Smells Like Tween Spirit

It all started on Monday. I bought a rug for my bedroom as somewhere nice for my feet to fall when I step out of bed. Martina Van Buren, my lionhead rabbit/devil's advocate/beloved roommate/perpetual antagonist/~8-year-life-partner, took to the rug immediately by pancake-ing herself down, stretching into lounge mode and laying down a few "this is my rug now" poos.

It's like diss:

clearly i am not in control of this situation

And like dat:

The thing is, she has her own rug in her pen. It's a $5.99 dollar store treasure, and she seems to be confusing my rug for hers when I thought that I had clearly indicated the difference. I need to show I'm boss. But if I retaliate in a way she'll understand — by pooping on her rug, for instance — I still lose, because she will just stonewall me into cleaning up the mess myself. She's very persuasive. So I don't have a solution yet.

But as the week progressed, things got weirder than the battle over rug ownership. She was racing in circles around my feet, honking at me like a little goose baby and demanding constant an immediate attention. Wherever I went, she followed, circling my feet and standing on her hind legs to stare at me. At first cute, last night the behavior became insane.

Martina would not leave me alone. Usually when I am working in my lounge chair, she will leap into my lap and sit for a few minutes, and I will move my laptop, put my work on hold and torture her with love and affection. Then she'll get restless and hop down, go eat some hay or my shoes or a wire or plot my untimely death or whatever it is that she does when I'm not looking. But not last night: She hopped into my lap probably ten times over the course of a couple hours and just stayed put, getting herself comfortable and buzzing at me, demanding affection. I also began to notice a smell in my room, not unlike the cloud of body odor wafting around Bonnaroo this time of year, but a little sweeter, and probably more beneficial to our society. After determining that the smell wasn't from my armpit or my dirty laundry, I started to ponder the bunny connection. The smell was wild and strange and mildly intoxicating, kind of like in that gasoline/turpentine way. It was then that I gave my shirt the sniff test, where she'd been nestled all night, and the odor was all over it. Perplexed, I turned to my Savior, the omnipotent omnipresent omni-sexual Internet, for advice, and came across this:

It was then that I realized what I had suspected: My baby has become a little lady, and it was time to release her into the wild. I opened the door and let her run out onto the patio, where she was swiftly dispatched by a large hawk that had been ominously circling overhead. I exclaimed, "that's nature for you" and spent the rest of the evening in a leather wing-back chair, smoking a brier pipe and reading Darwin, content in my actions. and she was flirting with the "man of the house." I then set out to find the corniest version of a certain Neil Diamond song to play over and over for her (and me), and I think I found it:



I am not unfamiliar with female advances, but 96-percent of them come in the form of doe-eyed flirtations from overweight black women in the Duane Reade check-out line, where I'm patiently waiting to buy blueberry yogurt pretzels. It happens often. Back home in Atlanta, I'm the WASPy love interest for the cashiers at Kroger — and the sketchier the neighborhood the better. But this was my first inter-species flirtation, and it kinda stunk.

I started reading more. Too much, actually. I saw things I can't unsee. I read things I shouldn't have read. Nature is weird and so is the Internet and so are people, so the trifecta was intense.

not all trix are for kids

This was seriously on a rabbit owner discussion board in a spay/neuter thread. It is terrifying.

I was going to say that things have calmed down, but for the last 30 minutes she's been in my lap. Every time I reach forward to the keyboard, she nuzzles my wrist up over her head to be petted. I am still not the boss.

Besides finding the above pornographic cereal mascot, I've found lots of useful information. Apparently this behavior is a good indication that it is time for her to be spayed. I don't really want to spay her, but it is in her best interest in terms of health and longevity. Hopefully she'll stop flirting with me once the spaying is complete; besides, even though I love my now-grown-woman bunny, my heart belongs to someone else. FREE DELILAH!!! I'm waitin' for ya baby.

 

Wait For It

Some stuff about me:

• If you're a skateboarder over the age of 30 and you don't have a video game or a show on MTV, I'm judging you, and you've got a big hole to dig yourself out of for me to like you.  

 

• I want to start a website called etsy-wetsy.com. It will be the result of me and my rabbit going to craft fairs and peeing on kitchy, handmade items.

• If you're a girl walking into my bedroom and you see one side of the bed is piled with clothes, magazines, drawings, pamphlets, empty shopping bags and newspapers, I didn't expect you to be here.

• My life's Catch-22 is that I am good at everything but monotonous work, and monotonous work seems to be an essential part of the American Dream. Of course, this is what the American Dream looks like, so screw it:

redeemed by the cardiologist

• I am seriously considering getting an online personal assistant from India or Bangladesh or whatever's cheapest because I become paralyzed by the most mundane, simple, routine tasks. This includes mailing a letter and writing a check. Or "paying rent."

• I've said it before and I'll say it again: I really think it sucks that every time someone returns a pair of Tom's to the shoe store, they take a pair back from a needy child.

• That being said, what a dream job.

• I made this drawing. I call it "Jack Hannah-bal Lechter Goes To Australia." I probably need to color it in to show Jack's khaki shirt and koala blood.

• They say cell phones cause brain cancer, but I feel like I'm safe since I pretty much text only. But then I realized I'm walking around with a $90-per-month asbestos cannon sitting in my pocket just two inches from my scrotum.

• I overheard the following statement recently: "That's what sucks about autotune — it takes no talent."

• I recently saw the best license plate I've ever seen in person, and risked death to get this photo:

the search continues

• I think the term "runner's high" is nonsense, but I like to think of a "walker's high" as old people pushing their carts around stoned on pain meds.

• I think abstinence is stupid. Who wants to sit around hearing someone brag about being an experienced virgin?

• I not-so-secretly think it's okay to be pretentious (or at least educated) about almost everything — clothes, food, architecture, design, music, art, literature — but you should also understand that I wear my underwear and t-shirts until they literally disintegrate.

• In my two years in New York, I have witnessed some weird stuff: two people getting urinated upon by bums, two fat old people make out — like, seriously go after it — in a thunderstorm, getting drenched all the way down to the control briefs and massive bra, heard countless stories of masturbating hobos on the subway flashing their crusty weiners at girls I know, but nothing could have prepared me for watching a woman hike her skirt and diarrhea in the street in broad daylight. Actually, that isn't true. I was prepared — I had my camera phone ready:

you see, the socks are protecting the sandals from splashback

I think this is all I have for today. I've been sort of manic-depressive lately over the completion of tasks and looking toward the next one, and to completing one thing before moving on to the next. I need to believe that I am, indeed, doing what I should be, even when sometimes it's very stressful and seems to be leading nowhere. And sometimes I just need to relax, and not be some damn high strung.

My good friend sent a text yesterday (that likely blasted my balls chock-full of cell phone radiation) telling me I'd been slacking on this blog, which gave me a little motivation to write a few things down that have been stuck in my head. Sorry they're all crazy...

I Mowed The Yard In My Sleep, And I Failed

I spent a long time on the phone last night, talking to my parents, who are currently very occupied with kitchen renovations. My house, changing. I have never felt emotional about alterations made to my childhood home until now. Or, that is to say, until I woke up this morning. When I was on the phone I just tried to envision the new layout, offered advice when it was requested, let them talk. Yes, them: My parents both pick up the phone when I call home because my mom thinks I will tell my dad things I won't tell her (true) and doesn't want to "miss anything." But I talk to her about things I don't tell my father, too, so I don't really know understand that argument; in the end, I guess it's nice I don't have to repeat myself.

I had a dream later that revolved around cutting the grass in my backyard, and I was failing. I had mowed the yard to perfection for years and now everything was wrong. I was pissing myself with green inability and yet certain in my head that what I was doing had to be right even though I knew it wasn't. Standing out there, for some reason putting the blade setting far too low and doing one stripe around the perimeter of the yard, almost scorching-the-earth short, bald even, my dad looking down from the deck with a look that mixed shock and disappointment, he himself knowing that I was better than my performance. Dreams often don't make sense but I woke up disappointed in myself anyway, because I know what it was: I know it's a subconscious metaphor for the sometimes overwhelming inadequacy I feel as I try to write this book about my grandmother's childhood during World War II. It brought tears to my ears briefly this morning; it is again now.

And you want to know another reason why? I love cutting the grass and I take pride in it. I would cut it every week for my dad and also for my neighbor, and I even sometimes helped my friend Blake with his lawn mowing business. And I had style, too, nobody did it better than me: I had always made two passes around the outside — and never with a change in grass height — before doing either vertical or diagonal stripes across the inside bulk of the yard. That little bit of creativity and focus, vying for perfection in those stripes, was part of what made the mundane sublime. I would have done it for free, so the extra cash I made was a solid deal.

It's the smell, I think, that I like the best. Two-stroke engine fuel, the little bit that spilled while filling the tank wiped on my T-shirt, mixing with sweat and dirt and grass; the exhaust hangs heavy in the humid summer Georgia air that's already sweetened by flowers full in bloom. Gasoline, especially the oil-gas mixture that is two-stoke, is such a narcissistic odor, just like permanent markers and rubber cement and your own farts in bed: you know it's bad and you have to smell it anyway to satisfy yourself.

clip-art adds credibility to my glue addiction

But the noise is nice, too. It's fulfilling, that droning engine, a small muffler barely hushing the violent processes powering that sharpened fan blade whirring inches from your feet. I've heard some quote that I'm not going to bother looking up, but it's something along the lines of "meditation is the art of automating the body so the mind can work." The combination of droning sounds, intoxicating smells and physical focus provided me with this wonderful alone time, completely within my own head, nothing to shape my thoughts but the direction they took on their own, and a feeling of blissful contentment I yearn for on a daily basis. I get a taste of it from a long, purposeless walk through the streets of New York, my thoughts wandering like my feet, but it still isn't the same. 

That's why on days like today, overcome by wind and rain and gray dreary insanity, deprived of my walk of serenity, I write crazy stuff like this around midnight. I feel nostalgia for a hot July Georgia day. I recall being ten years younger, home from college for the summer, working for my friend's uncle doing custom woodwork and renovating rich peoples' homes, working myself to physical exhaustion through the day, taking a quick shower and heading off again to sit in lawn chairs in somebody's driveway at night with beers and girls and music and fireflies.

I had forgotten that dream over the course of the day as I worked hard on the book, researching and writing and doing. And then I read this and it all came rushing back. I need to get back to work now, to prove I can.

Fat And Bloated, Mainly Around The Chin + Homeless V-Day Card

The other night's observance of a "holiday" was just an excuse to cram unhealthy food down my throat like Chris Farley before he chose the ultimate diet: drug overdose. (I'm lookin' at you, Al Roker; you're still fat and Farley's like a skeleton these days.) I took my love of dairy products to a previously unseen level and bought an embarrassing amount of cheese for myself and 4 other lonelyhearts. I made steaks. I drank red wine. Vegetables were present as a healthy option. I stayed up too late discussing sluttiness, intelligence and drinking. I ate far too much and got a gut-bubbling five hours of "sleep," which basically meant closing my eyes, clenching my cheeks and praying I wouldn't shit the bed. That being said, it was fun; but I didn't get what I asked for from any lady suitors, which was this:

thanks for all your support

Since I don't feel like I've got much to say, I thought I'd unload some pictures from my phone that have a lot of relevance when it comes to love, and by that I mean hanging out at bars and pet shopping.

klonapins are red, xanax is white, help me fill in the blanks, what happened last night?

SO TRUE!

my cat can't feel anything when i wear them

The one thing this week has provided is nice weather, which is conducive to photographing the homeless. I've got card number two in my ongoing series of Homeless Trading Cards (TM), and he is the ever elusive "Schlumpy". It's rare to capture him in his natural habitat, leaning against a payphone by the subway and covertly eating a sleeve of Mentos.

he's either an infant or 80, i have no idea

So enjoy this heartthrob above as a late Valentine's Day present to all (one) of you.

Tiny Twin: Kinda Sounds Like a Dickens Character With a Speech Impediment

I was just looking at the "stats" section of this blog that tracks who reads this embarrassment of mine. Basically, it tells me your Social Security number and how much porn you watch daily (it hovers around maximum security prisoner levels), which is just barely more than me, but you probably cry during the act just slightly less than I do. (Thanks Southern religious upbringing!) While it doesn't actually tell me about how you are just like James Franco (he's everywhere), it does tell me what search terms in Google currently bring up my blog. "Pooping With The Door Open" was an obvious one, but my favorite was "Are Lionhead Rabbits Insane?". My boring blog is result number six in Google, which has me proudly telling girls about my "huge Web presence."

My newfound confidence is all thanks to my tiny twin, a dwarf lionhead rabbit named Martina Van Buren. She is insane, at least a little bit, but she also lets me degrade her in photographs and is pretty fun to have around. I haven't had a pet of my own since I was in high school, when I rocked a 20-gallon fish tank and was convinced I would become a marine biologist solely based upon the idea of living in a warm ocean environment, eating seafood, scuba diving, riding in boats, stumbling upon swimsuit photoshoots and not upon the reality of having to pass college-level science and math courses (which, like most things, I suck at). My family dog died about an hour before I landed in Atlanta this past Christmas, and I didn't get to see her because my flight was delayed two hours on the runway because they "had problems getting one of the engines to start." (also the tagline for my other website, MaleSexualDysfunction.com) Since the engine eventually did start and I didn't die that night, too, I'm currently drafting up a lawsuit about how Delta killed my dog. But until I'm a hundred-aire from the punitive damages, I have found companionship from this little monster:

what the hell?

she looks kind of like Nicholas Cage here

These two photos are the rabbit bad cop good cop routine: In the first, she stares you down with a steely gaze and malignant non-verbal threats; in the second, she's going to cuddle the confession out of you.

Martina is chill, she's litterbox trained (already) and she sat on my shoulder the other night while I was wrapped in my Snuggie drinking bourbon and watched back to back Jack Nicholson movies, "Easy Rider" and "The Last Detail", without bitching at me once, something no other girl has ever done.

P.S. If you want to play an '80s-style video game to learn proper condom use, go here. And by "proper condom use", I mean the goal is to catch three falling hearts and hit the space bar to shoot a condom bubble onto people at the club, which is a pretty accurate description of all my past condom use.

P.P.S. I was feeling totally uncreative today but when I decided to just sit down and write something a bunch of good ideas came to me (none of which are documented here). It proves that if you sit down and decide to just work no matter how you're feeling, you can get something done. Read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. Everyone. NOW.