Happy Halloween

It's monsoon weather out there, but my spawn is die-hard and he and his cohorts in creepiness are determined to score as much candy as possible tonight, so I decked them out in face paint, fangs and rubber boots and sent them on their merry way. Hopefully I'll have VERY spooky pics to post later. I know there's nothing more mundane than a mother going on about how ADORABLE her child is in his Halloween get-up so I'll spare you until I have photographic evidence to prove it.

You know what I love about Halloween, though? I love when you open the door to find freaky grown-ups in costumes pushing their terrified children to the door. Nothing says Halloween better than a sobbing two-year old in a pink bunny suit.

Don't give up on me!

I know--I suck. I just haven't had time to update in a while--life is a little insane around here. I plan on doing something dramatic or humiliating any day now, I promise, and I'll be sure to let you all know the gory details as soon as possible!

Oh, any Mike Doughty fans? I finally bought Haughty Melodic and I love it--it just puts me in the best mood--had to dig around for it and finally found it in the last store I looked at under punk, which I think is kind of weird. I've been playing Ted Leo's Tyranny of Distance and Shaking the Sheets to death and made the mistake of buying one of his self-titled album (bloody expensive too) but it's way too early experimental and I'm not big on shitty sound and reverb for effect, so I haven't listened to the whole thing yet.

The Fabulously False Confessions of Katie Pom-Pom-Hands

So, to begin with, let me explain the Katie Pom-Pom-Hands thing. I was recently in a heated debate in an online forum I like to think of as my brain's second home, and feeling as if I was expected to be a bigger cheerleader for something than I am I declared, "I'm sorry I wasn't born with pom poms in my hands!"

Later a funny friend (who I will refer to as Insane Creative Muse) wrote to me, "You were SO born with pom-poms in your hands!" And suddenly I imagined myself as a kind of female counterpart to Edward Scissorhands; a forlorn pasty brunette with bits of fuzz stuck to her through the magic of static cling, staring sadly at her great big giant red wooly pom-pom hands.

And thus, Katie Pom-Pom-Hands was born. Clearly I have too much time on my big giant red wooly pom-pom hands.

So, just for fun, I am going to share with you all the online conversation I had in which I finally came out to my friends as pom-pom handed.

***Katie Pom-Pom-Hands Comes Out***

Poster friend #1: How do you type with pom-pom hands?

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: I use my toes. Please, don't mock me. Last time I cried, I wiped my tears with my big giant red pom-pom hands, but they didn't dry properly and now they smell moldy.

Poster friend #2: And you wonder why you're stalked by mimes...

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: It is a mystery.

Poster friend #3: Mimes love pom poms!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: They ARE very useful if you're expressive. And mimes do like expression. Maybe I need to rethink my mime aversion. Maybe the love of my life, the one man who can accept me and my big giant red pom-pom hands, is out there, hiding behind a sad white clown face, wishing he could say the words to let me know how he feels. Maybe he feels too "boxed in" or "trapped" somehow by his emotions. Oh great. Now I'm crying all over my big red pom-pom hands again. Can someone please spray some Febreze on me?

Poster friend #3: oh, god, Katie, I am losing it big time over here. I can't stop laughing, even though it's so Very, Very Sad.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: I am glad my tragic obstacle in life amuses you so, Poster friend #3. I would punch you in the nose, but it would probably be too soft to hurt.

Poster friend #3: ooph! Aw, that was sweet, Katie. More, more, more!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: You are truly sick, my friend. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and visit my friend John CornCob Feet now. He understands my pain.

Poster friend #4: Careful KatiePPH, if those pompom hands are made from tissue or crepe paper, you have to worry about the colors bleeding if you cry all over em.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: No, they're wool, Poster friend #4. Something terrible has happened. I went over to John's and he'd been attacked by crows last night. His poor feet.

Poster friend #5: OMG, I. am. dying. here!!!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: You're dying?!!! Think of John and his poor nibbled corncob feet! I really can't get over the selfishness of you people!

Poster friend #3: I hope that wool is well processed. It could shrink and felt and you could just have itchy little tufts. Be careful, Katie PomPomHands! Be very careful!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: Finally, a little concern. It takes a village, people. Poor John Corncob Feet. He could barely hobble to the door when I went over there, and I can't turn the knob with my pom-pom hands.

Poster friend #5: I can see where that would be hard to do, Katie.

Poster friend #4: I'm glad that your hands are more substantial than tissue or crepe paper. I had visions of you with two sodden rolls of colored toilet paper on your arm stumps if you ever went swimming. On the other hand, you can wash and dry your dishes without a dishcloth or towel.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: You are all evil. I have to leave for a while. Auntie Jemima-Jello-Legs is here.

(Later that evening...)

Katie Pom-Pom Hands: I'm back. Auntie Jemima-Jello-Legs is such a hooooer. She drank a bunch of vodka earlier today and when I answered the door a bunch of frat-boys were on their knees, licking her feet. She's what we like to call "loose."

So I guess I never really told anyone except Insane Creative Muse until now about my big giant red pom-pom hands. I guess I just wanted you all to accept me, and think I was "normal." But what is normal, anyways? How do we define that?

This is something I have lived with all my life. Kids at school growing up were merciless. One girl used to shake my hands, but she'd hide gum in her palm. In high school one boy I liked pretended to kiss my hand and then he lit it on fire. It smelled horrible for days and then all the kids chanted, "watch out for Katie Burning Smelly Pom-Pom Hands!" I was ostracized. Even my piano teacher told me I was useless.

I was terrified that my son would be born the same way, because you know, I ate a lot of lamb when I was pregnant. God help me, I know I shouldn't have, but it was a craving!

Fortunately he turned out fine. He has been wonderful. He helps me wash my hands (cold-water hand wash with gentle detergent only) and then he air-dries them with my hair-dryer. This is a huge responsibility for a boy his age--if he doesn't do it right away, the hands get moldy as you all know. One time he accidently dried one of my hands on the hot setting. Oh God, at the time it didn't seem so funny, but now I think of it and just laugh and laugh. My right hand/pom-pom shrunk up to the size of a golf-ball and the other one was still the size of a volley-ball! I panicked a bit but then I called a knitting hotline (it's really hard to dial a phone with your toes) and they told me to rewash the hand and then stretch it out. The poor kid will never live that one down!

Poster friend #5: In this case...you piano teacher had a point.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: See what I'm up against? I knew you wouldn't accept me as I am!

Poster friend #6: Katie, you need to do something to raise public awareness of your...uh, differently-abledness. We should make little red rubber bracelets that say something like, Give a Hand to Someone with PPH. Or someone could even come up with a slogan that's actually catchy.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: Rubber?! Are you all too good for wool, Poster friend #6?!

Poster friend #6: No, I'm not too good for wool! I love wool. In fact, I wear it all winter. But I thought you may want to capitalize on the rubber bracelet craze while it's at full throttle.

Poster friend #5: I have lots of bulky red yarn. I could braid some bracelets for all of us, Katie PomPomHands.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: I am overwhelmed. You guys!

Poster friend #6: We just want you to know that we care, Katie.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: Is anyone here allergic to wool? I just want to hug you all!

And lo, Katie Pom-Pom-Hands admitted the truth and faced her greatest fear and she discovered that her friends didn't care that she had big giant red pom-pom hands. They just cared. They loved her, and her big giant red wooly pom-pom hands, and she knew she was the luckiest pom-pom handed girl in the whole wide world!

The End.

* Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. List each check separately by bank number. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. No other warranty expressed or implied. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment.

I have a paper due tomorrow

It's a very important paper. So of course, because the paper is due tomorrow, and because it's important, and because I hadn't started it yet, today I:

1. Cleaned my kitchen, and reorganized all my cupboards.
2. Went downtown to do a bunch of errands.
3. Went to a medical clinic where it's first come/first serve in order to get a referral for massage therapy. I did not come first, therefore I was not served first.
4. Sorted out my closet, separating clothes by season and colour and then drove a bunch of things to Goodwill.
5. Took all my cans and bottles back for a refund. $4.15!!!!
6. Flossed my teeth. Twice.
7. Called my mom.
8. Called my friend who I never phone because every phone call with her lasts an hour and consists of her screaming, "Oh my fucking God, like you won't fucking believe this, oh my God," and me saying, "mmmhmmm....wow...yeah, mmmmhmmmm, whoa, wow....mmmmhhhmmm."
9. Called the loans people to find out why my student loan STILL hasn't arrived and spent 45 minutes on hold listening to instrumental versions of "My Heart Will Go On," while I screamed, "You %@!*$@#!!'s!!!!!"
10. Watched America's Next Top Model and Lost.

So, I'm kind of screwed now, I think.

Some humiliating revelations about me...

1) I try to avoid it like the plague, but if for some reason there's nothing else on tv and I watch Extreme Makeover Homeowner's Edition, I always wind up weeping.

2) I have never mastered chopsticks. The utensils, not the piano piece, but I can't play that either. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the one dork in a Chinese restaurant who has to ask for a fork?

3) There are a couple of BeeGees songs that I like. I know. You don't have to tell me how wrong this is.

4) Whenever I see ice skating during the Olympics, I spend the next hour pretending to do double axels in my living room.

5) I also voluntarily watch American Idol and its Canadian counterpart, and then I sing "Stop!" by Sam Brown for about half an hour after each episode and curse the show's age restrictions. I coulda been a contender!

5) Ever since I saw an ABC afterschool special in the 80s about a bunch of "popular kids" who make over a homely classmate who winds up being the prom queen, I've been addicted to cheesy movies in which a girl is made over and winds up winning everyone's heart. I mean cheesy. Like Pretty Woman. Or even worse, that piece of crap Freddie Prinze Jr movie where his dorky sister makes over a girl he likes--she looks like Winona Ryder with glasses and a bad haircut--but wow, a little lipstick and some mascara and (it's a miracle!) she's suddenly a knock-out! And come on...that scene in Breakfast Club when Molly Ringwald teaches crazy Ally Sheedy about the power of brown eyeliner? That's gold, baby. I have a disease. I was channel surfing and actually slowed down to see homely Mandy Moore turn into pretty-but-fatally-ill Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember. I need help.

My name is Dipshit and I'll be your waiter for the evening...

Ick.

I went for dinner by myself because I decided impulsively that I wanted a steak at a place I like and it was too late to call anyone. I was disappointed when I arrived and saw the menu had changed drastically, but I ordered something anyways.

Then the cheesy waiter started in: "How're thing's love? Is anyone joining you, hon? Would you like a drink, hon? How's your salad, hon?"

I kept wondering if I was sitting across from a guy would WaiterBoy have been so quick to drop the "hons" on me.

It annoyed me even more because he was 25 at the most and I don't know...it seems a little presumptuous to me to be going up to single women in their thirties and calling them "hon."

Anyways, after about the 7th time it set my teeth on edge and on the 8th time he called me "hon" I looked at him and said, "You know, SWEETIE-PIE, normally I don't allow anyone to call me hon all night until AFTER we've had sex, so if you want to whip it out, we can go at it.... or you can stop calling me hon."

He went bright red, mumbled an apology about how sorry he was for offending me, and then got the busboy to serve me for the rest of my meal. And the funny thing is, I wasn't offended for some great feminist reason...I was offended because it was like being forced to spend the evening with Ryan Seacrest.

So kids....

I'm just feeling really happy right now. In case anyone was worried, based on the lack of posts and the depressing tones of the ones I've put up recently. Yeah, I'm still tired and I'm still poor, and I'm still a bit bored...but who cares? I bumped into some great friends today, hung out with some other great friends, had a decent day at the JOB, one of my classes was cancelled, an old friend called and said she's coming for a visit, I found out two really great old friends of mine from another life are now living in the same city as me and I get paid tomorrow! And my loan is expected to be here on Wednesday, which will pay off my immediate debts! Woo hoo! Anyways, I'm going to take it easy tomorrow and try really hard to work up enough energy to go out at least once this weekend in order to have something so incredibly embarrassing happen to me that I'll have something funny to write about. See how much I love you guys? It's all about the love. I'm actually saving energy in order to publicly humiliate myself so that I can crack you all up. That's what love is, peeps. Don't say I never did nothin' for you!