Aunty Christ loves all god's creatures, just not in that way

Lots of craziness going on outside my apartment this morning. Kitty-corner to my yellow apartment building, a man standing outside of a different yellow apartment building is pounding strips of wood, set on top of a plastic garbage can, with a hammer, while a woman closely examines other strips of wood on the grass next to him. Two identically dressed people, both potato-shaped (russet potatoes, mind you—lumpy and oblong), wearing oversized T-shirts, stretch pants, and oversized fanny packs, gape at the house for sale down the street from me, through its eight-foot-high chain-link fence. One is clearly a man, as he has lost most of his hair, leaving only a white fringe around his ears and neck. His companion (a foot shorter, gray buzz cut) is of indeterminate gender, and stops gaping at the house for sale long enough to give Goofus and Gallant a good stare. Goofus looks likely to confuse the couple’s jerky, arrhythmic steps with the movement of a far more interesting animal: a bear, perhaps, or a cow. He strains at the leash, and I fear he will bark, causing me to say what I always say in these moments: “That’s a person, buddy.” Ha ha! As if there could be any doubt in anyone’s tiny mind!

The house for sale is still being worked on daily by contractors. Clearly the owner is hoping an infusion of earnest money will allow him to finish this project, which has gone on for at least the seven months I’ve lived here. The house has been gutted, and it’s still on stilts from when the foundation was repaired, and the exterior has been stripped but not yet repainted. The owner is crazy to try to sell it now, but he is—trying to sell it, that is—and his contractor is crazy. He arrives as the couple lurches away from the house, trying to keep his barking pit bull in his white rapist’s van, yelling nonsense phrases—“That’s a happening forestry kit in the party room!” or “Good to forget the Saturday pants that other time!” I’ve never seen him completely lose control of the barking pit bull, but I’ve considered that a crazy guy is perhaps not the best person to be in charge of a potentially dangerous animal. But what would I do? Call animal control? Call crazy guy control?

I resent the thug dawgs their bodily functions, which wake me before 8 every morning and drag me out of the house at inconvenient times. But one of the true joys of dog ownership, for me, has been the requisite walk down the street multiple times a day. Most of my favorite memories, in fact, come out of things I was forced to do.

Not that walking down the street this morning was a really great memory or nothing, but you know what I mean.

Hey, speaking of great things to do with your pets, you know what else is a great thing to do with your pets? Have sex with them. For purposes of the ongoing Untimely Movie Review portion of this blog, I should mention that I saw Zoo several weeks ago, and it was pretty jaw-droppingly beautiful and equally jaw-droppingly, um, odd. I’ve been interested in bestiality for a while now, by which I most certainly do not mean that I’ve been interested in pursuing it as a lifestyle of my own, thank you, but I find it weird and kind of crazy and kind of funny. Several years ago, when I was invited to write a play for the local theatre, I made one of the main characters a hotel detective who falls for a woman who keeps talking about how she was crowned Jerry Falwell Little Lamb of God 1983—that is, when she’s not dropping hints about how she likes having sex with horses, using biblical quotes to support this activity. When my computer crashed a few years later, I lost the script, which is quite a loss for future directors hoping to stage a festival of badly attempted imitations of Joe Orton’s works.

I think that was all inspired by this site, which may or may not be for realsies, but sure is complete and detailed. And furries—I think that was around the time I first heard about furries. Which isn’t the same as bestiality, I know, but frankly I’m not sure which is more disturbing—being sexually attracted to animals, or being turned on by putting on a big fuzzy outfit and boning some other dork who is turned on by putting on a big fuzzy outfit and boning some dork.

Hey—I think I dated that orange thing!

The weirdest thing about Zoo is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about (but everyone wants to have sex with! Hell-o! Am I right?), which is that, as cute and adorable as animals can be, and as much as people are prone to interpret an animal’s actions as based in human emotion (“The way that horse looks at me, I just know he understands me”), and as much as other people suck sometimes, and are boring and silly and hurtful, if you’re having sex with a horse, that still means that you like having horse penis (Have you seen one? Those things are enormous!) thrust repeatedly inside you by an animal that weighs, probably, six times as much as you. But no. The zoos interviewed in the movie kept to the party line, repeating that it was all about loving the animal and respecting the animal and the animal doesn’t want to talk about Britney Spears’ marriage or Lindsey Lohan’s hoohah, it just wants to love you.

And as amusing as all that is, and as much as I, too, hate people, I must say that there’s a line that Aunty Christ has drawn when it comes to her sexual partners, and on the side of the line against which she refuses to rub her pink, swollen genital region (oh, go read the dolphin link, above) live not only animals, but most of humankind as well. So it’s nothing against you animals! Sorry. Go have sex elsewhere, please, animals!

The zoos also supported their behavior by saying that the horses wouldn’t become aroused and have sex with the humans if they didn’t want to have sex with the humans. This is no doubt true, but perhaps because the horses didn’t have the opportunity to have sex with other horses, and perhaps because the horses were attempting to establish dominance, and almost certainly because things, in general, like having sex with other things.

Why that is, however, remains uncertain to Aunty. Further research may be required.

Aunty Christ has a disjointed conversation with herself about the meaning of money

(1)

Last weekend I saw the documentary Maxed Out, which I read about a while ago, and which is out on DVD now, I think, though it’s also only just now made it to the Saskatoon theatres (or theatre—singular). It’s a pretty good movie, in case you haven’t seen it. It doesn’t offer much in the way of new information to anyone who’s owned a credit card or two, but it does tell some pretty horrific stories about the various ways that credit companies, collections agencies, banks, and lenders screw average Americans. Afterward, Rich and I contemplated a new documentary series called They’re Out to Fuck You, highlighting the multitude of ways that big business and government join forces to make every part of life as unfair and unpleasant, as short or as filled with malignant lumps, as dangerous and as diabetic as possible.

(2)

As an employee of a title insurance company, in the remote mountain village I moved here from, I didn’t see too many examples of unscrupulous lenders. There was one, though, who, every 12 months or so, would convince one elderly couple to refinance their million-dollar home, pocketing tens of thousands in closing fees (and, not incidentally, garnering a thou or so for our office as well) and sticking the homeowners in the stupidest, money-wastingest mortgage plan available—usually a high-interest ARM or some kind of weird balloon loan that would come due almost immediately. Both homeowners were tiny, at least in their 80s, and soft-spoken. The man had been diagnosed with some kind of degenerative disease, and his wife—though clearly a competent caregiver, if her husband’s appearance was any indication—was unsure how to handle the financial burden of staying alive longer than they had expected. Their son was the occasional cause of the released jail-bond liens on their real-estate record, so presumably he was in no position to offer filial advice about mortgages. If they had been a different type of couple, or lived at a different period in history, maybe she would have been taken in by a snake-oil salesman, a smooth-talking evangelist, a deposed Nigerian prince, or a clairvoyant, but instead it was the charismatic mortgage broker who ruined them. Shame on him, and shame on us for not stopping this couple from entering into what was very clearly an extortionate relationship.

In our defense, though, I must say that an escrow agent is supposed to act as a neutral party—giving information but not advice. Had our escrow agent said anything, not only could she have been reprimanded by the state licensing bureau, but the transaction would have simply been moved to another title agency and closed there. Our notary public might have wanted to question whether the man fully realized what it was that he was putting his signature to—it was, frankly, unclear how much he was able to grasp—but it would have been insulting to his wife, and it was clear, at least, to the man that his wife wanted him to sign this paper. If he didn’t know what he was signing, he at least knew that he was doing it to help the woman who bathed and fed him.

(3)

When I was a college student, I got suckered into a lot of things—quite by choice. Alcohol and drugs cost a lot of money, and at first I got around this by photocopying pages of books I needed for class from the library, and spending book-buying money at the bar. At some point—if not immediately—I realized that, although most of my college friends wore the same kind of second-hand store clothes that I did, some of my new classmates were quite rich, and wore designer labels, and did not smell like anti-lice powder. So began my never-to-be-resolved desire to be cute, which added a new dimension to my expenses.

Like every other college student, I started receiving credit card offers. Like most other college students, I got a card. And, like some other college students, I defaulted almost immediately. Stupid, right? I had no idea I’d be expected to pay back anything that I had borrowed anytime soon. I believe that my dad started getting phone calls from the credit card company, and that he, out of concern for my future FICO score, paid my credit card balance in its entirety, and never required me to reimburse him, thus furthering my misunderstanding of the meaning of “credit,” if we are to be honest with ourselves, and for which I kind of love him, and I kind of resent him.

(4)

A few months ago, while my dad was out here visiting my sister and me, he dropped off some mail he’d been saving for me, including one envelope that contained a warning from a collections agency that was trying to collect on an overdrawn checking account I’d closed almost seven years ago. After some digging, I started to remember a little bit about what might have precipitated this, and what I thought I remembered were several conversations between me and a bank VP all those years ago, about a debit charge that mistakenly had posted twice, and that this all had been resolved back then, or at least I thought it was. The lady I spoke to at the collections agency, however, said that she would be forced to report this uncollected debt to the credit agencies if I didn’t pay them a hundred-some bucks by the end of the week. The agency offered to knock off some penalties and interest, so they certainly didn’t rape me as hard or as violently as they might have. “This is fucking extortion!” I yelled at one, very polite collections agent. “This! Is! Extortion!” But I paid anyway. And apologized for my behavior.

Oh, the bank was U.S. Bank, I should mention. Not that I’m mad still about their exorbitant practices, I mean, but I believe in full disclosure.

(5)

These days I tend to be pretty mindful of my finances. I spent a long period of my young adult life—post credit card fiasco, pre-living wage job—under the pall of bounced checks, late rent payments, surfing, and “borrowing” from my parents (in quotes, since I rarely, if ever, paid back these “loans”). I don’t need a lot of money to be happy, but not having enough money mostly means unhappiness, I’ve noticed. If you can afford to buy your friends a round of drinks, that makes you feel nice; if you’re constantly hoping that your friend won’t notice that you’ve never offered to repay him that $20 you borrowed that one time, that makes you feel bad. That kind of thing.

(6)

Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine about the changing situation at my apartment. With Rich moving in, I told her, I am suddenly surrounded by things. A chair, a TV, a table. Things that, quite frankly, today’s American household is considered incomplete without. When I sold my remote mountain condo, part of the reasoning behind it was that ownership—of the condo as well as all the stuff inside it—had become suffocating. I’d moved to the mountains with the back of my Subaru filled with books and clothes, and over six years had amassed a two-bedroom condo full of crap. Crap that made my life nice, yes. But also crap that I felt I needed to buy, for other people. I’d invite a guy to my house for the first time: “Where’s your TV?” he’d ask. Or my parents told me that they wanted to stay with me instead of at a hotel. “Oh, don’t worry about us. We’ll just take your bed,” they said. So, I ran to the store and bought a bed for the guest bedroom too—a $1000 expense so that they could save $100 a night. (At least I repaid those old debts somehow, right?) Before I left, I started feeling that everything was a chore. The coffee grinder owned me—“I’m filthy! Covered in grounds and oily!” it screamed at me from across the kitchen. Houseplants mocked me—shedding dead leaves and dirt, peeing excess water from their pots. The hallways smelled of thug dawg urine, the appliances were magnets for grime, the furniture required constant vacuuming, lest the fur grow too thick. I sprayed, vacuumed, steam cleaned, and wiped, and still the stains, smells, dust, and residue grew and grew and grew.

So when I moved to Saskatoon, I bought only a few items: A bed, a few pans and dishes.

“So, you’re zen,” my friend concluded, as we discussed the new chair and television set. “Rich isn’t.”

But that’s not it. I am as acquisitive and grasping as the next person.

But for right now, I’d like to get back to a place where I can balance enjoyment of life through ownership of things and exasperation due to the obligation borne of owning things. I think I’ve kind of done this, or I’m on my way. Rich says, “I should have brought the large sauté pan from my house,” or “I should go get the coffee grinder out of storage,” and I think, “Yes, that would make life easier, I think.” And then I think, “Oh crap. More stuff. Didn’t I just do that?”

Not that I’m much for self-help Oprah bullshit, but I do buy into what Suze Orman says: First people, then money, then stuff. One theme throughout Maxed Out is that people who have spent their money on stuff that was meant to make them happy—skis, Rolexes, stereo systems—become miserable because of debt accrued through these purchases. This doesn’t mean that things make people unhappy, mind you—but it certainly doesn’t say much on behalf of the “material objects = happiness” cause that all those big business interests, including the credit card companies, would like to advance.

(7)

Some of what was highlighted in Maxed Out made me furious at the lenders: The scene where a mother of a mentally disabled man told how her son was told to sign his name on a loan that he clearly did not understand, for example. Some made me furious at the government: Footage of President Bush signing the bankruptcy bill into law, surrounded by grinning, soulless bank execs.

But mostly, what made me sad were the examples of the kind of human greed that got me in trouble with my first credit card company, as a college freshman, and that I still find myself struggling with. I remember, as an 18-year-old, reading Madame Bovary for the first time, and feeling that, if I didn’t stop myself, I could be the uncute embodiment of Flaubert’s heroine. That I would wake up one day and find that my life had been spent putting money and things, first, and ignoring the things that matter.

Fifteen years later, and I still worry.

Aunty Christ sweeps up the crumbs

Well, since my last baby post was so well received, no harm in writing something new about how ugly people-babies can be, right? Settle down, now. I said, “Can be.” They certainly don’t have to be ugly, lord knows. Take a note from the late Anna Nicole, people, and put those chubby babies on a diet! Speaking of which, here comes the li’l plastic surgery candidate now!

Now, I admit, I’m biased. Not only against the human babies in general, but against this particular atrocity’s father, whom I dated briefly in college, and who, being Christian, could accept my mouth around his penis, but was forbidden by holy scripture from doing much else. Oh, I know … I know! It was a long, long time ago, and, frankly, it was even before I really figured out how to enjoy myself in that way anyway, so what am I complaining about? What can I say? I like to complain, dammit.

Anyway, back to that picture. To me, that unholy creature looks like nothing so much as the tiny, unfeeling emperor of some planet of reptiles or some such thing. “Yessss, yesss,” it says, rubbing its scaly mitts together. “Onssssssce the humans accept Bill O’Reilly assss one of their own, we will implement sssssstep two of The Plan.” I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it is very mean of me to make fun of an innocent baby because of its hopeless, genetically inherited unattractiveness. Oh yes it is. But hey: At least I’m making fun of it here, and not to the father’s face. I mean, what could he do, anyway? Hit it with a shovel, before it sucks his brains out through his nostrils while he’s sleeping?

On to something a lot more fun, by which I mean looking for a rental property for two more-or-less unemployed or underemployed people, with seven months’ usable rental history between them, and their two thug dawgs to live in. Oh yeah, and we’re lazy. And we have a meth lab. Kidding! I’m so kidding about the meth lab! But does saying that I did and then saying that it was just a joke make the part about the not having a job and the destructive, unhousebroken thug dawgs sound a whole lot better? Because I’m thinking I could say that to a prospective landlord! Like, he’s all, You guys are the worst tenants to ever apply! And then I’d be all, Oh come on … we could be so much more undesirable!

Last week Rich Bachelor and I went to see a house that was perfect for us—and similarly perfect for every other couple, it seemed. We were lined up along the sidewalk, in fact: a whole J. Crew catalog’s worth of mid-20s to mid-30s hetero couples in dressed-down Sunday morning schlub. We were second in line and were invited in along with Couple Number One, comprised of a very young girl wearing both a dress and pants and a boy with a very expensive haircut and an even more expensive pair of jeans. “What about that apartment building across the street?” the boy asked the landlord, as we filled out applications in the kitchen. “Do you have any problems with them?” (They were black!) No, no, the landlord said. The tenants of that particular building are refugees from Sierra Leone. “That’s awesome!” enthused the girl. Yeah, said the landlord, they were brought to Saskatoon by a neighbor, who also had escaped the civil war. “No, yeah ... That’s really awesome,” Pants-Dress repeated.

Am I wrong to feel that any response to a civil war in which people’s arms and legs have been hacked off which contains the word “awesome” is, you know, a little crappy? A little, um, how you say, not really understanding the situation in whole?

What I did not have the balls to say, of course, was: “So your take on this situation where people had to flee from their native country because hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and thousands more were orphaned, rendered homeless, raped, or had their limbs amputated is that it’s … awesome?”

And what she did not actually say (though I was expecting her to) was: “I think it’s really awesome that now they live in a country where they don’t have to decide between a dress and pants. They can totally make redundant clothing choices, and that’s, you know, awesome!”

So that was who ended up getting the house, in case you were wondering: The beautiful house with the fenced-in yard that was perfect for tha thugs. Oh well. I’m sure someone—someone really retarded probably, or perhaps blind or masochistic—is just dying to rent their beautiful house to a pair of no-accounts like us.

It’s worth mentioning that, after a week or so of living as if joined at the hip, one half of this no-account pair has absconded to Seattle for the day, leaving the other half lonely, yes, but moreover kinda looking forward to some alone time. My plans for the afternoon included:

Nap
Trip to dog park
Short jog along the bluff
Watch stupid rom-com
Eat dinner at Ethiopian restaurant

Most of these, it should be noted, are things that I either cannot do or will not do with Rich. He dislikes Ethiopian food, for example. Or, I’m sure that when he reads this, he’ll claim not to “dislike” it so much as prefer other kinds of foods to Ethiopian, which, he has explained on at least one occasion, has an uninteresting flavor palate, to which I say, We all are allowed our opinions, as mature adults, and phhhhhhhhllllllllllllllbbbbbbbbt. You are wrong! Ethiopian food is singularly delightful, as anyone knows. Go ahead, ask anyone. But then, he doesn’t drag me to pizza restaurants, so who am I to force him to eat food he does not enjoy so much? Even though, let’s face it, there can be no comparison between wat (yum!) and disgusting pizza.

The trip to the dog park isn’t something that Rich would dislike so much as it is something that would be done solely for my (and the thugs’) benefit, while the nap is something that Rich and I could both use, I’m sure, but that I find myself never getting around to as long as there’s someone in the room for me to yap at. “Oh, did you see that funny picture in the paper?” I’ll say, and continue muttering on and on. It’s one of my best qualities, I’m told. I’m a delight.

The rom-com in question—I know you think you know what I wanted to see, and it isn’t that one. Oh, I know we all, as thinking people, have to suck the cock of Judd Apatow and his irreverent comedy, but please. I cannot. I will not. In fact, instead of doing anything on the above list, I ended up taking Goofus and Gallant to get their nails trimmed and made some turkey burgers and drank almost an entire bottle of Pinot Gris and watched King of Queens (no Patton Oswalt—boo!) and So You Think You Can Dance? I am not a fan of King of Queens, but to everyone out there saying that Judd Apatow is a creative genius who has redefined romantic comedy to make way for the less-attractive man/more-attractive woman combo? I give you King of Queens. And According to Jim. And The Honeymooners. None of which also featured the most ridiculous contrivance to get two people together since the Virgin Mary sat Joseph down and said, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.” Oh, I suppose it’s just me being all cranky again. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to trick some schlubby man into marrying me and caring for our child, so clearly I’m bitter. And have reason to be, I think!

I guess the point of all that, though, was (1) that I miss Rich Bachelor, even though he’s only been gone for a few hours, or (2) that I was glad to have some alone time today, even though I did not put it to very good use, or (3) that I am extremely lazy, and must be flogged into action immediately, or perhaps at some later date. Must we choose? All three options are pretty good.

Oh, back to the housing situation: I was thinking today that as a half-art project, half-means to an end, I could hide in the attic of above-referenced perfect house with the perfect yard, wearing a sheet and chains, rattling chains and making other spooky sounds. I don’t think it worked on The Brady Bunch, but that doesn’t mean the dress-over-pants girl wouldn’t buy it. She’d be all, “Oh, hey, about the ghost in your attic? It’s awesome! We can’t get any sleep and it scares us? Which is really awesome? But fuck this, we’re outta here, bye.” Which, when you think about it, would be totally awesome.

Aunty Christ will get out of her defective car and into your dreams when she's good and ready

For some reason lately, I’ve been unable—or unwilling, probably—to just let things go. Little things, you know? Snide comments (muttered or otherwise), intentionally irritating silences. The heat has made all us Saskatoonies foul-tempered, cranky, or irritable. Hell, I’m looking forward to the return of the rain. Depressed people are so much easier to deal with than bitchy ones.

Today, for example, I had an appointment at a car dealership I’d never been to, to repair a defect in my car—a defect that, the manufacturer was so kind to notify me, could have caused my car to malfunction and kill me at any time! What’s that? I’ve been driving an instrument of death all these months? Thanks for the warning, Unnamed Automobile Manufacturer Whose Name Rhymes With, um, Meep.

So, yeah. I wasn’t happy to be there in the first place, but I was and it wasn’t supposed to take long to replace the defective part and I had a coffee and a newspaper with the crossword puzzle I can do (it being Monday and all), so I wasn’t super unhappy either. Until I spoke to the receptionist. “Oh, this is sales, this is for the bigwigs [a statement that made no sense to me, either, in case you’re wondering—it was a new-car showroom, which, as far as I know, is for new-car buyers, bigwig or not]. Repairs is across the street.” She motioned in the direction I had come from, meaning that I’d either have to pull a U-turn in the middle of a busy six-lane street or go around the block—assuming it was as easy as all that, given Saskatoon’s penchant for one-way streets, and considering that the street was the one diagonal street in a traffic grid of otherwise perfect parallels.

“And how do I get back there?” I asked.

“Oh, just cross the street and the door’s over there,” she said.

“And you think I should just leave my car parked here? I shouldn’t drive it over? Even though I’ve brought it in to get this defective part replaced?”

“Um, I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“You’re affiliated with Meep?” She nodded in response. “I’m just wondering. I mean, I’m a Meep customer, and a Meep owner, and you’re not even trying to help,” I said as I walked away from her desk, toward the door.

“Hey, I like your bag,” she called after me. Parting shot, and I’d been Gershoned (see: Showgirls). Fuck, man. I’ve been meaning to find a new purse for ages; the one I’ve been humping around is coffee- and ink-stained—just awful. But now? Oh, I don’t even know. Stained bag or no, I will not be buying my next Meep from an establishment that hires such awful girls, but I hardly think that matters, since in the end what I really feel bad about is me, my response. I mean, she was unhelpful, but since when do I feel charged with the responsibility to point out personality flaws to flawed personalities? Presumably I had hoped to feel better having pointed out to the girl that she sucked, but in fact I left with the overwhelming feeling that I sucked. My life sucks. My fucking bag sucks.

This kind of thing has been happening all week. Like I said, maybe it’s the heat that makes me address these small quibbles that normally I would (probably) ignore, and maybe everyone else is even more of a diaperbag than usual because of their similarly caused physical discomfort. What’s important for me to remember, though, is not that everyone has bad days, or that we’re all human, man, or it’s all good, or, like, you know, karma, but that I have never mastered the comeback, making it very difficult for me to win any fight I’ve started.

In fact, what typically happens is this:

1. I make critical, sarcastic comment.
2. My opponent makes critical, sarcastic comment.
3. I run away / cry / run away crying.

I thought of a good comeback yesterday, actually—about 45 minutes too late to be of any use for the situation that birthed it, though I will be saving it for the next suitable application. It’s a long story, why I was arguing with the diaperbag down the street, so I’ll cut to the unused comeback, for the purposes of scaring off any of you who might otherwise be tempted to pick a fight with me (there’s more where this comes from, I’m sure, though I don’t know what, nor do I know where it came from): “Just so you know, sarcasm sounds ridiculous coming from the deeply stupid.”

You’ve been warned! I can come up with a somewhat-cutting response within one to two hours … so, you know, watch it!

In an effort to offset this heat-induced mass nastiness, and—more to the point—to spearhead my own idea-project (thus making me feel less sucky about myself, and my bag), I have decided to run an ad on Craig’s List for new life-cheerleading team members. I’m thinking that we would meet every month or so and cheer people on while they’re doing their thing. Like so:

Hey, hey, it’s okay / You don’t have to work today / Look busy! (clap clap) Just look busy!
Hey, hey, office jerk / You don’t have to go to work / Play hooky! (clap clap) Play hooky!
Hey, hey, cell-phone dick / Hearing the details of your pathetic life makes me sick / Talk quieter! (shh shh) Please talk quietly!

Or, around MLK and Lloyd, where the Mexican day laborers wait for work:

M-E-X-I-C-A-N
We would like to be your friend!
Gracias for coming
To our town
We can’t believe our pols and teens are acting like clowns!
Yay Mexicans! (hurkeys, ad nauseum)

You get the idea.

Prospective members may apply in person on Friday from 10 a.m. to noon. Men will be required to wear short skirts and are subject to sexual harassment by the management (me). Women may wear anything they like, as long as it somehow makes me look thinner.

Your sister in school spirit,

Aunty Christ

Aunty Christ is no day at the beach

This house makes me sad.

We’re at the Bachelor family’s beach house for the week—the same beach house that I heard about at length at Rich’s grandmother’s funeral, her friends speaking not so much about the woman who had passed but about her vacation house (see: graciousness of, relaxation therein). Of course, I’ve heard stories from Rich as well, about how the house provides everything you want, even if you don’t exactly know you want it, and all the friends he’s brought here, and all the ladies, and all the fun they’ve had.

And still I must repeat: this house makes me sad.

It is a lovely piece of 1960s-style architecture, never really updated or remodeled (except in the barest of nods of modern conveniences—the dishwasher is a recent addition, for example), and thus charming in the way that most vacation homes are charming, I think; they have the feeling of something you’d once loved and then almost forgotten about—like a jacket you wore every day in high school which has been sitting in the back of your parents’ hall closet for the past 15 years, and now miraculously not only fits but is somehow in style again. The house is cozy and familiar, but the grounds are what really make it special, I think. Rows of close-clipped hedges form a path from the deck to the street, and at the back of the lot is a waterfall, mostly hidden from view and a good 10-foot drop from the line of the yard. The deck is large and weathered and sunny, offering a view of the ocean, just across the street, only seconds away.

Rich’s uncle and father have decided to sell the house this summer rather than continue to maintain it. It’s possible that this is the reason for the unhappiness of this trip. The house, thus rejected, has decided to not provide anymore, thank you. It is under contract, and escrow is set to close in about a month. I wonder about this, as it’s not the way my family would do things—or perhaps I flatter myself to think so. In fact, to my memory my family has never owned a beloved piece of land to sell, and maybe that’s the difference. (In fact, it’s true that I have no idea what my family cherishes above all, if anything. I have a feeling it’s nothing, since it surely is not, once you examine it, real property, most things, or other family members. Ahh—I know: Money, and an unexamined feeling of betterness.) But still. I can’t help but feel that it’s wrong to sell a place that provided so many generations so much pleasure, a place that has defined (according to speakers at the memorial service, anyway) Bachelor hospitality for decades. (Oh, but what do I know about such things? If I’m honest with myself, I’m probably best suited in life to become a meddling, overbearing matriarch, and nothing good has ever come of that kind of thing.)

“The ocean is life and death and everything in between,” Rich said yesterday. Walking along the beach, one first notices millions of scattered bits of what used to be animals: A scene of carnage. Crab shells separated from their legs, the occupants long since plucked out by sharp-eyed, long-beaked birds; broken sand dollars emptied of their gooey contents; mussel shells, the little guys who once lived inside now in the belly of some bigger guy; pinkish-grey husks of ghost crabs, only some of them rent apart and bleeding orange guts as their legs skitter futilely in the air; the rest completely empty, like the rest of the surrounding exoskeletons. But the rocks—covered with mussels and barnacles and starfish—now uncovered as the tide goes out, are alive—and singing. Rich and I make up things that the animals say to us as we pass by, including “It’s a living!”—popularized by any animal unfortunate enough to be forced into labor at the Flintstone residence—and “Kindly remove your paw from my ass or mouth, sir,” when Goofus steps on a contracting sea anemone.

On the subject of marine life, the beach house has provided a lovely manual titled Beachwalker’s Guide: A Pictorial Introduction to Marine Life of the Pacific Coast, notable primarily for its unremittingly judgmental stance on the creatures of the sea, and only secondarily for its black-and-white photo of dead things, including a skate (said to be a “smelly prize” to the boy holding it—and, dramatically, his nose) and a sea gull. The brown pelican is described thusly: “A grotesque, awkward appearing gawk of a bird … its tail is too short, its feet too big. It is a creature to inspire amusement.” A hermit crab without its shell: “A sad looking creature. The front end is well developed … but the rest is travesty. It consists of a misshapen, grub-like abdomen, twisted to the side, bare, and having a swollen appearance. No wonder it seeks a sturdy home in which to hide this monstrosity. The poor hermit needs a shell to preserve its dignity and to protect its person as no other creature does.” When the nudibranch washes up on the beach, “their color is completely lost, and they appear brown, dingy, and repulsive.” And an interesting bit of anthropomorphization, this time on the subject of the captive octopus: “Other times it gathers the luckless crab beneath its tentacles and broods over it as if in anticipation of its meal.” It’s almost as if these creatures developed with flagrant disregard for author Dick Smith’s needs and aesthetic tastes! Boo, brown pelican! Next time, think about a smaller beak, eh?

But the death Rich speaks of I think mostly refers to death to thug dawgs, or death to us, if the waves get too high. Da thugs like the beach; not so much the water. Or, that is to say, they seem to like the water just fine when they can comprehend the waterness of the ocean, but mostly to them it is just a loud thing rushing at them. When it is not a loud thing rushing at them but is instead comprehensible water, I get nervous. What if a big wave sweeps over them while they aren’t paying attention, and it drags them off to sea? I am not a strong swimmer, I tell Rich. I cannot save them. But no large wave comes in, and I have to admit the thugs’ primary threat is in the self-inflicted drinking of too much salt water.

What is in between life and death is anyone’s guess. Here’s mine: Change.

And this is why I’m sad, I think. This past year has been all about change for me, but overall the changes have been good ones. (Aside from the new gray hairs and the creeping colonies of cellulite, I mean.) This said, I miss the tiny mountain resort town I left behind, and my friends there too.

And now a new wave of change is coming: Rich is moving in with me this week, or maybe staying out here at the beach, until we can find a bigger place—one with room for two people who sometimes can’t sleep in the same bed (one of them a ridiculous clotheshorse, though I will make you guess as to which of us is incredibly vain about his collection of haberdashery), and Goofus and Gallant and a to-be-determined kind of cat, named (I say) Sir Pancake Millage or (he says) Kiisa, a cat that I hope is round and plush and orange and white. This isn’t a bad thing, this moving in together, but it’s a change. Yeah, you say—but is it a good change? And I—heartless realist that I am—have no answer for that. We all hope that things work out, whatever that means, that, at the very least, feelings won’t get hurt and we will be mature and kind to one another. And, gosh, I have been through relationships before, and I know that this is not only the least, most insignificant kind of promise that we as people can make to one another, but it is also an impossible promise, a foolish request. And still I promise: I will love your misshapen, grublike abdomen, even if you do sometimes misplace your shell. If I see the pieces of you scattered along the sand, I will pick you up and love you anyway.

Aunty Christ can haz Robotuzzin?

Well, Aunty Christ has learned a few things in the past few days, most important of which is this: Being sick for three weeks is a fucking bitch. Next time I get a cold and I ask someone (Rich) to shoot me, I sure hope he does so, because I never fucking want to go through that experience again. Uh-uh. No way. After the first course of antibiotics it became clear that the cold had moved from my sinuses to my chest. I coughed so much I vomited. I coughed so much, I thought I had cracked a goddamn rib. Oh fuck, I coughed.

Anyway, it appears to be going away now, slowly, so long as I do not breathe any air in which a cigarette has even been thought of, lit or unlit, real or candy. It seems like hyperbole, but honestly? A guy said the words “pole smoker” next to me, and immediately I launched into a coughing fit. True story.

Another important thing learned by me is that, in Saskatchewan (or wherever I live), it is illegal to harbor a raccoon for any purpose, due to the fact that they carry distemper. Oh man, that is a disease that I simply must try to avoid: Conjunctivitis, diarrhea, fever, cough, labored breathing, vomiting, runny nose … Wait. Did I say I had a cold? It may have actually been canine distemper virus, now that I think of it. Oh, no matter about the shooting bit, then, Rich Bachelor. I will no doubt die within one to three weeks, according to the wikipedia there. So, raccoons here in the Great Northwest carry distemper, and even if they are very, very adorable and cannot help but be supertiny, helpless balls of fluff, they must be euthanized rather than bottle-fed and brought back to health if their mothers abandon them. Though honestly, why the mothers would abandon them rather than luff them all over furever ’n’ ever is beyond my cognitive grasp.

I mean, I’m no fan of babies, but given the choice between

this and

this, well …

I’m not alone in picking the furry ones, am I? By the way, I advise to all my friends and many of my enemies NOT TO google image search the term “ugly baby,” if you would like to avoid a lifetime of nightmares. No joke. It’s disgusting. (Also, please do not click on that link, I beg you.) Also, I would like to note, since we’re on the subject of babies, kind of, that I had a dream a few nights ago in which a man’s disembodied head and his baby’s disembodied head were positioned turduckenlike inside one another—and I don’t have any idea where that came from. It was a bizarre and violent dream in many other ways as well, but that’s the standout image from it. Thank god, eh? What if there was some even worse torture that my mind had dreamed up? I’ll be making an appointment with the therapist Monday, for sure.

Back to the subject of raccoons: I was walking da thug dawgs yesterday morning, and we came across a ball of fluff trying to make itself tiny against a garden wall. Goofus and Gallant did not notice it, luckily, but I took note of its location and resolved to go back in an hour, giving Raccoon Mom ample time to come get her baby. One hour later, and no change. I made some calls. The first place, Animal Control, said they could come get the baby, but they would have to euthanize it. I called the zoo, who referred me to the Audubon Society, who gave the same answer, adding that it is law in Saskatchewan to kill raccoons and not harbor them, due to the distemper thing. Oh, well, distemper does sound pretty bad, I guess. But give me a diseased baby raccoon any day over a world where these things are allowed to run around unchecked.

I swear to god. Someone give me a canvas bag and some rocks, and I’ll take care of this myself.

Oh calm down, you all. It’s spring! You can’t look anywhere without seeing Daddy’s latest fashion accessory. And, as we overheard some diaperbag say the other day, “Babies are amazing.” Oh, I don’t know if you’ve heard? But babies? They’re wonderful.

The last part of the story—well, there’s a happy end and an unhappy end. Which would you rather hear? The happy ending is this: I noticed another raccoon kit on the other side of the road, also balled up small, next to a curb, in the street. Not knowing what else to do, I left the two babies for another few minutes while I got ready for brunch. When I drove by later, a crowd of concerned citizens had gathered around the sidewalk raccoon (someone had placed a bowl of water nearby), and the street raccoon appeared to be gone. “Where’s the other one?” I yelled out my car window. “The mom”—the girl speaking nodded her head at a large tree in the yard—“came and got him. I think this one is sick, and that’s why the mom hasn’t taken him yet.” “I’ve been worried,” I said. “I noticed them a few hours ago.” “Oh, they’ve been down here since three in the morning, at least,” said a man, coming from across the street. So, the water, the concern, the outreach, the one saved kit—all good things, right? I’ll stop the story here, and we’ll all enjoy our happy ending, shall we?

But really, I think the other kit is dead now. We barely knew ye, Bandit! Bravely battling starvation and dehydration, he finally was welcomed into his Loving Raccoon Father’s arms. Or legs, or whatever they’re called. Boo, hiss. Shame on you, Saskatchewan lawmakers.

Onto other kinds of kits: I assume you’ve heard of I Can Has Cheezburger?, the ridiculous animal photocommentary site that traffics in cute animals and cutely incorrect English? One photo (of a fuzzy kitten), for example, is labeled, “no kitteh… you get all the chzbrgrs u can eat… at least until u is fatty, then u is become pillow.” To sum up, I kind of love it, and I kind of hate it. It’s funny … unless you find the intentional dumbing down of American culture completely repulsive, in which case it’s completely repulsive. My favorite/least-favorite section is the “lolrus,” which I don’t even know how to describe without telling you that it’s a bunch of pictures of walruses and seals who are said to be complaining about someone taking their “buckit.” Rich will like this one in particular, since it will, I think, remind him of this piece about Wilford Brimley. Neither here nor there, but it does rather disturb me that this blog has turned into a forum for pointing out to Rich amusing things that I’ve found on el internet. Oh, I used to be no one’s blog-whore.

Anyway, this is getting rather lengthy—and linky—but my point (I do have one, kind of) is that there is a name for this dumbed-down American version of Engrish, and it is kitteh. Kitteh (for those over, let’s say, 33) is to written English as Hello Kitty is to fine art. Just look at the so-called rules of kitteh: Use the word “with” inappropriately, misuse gerunds, misspell everything, add exclamations and extra words. … The result is, like I said, kind of cute and kind of stupid and kind of funny, if you’re willing to enter into this pact with Satan that allows you to overlook that, in with all the smart people pretending that it’s cute to act stupid, there have no doubt slipped a few actual stupid people, pretending that they know, well, anything, really, and that’s kind of sad, as is the fact that we’ve all regressed to some moronic form of seventh grade, where it’s adorable to wet ourselves and not know how to multiply or add.

On the other hand, just look at the fucking lolrus, will you? He can duz melting teh blakkend hart of a cinick! Sumbuddy gives with him hiz buckit! Lol.

Aunty Christ <3 u, lolrus!

Aunty Christ has been on a Robotussin holiday

Oh, I’m sick. Sick, I am! Speaking like Yoda suddenly am I! Oh fuck, it’s even worse than I thought.

And I had a lot of stories to tell you all—y’all, all of you—too. Stories like: The Pancake Employment Seminar, and What the Fuck Was Up with That Too-Broadly Smiling Honolulu Hilton Refugee in the Tropical Shirt? (Not to even mention that other guy, in the pressed suit, or the two teenagers in hats, or the fact that nary a pancake was to be seen in special Pancake Employment Seminar Room. Oh, and then there was the lady who was running the joint—who took an instant dislike to me, after I splashed her by accidentally turning on the water too high in my neighboring sink in the ladies’ room—as thick and broad as a water buffalo, clad in discount-rack Macy’s tweed pants and with a sour look on her face that begged to be smacked with a pancake. Well, that’s about the whole story, right there, since we sat outside the seminar, not feeling like being bored to death first thing in the morning.)

Then, there’s this: I shot my first gun. Very fun, though a bit shocking to realize that a careless move could mean death, or, more likely, injury, as I was only firing a .22-caliber. Yes, the holes it produced on the target sheet were far less satisfying than those of Rich Bachelor’s .45, which marked the sheet with an explosive tear, but still. I do not see myself ever being comfortable with the sound and kick of a .45. Then again, only days ago I was ardently against firearms, so I guess things change.

And I testified before a grand jury—another first. It was a much more relaxed experience than I expected. I arrived about ten minutes late, kind of thinking that I’d be greeted by The Law (arms folded to note unhappiness with me), stating, “Well, now another bike thief will be loose on the streets, thanks to you.” And then there was the thought that I might be directed—or at least interviewed—by the assistant D.A. pre-testimony, which is what always happens on Law & Order, anyway. Oh, not like Law & Order highlights bike thefts every week, I know. I suppose the Saskatoon D.A. office has more on its plate than me and my beautiful bicycle. Anyway, it was all very informal, and the assistant D.A. was fresh out of diaper school—pink-cheeked and optimistic, as opposed to worn-out and hardened to the realities of bicycle thievery. I answered a few questions from Mr. Diaper School, and then took questions from the crowd of my adoring fans (grand jury, I mean), and that was it. By the time Rich had parked the car and come to get me, my part in the legal process was over. Well, presumably I’ll be getting a summons to testify at the trial. That will be fun for me. Yay public speaking!

The highlight of last week, though, was to be found in Eastern Saskatchewan, where Rich and I spent the weekend. I’m sure he has more to say on the subject of the trip in its entirety, so I’ll not steal his thunder. I’ll not rustle his cattle or pinch his cap or swipe his pickle! But I do have this to add to the discussion: While Rich and his She Bear were off getting coffee our first night, I took da thug dawgs on a walk around the outside of the hotel—unleashed, since the hotel backed to a large, mowed lawn holding a duck pond, and surrounded by what I think was a wheat field. Or an empty field of some sort. After walking down to the pond, we went back toward the hotel, to a sidewalk that abutted the building, and continued down the sidewalk, past the pool, toward our room. A few steps past the pool, however, was an open door. Before I had even taken notice of this fact, Goofus was already inside, running around A ROOM OF MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN ATTENDING A SEMINAR. Not even thinking at this point—in fact, totally ignoring the fact that this situation was actually occurring—I grabbed Gallant and carried him inside the room, where some 60-odd menopausal women are oohing and ahhing and giggling over Goofus, who is skittering his way down the aisle between the folded metal chairs, and the woman with the microphone is kind of muttering her disapproval of the whole event—“Well, I suppose no one’s able to pay attention to me anyway”—and then the tiniest of bitter forced laughs. I mouth, “I am so sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry,” and try to look contrite. I scoop up Goofus and run out of the room, hunched over the 51-pounds of thug dawg in my arms, as the women cheer. Highly embarrassing, of course, but also, strangely, empowering—to be applauded by strangers for being the worst dog owner ever. Thank you, thank you.

This week has been filled with lots of lying in bed, coughing myself awake, pressing fingers to cheekbones in order to (try to) relieve pressure in the goddamn sinus cavities, cursing my existence, weeping, living in fear of the next big coughing attack, aching, Robo-tripping, drooling, farting, mumbling incoherently, etc. In the midst of all this, I eked out a single dream out of all my hours spent in bed. In it, I was told that my recent blog entries have been so bad as to be embarrassing. Embarrassing! Well, point taken, Subconscious Me. I will try harder. For now, though, this is the best my virus-weakened mind can muster.