This whole blog needs an enema!

No, no … Aunty Christ is only teasing. What Aunty Christ really meant to say is that those people who may or may not be (or may not be!) douchebags, asshats, pricks, twatwaffles, buttdiggers, poopslices, or fucktards may kindly carry on with their ass-implant plans and leave her the fuck alone. That was all she meant. Nothing bad or anything, fergahd’s sake. All she’s saying, really, is that if she were left alone, she’s sure all this talk of douchebaggery would simmer down real quick-like.

Present company excluded, of course. All the above applies to no one who hasn’t emailed me recently saying that he intends not to read my blog anymore.

It’s that time of year again, when we clean our minds, bodies, and souls—scrub clean that ol’ friendship-bucket and toss out the ones that are a little smelly or worn-out, give the other ones—the old favorites or the new shiny ones that haven’t had a chance to offend—a little spit-shine (if you know what I mean, and I think you do—am I right, people? Am I right?), and look ahead to the new year and all its opportunities to again screw up and make the wrong decisions and generally show yourself to be the fuckup you are.

In that vein, I’ve been trying to (because one has to start somewhere) clean the apartment. Only a few months into the rental agreement, and already it’s covered with a fine film of dog hair, dog vomit, dog urine, dog excrement … and, you know, various human excreta as well, surely. Oh, it’s hard to clean from the confines of one’s moderately comfy bed, that’s for sure. And it’s hard to want to get out of bed when what awaits outside it is, well, dog urine, dog vomit, etc. Part of the problem with the dogs (who shall henceforth be known as “tha thug dawgs,” in an effort to confound google searchers everywhere) is that they don’t like to go outside when it’s raining, which it frequently is here in, oh, let’s say Saskatoon, where I have always lived. Even with the raincoats—or so I suspect. Oh, who am I kidding. The only time they’ve worn the raincoats was for a picture taken for my amusement. I have no ambition to ever wrassel them into little rubber outfits again. So, I open the door to display rain, puddles, sea otters sliding down the stairs holding tiny umbrellas. Tha thugs strain against their leashes the entire way out the door, down the street. Virtually no limb movement of any kind, serious little grimaces on their faces. I won’t let them in until they’ve done something, so Gallant makes a lame leg-lift attempt next to a bush, and Goofus eats something he’s found underneath the bush. Finally, we’re all soaked, and I give up on my attempt to drag tha thugs down the street, and we go back inside … where tha thugs wait for me to turn my back, and then poop on the rug my first boyfriend brought back from Turkey, my favorite rug, and one of the only nonliving things that I own that means anything to me, and the only rug I own that cannot be cleaned in any kind of meaningful way, due to vegetable dyes and smearage.

And on sunny days, for unknown reasons, it’s turned into pretty much the same thing.

So, we turn from trying to clean the apartment—a losing battle, agreed?—to cleaning one’s body, mind, and soul. My mind and soul have been troubled lately: no doubt about that. People have gone out of their way lately to make sure that I know I’m a bad person. Which, I’ll admit, sometimes I am. It seems unwise to meet those admonishments with anything other than silence or the brief email saying, “Leave me alone,” so I’ve been trying not to—first paragraph of this post excluded. Sometimes the desire to be heard outweighs the knowledge that no one’s really listening, y’know? But what I’m thinking is that there are not that many acknowledged ways to purify the heart. There’s meditation, prayer, contemplation, silence, seclusion, charity, various methods of absolution—but being nonreligious and in fact quite cynical works against me in this way. Oh, if only five (or 20 or 50) Hail Marys would do it for me. Instead, I am considering the possibility of at least asking Great-Grandma Christ, recently laid up with a broken hip, if she would like her granddaughter to stay with her in north suburban Chicago hell for the three or four months it should take to get her back in working order. I’m not sure that she would, even, but if penance is needed, that’s the penance I’m willing to pay. It’s not like life seems to have better, more important plans for me at the moment: jobless, virtually friendless, etc. I don’t know, actually, if doing that thing will make me feel any better (it occurs to me that three months of living with a cranky old lady might be soul damaging rather than soul affirming, but at least I’ll have material for my next novel, Tuesdays with Bitchy), but I know that the idea of it helps.

Tonight, though, is all about bodily purity. We noticed the other day that a Finnish-style sauna/steamroom/bar opened up on the southeast side, and I for one can think of no better way to start the new year than with a healthy pore-cleansing sit in a steambath, followed by a good ol’ shot to the liver in the form of stomach-affirming vodka drinks.

L’chaim!