Inblognito

Cryptic Positive

Something very good happened to me at work today. Those few of you who are in the know will understand when I say, "I got it, for sure." For everyone else, I'll say that I'm moving into a new sort of position; my money doubles, my security quadruples, and I'm able to step that much closer to total economic independence, and freedom.

Non-blogging due to bright daydreams of the future. I'll be back tomorrow though, I'm certain, with some sordid story or other, and a side of shitty attitude.

Certainty

If there's one thing I can count on, it's when I get an e-mail from my father-in-law in which the subject line is "THIS IS NOT A HOAX!!!!!!", it's guaranteed to be a hoax. And an old one, at that.

I'm just sayin'...

Still Kicking

I originally began writing the post below in January of this year; for some reason, I crapped out on it, slid it into draft mode, and left it there to molder. I was prowling through the hind-end of my blog today, though, and lo: I found it there, waiting for me.

If you've been reading lately, you might have noted a hint of melancholy in my virtual voice. Usually, I have to work to contain my exuberance, but I've been in a funk for the past few weeks, a funk I'm actively working to extricate myself from. I don't like myself when I'm like this, not one little bit, but believe me when I say I've got a plateful in my personal life at the moment, a lot of big decisions to make, a major life change to put into effect in the next few months. To be honest - instead of your normal brash-and-swagger Queenie - all this shit scares me to death, makes me doubt my ability to cope successfully. Somehow, though...reading what I wrote ten months ago is a shot in the arm.

***

Key Monroe, in a comment on an old post, remarks that the more she reads, the more amazed and thankful she is that I am still alive. Me and you both, honey, me and you both.

I'm telling you - not only do I have a natural proclivity for odd situations and an inner nutjob magnet, but up until about age thirty I was an idiot who placed herself in highly questionable situations, over and over again, in search of a buzz or a thrill. You find me now much reformed, but still...thirty years of magnificent slackerhood has left its mark.

I've been stalked, knifed, beaten, pulled out of cars, robbed, shot at, and raped in my own home. I've traveled to most of the states of the Union by myself, and halfway around the world both alone and in company. I've worked in titty bars and political offices, for doctors and actors and lawyers, for women of high consequence and sturdy moral fiber, for men of questionable repute and shady dealings. I've slept with both men and women; I was celibate for a number of years, for others I was a serial monogamist, and I've been married for quite some time now. I've been sober and drunk and everywhere in-between; if there was an illegal substance that was easily available between 1983 and 1995, I probably smoked, snorted, swallowed, dropped, or shot it. I might have even dropped it into my eyeball, in certain cases.

I've had Toxic Shock Syndrome, food poisoning, kidney stones, a ruptured appendix, and I aspire to minor liposuction and breast reduction surgery. I spent a year of my childhood in bed, unable to walk or see, due to a mysterious neurological illness that "went away" one happy morning when I was eleven years old...but came back, with a vengeance, in my late twenties. I'm related by blood to back-woods moonshiners, nouveau-riche social climbers, middle-class NASCAR fanatics, European aristocracy, old, old Charleston money, and poor white redneck trash.

I've tended bar, hung out in bars, played music and sung in bars, and been thrown out of bars. I am officially "banned" from the town of Crawfordville, Georgia, having run naked up and down Main Street one Fourth of July, singing Patsy Cline songs at the top of my lungs with my friend Cecelia. The cops were amused - but ran us out of town, anyway. I've lived out of a car, in a shotgun shack, in a faculty office on the campus of a major state university, and in a succession of nice, respectable, suburban homes. I've had apartments and townhomes and flats and condos, and have, at times, been on the verge of owning a cardboard box under an overpass on the interstate highway.

I am blessed with amazingly acute eyesight and a prodigious memory. My hearing suffers from ten-plus years of overexposure to raw and undistilled rock and roll, but I can still effect the reproduction of a perfectly pitched note, which is all I really care about, anyway. I've been called a beautiful woman, been paid for the commercial use of my image, and simultaneously, I've been told I'm the ugliest white woman on the face of the planet in the mornings. My dermis carries the scars of accidents, deliberately inflicted injuries, surgery, and childbirth. I've worn both a size four and a size twenty-two in my adult life, finally settling into a respectable ten. I'm delicate and feminine, mannish and brutal, vicious and nasty, sweet and loving, not by turns but, I believe, all at once.

I'm liberal, and conservative. I'm black and white and every shade in-between. I am simultaneously my greatest fan, my harshest critic, my worst enemy, and my best friend. Yes, Key - honey, momma, dear woman - I'm damn lucky to be alive, and fortunate enough to have finally, finally reached a point in my life where I'm happy with it all. More importantly, I'm finally mature enough to be cognizant of the fact that it can all be squeezed into one small package, with no nasty psychological side-effects.

***

In short, sitting here today and reflecting on all this, I think I can make it. Yep, I believe I can do this. I read this at the right time, tonight; I read enough sci-fi to almost comfortably believe that I sent myself a message, into the future, sometime last January.

This, too, shall pass. And bless y'all, for caring.

Fall Back!

I hope you won't think worse of me when I tell you that today is my favorite day of the year, the day in which we Americanos all get together and fall the hell back. Yes, I am a lazy soul, and I dig the extra hour of sleep. Not just regular old sleep, either, but free sleep, sleep without guilt, without waking in fits and starts, like you do when you're working the SNOOZE button, thinking, "oh, my god, I need to get up, I've got so much shit to do..."

Often, I'll use Fall Back to trick myself, so that I can suck just as much enjoyment out of the time change as I possibly can. I avoid resetting my clocks until late in the evening; as I walk through the house on my daily routine and glance up to check the time, I get to think, "ah! But it's not really that late!" over and over again.

Lame, perhaps. But with so many other avenues now (voluntarily) denied to me, I take my pleasure where I can find it...

Splat

I'd had this leak in my ceiling for months. It started as the tiniest trickle of water - plop, plop, plash - during a heavy rainstorm, and as the days went by, it got bigger and bigger and bigger, until finally it was a huge brown shit-stain over my head, one that I contemplated every evening as I lay me down to sleep.

The year was 1996, and I'd just moved back to the southland from three years in California. I was a beaten woman, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually; I'd just been through the death of my best friend, my mother's bout with breast cancer, and the ugliest breakup of my life. I'd also left my job on the west coast to grim prospects on the east, had few friends to lean on, had decided to embrace celibacy as a remedy to my broken heart, and had only begun to feel the effects of a recurring illness that plagues me, off and on, to this very day. In short, I was miserable.

The shit-stain, then, was apropos. I'd moved into this apartment after nursing mama back to health - or irritating her to the point at which she was willing to leave the bed, one of the two - having recently found a suitable job in my field. I was traveling a lot, too much for my taste, two or three weeks out of the month. Exotic locales, too, like Nicholasville, Kentucky, Paramus, New Jersey, Yuma, Arizona, and Lafayette, Louisiana. I'd come home, always alone, to dusty sheets and a pissed-off cat, angry at being left to my flighty neighbor's care. It was a sad time, a low ebb, even for Queenie.

I'd been on the apartment manager's ass, constantly. Endless calls, interminable bickering about the repair of the shit-stain. They'd claim they'd sent a guy, that everything should be fine, now...and then as soon as it'd rain, a steady stream of water that filled bucket after bucket. I'd demand a roofer, a plasterer, and they'd send a zit-faced teenager with some spackle, who'd look, slack-jawed, at my decaying ceiling and smear on a layer of crap. Crap which would, of course, be tinkling at the bottom of my leak-bucket during the next rainstorm. It just never got any better, and after every business trip I could see that it had grown in my absence.

November saw me spending most of my time on a particularly heinous assignment in Chicago. One Friday afternoon, after escaping the death-hold of O'Hare in the snow, I found myself struggling up the stairs to my apartment, dragging my Samsonite behind me. I wobbled on the doorstep, exhausted, one hand automatically reaching to crank up the heater, the other fumbling at my suit jacket. Shortly, though, I was feeling better; a hot bath, some Chicken Vindaloo from the Indian delivery place, a few bong hits, and I'd convinced myself that I might live.

I was tired, so I went to bed early, a light freezing rain making music against my window-panes as I drifted off. It was divine, to be back in my very own bed, away from the anonymous noisiness and scratchy sheets of the cheapo hotels my company allowed me to expense. I got up to pee once, setting out a bucket to catch anything that might seep out of the shit-stain, quickly snuggling myself back under the comforter and back into the surcease of sleep. Ahh. Home.

I bolted awake and upright to a ripping sound, not unlike the sound of an extremely loud zipper. I looked up, and ZZZZZZZZPLAT! My entire ceiling collapsed right on my face, the shit-stain having become thousands of bits of excrement-looking stuff, floating in the freezing black water that was now all over my linens, my floor, my furniture, my self - everything. I sputtered and cussed, leaping out of the sack and sliding across the icy lake that had been my bedroom to call the apartment manager. Who, of course, wasn't answering his phone at four in the morning. There was nothing I could do but close the door on the mess, shower off, and leave the warm comfort that had been my bedroom behind me. I slept out the night on the too-narrow, uncomfortable sofa, only slightly preferable to sleeping on a plane.

They never did fix that ceiling, either. I had to move out, had to hire a lawyer just to get them to pay for the belongings that were destroyed in the collapse...which, of course, resulted in a net loss for Queenie.

Why am I telling you all this?

I have a metaphorical shit-stain hanging over my head right now. No, I don't have a roof leak, but something in my life is rotting right before my very eyes, and I'm completely powerless to stop it. There's no apartment manager to call, not even a mouth-breathing teenager with a can of caulk to come to my aid. I don't know what to do, I've not got the slightest clue how one handles a foundational breakdown of this magnitude. And every night, as I lay me down to sleep, the shit-stain has grown a millimeter or two. And I, like an idiot, just lay on down underneath it and sigh, knowing that, one of these days, the whole fucking thing is going to come crashing down on my head, leaving me cold, and alone once again.

Fangirl

Friday is Mindless Shit night here at Inblognito, and so I present you with the gift of music, in order to keep from doing any actual, you know, writing.

I love this guy (link removed); I really, really love this guy. An aural makeout session in the back-seat of a wide-bodied Detroit gas guzzler, a breath of tender ironic self-deprecation right up in my hungry ear, Mike Doughty is currently my Number One Man. I've never written a fucking fan letter in my life, but Mike...oh, Mike...he inspires me. One glass of wine, and I swear I'd be pouring my rancid soul out in an e-mail to the man, telling him how he's Changed My Life. Oh, the shame.

He used to be in a Rock Band, but now he's solo, gone the singer/songwriter route with a vengeance. And I love it. Intimate. Tender. Just him and a guitar, selling self-burned CD's after his sets to fill the gas-tank, a fucking American archetype. And if he showed up at my doorstep, I'd take him in and nuzzle him like a bunny. Slurp.

Give it a listen. Enjoy. I'll take the song off the server soon, so get it while it sizzles. Right click, save as...you know the rest.

Resistance is Futile

I am nothing if not a covetous beast; I saw that all the cool kids were making these neato map-thingees, and I simply had to have one.

Do stick a pin in me, let me know you're there. For all you paranoids, it shows nothing but your zip code. It won't harsh your inblognito...or else I wouldn't have one.

Mail Foul

My e-mail inbox got full today, while I was busy putting out fires started, passive-aggressively, by Mister MacFarland and his spawn. A woman's work is never done, and you can never have enough storage space on disk...

If you've sent me anything since around 5:30 this afternoon - central time, of course - please do resend it. I am pining away to hear from you.

Untitled

I write stories here. I get them out, let them loose into the world, and this is done with purpose - to vent them. Up until now, you've mostly gotten the happy-fun Queenie, the stories about how I tore a swath of destruction across my own life for the better part of the last forty years. Sometimes, though, I've got something to let out that isn't so very pretty; this is one of those times.

Excuse the third-person shit. There are some things that, even after so many years, it's hard to put an "I" to.

***

Her head reeled as she closed the door behind them. Thank God - they were gone. Party, party, party, Mike and Elaine and Daphne and Julie and Nigel, fuck, Nigel who was just too creepy, leering knowingly down his thrice-broken nose – too much familiarity, we’re not friends, man - displaying far too many of his yellowed, British dentist-tended teeth. Rule Britannia, man, and light another cigarette. Whatever. Just cut us all out another line and quit looking at me like that.

She flipped off the kitchen light with an unsteady hand, and blew out the candles that had provided some ambience in the cheap walkup flat. She flipped plum-colored velvet cushions back onto the sofa where they belonged, emptied ashtrays stuffed with the remnants of what had once been Camels, Drums, and good old Marlboros. She knelt at the grate, almost slumping sideways in her drunkenness, striking a match to light the gas heater; a chill seeped into her room now that it was emptied of bodies to heat it. Bed-sitter, they called it in England, a gin-laced non-sequitur that floated into her brain out of nowhere. Association led her to Nigel’s braying accent again, and she shuddered involuntarily.

Inevitably, sickness was coming. She knew better than to drink gin; the bile was already beginning to rise in her throat as she made her way to the bathroom, and she silently thanked providence that her tongue was too numb to actually taste the puke as it came. As usual, the Tanqueray had acted as a veritable poison on her system, and she knew the drill; the tide of vomit was welcome to come, if it would rid her spinning head of the biohazard of those “natural botanicals”.

She began to shed clothing as quickly as possible, not wanting to get puke stains all over the dress she’d borrowed from Daphne, a narrow sheath of gunmetal gray-blue sequins. The satin pumps were slung in a corner, underwear just a crumpled afterthought on the bathroom floor. Naked, she dropped to her knees on the cracked antique tiles, studying the bowl of the toilet, her mouth tasting of copper. A faint odor of bleach rose to greet her cocaine-padded nostrils, and the smell alone was enough to bring the filth in her stomach up, and – please, God – out. Prayer answered, she began to gag and regurgitate. Over and over and over again her body was racked with spasms that she was powerless to control, the gin and the remnants of the tapas she’d eaten at the Spanish place earlier in the evening mingling in the toilet, their foul stench only urging her stomach muscles into wilder acrobatics. She slumped, so that her chin hung on the seat of the toilet, providing support to her limp frame as she spewed, gasped for breath, and spewed again. Spittle ran down her chin, and her body was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, sweat that smelled of alcohol and cocaine and self-loathing. Finally, she vomited a thin sheet of clear alcohol into the toilet, the sure sign that she might, after all, live.

Presently she felt a bit steadier. She tried to pull herself erect, having been here often enough to know that if she had anything left in her, standing up would bring it up again. Let’s get it over with, thought the girl, as she struggled to stand, bring it. At least her head was not whirling quite as violently as it had been before.

She reached across the small bathroom to the bathtub, spiraling the tap all the way to H, heating up water for a shower. She lolled on the toilet seat while waiting for the water temperature to reach an acceptable level, avoiding eye-contact with herself in the mirror. Clean-smelling steam began to rise, and when the water was as hot as she could stand, she stood up and stepped into its spray. It was glorious, beyond cleansing, rinsing away the horrible smell that was coming out of her skin. God, she hated gin. “I will never drink another martini, I will never drink another martini, I will never drink another martini…”, she chanted softly.

Soothed, she turned off the shower and dried her body with the towel that was hanging there on its hook, smelling of Downy, just like her mama used – familiar, comforting. As she watched the steam rise from her body, she felt the falling sensation that told her consciousness was fleeting. She was blacking out, and she knew it was a matter of minutes before she was down for the count. Like a vampire, she was always totally useless at dawn, her limbs arranged as for the coffin until late afternoon, because this was her life. Rise. Get stoned. Primp. Play music. Drink, snort, smoke, drink, snort, smoke, lather, rinse, repeat, go home alone.

Fruitless reflections, she thought to herself. In a hurry now – get it all done before darkness overtakes your vision - she snatched the toothbrush and began to drag it around the inside of her vomit-flavored mouth. Fresh and minty at last, and she was rinsing the toothbrush when she glanced in the mirror.

There was a man standing behind her.

Screams, terror at first, until she realized, after a moment, that the man was familiar. Nigel. Shit. She calmed herself, a bit, until anger rose in the place of the shock and fright. She was naked and brushing her teeth, for God’s sake. She was going to pass out cold, any minute. What the fuck was he doing here?

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked him, as small patches of black began to appear at the edges of her vision.

“Well, baby, I took the other kids home and thought I’d come back round here and have a bit of play with the nice little girl,” he brayed, sounding like Robin Leach on crystal meth. “Though we could uh….uh-huh-uh-huh….”. Nigel pumped his hips lasciviously, grinning at her, looking for all the world like Prince Charles' evil, druggie twin.

Another taste of bile, her gorge rising again at the look of him, the sight of his vulgar posturing. “No… Nigel, I’m sick, man. Another time. I promise. Go.” The girl could smell the stink on Nigel, the stink that she had just cleansed herself of. The smell of him wafted toward her on a tide of gas-heat, made her want to go back to the toilet and retch and retch and retch.

“You don’t look sick to me, baby. You look….goooooood,” his voice dripped grease as he sidled over to her. “You look like a healthy…little…baby…”

“Nigel…no. This is stupid. Don’t do this shit, man,” she said. He gripped her arm in a vise, dragging her over to her bed, to the brand-new down comforter that she had worked so hard, saved so long, to buy. He pushed her down onto the sheets, still smelling of Downy and mama’s house and safety, and, without prelude, jammed three fingers of his right hand deep into her vagina.

“Now, dearie…” Nigel began to loosen his belt with his left.

She bucked away from his hand, kicking at him, right arm flailing for the bedside table, the drawer where her little pistol lay ready. She’d fucking shoot him, she’d kill the bastard, she’d kill him and saw off his nuts with the butcher knife in the kitchen and feed them to the neighbors dog. Nigel leaned close to her – god, that smell – and her last clear memory is of her teeth sinking deep into his cheek, paired with a fervent wish of lasting damage.

When her head hit the pillow, she blacked out. A mercy. She only has small snatches of memory from that night, the occasional flicker of longing for the pistol, and the taste of sick in her mouth. She knows that she threw up on him at least once, and that he just kept on fucking her, and grinning. Other than that she remembers nothing. God is good: he was gone in the morning.

Mea Culpa, Maxima

I am an asshole.

No, really, I am. I shout it from the housetops. "HERE THERE BE SHITHEAD!" I have proven this fact time and time again, right here on this blog. I was an extra-special awful asshole last fall, to one person in particular, and the time has come for me to suck it up and apologize.

I'm not going to name names, or even link posts. But back when my blog was fledgling, still wet-winged and new and I was drawing about three hits a day, I wrote a post tearing into another blogger, someone I'd just encountered at a third party's site. I was offended (spit!) by something this blogger posted at her own site, and wrote a post answering her, calling her all kinds of awful names, ripping her up one side and down the other. I can try to defend myself by saying that I had no idea that so many people visited me, that I had no idea that this post would ever come to the eyes of its object, but that's no excuse for my horrid behavior. It did come to the eyes of its object, a kick when I didn't realize she was down, and I hurt someone I didn't even know.

I know her better now, through this wonderful intrawebnet; daily readings of her site, and tales from my friends - people I respect - of what a good person she is...these have combined to make my respect for her grow, and my sense of shame rise higher, and higher, and higher as the months ticked by.

So, I offer my humblest to the lady, here, on the front page. Yeah, I appended the post in question with an apology many moons ago, but that's buried...and I didn't feel the penance sufficient to the crime. I am truly, truly sorry for what I did, for the pain I caused, for being such a flaming butthead.

She may never forgive, and believe it or not, I'd understand. That, though, doesn't matter. It's enough for me that she know how sorry I am, and that I'd take it all back in a heartbeat, if I could.

Girl, I apologize. You never deserved any of that. I suck, you rule. That is all.

You know who you are.

Points

Today, a new friend of mine said to me, "Your enemies are my enemies."

I felt as if we'd simultaneously slashed open the palms of our right hands and shaken on it, letting our blood mingle. It was hot, in a way. Like something out of a war movie, only...real.

My new friend just earned major Queenie points. It was that cool.

Dream a Little Dream…

I had a lover, many years ago, in whom I confided my every dream. Later, after we’d parted ways, I heard from a girlfriend that he’d claimed publicly that if he were to take scrapings from the underside of my brain, and throw them in a jar with a little cerebral fluid, he could sell it as a schedule one narcotic and make his fortune. Silver-tongued devil though he may have been, his point was that I am batshit loony, and that the crapola that comes out of my head, via my mouth, should be proof enough to anyone – even The Authorities - that my grey-matter is trippy. I, of course, beg to differ. He was hopelessly parochial; I am as stable as the next girl, probably moreso. While the next girl struggles with her neuroses, her inner demons, I have made of mine pets. Down, boy!

Last night I dreamed that I was chosen to be a contestant on a game show whose popularity was sweeping the nation. This game show was filmed in a huge, drafty warehouse of a place, in front of a live, studio audience, very ala Price Is Right. At the conclusion of this competition, the host - an amalgam of every game-show host in American television history (with black, plastic hair) -would take the winner up to a dais to be interviewed in a scenario that resembled something off Carson or Leno or Letterman. Don’t ask me how I was chosen; either I can’t remember that part, or my dream didn’t go that far.

My task as a competitor? I was to queue up alongside my fellow gamesters, each of us at the end of a long “lane” painted in garish pink-and-green hues, something like a bowling alley. Each of us was given a large bucket of oatmeal. At the other end of each lane there hung a mirror, about five feet off the floor, around which were a variety of cleaning products, paper towels, and kitchen cloths. The object of the game was to hurl a massive handful of this hot oatmeal as hard as one could, down the lane towards the mirror. When one had accumulated a large enough lump, one raced down the lane, careful not to slip in any oatmeal drippage, and clean the mirror. But! The trick? To clean the mirror, but not to get it so clean that no oatmeal would stick…because once one's image was visible again, one hurtled back to the other end of the lane to begin the process anew.

Don’t ask me what the criteria for a winner was; I don’t remember.

I was led into the warehouse by a cadre of network employees, through the studio audience. I was gratified to see some of my friends there, but could not for the life of me fathom why they were dolled up as they were. There was Velociman, of course, my nearest and dearest, accompanied by Yabu, Sam Moore, Dax Montana, Zonker, Bane, Elisson, Acidman, and my father and uncles – and each and every one of them dressed like a crazed football fan. Naked to the waist, the fellows had painted their faces and chests in the pink-and-green of the game-show logo. Velociman sported fake Halloween wounds (a mental remnant, I feel certain, of something I saw at That Party on Saturday night) and pom-poms. Sammy-baby had my name written across his back. Dax was wearing one of my bras on his head, and Bane had my contestant number emblazoned on each cheek. My dear, dear loved ones, along with the rest of the crowd, went wild as we entered, screaming with joy at the spectacle about to begin.

Friends, I hurled hot oatmeal down a lane all night long, blurring my reflection over and over and over again. Time after time I raced to the Windex and the paper towels, scrubbing my mirror squeaky-clean after each obliteration of my self. I discovered, about halfway through, a trick to getting up to the mirror, a wild half-leap that took me head and shoulders above where I could reach, allowing me to clean that fucker bone-dry every time.

And I won.

The host interviewed me, and as we made cheerful banter to laughs both live and canned, I noticed Key Monroe and Shoe had brought my mother. I waved and pointed them out to the host, who then insisted that my mother come up to the dais and bring with her my guitar, so that I could serenade the crowd. I protested, feebly, that I hadn’t played in years, but he would have none of it. So I plugged the Fender into one of the house-band’s Marshall amps, and let rip. And I sucked. I couldn’t hit a string, couldn’t pick, couldn’t strum. It was humiliating, as bad as one of those dreams where you showed up nekkid to elementary-school.

I looked down to try and divine the problem, and saw that my fingernails had grown to such prodigious lengths as to make me resemble a Dragon Lady, or one of those girls you see working in fast-food restaurants, the ones that make you want to run from your burger for thinking of the germs she must harbor under there. I mean, these fuckers were loooong, curling under and around and around, almost in spirals. I could not play. I held up my hands, sheepishly, blushing, expecting boooos...but the crowd went wild.

I was a Sensation, a Cinderella Story, America’s Sweetheart! I won a half a million dollars, a Brand New Car, a dining-room suite, and a trip to Jamaica. Plus…I was a star. Offers, the host informed me to the music of the crowd screaming my name, were pouring in. I was going to be...

And then I woke with a start, only to find that my house was a mausoleum, the furnace’s pilot light having gone out in the night. I drove to work, only to get my ass chewed, first thing, by Managing Partner, angry at something he only thought I’d forgotten to do, but which was, in fact, done last week. He didn't even give me a chance to explain, and then the cocksucker had the gall to act resentful when he'd finished his tirade and I told him that the task was actually long done. My oldest son had cleaned out my wallet the night before, so there was no coffee, and Mister MacFarland had absconded with my ATM card, so there was no recourse. My great-aunt died during the morning, and my paycheck didn’t come on time. Shit. Double shit. Can I go back to bed, where I was a Star?

Is there any wonder that I thought about this dream all day, basking in its glow?

Is there any wonder that my old lover thought I was a nutcase? I used to tell him my dreams, too. Now…I just tell you.

Do You Live In Florida?

If so, do you ever find yourself wondering if God hates you people? Now, don't get me wrong - I think Florida is a golden land, blessed with a miraculously beautiful coastline, rich, fertile soil, Velociman, amazing seafood, and - in places - an educated and urbane populace. However, Florida is also full of vicious and toothless rednecks, venomous snakes, transplanted yankees, alligators, child molesters, Kennedys in season, and it keeps getting the shit beat out of it by hurricane after hurricane. Also, I hear Madonna keeps a house in South Beach. Shudder. Poor Florida. So much in you that is wonderful...

When I lived in California, I didn't wonder...I knew that motherfucker was doomed. I mean, come on - earthquakes, mudslides, killer fires, riots, Berkeley? Believe me, I kept my car gassed up and pointed east at all times, ready to escape should the need arise. The daily stress finally began to gnaw at me, and when, eventually, the day came when I was allowed to return to God's Country, my beloved Southland, I ran like Michael Moore was chasing me. Not that he could chase anyone, the flabby fuck. But you get my drift.

It used to be my ambition to retire to Florida, with a nice beach house somewhere near Seaside. Now? Not so much, primarily because I can just see myself - an old, helpless crone sorting through what's left of her life's accumulation, after some hurricane or other rips it all to pieces - live on CNN-Jazeera in September of 2040. Besides, I know lightening's going to strike my wayward, sinner's ass sooner or later. Best not to add to the tribulations of The Sunshine State, if you know what I'm saying.

In Which I Act Trashy In a Costume

Shit. I am drunk. Unusual. Remarkable, even.

Believe it or not, Queenie is, as a rule, an abstemious being. Generally, I imbibe about one glass of wine in a month, the exception being only Special Occasions. Yes, I used to indulge in hard drugs of various sorts, and yes, I used to be a hardcore pothead, but no more. Those days, alas, are over, and now I am a pillar of the fucking community. I stand before you, sober as the proverbial judge on a daily basis. Except for, um, right this minute. Right this minute? I'm fucking wasted. On alcohol, though, thank you very much, which is legal and even sanctioned by our governmental overlords. (Spit!)

Shit.

I went to a Bal Masque this evening, a Halloween Party of the sort in which grownups dress up in costume and act like idiots. I had planned to go as Tinkerbell, but when I got to the costume store today, they were all sold out of Tinkerbell suits. So, instead, I went as a HO of the first water, a French Maid. Oh, yes...tiny little black dress (with frilly white lace edging), minuscule apron, fishnet tights, high black heels, feather duster. I was nervous about going so skimpily attired, at first...but immediately upon my arrival, it was made clear that there were much more desperate and slutty-looking chicks than I in attendance. Thus, I was able to relax. Thank the lord for bitches who need to show their tits and ass for some semblance of confidence. Otherwise...

I had a blast. Giant vodka cocktails in plastic cups were the order of the evening, as were jello shooters topped with Gummi worms, pickled in a deadly alcoholic brine. I managed to get so loose that I danced with a Quebecois man dressed as a cow, udders pressing lasciviously into my apron, a beefy hottie made up as William Wallace ala Braveheart (kilt, blue face, giant dong, and all), a babe in a Donald Trump getup, and a particularly fine youngster with a breakaway track-suit covering nothing but a maroon thong. Did I lick him? I can't remember. Calgon - take me away!

Ohmigod. Sitting here now, poleaxed...I...I think I danced on a table. Did I dance on a table? I'm not sure. It's all hazy. Why the fuck am I trying to blog, again? I don't remember.

Shit. I gotta go to bed.

Friday Bullshit

All wore out from busting my ass for Acidman, I decide to take the low road, and post some quiz shit. Not my usual métier, no...what can I say? I'm bored. And lazy.

I saw this giggybob at Chou's place. Google your first name + "needs", and goggle and the hilarity that ensues. I tried it, and the results were so damn silly I couldn't resist posting them:

1) Queenie needs to sit before you throw the ball in fetch, etc.

2) Queenie needs love and patience in her new home.

3) Queenie needs a ring so that men don't take advantage of her sexually without a promise of dignity around it.

4) Queenie needs the injection.

5) Sorry, people, Queenie needs to move her bag!

6) Queenie needs to learn the lesson of love.

7) Queenie needs to go to the ladies' room.

8) Queenie needs a fag afterwards.

9) Queenie-needs-a-new-heart.

10) Queenie needs to read more X-Men.

11) Queenie needs help!

I saw the following at the home of Yogimus:

Your IQ Is 190

Your Logical Intelligence is Genius Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius Your General Knowledge is Genius

You do realize that I only posted this because it was flattering, right? I mean, if it had said that I was a moron, I'd never have let you know about it...

I'm so bad at this meme shit. Sigh. Reckon I'd better go work on a story.

Proper Names

Today I noticed several visitors on this site, folks who got here via Google or some other search engine while looking for the phrase "Hurricane Queenie".

You've come to the right place.

Give me a Hurricane Queenie, please? Not some pissant thunderstorm, either, no ineffectual Allison or Danny, but a big monster motherfucker, a Camille, an Andrew, a Betsy, a Katrina, worthy of the obscure Q, something to remember. A flooder, a ripper-down of third-world mud-huts, a hurler of projectiles...a big nasty vicious cuntbag with an axe to grind. Hurricane Queenie. It has a ring to it, no?

It'll never happen, though; I fear that those fartknocking storm-namers lack vision, a sense of the lyric. They claim we've not enough Q names to keep up a string of 'em, but I see that as the basest sort of racism. I mean, in addition to the old standards - Queenie, Quenton, Quinn, Quincy - we could bring a whole new jive to the art of hurricane naming. Quareeshacorn. Quintavious. Quelella. Quonvelle. Quellevonne. See? There you go. Five years of ghetto hurricanes right there, and I'm not even trying that hard.

Mediocrity...

I should resign myself, I suppose. Being the massive, massive fuckup that I am, Hurricane Queenie would probably just end up as a tropical storm, buzzing erratically in circles 'round Bermuda, making waves, but no lasting impressions.

Sentimental Fool

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to go through life being simultanously a rabid history buff, a thorough patriot, and a whiny little bitch who cries every time she sees something even slightly sentimental? Like, one who has been known, during certain times of the month, to weep copious hot and salty tears over a touching AT&T commercial?

I'm reading Flags of Our Fathers, and I love it, but I can't get through a single fucking page without busting out on a crying jag. It'll be Christmas before I finish the shit, at the rate I'm going.

Bump in the Night

Bane posted an account of a visitation from the beyond this morning, not a nice, sweet, fuzzy-bunny visitation full of rainbows and flowers, but the full-on "evil-dripping Nazgul standing by the bedside" variety. It creeped me out, and since the dearth of THC in my system is forcing my memory to function like the good Lord intended it to - dammit - I was immediately dragged backwards through time to relive a similar, though somewhat less personal, experience.

In the late eighties, I dated a starving artist. Well, let me rephrase that, since I dated starving artists until I developed a penchant for asshole lawyers in the mid-nineties... In the late eighties, I dated a particularly talented artist who, while renowned in our area for his skilled handiwork, had yet to hit the bigtime and was therefore severely economically challenged. At the time, both of us resided in something of an enclave for such artsy-fartsy types, so the actual starving part rarely happened, but the conditions in which we dwelt could, from time to time, verge on third-world.

Rene, my boyfriend (not his real name, but one that reflects both his French heritage and general armpit-tang) was lucky enough to have attracted the attention of a local artist who had hit the bigtime, mostly in video-production of the rockstar variety. Mr. Video owned a sprawling old Victorian home in our town, a home which had been standing since before the War Between the States. As with many such homes, around the perimeter of its modern-day property line stood a barn and a number of old slave cabins. Mr. Video, eager to Support The Arts in any way that he could, rented these structures to like-minded individuals for a monthly pittance, either as studio space or actual living quarters.

Although I didn't actually live with Rene - I've never cohabitated with a man to whom I was not married - I spent virtually every night with him for a period of some eight months. During the first seven-and-a-half months, Rene lived in one of the old slave cabins. I'd like to tell you that the cabin had been refurbished, but that would be a lie; yes, there was indoor plumbing, but that was about it. Original raw-wood walls, no insulation. Ditto with the floors - and watch your ass for splinters if you have to pad it barefoot to the potty in the middle of the night. No stove. No heat. No air-conditioning. Four electric sockets in total, and anything stronger than a space heater or reading light would blow the fuck out of the fuses. Dark and damp and dank on the inside, we froze in the winter and baked in the summer. So, when the offer came from Mr. Video for Rene to move on up to the de-luxe apartment in the sky - the barn - Rene jumped on it, and I helped him pack his boxes with a song on my lips.

The barn, believe it or not, was much nicer than the slave-quarters had been. Mr. Video had actually used that barn for production at one point, and therefore had poured a decent handful of cash into its renovation. It was insulated. It had a gas heater. It had a stove and an oven and a dishwasher and all kinds of first-world trappings that made Rene feel as if he had arrived. Plus, it was downright cool-looking, inside and out - it had character. To enter the place, you walked through a giant wooden barn door that had been set on rollers (for easy slide-back) and into a big open space with polished floors and a high, vaulted ceiling. On the right-hand end of the open space was a snug living area, equipped with a spiral staircase that led up to a loft, perfect for a bedroom. On the left-hand end of the barn were a kitchen and modern bath, and set above the bath was a storage room. Now, there was no access to the storage room from the bath-and-kitchen side of the house; the only way into or out of that room was via a catwalk, precariously hung from the ceiling-vault. The catwalk led from the storage room door, cut in the raw wall high above the kitchen, across the open area of the barn and into the bedroom-cum-loft at the other side.

Rene's first weeks in the barn he spent alone. I had been whisked out of that rathole lifestyle by my parents and taken to Tahiti for two weeks, my yearly bribe, please come home and act normal! While I lolled on a beach in Bora Bora, fending off offers of oral service by beefy, underdressed Polynesian men, Rene spent his days settling himself in the barn and basking in the joys of things like a gas heater and hot water. Not fair, no, but there it is.

My first night back in America I spent in my own bohemian dump, sleeping off a godawful jet-lag. The next day, chipper and tanned, I went to Rene's to see what progress he'd made in the move. Excited at his elevated status, Rene gave me the fitty-cent tour of the place, even coaxing me out onto the catwalk to see the storage room. I'm not afraid of heights, but I don't actively seek them, either, especially when the catwalk that supported our entire combined weight was swaying and squeaking on its chains every time I took a step. Finally, I crossed the damn thing for a quick peer in the storage room, just to shut his Froggy trap so I could go downstairs, sit by the fire, tell him about my trip, and smoke a bowl.

When I got to the door, though, I found myself physically unable to enter the room, like a giant hand was dragging me backwards towards the bedroom loft. Cold air poured out that place, so cold it was almost visible, almost like a dry-ice effect. Someone had painted the interior of the room black, and towards the back, in orange day-glo paint, someone had spray-painted a pentagram enclosed in a circle. Now, I wasn't the most pious and devout Queenie you could have wished for back in those days, but even I knew that the storage room was someplace that I most adamantly did not want to be. Despite Rene's teasing protests, I hot-footed my skinny ass back across the catwalk and down the spiral staircase, to the comfort of the gas heater and the weed-bag. Fuck that. Unh-unh.

That night, Rene welcomed me home in a most intimate fashion. He'd cooked for me, and we'd eaten that meal and drunk that good red wine together, lying naked in front of the fireplace. We'd rutted ourselves silly, until the full moon rose high in the night sky, finally stumbling up the staircase and into the deepest slumber. That was a good sleep, a happy sleep...until about three o'clock in the morning.

I woke to the sound of a door opening. I shook myself, groggily, not quite sure for a moment where I was. After a second, still certain that I'd heard a door open, I woke Rene. We sat still in the bed and looked at each other in the moonlight, straining our ears. Nothing. A short while later, we laid back down, turned over, and tried to regain sleep.

Not two minutes had elapsed before I heard a strange squeaking clank. I knew what it was in a heartbeat; it was the same noise the catwalk had made when we crossed it earlier in the evening, to view the storage room. I sat up in bed, and so did Rene, who'd heard it as well.

We both stood up out of bed, and peered down the catwalk. The door to the storage room, which closed from the outside with a simple throw-bolt, was hanging open, a gaping black maw in the wall opposite us. I shuddered as I remembered, vividly, watching Rene's hand throw that bolt earlier in the evening. The catwalk was swaying, gently, as if someone were coming across it, right into the loft where we lay. I shook my head again, trying to clear my vision, because I was certain, dead certain, that there was something on that catwalk.

I could see it.

Rather, I could see the absence of it, an outline of total blackness like the depths of space, thrown into relief by the ambient light from the moon, the streetlights outside, the embers of our fire. I could almost hear it breathing...and I knew for sure and certain that it was coming for me. Petrified, I reached out, snapped on the light, and simultaneously, something from the deepest recesses of my brain, something from the lizard-level programming of my extremely religious upbringing made me scream out, "in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord, I bid you BACK!"

In the light - the broad light from the bedside lamp - Rene and I watched the storage room door slam shut. Freezing air whooshed out at us. The catwalk still swayed.

I got the fuck up out of the wet-spot I'd just made in Rene's bed, and began to dress as he sputtered incoherently in French. I howled at him to get his clothes, let's get the hell out of here, and he complied, leaping out of his own wet-spot and scurrying towards the door.

That was the last night I ever spent in that barn. Rene, however, became wrapped up in silly phrases like "logical explanation" and "paranormal phenomenon", and while he told the story the same way I did, he had no desire to move out. That barn was his pride and joy, and he was by-God keeping it. He convinced himself we'd shared some sort of consensual hallucination, something in the wine, something in the weed, and then he began to nourish a not-so-secret hope that whatever it was would come back, so that he could "talk" to it. And, believe it or not, our breakup was due in large part to the fact that I refused to set foot in that fucking house of evil ever, ever again. Queenie may not be the brightest bulb on the porch, but I ain't stupid.

Now. Laugh at me all you want...but every word of the above is the naked, unvarnished truth.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

Playing Hooky

Home again today; Mister MacFarland had his top-end roto-rooted this morning, pumped full of the same drugs they gave him for his colonoscopy last week, and so I played chauffeur. He's hilarious after these things, all high and wobbly, hollering at the top of his lungs when the recovery room nurse rips the tape off his IV and depilates his hand. I mean, they ran a pipe down his esophagus, snaked the cakeline, carved out some chunks for biopsy, took pictures, and left...and he's bitching about his arm hairs?

I tried really, really hard not to laugh. Game face. Ba-HAWHAWHAWHAW!

He's downstairs now, sipping India tea with his pinky extended and watching the six-hour version of Pride and Prejudice. Meanwhile, I'm upstairs with a cold beer, cleaning our guns and watching Band of Brothers.

We have a weird relationship, do Mister MacFarland and I. Every once in a while, though, the rare day like today...and it works for us...

In Which Queenie is Gripped by a Hopeless Melancholy

Disclaimer: If you're not interested in self-indulgent entries about my mood-swings, skip this one.

I feel like Eeyore today, bitterly depressed and dogged by a sense of failure that I can't seem to shake. On the way to work this morning I gazed pensively at the full hunter's moon, hanging low in the still-dark skies; it was so silvery-beautiful and distant that I almost ran my piece-of-shit car into a ditch from distraction with it. I'm inclined to place blame for my alternating fits of rage and sadness on that moon, but it could just as easily be a hiccup in my hormones, or the fact that, after a good long period of time sober, all the THC has indeed been leached from my fat cells and my cerebral functions are waking from one long-ass slumber. Whichever, I wish the fuck it would quit. I'm not good at being depressed.

As I washed our supper dishes a short while ago, a prodigal memory returned to me, vivid and sharp. I was in high school, and one of my teachers had noticed a marked dip in my usual participation levels, a blown fuse in my "bubbly vivaciousness", as she put it, that was to stay with me until after graduation. She, being a thoughtful and kindly woman, took me aside, and asked me what was the matter. I don't even remember what I told her - some load of absolute crap, no doubt, just to get the bitch off my back. I do remember, though, that she took my chin and turned my face to hers - an actionable offense in today's public-school climate - and asked me, "Queenie, why are you so angry?"

A dam burst. I rattled on and on and on to this poor woman, the usual teenage claptrap that I'm sure she'd heard - that I'm sure that all of you with teenagers have heard - a thousand times: "I don't belong here. This isn't the life for me. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing or where I'm supposed to be doing it, but this...this bullshit...this 'mind your manners', this 'keep your mouth shut', this 'do your best', this 'act like a lady' shit is just killing me!!"

That teacher comforted me as best she could, but the feeling stuck with me, that intrinsic out-of-placeness that made me feel like an animal in a cage. As I grew older, and had more control over my life, I drifted further and further away from all that, those everyday conventions and fucking niceties that drove me so bats as a teenager. My life swung in an eccentric orbit, yes, but I was happy. I had an unusual and catholic education; I saw the world. I had unconventional jobs in unconventional places, with unconventional people - okay, mostly nutjobs, I'll give you that - but I was doing what I wanted to be doing. Except...

...except. I wasn't "respectable", and the knowledge that I was moving further and further away from the mainstream nagged at me like a splinter in the soft flesh between thumb and forefinger. I wasn't doing the kind of things that one hopes one will be doing when one returns to one's high-school reunions, fifteen or twenty years later. My parents, though they loved me, were shocked and saddened at some of my choices; after all, they raised me to be somebody's trophy wife, not some artist, not some shady gallivanter. And slowly, as the years wore on, I came to want to see how the other half lived. I was tired of letting my family down. I was sick of seeing the look of shame in my mother's eyes when she told her friends from the country club no, she's not married yet, she's not working for a major corporation, she's...well, she's traveling at the moment. Right.

Keep your mouth shut. Act like a lady. Fools' names and fools' faces - always seen in public places.

So, I set about the gargantuan task, the painstaking reconstruction of a life. I dropped what I was doing, and flew "home", back to the bosom of my family. I got a nine-to-fiver. I bought suits and pantyhose, and wore them. I tamed my wild hair, tamed my wild tongue, bent, and put my nose to the grindstone. I got married. I had children. I got older, and older, and older.

Until, well, there I was at the sink, washing the supper dishes. And looking at my life. I'm a perfectly respectable adult at long last, though something short of a trophy wife. I haven't picked up a musical instrument in ten years. I work for that corporation now, the one that my father always hoped I'd land a place in, and I'm back in the selfsame money- and status-conscious suburb that I left lo these many years ago now. Daily, I keep my mouth shut, I do my best, I mind my manners, and I act like a lady.

And, once again, I'm depressed as shit.

"Queenie, why are you so angry...?"

We Get Letters

I get the damndest mail.

One thoughtful lady writes me from my own backyard, to let me know that she has looked in the Sylacauga phone book and cannot find my name, my address or my phone number. She also proclaims, in tones indignant, that she knows "every lawyer in town" and has discovered that "not one of the offices has an attorney named Queenie". This bright intellectual light has, from said researches, deduced that I am either lying about my name, lying about my profession, or that I indeed don't live in Sylacauga at all!

It is my earnest hope that this correspondent has not already gone drip-drip-drip into the gene pool.

Another reader, obviously rapt and enchanted with my mad storytelling skillz, comments, "you are so obviously a bloke." Oh, honey. If you only knew.

Yet another sweet soul writes to tell me, "I LOVE the way you write. Your flow of expression reveals the heart and ideals of an old hippie, the sharp wit and spirit of a jaded comic, and the powerful intellect of a gifted Jewish insurrectionist. Your words flow like melody, evoking vivid images from deep within memory to support connection with what you describe..."

I wrote her back, a nice, long, appreciative letter; I was thrilled with her kindness, taking her words very much to heart...only to find out, later, that she was referring to Velociman's guest posts. Whoops! Sorry, Linda.

Well, shit.

It's been that kind of day.

Apposite

Today was Halloween preparation day amongst us MacFarlands, the day in which the decorations are brought out of their box in the garage, the day in which the children are driven to the store to pick out their trick-or-treat costumes. It was just me and my baby today, the older ones eschewing dress-up as mindlessly juvenile, Mister MacFarland lately eschewing my company as a rule. Suited me fine; less bitching and moaning, on the whole, less of a ding to the pocketbook.

My youngest had earlier in the week declared his intention to be a zampire this year, a creature, to his telling, occupying a sphere somewhere between a bloodsucker and a zamboni. We had it all planned; we'd buy him a cape at the store, and mommy would work makeup magic on the rest. Slicked-back hair, dead white face, pointy black eyebrows, twin rivulets of blood dripping out of the corners of his mouth, and, of course, the de rigeur set of plastic teeth. He's been talking about it for two days, excited at the prospect of those teeth, those blood-drips. Bleeds, he calls 'em.

However, when we reached the costume store, the plethora of choices available to him drove the zampire idea right out of his tiny little head. He strode firmly past the Harry Potter regalia, the Captain Jack Sparrow outfits, the Little Devil accoutrements, hollering at me over his shoulder - "Mommy, come on!". I finally found him standing, enraptured, in front ot the armor-and-sword section, eyes like saucers, staring at the prepackaged "Crusader" sets.

At long last, he chose. A helmet with workable beaver. A breastplate, emblazoned with a cross. A shield, similarly decorated. A long-sword, bigger than him, the hilt encrusted with faux jewels, the tang engraved with an arcane incantation in Latin, probably as faux as his sword-hilt jewels. A short, broad sword to lash at his side, a fine blade of Spanish steel (plastic), tempered in the fires of righteousness (probably somewhere in Taiwan).

That's my boy.

I wonder if he'll really get into the spirit of the thing, and go after the Muslim kids down the street?

Gator Pride

Up until my sad, dull, gray adulthood, I had always been something of a performing arts nerd. I began to play piano when I was about six years old, and various and sundry other marching-band type instruments - like clarinet and flute and drums and tenor sax - soon followed. All throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school I sang in the choir, the chorus, wherever they would let me rear back and belt it out. Later, as a young-but-still-too-fucking-stupid-to-really-count adult, I played cello in a chamber group, sang and played rhythm guitar in a rock band, sang and played bass in a country band, and filled a too-brief year as a lounge singer, warbling sentimental old standards in a prom dress to a yuppie bar-crowd every Wednesday night.

Before all that, in high school, I had abandoned many of my pretensions to musicality and threw myself, whole hog, into being a Theater Geek. Lord, I loved the boards! Here was a chance for me to actually leave myself, be someone else on a lighted stage - and people clapped! Musicals, old Broadway chestnuts, Shakespeare...it mattered not. I threw myself into each and every character, sobbing prettily at the end of Hopelessly Devoted to You (Sandra Dee in Grease), snarling through the bathtub gin (Miss Hannigan, Annie), and I will say that I made an unnaturally excellent madwoman (Lady Macbeth). Go figure.

As a seventeen year-old, I was also feeling the first flush of womanly sexuality. I had, through my Drama Class, obtained my very first boyfriend and, by extension, my first experience of confusing righteous lust for love, a flaw in my sense of impulse-control that I struggle with to this day. God, how I adored him; tall, prematurely gray -hair like a fucking carpet, it was so thick - beautiful, supple body, slender like a piece of Greek sculpture. My father hated him, of course, but if he hadn't, I think he'd have been either blind, stupid or a Bad Daddy; Daddies are supposed to hate young, throbbing poet-boys who woo their little girls, especially Drama Fag ones who probably smoke dope. I had it bad, too: I hung on that boyfriend's every word, thought the moon rose and set in his deep green eyes. I didn't do anything by halves, back then. Still don't, really.

I was hot for him, hot like a rabid ferret, a blend of emotional and physical intensity I'd never felt before. During rehearsals at school we'd make out behind the backdrops, sneak off into stairwells, constantly on the look-out for the rare and coveted empty classroom. Our dates pushed the limits of my bodily endurance, as I struggled and struggled to keep that invisible dime between my knees. After all, before this relationship, I'd never so much as kissed a boy before, let alone allowed a boy to get all the way to - gasp - second base. I was young, this was new, this was novel. I couldn't get enough.

Toward the middle of my junior year, and about five months into this puppy relationship, my drama teacher began pimping out a one-act play group that I belonged to. We'd perfected An Actor's Nightmare, four or five of us switching up and playing every part in the thing. I was one of the leads, as was my yummy squeeze. We traveled from high school to high school, competing against other Drama Fags and their one-act gigs, kicking ass and taking names. We won everything we attempted; it was a golden time, a delicious moment of triumph for doing something I loved. Finally, the pinnacle: we were invited to perform at a state-level competition, to be held in distant Auburn, Alabama.

It was so exciting; our group, plus our drama teacher and a few theater-tech guys, signed out the school's van for the weekend and we wended our way into middle Alabama for the competition. We stayed at a Holiday Inn near Cusseta because, for some reason unbeknownst to us, every hotel in Auburn was booked. Hmm. Every hotel in Auburn booked? This podunk-holler? What the hell? What's in Auburn, anyway?

When we got there, we found out; Auburn University was playing The University of Florida in some Very Important Football Game or other. I was not a football fan at the time, so the whole thing was nebulous to my young mind - I could not understand what the frickin' big deal was. Well, honey, as you might imagine, I found out when I got there.

A veritable sea of orange and green, and our whole Holiday Inn filled with rabid, drunken Gator fans. They roamed the halls, heavily medicated, shouting "GATORS!" at everyone they passed. I had to ask my boyfriend what the fuck they were saying - to me it sounded like all these grown men were yelling "GAAAAYDURRRS!" at me, as they leered drunkenly at my meager cleavage. Our first night in the hotel, all night long. "GAAAAYDURRRRRS!". I'd try to sleep. "GAAAAAYDURRRRS!". At breakfast, "GAAAYDURRRRS!". On the way to the performance, "GAAAAAYDURRRRS!". Through my happy tears, as we placed and went on to the final round the next day, "GAAAAYDURRRS!".

That night, we had a little celebration of our own. My boyfriend and I snuck out to the parking lot and the school van, and said boyfriend, having purloined the keys from the drama teacher's oversized purse, moved the vehicle to the dark and shady recesses behind the building. We locked ourselves in and fired up a pin-joint that my thoughtful swain had brought along for just such an occasion, laughing and talking about the business of the day. Afterwards, we lay on the back seat entwined in each other's arms, kissing with tongues and petting to a degree that we'd never before enjoyed. For a while we had peace, and lucky boyfriend rounded third for the first time. I guess he felt that luck, because he finally gathered the courage - after stuttering about it for half an hour - to ask me if I could, um, I mean, well, what I'd really like is, well, would you put it in your mouth?

I was terrified when he brought out the actual member. I'd never seen a penis before, save on the little teensy babies that I'd cared for as a babysitter, whose diapers I had changed and whose bottoms I had powdered. In retrospect, I understand that lucky boyfriend was lucky indeed; a monster erect, roughly the size of my forearm, head the size of my clenched fist. I looked into his eyes, seeking some reassurance, some understanding that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing but I'd try it because I loooved him so much and please don't be upset if I do a bad job. (Ha!)

I knelt on the floorboards, and bent to the task. Just as my tongue touched the very tip of his uncircumcised cock, and excitement zinged through my whole body - "GAAAAAYDURRRRRS!". And again, "GAYYYYYDURRRRRRS!", as a stream of fucked-up gamegoers began to flood back in to the hotel. Florida had kicked Auburn's ass, and so my first sexual experience of any kind was punctuated. "GAAAAAYYYYDURRRRRS! WHOOO! MOTHERFUCKING GAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYDURRRRS RULE! YOW! SONOFABITCH! GAAAAYDURRRRRS!!!!"

As I clumsily fellated, feeling somewhat sick, I came to hate the University of Florida and everything it stood for. My boyfriend came too, all over my chin, sighing with relief as the chorus rang out, "GAAAAYDURRRRS!!"

We were surprised to win the competition the next day, me with rings around my eyes and Samsonite bags below them. What was not surprising - not to me, anyway - was that my boyfriend left at the end of that year, matriculating at...wait for it...Florida. I, of course, went on to graduate from an archrival school, and am still pissed at those assholes for fucking up my first blowjob ever. Is it any wonder that I hate those pricks? Gaydurs, that is. Not actual pricks.

In Which I Behave Like A Total Cunt

Do I smell PMS in the breeze? I really hope the fuck not, but I lost control of my Vesuvian temper today, much to my hindsighted chagrin.

Look, I try to be nice, I really, really do. I am one of the most polite, well-mannered people you would ever want to meet, in real life...unless and until you a) hurt or harm one of my children, in which case I will fuck you up so badly you will wish that I'd just gone ahead and killed you, b) injure or engender le tristesse upon one of my friends in my sight or hearing, or c) assume you can unload your psychic baggage upon me without a specific invitation. It was c) what done me in today. Thrice, even!

Item: Do NOT call me in the middle of a work-day, and accuse me of being delinquent on an account for which my payments are current. Do NOT scream at me, personally insult me, or cuss at me during this undeserved tirade, because I might just wait until you're not expecting it, drive over to your building, find your sorry ass, and, after fashioning a neat, tight noose, hang you with your own lower intestine. In front of your boss. And your co-workers. Check with "Judy" at my child's after-school gig as to the veracity of this statement. She won't be collecting many more paychecks from that particular "enrichment program" - and I doubt she'll be sitting comfortably tonight, either.

Item: Do NOT, even if you are old and limping behind a walker, scream and curse at me when I politely hold a door open for you instead of ignoring your existence like some rude Yankee. I will subsequently slam said door in your face, I will scream and curse back, and I will probably use terms that your crotchety septuagenarian ass has never even heard. Not only that, but I will take down your license plate number, run a plate search when I get to the office, and later call the DMV on you, pretending to be your concerned daughter, recommending license revocation due to senility issues. "And can you make sure they give Daddy an eye test? He just don't see as well as he used to, since the cataract surgery..."

Item: Whatever you do, do NOT strike your wife or girlfriend and call her a stupid bitch when I am sitting in a parked car right next to you, even if you are my down-the-block neighbor. I will hurl my boiling-hot Starbuck's mocha at your back - and I will hit you with it - and when you approach my vehicle, I will pull my .22 out from under the seat and promise to shoot your sorry self should you advance so much as another inch. I will also call the 5-0, and sit there and wait until they arrive, to ensure the safety of the woman you just put the beat down on. And, should my personal property somehow become damaged in days to come, I will take it out on you by burning your motherfucking house to the god-damn ground, whether the shit was your fault or not.

Of course, I drive away from all of these sorts of incident feeling rather embarrassed...PMS can be so exposing, don't you think?

Innards

I didn't go to work today. Mister MacFarland was scheduled to be anally violated by the colonoscopy doctor this morning, and needed me to chauffeur his drugged-up ass to and from the procedure. It went fairly well, all things considered - the biggest thing I consider is that it was his ass with a hose in it, not mine - but they did carve a polyp or two out of his colon, to be sent to the lab for biopsy. Nothing earth-shaking, I am told; his doctor (not nearly as cute as mine, thank God) informed me that 99.7% of the polyps they remove and analyze are benign, and that I really shouldn't worry. So I won't, unless the labs come back funky.

One thing that took me rather aback: after the procedure was complete, and before the nurses led me to my begowned and sleeping husband, the doctor came in to tell me of his findings. As soon as he'd shaken my hand, I found myself looking down at ten full-color glossies of the inside of my spouse's colon. Friends, that was a sight I could have gone my whole life without seeing. I'm not squeamish about blood and guts and innards, normally, but something about seeing Mister MacFarland's twisty bowels laid out before me, glistering with mucous, just put me off my feed. It's three o'clock, and I still don't have an appetite for breakfast. Yuck.

Mister MacFarland has threatened harm against my person if I post those pictures. I am non-committal, and am saving them for the next time he commits a particularly egregious marital offense. I'm just sayin'.

Related: have you ever noticed how incredibly funny people are when they emerge from twilight sleep? Mister MacFarland was a laugh-riot, mumbling something about working with hydras in his high-school biology class, followed by five minutes of incoherent babblings about Regency dresses and Jane Austen. Even the nurses were laughing. There he was, knocked-out, half-lit on a cocktail of Demerol and Valium...and he's still a fucking egghead. You can take the boy out of the Ivy League, but you'll never take the Ivy League out of the boy, even under heavy sedatives. God knows I've tried. Sigh.

I love him, but sometimes I wish I'd married a fucking caveman instead.

Disintegration

I work with a guy I'll call "Robert". Robert is a VIP in our firm, never quite top-rung, never with his name on the sign, but a Big Shit nonetheless. Been there forever, credentials out the yin-yang, bills for hourly rates that would make Heidi Fleiss blush. Nice guy. Affable dude. Usually.

I'm worried about Robert.

Robert's marriage broke up a couple of years ago. Robert's oldest child is a complete, raving nutter, and his youngest just exited the closet in a spectacularly dramatic fashion. Robert drinks heavily, so heavily that lately, when he comes in in the morning, there is a haze of alcohol-reek trailing behind him that makes me fear to light a match in his general vicinity. Robert has also recently developed a limp, and came in last week with half his face abraded, swollen, black and blue. He says he fell. I don't believe him. Robert also just acquired a girlfriend, a lovely piece of arm-bling, but one whom, I am afraid, is just bleeding him for fun. She has that wolf-look in her eyes, and has her hand out constantly. Robert, conversely, looks at her as if the sun shines out of her twat. And hey - it might, I don't know - but I doubt it.

Robert was supposed to meet several other Big Shits this morning, at a meeting in another state. Our managing partner called me at eight-oh-three in the a.m., seeking information regarding Robert's whereabouts. I called his secretary; Robert should have been on the same flight out of the city that the managing partner was. He wasn't. Managing partner was pissed. Robert's case, you see. Nothing could be done without him, and his absence made the firm look bad in the eyes of the Even Larger Shits From Another Firm, the Big Massive Gigantor-Dumps from the Big City. Managing partner, an ego-driven pud whom I am sure has a three-inch penis, he no likey. Not one bit.

Robert finally called in at nine-thirty. His admin transferred him to me. He told me that he'd overslept, and missed his flight. I could only tell him that the mp said to get his ass on a plane as soon as possible; I then dropped everything I was doing, and called the travel officer on his behalf. I spent half an hour rebooking his flight for him, his car service, his hotel...something his admin should have done, but I think Robert was embarrassed to ask her to do it, to have her know how badly he'd fucked up. I guess he can sense that Queenie never seeks to judge, and that I've probably done worse in my long and storied career of getting fucked up and making spectacular messes of shit...because, for some reason, he trusts me. I took care of him, and got him on his way.

A few minutes after Robert boarded the plane I'd put him on, the marshal showed up at our offices. He was looking for Robert. To serve him with papers. To serve HIM with papers, not pertinent to any case or client. Robert's admin was in a frenzy, had no idea what to do. Again, I stepped in and dealt with Robert's issues. Better me than her; they pay me to put out fires, right? Plus, his admin is a gossipy little wench; half the firm would have known all of Robert's business in five minutes. Hell, they probably do anyway.

Poor Robert. He got where he was supposed to go - five hours late - and for the rest of the day, he kept up a steady stream of vicious e-mails to his underlings, taking it out on them, keeping their Blackberries singing like bayou swamp frogs. It's like he was determined to make the rest of the office feel as bad as he did, determined to take the ass-reaming that he received at the dick-end of the managing partner out on the rest of the firm. Not a mature or reasonable response, I know, but I still felt sorry for him, because the motivation for it was so blatantly apparent. He even called to start some shit with me - me, who helped him get where he was supposed to be, rescuer of admins, coverer of shit-tracks! - but it was no big. I ripped his dick off with my teeth and made him eat it. Over the phone, of course. Would never do such a thing in person; I like old Robert.

I got the word, this afternoon that our team of Big Shits assembled have had enough of Robert and his drama, and he now Walks the Line. Somehow, I think that his work life is the least of his worries.

I hate watching people fall apart. I want to fix them, kiss their boo-boos, make it all go away, feed them into somnolence, and tuck them into night-night. I can't do that for Robert, though. All I can do is bend my knees, dusty, inflexible, and creaky from disuse, and pray...

Oh, God...

...I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, a follow-up. Funny thing, I don't remember scheduling it, I don't even have one of those little cards they give you with your next appointment time written on it. But they called me today to confirm it, and I'm going. Oh, yes, honey. I'm going.

Tales from a Titty Bar, Vol. XIV

A long time ago, I was a cocktail waitress in a gentleman's club, a place rather randomly cleped "The Parachute Lounge". The Parachute Lounge squatted, a ramshackle building of cinderblock and particle-board, by the side of scenic Highway XX in metropolitan downtown Bumfuck, Alabama. The Parachute was a popular dive, there being not much to do in Bumfuck, Alabama, save drinking, drugs, and activities leading to or involving fucking. I made a lot of money there, and created many adventures, some of which I have related to you before.

Know you this, as well: there are very few actual gentlemen in any given gentleman's club, especially in Bumfuck, Alabama. Personally, I prefer the term titty bar; no, it isn't pretty, but at least the phrase allows for some accurate representation of what actually goes on inside - specifically, mass alcohol consumption and lots of tit-jiggling. Although the tit-jiggling was not my particular province - I took care of generously lubricating the wallets who walked through the door - we bar-staff types were still expected to look good, smell good, smile at everyone, and display a relaxed tolerance and an amount of flesh that would have gotten us arrested in more conservative counties. To that end, the Parachute uniform: a faux flight suit, seemingly cut for a toddler, made of gunmetal-gray spandex and zippered down the front. A little bit of ass-cheek peeked out of each and every uniform behind, and the zipper had to be stepped at low mast for Jimmie, the manager, to be at all happy. A patch over the left breast displayed my nom de guerre, and under it rode a another patch, embroidered to resemble decorations of the military kind. The outfit was topped by a rakish hat and mirrored sunglasses, pilot-style, and as I slung longneck Buds and Jack-and-Cokes to the waiting clientèle, I teeter-tottered around on four-inch heels set in thigh-high black leather boots. Jimmie's little joke was that the uniforms were one-size-fits-all, and if a girl couldn't fit into the one size, she was too expensive to hire. He was a cheap bastard, and I laugh to think of it now, that I ever fit in such a thing, and my feet ache in sympathy for the girl-that-was-me, way back then.

The order of the evening? Arrive at four, toting a hard-shell guitar case that contained all my work gear. Unlock the back entrance for the other employees, turn on the lights and the window-unit air-conditioner that served the dancers' dressing room, strip naked, and change into my uniform. Four-thirty: crack open a beer, light a joint, stock the garnish tray. Five: have a cigarette, pee, snoot a rail or two, plenty in each nostril. Check mirror for visible cocaine residue, resume bar-stock. Five-fifteen: snoot a keybump, check mirror, sweep floor. Five-thirty, hork down another pair of lines, pat a little coke between cheek and gum, pop a ten-milligram Valium, unlock the front door. Six o'clock, and the working boys began to file in, hangdog and sheepish until the sun went down...and so it went.

Now, most of the fellows who frequented The Parachute were gentle enough souls, lonely men just looking to peer at a piece of goodlooking snatch, or talk to a pretty woman with tits in full view. I would even hazard a guess that ninety-seven percent of the men who offered us their regular custom were there as much to mix and mingle with their friends and drink the liquor we afforded them as to look a naked women. Every once in a while, though, we got a nasty one, a mean drunk, a man hell-bent on causing a ruckus and getting the shit kicked out of him by the bouncers. One such person was Rickey P., a notorious meth-head and vicious, vicious alcoholic.

I remember one Saturday night vividly. The Parachute was packed, the joint jumping. Aerosmith boomed out of the tall black speakers that flanked the barroom, disco-lights bouncing off every surface and smoothing into nothingness the cellulite and stretch-marks that all women - even titty-dancers - possess. I wove in and out of the tiny tables, flirting with my regulars, keeping the liquor and beer flowing, happily raking in the tips with both hands. Around eleven-thirty, I'd ducked into the back office with Jimmie the manager, to freshen my numb-nose and turn a fistful of dollar-tips into twenties. As we exited the office, we heard the roar; Rickey P. had arrived, drunk as fuck and in high dudgeon over something, and neither Bubba nor Lou, the bouncers, anywhere to be seen.

The music still pounded - Def Leppard, as I recall - and around the room, five or six girls undulated atop various rickety tables. Rickey P. stood below one of these four-tops, screaming unintelligibly at a doe-eyed, round-shouldered young thing who called herself Star, one of our newest dancers. Why, just that very evening I'd taught the girl the stripper trick that allows the show to go on even during menstruation, the old tuck-the-string-tight-into-the-pussy thing - she was that raw-green. One glance at her face told me Star was terrified, and, as Jimmie bounded toward the parking lot to see what in hell had become of the bouncers (lured away when Rickey smashed the window of a patron's Ford), I slipped up behind Rickey P.

Just as I moved into position, Rickey's hand went out, and he literally grabbed Star by the mons and dragged her towards him, nearly pulling her off the table. Queenie, of course, saw red and went immediately into overdrive - it's all fun and games until somebody hurts one of my friends - and I snatched the first thing to hand, a mostly-full bottle of Rolling Rock. I reared back with all my considerable strength, and bashed Rickey in the back of the head with the bottle.

You know how, in the movies, when someone smashes a bottle over someone else's head, the recipient of the blow goes down like a house of cards? Well, I am here to tell you that this is not what happens in real life, at least not when the dumb fucker you bash is as thick-skulled and high as was Rickey P. Rickey abruptly released Star's pubis, turned around, and punched me in the face so hard that my only thought was "dear God, not my nose again." I hit the floor like a sack of taters, bleeding as if he'd slit my throat...and Star, barely-legal, raw-green Star, swung into action.

Fire lit her eyes as that little redneck girl leaped off the table and onto Rickey's back. Star proceeded to scratch and bite everything she could get ahold of, ripping the flesh of his face with her red, rapier-blade nails. I lay on the floor, watching, in a daze that made everything appear stop-motion, as she chewed off a significant portion of his left ear. He screamed and swatted at her, making vain attempts to grab a hank of hair with which to drag her off of him. Just then - probably only seconds after Rickey had hit me - the bouncers reappeared. As they made their way across the crowded room and over to the scene of the crime, Star let go of Rickey with one hand, and that little doll - bless her heart - reached into the place where I'd taught her the stripper trick, pulled out the bloodiest, clottiest tampon you've ever seen, and shoved it right into Rickey's open and caterwauling piehole.

Friends, it was beautiful. I don't know if it was delayed reaction from the beer-bottle to the back of the head, loss of blood from his chewed-off ear, or simple and overwhelming disgust, but Rickey screamed like a little girl and went down like a ton of bricks. He fell on my shins - two hundred and forty pounds of fucked-up cracker white-trash, bleeding all over my thigh-highs - and there he lay, bloody, coldcocked, and with a used tampon stuck to his chin, until the police came to put him in the county lockup.

Jimmie told me a couple of weeks later that I'd taken a chip out of Rickey's skull with the beer-bottle, and that the doctors had recommended reconstructive surgery to restore Rickey's ear. He also told me that when Rickey awoke -sobered, chastened and repentant - the cops had asked him why in hell he'd gone for Star like he did. Rickey's reply?

"I only wanted to touch the fuzz..."

Gentleman's club, indeed.

In Which Queenie Gets Soused and Barks Like a Dog

Film at Eleven

I spent the afternoon at the home of a close girlfriend, watching my beloved Georgia Bulldogs beat the snot out of those insufferable Tennessee Volunqueers and sucking down glass after glass of not-so-cheap red wine. If you've never watched a college football game with a roomful of horny alumna divorcées hopped up on the fruit of the vine, you're missing out; you get to hear all sorts of enlightened comments like, "Dang. Them boys sure are biiig, ain't they?" and "Y'reckon he could crack a walnut with that ass? He looks like he's all muscle." Good times, people, good times.

Scintillating as was the conversational fare, I could not resist the urge to wander out and fuck with the neighbors, obnoxious and prideful Vol fans who were so full of themselves (before the half, that is) as to come over to my girlfriend's house and gloat through the open windows that we were about to get our asses handed to us on a silver-britches platter, to caterwaul in chorus on Georgia's complete suckage, and to bruit out loud the notion that their Vols would send our pack of whinging pussy-boys back to Athens with their tails between their legs. Such taunting was not to be borne, and Queenie is nothing if not a devious and revengeful cunt. While they traipsed their tacky, orange-clad arses across my friend's meticulously-tended flowerbeds, trumpeting their superiority, I entered their house through the open garage and poked around a bit. All my early training came back to me and I moved with stealth, setting a passworded parental control on their cable television, hiding their weed-stash under the couch cushions, and filling all their toilet-tanks with hidden bottles of red food-coloring, so that every flush would bring upon them the Color of Victory. Don't laugh; it was tough finding that many bottles of red dye on one street. I must have raided four houses before I found enough for every toilet. For a minute there, I thought I was going to have to spare the master bath.

My lust for a prank sated, I returned to my friend's ever-so-comfortable sofa, and proceeded to watch the slaughter...but I kept my ears open for sounds of discontent from next door. Alas, I was let down; after the half those neighbors were far quieter, and much more interested in the pork-loin they were smoking than the balance of the game. And, hell - if I'd known we were going to win, I might have cut those loudmouthed Vols some slack. Winning is, after all, the best revenge. Oh me of little faith.

After the game - and five bottles of wine later - my girls and I supped on chocolate cake and Diet Coke. Giggling, we proceeded to the woods, where we filled an unsuspecting tree-stump full of hot lead. God, I love the smell of cordite after my Dawgs kick the shit out of Tennessee.

It was a great day. One more glass of wine, some quality time with my "neck massager" and a photograph of Bane, and I will truly, truly sleep well...

Ass Issues

Riddle me this, please - when did the average American female ass get so fucking huge? I can no longer find or purchase a pair of pants that doesn't come with a gratuitous bulge of fabric in the posterior, a bulge that has the nerve to insinuate that it is I who am missing something, rather than that the stupid trousers themselves are cut to fit the ass of Roseanne Barr. Sexy jeans that hug the curve of my hips and stretch tight across my belly and thighs bag open at the ass. Dressy grey flannel slacks that simply scream "class" from the front look, when seen from the rear view, like a fucking water buffalo recently vacated the premises. Even something simple, neutral - like a standard pair of khakis - comes with this "reservoir tip" shit that makes the butt-fabric balloon out forevermore once the wearer sits down a time or two. Infuriating.

Tailors, too, have a hard time with the ass issue. I mean, you can tote a jacket down to the cleaners, and have them take up the sleeves or narrow the waist for you, quite easily. You can take 'em a pair of pants to shorten, or ask them to tighten the waistband and the whole thing is done with very little fuss. But the ass? A seamstress can't cut the ass down for you without remaking the whole garment, which takes forever and costs a fucking fortune and usually ends up looking like shit in the process...because, if the seamstress was all that and a bag of chips as a designer, she wouldn't be a fucking dry-cleaners seamstress, now would she???

And look, you: I am a very average-sized woman with what used to be termed a medium build. As of this morning, I weigh exactly one hundred and forty-seven pounds, very little of it in bizarre places, as women's figures go. I wear a size ten everywhere but the titties, whose size are not germane to this discussion (although they will be, when I start bitching about button-down shirts). My ass is neither a bounteous cornucopia nor, as a friend of mine puts it, a card-swipe. It's just plain-jane, as asses go, 100% USDA approved corn-fed American beef, with no steroids or chemical additives. So why isn't there one fucking pair of pants out there that was designed to fit it?

Don't get me wrong; it isn't as though I am unsympathetic to the plight of the bigassed girl. I understand that, in years past, she had a hard time fitting that junk in her trunk into a comfortable pair of britches, and I'm happy that she now has an alternative. But what about me? And what about the skinnyassed bitches? What are the rest of us supposed to do with all that extra fabric in our butts? Just walk around looking baggy and stupid? Pitch a fucking tent, for God's sake? Rig a pappoose?

I have too much time on my hands, don't I?

Queenie Gets the Warmies

Back, with a shameful, disgusting confession: I have a bad case of the hots for my doctor.

Oh, yes. I do. He's an absolute fox, no ifs, ands, or buts. I'd like to sit here and lie to you, as a married woman and general keeper of vows, and tell you that I didn't think about making the beast with two backs every time he walks into the patient room, but it is not in Queenie's nature to bullshit about such serious issues. And it is serious; I seriously wanna do him. Every time he looks at me with those freezing-blue eyes, his thick thatch of hair - the boyish blonde slowly greying - falling into his needing-a-pluck brows as he tells me we need one more x-ray...well, I melt into a puddle of quivering chickliquor, and then I usually just dribble right onto the floor. The guy is amazing, ladies. Big. Strapping. Nordic, but with those crazy kind of eyes that tell you he's a fucked up freak in the sack, and probably a serious sonofabitch out of it...sigh. Really smart. Really sassy. Just too dreamy.

I saw him recently. Nothing major, I just had to go in and let him poke me and prod me (which was wonderful, just short of orgasmic) in order to get a regular medication re-prescribed. I was reading a book I'd brought with me when he came in, and he was interested in what I was reading. We struck up a conversation. In fact, we had a good twenty-five minutes of (literary and political) conversation, of which I remember almost nothing save the taste of the saliva I fought to keep from running down my chin as we spoke. Mostly, I think I just watched his mouth move, and licked my chops. When I got in my car, afterwards, I was giggling like a teenager and thinking stupid shit like, "I'll never wash this place where he palpated my stomach again!!"

I think it's a good thing I'm a healthy Queenie who doesn't often require medical attention. I'm as faithful to Mister MacFarland as he could possibly wish - ain't stepped out yet, in all these long years - but I'm not made of fucking wood over here either, people. If the rule is that where there is no temptation there is no virtue, then canonize me. I've got the fucking virture of three or four saints, because, baby, I am tempted.

Upon consideration, though, I guess it could be worse. He could be my gynecologist...

Resurrection

I may be back. I don't know. I'll have to play it by ear. Are any of you freaks even still out there, like the space geeks at Areceibo, listening for signals in the static from the Beyond?

I slept uneasily last night, perhaps due to some sort of psychic disturbance, perhaps something induced by osso bucco and too many gin martinis - who can say? Bad dreams, friends, bizarre nightmares of fleeing over slippery rocks. I woke in the night drenched with sweat, and as I made my way to the nearest bottle of antacid, I remembered what I had been dreaming.

I had been floating down a peaceful, lazy river, under a canopy of greenest green. The air was as warm and soft as a cotton blanket on my bare arms, but the sensation was nothing but deep cold where my fingers and toes trailed in the water. I rounded a bend in the stream's course, and I noticed a wild-haired woman standing on the mossy bank opposite me, her eyes burning into mine as I drifted by. She was waving her arms frantically as she mouthed a silent NO, sloshing the liquid out of the tiny cup she held in her hand. I remember thinking, idly, I wonder if she's talking to me?, when it suddenly got scary.

Out of nowhere came a man, menacing like the deadliest of beasts, a predator to my kind, sprinting across the shoals towards me and my tiny craft. He was armed with a big stick, and he was screaming "rectum!" at the top of his lungs as he advanced on me. Just before I woke he was coming right at me, swinging that stick harder and harder and harder...and laughing...

I was terrified. And I had to pee.