Also, the Stabber? Spent the entire morning on Friday stabbing himself in the forehead with a pencil. (A sub was there. She refused to “play the heavy,” as my hippie parents used to say, with the kids.)

“My breasts are so versatile now. I can wear them down, up, or side to side.”

— Cybill Shepherd

And in the in-box today (Does my writing suck? Apparently. Along with my secretarial skills):

Thank you for submitting to The Georgia Review. I’m sorry but your submission was not accepted for publication.

For future submissions please review our submission guidelines. You failed to enclose an SASE with your submission, nor did you even supply a return address. We will not respond via email in the future.

Best.

Scott R. LaClaire
Production Manager
The Georgia Review
The University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-9009

706.542.3481
Georgia Review

To Scott, I say:

Girl Scouting Is All About Friendship. Girl Scouting Is All About Leadership. Girl Scouting Is All About Caring. Girl Scouting Is All About Fun. Yes, the cookies are in, ta-ra-ra-boom-di-ay… Thin Mints, yes. Lemon Thingies, eh. Peanut Butter Tagalongs, hell yes. All Abouts, hand ’em over. Will now drown my literary sorrows in honey-vanilla chamomile tea and a large plate of cookies while watching last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy on tape. (Tell me again, why the hell did Meredith stick her hand inside blown-up guy? To get McDreamy’s attention? Well, that’s one I never tried before.)

Did I mention I have laryngitis? Me, with no voice. Imagine. Hockey God and children are thrilled and not even trying to hide it.

Was also recently rejected by McSweeneys, both online and published versions. Have also been rejected by numerous other literary mags in the past few years. Far too many to mention here. This is just the most recent round of me trying to get my shit published. Have also been shot down by 20, 30, 80 who can remember, really, literary agents, publishers, feature-style magazines, etc.

Have also given up on my writers’ group. Rewrite, rewrite, repeat, and still, they kept saying the novel had no “voice.” Me. With no voice. Imagine.

Love,

WM

Not us anymore! HA! I say HA to you mushrooms. Bastards. The contractors ripped off the bathroom wall, and while it was plenty wet, all the way into the office, which shares a wall with the bathroom, it is not a disaster. Knock wood. It drenched the carpet pad but somehow did not ruin the carpet? Fantastic. And there were no giant uber-mushrooms growing in the walls.

My imagination was running a little crazy-like, as Junie B. Jones would say, so it was a huge relief. I’d even had some trippin’ anxiety dreams, where everything was squooshy and soaked and Hideous Kinky. But fears were eased so there you go.

We now have the DriEaz Dehumidifier going in the bathroom (it has a tube that runs water out of it and into a drain in the sink. It makes it look like the bathroom is on life support. Which, I guess, it is). The Turbo Dryer Sahara Pro is going in the office, making the carpet lift up, settle down, lift up, settle down. Giving the office, too, the illusion of being in an oxygen tent or something, on life support. Couple more days of drying and we should be good.

Someday I will have a shower again. (The baths have been relaxing though. We do have a tub in our other bathroom. But I’m not much of a long bath type girl. I’m more a jumpy shower girl.) Then I’ll be able to wash my hair at home and not have to go to the neighborhood salon: “We use nasty chemicals here, so don’t let your preschoolers run around. Clients only, okay?” (That’s what the sign up front says.)

Do you ever wonder where my kids are when I blog? Usually here in the office, with me. But they can’t come back here cuz of the Turbo Dryer, so they’re banging on the door. “Come. Out. NOW!!! MOMMY!!!!!!” Gotta motor. One of ’em is screaming now.

Dear Wacky Mommy,

How do I get people to stop assuming that because I am a first-time mom, I am an ijit? My IQ did not go down just because I got knocked up.

Signed,

Smarter Than You Think

(more…)

Dammit I want some pasta with a mushroom sauce right now. Pasta Bangs? (It’s my favorite pasta place, over on N. Mississippi. She’s got a Jamie Oliver deal going, with street kids working for her. She’s very hep, Ms. Polly Bangs. Go give her some business, if you’re in Portland, Ore.)

Any questions for the Friday Advice column? Remodeling help, breastfeeding tips, sexpert advice, we do it all here…

Hello, hello from Wacky House. I would like to thank my sexy smart husband for redesigning my blog. So sweet, so pretty, so unlike me and my surly self. Hope you enjoy it. We’re having a sunshine day here in Portland, can you dig it?

It’s supposed to be nice all week. About time. And the mushroom-infested bathroom at Wacky House? Did I already mention this? We have curly-edged yellowish mushrooms sprouting out from between the shower stall and the wall, creeping up and out from where the wall meets the floor. Nice. Water has been leaking inside the stall, apparently. No, you probably shouldn’t eat the mushrooms, they’re “isgusting,” as one of my friend’s kids says. Good news is that homeowners’ insurance is covering some of it. Bad news is we can’t use the shower and who knows when it’ll be fixed. This month? I hope. We do have a tub in the other bathroom so that’s cool. Creepage, seepage, too much water! So the sunshine, and the contractors, are a sight for sore eyes. And our neighbors are giving us shower privileges, which we do appreciate. Thank you, Wacky Neighbors! My clean hair thanks you. I cleaned their bathroom for them, in return. Give and take/take and give is a beautiful thing. Wouldn’t it be nice if the taxpayers of Oregon agreed? They do not.

PTA? Our school auction is coming up. I’ll write a list of fundraising tips (later) for your perusal. Cuz all we do here in Oregon “Taxes? We don’t pay no stinkin’ taxes!” State is fundraise, me and the rest of the Wacky Parents. It’s a pain in the ass and takes a ton of time and really? It’s not enough, no matter how much we kick ass at it. And really? I think we should all help pay for the schools. It all adds up, everyone contributing their part. I mean, isn’t that part of the beauty of America? A free education, especially for those who can’t afford to pay for it? Give us your poor, your tired, your stressed-out bitchy PTA moms who are sick of no school supplies, no decent salaries for teachers, no art, no music, no electives in the schools, unless the PTA and the principal have gone through hassle after hassle, fundraised til their neighbors and family members go running for shelter whenever they get hit up, again, applied for grant after grant and then voila! Two sessions of art, kids! Go for it! Only, there’s not room for all of you. Yeah, only a third of you. Sorry, again! Better luck next time.

We have no sales tax here, no decent property tax base. But we’re “cool,” we’re like, all free and independent and each and every one of us came out here on the Goddamn Oregon Trail and pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and didn’t take help. And won’t give it. See what I mean? I’m surly. And bummed out.

Wacky Girl’s home ice as it looked in the early 60s

It doesn’t have to be the baby’s legal name. Maybe it can just be the baby’s nickname.

My choices for today:

Girl:
Beatrice
Margaret (Meg or Peg)
Devon
Dina
Ida-Rose
Olivia (Livvy)

Boy:
Boo Radley
Henry
Lenny Thunderchild

FYI — the Winter Hawks did lose again tonight. Eight games in a row! Woo-hoo!!! I am never happy when the Winter Hawks lose, I am just trying to get over it.

(PS — Also had Budweiser hangover all day Sunday. Also, if you have a cup of granola, with a cup of strawberries and a cup of vanilla yogurt — lowfat, right? No, whole fat, cuz I supposedly bought it for my skinny little kids — plus lowfat milk with your coffee… Nice healthy breakfast, yes? No. It added up to 991 calories. That’s, like, more than half my calories for the g.d. day, okay? Damn you, granola. Signed, No Longer a Hippie Girl, Just a Hippy Girl)

“Sure, Scientology is a rich and vengeful religious cult based on a bizarre form of psychotherapy and a belief in reincarnated space aliens. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with them.”

–Dave Touretzky PhD. Carnegie Mellon University

“Lying is done with words and also with silence.”

— Adrienne Rich, writer and teacher (1929- )