"So I got together with my nephew for lunch."

"The skinny, quiet kid who used to roadie for us?"

"Well, he's not nearly so skinny, and he's a lot less quiet these days. Everything was 'fuck' this, and 'pussy' that."

"So you guys had a lot to talk about?"

He pauses for a moment. "Yes. Yes, we did."

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minding my own business, when Attila the Hub passes by.

"We need to talk about a few things," he tells me, in that tone of voice that suggests we're about to have a heavy conversation. I look up, and see that he's carrying a machete.

I nod at him. "You know, there's a time when every married person has to decide how he or she looks in orange," I remark. "I don't think you do."

"Well, then I guess I'll give this to the gardener after all."

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1 only somewhat completely unrelated. are your trackbacks broken?

Posted by: tommy at August 22, 2006 08:07 AM (gsgxC)

2 If you look good in orange?

Posted by: Darrell at August 22, 2006 09:16 AM (lMo4l)

3 Hey - I like orange!!

Posted by: Greta at August 23, 2006 11:19 AM (Cbtbf)

4 But those prison jumpsuits are cut SO BADLY! Not flattering AT ALL.

Posted by: Attila Girl at August 23, 2006 02:18 PM (LEEsJ)

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When I was a child I always envied the kids whose families had side-by-side refrigerators: they were upper middle-class. Charmed kids who had lots of toys. (Later, they were charmed kids who got piano lessons and cars, and access to darkrooms. Now they are the kids with trust funds.)

I just swapped my 1970s side-by-side for a four-year-old Whirlpool from my father's lab. From his POV, it was a mercy swap.

Now he's cleaning out mold, meat juice, and hyper-bacterial icky stuff. I'm cleaning out dyes and perfumes, which at this moment strikes me as worse.

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Fun, fun, fun.

We get to move my father's three-year-old refrigerator over here, and then move my 30-year-old fridge back to my father's lab.

It'll take most of the day, but I'll get a better refrigerator, without spending much money.

I guess I should shower before I get dressed. I wonder if there's any point to that . . .

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Which is good. The phenomenon of "happy clients" is wonderful; after "happy clients" comes "clients who pay invoices on time."

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Check out my blogroll. (And send me a note if you run across a dead link. I don't prune it often enough, I'm afraid.)

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. . . are starting to tire of hearing me alternate between The Essential Alice Cooper and Queen II.

I suspect they are conspiring with the household across the street, taking up a collection to get me another album. And I'd like to make a suggestion.

If not, fine: All the young girls love Alice.

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. . . decide to teach my sister-in-law to play blackjack. I'm not good at it and don't care to admit this, so I watch from the sidelines. They are at the dining table, betting Monopoly money. Youngest person: the nine-year-old, Ray. Oldest person: my stepmother.

At one point my sister-in-law tells her son Ray that he has to stop betting so aggressively, or he'll run out of money and will have to stop playing. I drop by the bank, pull $50 out in fake money, and hand it to the kid. "Thank you," he says.

Breeding shows.

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my nephew tells me. "Even though it has lots of swear words in it."

"Swear words? Like what?" I ask.

"Like faggot," he responds.

"Faggot isn't always bad," I explain. "It usually is, but sometimes the speaker is just talking about something that's on fire. Especially if they're English—then it might just be a cigarette."

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1 Did you ever watch Arrested Development? English guy to his gf: Whenever I get lonely, I'll put a fag in my mouth and think of you. (cigarette )

Posted by: Kevin at August 06, 2006 01:40 AM (++0ve)

2 Hmmm. When you light a cigarette in England, does that qualify as a "flaming fag"? Just curious.

Posted by: clyde at August 06, 2006 05:07 AM (6m+7s)

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He has a lot of energy, and talks very fast. He's very good at ducking when I point the camera in his direction. Early on, he decides he wants me to give him wine, which I won't do. "It isn't up to me," I explain. When he attempts to sneak a sip from my wine glass I gently take it back and tell him softly to get in touch with me when he's 16.

"Why?" he asks.

"No reason," I reply. "And I didn't say that, either."

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The twelve-year-old is well-behaved, but aloof. When I ask him questions, he says, "do you want the sarcastic answer, or the non-sarcastic answer?" He appears to struggle between his upbringing and his preteen inclination to smart-assedness.

"Don't worry about me," I tell him. "I'll let you know if you cross the line."

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It can really turn on a dime.

I'm still broke—which is annoying, and all that—but in almost every other category things are really going my way.

Which is sobering and scary. It means I have a lot to lose. I may need to act accordingly.

Double criticism groups again this week: tonight, and tomorrow night. Wish me luck.

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"I did that out of his earshot, so it doesn't count. Besides, I meant it ironically."

"Ironically?"

"Yes. It was a wry commentary on the fact that he's way too young for me."

"You go crazy when the weather gets hot."

"Yes. But I wasn't flirting with the waiter. And that's final."

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"I was not flirting," I reply. "That kid was young enough to be . . . my younger brother."

"You don't have a younger brother."

"So you admit that he was fair game?"

"Do you admit that you were flirting?"

"With a 30-year-old? No. But you're welcome to make a citizen's arrest."

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. . . with my ex-girlfriend. The one who married my former boyfriend. (No, no: not the boyfriend who cheated on her with me—the one who saw her on the side [with my full knowledge and consent] while he was living with me.)

I swear I don't understand why you guys can't keep this all straight. It's easy as pie.

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I walk him to his car. We are talking about my favorite subject.

"What are the chances," he asks, "that you're a selfish asshole?"

"They're quite good," I tell him. "But I make up for my selfishness by being really, really greedy."

He laughs. "Very nice." And he kisses me goodbye, gets into his Infiniti, and drives off.

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My mother's on the warpath again. Would it be unethical for me to sneak her an extra Prozac? Or is there any point: she appears pretty determined to have a fight with me tomorrow.

Oh, well. It's like my middle-aged acne—it'll keep me young.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:49 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Put on a Stepford wife smile and refuse to lose not matter what she says. It should drive her crazy.

Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at July 24, 2006 11:14 PM (RiZPJ)

2 Another way to win without trying is to agree with everything she says, then do none of it. Just keep smiling and saying "you're right" and continue doing what you've been doing all along. Eventually she'll figure out she's talking to herself, and might shut up.

Posted by: clyde at July 25, 2006 01:47 AM (6m+7s)

3 I see you people have normal mothers. I don't want to aggravate mine, for she could get homicidal, and I don't want to have to shoot my own mom in self-defense. So no passive-aggressive tactics for me. Fortunately, she saw that she was headed for the swamps, and reined herself back in. So there's growth . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at July 25, 2006 06:51 PM (4IuF2)

4 The tactic that works - though is in your face confrontational - is to just not see them. Don't answer the phone, don't visit, don't have them over. Let them know it is because "You are invited to STOP trying to run my life." Note to mothers everywhere - when your kids are 28, you really do have to stop treating them like they are 12.

Posted by: Zendo Deb at July 26, 2006 04:15 AM (+gqOq)

5 I've done that one, too

Posted by: Attila Girl at July 26, 2006 08:13 AM (4IuF2)

6 Hmm. I have a "normal mother?" Then what explains me?

Posted by: Sean Hackbarth at July 26, 2006 10:40 PM (RiZPJ)

7 How about "the sins of the fathers"? Or perhaps you're a sport (not baseball--genetics).

Posted by: Attila Girl at July 27, 2006 09:37 AM (4IuF2)

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She's smart.

People don't know how to love
They taste it and toss it
Turn it off and on
Like a bathtub faucet
Oh sometimes the light
Can be so hard to find--
At least the moon at the window--
The thieves left that behind.

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one must make the assumptions that:

1) the date selected many weeks ahead of time will fall during a heat wave, and

2) one will get one's period on the day the party begins, incurring cramps and the necessity for steady doses of codeine.

Therefore, it behooves one to clean the house on the weekend previous to that of the potluck itself. Hey—at least I remembered the appetizers this time.

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I checked the thermometer in the breezeway area of the garage. It had finally dipped below 100 degrees.

And still, we're too stubborn to turn on the AC.

Tomorrow, though, it'll be different: we're having people over at night, and I'll be straightening up during the day. So when I get up I'm turning on the air.

This is a big deal for Methodists: we tend to convince ourselves that unnecessary expenditures will send us to hell. Where, I've been told, the AC is spotty at best.

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