A TV Day that would not happen if I had a job and a man

Full episode of Days of Our Lives followed by five minutes of Passions followed by most of General Hospital followed by a little of everyone's favorite pompous fatass, Dr. Phil, followed by (for the second night in a row) the fabulous America's Next Top Model, with so-full-of-herself-you-could-puke Tyra Banks as your diva host and skinny girls who utter lines like "I'm the fourth baddest bitch in America."

Updates

First, the ass cream: It did seem to make my skin a wee bit tighter but it gave me (TMI!) pimples in a special place and did nothing for the flabba-labba. I wouldn't buy it again but I am going to use up the bottle.

Second, the job front: They couldn't figure out what they wanted me to do last week and so I had to leave in the middle of the day. I was told to call yesterday afternoon, which I did, to find out when to come back. My call has not been returned. There is another job possiblity, a writing one, at the same firm, and I put my resume in and sent samples, but the pay is terrible -- not an amount I could live on and less than what I make copyediting. When I sent my samples I told the hiring manage, who I had a previous relationship with, that I really needed a certain dollar amount and gave my reasons why. It feels like they're trying to Craig's-List me, which is when people try to get talented employees for far, far faaaaaaaaaaaar less than they are worth. I was on the CL today and one company had the balls to offer 2 to 7 dollars a piece for writing and they acted in their ad like this was good money and they were only going to take people with serious experience. Grrr!

I am really starting to get frustrated.

Dr. Moo's 15 Minutes of Fame Has Been Extended And McPolack, Inc is the Deep Throat of VT Journalism

This post about Dr. Moo inspired this tale in Seven Days recently. They didn't get the whole story because Dr. Moo is not so good about returning her messages. The next time they want to talk to her they should meet me in a parking garage. I'm doing this for the good of humanity.

VT Tale No 3: Is The "Check Engine" Light On?

One of Dr. Moo's fellow vet school students grew up and is now living in Vermont. Her brother owns a souped-up monster truck he is trying to get rid of. It's in decent shape and just needs a bit of work. As he is out of state, his wee mother is in charge of showing it to the mostly large, redneck men who show up.

The brother offered his mother specific instructions if someone came with a trade-in: "Make sure to open the hood and check that there's still an engine inside."

His mother didn't really believe someone could be that nasty until one day a couple of large rednecks showed up with a car on a flatbed. They wanted to dump the car and take the monster truck. The mother asked to look under the hood. The rednecks hemmed and hawed. The mother insisted. The rednecks opened the hood.

Of course, there was no engine inside.

VT is a good place to buy maple syrup and cheese but if you're looking for automobiles, I'd go elsewhere.

VT Tale No. 2: Other Wonder Hounds of Note

After we got Tess out of the forest Dr. Moo told me about an interesting pair of brothers she'd heard about. They like to drive around the back roads in a flatbed truck. The truck is piled high with dog kennels. In the kennels are bear-hunting hounds. At the top of the kennel pile in the open air sits the oldest, boss hound. He's got his nose in the air, sniffing. When he smells a bear, he sounds the alarm. The brothers pull over, let all the dogs out, and the chase is on.

They almost never kill anything because it's all about the tracking for them. I don't know that I approve of scaring the beejesus out of forest creatures but at least they're not smoking crack.

VT Tale No. 1: Tess The Wonder Hound

During one of our long walks with Dr. Moo's new pooch, we tried letting her off the leash to see how she'd do. She came back to us once and then disappeared. We called and called for her and the only reply was a constant echo of bullets -- it's both deer and duck hunting time in Vermont and we were by both the woods and the lake. We were worried.

Then we heard woofing. Frenzied woofing. "Tess, Tess, Tess," we called. I whistled. She kept barking, somewhere off in the forest.

"I guess we have to go to her," Dr. Moo said.

Which suddenly made sense -- Tess' main job is to sniff out medium sized forest creatures and tree them and then WOOFWOOFWOOF until her person comes and shoots them.

We picked up her trail in the snow next to some large footprints and frozen drops of blood and followed them through a cornfield and into a thicket of prickers. Not just any old prickers though -- these were some sort of monster pricker trees. Tess was at the base of a very tall oak tree, trying to leap up into it. There wasn't anything up there, thankfully.

Dear Black Eyed Peas: WTF?

Dr. Moo is always introducing me to all sorts of interesting music. Last visit it was Kelly Clarkson, whose cd Dr. Moo, embarrassingly, owns. This time around it was a little bit of country and a whole lot of this atrocious tune, which we both kept singing. Umm, I mix your milk wit my cocoa puff? Lovely lady lumps? That is nasty-tastic. I could forgive the BEP's for this crap if they were in their early twenties, but Fergie is older than me. Come on, honey. Stop singing this crap.

Dr. Moo and I decided to become rap stars ourselves. Here's out first tune:

Buttsbuttsbuttsbuttsbuttsbuttsbutts

and titties

yeah

and titties

Thank you!

Dateline: Addison County

Unlike smelly Jayson Blair, I am actually posting from where I say I am posting from. I'm at my sister's computer at her apartment overlooking Lake Champlain. We've just returned from a nearly two-hour stroll with Tess the wonder hound where we saw a dead black kitty and a live springer spaniel. Also we saw cows. Lots of 'em. And whenever a car from Massachusetts sped by I said "Ah, my people." And it made Dr. Moo mad. And then I told her that since we were wearing pants and walking a hound dog together, all those people from Massachusetts would think we were lesbians. "Ah, look at those lesbians in their natural habitat" is what I told Dr. Moo the massholes were saying. (not that there's anything wrong with that!) Dr. Moo told me I can't come visit again unless I bring a man.

Dr. Moo also learned a new word for the business area of the butt: salad. "Tess has a big salad," she said to me. Then I explained to her what a tossed salad is.

Good times, good times.

Turkey Lurkey

I am writing to you from the macintosh computer in the spare bedroom at the McPolack family homestead. My fluffy grey kitty is in the window watching the snow fall. And also occasionally yowling at me. She doesn't like leaving her home. With her presence, the total pet number here is at five -- four cats and a dog -- and six if you count Polackpappy who came in and sat on the floor last night to play with two of the cats while we watched a movie. McMumsy taped an episode of "American Experience" for me. "It's the one about the 1918 flu" she told me. "Lots of bodies everywhere! It'll be great!"

Um, thanks.

This afternoon it's off to the irish side of the family to eat turkey and be loud. I'm hoping it's the year cousin Molls and her husband are coming. I've made pierogi, two kinds. Tomorrow I'm off to VT to visit Dr. Moo and I am sure there will be many tales to tell.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Bring back the bush!

My friend bitterjoe sent me a delightful post about a woman's woes with her pubic hair and I just had to tell a tale of my own.

They say that blondes are the hairiest of them all and I am hear to tell you that they are right. I refer to the hair that has been creeping down the insides of my thighs as the Amazonian rainforest and to my attempts at removing it deforestation.

Deforestation is a painful process and has adverse effects on the Amazon. But more on that later.

I do not know at what point I began to have So Much Hair; it was more how one might discover one has a drinking problem: one day, there is just an excess, and it's not good. I swear that my follicles send out scout hairs to search for new territory further down the insides of my thighs because every so often I'll see a lone one, two or three inches from the rest. I always yank it out immediately and let it be a lesson to the other hairs.

I have tried Nair to remove the hair and gotten a painful rash. I waxed my inner thighs myself at home for quite some time, but it was so painful I had to put a towel in my mouth to bite down on and it left my inner thighs bruised and bleeding. Shaving always results in an itchy rash (though I haven't tried the rubbing alcohol Contagious mentioned, I did try calendula lotion which did nothing). I don't have the money for laser removal and if I get cancer all my hair falls out plus I might die so I'm really at the end of my rope here.

I did recently start shaving it again as there is both Potential Suitor (who when I mentioned my hair woes today said he was cool with unshaven inner thighs, yay!) and Another Guy, someone Contagious wants to set me up with, and I thought it was time to, well, clear out the underbrush from my lady bits in preparation for a potential visitor from the outside. And I got that icky rash again.

Soooooooooo. I send out my call to the universe to bring back the bush! No, not George Bush. Just the full-on seventies porn bush. Because my inner thighs can't take much more abuse.

Man Things

Called home tonight and talked to Polackpappy. He had just returned from delivering poor Tess, Dr. Moo's hound, back to Dr. Moo after Tess had a 25 hundred dollar surgery. "I would've shot her," he said. Polackpappy's answer to many animal aches and pains is much like that of the Far Side Cartoon of the horse hospital, where the doctor has a checklist of ailments and recommended treatments, and for every ailment the treatment is a bullet to the head.

Anyhoo, Pp spent some time with Dr. Moo while she was on the job. "She was dehorning, and it was really gory!" Pp crowed, proudly. "There was blood and arterial spurt everywhere."

As Pp does not get along so well with his only son, he chooses instead to cultivate the manly sides of my sister and I. When I am home and feeling gassy, I tap Pp on the shoulder, lean in close, and belch as loud as I can (and I can really belch) in his ear. He loves it. When my sister was small, he called us all into the bathroom to look at the giant dump she'd taken, while she stood next to the bowl, beaming. He's proud of the fact that Dr. Moo can manhandle 1500 pound cows and of my ginormous man-calves. He's taken me fishing and took special pleasure in the fact that I ripped the innards out of a ten-pound cod with my bare hands.

And I love him for it.

Toothsome

Finally went back to the dentist today after a 3-year hiatus. I don't have health insurance or a job but I didn't want to be both poor and toothless. Plus the local dentist was running a 57 dollar special on cleaning, x-rays, and consult.

What surprised me most about this dental visit was the melting pot aspect of the office. From the receptionist who checked me in to the x-ray tech to the dentist, to the hygenist, everyone was a different nationality. The hygenist actually played "guess where I'm from" with me; she turned out to be French-Canadian, which I finally figured out after making my way around the entire globe.

Unfortunately, the state of my teeth is poor. I need four fillings replaced and I almost never floss which put me at borderline for having to get some sort of very expensive deep-tissue cleaning process. I have to floss every night and rinse with Listerine twice a day and also ought to buy a sonicare toothbrush. Getting the tartar cleaned off my teeth hurt and I wished I had someone there to hold my hand.

But at least I don't need dentures.

Hot-cha-cha

Went to the Nath Shah mall with Contagious today to help our friend Furrow find a pair of sexy jeans. Furrow is a bit challenged in the lady-wear department and she struts, a la John Travolta, when she walks. She comes to Contagious and I quite often for fashion advice. Today I got a look at Furrow's nipple rings. She paid ninety dollars for them. They're steel, I think, and about the diameter of a dime, with balls on them. She let me touch them. They feel, well, nipple-ring-ish. While I would never get them, they suit Furrow and look great.

I bought myself a garter belt today on the advice of Contagious and am wearing it as I type. I bought it because I love to wear tights but hate that they gap around the crotch and make you feel all sweaty. The garters make me feel all sweaty, but for different, good reasons. They are hot, and I am excited to wear them. They are holding up my tights and my sex appeal.

Snap

Ohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness.

I just learned how to snap my fingers.

Finally. I'm 32 years old.

I feel like I did when I was seven and my cousin Jeffrey, the cool one, the one who took me and Molly on long walks exploring the forest and who listened to the Stray Cats and who said "butt" a lot, taught me how to blow a bubble with Carefree sugarless gum.

K and J taught me after we finished eating the farfegnugen, which, BTW, is delicious. When I made my first snap K smiled wide gave me a big hug and we were all genuinely excited, just a nice, big, gentle happy. Oh, it was good.

Oh, and it is good. Snap. Snap. Snap. There. I just did it three times in a row!

I rock.

Farfegnugen

So during the ride home from yoga on Tuesday my German friend told me she was going to go home and reheat some "Noodleflaufal" which is a dish from her homeland that's like mac and cheese with ham. I giggled a little when I heard the name. She said the women she works with giggled at the name too. She wanted to know why people giggled at German names. I told her they just sounded foreign to us Americans. What I should have told her was that in Germany, they get to laugh at every domestic and foreign policy decision made in this country since W took office. We have to laugh at something in return. We picked noodleflaufal.

Anyhoo tonight she is hosting the Alias-watching. I'm trying to accept Balthazar Getty as my new sexy boyfriend but it's hard to replace Michael Vartan. I am bringing a salad of fresh herbs, baby spinach, cabbage, and cucumbers. She is making a crazy German pizza comprised of cream cheese, onions, and bacon. I think it's called Farfegnugen. Or maybe it's leiderhosen. Whatever it's called, I'm sure it will be geschmackvoll.

Ballsy

My McPolack mouth has struck again. I was chatting this afternoon with a networking contact, a helpful and nice and also business-savvy man who runs an organization he wants me to do some volunteer writing for; in return, he's going to promote me to and put me in touch with some folks who might want to pay me for my skills.

First we had to determine just what my skills were.

Him: "So tell me, just what do you specialize in? Pharma? Biotech?"

Me: "I've done a lot of business writing."

Him: "That's a little too general. Can you get more specific?"

Me: "Hmm. See, here's the thing. Well, here's what I tell people at parties. I can write about just about anything. I've written about *insert fancy business topic* for a product put out by *insert fancy institute of higher learning.* I've also written about the best time to castrate a goat."

Him: "Look, I'm not trying to judge you here, but how old are you?"

Note to self: Do NOT under ANY circumstance mention goat castration (or any other kind of castration) when you are interviewing with anyone that has testicles.

Clueless

My good pal Contagious just got an email from the chickenfucker, my ex-bf. Wait, scratch that, the emotionally and mentally abusive loser I unfortunately had to date because I apparently had more growing to do.

He was checking in with her to make sure that I did not in fact want to speak with him. No, chickenfucker, I do not want to speak with you. He also said "I always thought she would land on her feet. Thoughts?" or some such thing like that.

Actually, dirty-assed chickenfucker, here are some of my thoughts: What I recall you saying to me the last time we spoke was something a bit different than thinking I would "land on my feet." Let me quote to you a little something from an essay I wrote about my relationship with you:

I finally left on an ordinary Monday. We’d had an argument outside the grocery store a few days prior. He stopped talking to me and started sleeping on the sofa when I refused to continue the argument inside the grocery store. I took his cell phone from him to try and force him to talk with me. You’re a mute now, I told him. You don’t need it anymore. I was trying to be funny. But I was scared. He left the apartment. I bolted the door behind him. He came back almost immediately and pushed the door against its chain and screamed “Open up!” I opened the door. He told me it was over. That he didn’t love me, couldn’t. That I had a terrible personality. That I wasn’t attractive. That I would make for a very poor mother. That he wanted his cell phone back. I gave it to him. He logged onto my computer and removed all his files before leaving. I called my friend Heather and she came and got me and my cat and I left and I haven’t seen him since.

Dear readers, this man told me I didn't bathe the right way, dress the right way, talk the right way, write the right way, even take a piss properly, for Chrissakes. (he thought girls should spread their labia apart with their fingers because he thought otherwise the pee sprayed everywhere.) And apparently he still doesn't think he did anything wrong.

I am sorry that I had to become one of the one out of three women who are/have been in an abusive relationship but very very VERY happy to be one of the women who got out.

Crane

So I went to yoga again tonight, because my German friend was going and because I wanted to see if I could become even stretchier.

I can and did. I almost managed to hold the crane pose (my elbows were definitely not straight, as this man's are) for more than a couple of seconds. In this pose you are essentially balancing a lot of your weight on your wrists. It's the sort of thing you have to suspend disbelief to do -- kind of like rock climbing. If you look at a wall of rock, logical thought and reason tells you there ain't no way you're climbing it. Thus you must overcome logical thought and reason.

I imagine that the crane pose is meant to be delicate and poised, like the bird, who balances all his weight on his teeny bird legs. But I am certain that at the sight of me, knees on elbows, big ass in the air, yogis everywhere would rename crane pose dung beetle.

Sweaty McSweat

I've taken a couple of vinyasa/astanga yoga classes in the past couple of weeks at a small studio in Somerville. In this type of yoga you breath high in your chest and you sweat like a banshee.

I think I might love it.

At the end of the class I took tonight, and the one I took last week, while we are in corpse pose, near the very end of the 75 minute class, just resting and feeling our bodies, what I feel is this bone-deep loneliness and sadness. But I feel it like it's being drawn out, like the poses I just did were some sort of emotional poultice. I think this is a good thing.

Of course, at the first class one of the instructors asked if I was okay because I was sweating so much. I was the schweatiest one in the entire class. Not so at tonight's class, where the added bonus was an adorable curly-haired instructor. I think he should be my new boyfriend, once, of course, I have done enough yoga to suck out all the lonely and sad.

I'm sure I'm late to the party on this one, but...

Google Earth, holy f***ing shit! I don't normally recommend downloading things at random off the web, but this is really neato. I just looked at my house...from outer space! I mean, wowie!

You can really see the difference between Massachusetts and NH as well -- I tried to Google Earth my childhood home and all I could see were trees...*sniff*...and my sniffing is at the utter lack of trees here. Somerville is not a good place to live if you don't want to be spied on from outer space by the government -- or, essentially, by anyone who knows your address. But wee, sweet, tree-y New Hampshire is.

Anyhoo, if you don't have the Google Earth already, go and get it. Because it is super duper fly.

Oh, Come On!

So I interviewed for a position at a pharma firm this Monday -- they contacted me, after seeing my resume somewhere online. How exciting, I thought -- maybe it will be like that Monster ad on the tv, where "sometimes the right job finds you."

So I go in and interview with three different people. I'm not sure about the vibe I'm getting. It's not bad but not super go-getter, either. The HR lady likes me. One girl with awful brown circles under her eyes doesn't seem so friendly, but that might just be her nature.

Anyhoo, I spend like 20 bucks on a couple of sets of nice thank you cards (sent them out yesterday) and today I get a big envelope in the mail -- there's clearly some stuff in it, more than just a sheet of paper. When I was interviewing I was told that if I made it to the second round, I would be getting a research/writing test to do. I got the fat envelope as I was heading out for a stroll -- and immediately ran back upstairs, excitedly, to open it.

Inside were some writing samples that the HR lady had inadvertenly forgotten to give back to me, and a standard rejection letter.

I understand that I am not going to get every job I interview for. But, Life, I ask you, must you constantly add a side of bitch-slap to my rejection?

You know what's great about the days after Halloween?

You can buy an ENORMOUS bag of mellowcreme pumpkins for just one American dollar.

That, my friends, is a stellar thing indeed.

Salad Days

Dr. Moo has been hit on by a cute vegetarian-friendly farmer and she is not going to do anything about it.

In fact, when pressed, she gets really pissed and calls the presser "desperate" and the farmer a "weirdo."

Here's the scoop: Last week, Dr. Moo got a letter in the mail. It was from a guy named Pete. Pete grew up in VT, went to Middlebury, and runs his own organic gardening business called Pete's Greens. He supplies veggies for some fancy restaurants and for the locals. He's 33 and cute. Although he might be a shortie.

His note was short and sweet -- he introduced himself, asked Dr. Moo if she'd like to go on a date some time. He included his own article, written about him by the same newspaper that wrote about Dr. Moo, a couple of years before. The letter seemed, to me, to be very sincere. And Pete is cute.

And g-damned Dr. Moo is just not going to bother to write back to him at all. She insists that what this man has done is freakish and also she's worried he's short like a dwarf. Oh, and I forgot the best excuse of all: That he's not manly enough for her because he grows salad! She considers her job digging around in cows all day to be very masculine and so apparently she needs a guy who eats nails and shits bricks to balance her out.

Aiyeeeeeeeee! Oh, Dr. Moo, for the love of all things holy, you are a vegetarian and this guy grows vegetables for a living. And he has a farm and you've always wanted a farm so you can have your own team of oxen.

Meet him for coffee, woman!!!

I would like to open this up for debate amongst my readership: Should Dr. Moo write to Mr. Saladpants? Or is Mr. Saladpants a freak?

I eagerly await your responses.

I know this is assholish of me, but...

...my fucking neighbors, oh my GOD. You would swear they weigh a metric ton each the way they stomp around their apartment until all hours of the night. Last night they were dragging furniture around until after 11. I finally had to put my earplugs in. Tonight they are stomping again and so as I have been going back and forth to the oven (I am baking cookies) I have been stomping on the floor. Also I have been slamming the oven door and in general making a racket.

Oh, AND this week they tossed a box from Amazon.com in the recycle bin but didn't bother to break it down and so of course the recycling guys wouldn't take it. How hard is it to flatten a box, fucksticks? Honest to Abe Lincoln, I want to leave a flaming bag of poo on their doorstep.

Oh, AAAAAAAAAAnd last week I put that Amazon.com box outside their door so it wouldn't get stolen off the front porch (I was expecting a package that has not yet arrived and I suspect foul play). Someone had stuck a flyer in the box. I left the flyer there in the box. They picked up the box and left the flyer on the floor in the middle of the hall.

Pigs. Pigs is what they are. I hope that the next time Mr. Middle Eastern history professor goes to the Middle East for his "research" someone shoves a Kalashnikov up his ass. They don't have to pull the trigger. Just goose him.

Grrr!

Read This, Too

McMumsy and I are starting to get the same taste in books. While I still could never make my way through a massive bio of Teddy Roosevelt (and she'll go through it in a weekend) she's going to read Joan Didion's latest, on my recommendation, and she gave me What Remains, Carole Radziwill's story about her marriage to Anthony Radziwill, cousin to and best friend of, JFK Jr.

My mother is a wee bit obsessed with the Kennedys. I say wee because her real obsessions are politics and dead presidents. She used to feed that one by making us go to presidents' residences for vacation. I've been to so many that they swim before me. Although Monticello was pretty neat.

Some of her Kennedy obsession was passed down to me -- she was reading a book on them when she went into labor with me -- and Radziwill's book delivers the Kennedy goods. She paints Carolyn Bessette as a pretty swell person. The book is also fucking sad -- JFK Jr. and Carolyn, her best friend -- die two weeks before her husband loses his life to the cancer he's been battling their entire marriage.

Carole Radziwill is one tough cookie, raised in part by a big fat grandma who used to shove roasts between her tatas at the grocery store and who grew pot in the backyard to make extra cash.

Copyediting, braless...

...is what I've been doing all morning -- although I am listed as the "Editor" on the business cases I'm working on. Normally I would have more time to trim down the horribly bloated consultant-speak, but today I am functioning as spell-checker and grammar hound.

And I'm doin' it without a bra on! Yeah! Such are the pleasures of working from home.