So. We have bumped up the move another week.

We have a really good reason this time.

I swear.

We’re not just procrastinating.

Honest.

I think.

We made the decision to not hire movers because estimates around here started at around three hundred and fifty dollars, which was a little too rich for our blood.

This left us with my mother, who weighs forty-six pounds and is functionally useless, my stepdad, who is highly arthritic and is functionally useless; and myself, who has four slipped discs and frequent seizures; and, well, you get the drift.

We were all ready to rock and roll this weekend and are largely packed, but who would we get to help us? The answer was simple. My redneck relatives are both burly and as strong as oxen, so we made the call last night.

Unfortunately, they are going camping this weekend (of course), so it was a no-go. Next weekend, however, they said they’d be thrilled to help.

So, next weekend it is. If we don’t leave this house by next weekend I am going to just leave all my shit here and hitchhike to the new house.

I’m so ready, damn it.

In other news, I have been relentlessly flirting via e-mail with Mr. Tall, and I think I really like this guy. He’s pretty quick. I’m not about to jump headfirst into anything, but I’m fairly optimistic. He seems like a happy guy, which pleases me to no end.

I could use a little happy.

In still other news, I’ve grown to realize that I have too much stuff. Not even useful stuff, just STUFF. Candles. Picture frames. Baskets. Doodads. Whatsits.

Rather than dragging all this stuff to the new house and going through it then, which has been my rather stupid plan, I think I’m going to start sifting through it all today and getting rid of some of it.

Who needs fifty candles? Not me. I’m not running a bordello. And while I would dearly love to have the space to hang a hundred framed photos, it just ain’t gonna happen.

I have to condense.

That’s what’s happening.

The J-Man woke up early yesterday, scaring the shit out of my mother, who really doesn’t expect anyone to be walking by at six-thirty AM.

He turned, and in his best Batman voice, said, “I am your worst nightmare.”

I don’t know whether I’m raising him wrong, or really, really right.

Happy Tuesday.

I decided on “Mr. Tall” rather than “Butthole Surfers Guy” because, well, it just sounds a hell of a lot nicer.

I thought he was picking me up at eight-thirty, so when he called at eight to tell me he was running fifteen minutes late, I figured he’d be arriving at eight forty-five.

Not so! I guess he had said EIGHT, and I was still sitting around watching Pulp Fiction with no lipstick on and my teeth un-brushed when he arrived at eight fifteen.

Whoops.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was very tall. 6′4. I didn’t wear heels because I didn’t want to stand all night in them and because I wasn’t sure whether he’d be around my height and I’d be towering, but there was definitely no need to worry about that. Points for tall-ness.

He was handsome, too, which brought on the nerves, but I managed to hold polite conversation on the way to the first place we went, which was a little bar and grill type of joint.

I shouldn’t have worried. He was cool and laid back and the conversation flowed pretty well. He kept me laughing a lot of the time, which was nice, and I found that he, too, liked to snark about fellow bar patrons. That was a Good Thing.

He was married for ten years and has been divorced for two, has two kids (four and six), and seems relatively non-bitter about the whole thing, which is GOOD.

The next place we went was a local dive near me that promised a Rolling Stones cover band called… The Rolling Jones.

I know.

Unfortunately, The Rolling Jones did not show for whatever reason, so we stayed briefly to listen to another band featuring a tiny little white girl singing Sublime and bob Marley covers (weird), and then headed out in search of less ghetto-fied pastures.

We wound up at a BW3, which was… BW3. What can you really say? More talking, more snarking, more drinking. I was starting to really like this dude. He was funny and smart and very quick.

We left BW3 at around 12:30, and I assumed that the date was over, and then he began driving in the opposite direction from my house.

“Um… where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know, do you want to go somewhere else?”

“Do you? Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go somewhere else.”

Well alrighty, I thought. I suggested a local bar that a buddy of mine owned that was relatively non-ghetto, so we went there. They had a very decent jukebox and Maury Povich was on the TV helping a series of teenagers find their babydaddies, so it seemed promising.

We had a great time making fun of Maury and his guests as well as the bar patrons, one of whom resembled a cranky Harrison Ford, and wound up closing the place down.

It was a seven-hour date.

I am always worried that I’m going to bomb first dates, or that I’m not going to look as attractive in real life as I do in pictures and am therefore going to be knocked out of consideration, but I think that this went really well. It must have, for him to want to keep the date going for so long.

He walked me to my door and hugged me goodnight. I wondered why he didn’t go for the kiss, which could have meant that he wasn’t interested in me “that way”, but it could also have meant that he was just being respectful or that he didn’t know whether he should kiss me or not, too. I’m not sure.

He did say that we should definitely go out again. So hopefully that wasn’t just lip service.

All in all, I had a great time.

In other news, yesterday I moved some furniture with my dad, who regaled me with tales of being the karaoke king of the Midwest.

My dad has developed such a following that people are now requesting his presence at certain bars on certain nights, and requesting that he learn certain songs so that he can perform them for certain people.

He does mainly rap songs, but sometimes he busts out a little Maroon 5 or Elton John for good measure.

It’s really something to see (and hear). I never would have imagined that my 64-year-old father would become semi-famous for his stellar rendition of TI’s Dead and Gone (YouTube it, if you’re not familiar), but he has, and he’s quite pleased with himself.

I guess everyone likes a little taste of the unexpected.

Happy Sunday.

Edited to ask: How long do you wait for someone to call? Three day rule? Or longer? Just wondering. And wondering.

Edited to say: Never mind. He called. Got another date this weekend.

I have a date tomorrow night with the Butthole Surfers guy.

In case you missed that entry, the nickname neither indicates that he is a butthole aficionado nor a member of the band The Butthole Surfers, merely a fan of the band.

He called last night, and seemed nice and somewhat funny and non-serial-killer-ish, so away we go.

The advent of this date sends me into Full-On Dating Mode, which is categorized in the DSM-IV as Severe Anxiety Disorder.

First and foremost, I have nothing to wear. Ignore the closet full of clothing behind me, damn it; for truly, it is all utterly useless.

What the hell is one supposed to wear on a first date? Clothing is supposed to send a message, and this particular outfit is supposed to say so very many things: I’m available, but not TOO available; I’m sexy, but not TOO sexy; I’m nice, but not TOO nice; I’m fun, I’m hip, I don’t have a ginormous ass and thighs that could break bricks…

It’s all so difficult and confusing.

My girlfriend suggested the last time I went on a first date that I wear some jeans, killer heels, and a cute top. I can get down with that, but WHICH JEANS? WHICH TOP? And my God, MY GOD, WHICH HEELS? You know I have at least fifty pairs to choose from!

I can’t handle these difficult decisions. Especially with only one day’s notice.

Then there is the matter of where we shall go. Butthole Surfers Dude lives in Buttfuck, Indiana, south of where I am moving. I live on the Sout’ Side. We are going for drinks, and I am supposed to pick the establishment. Every joint in my neighborhood that serves liquor is the sort of place that has cigarette butts on the floor, if you know what I’m saying.

I’m not saying that the bars are skanky, but most of the women have at least eight names tattooed on their asses, and the men have such whiskey-soaked red-rimmed eyes that you’d swear the devil was looking you in the face. They’re the sort of bars where you have to hold your handbag tightly to your chest as you politely turn down shot after shot after shot, blowing Marlboro fumes in the opposite direction and praying to God you don’t get raped in the parking lot on the way out.

That’s my ‘hood, and I’d rather he not see much of it, you know? So I’m thinking I’m going to have to make him drive even MORE, possibly even back south, or maybe downtown, so we can go somewhere decent. Agh.

So there’s that. And then there’s the fact that I tend to do one of two things when nervous: I either clam up or don’t stop talking at all.

There is nothing worse than a quiet bitch, except maybe a bitch who is all hi hey what’s up so how are you I’m good and how was your drive and wow I bet it took forever and how do you like living way out there I bet it’s nice and hey this beer is really good and wow these waitresses are so nice and this place is good don’t you think and I think so and I’ve never been here but I like it and I would definitely come here again and you seem quiet and am I talking too much and maybe I am and ha ha I’m a little nervous and oh wow I just can’t stop and ha ha somebody needs to just shut me up for real though.

GAH.

If you know me, you know how I do. It’s feast or famine.

Hopefully I will be able to control myself and speak at a reasonable pace, in a reasonable manner, and not be a douchebag.

Then there is the end of the date. Do I kiss? Do I not kiss? Does kissing imply that I am easy? Does not kissing imply that I’m a cold bitch?

I don’t KNOW these things! Shouldn’t I KNOW these things by now?

It’s all such a pain in the ass. I want some rules, damn it. I want a dating doctor to come over here, tell me what to wear, where to go, and how to act. That’s all I want.

Sigh.

I’m sure it’ll be OK.

I just need the Xanax.

Please send whatever you’ve got. Overnight shipping, please.

Happy Thursday.

This move is never going to happen. I am going to be here until the apocalypse.

We were supposed to move this weekend, and it looked like that might actually come to pass, and then my mother waffled.

She always waffles.

To be fair, we’re not ready. There are still cupboards and cabinets full of shit that we haven’t yet packed, and did I mention that we have yet to pack any clothes? Oh, yeah. That.

So next weekend is our move date.

Right.

I’ll still be saying this in August, when the J-Man is supposed to be starting school, I’m sure.

This is truly the slowest move in the history of mankind, except for perhaps the case of Og the caveman, who took two years to roll a heavy stone sofa from one hovel to another in a settlement ten miles away.

In other news, the J-Man is full of hormones. I have never seen such a moody child in my life. I know that he is going through The Puberty, as is evident by the four containers of AXE deodorant in my bathroom; but Jesus, when is this going to stop??

One minute he is the perfect child, loving and sweet, hugging me goodnight, carefully placing pillows beneath my head when I have seizures, using perfect manners, and playing nicely with friends.

In a flash, without warning, he flips; and suddenly he is raging and sobbing because he doesn’t want to take turns or because I disciplined him or because somebody looked at him funny or because there was a spider in his room.

He’s never been like this, so I can only chalk it up to hormones. It’s making all of us insane.

Yesterday he threw a full-blown crying FIT that lasted a full hour because the action figure he ordered didn’t arrive in the mail.

I don’t know whether to hug him or give him a good, hard slap.*

*I don’t slap my kid. This is purely wishful thinking.

He usually gets over these pissy snits and apologizes, but STILL.

I don’t know how long this puberty shit is going to last, but it had better start to wane pretty damned soon, because my patience is wearing thin.

At least now he’s in a fight with the kid from down the street and I don’t have to see THAT ugly mug for a while.

Sigh.

Hormones. They’re the devil in all of us.

Happy Wednesday.

The good news, the VERY good news, is that my stepdad relented, and I get to keep Skittles!

Apparently my mother has been guilting him to death on the telephone every evening, and it’s worked. Not only is he not getting rid of Skittles, he’s not getting rid of his own cat.

She’s been telling him exactly what my dear friend Fredlet has been telling me for days (with much chagrin): “Pets are not disposable.” Apparently it worked. Go, mom. (And go, Fred.)

I couldn’t be more pleased. And I swear, Skittles seems more relaxed.

I’m not imagining this. I’m not.

Suck it, cynics.

As for the bad news, I unfortunately will not be joining my tribe of crazy internet friends in Vegas this summer.

There have just been way too many seizures lately, and I think it would be both foolish and risky to travel alone, as well as a waste of money to take an expensive vacation I’m not going to be able to fully enjoy.

I wouldn’t be able to take the heat (I’m barely able to take it out here), the late nights, or the carousing, and that would be exactly why I’d be going; so, no. Can’t do it.

I feel horrible, as I’m leaving a roommate in the lurch and a load of friends behind, but I have to make the right decision.

It pains me. I feel strangled by my own limitations, to be sure.

In still other news, I sold three things on Craigslist yesterday: a heavy bag to a muscle man for his muscle girlfriend, a fish tank to a collector, and a red velvet loveseat to a little indie girl who loved it upon first sight. I’m having so much fun with this that I might even start selling shit I don’t want to get rid of.

I did list my piano yesterday. Sigh. There’s just no room for it in the new house, and it is thirty years old. This will give me an excuse to buy that awesome baby grand, should I ever get my own place.

Right.

Happy Friday.

Craigslist is seriously working for me these days. I have five people showing up to the house today, four of which will probably arrive at the same time, causing a madcap round-the-house dash reminiscent of something seen on I Love Lucy.

I don’t care how it gets done, just as long as the shit gets GONE.

In other news, the dating site is still a little corner of the ‘net that continues to mystify and horrify amaze me on a daily basis.

For your perusal I offer up a few of the latest missives sent to me by a few of the dating site’s finest. These are unadulterated e-mails, mind you.

I think UR cute, we shold [sic] go out. (I love a man that can spell. And succinct, to boot!)

I wrote to you b/c you are tall. I am also very tall. I don’t know if we have anything in common but I thought it was worth a shot. (I have to confess that this made me spew Diet Coke all over my laptop, causing me much consternation. Bad, bad Dating Site Guy.)

I see in your profile that you like the Butthole Surfers. I love the Surfers!!

This last one requires a little more explanation.

In my profile, I have the following paragraph:

I love music. Some of my favorites are: Blues. Punk rock. The Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, Justin Timberlake(what?), Ani Difranco, Tina Turner, The Pixies, A Tribe Called Quest, Depeche Mode, Jeff Buckley, David Bowie, Tegan and Sara, Duran Duran, The Cure, Pulp, Local H, Fall Out Boy (yeah, I said it), Ministry, U2, Weezer, Modest Mouse, Mojo Nixon, Iggy Pop, Rufus Wainwright, The White Stripes, Hello Saferide, Stars, Coldplay, Nick Cave, Rilo Kiley, Robert Johnson, De La Soul, Marvin Gaye, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse, Barenaked Ladies, The Presidents of the United States of America, The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, The Mars Volta, The Violent Femmes, Sleater Kinney, The White Stripes, Nine Inch Nails, Placebo, PRINCE, VNV Nation, Ice Cube, Santana, funky bhangra music, White Zombie, KMFDM, Hot Hot Heat, The Psychedelic Furs, Skinny Puppy, The Ramones, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Bishop Allen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, oh all those eighties bands, you know the deal, the Butthole Surfers, who can forget them, The Dead Kennedys, The Black Eyed Peas, some new rappers in small doses, some old rappers in large doses, The Temptations, Luther Mothereffing Vandross, Lyle Lovett, Bauhaus, the Misfits, Stiff Little Fingers, Iron and Wine, Black Flag, Sufjan Stevens, Death Cab For Cutie, Digital Underground, Stevie Wonder, and that one song by the Backstreet Boys where they’re all “I Waaant It Thaaat Way, ” because god DAMN, that’s a good freaking song. And Tom Waits again. I think that’s enough for now.

Now, I really just threw the Butthole Surfers in there for the name, because I thought it sounded funny. I am slightly familiar with the band, but I don’t know very many of their songs and I probably couldn’t name one of their albums.

Butthole Surfers guy, however, is a BIG fan. I’d say he’s e-mailed me about ten times and has mentioned ‘the Surfers’ in every single e-mail.

I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not really a rabid fan.

He seems like a nice enough guy. History major, sheet metal worker (that’s this region for you), fairly well-spoken.

I just feel like a bit of a liar every time he mentions his favorite band.

Hee.

I did have one guy request a phone call, and I’ll be honest about the fact that I didn’t call him for a really, really stupid reason.

He has a large German Shepherd.

Now, you know my deal with the canine population. They’re fine as long as they’re not breathing anywhere within ten square yards of me.

However, this particular dude must have mentioned his dog in his profile no less than ten times, so I get that the dog is very, very important to him. And I also get that I would have been terrified to ever have entered his abode.

I know I’m being stupid. And I know a lot of people have felt the same way about my cats. I grok this, I do. BUT STILL. No slobbering, ginormous crotch-sniffer is EVER going to be a part of my life, so why even start something I know I’m never going to finish? That’s just me. Your mileage may vary.

It seems to be a tall order to find someone smart, well-read, well-spoken, at least moderately attractive, funny, light-hearted, and above all, nice. And dog-free. Am I being too picky? Perhaps, but I feel like I have a lot to be picky for. I have a son to think about. I’m a good person who doesn’t screw around or treat a man badly. I feel that I give relationships or dates the old college try and expect nothing less in return.

It’s discouraging to read some of these e-mails, but I keep plugging away, wondering whether that Mr. Right will ever pop up on the screen.

Maybe I should just get out more.

Happy Thursday.

I don’t know whether it’s the heat, or all the work I’m doing lately, or whether the price of coffee has dropped in Guatemala, but I have been having an exorbitant amount of seizures.

I shouldn’t be. I’m on enough medication to make the average old lady startle. Still, lately more often than not I find myself coming to, looking up at the ceiling/coffee table/kitchen cabinets/whatever else I have just conked my head on and saying, “Oh, shit”.

Last night we were supposed to go see Eclipse as a family (don’t laugh – my son is a big fan of those stupid sparkling bloodsuckers). I was actually sort of excited, because hey, I’m a perv; and I like looking at Taylor Lautner’s gleaming muscles as much as the next girl. Plus, any excuse to get out of the house suits me just fine.

About fifteen minutes before we were supposed to leave, I apparently dove backwards into the wall, taking a kitchen stool down with me in the process, and proceeded to bang my head furiously until the J-Man shoved a pillow underneath me.

This happens every fucking day.

I missed the movie, and wound up puking on the floor for a good half an hour, head throbbing.

Today I feel as if my neck has been maladjusted by a professional wrestler, and my head is still throbbing.

I don’t know why this is happening. I don’t know why the pills aren’t helping. I don’t know why my neurologist is a useless motherfucker. I just don’t know.

I woke up this morning feeling crabby and sort of despondent, but I’m trying to shake it off. Nobody likes a resentful sick bitch.

I’m supposed to be a STOIC sick bitch.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it to Vegas in August. If I keep going like this, it would frankly be stupid to go. I’m not going to drop a bunch of dough on a vacation that I can’t fully enjoy.

I don’t know. I’ll see the neurologist soon, so hopefully we can play with the meds again and work something out.

Better living through chemical warfare, and my brain is the target. I love it.

In other news, today we take the cat to the vet and have her de-wormed. My favorite part about taking the cat to the vet is listening to the astonishing sounds she makes in the car on the way over. It sounds like a cross between a baby howling and a wildebeest being skinned alive.

And how is YOUR day going?

Happy Wednesday.

So I’m really trying to get over this, and not go into this move with a shitload of resentment.

Last night, Skittles peed on Jadon’s bed, which is COMPLETELY uncharacteristic for her or any of my cats. They’re all completely trained, and an incident of this sort has only happened once before, when the cats contracted worms.

So, I checked the cat’s butt, and sure enough, I could actually see the little buggers.

(I know that this is about as gross as it gets, but take a moment to think about whose blog you’re reading.)

I am calling the vet this morning to deal with that, and hopefully they will be all cleared up soon with the administration of pills. If you have a cat, you know how fun it is to give pills. I would rather run with the bulls in Pamplona.

Yesterday a friend of mine, Ang, came with her children to look at Skittles. Skittles was her good and charming self, and she purred and licked hands and feet and was delightful, and they loved her and of course want her.

If I have to give her away, Ang would be my first choice. She has four kids that would love the hell out of her and give her lots of attention, and I know she’ll take good care of her.

Still, I am going to have a long talk with my stepdad when he comes over on Saturday, face-to-face, so he can see that I’m very serious about this whole thing and how much the cat means to me.

I will go from there.

Plus, obviously the cats will all have to be treated for worms, since when one has them, they more than likely all have them.

Sigh.

In other news, I am going to be doing a little more Craigslisting and a lot more packing today. The house is starting to look pretty empty, and it’s very strange. My mom has been here on and off since 1990, and I’ve been renting here since the J-Man was born and once before that, and this place really does hold a lot of memories for me.

The wine-colored dining room I currently sit in used to be blue and yellow and hand-painted with stars (I was wobbling on a ladder while largely pregnant), filled with a crib and cheery pointed blue and yellow curtains and a quilt that my mother made herself.

The doorway I’m looking at used to hold one of those bouncy things that the J-Man used to bounce in while just laughing his fool head off.

I’ve been through roommates, lovers, jobs, medical issues galore… so many things while in this house.

I will be a little sad to leave it, I think. Even though the new house is spacious and in a much better neighborhood, I will miss this odd little house with its built-in china cabinets and strange little laundry chutes and cubby holes and French doors.

I will miss the TranceCave, painted red and decked out like a crazy-ass bordello, with its gargoyles on the bookcases and photos covering the walls.

I might even miss that Godforsaken smelly miscreant of a kid from down the street. Who knows.

It’s going to be odd to leave.

I worry about the J-Man in all this, whether he will have a tough time making friends, whether he will fit in at his new school, whether he will feel out of place, whether the kids will be “rough” now that he won’t be in a Christian school system, and all that jazz.

I’m sure he’ll adapt, because kids can be so malleable, but still I worry. It’s my job, you know.

I worry about my strict Irish Catholic stepdad and whether he’s going to be horrified by our free-wheeling ways.

I worry a lot. It’s in my nature.

Basically I’m trying to go with the flow and let this move just happen, and let the chips fall where they may, and ease the family gently into this transition.

I hope to God it works.

That’s all the news that’s fit to spit.

Happy Tuesday.

So. You may or may not know that we have three cats, and my stepfather has two.

Last night I was informed by my mother that my stepdad had laid down an ultimatum. He is getting rid of one of his cats, and we are expected to get rid of a cat, namely, Skittles.

He doesn’t like Skittles, because he has seen her attack the other cats on many occasions and feels that she would not be a welcome addition to his home. Never mind the fact that she is JUST FUCKING PLAYING.

Ahem.

Anyway.

I received this news the way one would expect. I promptly burst into tears.

I didn’t call my stepfather and whine or beg or cajole, because I know that at this point, it wouldn’t do any good. We are moving in two weeks. He’s made up his mind, and it is his house.

I have to abide by his motherfucking, shitty-assed, ridiculous, cock-sucking rules.

I spent the evening in tears, and when I say “in tears” I mean “an utterly incomprehensible, sobbing mess”, and Skittles followed me to the basement, where she licked my feet and periodically brought me toys to throw.

This just made me cry even more.

I agonized about this all night. Shelters were not an option, obviously. I didn’t want to post an ad on Craigslist for strangers, because I wasn’t about to trust some yahoo with my pet. God knows what people do to animals, especially when they are not teeny and adorable. The cat weighs sixteen pounds – for all I know someone might try to eat her.

I thought briefly about posting a note on Facebook for friends to read in hopes that one of them might want to adopt her, but I was even worried about doing that.

You never know how someone is going to treat an animal. They might have a bad day and kick the cat, or they might let her outside, or they might not give her any attention, or they might GOD KNOWS WHAT.

I was tweeting about this early this morning, and a friend of mine inquired about the cat. I asked whether she would be interested, because I know she is a cat person.

She was.

She is coming by today to look at Skittles.

Obviously I have very mixed emotions about this. While I would be glad to have a trusted friend take her, especially a friend with children who will love her, I am going to be fucking horrified to see her go.

She is currently winding herself around my ankles, purring, with no clue as to what is to come.

This is the cat that sleeps on my bed every night, the cat that fetches toys so nicely with her tail pointed skyward. This is the cat who is not standoffish in the slightest, who wants attention and licks one’s hands and feet for a scratch or a rub.

I am probably a little silly for putting so much stock into the love of an animal. I’ve had other cats, some for twenty years. I can honestly tell you, though, that I’ve never had one tug at my heartstrings as much as this one. There’s just something about her that makes me so very happy.

If that makes me silly, then I don’t know what to tell you.

I am now feeling resentful and angry and completely shitty about the move. This is probably very childish, but damn, I’m pissed off.

I’m just so pissed off.

Here’s hoping you have a happier Monday than mine.

I got up during the wee small hours of the morning on Garage Sale Day, sucked down a few quick cups of coffee and a cruller; and after applying the most scant amount of vanity makeup, my mother and I immediately went outside to begin hauling boxes and bags and clothing out of the garage and into the yard to place on tables and clotheslines.

I have to add that our clothesline setup was among the most ghetto-riffic device that has ever been jerry-rigged. Initially I tried to ram a hook into the side of our old, huge tree (because I am a tree-killer, not a tree-hugger), but I soon discovered that THAT would require super-human or at least very manly strength, which I certainly do not possess. Thankfully we already had a large hook rammed into the side of our back garage by the previous owner, who did possess the sort of strength I so needed. Still, I needed another hook, and since one apparently wasn’t going to drop out of the sky, what was I to do? Simple. I simply tied the clothesline around a very tall, very thick branch, and let it sort of hang down so that it would reach the garage hook at a 45-degree angle. Not ideal for hanging clothes.

Then we got the idea of running the clothesline through a pool cleaner pole so as to stabilize it and make it run parallel to the ground. (I wish to God I had taken a photo of all this.) We couldn’t get the clothesline to run through the hollow pole without bunching up, though, so we tied a washer to it, held it upright, and sort of rammed it into the sidewalk, praying that the weight of the washer would pull the clothesline downward.

This amazingly, eventually worked.

You’re probably not interested in any of this, but I think it was funny, so Neh.

Anyway, just imagine a heavily-knotted clothesline running from the garage to a giant tree with a big pole on it, careening at an odd angle, tied all to hell with knots they certainly never taught you in the Boy Scouts.

For the record, it worked fine.

We had about four hundred hangers worth of clothing, a lot of which was hung on the large iron swing-set that my dad welded so many years ago, some of which was hung on the clothesline. We also had about six large tables full of folded clothes (WHY do people fold clothes when hosting a garage sale when the heathenous masses are just going to rip through them anyway? I don’t know.) and mountains of shoes.

Then there were the toys. Piles of stuffed toys, staring with glass eyes from wagons and boxes and bins. Princess castles and Barbie houses (from my cousin, not J.). Radio-controlled cars and a Spiderman that really punched and kicked that every single grown man who came to the sale would pick up and play with but not buy.

My mother had glass doodads and vases and trinkets and salt and pepper shakers from every state displayed on racks. I had candles, candles, candles, melting in the hot sun.

We got done setting up at about eight-thirty, and people had already begun to filter in.

You just can’t get rid of early birds. People believe that they are getting the jump on the crap and are therefore superior to the rest of the human race. You could even sense a bit of smugness on their faces. I don’t get it, and I never will.

My elderly aunt and uncle arrived, she with her Sobe water and glittering ankle bracelets, he with his oxygen tank, and prepared to take the money.

For the first two hours, we got pretty slammed. I even had a woman spend a good fifty dollars on a huge pile of the J-Man’s clothes and shoes. Things looked promising. People were looking at furniture and saying they’d be back. As an eternal optimist, this made me happy. They’d be back! They would surely buy!

I am so deluded, and they were so full of shit.

Things slowed to a screeching halt at about eleven o’clock, and we began the useless acts of re-arranging tables, telling each other that people would re-appear after the lunch hour, and eating junk food to soothe our wounded egos.

Inwardly I was seething, because no one was buying my clothes. I had about a hundred and fifty well-taken-care-of items for sale at ridiculously low prices, including several dresses I found a sin to even let go, and no bites? NO BITES?

I was filled with chagrin, but I was polite and welcoming; so welcoming, in fact, that I was relentlessly teased every time we had a customer.

I’m a friendly person. It’s the Midewesterner in me. I’m a hugger, I’m a talker, I’m'a make sure I learn your name and make you feel welcome in my home. As far as I’m concerned, this even goes for garage sale customers.

So maybe I’m a little weird to my strangely reticent family, who doesn’t believe in talking to strangers, but I don’t care. I said “hello” and “how are ya” and “can I help you find anything” to every person who came into the backyard, and they started to mock me mercilessly.

Jerks.

A slow trickle continued on throughout the blazing hot afternoon, and I had to come in and cool off. I immediately had a fucking seizure, but thankfully it was relatively minor. When I say minor, I mean that there was no head-bashing involved. Still, I was banished from the yard for a one-hour penalty, so I chilled for a while before returning.

I’m not really supposed to be in the sun given the fact that I’m on more pills than everyone booked into the Betty Ford Clinic put together, but sometimes I am stupid and go for it anyway.

By about four-thirty we started packing it up. We had a few stragglers, but no one was buying much.

We dropped prices to ridiculous lows. Do you have a penny? TAKE THE SHIT.

We packed for about two hours, and wound up with about fifteen large garbage bags of clothes and shoes for Amvets and about ten boxes of crap that we just chunked out into the alley for the garbage pickers to rifle through.

Sout’ Side garbage pickers are intense. You can put something, anything, out in the alley, and it’s gone in an hour. Anything.

Perhaps we should have done that to begin with.

Anyway, we made about three hundred bucks, which is neither awful nor great.

I’m going to post the rest of the big furniture on Craigslist and put the small stuff in the alley. Simple dimple.

And how was YOUR weekend?