Hairy Loafer

Im faking asleep for the sleeping-selfie effect

Thanksgiving is a holiday where it’s easy to realize how thankful I am for my wonderfully cozy little house because I spend three to four days sleeping at someone else’s.

At 6:45  on Thanksgiving I headed upstairs to our guest room, and put George to bed. Even though he cried and said he needed to go back downstairs, he was snoring by 7. Then I had to bring in my daughter and get her to sleep. While reading to her, I dozed off.

I drank a latte at 3, so when my eyes cracked open at 9, I felt spry. I wiggled free from in between the kids, and browsed a bookshelf. I found a little book called “The Big Secret For The Small Investor” and I thought, this is perfect, I’ve wanted to learn how to play the stock market. I read the first two chapters, and then started having wildly entertaining daydreams that pulled me completely from the text. 

I became ecstatic at the prospect of becoming a successful investor and my future wealth.  My mornings would be dedicated to reading financial Times, drinking coffee and making notes on all my daily stock trades. I would get really fucking rich, like one-eyed Christian Bale in The Big Short.

I wouldn’t be overly flashy, initially. But after a while, there’d be no reason to hold back, and I’d buy everyone those ridiculous hairy Gucci loafers for Christmas. 

They’d all look at the stupid shoes, angrily thinking how much they'd rather have the cash. Then I’d shout surprise! and give everyone a fat check and an accompanying hairy loafer gift receipt. They’d forgive me for the lavish waste of money, and we’d drink Coors light.

hairy loafers cost $1,800 (stupid AF)

I was reading about calculating Present Value, and drifted into another daydream where I’m working at a glass desk with three computers. I’m wearing a silk robe with fur trim, thick rimmed glasses, as well as a phone headset. As I’m reading the screens, drinking coffee and flicking a ten inch cigarette into a massive jade ash tray, I’m chatting on the phone, “Alright, bitch, I got to get back to it. Time is money, gotta spend money to make money, buy low and sell high. Give my love to the mister,” Then I look at a computer screen and watch my bank balance increasing faster than a rocket ship speedometer.

Soon after, I realized this book was boring me, and the idea of being a wildly successful stock trader seems way more interesting then the process of becoming a wildly successful stock trader.

I returned the book to the shelf, and picked up Kathy Griffin's Official Book Club Selection. It is hilarious, no day dreaming needed. I was trying not to laugh out loud and wake up the kids, or at least not laugh louder than Kiki's snore-purr, but that made me bottle up the laughter, causing my body to convulse, simulating a tiny earth quake on the pillowy bed, and shaking the kids. 

Kathy was a later-in-life slut, and her stories about fucking random dudes were hilarious. I only made it to chapter 5 when I passed out, but I couldn't help being intrigued after she talked about housewives being the majority in her Santa Monica Community College acting classes.

The next day when I started looking at class schedules, I had to give myself a slap on the face, Alicia, focus on one flower at a time, fool, or you'll never get your garden to grow.

I'm back to Sacramento, and my razor. Another thing I need to be thankful for, and should never forget to take on vacation. I wouldn't make it another day without needing to find myself a cave to hibernate in. Now I know, five days makes linoleum go to shag.

Whenever I return home from being out of town, I hit the ground running with a fresh perspective and pent up motivation. We put out all the Christmas decorations, started laundry from the trip, set up my teaching lessons for Tuesday, and am planning a writing schedule for the week. 

There is one thing I haven't  managed to get to. No one is calling me a loafer, but they certainly can call me hairy. One flower at a time, here!

Come Again

I asked Kiki what she wants for Christmas, and I shit you not, she said, "Minnie doesn't just share her bows, she wears her bows, a proud sponsor of Disney Jr."
I replied, "Well, you need to get more creative! Or at least a bit more specific."

Last year we bought her a plastic monstrosity advertised on Disney Jr. She still plays with it, but it satisfies the Minnie Mouse quota of household toys, and we don't need another toy in the house reminding us of Garbage Island.

I'm buying a new Play Doh press. The old one broke from making Play Doh pasta hours a day. It's been a nice reprieve; I'm able to sit at the table, drink coffee and talk, without being ordered in a bratty Disney Princess tone, to squish out a fresh batch of pasta. I had to put a kibosh on the Disney Jr because it makes my daughter act like an abusive megalomaniac. All those Princesses and their lack of consideration for anything but a chipped fingernail corrodes her mind.

We also watch the Pixar Movie, Inside Out. There is a funny bit where two characters sing the-song-from-the-gum-commercial, that goes like this, "Triple mint gum will make you survive." But when Kiki sings it, it sounds like this, "Triple mint cum will make you survive." I have corrected her enough where the problem should be fixed. "No, girl, It's G-U-M, Gah, Gah" Then she asked if my grandpa didnt eat his Triple Mint Gum.
After looking up the song online, the to actual lyrics, "Triple Dent gum will make you SMILE."

Lately the things I hear on TV don't match their intention, and thats even if I'm hearing it right. Like the news. I sat on the couch on election night and thought, they are really hamming this up. I said to my husband, "I wish they'd fast forward the two hours and stop dragging out this charade, so we can just call Hillary the winner and get to bed."
He looked at me over his laptop, "I don't think you're understanding. Trump is winning."

After a while it started settling in. I read a report, in the aftermath, saying Hillary was yelling and throwing things as she became aware of this unfathomable defeat by The Great Orange Hype. I was too much in shock to yell or throw things, and sat there, laughing like my straight jacket was being cinched one notch tighter.

The beautiful news anchors on NBC all pooped in their pants as they tried to make heads-or-tails of their inability to capture the pulse of the US. One anchor said, she regretted calling Trump supporters "The deplorables" and the others confirmed there must have been some error in their polling methods.

Clearly, the mainstream media has no idea what is going on in this country, or they don't care. They are having too good a time pleasuring each other in a verbal cirle-jerk. There is this leftist notion that cops should have to go to college because, they think strapping someone with 100K in debt will lead them to making better decisions under pressure. But maybe the opposite should be done with journalists in this country. Journalists, who go from college to grad school, to UNPAID internships, should live awhile as working class.
Journalism is a profession only the wealthy can enter. Entering the field requires working unpaid in places like NYC, an impossibility for anyone whose parents aren't bankrolling them. These people, with their soft paws, paint the picture of how things are in this country, and they do a piss-poor job of it.

I was hoping an apology video would be made where we get to watch a panel of NBC news anchors chowing down on their soiled diapers from election night, but I haven't seen any of that. I have seen them discussing fake news sources from Kazakhstan or some shit, and how all people who didn't vote in protest of Bernie are responsible for Trump. Again, they're not realizing, this is exactly what they wanted, because they were anti-Hillary. The news is calling this sect of the rust belt "uneducated" which is their transparent synonym for "stupid." I don't think the news has quite learned it's lesson. For every word they utter, they should be listening to five more. By blanketing the rust belt as stupid, they're, once again, failing to gather insight into this population.

Right now, mainstream news are basically pissing gasoline on a fire since portraying this group accurately is not as exciting, or clickable, as having KKK as a headline (and fuck yes, I think people need to protest against KKK, racism, sexism and fascism.)

But prioritizing sensationalism, comes from a place of entitlement because they're not living in these communities that are impacted. From their cozy leather swivel chairs, they proclaim, it's an abomination, let the people rise up. So they play footage to unsettle the nation, but not a single fleck of riot-ash blows into their insulated neighborhoods. For example, google Standing Rock or North Dakota Pipeline, you won't get a CNN, NBC, Huff Post article till you're five pages in, so they're intentionally ignoring the issues of Native Americans because it won't get the endearing response of a Dear Dad letter from a girl who wants to stop her dad from voting Trump. It's like they can't stop pandering to themselves, Narcissus gazing in the pool.

When I was at the gym the other day, an ad for Brian Butt-Brains Williams came on. I thought, Wow these fucking networks really have their priorities straight. They let down an entire country with their shitty election coverage, and then make drama-school drop out Brian Williams the lead anchor of a nightly news program. Drama-school drop out, go back on suspension, no one wants to see you're lying ass.

Until the mainstream news decides to produce progressive, constructive and an accurate depiction of the US, all people who turn to them as a resource are being misled.
Just like how we get to point our fingers and laugh our asses off at Barns And Nobles, and eventually all other big-box stores, as they go bankrupt because Amazon is putting them out of business the same way they killed all small businesses in the nineties, we will be equally unsympathetic when network news close their doors because people look elsewhere for reliable coverage.
I don't think the delusional main stream news is penetrable. They'll be turing off the last light in the building, dismayed by the "uneducated" working class who weren't able to open their minds enough to indulge in the perspective of an upper class white liberal.

I can't even take solace in their impending demise, since their blues will be short lived as they speed dial their brethren for another leisure career. None of this changes the fact that Clinton lost, and that is the hardest pill for me to swallow. Maybe I'm projecting my frustration towards the narrow minded media. Im not buying into the Great Orange Hype, and I'm certainly not forgetting all the stupid shit he said.

Hillary had a fireworks display planned for her acceptance speech to symbolize busting through the glass ceiling. I had a great tweet planned too. I was going to write, "Now we can put all this pussy grabbing behind us, and hopefully never mention it again." I was skeptical of the timing of the Access Hollywood video, and thought it was part of an antifeminist conspiracy woven into Hillary Clinton winning the election. Whoever thought holding on to that video till last minute was a good idea should be forced to eat one of those poopy diapers too.

I've heard a gratuitous cry for Michelle Obama to one day run for president. To which I shake my head, of course. Listen up, you're compliment is backhanded. A woman can, and will become president, and she doesn't need teed to be the leftovers of her husband. We'll do this again, and she will win.

She should start advertising now, on Disney jr. The brand loyalty will clench the election, even after proclaiming she can grab anyone by the pussy, or dick, if thats her thing.