August 20, 2002
non sequitors
So Flamingo set off for Sweden on last Thursday, leaving us behind to wait for the occasional Internet Cafe update on her journal. Meanwhile, my sister called me from her work, asking if I wanted to go bungie jumping for my birthday.
"What?"
"I'm going anyway," she said frankly. "I just wanted to know if you wanted to come along."
"...Oh," she added after a small silence. "It's illegal."
I've never publically acknowledged it, but there's about $1000 sitting in my savings account, earmarked for my sister's bail should the need for it ever arise. Since this is all the money that currently resides in my savings account, I'm starting to think that maybe I should bulk it out a little for my own benefit.
For that matter, I should increase the allowance I've made for Sako's bail. Considering her penchant for travelling out-of-country, I should add at least another $1000 or so for bribes.
On that same Thursday, as sort of a culminative "Hah!" in the face of repeated offenses with the Pill, my period settled down and attempted to kill me.
First it was the iron claw grubbing around in the soft parts of my pelvis. Then it was the killer headache. Then it was the puking. And the nausea. And the cramps -- oy, the cramps! -- but worst of all, the gushing, the spurting, the spouting of blood that rapidly turned my fingernails white.
I stayed home from work and didn't write a journal entry. Aren't you glad?
This month, as I've probably mentioned before, marks my birthday. My 29th birthday, to be exact, or so my new driver's license from the State of California informs me. I check my driver's license on a fairly regular basis now, under the assumption that at some point not so far away, someone will ask me: 1) my age; 2) my birthday; or 3) my name.
None of these three are things that have found a comfortable home in the recesses of my memory. I use the last item on a fairly regular basis, or at least often enough that I no longer have to pause and consider when signing checks for peculiarly overinflated bills. The Guy, who has yet to descend to the indignity of calling me with endearments -- "sweetie" for example, or "honeybunch" -- serves to impress me with the importance of my first name. "Yuhri? Do we have milk?" "Yuhri? Do we have any juice?" "Yuhri? Are you ever going to eat this fruit?" Once my first name is recalled, the middle and last names cannot be far behind. As far as memory loss goes, number 3 is the one I least worry about.
Number 1 doesn't worry me too much either, mostly because there're just too many excuses for having forgotten it. Being female, I can turn the tables by reminding importunate questioners that asking a woman her age is simply not done.
Unfortunately, Number 1 leads to Number 2, and then we end up in Argument Land, an ugly place where I'm armed with a rigatoni noodle in unfair combat with a hungry hyena pack.
As a result, several months ago I instituted a new policy. It's sheer brilliance. To wit:
All holidays are on the 25th.
Halloween - October 25th.
Thanksgiving - November 25th.
Christmas - December 25th.
Valentine's Day - February 25th.
Easter - April 25th.
So on, so forth. Go ahead and repeat it with me. "It's on the 25th. It's on the 25th." When's President's Day? "It's on the 25th." When's Mother's Day? "It's on the 25th." Once you've mastered this response, the rest of your life magically falls into place.
For instance. My birthday is the day before whatever holiday is in August -- and don't lie to me, I know there's a holiday in August, because all the other months have holidays and I refuse to have been born in a month that wasn't worth celebrating, damn you. The Guy's birthday is two days before Halloween. Using this genius method of calculation, I can now say with absolute certainty that my birthday is on the 24th of August, and the Guy's birthday is on the 23rd of October.
Genius. Pure genius. Why I didn't think of this ten years ago, I cannot think.
I came home one day last week and found my stuffed animals humping.
On my bookshelf, Fred was balanced on top of my Year of the Ox beanie baby. On the CD stand, two members of my new flock were straddled on top of each other, with a hedgehog precariously balanced on top. The only one untouched was the teddy bear my father gave me for my 16th birthday, whose glassy stare tended to freak out the Guy. "When he looks at me, I feel like my dad is watching me," I told him.
"Get it away from me," he said.
So then. I eyed the stuffed animals, made no comment, and went about my business.
A few days later, smugly incapable of not bringing my attention to his rearrangement of my room, the Guy pointed out the redecorating that he had done.
"Did you see what I did to the animals?" he demanded.
"Yes," I said.
He attempted to look evil. "They're humping."
Thus, the masculine mind. And people say that wit is dead.