If You Don’t Have Anything

interesting/funny/witty/snarky to write, maybe not write at all.

So I made a video.

Which is none of those things too!

Enjoy, or not.

Welcome to the Gun Show from Melissa Lion on Vimeo.

I Got a T-shirt!

That’s my exciting news. I got a free t-shirt from Swan Day and I bought some peonies. I got two for one because they were officially buy two get one free and RSG and I bought two and she handed me the free one. Because she’s nice like that.

I had another post all planned and it was going to be so funny, but (and here’s the thing with living in a tiny city like Portland) I realized I knew some people loosely connected to the thing I was going to crack on. So I pulled up. PULL UP! PULL UP! But it was funny, Fan Club, very funny. And now it is not funny because everyone I know does Important Things. That are not at all really silly and would provide excellent blog fodder. Also, if I did write about it on my blog, please know that in my heart I always believe 100% of the white liberal 50 year-old women in flowing skirts edificating me on how to be a powerful woman in this male-oppressive corporate-dominated HELLHOLE called America and there is no CLASSISM except for those same 50 year old women treating service people like the help and me like I don’t know shit despite my being 100 times more successful at 33 than they are at 53.

Ahem.

So I took a photograph of my new shirt.

With my fancy camera and no bra. And when I looked at the pictures, I realized Stever would have an anuerysm because they were not safe for work. And, more importantly, my boobs looked lopsided.

See?

Lopsided as are the text and photos because for fuck’s sake, it is just a black blog day.

This does not make me happy, Internet.

Here’s another one.

So I put a bra on.

See, isn’t that better? I’m sure I’m totally NOT subverting the dominant paradigm by being upset that my boobs are lopsided. Because that structure and form and symmetry is a TOTAL PENIS THING.

The moral of today’s blog post: burning bras and being condescending douchebags is something that we can look forward to doing when we’re old. Unfortunately, that’s when a good fitting bra is most important.

Fight the power.

Or whatever

Leggings: A Thought.

So I wore leggings yesterday out to drinkies. I drank gin and pomegranate juice. This made me antioxidated and sleepy. And because my mental state hasn’t been the greatest for the past two days, I then spent a few hours writing and trying not to cry. I had one drink. I’m such a lightweight. I blame the tiny bit of Irish in me for my alcohol *sensitivity*. And my specialness, which you all know.

So, K8 wanted to know about how one wears leggings. And because this was my first attempt at leggings, I tried to take a picture of the ensemble. I took it with my computer. Tried to take it with my computer. Attempted. (Scuse me, I’m still in the cry-y gin place. Pills make that go away, right?)

Boat neck, striped top, black skirt, capri leggings. I wore them with my new blue flats, which (I don’t know if you saw it) came with a tiny elf knives that annihilated the backs of my ankles. I will not let those tiny elf knives stop me, these are my San Francisco shoes, and I will be wearing them there. A lot. While I drag Kiala around to the myriad places I want revisit. Plus we’re going to be taking over the world in leggings so I better test drive the San Francisco me before I arrive.

Um, okay, that’s how you wear leggings. I think. Maybe someone else has an idea. Comments are open?

Now I need to curl up on Steve’s chest and let him assure me that I haven’t wasted my life, beauty and brains by being a full time writer and no I shouldn’t pack it all in and go work in a cubicle and EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY.

If I had to go by my ankles and the mascara that’s hurting my eyes, I’d say it might not be.

Totally Unhinged.

Okay, right, yes you have a dog. I know that like 97% of you have dogs, and your dogs are not the dogs I’m talking to. I’m talking to that huge asshole dog and the equally huge asshole owner who lets her dog shit on my lawn. I hate this dog with such an intensity that I’m pretty sure when I next see this dog shitting on my grass, I could stare at it with such hatred the poop would fly back up and into the dog’s butt.

And I know who the dog is.

The person walking that shithead dog walked her shithead dog yesterday and I saw her and sure enough her dog shit on my lawn. I was in my car. So I sat and waited. And watched her and she took about ten fucking hours to get out a baggie and bend her gargantuan ass over and pick it up. But I was waiting, with my engine on. She kept looking at me like I was the bitch. And I just sat there watching her.

And here’s what I thought:

If you don’t pick up that shit, I’m going to march over there and grab that dog by its leash and take it to animal control because as far as I’m concerned, the person who picks up the shit owns the dog. So that would actually be Steve because Steve’s the one who usually cleans the dog’s crap up. But Steve’s far too nice to animals. I, however, am that person who could keep a chicken and then hack its head off and turn it into stock when laying season is over. I can and have brained fish and eaten them on the riverbank.

Steve sees dogs and cats and he’s like “Hi Big Guy! You’re so handsome!” And I’m like, “wash your hands after touching strange animals.” And/or “does that dog fetch or hunt or point? No? Then why bother.”

And then I had this thought about the woman and the dog crapping on my lawn: YOU ARE AN IDIOT TO OWN A GERMAN SHEPARD. Because everyone knows German Shepards get all decrepit after about two years.

Here’s my point: I hate that dog, and I hate its owner. Next time I see her, I’m going to invite her to pick up her dogs shit. With her mouth. Yes, I am slightly unhinged by this event.

Also, yes I have a cat. Yes, they are totally useless. Yes, if the depression reaches epic levels, I’m going to cook her for Thanksgiving dinner.

And the first person who leaves me an unironic outraged comment on behalf of animals gets the same look as that asshole dog. No amount of sphincter clenching will stop my hate stare either.

Also, my mom bought me new shoes. How cute are they?!? She bought me leggings too. And I’m going to wear them today. And drive slowly by Seeger’s house several times. Okay, I don’t know where she lives.

Back Fence and Other Cool Stuff

Okay, today’s Back Fence comes atcha from one of my girl crushes, Christina Williams aka @Seeger on Twitter. Christina really won me over one night when we were free of our three-year-olds and we giggled about cute boys. Serious giggling. And she’s blond with freckles and she wears leggings with flats and basically she’s everything I want to be. I get a little single white female about her. That’s okay to admit on the internet, right? Borderline stalking?

She’s also a great writer. Her post follows a wonderful arc, the prose is tight, and the story is excellent. It’s from a real pro, let me tell you. So go, check it out. And there’s a Back Fence announcement over there too.

Annnnd on Saturday, I’m presenting at SWAN day here in Portland. It’s free and open to the anyone. It’s part of the Better Living Show and I’m going to read from one of my fine novels, and talk about storytelling and just being a professional writer. I’m so honored that they invited me to present. And I know the organizers a little — lovely ladies!

And, finally, steal this image, would you?

Want to know more about my weekend?

No?

Too bad.

Because I’m about to tell you more about my weekend. Mainly because I had a weekend.

I don’t go out much at night mainly because I am a mom of a three-year old and I suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and so I cannot go out because Archie makes the aliens tell the voices in my head that it is not okay for me to have a life beyond The Lorax and If You Give a Mouse A Cookie. DAMN YOU MOOSE, ALWAYS ASKING FOR THAT BLACKBERRY JAM!

But I was forced to go out on Friday — RSG’s birthday. And Saturday — Frayn’s sketch comedy event. Somethingsomething support my friends something something. So I went out on Friday and you read about that yesterday, and I went out Saturday to Frayn’s event, Eastland Academy.

Eastland Academy was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a theater. It was so dark and so uncomfortable and Fan Club, I know you would have thought it was damn funny too. I wish you were there. And it was an unofficial Brain Trust Meeting (unofficial because Kiala’s in San Francisco and boys were allowed) and I saw people I knew.

I headed out with my pal Tyler, who has no blog, but is on Twitter. (I do not understand this either, Fan Club. WHY DOESN’T EVERYONE WANT TO HAVE ENDLESS CHARACTERS WITH WHICH THEY CAN FILL THE INTERNET WITH THE MINUTIA OF THEIR LIVES?!?)

I’m sorry about all the caps. I think the pineapple juice is still eating away at my stomach lining.

We went to Eastland Academy, then to this fancy pants ad firm here in Portland, where they were celebrating the seventh anniversary of the war by having 24 hours straight of live classical music. I thought we ought to celebrate the war by running over brown people with our SUV’s (I still have room for a few party people in mine!) but what the hell do I know.

So we checked out some live classical music and that was excellent. And because I was OUT and it was just 1:30 in the morning, and I was OUT, I said to Tyler, “You hungry? Let’s get some food.”

It didn’t matter if I was hungry, really. All I wanted to do was grab Tyler by the arm and shout right in his face: I HAVE NO THREE YEAR OLD CLIMBING ME! WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 2005!

I didn’t. I just said I was hungry, which I was. The place next door to the ad firm was open so we rolled in there.

I need to fill my non-Portland fan club members in on something. Portland loves hamburgers. This city has a hamburger on every single posh restaurant menu. There’s a blog devoted to Portland hamburgers. It’s just a thing. Like running over cyclists and hideously expensive coffee and passive aggression.

So the place next to the ad firm was very posh and they had a hamburger. Well, it was a cheeseburger with bacon. And so Tyler and I got cocktails and posh bacon cheeseburgers and mourned seven years of war by consuming red meat and alcohol. That’s right, right?

And I had a very, very good time. THANK YOU, IRAQ AND AFGANISTAN! Here’s to seven more!

Pineappe juice is satan’s serum

I declare, for the whole Internet, that I, Melissa Lion, will never again consume pineapple juice.

As of today, the 23rd day of March, 2009, pineapple juice will move from its current category in my life — never think about it– to its new home — only with a knife to my Frye boots and my computer dangling over the St. John’s Bridge. Incidentally, this category is shared by melons, fennel, shellfish and Jenna Elfman. (Private message to Jenna Elfman: it’s not so much your blind devotion to a ridiculous cult that makes me want to beat you with an old shoe, but, simply, your nose.)

Here’s what happened: I went out partying with the lezzies on Friday night, as I am wont to do. It was RSG’s birthday and her wife not only threw her a great private party at a swank bar, but later when it was just the three of us, she schooled me in the ancient lesbianic tongue arts bought me a full tank of gas. Which, as anyone with a car knows, having someone fill you up is…well… Ken? I’ve lost myself in my sex metaphor. Little help?!?

[For the record, I have never had sex with a women. A fact that I find at once shocking and disheartening.]

Where was I? Pineapple juice. Yes.

So after the posh party, RSG and her wife and I went to Vault Martini, which is owned by gay men. It is not a gay bar, except in the way that every single man there was a homosexual between the ages of 28-32. These men were at that sweet spot where they weren’t young enough to make me feel devastated for possessing a vagina and a stray eyebrow hair, and they weren’t too old that I wanted to ban leather chaps for the whole of the United States just so I’d never have to observe another 45 year-old, pot-bellied man press his pale flesh into a pair.

No, these men were simply beautiful. And so I sat there and drooled. I took in the perfectly manicured hands and yummy smelling hair and crisp white shirts and I died a little inside, because for many years, I’ve believed myself to be, in small part, a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. LET ME OUT, SISTER!

And RSG’s gay male friend (GMF) showed up and we were able to admire these wonderful specimens together. We pointed out particularly handsome men and described the various ways we’d have them. GMF said, “Locked in my house,” which, I think we can all admit, wins.

I had one cocktail: a lemon drop. And I decided to call it a night. But GMF (who is also Thai) handed me a pineapple juice and told me to drink up. I believed I was being handed some Thai cure-all. Like a 12 year-old s/he prostitute or a shark’s tooth, but you know, in liquid form.

I took two sips and my stomach started feeling like a lava lamp. I got to the halfway point and I had to say my goodbyes, certain I would upchuck at the bar, and heavens knows, vomit is never flattering to one’s figure or haircut.

I came home, went to bed already feeling hung over. Woke and had this though: Bootsie. Sweet jesus, so bootsie. [I just looked bootsie up in the Urban Dictionary to confirm the spelling, but it's not in there. I fear that bootsie is not a common expression. It means hungover. Derived from To Boot, which means to vomit. I added it to Urban Dictionary.] I then threw up twice and went to my appointments that day.

Here’s the moral of the story: pineapple juice is toxic.

Crack

I want to eat 75 Thin Mint cookies at once. I do. I want that.

Also, I said it in the comments, but I want to be super-clear. I did not go down the self-hosted road alone. I’ve had a lot of help. One person in particular has made the whole thing possible but he’s sort of a secretive dude so he can give himself a shout out if he wants. I think he has admin privileges and my blog is on his server so I think he could just sort of delete me in general and/or start posting things here at will and he’ll also see my stats and that will confirm that I am truly the most popular unpopular blogger around.

Basically he’s a really amazing guy and I would give him special hugs if he would let me.

And John Metta also saved my butt a few times over the past few days. Metta’s got a great blog and you should read it.

And, finally I have myself to thank. I’d like to thank me, Melissa Lion, for being a severely impatient, demanding, ridiculous woman. I’d like to thank my tiny girl brain in conjunction with my nice breasts because these two things mean that people are nicer to me. That and I’m a total. slut.

Also, I’d like to add that last night I went to a Wordpress user’s group here in Portland because now I have a bee in my bonnet about learning all this shit. I don’t know why. I think it’s like knitting. A mostly useless skill that others are impressed by your having. Anyway at the wordpress thing I was (get this) answering questions about wordpress. I fucking know, right? RIGHT? (Metta, I gave her your email so you could undo all the bad things I said — ha! I didn’t give her your email. Steep learning curve and all that.) And I was advocating to this person that wordpress.com might be the way to go simply because she wasn’t all that tech savvy and had never blogged before. So I thought wordpress.com and then she could graduate to wordpress.org. And I was saying this and feeling like maybe I was saying stupid things in a room full of wordpress.org junkies and what the fuck did I know because it’s been two days of my self-hosting experiment and already I’ve broken my blog, my email and my firefox (which deleted every last one of my bookmarks) and maybe I should shut my mouth.

So I turn to the woman on my other side and I say, “Am I being a total dick right now? I am, right? Total dick.” And she says, “no, it’s fine.” And I go on.

And then the woman who I asked the dick question to stood up, put on her jacket and she had a Back Fence PDX button! And I said, “Oh my god, Back Fence! I do that!”

And she said, “I know, Melissa.”

And I thought, GOD why am I such an incredible asshole???

And she said, “I’ll see you Saturday; I’m taking your class.” And she introduced herself.

And I said “oh my god, thank you! Thank you! You’re awesome!” And she smiled and left. And then I banged my head on the desk because WHY DID I NOT KNOW THAT AND/OR RECOGNIZE HER??

I totally pride myself on remembering names and faces. I’m pretty good at it. And I also remember little tidbits about people. But I didn’t know her, Internet. And now I feel like a total jerk because I didn’t. So, M, if you’re reading this, please know that even though I said I was probably drunk when we’ve met and that’s why I didn’t remember, know that I don’t really drink and it was just me being even more of a jerk and ugh. I just can’t make it right.

In summary, you may have TWO muffins at Saturday’s class to make up for my total dickishness.

Welcome

Okay, Fan Club, I’m self-hosting this baby now. And all I can say is that I’m sure I’ve made about 3 zillion mistakes and that in your browsers my blog looks a little like this:

That’s right, like a million bucks. And, for whatever reason, even though the control panel for wordpress.org looks exactly the same as wordpress.com, I feel a little off my blogging game. Like the funny is all constipated with CSS coding and oh my fucking god how hard is it to make the google analytics go on???

So we will just be blogging by braille here at Recovering Californian for a little while. Just a short while. As I learn how to do all of this crapola because WHY THE HELL WOULD I JUST STAY ON WORDPRESS.COM WHEN THAT’S EASY?

Ummm something funny. Stever and I had a date the other night and we ate cheeseburgers and donuts and French Fries and then we went to see this Samba Bossa Nova woman sing. She’s from Brazil and was quite lovely. So she’s up there and telling the audience how she had great Japanese food in Portland and it was so wonderful. And then she said that there are 1 million Japanese people in Sao Paulo And this seemed like heaven to me — Japanese and Brazilians? I’d be eating 24 hours a day! The Samba lady said, “I eat so much Japanese food, I eat it all the time, I eat so much [pulls the sides of her eyes back] my eyes are turning Japanese!”

And in that moment, you could feel the collective sphincters of Portland’s white liberalism simultaneously clenching.

You see we are a polite people, and powerfully PC. And so it was a toss-up, really. Are we outraged at the slanty-eyed thing, or grateful that five people with brown skin were there to entertain us? Portland chose gratitude and on we went. It was a sweet show. Very relaxing and comical.

And that’s all I have for you at the new and sort of improved, melissalion.com.

Don’t forget to update your various feed things and bookmarks and blogrolls.

Hi Hi Okay Yes

Right and good. I’m sorry, I’m a little absent. I am blogging, but it’s all behind the scenes stuff. And learning self-hosting things. That’s harder than it seems. Oh my god. IT HURTS MY TINY GIRL BRAIN!

For now, go to Back Fence and read a great Fish Out of Water post by one of my favorite bicycle mamas, Kathleen McDade (whenever I don’t feel like riding, I think of Kathleen and jump on my bike). This one is about being out of place on the job. It’s super sweet and totally real. Reminded me of the year I spent as a bartender. It was not good. Not good.

Go NOW!