Mother Summer Fucker: A Prologue

The summer of 2010 was the summer I nearly killed my blog.

Had she been a pet dog, she would have been emaciated and roaming local freeways, dodging cars in search of food scraps and a gentle hand. Had she been a feline, she would of been one of those flat cats you see on an episode of Hoarders. A forgotten skull crushed by boxes of useless shit and feasted on by it's own starving family. My blog is one of my kids, sitting in their pajamas and eating pizza for breakfast at 11:23 on a Friday morning, whining to go to the pool and hearing my mouth respond, "Please stop talking." My blog is homeless, sitting in her own piss with her jaundiced nails. Her sign says she will work for food but she's lying.

But I vacuumed yesterday which means that I'm not clinically depressed.

Back when I actually did feed my blog on a regular basis, played with her hair and called her Sugar, I wrote a post dissing Christmas Letters. I still think they're stupid (no disrespect to Suburban Kamikaze). My theory was based on the obvious -- who cares what I did all year and if you actually held any interest, you could check out my well-fed, much loved, always shaved above the knee blog.

But since this is the summer that my blog turned into a neglected, hairy little beast in desperate need of vaginal rejuvenation, I think I'm going to do the unthinkable and write a Summer Letter.

And all five people that still check in to see if Miss Spoken has dribbled anything out of her mouth will read it and love it and ask me to almost kill my blog every summer. Maybe even twice a year, which should actually happen on it's own but it never hurts to have cheerleaders.

Suicidal Cars and My Quest for Silence

The view from up here is stunning. Where is up here, you ask? I'm perched on my cross of martyrdom, removed from my body and watching the chaos that is my life unfold below me. The pity party is in full swing.

Somebody pass the vodka.

Whore Mouth landed a job as a caretaker for those who need their colostomy bags changed and suffer from violent mood swings, angered that they can no longer recognize the faces in front of them. Unfortunately, her car committed suicide before she could begin her first actual day of employment.

Pops loaned her his car and sure enough, she inspired suicide in yet another vehicle. She hasn't actually made it to work and has once again proved that "Irish Luck" has nothing to do with four leaf clovers and more to do with potato famines and hereditary substance abuse.

Didn't I ask somebody to pass the vodka?

She won $100 on a slot machine and sent half of it to my brother. It never got there.

But maybe her luck would change because she's been trying like hell to win one of those online sweepstakes or blog giveaways and maybe a win would be like a catalyst into the world of Lucky Bastards (yeah, I'm talking to you Johnny Boy). And when she got that email with the subject line that read, "Congratulations! You Won!!" she certainly thought that she was moving out of the shadows and into the sunshine. That is until she discovered that what she actually won was some air freshener. For her car. That she no longer has.

Even from up here on my cross, I can hear her crack and splinter.

Where the fuck is that vodka??

Ahhh, Whore Mouth. This bad luck comes at a time when she is supposed to be moving out of my house and into her own place so that she can get her granddaughter out of foster care.

And Legal has also moved back home and is sleeping on my couch. This translates into a number of things:

• My phone will never, never, never stop ringing.
• My grocery bill will skyrocket yet she will complain that there is nothing to eat.
• I will gather tumbleweeds of red hair that roll around the house because she sheds like a Siberian Husky in the summer.
• I will discover a trail of discarded clothing, hair ties and hoop earrings that will lead from the garage, through the house and to the outside porch.
• My computer will be loaded with songs from a bunch of artists with the first name Lil'.
• I will not find my makeup because it will have moved into her purse.
• I will never be alone.

Seriously, what does a woman on a cross teetering on the cusp of sanity have to do to get some vodka around this place??

How I Could Just Kill A Man

When my family and I moved from San Francisco's Mission District, part of the reason (other than not being able to afford little things like food and rent) was to live in a neighborhood where the kids could play outside and the schools had actual text books -- to basically live a better life. Maybe Legal would finish high school and find a boyfriend that wasn't cloaked in red from head to toe and didn't have a record. Maybe we wouldn't have a crazy neighbor that would routinely call the police on us with claims that we were dragging dead bodies across the floor and throwing pots of piss at her door. Maybe Seltar would get a job where the work was consistent and the boss wasn't high on Oxycontin. Dream a little dream ......

So we made the move and from that very first night things were better. Much better.

We moved into a nice community of townhouses with a pool and a skatepark around the corner and an elementary school a short walk away. Seltar's job was a perfect fit. Neighbors actually introduced themselves and everybody was very friendly and even the UPS driver would bring lollipops for the kids every time he made a delivery. At first I thought this behavior was more Dateline Predator than genuine kindness, but then I relaxed a bit. Everybody moved a whole lot slower than they did in The City and it appeared that nobody here knew how to use a goddamn horn. All of these things took some getting used to. But life was good and the neighborhood was great. You didn't have to worry about wearing red on 16th Street or wearing blue on 24th.

Then Seltar passed and things got dark again. And there I sat for awhile but not too long. At some point, you start to shower regularly again and dinner becomes more than just semi-cooked rigatoni or a pizza delivered by a pimpled face boy that knows your whole family on a first name basis because he's ringing your doorbell four times a week.

But now my safe and quiet neighborhood is looking more like a scene from something John Singleton would direct. Okay, maybe not that hood. But something close, where close means not really close at all. But still, not what I signed up for. These are the suburbs, dammit!

First there was The Mother's Day Street Brawl of 2009. Then The Boy did a little shoplifting, Miss Perceived robbed a grave, undercover cops made a bust right outside my house (turns out the guy robbed the gas station around the corner) and our car was stolen, recovered and then broken into again.

The Fuck, right?

But wait ... there's more! Some random FuckNut tried to break into the vacant townhouse that is located right across from mine, by breaking out the entire two front windows. It wasn't even the hour when you would expect this type of shit. It was only 9 o'clock! I know that when I used to break into empty houses to steal microwaves and paint thinner, I wouldn't make my move until at least two in the morning. I'm Ninja like that.

Lastly, my daughter was at the local library trying to use the computer so she can get a motherfucking job and put to rest my constant bickering, when some sick fuck pedophile slithered into the teen area of the library and started jerking off.

But fear not readers because Miss Spoken has got herself a plan and it looks a little like this:

Masturbate in front of my kid again and I will chop, cripple and mutilate beyond recognition and no jury in Nevada will convict me.

Car Thieves, Cattle Prods and Shotguns: Welcome to Nevada

I see the Officer open the rear passenger door and he says something to my mother. She then steps inside with her left leg, ducking her head as she guides herself into the cramped backseat. A few minutes later, the car makes a u-turn in the middle of my street and they're gone.

Stop.

Rewind.

It's 3:00 AM Sunday morning when the phone next to my bed rings. I've had a lifetime of late-night calls that are never good. Nobody calls me at that hour to say they love me. Nobody calls me that late to tell me that they're coming over in the morning with mimosas and a fucking muffin basket. The content of these calls is always misery and/or some shade of violence.

I answer on the first ring with a tone that suggests I'm completely awake and have been knitting eye patches for kittens all night. The voice on the other end is My Gay and he's out of breath and between his huffs and puffs I begin to understand the situation: he borrowed my mom's car to go to work and it was stolen from the employee parking lot.

Fuck.

Motherfuck.

Now it's 4:00 AM, and my mom and I are on our 43rd cup of coffee, waiting for the police. When the Officer arrives, he takes her statement and explains how her Jeep Laredo is the second most popular car among car thieves out here.

Awesome.

She signs her statement, he writes down the case number and then he's gone. I lock the door and tell my mom to kiss her car goodbye because there is no way she's going to get it back and if she does, it won't be in one piece.

P.S. ... she's not covered for theft. Translation: she's fucked.

So when the call came in the very next day saying that they thought they found her car, I was in total shock. In fact, the car was parked in an apartment complex and under surveillance and would she like an Officer to come pick her up and take her to retrieve her car? Hells yes.

An Officer picks up my mom and takes her to the actual spot where an undercover cop is watching her car. It's a huge apartment complex with a move-in special of $99 and no credit check. The kind of place where flea market blankets act as curtains and discarded diapers litter the walkways. Real uptown livin'.

The car is relatively unscathed and all they left behind was some makeshift drug paraphernalia and the distinct smell of junkie.

But the story doesn't end there because that very night, some motherfucker (same motherfuckers?) broke into her car again and this time, stole my garage door opener. The garage door that leads directly into a garage full of power tools. A garage door that leads directly into my home.

Now my undiagnosed but totally relevant anxiety disorder kicks in and I think it's safe to say that I freaked the fuck out. I immediately raced to Lowe's to purchase something (anything) that would bolt my garage door shut. This being Nevada, the helpful clerk told me to buy a shotgun. He was serious.

Fast forward to me back at home where I'm moving at breakneck speeds, locking windows and doors, installing a club on my mom's steering wheel and gluing shut her faulty front wing windows. Then with the help of Johnny Boy, I disengage the garage door and I start to feel a little better, but not much. This bullshit is triggering me in all kinds of ways. I remember being about three or four and our home was burglarized while we slept. A couple of years later I watched as my Grandpa was held at gunpoint by two teenagers who wanted cash but only found an old man with a paycheck and a frozen turkey. I wonder if my house is being watched because they know that my husband has passed and the only constant male presence here is a six year old boy. At this point, I'm breaking out in hives and putting together a checklist in my head of weapons to be passed out before bedtime.

My mother picks out a lovely baseball bat and I choose something that can easily be inserted between a would-be robber's ribs. I'm considering sleeping with the cattle prod ... spooning it like a long lost lover. My mind flips back to that cowboy/Lowe's employee who suggested a shotgun. Hmmmm .....

Now I will spend the rest of the day researching Nevada's laws on the use of deadly force and justifiable homicide.

His Uterus and Her Need to Scrub the Floor

Think Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Wife Swap meets Leave It To Beaver ... that's what's been going on around here ever since my daughter moved in with my brother and my mother in turn moved in with me.

Let's start with my brother.

The day my mother moved out, he stayed up until 2:00 in the morning trying to eradicate her existence from the kitchen. An actual exorcism of her Asian fusion decor was performed. His goal: to turn this tiny little 3 x 5 cell of a galley into some kind of Tuscan-styled renaissance kitchen. I get it -- he wants to place his stamp on the house and he's gay which, if you were into stereotypes (shut your mouth, we all know you are), you might think the results would be faaabulous: shiny copper pots, Italian Country ceramics, textured walls, and somebody pouring me a glass of Chianti. But there isn't too much you can do to a kitchen that consists of a sink, a stove, a refrigerator and two feet of counter space. So with little resources and probably even less understanding of anything Italian (except knowledge that his father's-father's-father's family was from The Old Country), he took some plaid fabric that contained at least some of the warm colors one might find under a Tuscan sun, and swagged it across the metal spice rack drilled dead center in the middle of the wall.

He is also cooking things like creamy mushroom chicken and soup made from the carcass of a turkey. He's planning ungodly events like Family Game Night and doing other crazy things like growing hips, tits and a uterus. Look! Here's a picture of him taken just one hour after my mother's mattress was loaded on the truck:

And then over at my house, my daughter Boss Lady has completely given me the finger (apparently a running theme amongst my girl-children) and joined my mother's camp. Not only is she a traitor (if she keeps this shit up I told her she can forget about getting new underwear for school next year), but she has become some kind of cleaning hurricane, a category five. Her idea of fun is to clean out the garage and I place the blame entirely on the woman who made me bleach the fucking sidewalk when I was little. Now my daughter comes home from school, throws back a chocolate milk and a PB & J and then it's off to work: dusting, sweeping, cleaning her room, making her brother's bed and wetting clumps of napkins then wiping down anysurface that gets in her way. As I write this post, she is downstairs with my mother breaking in the new vacuum cleaner. Seriously.

Later she'll ask, "What about laundry, mom? Shouldn't we do some laundry?" "No, honey. I already did the laundry."

She'll shake her head at me and think to herself, Man, my mother is some kind of lazy and would anything get done around here if it wasn't for my tireless devotion to cleanliness?

Where my mother's estrogen levels may be plummeting , it is clear that Boss Lady's are spiking. She has become consumed with brushing her hair and painting her nails and smearing all kinds of sparkly glitter vaseline-like substances all over her face. "I like to be shiny," she says.

She wants to get her ears pierced even though she knows it will hurt. It's obvious to me that the next request will be to have her legs waxed before swimsuit season arrives. "They're hairy," she says.

At this rate, my brother will turn into my sister and my daughter will turn into my mother and I will be forced to turn myself into some place with soft walls and no forks.

Why Count Sheep When You Can Count Felonies?

I'm having trouble sleeping. Actually, I've had trouble sleeping for as long as I can recall which, thanks to the 80s, isn't all that long. I love sleep, but she's a tease and often eludes me.

Even when I'm cradled in feathers with the blinds drawn, the alarm clock turned away from my eyes and the room perfumed with sleep-inducing lavender; even with a sleep mask on and under the influence of two sleeping pills and a Nyquil chaser ... I cannot manage to fall asleep and stay asleep. I wake up when I turn over, I wake up because I think I hear somebody calling my name and sometimes I just wake up for no discernible reason whatsoever.

Two nights ago, I didn't fall asleep until after 3:00 am. I turned over (12:00 am), closed my eyes and thought about maybe going to the Bay Area to visit my best friend. I turned back over and thought maybe he should come here. I flipped over on my back (1:23 am) and thought about what I'd wear tomorrow. Stuck my leg out from under the comforter and thought Why bother? You know it's gonna be yoga pants and a long sleeve shirt, again. I flip the clock around (2:49 am) and think, If you fall asleep right now, you can maybe get 3 1/2 hours of sleep but that would be fucking impossible because you're still thinking and you're not going to fall asleep right now. Damn It! Now I'm wide awake doing nighttime math and developing anti-sleep excel spreadsheets in my head. My mind presses down on the accelerator and takes off. How much should I give The Boy when his tooth finally falls out? Did Legal pre-set the coffee? Should I go downstairs and check? Do I moisturize enough? Where the fuck is Tiger?

So last night, after nearly pissing myself watching Chelsea Lately's Bloopers show, I make my way to bed exhausted and ready for the Sandman. It's just after midnight and the pillows are perfect and I'm not too hot or cold and I feel myself drifting off ... off ... and o f f . . .

"PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE CAR!!"

Huh? My eyes pop open, I prop myself up on one elbow and wonder if I'm having audio hallucinations (again).

"PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE CAR, NOW!!"

Ah shit.

Those words and that tone are unmistakable. It's the fucking police. I creep over to the window to see some fool in shorts (it's 18 degrees outside) assuming the position over my neighbor's car. Miss Perceived's mother's car to be exact. And the cops are undercover cops, sporting long goatees, Dickies and flannel shirts buttoned just at the neck. They're good. Even I'd buy drugs off these guys, you know, if I were still into that kind of thing.

Then comes the squad cars and an ambulance and suddenly, my quiet street is awash in red and blue flashing lights. The spotlight of police-issued flashlights bounce off walls and windows and fuck it, I'm never gonna get to sleep because clearly this idiot tossed his stash. And the only person who could actually find a bag of meth shards in the snow in the dead of night is the junkie that tossed it. Unless he gets distracted by something shiny or Home Depot opens it's doors early with a two-for-one sale on mapp gas. So this arrest is going to take awhile.

The cops raise their voices a little and laugh at this kid (man?). My stomach immediately turns into something tight and tries to make it's way up my esophagus. My heartbeat does a giddyup and my hands are wet. This happens every time I'm around any sort of police activity. Too many years spent refilling my keg cup in the school parking lot? Too many times trying to take a hit from behind a sand dune? Too many unsafe lane change tickets? Whatever the reason, the presence of the police makes me nervous and anxious. I feel rank with guilt over something, anything and nothing.

I'm in bed (1:26 am) staring at the ceiling and wondering if Miss Perceived knows that some stranger is being arrested in front of her house. I feel my mind inching toward the accelerator (please, not tonight). What if the police don't find his baggy and a kid does? What if my kid does? Did Legal pre-set the coffee? Should I go downstairs and look? Does The Boy need a bagged lunch tomorrow or is it pizza day at school? If I fall asleep right now ...

I Totally Shredded My Cheese!

Guess what guys? Mother Nature totally reads my blog!

She must be one of those anonymous followers that are too embarrassed to follow me publicly. Maybe I'm her guilty pleasure. I'm her Flava of Love. Her Pour Some Sugar On Me. 

Here's proof.

Remember when I posted about missing my City by the Bay and the thick fog and how I wasn't sure how to handle this Winter offensive? Well, she must have read it because the next day, she made sure to deliver me a bit o'sunshine. Just enough to make the trees start to drip their winter coat. Just enough to turn driveways into slush puddles and to streak the sidewalks with little rivers of melted powder. But then she must have gotten a phone call or something because that night, she let the temperature drop and all that melted snow and slush turned into ice. Lots of ice. So that when I went to hide wine bottles in the garbage outside take out the trash, my slippered feet touched down on one of these Devil's Slides and I was soon airborne. Not to worry Innernetterz, my tailbone totally absorbed the shock of the fall. A bit dumbstruck, I laid there for a second or two, looking up at the sky and saying to myself, "Fuckallhell. I totally just shredded my cheese."

Maybe Mother Nature felt bad about my ass-landing because the next day she delivered me some fog. Lots of fog. But like a backhanded compliment ("You're pretty ... all things considered"), the bitch delivered it frozen.

The fuck is frozen fog?

Technically speaking, frozen fog is fog composed of minute ice crystals. They just hang there, midair. Suspended. Untechnically speaking, it's kind of like looking at something beautiful through dirty contact lenses. Kind of like this:

So the normal ten minute walk to school took more like 30 minutes because (a) I broke my ass the night before and (b) because what was once sidewalks and streets was now one huge ice skating rink/death trap and (c) because I had my mother with me who is only 55 but is petrified of falling and breaking her hip even though I assure her she can still fry chicken with a broken hip. In fact at one point, she considers getting on her hands and knees and crawling. It's not that I haven't seen her do this before. There was that one time when I was little and couldn't sleep and walked into her bedroom unannounced.

[Shudder]

To this day I blame her for my nearsightedness.

Christmas Letters Are Stupid (I Know This Because I Used To Be Gifted)

We're standing in the middle of an indoor fun zone. We've all gathered here to celebrate The Regulator's birthday and pray at this temple of inflatable obstacle courses and all things bouncy. Even the floor has springs in it. The only thing missing is a few hits of Ecstasy, the repetitive thump of overly mixed House music and a bunch of almost-adults with pacifiers in their mouths and synthetic wings on their backs.

I remind myself that this is a birthday party for a four year old. This is not a warehouse in SOMA. It is not 1995.

With a literal spring in my step, I walk into a conversation about Christmas. Christmas correspondence, to be exact. The Keynote Speaker is The Regulator's mother herself, Miss Perceived.

"I'm doing a Christmas Letter this year," she says with a roll of her eyes.

By now I should expect her to do or say whatever it is that I don't expect her to do or say. Like talking about her drawer of sex toys with my father-in-law sitting at the table beside her. There is a reason she is dubbed Miss Perceived. But I cannot hide the what-the-fuck expression smeared all over my face. Nor can I stop myself from speaking, and by speaking I of course mean laughing.

"You don't even talk on the phone! Why would you send a Christmas Letter and what the fuck is a Christmas Letter anyway?" 

I'm not completely dense. I understand the word Christmas (def: a day when it's okay to sip alcohol in the morning as long as it has bubbles or is an appropriate mixer in coffee) and I know what a letter is (def: something one writes when one is incarcerated). But what, Sweet Jesus, does one have to do with the other?

I scan my memory card for things I know nothing about and couldn't care less about and that's where I find it: a long forgotten memory of finding a Christmas Letter written by my Grandma's sister. In a beautiful longhand of swirls and loops, Great Aunt Katherine set about describing her year of family happenings on a farm in Missouri. I recall that something animal died and something human lived. Somebody gained a husband. Somebody lost a finger. Merry Christmas.

Christmas Letters, I told myself, were stupid. I was in the gifted program at school so I knew that I could not be wrong. Today, although no longer thought of as gifted (unless you consider the ability to give two kids a complete bath in under six minutes "gifted"), I still think Christmas Letters are stupid.

First of all, I have a blog. If you want to know how my year went, spend some time in Miss Spoken's archives. Bring alcohol and a Snuggie.

And what could I possibly say in a Christmas Letter? Legal is eighteen now and still spends her days social networking; The Boy turned six and graduated to wiping his own ass effectively; Boss Lady is five and started composing the soundtrack of my life on her new Kawasaki (thanks Miss Dee). Yes it sounds like popcorn kernels in the garbage disposal but it's a wonderful start to her future career as somebody way more awesome than her mother.

Miss Perceived defends herself. Kind of.

"I know, I know. If you want to get ahold of me, text me. If you call me, I'll just text you back. I'm a texter. Text, text, text. But I haven't sent out Christmas cards in years!"

Miss Perceived is a huge supporter of this blog and the written word of she who is Miss Spoken. Because of this (and the fact that she lives next door and could babysit in case I have one of those Ambien blackouts), I will support her Christmas Letter.

And if it is blog-worthy, God help her.

Black Friday: Also Known as Take Your Gun to the Mall Day

For those who were too afraid to ask and also don't care, Miss Spoken had a splendid Thanksgiving.

Yes, she had a cold but applied therapeutic Mimosas. This was followed by a healthy dose of Chardonnay. Miss Spoken doesn't have the luxury of health insurance so she treats everything with Chardonnay and Voodoo. Sometimes vodka. Ya'll need a prescription you just let her know. She's a giver.

But here's where things do a bit of a nose dive:  Miss Spoken, her mother and Her Gay decided to do the whole Black Friday thing.

Miss Spoken had no business getting up at 2:30 in the morning ... but she did. She had no business leaving the house decaffeinated but Legal broke her promise to pre-set the coffee, thereby forfeiting all rights to receive gifts wrapped in pretty paper. 

So it was that Miss Spoken found herself in the abyss that is Old Navy at 3:15 AM, with no coffee and a line that wrapped the entire square footage of the store. She stood in that line for an hour and a half. Translation:  For 90 minutes, Miss Spoken had to resist the urge to punch the little Asian chick in front of her who insisted on confiscating a plastic chair from the dressing room and dragging it under her size zero ass. She also refrained from hurting the woman who decided to bring of all things ... a stroller and a fucking baby. Really? You brought a baby to Armageddon? In a fucking stroller?

Then came Wal*Mart.

[Did you hear that? That's the sound of somebody's mind splintering]

Then came Toys R Us.

[Did you hear that? That's the sound of somebody re-loading]

Miss Spoken thinks she learned a valuable lesson, Innerneterz. Unless you're actually in the market to buy a plasma screen for Christmas, stay the hell home. And Johnny Boy, if you're reading this (and you damned well better be), next year when Miss Spoken tells you that's she's going to get up at 2:30 to drop kick somebody for the last fleece pullover, you remind her of this post and how much better her life will be if she just stays home and has a Bloody Mary. Just like her witch doctor prescribed.

One Lucky Bastard Am I

Miss Spoken is Irish. Not completely, but she's more Irish than she is Greek. More Irish than she is Portuguese. And more Irish than she is German.

Let's see just how Irish she is. To do this, we shall start with (and end with) Irish stereotypes:

1. Yes, she's Catholic. No, she's not a practicing Catholic, unless you count the religious art hanging in her house ('cause she thinks it's cool) or the neck-weary crucifixes she wore in the 80s or the time(s) she actually did go to church but told her mother that the holy water burned. Which reminds me ... Miss Spoken's sister, Miss Led,  thinks her bedroom is haunted and therefore has asked her mother to send her holy water. Miss Spoken has suggested to said mother that she instead send toilet water. Sort of like a placebo. This proves that not only is Miss Spoken a certified genius, but she is also funny(ish).
   
2. Yes, she loves the Kennedy Family. Once upon a time, Miss Spoken was the proud owner of a gorgeous black dining room table that was supposedly owned by a Kennedy. Which Kennedy, you ask? Who cares. Any Kennedy. And because the owner before Miss Spoken bought this table at Christie's, she believed it with all her heart and would spend weekends loving this table, polishing this table and totally making out with this table (which is a reoccurring theme for Miss Spoken).
3. Yes, she loves potatoes! She loves them fried, mashed, baked, baked again and stuffed with wonderful things like cheese and onion. God help her, she's even had them on her pizza.
4. Yes, she's a brawler? No, she's not a brawler? Miss Spoken refuses to answer, citing some bullshit excuse about self-incrimination and outstanding warrants. Blah-blah.
5. No, she's not an alcoholic ... per se. Aren't Sundays supposed to be about drinking? And so what if she relies on her 4:00 glass of Chardonnay (stop yelling at her 'cause it used to be 3:00) and Miss Perceived is the one who told her to take a shot of vodka in the morning ... just to settle down when life throws a big pile of shit at your already shit-coated extremities.
6. No, she does not have the Luck of the Irish. She has the Potato Famine Raped By Vikings kind of Irish luck. The kind of luck that delivers your menstrual cycle like a tsunami while you're in the middle of the woods camping. The kind of luck that always finds you in a Wal*Mart line where a price check needs to be done and the person doing the checking is fucking brainless. The kind of luck that shapes itself into a virus resting in Miss Spoken's chest and sinuses the day before she is to host a dozen people in her house for Thanksgiving. 

Conclusion:  Miss Spoken is too Irish for her own good and should consider being more Greek or maybe more German. More Greek/German stereotype tests to follow.

Fuck You EliSSSabeth

Miss Spoken was just sitting there, minding her own business; innocently rolling around naked in a batch of towels plucked fresh from the dryer when her regularly scheduled program was interrupted. Interrupted by Balloon Boy and his Media-Whoring Family of FuckNuts.

But Miss Spoken didn't know at the time that they were Media-Whoring FuckNuts. So Miss Spoke was captivated and sad and asked Legal to come sit with her and watch the horror unfold.

Because Miss Spoken has a son, The Boy. And The Boy is also six. And Miss Spoken can't help but look at this Jiffy Pop balloon, soaring 10'000 feet above the ground, spinning and tilting and she's picturing The Boy inside and it makes her stomach hurt.

She is sure this will end tragically. And then the news lady who knows nothing and speculates everything says that they think Balloon Boy fell out somewhere. And now Miss Spoken is held hostage by her television and Balloon Boy, who isn't her son but could be. And so she watches until she can't take it anymore.

But now it looks like it was all a stunt. Not just a hoax, but something more vile. A means to get on TV and pimp your family. This makes Miss Spoken very angry. And then Elisabeth Hasselbeck (aka Fuck You EliSSSabeth) has the nerve to say that "this is what we deserved." Miss Spoken, who detests Elisabeth, knows exactly what she deserves. She deserves to have her fallopian tubes incinerated. She deserves to have her mouth stitched shut. She deserves a bitch slap. She deserves a BFF like Sarah Palin.

Miss Spoken can dish a joke and she can take one too. But this is not funny. Know what else isn't funny? Dry birth and rectal drip. Unless it happens to Fuck You EliSSSabeth and then Miss Spoken would laugh until her bladder dribbled.

Miranda? That's a Whore's Name!

You've watched Nickelodeon, admit it. Whether you have kids like me or grow pot for the Cannabis Club like my dad, you've seen it. And you've liked it. At least some of it.

But for this post to make any sense, let's hold hands as we take a trip back in time to the 90s . . .

The Spice Girls were telling you what they wanted, what they really really wanted. You had a favorite scrunchy and lots of Lycra in your closet. You got drunk on Jello Shots and woke up with a Sonic the Hedgehog tattoo. Okay, maybe not. So it's 1997 and Legal isn't legal and she loves her some Nickelodeon. Shows like Angry Beavers (my nickname in high school), Keenan & Kel, CatDog. And the best show is Figure It Out.

Figure It Out was a game show hosted by the always sporty Summer Sanders. Summer was forever tan, forever blond and had that Of Course I Don't Masturbate look about her. Actually, she reminds me a lot of Miss Perceived except for that whole masturbation thing.

Anyway, the show was pretty straight forward. Basically, some kid would have a talent or skill of some sort (like making paper out of dryer lint) and the Nick panelists would have to Figure It Out. And there was Secret Slime Action. And that's as dirty as it got.

Fast forward to today's Nickelodeon and we have this minx from iCarly:

Please stop yelling at me because I'm not saying this girl is dirty, I'm just saying she could be. And her name is Miranda which we all know is a whore's name.

And here she is clearly high on ecstasy:

If you need more evidence that Nickelodeon and their centerfold iCarly (aka Miranda the Whore) is really a covert operation to sneak just a bit o' porn into your living room, there is their awards show episode where Carly (aka Miranda the Whore) wears a thigh skimming red silky strapless number and black fingerless gloves (aka whore gloves); a chubby kid with a tuxedo vest on and not much else is handing out awards and a team of bare chested European swimsuit models are sporting speedos and dancing around to the Euro-Techno-Did-I-Mention-I-Like-Fisting songs made popular in the bath houses of Northern California.

And then there is this guy who won an award for Most Interesting Yet Frightening Tongue of All Time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... Tongue Boy ...

The Mamas, The Papas, The Junkies and The Pedophiles

Mackenzie Phillips ... Miss Spoken gets it. What's worse is Miss Spoken is not surprised by it.

Because you see, Miss Spoken has a Dad who is also a drug addict, who could also be charming, who could suck the air out of a room and who treated her more like a wife than a daughter. Actually, that's not true. He treated His Old Lady to derogatory remarks and bloodied noses. She was stupid, didn't dress right, didn't pass the white glove inspection at home and should just shut the fuck up when he caroused with other women. Even when one of those women was her own sister. So I suppose Miss Spoken was treated more like Dad's girlfriend.

Miss Spoken understands that the siblings that weren't exposed to this love probably think you are a liar. Of course. Because the whole purpose of this love is to let you know that you are Special.Like.Him. Miss Spoken's Dad has no use for his step-sons and despises her sister, Miss Led. Miss Spoken's Dad could talk to her for hours about life on other planets, governmental conspiracy theories and his former life as a Shaman. During fights with His Old Lady, he would turn his back to her, march around the house and sing "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead." Then he'd tell Miss Spoken to get on the back of his Harley and they'd drive off into the sunset for a burger. A burger that was paid for with His Old Lady's money because he was too smart for silly things like employment. And when he did have a job (once), he'd blow his entire paycheck on shrimp and cocaine. Did I also mention that he speaks in tongues? Yep. Some might call it the delirious dribble of a man who hasn't slept in thirty years and who sounds like he's attempting to swallow his own tongue but to him he is speaking with God. Yes, God. Because God likes to talk to meth addicts and assholes.

Know what else was special to Miss Spoken? Joining him on his drug runs. Cruising by the homes of pimps, addicts and anybody else that had "it." "It" was usually cocaine bundled in neat triangles that were fashioned from the pages of Hustler. Miss Spoken watched as he got high. Who cared, right? At least she was with him. Better than sitting on the curb waiting for him to come home which he never did when he said he would. Nightfall. No Dad. Just an inflamed mother. But Miss Spoken loooved her Dad.

Nope, Miss Spoken never had an incestuous relationship with her father. But when she was 8 years old and he was 26, his girlfriend was 14. Doesn't take a Shaman or a direct line to God to know that that's not right. One might say improper. The rest of us might say illegal. And that wasn't his first underage love, nor would it be his last. The actual Love Of His Life, his Soul Mate, was a pretty blond 16 year old homeless girl free spirit who hopped on the back of his Harley one beautiful afternoon at a beach in San Francisco. He had never met her before but once again, the Universe told him what to do. In this case, what to do meant taking her home, moving her in and proposing to her. She eventually cut her losses and ran. Dad gave the engagement ring to who else? Miss Spoken.

Then there is the argument as to whether or not John Phillips would have done such a horrific thing had he not been a lifelong drug abuser. Who cares? What difference does it make? His life was drugs. Miss Spoken's Dad is 55 and still pushes anything into his veins that can be liquefied. Smoke anything that fits into a glass pipe.

Ahhhh, memories.....

Like the time his friends broke in and robbed the house while Little Miss Spoken and her family were asleep. And the time he was smoking crack and fell asleep with the torch on. Or the time, convinced he could communicate on a different vibration than the rest of us, went to stay with the tree people in Golden Gate Park for a few days.

Good times, good times.

What's the purpose of this rant? I guess to tell the nay-sayers that there are people out there who buy their own bullshit. That screw their kids and call it love. That use drugs as an excuse for depravity.

Have fun in Hell, boys.

Vaginas, Mummies and 19 Pound Newborns

Every mother has a birthing story and for some reason many of them desperately want to share that experience with friends, relatives and total strangers. They have some kind of primitive need to give the play-by-play, discuss the narcotics they screamed for or didn't scream for. They want to get all chatty about weight and length and shoulder width and cranial circumferences. They want to talk about feelings and how the heavens sang and ice caps melted and Jupiter aligned with Mars when little Emma Isabella or Jacob Michael finally graced the world with their presence.

Whatever. 

Unless some senile doctor high on Oxycontin used medieval forceps to suck Precious from your uterus (and let's see the temporal dents and learning disabilities to prove it) or you accomplished a four-way tear through your clitoris, urethra, labia and anal muscle, then I don't want to hear about it.

And I don't want to see pictures. 

And I don't care how much Precious weighed unless it's this sideshow act bundle of love and butterflies and sunshine:

HolyBankruptedByBabies! This newborn tips the freight scales at almost 20 pounds. Kinda makes bragging about your little 8 pounder seem rather lame now, doesn't it? Too bad it was a C-section (cheater!). I did a bit o'research though and discovered that once upon a time in a vagina far, far away... a woman did deliver a 15 pound baby vaginally. Today her Goodness looks a little like this:

But 20 pounds is nothing to shrug at. Know what else weighs 20 pounds? Meet Sylvia:

Isn't she pretty? Sylvia is a desiccated mummy who was found in a cave in Central America but now resides in Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. Also weighing in at 20 pounds --  an $8 watermelon, about 4,000 quarters, an adult giraffe's heart (gratuitous useless fact) and your average marching band snare drum.

Yeah, try hauling that around while it's clutched on to your nipple like a ravenous mountain gorilla and tell me if it hurts.

Gigantic Fuckup - Part Dos

Remember my Gigantic Fuckup when I booked two rooms at the Days Inn for September 11 instead of September 18 because I'm an idiot who makes lots of organizing checklists, can scramble eggs with her toes while doing the dishes and simultaneously spreading joy throughout the land but can't seem to read a calendar?  

Yeah.

Well, to my relief they waived that pesky 48 hour cancellation requirement and put the cash back in my account.  Wheeeeewww. Close one.

Then came Part Two of the previously mentioned Gigantic Fuckup. It appeared as though the entire hamlet known as Santa Barbara was booked solid. Ass face! I'm pretty sure there isn't a holiday that weekend but then again, how the hell would I know since I can't read a calendar. Just as I was giving in to despair, I found not one, but TWO rooms available at the Sandyland Reef Inn in Carpinteria which sounds like a warehouse full of area rugs made by Middle Eastern orphans with bloody carpet weaving fingers but is really a town just 9 miles from Santa Barbara. Perfect! I book the rooms and decide to find some more photos of this slice of Eden because with a name like Sandyland ... it has to be good. I'm picturing sand and surf and daiquiris and coconut oil and Frankie Avalon making time with Annette Funicello

Instead, what I find is this:

Oooohhhh, and some of this:

Along with a stream of warnings like Don't Stay Here! What a Dump! Got Infected Here! Don't Forget Your Crack Pipe! So ... I promptly cancel yet another reservation, pull out two thirds of my hair, throw something solid across the room and declare this trip O-V-E-R.

That is until my girl Corrina emailed the words that made me pull my thumb out of my mouth and uncurl myself from the fetal position:  

The Lemon Tree Inn

(Insert God-like light from above followed by Herald Angels singing) 

Queen beds, swimming pool, onsite restaurant and wait for it ..... wait for it ..... an onsite bar.

Trip back on!

Letter to a Vagabond

Dear Lady at School Who Only Wears Pajamas,

School has been in session now for what, a week and a half? Everyday I do the drop off and the pick-up thing. Actually, I do that little routine twice because Boss Lady gets out at 11:30 and The Boy isn't released until 3:00.

Every morning I manage to throw two waffles in the toaster for The Boy because without his waffles he will in fact go screwball ape shit crazy and every morning Boss Lady gets her cereal. I consume coffee. Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold, sometimes it's vodka. The Boy's hair gets all spikey and semi-mohawked and Boss Lady gets a ponytail. If these early morning hours go smooth enough, she might even get her beloved pigtails which is saying something for my time management skills because Boss Lady has more insane intersections in her hair than downtown LA which means getting a straight part down the center is damn near impossible. I do it because Boss Lady is ... well ... bossy and she sometimes rubs my back when Legal makes me want to drink lots of Nyquil and sprinkle Flexeril all over my Raisin Bran.

Anyway, in the midst of this regularly scheduled chaos, guess what lady? I manage to walk out of the house in actual clothes. I sometimes even dismiss my bedhead by running my fingers through my hair and on occasion, I have even found the time to throw on a pair of sunglasses so as not to frighten the little ones. So why JesusHellChristShit do you always arrive at the school in your Powerpuff Girls flannel pajama bottoms, a flimsy tank top, no bra and some slippers? And why are you wearing Powerpuff Girls clothing in the first place?

It drives me C.R.A.Z.Y!

You arrive at 3:00 in the exact same thing! Oh, and by "arrive" I mean that you walk. You walk to and from school in your pajamas and slippers with four kids; two of them trailing behind you in their pajamas as well. Can you not find 60 seconds within that 6 hours that the kids are in school to, ohh I don't know .....  get dressed? Are you writing the Great American Novel? Studying quantum mechanics? Or are you watching General Hospital and re-runs of Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Look, I don't know if you reside within Babbleville's finest real estate or if you live in the prettiest little double-wide you ever did see. Either way, I'm just tired of being confronted by your nipples at 8:45 every morning and hearing the sound of those damn slippers as you shuffle and flop your way back to the couch.

Enough with the damn pajamas and buy a fucking bra.

- Miss Spoken

My Name Is Gina and I'm Angry, Very Angry

Angry. That's how I started my day yesterday.

Angry that I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep.

Angry that my niece just spent her 9th birthday in foster care.

Angry that although my mother, Boss Lady and I were taking a trip to go see her that morning, it would mean six hours in a car and only two hours with my niece.

Hold on, it gets better ......

Angry that as I opened my oldest daughter's room to let her know we were all leaving, I find her fast asleep with her 22-year-old-father-of-two-boyfriend right beside her. Sure he was fully clothed but does that really change things for me? Nope.

This was all before 7:30AM! And people wonder why I tend to hug my knees and rock back and forth to the rhythm of my own incoherent babbling.

But wait, there's more ......

Fueled by Starbucks, the three of us set out on this journey to visit my niece. Directions in hand, we successfully navigate our way from Sparks, Nevada to French Camp, California. We arrive safely and 45 minutes early to the compound known as San Joaquin Hospital. I say "compound" because it's in the middle of nowhere and the place looks and feels like a military base. All the buildings surrounding the hospital look like bunkers and barracks. All the streets are layed out in a circular pattern; no street names; no visible addresses. We ask for directions to the Childrens Shelter from three different people and we of course are sent off in three different directions. After circling like idiots for half an hour we finally find the place. The two hours with my niece flies by and before you know it, it's time to go. 

It's 2:00 and although we have yet to eat anything, we decide to wait another hour until we reach our next destination - Ikea. My idea is to relieve myself of some of the day's earlier stresses by throwing my money away on things like kitchen thingys I don't need and frames that may never be filled with pictures. Fun, right? Wrong. Wrong because we get lost and lost and lost. Wrong because I start to notice the car smoking. And now I'm angry again. Angry because the coolant cap is nowhere to be found and what coolant we did have is now running like a neon green river from beneath the car. Angry because it's about 95 degrees outside yet we have to drive with the heater on blast to keep the flippin' car from over heating. Angry because Ikea is so close I can smell the shrink wrap yet we can't go because it's now 3:30 and Boss Lady is about to pass out from malnourishment and I'm about to punch the asshole who just asked me if I'm aware we're leaking coolant as I stand ankle deep in it. 

With our legs nearly blistered from the damned heater and our flip flops melted to our feet, we crawl over mountains at 55 miles per hour. Home at 7:30. In bed at 11:45 because the sun never goes down in goddamned Nevada so the kids play outside all night until I peel them off of their bikes and toss them in bed, kicking screaming and smelling like dirty sidewalk.

Angry.

Because a Twin Bed and a Bus Pass Just Ain't Good Enough

While patrolling the local cable networks for soft core porn educational programs for the tots, I happened across a show that displayed the most undeserving and wretched pock-marked urchins I've ever seen.

The Show: MTV's Teen Cribs

Their tag line:

Ordinary teens who live in extraordinary homes that are designed with them in mind.

HolyMotherJesusChristFuck!

These asshole parents have tricked out their homes with the sole purpose of keeping their asshole kids happy. Indoor treehouses, palatial backyard waterparks, private nightclubs ('cause who doesn't want the legal responsibility of that!), full-court gymnasiums, aquariums the size of my bedroom and of course ... top of the line rides because Baby Boy needs a place to take his "dates" once he's dosed them. Know how I keep my kids happy? I pretend not to notice when Sage steals my underwear; I let Max eat nothing but carbs for five days straight; and Harlowe.... Harlowe's happiest days are when she's cruising Costco's aisles in search of free samples ("Suck in your tummy honey so you get two").

Don't get me wrong. If these kids were pimped out by Disney or busted their asses while simultaneously losing their spleen winning the X-Games, I wouldn't mind in the least. I'm not a hater. But the only thing these kids ever did was find their way out of some woman's uterus (and even that wasn't a solo mission) and into the hands of adults who have clearly lost their minds. These are the little Demi-Gods that will turn into the adults that share college classrooms, social spaces and work places with our kids -- kids who like public swimming pools and are okay getting their jeans at Old Navy. 

So my recommendation: Don't watch this show while intoxicated and cuddling your favorite 12 gauge, double-barreled pump action shotgun unless you have TVs to spare and no outstanding warrants.