kdiddy.org

My plans for today included laundry, eating, maybe going to the nail shop, taking a nap, and whatever the female equivalent is of laying on the couch and scratching one’s balls.

Instead, the mail came. And in the mail there was a letter from PNC Bank’s collections department.

Oh, yes they did.

I haven’t blown up like that in awhile. I was shaking. I was screaming. I confessed to wanting to do very illegal things to every PNC branch in the city. I called several different numbers (because of course they kept bouncing me around) and bitched at every single customer service rep I talked to. I don’t normally do that, because I know that most people are just doing their jobs and trying to scrape by themselves. But I now have a pretty decent amount of contempt for all bank employees, since this is some divide and conquer bullshit. Give broke people a somewhat decent job screwing over other broke people, all the while gambling away their retirement funds…it all makes me sick.

But what I found out from one poor woman who had the shitty fate of talking to me was that when I settled my account once and for all (or so I thought) about a month ago, the money that I handed over never went through and I was once again responsible for $137.74. That amount includes a $29.95 fraudulent charge that I disputed, the investigation fee (since they somehow found in favor of the merchant, which is a whole other WTF), and a couple overdraft fees thrown in for good measure.

“So I give your institution money that I can’t afford to hand over and which your institution does not deserve, all in the name of just getting you out of my life, and you guys lost that money?”

“Well, ma’am…” she said WITH ATTITUDE.

“Oh, well, that’s a real crackerjack operation you guys are running over there. Seriously. Awesome fucking work. I’ll go to the branch AGAIN and settle this AGAIN.”

When I got to the bank, I sat down with a guy (let’s call him “Skippy”) I’d dealt with at least two other times in this debacle and who had been a douche to me before. I considered the possibility that I would leave that building in handcuffs and charged with assault and like, terroristic communist threats or something.

As Skippy explained to me, when I settled my account the last time, they sent the general ledger credit slip to their collections department and that department rejected the slip for some reason. Skippy insisted that I had done nothing wrong and could consider myself free and clear.

“Oh. So you guys made a mistake.”

“Eh, no, it’s not a mistake,” Skippy replied. The collections department rejects these slips for any number of reasons, like the teller didn’t sign her name clearly enough or didn’t list all of the information on the slip.

“So you guys made a mistake.”

“No,” Skippy insisted. They had done everything correctly with my payment, just in a way that resulted in me getting a threatening letter from the collections department.

“I’m sorry, Skippy. I may be a writer and not a financial whiz like you kids here, but that sounds like you guys made a mistake.”

Skippy, ever the optimist, maintained that they had fucked up in the correct manner, and that if I received any more letters detailing their stellar operations to let him know, so that he and I could again discuss the details of the awesome way that they continue taking money from me and being idiots.

What’s really fucked up is that there is no “closing” my account with them. If PNC insists that I arranged payment to a merchant through them, they will re-open my account to “honor their agreement,” once again putting me in arrears. And considering I already had one fraudulent charge to a business that I’d never heard of and never received anything from honored by PNC, it seems reasonable for me to worry that they have the power to conjure up any number of charges that they can honor and bleed me for money for who knows how long.

All in all, trying to close my account has cost me close to $2,000, mostly in fees and trying to clear the new and exciting negative balances that they keep dreaming up. I never did get my hands on my economic stimulus. All of that went to PNC.

Do you want to know why we’re in an economic crisis right now? Because the people who run our financial institutions and businesses are shitty business people. They are stupid. They don’t understand how economics work and think that their crafty methods of screwing people over are brilliant moves. We have a generation of failures running this country.

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving, and all through the house…

Dudes were sleeping and drooling all over that heinous couch.

The pie crusts were baking, the mum without care…

…for she knew that wine would always be there.

I would totally translate the whole thing into “‘diddy” but I’m a tad too tired at the moment. But I will say that I am thankful for my family, for my opportunities, for writing, and for having time to think with a full belly. We saw Synecdoche, New York earlier and I’m thankful to know that I’m not the only one who thinks such weird things. I’m just glad that Charlie Kaufman puts them down on paper and has beautiful actors speak them for the screen. I’m thankful that art helps me to feel human. I’m thankful for my son, seeing the best pieces of me in him, knowing that I help people to experience him and all of his amazing thoughts and actions. I’m thankful for the husband and our life together.

And I’m thankful for Sidney Crosby and Yevgeny Malkin. 😉

Started this last night…

So, first things first: how are you guys? I’m okay. I’m very tired right now. But at least tonight I don’t have to talk myself out of going on a stabbing spree. That was last night, before I remembered that, once a month, my normal, bearable contempt for my fellow humans turns into BLINDING STABBING RAGE FLAMES! FLAMES! ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE! I did teach the baby some new and inventive ways to use the word “motherfucker” in a sentence, so I can’t say I haven’t been productive.

Speaking of the baby, he turned to me earlier and said, “Daddy makes you unhappy and poor.” I laughed heartily and then gave him a raise. He’d earned it…the cute little motherfucker.

Anyway, yes, the subject of this post. I’ve gone wildly Stepford the past few weeks. I think it all started when I said to my mom, “You know, I made some pretty tasty pumpkin puree and froze it. I could make the pumpkin pie this year.” Apparently what is an offer in my world is a throwing down of the gauntlet in the world of my mom and my grandmother. They’ve given me multiple opportunities to back out. Whatever, man. My pie’s going to be fucking awesome.

The last time I made cookies, I noticed that my cookie sheets were pretty gross. I’ve had them about 2.5 years and they’ve seen plenty of mishaps. I’ll still use them, but for more dirty jobs…say, catching whatever bubbles out of a casserole dish. So I bought some new cookie sheets and some of those nifty Silpat thingies so I don’t have to struggle with tearing parchment paper into strips to fit the sheets. Those came yesterday today.

So, to go with my upcoming pie baking and Cookie Baking Extravaganza ’08, I bought some aprons. Oh, yes.

WE ARE THE ROBOTS!

This darling thing and another Christmasy one that reminds me of one that my mom used to wear came from Boojiboo on etsy.

I’ve been on a small etsy/handmade binge lately. My buddy Cristina and I went to the Handmade Arcade a few weeks ago. I got a few Christmas gifts and a few things for myself, most notably this purse:

It’s by these folks, Ray-Min, and I absolutely adore it. It’s made out of vintage upholstery fabric. Know what that means? SCOTCHGARD!

I’m also rocking this necklace from etsy seller HouseThatCrowBuilt:

Jen posted it to We Covet a few weeks ago and I snapped it up immediately. Admittedly, that’s kind of a dick move since I write for that site, but whatever.

To top off my wifey-ness, I made a Bundt cake the other night. A Banana Caramel Bundt Cake to be exact. The bottom (top?) burned a little bit. I don’t know why. But other than that it’s pretty awesome.

It’s the little things. I get out of work at 3 p.m. today, which is awesome, but I noticed this morning that the day or two before a vacation I get very, “Who gives a fuck?” about getting out of bed on time. Like, we’re going to be off of work and school in a day so why bother going now? Clearly, I have some work to do in the whole maturity area. Also, the Boulevard of Allies reopened the other day and our commute is no longer a gigantic joke.

I should probably go take some valium now, right?

and

Use them in good health. Have a good weekend.

Oh my god:

That mom is so nice. I’m trying to imagine something like this going down in our house, especially with some sour bastards like the husband and I in charge. There would be no hugs nor opportunities to express your disappointment or outrage in a constructive setting. Just: “EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. NONE OF THESE PEOPLE GET FAMOUS ANYWAY SO SHUT THE FUCK UP. AND KAYLEY WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE? DIDN’T I BAN YOUR ASS FROM MY HOUSE? GET OUT OF HERE.

The semester is starting to wind down, which means both work and school are getting a tad psychotic. I keep hearing about how awful “Christmas creep” is but I’m going to be honest and say that I am all about Christmas this year. I’ve already started listening to Christmas music because I have this cockamamie theory that it makes me more productive. I listened to Christmas music when I was arbitrarily cleaning my house last week and I was surprised at how motivated I was. I think maybe my mom used to pull that with me when I was little, putting on Christmas music and telling me to help her clean and decorate, the incentive being that if I did, Santa might not give me the shaft. And, you know, I had some serious Tinkerbell and Cabbage Patch habits back in the day.

I’m also very gooily and mushily in love with my husband and son right now, and Christmas music reminds me that I will soon have days and days to cuddle with them and soak them up. I hate being this busy, but it really does make me appreciate how much I love them and miss them.

Anyway, here’s what’s been going on.

My dad is doing well. Very well, in fact. He’ll need to do a round of chemo to ensure that any microscopic spreading of the cancer is killed, but his doctors are very optimistic. Right now, he’s trying to figure out what he wants to do about his job…to retire or not to retire.

The husband finally had the tendon in his finger repaired about two weeks ago after some really ridiculous delays. By the way, anyone in need of an orthopedic should NOT seek treatment from Ronit Wolfstein, who does not return phone calls and schedules appointments and then just doesn’t keep them, which is especially unnerving when she tells patients that they need to have surgery as soon as possible. But whatever. A new doctor was secured, surgery was had, and all is looking good.

The husband has this foam stabilizer thing that looks like a wedge of Swiss cheese to keep his hand elevated. He only has to use it when he sleeps now, which results in some hijinks.

I took this picture without his consent, but I think I’m justified and I’ll tell you why. We have a full-sized bed which makes things cozy and with this thing sharing the bed, I often wake up gasping for breath in the middle of the night because the husband’s be-cheesed arm has found its way onto my face. Narrowly escaping suffocation every night is pretty exciting.

The baby finally lost his front tooth, which was dangling by a thread for weeks and just generally looking pretty gross. Now he looks so cute I can barely stand it.

And this kid of mine turns SEVEN in a few weeks, which I really cannot believe. He’s awesome, of course. Mischievous, sure, but smart as hell. He’s doing so well in school. He’s reading like crazy and actually adding inflection and emotion when he reads out loud, which is just so cool. He’s really interested in his Spanish classes and is picking up math really well. He can spell like a mad man and his handwriting is surprisingly neat considering the husband and I both scrawl like serial killer chicken scratchers.

He’s also drawing a lot, which is cool because he really wasn’t into art very much until recently. In preschool, he was way more interested in trucks and trains, and when the teachers would encourage him to try drawing something, he would sigh and scribble a few lines on paper before getting back to stuff with wheels.

Now…well, check it out:

He has a whole series of attack scenes. I keep waiting for his teachers to call us in for a conference where we’ll be forced to meet with a team of psychologists and some dudes from Homeland Security. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on the no-fly list but, eh, we don’t go anywhere anyway. But here we have Godzilla and some other monsters attacking a city (presumably Tokyo) in Japan. How do I know it’s Japan?

The Lapan Japan sign! Duh!

Here, some aliens are attacking Washington, D.C. Lots of detail in this one. Let’s take a closer look!

Ah, there’s the Wigt House, aka the White House. And I think that dude fleeing is George W. Bush. What a little girlie man! If only Bill Pullman were President! The baby is vying for a position in Obama’s cabinet as head adviser on alien and giant, nuclear reptilian attacks.

Another detail of note:

That’s the Subway that’s two doors down from the White House at 1604 Pennsylvania Avenue. Aliens love them some $5 footlongs.

Also, another gem from his homework:

I was pretty irritated about including a McDonald’s sign in his homework, mostly because I really hope that our public schools don’t have to turn to frightening corporations to subsidize our learning materials. But the husband pointed out that it’s an exercise working with signs that the kids see. Valid point, I guess. But, as I already noted on the flickr page, if I wrote 1st grade learning materials, food would have snarky quotations and the other option would be constipation.

So, that’s pretty much what’s going on. I also wanted to say that I’m sorry I suck so much at responding to comments. I really appreciate you guys that read this nonsense and then take the time to interact with me. I read everything! I’m just kind of shitty about replying. Kisses!

There was nothing on TV this morning so I started watching I Love Lucy and while I was watching it, I was looking at Google Reader and there were TWO Lucy-related secrets today. Weird, no?

A friend of the husband’s was in town last night to play records at AVA and he was supposed to stay the night at our house. So, I spent pretty much all day cleaning. Our house is always pretty messy and dusty since we never really have time or energy to clean. The husband is, of course, out of commission with his hand so I was on my own and had a pretty sobering moment when I realized that I couldn’t possibly clean the whole house myself and had to determine which parts were the nastiest/most potentially embarrassing.

About 15 minutes after I finished cleaning the bathrooms and was sprawled out on the bed panting, the husband came home from work and announced that he had to poop. After he emerged, I whined, “I don’t know why you always do that right after I do the toilets.”

“That’s why I don’t like cleaning,” he replied. “It’s a Sisyphean effort. You’re Sisyphus.”

“Yes, and you’re this huge rock that shits all over my squeaky clean toilets.”

And then…THEN. The husband’s friend called and said that he was meeting up with “a friend” in town and would be staying at a hotel, after all.

GAHHHH

Well, at least the house is clean. I guess. Whatever.

In continuing in my Suzy Homemaker routine, I’m baking some homemade Nilla Wafers. They’re my dad’s favorite cookie and his birthday was Friday, so I’m making some for him. I hope they don’t suck.

I was thinking about Steel Magnolias when I was in the bathroom earlier. I generally dislike stereotypical “chick flicks,” but I fucking LOVE Steel Magnolias. It’s the dialogue. And I know I sound like a dude who reads Playboy for the articles, but it’s seriously one of the most quotable pieces of work ever. And, yeah, if I’m feeling emotionally paralyzed, I just need to watch Sally Field’s histrionics and the pent up shit flows out of me. It’s like an enema for bitches who hate…aka Yours Truly.

When our house got broken into last year, Steel Magnolias was one of the movies the dude stole. When we hunted our DVD collection down, we kept having conversations like, “Okay, so we have A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, the Tool boxed set, Unbreakable, Kill Bill…and Steel Magnolias?” And I would be like, “Oh my god! What? I have one estrogen indulgence and it’s a huge deal. Fuck off and give me my Ouiser before I cut you.”

Anyway, I thought about Steel Magnolias because I’m wearing tights today and faux-Spanx on top of that because I hate when the waistband of tights rolls down. Like, nails-on-a-chalkboard hate. So I’m extremely…held in today and it was making me think I should just say, “Fuck it,” and start wearing a girdle and then I started thinking about, “It looks like two pigs…fightin’ under a blanket.” And laughing. In the bathroom. To myself.

So there’s a disturbing little walk through my thought process for you.

But while I’m thinking about it, you know who can shut it down? Grown women who still pull that, “Oh, I’m having a second piece of pizza. I’m a pig. Oh, I’m so fat. Oh, I’ll just have some lettuce,” fishing for validation bullshit. I can understand some young chicks being insecure, but my god. If you’re looking at the other side of, say, 30 and you’re still talking like that, go to therapy. Or at the very least do not say that shit to me. I spent many hours of my formative years in a dressing room at a ballet school. I have seen and heard some psychotic shit and behaved that way myself. It sucks. I don’t think that you have an “appropriate” amount of self-hate, I think you’re acting like you’re insecure and want me to fix it. EAT YOUR PIZZA AND OWN IT.

I know I kind of dropped the ball on sharing my Google Reader links here. I’m hoping to catch up but I read quicker than I write and I’ve shared a TON of stuff since last week.

But right now, I need you to watch this. HEAR these words. Carry them with you. We’re all alone, but we can all be less alone if we just try.

It is really disheartening to go to the “dashboard” and see that I have 20 drafts just sitting there, all unfinished and sad. Busy time of the semester. This week in particular is nutty. It’s crazy time at my job, I have a test tomorrow, and a small article for AP to write. The article’s due on Thursday and I’ve done nothing for it. I rule.

Anyway, everything needs to wait because I need to tell you about my Saturday night. We went to see Louis CK in Greensburg. It was an odd location, but close enough that the audience seemed to be made up mostly of people from Pittsburgh.

While we were waiting for the opener, Todd Barry, to come on, the yinzer behind us was trying to wrap up her phone call. The lights went down and everyone got quiet, and she chose that moment to say/yell, “AWRIGHT, DAW-NUUUH!” (Translation: Alright, Donna!) So, that sort of set the tone for the evening. Barry came out and near the beginning of his set mentioned that nearly every show he plays, there’s some “incident” with one of the audience members and joked that he calls ahead and arranges for hecklers and/or obnoxious drunk people to be in the audience.

As if on cue, a large drunk man sat down about five rows back and would not shut the hell up. Barry would tell a joke, the audience would laugh, and as soon as the laughter would die down, this guy would interject, “I’M FUCKIN’ WAAAAASTED!” Shortly after that, the usher came up to our row and asked to see our tickets and then the tickets of the people sitting next to us…and the tickets of the people sitting next to them. “When people buy the tickets from The Online,” she explained, “there’s duplicates.” So…like…what the fuck are we supposed to do about that 10 minutes after the show begins?

She tried to move some people around, at one point asking a wheelchair-bound man move from his aisle seat, forcing him to hop on his butt five seats over to accommodate some other people when those latecomers could have just sat somewhere else in that row. Barry noticed this, smirked, and said, “What’s the conflict?” We all started giggling and the usher just kept on asking for tickets and studying them. “Is he the main act?” she asked the husband. “Uh, no, but he’s staring at you,” he replied. She finally left and Barry joked that she was an improv actress from New York.

Louis CK was, of course, amazing. But…okay…so, I stood in line after the show to buy a CD from Barry and noticed that Louis was standing at the end of the table. I was going to meet him.

Living in Pittsburgh, I don’t meet many celebrities, and honestly there are very few famous people that I would meet who would actually render me incoherent. Turns out, Louis CK is one of those people.

Knowing that I was just a few feet away from one of my favorite comedians apparently had an effect on me. I congratulated Barry on a great show and told him that I saw him last year when he toured with Louis. “I hadn’t heard of you but you’re really funny!” I blurted. “Um, I meant that as a compliment, even though it came out kind of backhanded,” I explained. “Oh, yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it!” said Barry, who seemed surprisingly sweet.

I started sweating and waiting for the guy with the long, stringy hair and the Slipknot tshirt to finish getting his picture taken with Louis. I didn’t really think about what I was going to say and by the time I baby-stepped up to Louis, shook his hand, and said, “Um, hi!” more drunk people were filing out and interrupting me to punch Louis on his arm and slur, “YER HILAAAAARRIOUS DUDE!” So, you know, I couldn’t do that well with the thinking and the putting words together and stuff.

“Great show! Just great!”
“Oh, thank you!” He was shorter than I expected and had a really nice smile.
“I have to tell you that I just love Lucky Louie and it still stings me that they canceled it,”
“Oh, yeah…” *enter drunk dude #1*
“Um, so, I mean…it’s…it’s…it’s scary–” *enter drunk dude #2* “Um, it’s really kind of scary how much your comedy speaks to me.”
“Oh. Hehe. Really?”
“Yeah, like, how you kind of hate everyone. I mean–I’m sure you’re very nice in real life–” *enter drunk dude #3* “You’re just…like…you’re like the male equivalent of me!”
“Oh! Well…thank you! (???)”
“And, um, I saw you last year when you were in Pittsburgh and you were awesome and I will totally come see you any time you’re in town.”
“Okay, great! Thanks so much!”

He was perfectly gracious, but I was pretty sure I caught a flash of concern go across his face when I started getting all Annie Wilkes on him. “You dirty bird! You wouldn’t let Lucy out of the cock-a-doodie closet! I SAW YOU LAST YEAR, MR. MAN!”

On our way home, I mentioned to the husband that I was sad to learn that Louis and his wife had divorced and the husband said that he always jokes about not getting girls and being single as a 41-year-old dad who had let himself go. “He’s famous and he’s funny. I bet he gets laid every night.”

I thought back a few minutes to my stammering dedication and the amused look on Louis’ face and started blushing even harder.

Jesus. Did he maybe think I was offering him a piece of this ass? And if so…did he just turn me down?

I started to get angry. “I’m 30 but he’s 41! That’s totally scoring for a 41-year-old! And we both have red hair! And I looked cute tonight! And I told him he’s my male equivalent! Well, besides the husband. WHY DOESN’T THAT ASSHOLE WANT TO HAVE ANONYMOUS FANGIRL SEX WITH ME?” I fumed about his rejection until about 1 a.m. when finally the rational part of my brain woke up and reminded me that I am completely insane.