Pretty deadly things

in Random Crap

It’s hard for me to type this because this weekend I took out my frustration on my garden (“garden” being a very generous word for my overgrown backyard) and vigorously ripped out weeds, tree roots and also the better part of two fingernails. Turns out that you’re supposed to use gloves. 

I pulled out the weeds that don’t flower and kept those that do and I know that’s not the way you’re supposed to do it, but I can’t stop myself.

I leave the dandelions. I protect the morning glories.  I ignore the spreading daisies, the buttercups, and the creeping bindweed. I know they will crowd out the asters. I know they wrap tightly around the yellow bells and if given the chance they will strangle the wild roses. But I can’t seem to judge one more worthy of thriving than the other.

I have made my own bed and it is filled with cheerful madness, and pretty, deadly things, and a ticking time-bomb of future floral battles, and angry looks from neighbors and I can’t seem to help myself.

I don’t know if this is something to be proud of, or a symptom of my mental illness…but it’s a very colorful one, at least. The buds that sprout in the cracks of the foundation…the flowers that bloom in spite of it all. They are tenacious and unrelenting in a world that wants them gone…and how can that not be something to learn from?

We should all be that insistent.

We should all be that unapologetically glorious.

FOR SALE: SLIGHTLY USED COFFIN

in Random Crap

In the last few years my parents have finally figured out texting, which is wonderful but also often baffling because it often lacks the context you might get from a normal conversation.

Example:

(I apologize if you are not familiar with a “gut pile” or why anyone would point a trail camera at one but in my father’s defense, we live in Texas. ALSO, DID YOU KNOW THERE ARE BEARS IN TEXAS? That’s a weird aside but someone just saw one not far from where I live and I had no idea we had bears. Wtf.)

Anyway, the text I got from my dad this weekend was no exception:

And yes, some might think an unexpected photograph of an old coffin would be a threat but I guess I sort of assumed that he was buying his coffin early at an estate sale because that seems like something he would do, but apparently he thought that I might want it, which is mortifying because what a weird thing to think about your kid and also because it’s exactly the kind of thing I would buy. He texted that I might not want it because he was warned that it was haunted, but that on the upside it’s solid mahogany and was just $350 was “only slightly-used one time and only during the daytime.” And while I admit that $350 is a pretty good price and “haunted” isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for me, I was a little unsettled by the “only used once in the daylight” because…temperamental vampire? Zombies? Rehearsal resurrection?

And even more unsettling was his next texts:

“I fit in it.”

So I told Victor that my dad was fit-checking slightly-used coffins and he just stared at me and I was like, “Insane, right? But actually it’s a really good price considering it’s mahoga-” and then Victor noped right out of the room before I even finished my sentence and then Hailey was like, “What is wrong with you?” so I guess being thrifty skips a generation.

PS. He sent me another one showing me the inside but why are there scratches on the inside of the lid? I have more questions.

July is for reading.

in Random Crap

Some of my favorite books of the year are coming out this month and you should definitely pick them up. The first is my pick for the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club and it’s Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story.

Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case.

Want a taste?

As boys, best friends Jeremy and Rafe went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Or if horror is more your style, check out my pick for the Nightmares from Nowhere Book Club, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (one of my favorite horror authors).

This is one of the most anticipated books of the summer for good reason and I’m thrilled to tell you that we’ll be hosting Stephen on July 18th at Nowhere! If you’re a member of the Nightmares bookclub check the email I sent you a few days ago to reserve an early free ticket to the event. If you’re not a member we opened up ticket sales a few minutes ago ( ticket price = the price of the book which you’ll get when you arrive) today and I suspect they’ll go fast.

Need more than one book to get you through the month? I got ya. Here are a few July books I recommend:

Nicked by M. T. Anderson –  Based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint, Nicked is a fantastical, genre-defying historical romp.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle –  A nuanced and smart horror novel by one of my favorite weirdo authors.  A heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio – A year in the life of Catalina, a smart but vulnerable student at an elite college forced to navigate the world as one of the undocumented. 

Colored Television by Danzy Senna – A suspenseful dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity-industrial complex.

We currently have spots available in the Fantastic Strangelings and Nightmares from Nowhere book clubs if you want join the club. It literally keeps our shop in business and we can’t thank you enough. Come read with us, friend.

It’s Friday!

in Random Crap

First off…click here for an update to my post about car footrests that caused a firestorm of discussion.

Secondly, it’s Friday and this week has been long as shit, so that means it’s time to come into my office so I can show you all of the videos I saved for you.

Ready? Let’s go.

But still, I would push people over to pet it:

I mean, eventually it’s gotta work:

This has been explained to me multiple times and I still don’t get it:

Me watching this with 18 unexplained bruises:

What.

I wanted to try this but I’m pretty sure Victor would involuntarily boot me like a soccer ball:

Yup:

Relatable:

Mine does too:

Yup:

Sigh. But yeah:

Me and Victor every single time I run after a stray cat:

Happy weekend, y’all!

Is this a universal problem between husbands and wives or is it just us?

in Random Crap

Yesterday I was getting my oil changed and when the mechanic came back to the waiting room to give me my keys I had a question for her:

Me: Quick question. I always put my right foot in that footrest thingy on the bottom of the passenger side door of my husband’s car but now I’ve worn a hole in it and he’s furious so I wondered if there was some sort of protective covering I could buy for it?

Mechanic: That little pocket on the bottom of the door? Oh, I put my foot on there too and my husband hates it. I don’t think they make a cover for it but if they did I’d buy one.

random man in the waiting room: Oh my god, my wife does that too. Y’ALL ARE RUINING THE DOOR.

Lady next to him: Wait, are there people who don’t prop their foot on the footrest?

me: Apparently it’s not even a footrest.

Mechanic: Girl, it’s totally a footrest. What else would you do with it?

me: In my car it’s for straw wrappers and feet.

guy: *head in hands, sighing loudly*

Mechanic: I don’t know why they don’t just make a cover for it the same way they do for floorboard covers?

Guy: Because you’re not supposed to put your feet on it.

Lady: Then what is it even made for?

Guy: Nothing. It should just be empty and clean.

me: Oh, every car maker makes a perfect footrest to just never be used? Now who sounds crazy?

So now I’m wondering if this is a universal problem and if it’s just women who prop their foot in the door pocket or if we were just a weird accidental focus group?

PS. I’m not sure why other people do it but having my foot propped up relieves the pressure on my arthritic joints so Victor said I should just get one of those small “squatty potty” stools for the car, and that seems like a good idea until I get into an accident and then the paramedics wonder forever why I was using a stool to help you shit better in the car. I guess I could just write “NOT FOR POOPING” on it in sharpie but I think that might look even more questionable.

UPDATED: As requested, a photo of the footrest. Please excuse my unmanicured feet. I am very lazy.

UPDATED!

Just got back from the hardware store where Victor picked up some pipe insulation and used it to wrap the edge of the footrest and now it’s even better because it’s padded. WHOOP.

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