fall into a nuclear reactor and then maybe a guy sweeping the floor will sweep it back outside where it will grow and spread at a geometric rate and KILL ALL THE WHOLE CELERY IN THE WORLD! AND MARS AND VENUS PLUS ALL THE ASTEROIDS! AND SATURN!

Get a fucking grip people. You stick shit in the ground and it grows; that's gardening.

Seed is selected from cloned varieties. How do you think they maintain commercial variety? By asking the celery nicely? By magic? Does 'lil Harry Potter wave his winkie over the celery and say "Celery est!" or some jive ass trumped-up Latin crapola and WHOOMP there is more celery?

NO! They select healthy plants with desirable traits and....wait for it.....take clones! And let them bolt! And take seeds from the cloned plants and....
wait, wait.......
-Sell them!

Theres a problem, though. Celery seed is NOTORIOUSLY BUTTLICKING DIFFICULT to grow on from seed! It takes 6 and one half Federation Standard light-years to germinate, and Mr. Spock has to urinate on it all that whole time. Oh yes! Plus it has to have a constant high soil temp and must lie on the top of the dirt undisturbed in the light where CELERY PREDATORS can just come along and KILL IT AND EAT ITS BRAIN AND RIP OUT IT'S PANCREAS AND LEAVE THE REST TO ROT IN THE TORRID, UNFORGIVING HEAT OF A MERCILESS SUN!

In addition, seedling celery damps off for no reason. The shit just dies. Or cutworms chew it off at the soil, or celery flies and carrot flies come along and land all over it and lick it all over or do whatever they do and kill it in the prime of its young and promising celery life, thus depriving you of vital celery nutrients! AND NOBODY WANTS THAT!

So yeah. Root a clone in water and then plant it out.


*takes more medication*

The Playboy of the Western World

I found out why my father-in-law keeps ending up in the emergency ward.

Would you like to know why my father-in-law keeps ending up in the emergency ward?

Guess why my father-in-law keeps ending up in the emergency ward.

I'll tell you why.


When I met this man twenty years ago he was partying like an 18 year old. He smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day. He drove a Porsche. He could drink like a fish and never show the effects, work all day, cruise tail all night and then come home to the waiting arms of a new guy every few months. Not b-list desperation cases, either...hot college guys.

Magically twinklicious college guys.

Doe-eyed, slutty college guys, tight pants, magnificent upper body development-type-of-guys.

Shall I stop now? OK.

He knew everyone. Everyone knew him-and liked him. He always had visitors and he always had plans. In fact, it became apparent after I'd known him awhile that my father-in-law, a man in his late 60's at the time, was the guy in the group that all the other guys hung out with so they could catch the overflow.
It was NUTS.
This was not like the 60-year-old people I remembered. The 60-year-old people I remembered had canes and smelled like pee and watched television all day.

Make no mistake, this is still one charming, sexy old bastard, too. I mean, he's one of those people who's got 'IT'. He walks into a room and everyone knows. Or rolls into the room at this stage of the game. Still.

20 years later. The man can't drive his Porsche any more. He can't climb a set of stairs. He has COPD, he uses oxygen, he wears compression stockings and uses a walker. Has this slowed him down? Oh HELL no, buttercup.

Now they come to him.

For example, when I busted him and the cute cable guy right after he'd moved in to assisted living I just figured "Aw, what a nice kid." (No, no, nothing gross...just a little bluster and delay answering the door and a couple of big grins. This has happened before and I've kind of figured out what's up by now.)

After it happened a few more times I started realizing that my father in law knew ALL the nice young kids. In Washington. Possibly in the entire Northwest. And Vancouver.

The last time was a couple of weeks ago, when I busted one of the surfer-boy maintenance guys leaving his place (poor kid saw me standing there and blushed purple.) I just smiled and walked on by. Room service. Just one of the many features of modern assisted living.

One of the Fan Club clued me in to the rest of the story. "Why do you think he never answers the phone in the evenings? You know he hardly spends any time there. Everyone's dragging him to the clubs."

Now he's in interim care for a few weeks. I went in today to pick up a few things from his apartment for him. The day manager had a quiet word with me on the elevators.
"You know, I think he's....overdoing things..." she said. Then she paused and did the Groucho Marx eyebrows thing a couple of times at me. I blinked.
"He goes out a lot. And he he has a LOT of...um...visitors." She did the 'woo woo' thing with her eyebrows again.

-Oh.

I thanked her nicely, got off the elevator, and waited for the doors to close before I started snorting and whooping. It hurt.

Evidence left behind at the scene confirmed her theory.

Here is some good advice: You should be careful what drawer you check when you look for someones' medication. Lots of people keep it in the kitchen. Like my father in law does. Not in the bedside table. No, he certainly does NOT keep his medication in his bedside table.

No, he doesn't.




So then.
Why is my father-in-law in the hospital?





My father in law is in the hospital for overexertion.

Jesus Christ.

Purple Moon Snail Laughs Bad Fifty Monsters

I swear I wrote a post on Scientology back when. Does anyone remember it? I went back through all my old crap and I can't find it. Unless you really want the fluffy kittens next.
Don't make me get my fluffy kittens.
Cuz I will.

Meanwhile, use your head for something other than a hatrack.
Go read this : What goes up...Alter Egos
Then read everything else.

Then go
here, read the post entitled "A Little Yellow" and bug her to post more often.

Now check out Awaiting:

Isn't that what you always kind of figured? Me too.


Now here's Frobisher. Check out the sunburn he copped in Marbella:

Of course, the side that was facing the sun most of the time is a lot worse.

bambi vs. the potty monsters (they win)

The Charismatic Catholic prayer meeting we attended was socially divided along a polite, faint, yet very real line. The organizers were on the main thoughtful and spiritual people, most having attended parochial school all the way through college. The lunatic fringe were mainly working class, high school drop-outs, and were tolerated at arms' length. Never the twain did meet... except to act like a bunch of Fruit Loops in a rented hall three times a week. Yes, we were all brothers and sisters in the Lord...and we were all very careful where we sat during Mass so that when called upon to deliver the sign of peace we wouldn't end up hugging anyone icky.

Bambi the high-functioning schizophrenic had been taken up as a cause by the groups' organisers. And I have to say that they did themselves proud. In short order they found her a clean, safe place to live, bought her a bus pass and put her in touch with a social worker and Catholic Community Services. It was pretty clear from the start that this womans' problem was more a matter of failing to take her medication regularly than 'spiritual darkness'.

Bambi's parents were quietly contacted. I felt really bad for these people. The way the laws ran at the time, if a person was over 18 and not presenting a clear danger to themselves or others, they could go run around and be nutty until they fell off a bridge trying to fly. THEN the state could step in, if there was anything left. Bambi's family recounted the problems they'd had in dealing with this woman over the years and how people in her condition regularly slip between the cracks of society, and thanked us for caring and doing what we had.

This move was viewed with horror by the Lunatic Fringe. They saw it as a terrible violation of Bambi's trust. After all, her father was rich and powerful and she was in hiding because her family was trying to have her committed and had poisoned her and the Mafia was trying to find her because her ex-husband had blah blah blah etc etc etc...and to top it all off there were demons in her apartment!

Bambi, meanwhile, was feeding off the attention of the group in general and the Lunatic Fringe in particular. The Fringe bought into her delusions hook, line and sinker. Per their literal interpretation of Scripture, the things that were supposedly happening to Bambi were concrete proof and vindication of the 'Pentecostal Christianity' that they practiced. With the backup of these people and their magical explanations for what was going on she soon 'felt lead by the Lord' to 'refute her medications and claim a healing' and that's exactly what she did.

That is why Bambi never did succeed in chasing Satan out of her bathroom.

A number of exorcisms were performed -but she claimed that the demons kept returning stronger. Then they started speaking to her and writing messages on her walls that only she could see. Finally she started bugging the owner, demanding that as a Christian it was his duty to remove the demon-infested, Island-themed tub surround so she could shower without worrying about Satanic Tiki idols tickling her crack.

The place had been completely and expensively remodeled before she'd moved in (and that aside from the fact that it was a ridiculous demand anyway) so naturally the owner refused. The lunatic fringe took up the banner and started pleading on her behalf and doing 'prayer battle' against him*. He still refused. Which was the beginning of the end.

This issue actually split the group. It boiled down to this: Either you believed that this woman was desperately in need of Thorazine, or you were on "Gods' side" and believed that the fucking bathroom wallpaper was possessed.

What was truly sad was that while Bambi was rapidly losing the last of her marbles, both sides were wasting time agonizing over this issue.
Here's why:
These were Fundamentalists. A 'secular, scientific' explanation was by it's very nature wrong. It was, in fact, even sinful to entertain such an explanation. Born Again, Charismatic Christians utterly refuted the 'false religion' of Science. They believed in the literal truth of demons, angels, possession, miracles, exorcism, speaking in tongues, healing and all the rest of it because it was in the Bible, and the Bible was the revealed word of God! Period! So the explanation that best tallied up with what was in the Bible was, had to be, and could not be other than the right one. Therefore, if you took the Bible literally in this case, a person was not schizophrenic. That's not in the Bible, consequently it is a lie. However a person could be possessed by demons. And how do they take care of persons possessed by demons in the Bible? You prayed over them, rebuked Satan, and the demons were cast out.

But if that didn't work?

...Yeah.

It all ended in a pathetic mess. The lunatic fringe moved en masse to weirder (MUCH weirder) pastures, taking their checkbooks with them. The remaining members disbanded when they lost the use of the hall due to lack of funds. Funds provided in large part by my mother, turns out.

Bambi stopped paying rent. Finally she had to be evicted after she'd almost burnt the building down leaving lit cigarettes all over the floor. She eventually went back to living on the street.

I met up with her a couple of years later, though.

Guess where?








Church of Scientology.

__________________________________
* what this amounted to was meeting in Bambi's apartment across the wall from the owner, or standing on his front stoop, or sitting in his driveway in their cars holding hands and praying loudly that he would 'do the right thing and follow the path of righteousness', calling each other up and holding prayer meetings via conference call, bringing it up during meetings...yup.

**I am not being flippant and I am not making this up... this is honestly what they believed and how they believed.
You can take that line of thinking as far afield as you like, too, and it still applies. Modern medicine is evil, electricity is a lie, Buddhists worship Satan, fossils aren't real; they were created by Satan to deceive the faithful.
YES.
Now, that's far, far to the right...and also far, far from being as extreme as I've been exposed to. Think of it as 'middle of the road' far right.
That is Christian fundamentalism.
Welcome to America.

Purple Cat Big Heist Caper! Praising Lord!

For more background and Halloween hijinx, go here!

My mother found Jesus the way a Peterbilt truck finds a raccoon on the highway-sudden, hard and messy. At first it was a positive thing...for a short (and rather confusing) time, she went from being God's miserable hemorrhoid to being Jesus ' little sunbeam. Was this my mother? Smiling?
Anyway, for a variety of reasons I may go into at another time, I found myself an unwilling participant in what rapidly became my mothers religious mania, going to what were termed 'Charismatic Catholic' , Born-Again style prayer meetings three evenings a week.

Lemme digress a bit. Catholicism in white, working-class America isn't remotely ecstatic. Catholicism in white, working-class America is in fact about as exciting as attending a talk at the public library about Gypsy moth infestation, except with more kneeling and a light snack towards the end.

Understandably, then, Catholics did not do the charisms, or 'ecstatic religiosity' very well. These prayer meetings tended to be rather shy and restrained things until the very, very end, when people got that 'now or never' feeling and suddenly went belly-flopping awkwardly into the deep end. It was essentially two hours of quiet prayer with upraised hands followed by a half-hour of crying, speaking in tongues, falling, twitching, and singing loud songs with accompanying gestures while hopping up and down.
Yes, really. Barney the Dinosaur meets Jesus.

Still, I honestly think the greater part of the people in attendance were sincere, if misguided. Unfortunately my mother, being who she was, got drawn into the lunatic fringe.
Eventually she was running buddies with this unbelievably odd bunch of Jesus-groupies. All of them were garden-variety unfulfilled Catholic women...morbidly obese 50-year-old virgins, glum married lesbians in brick-wall denial with six kids , borderline (and not-so-borderline) psychotics, rage junkies, low-norms who smelled like pee and beat-down throw pillows, mostly. All of them could have been case studies in a book called 'Women You Should Never, Ever Be Like When You Grow Up'.
And I took note, yo.

One evening there was a new member in attendance, a thin, trembling fawn of a woman draped in scarves and ethnic fabrics, like an aging ballet dancer with a thyroid problem. Her buggy eyeballs never stopped scanning the room. She smoked with a strange metronomic regularity, sipping at the filter and blowing steadily until the cigarette was one long ash drooping gracefully down over her red bony knuckles. She sat at the edge of the group drawn up into a knobby heap on the metal folding chair .

The Fringies were instantly enthralled. The poor thing, let's go be friendly!
Poor thing indeed.
Soon she was in the middle of a circle of chairs filled with a whole bunch of terribly friendly, sympathetic fat women listening raptly to her 'testimony'.

This stuff was usually pretty gross, so I went outside and lit a smoke.*

I was joined by one of my moms' friends a short while later. "You'll never believe what happened to this poor woman," she said.
She was right.

According to 'Bambi', she'd grown up in a wealthy family, her father was a very well-known public figure who she was afraid to name, all of them were against her and they wanted her to stay married to a man who was beating her. They had been drugging her for years and had finally poisoned her with a mysterious substance in an attempt to 'keep her quiet'. She was also being chased by a cult, by organized crime and by an ex husband, and all of them were trying to kill her while at the same time plotting to have her committed to a mental institution. This was why she was hiding out on the streets and in homeless shelters AND living in her car and also why nobody could know her real name.

Man, I was 16 and I smelled this shit a mile away, even secondhand. The woman breathlessly recounting all this to me was 56. You could tell she thought this was the coolest, most glamorous and interesting thing that she had ever heard EVER.

Once I'd finished my cigarette I went back inside. 'Bambi' was being prayed for.

Now, in an ordinary setting, this might mean that people were, you know, sitting, maybe kneeling, hands folded, praying.

In this group it meant that everyone present stood and placed one hand on the person being prayed for and raised the other hand high into the air (presumably to get better reception) closed their eyes and made bossy demands on the Lord. "Jesus! See this woman! Jesus, help this woman! Yes! Jesus, help her bear this burden! HEAL her! Heal her now! Jesus heal her! HEAL HER NOW! IN JESUS NAME! LIFT HER BURDEN! LIFT THIS BURDEN FROM HER!"
They typically did this in turns, getting louder and more vehement until the whole group was crying, moaning, and speaking in tongues. Just another typical Friday night.

The thing was, they were all on the downslope of middle age, and they couldn't stand for very long without getting tired. They started to droop and lean on one another after they'd been at it for a while. From a distance this looked like a bunch of people peering at something down a well while signaling to passing aircraft.
And as I knew from personal experience, the person in the middle, the one being prayed for, bore the full weight. Poor waif- like Bambi was nearly bent double.

We heard a lot from Bambi in the passing weeks. Bambi threw off a group praying for her with 'supernatural strength'. Bambi had 'spoken in an unnatural voice and cursed God'. Bambi had 'accepted Christ and suddenly become ill'.

Clearly, Bambi was under demonic attack.

Consequently Bambi became very, very popular. Everyone had Bambi over for dinner. Everyone took Bambi out for coffee after the meetings. People fought over who would drive Bambi back to the shelter. The group took up a collection and got Bambi out of the shelter and into an apartment. Everyone listened raptly to Bambi's stories about being raped by shadowy figures on orders from her family, receiving threatening phone calls in the middle of the night, Bambi finding her belongings had been gone through by the Mafia, Bambi seeing demonic messages appear on the ceiling above her bed at night. The 'let's pray for Bambi' session at the end of every meeting became the main draw. You never knew what would happen, and something dramatic always did. Attendance was never better.

One evening I was smoking outside in the garden when one of the Fringe came out to get me.
'We need you to come help us! Do you think you could be a prayer warrior?' she said breathlessly, clutching my arm.
" Well, let me finish my smoke first," I replied. "What's going on?"
"Bambi's apartment is haunted!" said the Fringie. "That's what's been at the center of all these disturbances!"
"You mean her new apartment she just moved into?" I asked.
"It's not new," said the Fringie. "It's in an old house. And there were people who were drug addicts and Satan worshippers living there before she moved in. And they had orgies."

I'd like to say that I laughed in her face, but no. Whaddya gonna do; it's how I was raised.

Now how drug-dealing Satan worshippers had managed to move into a place owned by one of this Christian groups' leaders and live there, holding orgies, drugging and worshipping away for a matter of years, was never explained. What I accepted without a thought at the time** was that Milwaukie, Oregon was simply raddled with Satan-worshipping, orgy-holding druggies, and that that kind of thing called up demons and opened a PORTAL TO HELL.

And I was being asked to help cleanse it! I was being asked to help cast out demons, to help a fellow Christian and to bring the light of the Lord into her home! Well fuck yeah I'll help, are you nuts? An exorcism? I am A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL! Color me there!

We all piled into the Mystery Mobile-I mean, the former prostitutes' car- in an excited, bible-toting heap...the grumpy lesbian, the vindictive Jap-hater and the former prostitute that nobody was supposed to have figured out was a former prostitute in the front seat, and the 55- year-old morbidly obese virgin, the sixteen-year-old smoker, and the smokers batshit-nuts mother in the back. We zoomed away, praying and holding hands. When the traffic lights changed we prayed for the traffic light to turn green.
Some of the ladies in the front seat started getting a little excited. Unknown tongues began creeping into the mix.

"Don't get carried away by the Spirit,' called the former prostitute as she drifted a corner on two wheels "I don't have any insurance!"

We prayed for her to get a raise so she could buy insurance at the next light.

We caromed through downtown Portland and over the Powell Blvd. bridge. Smokers' Mother had the brilliant idea to roll down the window so that upraised hands could poke out.

We passed the Poulson House, a grim Victorian I was secretly in love with. 'That's a Satanic looking place,' said the Jap Hater darkly. "I've always hated it."

We prayed holding hands over the back of the seat, all the way up McLoughlin Boulevard and down River Road until we drove up to the house, the house of evil, and stopped. We prayed a little more before we climbed the stairs.

We prayed before we went inside.

We went inside, and stopped to pray in the foyer.

Bambi was already there, looking pale and twitchy in the bare overhead light.
"Where's the disturbance?" Demanded former prostitute.
"I don't know", breathed Bambi. "It's the whole place, I think.."
We all joined hands and began to....guess?
Pray.

The whole group moved in an awkward clump into the first room off the foyer. Speaking in tongues began in earnest. Then singing in tongues. I got mashed into a wall by 55-Year-Old Virgin's huge ass and there I remained. Trembling hands reached out and touched the walls. The furniture. The pictures. The telephone. "You never know," said Jap Hater. "Oh! Good idea!" they agreed.

The clump shuffled down the hall and moved to the next room, lead by Bambi. An overhead bulb flickered and she screamed. "It's here!"
The praying gained volume.
I got mashed into a door by the 55-Year-Old-Virgin.
We entered the kitchen. The kitchen was tiny.
Closet doors were opened and prayed into. Someone started swaying, and the whole group started rocking back and forth in unison. I was mashed into another wall at this point, and resigned myself to simply trying to draw breath while the others did the heavy battling with the demons infesting the cabinets. "It's here! I can feel it moving! It's running before us!" various people commented. "Where's it going? It went past me! I felt it!"

The whole group moved as one, in a clump. A couple of the women were already reduced to panting, barely able to gasp 'Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus' by this point. Nobody'd told them that Satan would be wearing track shoes.

"It went in here! cried Bambi. The group surged forward.
'Here' was the bathroom.
A very tiny, tiny bathroom.

The group pushed forward and found that not all of them could fit into the claustrophobic, closet-sized room at once.
Satan had obviously chosen the venue for this final showdown with care.

The group decamped to the entry and considered. Bambi twittered and meeped in the background like a nervous gerbil with a bad nicotine habit. I noticed that there wasn't one single place on the floor that didn't have a cigarette burn.

Suddenly "I found it!" cried the former prostitute. She was a tiny woman, and had wormed her way to the front of the group. "Come look! I found it! Here it is!"
Everyone crowded forward.

Ever heard of Masonite? It was marketed as a waterproof, decorative material for tub surrounds in the 60's and 70's...kind of a cross between Formica and wallboard. The smooth 'space age' material it was coated with supposedly*** rendered this material moisture-resistant and easy to clean. This coating was often printed with designs...flowers, snowflakes, geometrics...
This tub surround was printed with a tropical island scene.
Straw huts, palm trees, coconuts, ocean waves.

And Tiki god statues.

"I knew it! I never felt comfortable in there! I always felt like I was being watched!" exclaimed Bambi.

Grumpy Lesbian was crammed against the sink. Former Prostitute was seated on the toilet. Jap Hater had what floor space there was in the center of the room.
I was crammed into the bathtub, by now utterly mortified, with Smokers' Mom and the 55-Year-Old Morbidly Obese Virgin.
'Now everyone put their hands on the wall and pray!" Former Prostitute commanded.

And they prayed. Please, God, deliver this house from the clutches of Satan. Please, God, drive the presence of demons from the images on this bathroom wall. We refute thee utterly, Satan, and all thy works, and thy leering image of thyself as rendered in driftwood and dogs' teeth by the Polynesians and the DuPont Corporation in gold glitter paint.

Oh yeah... there they were. Jesus' little prayer warriors. Standing in the bathtub.

Exorcising the wallpaper.

Amen.



___________________________
*one of the first things I found out about being a charismatic catholic was that the typical unfulfilled adult catholic woman had really good reasons for being that way, most of them horrifically gynecological. also, that it takes very little provocation for your typical unfulfilled catholic woman to explain the exact nature of her particular problem at length and in excruciating detail.

**also the subject of yet another story. lucky you!

***masonite is bullshit. one scratch and the stuff swells up with black fungus like the black plague. god i hate masonite.