Cruella Fails at Maniliness

Y'all here is Cruella fail number 1, which is, I should have been able to figure out how to make the picture not sideways, but. I am- yah, computer dumb. Actually, any technology more complicated than- no wait, I couldn't make the jack in the Cadillac work either- so any technology more complicated than- a siphon hose- I am baffled by.

Anyway y'all look at what Alex is wearing, and I am sorry to inform you that he wore this outfit on purpose, and had no compelling reason to do so.

What would be a compelling reason to do so, Cruella?

Well, like- I would wear this outfit if I knew I was going to be set on fire, or - I was going to do something extremely grimy, like mow the lawn- Cruella manages to ruin Cruellas clothes even mowing the lawn- or changing the oil in the car. But Alex had no reason, compelling or otherwise, to wear this.

And- y'all cannot see this in the picture but it looked EVEN worse in person than it did here, as in, it was all -wrinkled. Alex looked like he was all set to compete in the Bumlympics. The 40 oz drink em up! Yuk.

And I BOUGHT him new clothes, NICE clothes, and he refuses to wear them. No, I do not know why! I have some theories though, but one can't have nostalgie de la boue without being OUT of the boue. And ugly clothes aren't more comfortable than nice looking clothes.

Now y'all will realise, that Cruella's Manliness Fail is not exactly News. I am not saying I am the least manly guy around- unlike one person I know, I never drove a triple white Rabbit convertible- Those are only stick shift, if you know what I mean- ease it into first with a little lube, you know? But there was that time Robin and I were playing- and he hiked the football to me, and I was supposed to run.
It was- - - I threw up my hands and sashayed forward like Zsa Zsa Gabor escaping the Martians. So yah.

Well, this week, I have wanted to do everything on Earth except study Corporate Finance, so- finally, y'all know that a tree fell on my house in like, August? And it has been lying back there? And I have done nothing about it because- well, I have been "busy" meaning I have spent my weekends with Robin or car drama or occasionally, with actual schoolwork, or it has been bad weather. Or I had to do something like can mustard.

Besides, y'all, this was a Project, involving rental of a chainsaw and Spencer's help, and Spencer had to additionally enlist the help of some rather smelly compatriot of his named Reginald.

At first I was a little irked because here is Spencer- the yard guy! being all managerial and delegating his duties. He is efficiently outsourcing, believe it or not, and if you knew Spencer this would be even more unbelievable. I'm like, what right does he have to delegate and pay my money to someone else.

This is like the story with Chuchotte, who got her own pet cat, and she clearly regarded said cat as beneath her. At feeding times, she would go and bring this other cat, and watch it eat, and quickly shoo it away, and then return inside to eat her food. The other cat was not allowed to watch her eat, and she did not allow it inside. Cats, she thought, are not supposed to be inside, but she was not actually a cat, she thought.

Then I realised that these bits of tree were bloody heavy so yes, he needed help, but he certainly seemed to spend most of his time telling the other chap what to do. Now my backyard is full of large chunks of tree, which Spencer has said he will come and split with a log splitter at some indefinite time in the future.

This cost $150, not including the chainsaw rental, which was another $150.

Anyway, the latest Manliness test I failed was the Chainsaw test, because a tree fell in my backyard- well, last AUGUST, and I have been thinking I need to have it cuty up and so forth.

I am not really sure why I wanted to have it cut up and hauled away, no one ever goes in the backyard, there could be oil deposits there for all I know. And in retrospect, there are MANY more things I would have liked to have spent the $300 on, like- glitter maybe? Anything to horrify Alex, which does not take much; Food?

But i did, and so I had to go and rent a chainsaw.

Y'all, I was honestly- even in the chainsaw's quiescent state- not even running, I was TERRIFIED of it, like it was going to suddenly become possessed and attack me. I actually- returned it before it was due because I kinda didn't want it in my house?

This may not actually be as irrational a fear as it seems because there certainly was the incident with Scott and Guty and the ceramic frog and I certainly have tripped over many objects in my house and hurt myself. Some of those times, I was not even drunk. Or at least, not VERY drunk.

Once, I was attacked in the dark by a bookshelf.

The Home Depot man wanted me to start the chainsaw and gave me long complicated instructions about push the button and pull this thing out and then pull the string until it pops and then push the thing in and push the button and it will start and he wanted me to do it but frankly I did not want to touch it. At all.

But I managed, or Spencer and smelly compatriot sort of managed, but instead of having ONE large tree, now I have several large chunks of tree, too large for me to move by myself. I am thinking, Spencer is not coming back.

Instead of actually USING the chainsaw, which exceeded my manliness, I came up with a Motto about Chainsaws, which is:

There is no such thing as "a little hurt" when it comes to chainsaws.

Spencer came and used the chainsaw to cut up the tree, and frankly it was more difficult than it looked and I am pleased that I did not do it.

I think the level of power tools I am comfortable with is more like- electric pencil sharpener, is about as vicious exposed blade as I need to get. O, and I am very comfortable with the battery operated style of power tool.

No, I am kidding, I have worked my way past drill to jigsaw and tile saw and someday if need be I may actually use a circular saw. I can also use an electric hedge trimmer.

Also I went to the National Women Judges' Conference thing, and Judge Hatchett came to talk to us, and she had a lot of liberal bromides about intergenerational afterschool care or some such nonsense. She had a story about an 8 year old boy whose mother had abandoned him because she was on crack- and apparently her solution to this- y'all, I am not making this up- was get Uncle Fred who is retired and who wants to learn about computers to come to the school and get computer tutoring from Dylan Klebold who will teach Uncle fred instead of building bombs in his garage. Ok! Yah anyway, I don't see how that's going to help an 8 year old with a crack addict mom, he needs more help than intergenerational afterschool care, and as for the adults who are going to intergenerationally afterschool care- can you say child molester? Not a good solution. It's one of those things that people say, oh it's good in theory but I want to know if in practice it's no good then in theory, it's really kind of crap, isn't it.

And then I met a lady from Iowa who is friends with the judge who wrote the opinion which was upheld by the Supreme Court which allows Gay marriage! So that was exciting. I wonder if the people who are opposed to it realise that-

Gay Marriage: It's not mandatory, doofus.

Because seriously? How many people does it really affect? And it's not like abortion, which is murder. You can't hurt people by getting gay married. No matter how hard you try. And let me also point out that most of the people in the Bible had very UNUSUAL marriage arrangments, it's full of adulterers and people sleeping with their servants to beget children and then Mary, I'm sure Joseph was really convinced when she told him the whole an angel got me pregnant story.

And I have two lols for y'all, and the first lol is, Sandi drooled when she saw a large and unattractive beetle, as in, we saw this large beetle crawling across the floor, and yea it was black and unattractive, and had a ribbed carapace, and she shrieked, "It made me drool!"

Which is a TOTALLY normal response to a beetle.

Fat people, there's just no end to the lols!

And the second lols is that Kim asked me, did you break that chair, and this was the day of limited functionality due to only being able to wear one contact lens, instead of the more usual reasons for limited functionality, and I said, I mistook it for a sheep.

And our litigation trial is over, which is, good, um, I think the whole concept of having different points of view to better encompass a wider range of perspectives is turning out to be- just generally a bad idea.

Anyway, the lady across the street told me there is something happening here called "Frolicon" which is apparently a combination of Sci-fi/fantasy/kink (never saw that one coming, didja?) And- she was explaining to me that- among other things- they have slave/submissive competitions.

What is that? I wanted to know, how do you compete to be a slave?

Well, they have tea parties, and you have to serve tea, or you can be a boot black, she explained.

Boot blacking is a fetish? I asked.
Yes, and she did not mean bootblacking as a euphemism for something- else, like how "Ian" is a euphemism for "smelly troll-faced goatsexual with a bad case of herpes and turnip breath," she meant, literally, blacking boots, it's some intersection of submissive and foot fetish.

Well. There are lots of fetishes these days, so I am going to let all y'all keep track of them. I hope someday to meet someone HOT who has a fetish for someone who sits on the couch and reads 19th century novels and 20th century murder mysteries while putting their bare feet up on the ottoman, or someone who has a fetish for watching someone can while barefoot? Why not?

Now I did not personally witness this, so I do not know if these other fetishes exist as well, just so you know. But if I did, and won the prize for boot blacking, I would not be putting it on my resume. I might even have enough shame left not to tell you about it directly but allude to it, like that thing I did recently which was - I can cross THAT one off my list, it wasn't quite as bad as i thought- more psychologically icky than physically icky but still ew ew ew, yes, there apparently is an end to fat people lols. (unlike Alex, who does not possess enough shame to stop him from wearing above outfit) Let me also say, the intersection of science-fiction/fantasy fans, and people you- at least I- want to see naked, is very, very, very sparsely populated.

This lady and her- whatever, boyfriend? I never ask- not excepted. I don't even want to see myself naked all that much.

O and Curry and Liz had a BABY shower, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was some discussion of car parts- brakes and calipers!- as well, this being a lesbian baby shower. They will probably get to keep their baby, as his mother is a prostitute who thankfully gave him up for adoption.

I have a lot to say about this, if you want to know.

Anyway, they got two really- I am sure there is a polite way to say this but frankly I do not care- GOOD children from DFACS, which surprised me, because I always thought that the kids that you could get from DFACS were the - I'll use their euphemism- hard to place ones, but the two they have are very nice.

And on a completely unrelated note, I always want to smack someone when they say "ink pen." What other kind of pen is there, morons? That just makes me so irritated.