The Irony of Fate

Of course, now that I have thrown off the shackles of my 14-hours-a-day job and have all the time I need to write/paint/draw, I have a broken right hand. This is my luck.

I'm not even going to go into all the worker's comp hassle I've been through. It aggravates me just to think about it. Suffice it to say, my old job sent me the packet to fill out, I did, and now they're fighting it. What the heck? I could've just used my insurance which would have prevented my current predicament, still in a cast four weeks later because my pinkie had to be re-broken to heal correctly. Argh.

I'm taking a Writing Personal Essays online course at Mediabistro, which I love so far, and one on getting published from Gotham City, which has only just begun. These have humbled me. I was putting, perhaps, too much stock in my girlfriend's glowing reviews of everything I write. I must keep in mind that not only is she not objective, English is not her first language.

Okay, I have mas homework to do before 6pm.

Ding Dong!

I'm working from home today & the doorbell rings at 3pm. Marian, the crabby Polish plumber, was here just previous so I thought it might be his return, or a package delivery (I'm expecting some fabulous garden accoutrements), so I open the door.

I immediately regret it when I see this hyper-perky Asian chick with flyers in her hand. (I mention "Asian" because it made the experience even more confusing to me.)

"Hello! I'm Hanna! Don't worry! I'm not selling anything! I guess you're the master of the house!" she sticks her hand out.

"Um, well, no...."

"Oh, then, can I speak to your mother or father?"

What? I'm 43 years old, for heaven's sake.

"My girlfriend is the master & she's at work," I am closing the door infinitesimally with every ticking second.

On Hanna's flyer it says she's offering carpet cleaning for $25. I'm confused.

"You've heard of Kirby, right? The carpet cleaners? If I can sell ten packages of carpet cleaning for only $25 apiece, I'll get credits for college!" she announces, big ol' grin on her face.

Oh my god, we just HAD one of these "credit for college" folks come to the door last weekend. Isn't there some cosmic law about only having to deal with this once every 5 years or so? Certainly not twice in one week.

"As you can see," I wave my hand to our hardwood flooring, "we don't have carpet."

"Any area rugs?"

"Nope."

"Not even a small one?" she pantomimes the dimensions of a small rug.

"Nope. Here, I'll take your flyer & speak with the 'master of the house' when she gets home," the door is SO close to being closed, I feel I'm in the home stretch now.

"On no! I have to do ten today! I can do something else! Your stairs are probably a mess, I could clean those!" News flash, sweetheart. You should never, ever tell the customer their home is a mess when you're trying to close the deal. hahaha

"I just swiffered'em."

She's stumped for a mere moment before she busts out with, "I could massage your feet! Like, seriously!"

"Uh, yeah, no, thanks! But good luck!" I close the deal with the door.

WTF? They're sending young'uns around to massage people's feet door-to-door? I'm still trying to wrap my brain around that one. I wasn't sure whether to laugh my ass off or feel really, really sorry for her. So when I told Alex we both initially laughed our asses off & then felt the sorry part.

What a world.

Prop 8

It was so upsetting to me to see a slew of "Yes on Prop 8" banners on the chainlink fence around a deserted patch of land that I walk by on the way to work everyday that I mentioned it to Aleks. It was just a kick in the gut in the morning. The freaking signs have little stick-figures of some happy, I suppose, nuclear family. Like MY being wed to my love would somehow destroy (or even affect) happy little blue stick-figure families.

We ALL have families, for lord's sake. I have a family.

I mean, what it says on the official ballot under Prop 8 is: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry

Eliminates human beings' rights. Oy. I get so pissed about this.

That night, when Aleks picked me up from my shuttle stop & went into her trunk to pull out her laptop bag I saw a crumpled wad of those "Yes on Prop 8" banners. She'd gone out early in the morning & yanked them down.

I would have severe issues with removing signs were they on private property, but these were on an abandoned site overburdened with endless Prop signs. So I thought that was very sweet of her. She then bought a bunch of "No on Prop 8" signs & we put those up instead.

I suppose it would be only fair if those, in turn, are yanked down but at least this week I was able to see those instead of the hate-mongering ones.

We don't even want to get married but I have friends that just recently have & the bottom line is I'm a freakin' citizen & I pay my taxes. Why should I have my rights eliminated?

I think of my friends, Nan & Kim, who were just married three weeks ago after being together for 27 years. They both served our country in the Navy. Yet they don't deserve this basic right? It blows my mind.

An old comic strip of mine

I just went on a cruise with my mother

I always thought she was disturbingly man-crazy. All my childhood and youth my mother was insane for men. So it was not surprising that she became fixated on Boris on our shore excursions in Saint Petersburg. This is what I expect from her. But I never equated her obsessiveness with mine before.

My sister got the name "Dominguez" tattooed across her ass when she was obsessively in love with a tiny Firefighter in Arizona. I thought she was nuts. I tattooed the name of a married stripper on my inner right calf but it was easily sliced off when my obsession ended. What is she going to do with "Dominguez" on her butt when she's 60?

It's always pissed me off that my mom was so crazy about men but now I see that it's kinda funny. It's also now upsetting that we're all the same. My sister said to my mom, "Oh my god, you're just as weird as I am when it comes to relationships!" and my mom responded, "I KNOW!"

When I first met my current gf, Aleksandra, I was not in to her. Because she was SO in to me. And I was still in love with the married Russian woman I'd recently affaired with. I knew Aleks would be very good for me, despite her ex-husband lurking in the bushes and her teen daughter who hated me. Okay, maybe Aleks was not good for me. I have no idea.

But I adore Aleksandra Petrovna now. And I adore her annoying 14 year old daughter, Dasha Sergeyovna. Because who could be more annoying, really, than my family? I've lived here for 2 years now and I am a fixture.

I just went on a two week cruise last month with my mother of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Russia, Estonia and England. I love my mother even more for her craziness.

I think I'm finally grown up enough now to understand her.