It’s December 4th, and what have I learned? When I am using the internet to figure out how to make hash, I should specify that I’m talking about root vegetable hash. Along with the Russian hookers who won’t stop spamming my comments, I’m now receiving subtle hints that I should probably get some cannabis and a mechanical drum.
It’s simply impossible for me to succeed at NaNoWriMo while I’m taking a 4-week writing class, and it’s simply impossible for me to take a 4-week writing class without enjoying a beer with my friends in the community college parking lot before class starts, and it’s simply impossible for me to enjoy a beer with my friends in the community college parking lot before class starts if the bottles don’t twist and I don’t have an opener. But wait! My genius friend Sarah figured out that you can open your car door and locate a metal door hook thingie and it is the exact size and shape of a bottle opener. A car is just a big fast bottle opener, you guys! After sacrificing one bottle by accidentally breaking off the top, we had success! So, I did NOT write a novel last month, but I now know how to open a bottle of beer with my car, so: Successful November. (Disclaimer: I realize that the ability to open beer bottles with my car is not a skill I should brag about or even USE. You don’t have to shake your head at me. I am so much wiser than I make myself out to be. Have I mentioned that I know how to make hash?)
I wrote a short story for class, and it’s about a girl who sets her house on fire and then skips town with her floppy-haired friend who shares her love for Nutter Butters and Code Red Mountain Dew. I used Thelma and Louise as a verb. I almost brought an oven mitt to life. I referenced Peggy Lee. I used the F word (twice!) and the phrase “about to make love.” Most importantly, I learned that Huygen gnomes are much different than Hawaiian gnomes and DO NOT CONFUSE THE TWO.
I finished my Dress Like an Author celebration on November 30th by dressing like Erin Morgenstern, who wrote my favorite book from the past decade: The Night Circus.
(I was flying away from the house where David Foster Wallace finished Infinite Jest.)
I was Roxane Gay.
I became Harper Lee.
(I had a bundle of sage left over from when I smudged the house in 2014.)
I really should compile all of the author photos from my Dress Like an Author Month, but I know myself well enough to know that I probably won’t.
You and I haven’t talked in a long time, so now I’m doing the fast typing “oh! Oh! OH! One more thing!” thing. At age 47, I finally have my first pair of Doc Martens boots.
Also, my sister sent the best sweatshirt to me.
Christmas is coming and I’m not ready. I’ve missed you.
(I’m still moderating comments. Russian Hookers are sticking to me like something sticky.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
I really wish I could have been the person to introduce you to automobile bottle opening. A skill I learned in high school, in Hawaii with the menehune (not really gnomes).
You are one of my favorite people. I am not a Russian hooker. Yet.
Who knew about the car being a bottle opener?! Not I!
Last week I had a dream about you and your family. I’m almost positive it has all the makings for a short story.
I’ve missed you, too.
Thanks for all the “dress like an author” photos. Enjoy the Doc Martins.
I’d introduce your Russian hookers to my Russian hookers, but then I fear they’d want us to host their holiday party or something. I’d rather refer them to the “horny married women” in my neighborhood that appear in the same spam mailbox with Irena and the other ladies. I blame the current president — I didn’t used to get all those stupid emails till he got me searching on things with “Russia” in the name and some spambot somewhere took that to mean I would be interested in whatever Russian things they had to offer.
I never knew about the car as bottle opener, I’m going to have to find out about that. Just for fun, because I have a nice Swiss Army Knife that lets me do imporant things wherever I am.
My BIL who I can’t have in my life any more because he is a total narcissist voted for Harambe for president. For realz. This may also be a factor in me writing him off. Mainly it was him screaming at me that I was tearing the family apart after I had cooked for or paid for at least 32 of his meals plus 5 birthday cakes and he had cooked only once, under duress, and served my dairy-allergic daughter and my gluten-intolerant self nothing but macaroni and cheese.
Can you pretty please create a youtube for the automobile beer opener? My life needs that right about now. (While dressed as an author, of course?!)
I found your blog post about the rock and roll love letter (BAY CITY ROLLERS!) and the posts sweet humor and memories made me laugh. Then I read this post, which also made me laugh. Which means you’ve sucked me in and I now need to follow your blog. Plus the whole Russian hooker spam thing – that should be book material for you!
I can’t comment on the last one (because, stupid Russian hookers — of *course* you’ve turned them off) but I need to know more about the beautiful ring on your ring finger in that one picture, and I need to say that even though I didn’t actually get all the way into your author thing last month, I am totally going to scroll back now and write down all of your recommendations because “Bam” Planned reading list for 2018? Done! And I have SO MUCH empathy with the whole managing spam in your comments thing because my website was hacked (completely to shreds, it turns out) at the very beginning of my ultimate “busy season with student clients this year so they had no way to get in touch with me and gosh it’s been kind of nice to have more time to tend to party planning and prep for our upcoming (50th!) annual tree trimming party on Sunday, for which I should certainly be cooking right this very minute!
That is all.
Oh, except also? I love you!
I have vague memories of h.s. friends who opened their beer bottles on the car door. But that was before car doors were invented, so maybe I dreamed the whole thing?