One-Hit Wonders: June 2009

there was a noticeable reduction of sexual search terms pulling up my blog this month, with more terms centering on home improvement projects and household issues. oddly, i find myself saddened by this as it makes me think this blog is turning more utilitarian than sexy. from this point forward i vow to write more about hairy balls, lactating breasts and the always popular milla jovovich sausage nipples.

• agggggh


• urine bag disguise


• milla the last man


• my puppy goes insane at sundown


• am i allergic to my comforter


• can fumigation resolve chinese drywall


• i want to buy a loft in downtown l.a. how is parking


• conclusion for photo essay on my life


• what is selective slut


• rolling wine bottle on stomach to flatten abs


• my sister tortures me about my big breasts


• i live in mexican neighborhood treated like shit


• is the word gradumacated spanish

The Home Improvement Chronicles: The Tree Stump Removal

stump and stumper: if there’s one thing the former owners of my house did right, it’s cutting down the two palm trees that once stood in the front yard. but of course we’re talking about the same owners who used staples to attach door trim, so their good work had to stop at the halfway done and mostly decent point.


some of my best friends are palm trees: i have nothing against palm trees, but i don’t want them on my property. they look awesome on tree—lined streets and near the beach, but on my little piece of earth, they block the view and are just too damn imposing. their stumps are no better. so i called in the reinforcements who began the stump removal with a little chainsaw action to the jugular.


stump and a half: the current state of the yard is pretty pathetic. i call it the "dirt pile." the idea behind removing the stumps was to bring Mo and i one step closer to being able to landscape the front yard, which we plan to do right after step two: winning the lottery.


do i make a sisyphus joke here? that’s too obvious, right? ok, pretend i never mentioned it.


the stump grinder: being a homeowner has exposed me to tons of gangly machinery i never understood before, and the stump grinder ranks at the top of my list of Gangly Machinery That Is Damn Sexy. after seeing it in action, i couldn’t help but rub up against Mo and whisper illogical yet dirty puns about stump grinders in his ear, to which he replied, “that’s almost as bad as your sisyphus joke.”


stump and stumper never stood a chance: that thing whittled them away in minutes, leaving a massive pile of sawdust in their place, which prompted me to rename the front yard the "dirt-dust pile."


danger! not only can the stump grinder pulverize you with its blade, the sawdust it produces can kill you by asphyxiation.


meanwhile: the other two stumps stayed safely tucked away on the deck, eager to descend into the yard and explore all the new space they could pee on.


more stumps: these were at the north side of the house, near the detached garage. nine dead cypress tree stumps that were once beautiful and thriving hedges before the former owners started depositing used motor oil in the soil.


not art: and before the owners’ jackass kids used them as a canvas for their tagging.


Mike to the rescue: you might remember Mike the Tree Guy from that time he pruned the overgrown Chinese Elm in the front yard. he’s simply the best tree guy in LA and you should call him immediately: Mike @ Eagle Tree Service: 626.353.3186.


timber: some of the cypress stumps were so dry that they could be pulled up from the root with just a few strong tugs. so with a little grunting and a long rope, Mike pulled them out one at a time while i yelled “go hercules” from the sidelines.


eight to go: after pulling them up, Mike chopped the wood into small "cedar" blocks that i put into every closet in the house. the leftovers were handed out to neighbors who also did the same. and the street smelled delicious.


stumpless: with the stumps removed, the front yard actually looked less awful, or maybe it looked a different kind of awful in the same way that chunky peanut butter and regular peanut butter are two different types of awful-looking. or maybe not. have i told you my sisyphus joke yet?

Stuff and Things

• the results are in: layoff week at work came and went and left me still employed. sadly i can’t say the same for 820 coworkers who got the boot. i feel bad for them but happy for myself. i did not want to be in the jobless boat. not in this economy and especially not after seeing my parents and countless friends suddenly become jobless, panicked and struggling. i know strife builds character and all, but i’m ok with being vapid if it means i get to eat.


• speaking of eating: Mo and i have been superchef bandits lately, making feasts for ourselves and our friends that have included such gastronomical masterpieces as Mo’s magic gumbo, my world-famous gazpacho, homemade rosemary bread, ravioli from scratch, endless grilled meats and, of course, many mixed drinks. our goal is to make restaurant-quality food that dissuades us from spending money on eating at restaurants. so far it’s been working. we are fat and happy.


• Lake Wobegone: Mo and i recently attended a taping of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion at the Greek Theater in Los Feliz. the show was quite fantastic and featured great guest appearances by the likes of sheryl crow, martin sheen and the super butch kd lang, who looks and sounds more and more like roy orbison every time i see her. we must have been the youngest people in the crowd, save for the two teenagers who sat behind us, likely dragged to the show by their parents who, along with us, had to endure constant mutterings of “this isn’t even funny!” that’s when i realized how expansive the generational gap really was — to these kids i was part of the unfunny “them” that included their parents. i was part of the geriatric crowd that found MTV too racy. i shuddered at the thought, but only for a moment, before wrapping my shawl tighter around me and resuming my toe-tapping.


• and the livin’s easy: i have been finding myself uncharacteristically excited for summer. the hot weather i still dread — along with the ants that are already marching through the kitchen — but i’m oddly achy for the socializing that comes with the season, and i’m really hoping that fireball in the sky helps energize me into finally cleaning out the garage. i’m also excited by the fireworks i see popping nightly now in my neighborhood, which will culminate in the killer fourth of july show that is just weeks away. then there are the perfect, warm nights that allow me to eat dinner on the deck again, and even the 100-degree days when i can wash the dogs with the garden hose before turning it on myself.

Tug of War

On Like Donkey Kong

nothing makes me happier than a little June in my life. it also makes me busy and broke, but happiness has its price. the reason June is the best month of the year is because i was born in June, on June 26 to be exact, so you have some time left to get me a birthday gift. please make it BIG. ribbons are also welcome. and if you’re my mom, i would love a spa day with an hour-long massage by a cabana boy who will pepper me with compliments about my youthful appearance.

i’ll be a whooping 33 years old this year, which brings me one year closer to the time when i should be lying about my age. i’m guessing that happens around 39 or 40. but for now i’m ok being 33 and being honest about it. i’m ok with the fine lines i see developing around my eyes, the laugh lines deepening with each year of good times spent with family and friends.

the thing i can do without are the relentless gray hairs that have stepped up their assault in recent years. all the women in my family have this problem of premature graying, so i’ve been plucking these wiry, witch-like gray hairs from my scalp since i was 19. when i complain to my mom about this, she says, “just wait till you have to pluck them from your pubes.” then i stop complaining.

June is also the month of my sister’s birth, as well as the births of a few close friends, three of whom were born on June 5 (happy birthday Ann, Dave and Sharon!), plus father’s day and my anniversary with Mo (4 years!). Juice’s birthday is also somewhere in June — somewhere mysterious and forever unknown as LA pound puppies don’t come with birth certificates, but she’s a June baby all the same. she’ll be 7.

it alarms me that this year is already half over and (of course) i haven’t put a dent in all the things i had planned to beat into completion with a baseball bat when the year began. and of course i say this every year, in June and again in December when i run through the list of things i’ve yet to complete, a list immortalized in an entry i wrote three years ago when i turned 30, replicated below with a progress report in italics:

• have a kid! maybe even two (three tops). maybe this won’t play out completely perfectly, maybe you’ll need to visit the sperm bank when you hit your “scary age” but have a kid at some point, even if it’s just one, because from the outside, parenthood looks interesting, exhausting, otherworldly and definitely worth knowing.
  thankfully i’ve found a wonderful candidate for this, so no sperm bank visit will be necessary! we still need a couple more years to make this happen and we plan to practice plenty until it does.


• don’t get married just to have a kid or just to be married. honor the promise you made to yourself regarding marriage — that you’ll do it only if it feels absolutely right in your bones, your blood and your brain. and even then reconsider.
  again, i have my candidate and it’ll happen with a bit more time. quit rushing me!


• write a friggin book! or two or ten. find the time and discipline and just write already. potential without action is worthless. publish or perish, bitch.
  doesn’t the blog count? i need a book deal to write a book. any publishers out there?


• quit being negative. we’ve gone over this before.
  shut up and quit being so critical.


• recognize that everything that’s happened up to this moment, whether good or bad, is not as important as what happens after this moment. remind yourself every day that the past does not have to impact the future.
  i think i got this one down. denial works wonders.


• get better at buying your own bullshit if you expect other people to.
  can i retract this? it doesn’t work for me anymore, because the older i get, the more i get to know the truth about myself, and the more i get comfortable with that truth, the less i feel like masking it with bullshit. updated goal: get better at being true to yourself if you expect others to view you accurately. on second thought, forget the others and just be true to yourself. the rest will come.


• buy some property. G-d ain’t making any more real estate. and then sell the property. paper equity is not as good as money in the bank.
  finally! one i actually accomplished!! CHECK!!!


• dogs. have more.
  yay, another! Pinko makes two dogs in the house!! CHECK!!!


• all that adult shit that your pops has been telling you about for years — saving for retirement, insuring everything, maintaining good credit — subscribe to it. also, eradicate all student debt by 40.
  working on this one, though house = debt. but my bills are paid on time and i always live within my means.


• prepare for deaths in the family. you aren’t the only one who’s aging.
  gulp. everyone’s still healthy and i don’t even want to think about it so quit playing debbie downer. this is a fun post.


• don’t bother with people you don’t care for, tasks you don’t need to do and situations you’d rather not be in. you have the freedom to politely excuse yourself from all of them. up until you have that kid, your greatest obligation is to yourself.
  yes, be more selfish! good advice.


• now go get ’em, tiger.
  okay.