Yesterday I came home from work, as I am wont to do, and I was putting my many many goddamn bills away in my cute bill-holder '60s thing. I moved it with me all the way from LA.
Cute bill-holder '60s thing.
When I heard a nose from above. The attic door was opening!
Okay, this is a terrible view of the attic. It's that thing with lights on it up above. I became obsessed with Edsel back there licking Steely Dan's dish. Edsel! Get out of there!
Jesus.
Anyway, if there had been a murderer in the attic, or the Ken cryer, he or she would have been able to off me without a struggle, because I just stood frozen, watching the door open from above me.
It was fucking Steely Dan.
Y'all.
That cat can walk through walls, I am now convinced of it. And I am also convinced that he is the smartest damn cat I have ever known. And he's still a kitten! In three months he'll be teaching me trigonometry! HOW did he get up there again, and who knew he knew how to open the damn door? He just kind of squeezed out and jumped down. Jesus Katie Christ with that cat.
Obsessed readers will note my new free ottoman is regaled to that back room now. With my tenant, fmr., coming over to work out in my rather shrimpy living room, I've had to move it back there for space-keeping. I just totally made up a phrase. Space-keeping. Let's all make up phrases and words today in our comments.
She came over again last night, T,f. did. One thing I knew about roping her into working out with me is that she'd be reliable. She's not flaky like me.
Have I ever told you this story, about my high school boyfriend calling me a flake, and how it took me 35 years to get mad about it? Well, maybe 35 years. Whatever 1981 till around 2009 is. Yesterday I was saying I wish I looked 7 and a half years younger (long, stupid story) and then I did a little scenario. "Yeah! June? She's probably about 42!"
Around 15 minutes later it dawned on me that my age minus seven and a half is not 42. Goddammit.
Anyway, so picture it. High school. Tenth grade, to be exact.
I remember tweezing my brows using someone's brows in a magazine as a model, looking in the mirror then looking back at the magazine. I read it would soften my look. Instead I look precisely like someone who would cut you in the Bronx.
Also? Sun-In.
Anyway, there it was, 10th grade, and Giovanni Leftwich had been after my hot brow look all semester, ever since the busty girl he'd formerly liked moved away. I am not even kidding you, we stood there waving her moving truck goodbye and he turned and was all, "Heyyyy."
I'd wanted nothing to do with him for that long long stretch of August to December, but then something shifted for me, mostly that my best friend started liking him, and right then I knew.
I loved Giovanni Leftwich.
But the thing was, I really did. I mean, got there in a weird way, but after he'd been following me around all fall, I kind of got into it.
So then there was this dramatic showdown, where my best friend and I told him we both liked him, and could he please choose one or neither of us so we could continue on with our important tasks such as buying Candies and watching General Hospital.
He chose me. Probably because I went to his school and she was quite a drive. The point is, he chose me! And I was deliriously happy!
Till three weeks later when he dumped me.
I was on the phone with him, tearful. This was my first heartbreak. "Why?" I asked him, doing my Nancy Kerrigan impression.
"Because you're a flake and I don't like you anymore," he said. Really it was probably his mother, who never liked me and who had a little trouble with appropriate boundaries re her son.
Those words rang in my head for decades. Decades! Till one day it hit me.
I WAS NOT THE FLAKE.
For MONTHS he'd been pursuing me, and when I finally liked him back, boom, he didn't like me anymore. WHO'S THE FLAKE HERE?
Fortunately, I'm still in touch with Giovanni Leftwich, so I sent him a choice email re this tragic scenario (we'd get back together two more times in our life after that first torrid three-week extravaganza).
His response? "I don't remember any of that."
Goddammit.
Anyway, at least I finally got justifiably mad about it.
My diary from that heady time contains a lot of "words can't express..." Words can't express how awful it was to see him in the hall today. Words can't express how bad I feel.
You should see my current diary. Oh, words are being expressed all right. So are my anal glands.
I guess that's all I have to tell you, except oh. Why am I so shiny?
I was taking photos of The Needy Committee last night, which I just typed the Nedy Committee and goddammit. Anyway, I turned the camera on myself, which I've told you before is the name of my book for sure. Anyway, what gives? I'm 51. I'm 42 plus seven and a half. And another half. Plus a half. And a half. How can I have wrinkles and oily skin? Come on, god.
As I type this, the sun is shining behind me, and all of a sudden there was a huge cat-shaped shadow next to me. There was Steely Dan, in the back yard, halfway up the tree. I jumped to take a picture but he jumped down, and now he's resentfully back inside.
Eating the big-cats' food because he already engulfed his kitten food in 8 seconds.
god {scurfle scurfle} dammit {crunch}
