perspective

This isn’t a real post.  It’s just me stuck in a hotel room that doesn’t offer housekeeping and has bbq tongs to change the dodgy thermostat.  It’s fantastic and I couldn’t stop tweeting about it.  Then everyone else on twitter gave me perspective by tweeting about their own #WorstHotelEver and then it immediately started trending worldwide.  Which was awesome.  And then we all noticed that the sponsored tweet for the trend?  Was from Hilton.  Which was fucking hysterical and probably not exactly what they had in mind when they signed up to pay twitter for advertising.

And that’s how chaos begins.  Not with a bang, but with a beautiful PRFail.  Much as it should be.

I love you people.

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In yet another day of oddities aimed to convince me I’m stuck in a coma dream, I spent last night in LA doing a reading moderated by Soleil Moon Frye, who is responsible for my fear of refrigerators even to this day because of that episode of Punky Brewster where Cherie gets stuck in that fridge.  Even now I can’t open a refrigerator without worrying I’ll get caught inside of it somehow.  They don’t even make behavioral therapy for that.

Also, I tried to set up our chairs so that mine was way in the back and hers was way in the front so that I could use forced perspective to look less Amazonian compared to her but she totally wasn’t falling for it.

We sold out of books in the first half and I signed everything from tongues to metal chickens to xanax bottles, but the most bizarre thing I signed was this…

That totally sweet and normal looking woman?  Is Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, who flew all the way out to come to my reading and surprised me so much that I got all fangirly and started rambling about how I dressed up as a werewolf for the last movie and then I misspelled her name on her book.  True story.

Lesson here:  Be less drunk when you’re signing books.  Also, Stephenie Meyer has a complicated name and  very pretty hair.

I’m doing another reading tonight near San Francisco.  Come?  Pretty please?

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I’m still on tour and I’m in San Francisco today so come see me if you can!  (Tour details are right here.)  If not, you can just read the continuing chronicles of my best-of series.  This post was from back in 2009…

I was just telling my friend (Kregg) that they should sell clarifying toilet paper. Because (just like how once a year you’re supposed to use a clarifying shampoo to strip all the excess conditioner and shit out of your hair) there should be some kind of gritty toilet paper you use once a year to strip all your junk of all the lotions and chemicals in toilet paper and then Kregg was all “Yeah, I don’t think I’d use anything that would ‘strip my junk’ but maybe that’s something that would be appealing for you girls since you have to use toilet paper so much. I mean, I can’t even fathom how much you girls have to wipe because we men only have to wipe when we poop” and he said it in this condescending way like he was totally better than me just because he didn’t have to wipe as much and I was all “”Well, just imagine what bears must think of you” and he was all “Um…what?” and I explained that it’s just a matter of perspective because if bears could talk they’d be all “Really?  You wipe your butt every time you poop?! That’s fucked up.” And Kregg was all “Yeah…that is fucked up” but I’m not sure he was talking about the bears.

I also came up with another idea to re-purpose used breast-pumps to suck dead kittens inside out because then…TA DA!…fur-lined mittens for homeless people.  I told Kregg about it and he was all “That’s…weird” and I’m all “It’s weird that no one’s ever thought of it before.  Because no one wants dead kittens or used breast-pumps so this way we’d be keeping them both out of the landfills and helping the homeless.  I’m like the Thomas Edison of dead cats.  It’s practically carbon zero!”  Then Kregg mentioned something about PETA and firebombs and I was all ”I’d only use kittens that were already dead from non-communicable diseases, Kregg.  I wouldn’t just go around haphazardly turning live kittens inside out.  I’m not a monster, for God’s sake” and frankly I’m a little insulted I even had to clarify that.  I’m doing this to help the homeless.  Not for my own personal kitten-mitten collection.  We live in Texas, y’all.  I don’t even need mittens.

Comment of the day: I wouldn’t exactly call you the Thomas Edison because he invented lots of shit and you really only came up with one use for a dead cat. You’re more like a George Edward Alcorn of dead cats. ~ ShallowGal

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This morning I had a fight with Victor about towels. I can’t tell you the details because it wasn’t interesting enough to document at the time, but it was basically me telling Victor I needed to buy new bath towels, and Victor insisting that I NOT buy towels because I “just bought new towels“. Then I pointed out that the last towels I’d bought were hot pink beach towels, and he was all “EXACTLY” and then I hit my head against the wall for an hour.

Then Laura came to pick me up so we could go to the discount outlet together, and as Victor gave me a kiss goodbye he lovingly whispered, “You are not allowed to bring any more goddam towels in this house or I will strangle you“.   And that was exactly what I was still echoing through my head an hour later, when Laura and I stopped our shopping carts and stared up in confused, silent awe at a display of enormous metal chickens, made from rusted oil drums.

Laura:  I think you need one of those.

me:  You’re joking, but they’re kind of horrifically awesome.

Laura: I’m not joking. We need to buy you one.

me:  The 5-foot tall one was $300, marked down to $100.  That’s like, $200 worth of chicken for free.

Laura:  You’d be crazy not to buy that.  I mean, look at it. IT’S FULL OF WHIMSY.

me:  Victor’d be pissed.

Laura:  Yup.

me:  But on the plus side?  It’s not towels.

Laura:  Yup.

me:  We will name him Henry.  Or Charlie.  Or O’Shannesy.

Laura:  Or Beyoncé.

me:  Or Beyoncé. Yes.  And when our friends are sad we can leave him at their front door to cheer them up.

Laura:  Exactly. It’ll be like, “You thought *yesterday* was bad?  Well, now you have a enormous metal chicken to deal with.  Perspective.  Now you have it.”

Then we flagged down a salesman, and we were all “What can you tell us about these chickens?”, as if we were in an art gallery, and not in a store that specializes in last years’ bathmats.  He didn’t know anything about them, but he said that they’d only only sold one and it was to a really drunk lady, and then Laura and I were all “SOLD.  All this chicken belongs to us now.”

Insert-inappropriate-cock-joke-here.

So he loaded it onto a trolley, but Beyoncé was surprisingly unstable, and the giant 5 foot metal chicken crashed over onto the floor.  And Laura and I were all “CHICKEN DOWN!  CLEAN-UP IN AISLE 3″ but he didn’t laugh.  Then the manager came to see what was causing all the commotion, and that’s when he found the very-conservative salesman unhappily struggling to right an enthusiastically pointy chicken which was almost as tall as he was.  The salesman was having a hard time, and he told everyone to stand back “because this chicken will cut you“, and at first I thought he meant it as a threat, like “That chicken has a shiv”, but turns out he just meant that all the chickens’ ends were sharp and rusty.  It was awesome, and Laura and I agreed that even if we got tetanus, this chicken had already paid for himself even before we got it in her truck.

Then we got to my house and quietly snuck the chicken up to my front door, rang the doorbell, and hid around the corner.

Knock-knock, motherfucker.

Victor opened the door and looked at the chicken in stunned silence for about 3 seconds.  Then he sighed, closed the door and walked away.

Laura:  What the fuck?  That’s it?  That’s the only reaction we get?

me:  That’s it. He’s a hard man to rattle.

Victor was surprisingly pissed that I’d “wasted money” on an enormous chicken, because apparently he couldn’t appreciate the hysterical value of a 5 foot chicken ringing the doorbell.  Then I said, “Well, at least it’s not towels” and apparently that was the wrong thing to say because that’s when Victor screamed and stormed off, but I knew he was locked in his office because I could hear him punching things in there.  Then I yelled through his door, “It’s an anniversary gift for you, asshole.  Two whole weeks early.  15 YEARS IS BIG METAL CHICKENS.”

Then he yelled that he wanted it gone, but I couldn’t move it myself, so instead I said okay and went to watch tv.  Then when the UPS guy came I hid, but he was all “Dude.  Nice chicken” and Victor yelled, “IT IS NOT A NICE CHICKEN”.  Which was probably very confusing to the UPS guy, who was just trying to be polite, Victor. Victor seemed more disgruntled than usual, so I finally dragged the chicken into the backyard and wedged it into a clump of trees so that it could scare the snakes away.  Then I came in and Victor angrily pulled me into his office so that I could see that I’d stationed Beyoncé directly in front of his only window.  And I was all “Exactly. YOU’RE WELCOME.”  I told him that he could move Beyoncé if he wanted to, but he totally hasn’t.  Probably because of all of the giant rocks I piled on Beyonce’s feet to dissuade burglars.  Or possibly because Beyoncé is growing on him.  Still, I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t even be having this argument if Beyoncé was towels.  Honestly, this whole chicken is really a lesson in picking your battles more carefully.  Plus, he’s awesome and I can’t stop giggling every time I look at him.  Beyoncé, that is.

Best. 15th anniversary. ever.

UPDATED 2012: It’s been half a year and people still continue to laugh, scream indignantly and to ask questions, so here are a few follow-ups.  Victor and I are still (of course) happily married and after a few weeks he got over his giant rooster aversion.  Beyonce stares at him from outside his office window.  I eventually got new towels.  ”Knock-knock, motherfucker” is embroidered on all of them.  Victor was not impressed.  Beyonce-the-giant-metal-chicken now has her own Facebook page with over 30,000 highly imaginative fans, and you can buy your own travel-sized Beyonce right here for under $20.  You’re welcome world.  Now please stop yelling at me.

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