A few weeks ago my lunch companion told me about something amazing he heard about on a podcast: that once upon a time, people used to hire ornamental hermits as status symbols. Oh, you know, so rich, what’s this on my property, a hermitage, you say? In which my hermit lives? Oh, of course! It’s perfectly natural to hire a man to live in a hut and not cut his fingernails or hair for five years. But what happens if you’re low on cash, but high on a need for an ornamental hermit? Well, you can fudge it. Just put a classical text and a pair of glasses on a table and pretend your hermit is out doing hermit stuff. I love all of this.

The natural next step after learning about an ornamental hermit is to acquire one, or at least to acquire a fake one. The only classical text I could find was a Latin version of Winnie the Pooh (sure, why not?). I put it on my outside table, open to a page without an illustration of a bear. I found a pair of my grandfather’s glasses (doesn’t everyone have a Ziploc baggie full of the glasses of their dead grandparents?) and put those on top. I texted a picture to a friend, who advised that it needed a little zhuzhing up and to add a crust of bread. I got the heel from a loaf of Nature’s Own Honey Wheat — aka Hermit’s Choice — and tore it in half. Before, it was funny, but afterwards, it was hilarious. I almost couldn’t take how hilarious it was. I actually had to go take a heart palpitation pill. And then I waited for my lunch companion to come over. Would he know what it was? Would he be impressed with my handiwork?

He saw it and did not ignore it or say “what is that” or “what the fuck” or “huh” or “why do you have a Latin version of Winnie the Pooh?” He said, “Looks like your hermit is out taking a walk!” It wasn’t a test, but he passed.

1. “I mean, this is a mute point, but…”
2. “Sometimes it’s good to have an old fart around.” — An Old Fart
4. “Is it ok if I bring my strewdriver to work? There’s just one strew I need to tighten on my desk.” (I said yes.)
4. “Have you heard of the most dangerous cheese?” (It’s this one.)
5. “Can you buy these Swisher Sweets for me? I don’t want them to scan my driver’s license. But I promise my name is Lucius P. Granberry.” — 90+ year old man at Walgreens whose name is most likely not Lucius P. Granberry, but who spoke with a Foghorn Leghorn accent
6. “What’s the name of that racist rooster again?” — coworker explaining what was wrong with her Bumble date

1. I paid off my student loans last week!
2. I rediscovered the John Wesley Harding album The Name Above the Title and lo, it is 1996 all over again, except good this time.
3. The person who mispronounces everything hit me with a doozy last week. Guess, if you will, what “complebent” was supposed to be. I will literally give you a million dollars if you do. This is not a legally binding promise.
4. I had a dream the other night that I went to France, and the moment I got there it was revealed that I was the victim of a known scam: steal everything from people when they first get to France. I had no phone, wallet, passport, medicine, nothing. I eventually got stressed out enough to wake up.
5. Looking in the Notes section of my phone just now, I saw another dream about how The Wave was coming to Jackson. Instead of being a dorky communal excitement experience, this was a literal wave of water. It was very stressful and once I woke up, I stayed awake for a very long time trying to plot how I would deal with The Wave. How do I get all the cats in the car? What if my neighbors aren’t home but their dog is outside? Should I take him too? Hours of plotting my course.
6. Haha, another dream in the Notes: I was a nurse and my college boyfriend came into the ward. Quote: “I believe there was some marital deceit.”
7. I just had to break the news to a vendor that my workplace is not going to go with his product after all. It was like a breakup. It was maybe worse than a breakup. “I appreciate you telling me. Obviously I wanted a different answer. May I ask which vendor you went with? Huh. REALLY. Well. That’s INTERESTING. Huh. Ok. Well. Thanks for telling me. I hope we can keep in touch.” #rough
8. gross
9. I was typing “gross” into a chat box, or at least I intended to, so I’m leaving it there.
10. I didn’t have ten things to say, but I made it.

I have had an extremely satisfying day and need to report to this you, the zero number of people who are reading this.

1. I did the NYT puzzles as usual.

2. I finished reading a book. I liked The Last Romantics, but I’ve recently read a LOT of books featuring sibling dynamics and I am full up now. There was a scene that I really liked where a woman is breaking up with a man, and she says something like, “I don’t want to eat dinner with you. I don’t want to go on vacation with you,” and I thought that about sums up when you are done with a person.

3. I went to the farmer’s market, which was stressful and paranoia-inducing, but I managed to buy two beautiful tomatoes and two nice zucchini. I don’t know why I couldn’t have had symmetry and said the zucchini were beautiful, too. They were very nice, ok? Maybe just not beautiful. I don’t want to eat dinner or go on vacation with them. Does that clear things up?

4. I went to the flea market, the kind of gross one you have to pay a dollar to get into. I considered buying a pin that said I TECATE MY BODY because I saw a similar pin at a flea market in like 1988 and I thought it was some sex thing and was very scandalized. But instead I just took a picture of it. I did buy some postcards of the Jackson Zoo and was extremely pleased with this purchase because one is of Monkey Island!

5. Then I went to see the early bird matinee of Booksmart, which was great for many reasons, one of which being that I was the only person in the theater. I also laughed my ass off throughout, which is notable because I’m not a movie laugher usually. Things can be funny! I can be amused! But “ha ha ha that movie is making me laugh” is pretty rare. Also, the movie started at 10:30 and was $7. Anyway, the growly way she says DOES NOT MATTER in the scene with the hair masks has made me laugh all day.

6. Then I came home and made a caprese salad and ate it all.

7. Then I considered taking a nap but ended up going to TJ Maxx with Gorjus. I bought nothing, but he got some new towels, a candle, and some pink salt. He is really into that pink salt. We talked a lot about that pink salt.

8. Then we went to Baskin Robbins and I got a weird sundae of lemon custard ice cream with marshmallow topping. It was amazing. Marshmallow topping doesn’t really have a flavor: it’s just SUGAR SAUCE. I’m into it.

9. Then we went to Lemuria and I bought The Immortalists.

10. Then I came home and watched 75 episodes of The New Girl, which is code for three. It feels like 75 because I’m not a binger so it feels excessive. I am so slow that I have been watching this on Netflix for the past four years and am never caught up. (I know it’s four because I remember starting it when I was dating the guy two boyfriends ago.)

11. I made a weird dinner with the nice-not-beautiful zucchini and the remaining tomato, I repotted the two night blooming cereuseseses I bought last month at a plant sale at Eudora Welty’s house, and then I took a bath. Well, I’m still taking it. I’m writing this from the bath! It’s the future!

It was a fine day, a good day.

I did not advance to the next round in that short story contest, which was not a surprise, as I am not a short story writer. However, the feedback was fair and valuable, should I choose to enter another contest to do a thing I don’t know how to do in the future. The huge upside is that I didn’t have to write another story over the weekend, which worked out since Spike had four soccer games and I was busy screaming the whole time. Today I am hoarse. Enthusiasm!

I am now in a book club, and we are reading Geek Love, and while I like the writing, I am stressed out beyond reason by Arty. Also, one of my cats knocked over a glass of water onto my copy, and being forced to read a creaky, crackly waterstained book is hurting me.

I’m pretty good at embarrassing myself, and last week I managed to do something so embarrassing I’m pretty sure I turned into ectoplasm for a few minutes before I regained my human form. To explain, pretend that you have a new friend named William who, when you met, spilled his drink on you. Pretend also that when your friends say, “What’s new?” you say, “Well, not much, I met this guy and when we hung out he spilled his drink on me,” so in texts they check up on you by asking, “How is The Spiller?” Then one day, inspiration hits, and you text them, “Hey, The Spiller’s real name is William so I came up with a great new nickname for him: SPILLIAM” except no, OF COURSE you didn’t text your friends. You texted Spilliam. Yes. You have been placed on this planet to ruin everything all the time.

In doing this, you have revealed the following to Spilliam:

1. You talk about him to your friends
2. You think his drink spilling is noteworthy
3. omg, SPILLIAM
4. You don’t know how to text

I have been watching New Amsterdam, which is like Grey’s Anatomy minus the sex and plus magical, unrealistic solutions to medical problems. The hospital across town is the only one with that special machine? Then by all means, let’s fake our identities and go over there and use it! The woman who my sister donated her heart to is now in my hospital with heart failure? WE MUST SAVE HER. AND WE SHALL. It is not stressful, it has a diverse cast, and everyone is beautiful. Recommended for people who get stressed out by imaginary people and situations.

Ok bye

I’ve developed an interest in hookworms — as one does — and just came upon this extremely descriptive passage from Thomas D. Clark’s The Emerging South (1968, p25-26):

“As the white population expanded, the incidence of hookworm became greater. Barefooted and carefree men of nature defecated on the ground, giving the bloodthirsty killer in their bowels the air and soil necessary to complete its life cycle. Pale, emaciated, tobacco-stained dirt-eaters became stock characters of the natural southern scene…As the barefooted population increased, the germ of laziness spread with enormous ferocity. No one, of course, knew that the cause was really a parasite.”

I can tell you that this is the most spirited description on this topic that I’ve found. I’m considering acquiring an enemy just so I can say this:

YOU’RE

NOTHING

BUT

A

PALE

EMACIATED

TOBACCO-STAINED

DIRT-EATER!!!!!!!!!!

Last week I was at the public library picking up two Elizabeth McCracken books (I like to burn out on an author by reading everything they’ve written in a short period of time) and I ran into my former dental hygienist, who now owns a sno-cone business.

“Hey! How’re you?” we both said.

“What do y’all do in the sno-cone off-season?” I said.

“What was that?”

“What do y’all do in the sno-cone off-season?”

“Hmm. Sno-cones. Ok, good to see you!” She walked off.

After thinking about it for a minute, I realized that our kids played soccer together a few years ago and that she probably doesn’t know shit about dental hygiene or sno-cones. I started to laugh and went back up to her.

“Oh, hi, I just realized you’re Aiden’s mom and NOT my former dental hygienist who now owns a sno-cone business!” I was barely able to say these words because I was laughing so hard.

“I was trying so hard to remember if we’d ever gotten sno-cones together!” she said.

“No, I’m just insane,” I said. “Good to see you!”

When I got back to work I looked them both up on Facebook and in my defense, I have to say, they look remarkably alike. Both have eyes and hair and everything.

• I finished Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken over the weekend, and whoa. My favorite books are usually those that you can describe as “weird, sad, beautiful,” and this one is no exception. It’s more weird than sad, though there’s sadness throughout. (Just not rip your heart out of your body sad. I’m looking at you, Cold Mountain.) I was flipping through to find some examples of weird/sad/beautiful, and basically every sentence was such. Here are two, though, that aren’t spoilers:

“Orphaned, taken in. Alone, married. She did not know who she was. Her soul was a goldfish, a little thing inside the bowl of her body. She always had to concentrate to find it before she said her prayers.”

“She was a tyrant. She was a thief. He loved her yet. Years later he would die with these truths upon his lips. He loved everyone he had ever loved.”

I’ve already read 13 books this year (#single), and this is by far my favorite. It also has a pretty cover, which doesn’t hurt anything.

• Bookstore employee on phone: “The Cat in the Hat? Oh, just The Hat? OK.”

• I’ve been to several flea markets and antique stores lately, which is a fun way for us olds to pass the time. Some stuff I’ve purchased:

–photo of a random German (?) family from the 30s, inscribed with their names on the back: Phili, Rudolf, Margot, and Hans

–some glasses with a hunting scene on them, one of which has a cool lodge name:

–a very cute bright blue glass creamer

–70s movie posters from a Hattiesburg drive-in. Y’all think these are family friendly or what?

• To complete my journey into spinsterhood, I have started doing the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. And maybe writing down how long it takes me to complete them. And then bragging. I started this a few weeks ago, and I am pleased to report that for the first time, I completed the Sunday puzzle yesterday! I didn’t even cheat, outside of pressing the uh-oh button! Maybe that’s cheating? I’m not calling that cheating. Googling stuff is cheating. And even then, that’s my own arbitrary rule. In case you’re interested, a Monday puzzle takes me about eight minutes, but the Sunday took me 45.

Last week I came across a pile of concert ticket stubs. I’m a pretty good archivist of my own life and thought all the concert ticket stubs were already together, so this was a treat. I was wondering where the evidence that I went to a Goo Goo Dolls concert once was, and now I have it! I was sitting next to a 10-year old, who got her tickets as a birthday present.

There were two stubs in the stub pile that didn’t seem familiar at all: one of those multi-band concerts sponsored by a radio station (featuring Live, which I don’t care for) from 1999 and a Matthew Sweet concert from 2000. The first one I immediately dismissed: totally not my stub. First, I have no memory, and second, it was Live. No. But Matthew Sweet? I love Matthew Sweet! I have seen Matthew Sweet! It was 1993, at one of those multi-band concerts sponsored by a radio station! Tony Bennett, Matthew Sweet, The Lemonheads — it was a good lineup! But I have only seen Matthew Sweet once, and certainly not in 2000.

Just in case I got roofied, I texted pictures of the stubs to a couple of friends: did we go to this? Did YOU go to this and somehow I ended up with your stubs? Nope. No one was there.

I put the picture on Facebook. A couple of people were at the shows, but they were people I didn’t know at the time.

During this, Gorjus kept asking, Do you know what Occam’s Razor is, Mawmaw? You were there. You’ve just forgotten.

Here are some of the alternate theories I offered:
1. I found the stubs at the Alabama Theatre
2. I intentionally planted them to confuse future me
3. I stole the stubs from someone I had a crush on (most plausible of all of these, tbh)

Then I remembered that I’m a pretty good archivist of my own life! And I kept a journal during those years.

You should not be surprised to learn that when I consulted the source material, it turns out that I went to both concerts. Both of them. I have seen Live, apparently. Once I read who I went with (I wrote: “the Loser Crew came to town”), I had a hazy memory of rain and homemade trash bag ponchos and being miserable and then going to IHOP afterwards.

But Matthew Sweet? Nope. I can’t remember the venue, and even when I saw that I went with a couple of the members of the aforementioned Loser Crew (who, coincidentally, were also some of these virgins), still no bells.

I haven’t had this experience before, where, when presented with a physical artifact, I still could summon no memories. The other day I listened to “Nothing’s Going to Change My Love for You” for the first time since 1987 and still knew all the words. What gives, BRAIN? IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END? You let me keep Glenn Medeiros but you delete Matthew Sweet?!

I updated my Facebook post. One of the guys I went with commented, “What a great concert!”

Was it? I’d like to know.

I had a dream recently that I was telling someone this story, so here you go. I am literally making my dreams come true, just like Laverne and Shirley! That guy’s Facebook posts continue to entertain me, but he has gone blonde and it’s not that cute.

Speaking of Laverne and Shirley, I was just reading about Cyndi Grecco, who recorded “Making Our Dreams Come True,” and how she also recorded the theme song for another Happy Days spinoff called Blanksy’s Beauties that did not take off.

I love a dumb project no one cares about, so I have endeavored to tweet the entirety of the 1892 comic novel The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. Why? I don’t know. I haven’t read ahead and so only know what goes on as I’m tweeting. Since it’s in diary format, I post one entry a day. It’s really taking off: I have FOUR followers. Follow me at @pooterdiary if you want to be the fifth. (The nobody’s name is Charles Pooter.)

There’s a miniseries version of Howards End on Amazon Prime right now. Apparently I’ve gotten it confused with Sense and Sensibility. Sisters, a house, etc. All I remember is that someone may or may not get crushed by a wardrobe at the end. I’m only an episode in so I’ll have to report back.

Speaking of Amazon Prime, yesterday an important item arrived. I ordered some of those little triangle things you stick on your wrinkles and I tried one out last night. While I didn’t awake 30 years younger (ok, thank god for that), for a couple of hours this morning I had a furrow-free forehead! I call this a $15 temporary success story.

It’s fitting that I have returned to blogging about boring things just in time for theohreally’s 15-year anniversary!

I have been unfollowing people willy-nilly on various social media platforms lately. Here’s a partial list of reasons:

–posted a picture of their feet
–asked for advice on placemats to go with plates (THE PLATES WERE WHITE OMFG)
–was interested in a Confederate Flag Day event
–author I admire was making me not want to read their work ever, ever again
–too much complainin’ about boring things
–too many medieval-themed retweets
–gross food picture
–too many posts
–didn’t respond to my comment

Here is a partial list of reasons to keep social media people forever:

–posts about drama with ex-husband, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend (it goes back and forth)
–shares things about creepy mansions/Parisian apartments
–posts screenshots on Twitter of their Facebook fights
–quality cat pics
–the Reddit Relationship account and the inevitable 200+ DUMP HIM replies
–posts about how men suck posted by married women whose husbands are not on social media
–interesting stuff

Update: I did finish and submit the story! The way it works is that all 4,500 people who entered the contest are assigned to various heats that dictate the genre, subject, and character in the story. Then if you win that heat you move on to the next round. I was assigned comedy, incompetence, astronomer. (I learned a lot about interstellar medium in this process, mainly the fact that there is something called “interstellar medium.”) It wasn’t very good, but it got done, and now I can proudly say I have written two stories ever.

I’ve mentioned my freakout dreams before, which are technically called hypnagogic hallucinations, though I think “freakout dreams” is more descriptive and less showoffy. I haven’t had many recently, though apparently it’s either a pen floating merrily through my room OR it’s camo-clad men and their dogs climbing through a painting.

They started in the summer of 1996 when I lived in Starkville, and like I said in that older blog post, started with spiders. Because look, if you thought there was a spider on your pillow, that’s believable, right? It was just that the spiders multiplied, and then became tarantulas, and then mice, etc. Anyway, I haven’t seen a spider in a freakout dream in 20+ years!

Last night I was listening to the Velvet Crush song “Time Wraps Around You,” which, incidentally, is very much tied in my brain to the summer of 1996 and the person I was dating then. I turned it off, I went to bed, and THEN GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?

There were spiders! A cone shape of light was shining on the bed kind of like a cabaret and silver spiders were turning and glistening in their Liza Minelli moment! I screamed, I turned on the light, the spiders disappeared, and I think it’s best I stay away from the Velvet Crush.

I stupidly signed up for a short story writing contest, even though I have only written one (1) short story in my LIFE, and it was in 1994. They assign you a genre, a situation, and a character, and you have a week to write it. It is due on Saturday. I have written 341 words and all of them are terrible. However, if I at least finish, I will have written two (2) short stories in my life, and that is a good thing.

I saw The Favourite, and I loved it. Then I saw on Facebook that an older lady I know also saw it, who said, “I don’t know what to say about The Favourite. It was a different kind of movie for me.” #lesbians

The Prime version of Vanity Fair was awesome, and I loved it. It took me a couple of weeks to watch the whole thing because my stress level just can’t take anything these days. Mild stress brought on by an adaptation of a 19th c. novel is just as real as whatever it is you people with real problems get stressed about, ok?

A coworker was talking about her crummy husband and said, “As my mama would’ve said, he done tore his britches with me.” I like that, and while I will not be saying it, probably, I will certainly be thinking it when people cross the line. Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? You’ve torn your britches with me, sir! She also said her mother was fond of saying, “He’s not worth the salt that goes into the bread,” but that’s a little wordy. I didn’t say anything because her mother died recently.

I routinely interact with someone who can’t pronounce words correctly, and you know I find this amusing. A few weeks ago she said, “We’ll have to give them coodles for that,” and it took me a moment, but I eventually got there. I gotta give her coodles for screwing up kudos so charmingly.

My beloved Mary Oliver died last week! She is everyone’s beloved Mary Oliver, or should be. She’s a model for how to appreciate and be astonished by the world. In a weird way her body of work reminds me of the Catherine Wheel song “Here Comes the Fat Controller” (bear with me here) and its instructions for how to be better:

Don’t you think that it’s about now
that you cooled your operations
and be generous somehow?
Don’t you think the sarcasm’s a little hard to stomach?
Your cynicism’s boring!

A search reveals that the last time I referenced this song here, I was full of joy for the world. Oh, baby Sally of 2013. I wish I could bottle that feeling for us both, or at least invent a time machine that sends you back in time via blog post. I’m not regretful, but I am wistful. (Updated to add: apparently they’re synonymous? Ok. So I guess I mean I don’t regret anything that’s happened, but maybe I wish I’d enjoyed it more while it lasted?)

I set a Goodreads goal of reading 50 books this year, and a few days ago I panicked when I realized I had only read 47. I enjoy setting an arbitrary goal that no one cares or knows about and then taking it very seriously, I guess. (Old schoolers: remember that time I posted every day for a YEAR?) I read Lucy Knisley’s Something New (#48! I liked it, but not as much as Relish) and then took to my shelves at home looking for a thin volume I could knock out.

I’ve always been a big reader, though for most of my childhood/preteendom I read a lot of teen garbage. All the Sweet Valley Highs. ALL OF THEM. I’d get a stack for Christmas and have finished a couple by the time we got to my grandparents’ house. I read and loved The Westing Game and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but I really loved that teen garbage.

One of my favorites was called The Rise and Fall of a Teen-Age Wacko. (I could’ve sworn on my life it was Weirdo, not Wacko, but it’s Wacko). It must’ve been one of the books I kept at my dad’s house and really read over and over because at some point the spine broke and half the pages fell out. I bought a copy (with all the pages in it) from Thrift Books a couple of years ago and didn’t read it then, but it was perfect for my purposes this week.

What I remembered: a girl stays in Manhattan by herself with a babysitting job, which she announces to her parents like this: “I’ve a job”; she has a little sister who at one point says “I put my money in a safe place: I keep my coins in my mouth”; Woody Allen is involved; there is a part where her dad has a moped which I read as in “I moped around the house” but was actually “small lame motorcycle thing.” And that’s about it! So yesterday I read it. (#49!)

First, the cover is divine.

There was much I’d forgotten, obviously, but so much that was familiar. The narrator goes to Bloomingdale’s and buys an outfit that includes a “chocolate tee” and I remember being fascinated that a teenage girl would spend money on a brown shirt. Like, it’s a brown tshirt? Ok. But in context this time it seemed to make sense, perhaps because I am old enough now to enjoy a brown shirt. She takes her babysitting charge on truly fun-sounding New York adventures that I want to go on as well — the Morgan Library and auctions where you can buy a vintage dress for $40 and it fits you perfectly and you feel like Gene Tierney!

But the Woody Allen part was a much bigger deal that I remembered. I knew that she somehow fell down and was thus in a Woody Allen movie; I’d forgotten that after she falls down and accidentally gets into a Woody Allen movie, she reads that he scrapped the project and then decides to become obsessed with Woody Allen and like, stalk him around town in order to get into another Woody Allen movie. She goes to Elaine’s on a night he’s supposed to be there, she reads that he’s filming another movie and just walks down to a creepy dark park alone and some dudes on rollerskates with painted clown faces scoot out of the darkness towards her, and then a police car drives up and she runs towards it and the cop gets out and HE has a creepy painted clown face too, and it turns out someone is filming a horror movie and now she has messed up the shot. Then she goes home and her dad has come back into town and is worried about her and she has told a lot of lies and everyone is mad at her but then at the end everything is fine.

Anyway, let me end this by saying that unless you spent a lot of time rereading this book in your formative years, there is pretty much zero reason for you to seek out and read this book. Unless teen Woody Allen fan fiction featuring chocolate tees appeals to you, and you are trying very hard to meet an arbitrary reading goal, of course.