R.I.P.

I enjoy reading obituaries. I always wonder, would I have liked this person? Do I only think I like them now because they are dead? Obituaries always leave me wanting more, because they are never written by the person you really want to hear from.
I once had a good friend who died. He died young, too young. His death was an accident, but he must've sensed it coming, because just a few weeks before he died he told me that if he died before I did, that I shouldn't allow his mother to give him a religious funeral.
"Sure" I said, "No problemo. That would totally suck".
But then he really died, in a terrible accident, and what was I going to do- tell his mother that she couldn't bury her youngest child in a way that gave her comfort? She wouldn't have listened anyway. She's pretty intimidating.
I felt like such an ass at the funeral... I was the only one in the whole place who knew that he would literally be rolling over in his newly dug grave from embarrassment if he could see the precious, unreal service; the little cards with his photo and various Bible quotes that were given out like party favors. I was one of his older friends; the friend he had before he got sober; the no-good burnout from high school. I wasn't asked to speak about him at the funeral though I had known him for thirteen years. That was left to people his mother thought would reflect the more shiny, new, "positive Robert"- people who had known him less than a year. There was his manager at the electronics shop where he had worked for four months, who spoke glowingly of his stellar customer service skills. There was his NA sponser, an ex-junkie Army colonel who gave Robert the tough love his missing father had never supplied. He was kind of cool, but he obviously had so many "issues" of his own that it was kinda distracting-like he had this nervous twitch and he said the word "sobriety" one too many a time for my liking. I don't know, it's like, to someone just passing by, they would have gotten this totally skewed view of who Robert was, like he was just this boring jackass who took pride in his bullshit $8 and hour job and drank bad coffee with a bunch of losers at Waffle House while he talked about where he went wrong.
I miss him.
My mom's bugging me to cut the grass so I have to get off the computer now.
Later.

The Years Have Not Been Kind

My 30th high school reunion was last night. I wasn't there. I was working in the other ballroom, catering a wedding. I didn't even realize it was my high school class until I saw Kathleen Jervis and Rachel Simmons in the smoking lounge when I went in there to empty the ashtrays. Those bitches! I heard them before I saw them- it was a complete flashback to high school, when I'd walk into the ladies room and hear their high-pitched laughs as they made fun of everyone in our homeroom, chair by chair, except instead of making fun of David Bunson's glasses, they were talking about how fake Marie Blackledge's wig looked and how they would never leave the house wearing a wig that tacky, chemotherapy or not.

FOK U

I am completely freaked out about Brad and Jennifer getting seperated!! Who could've imagined that those two would split??? I just feel like, if people that beautiful and cool can get a divorced, than who's marriage is safe??
It makes me almost want to break off my engagement to Tim. I mean, it's like, Tim's not even all that hot.
WHAT IS UP WITH JENNIFER ANISTON????????????????

I'm not being serious...I am totally committed to Tim and to our wedding. At this point there is no turning back. I have already had 275 Tshirts printed up for the rehearsal dinner. They are so cute! Tim's party's shirts say "I GOT YOUR BACK, TIMBO!" and mine say "FOK U!!!!" Which means "Friends of Kari, Unite!!!" I was going to do a Britney and get Tim a shirt that says "PIMP", but there's the whole thing with his younger sister Janine running away and being a prostitute in Michigan after she had an affair with the neighbor who was like 45 and all that and I didn't want her to see the shirt and have a flashback and ruin my frigging rehearsal dinner or something!!! She has A LOT of problems. I wish she weren't coming to the wedding. Tim tells me all the time that I am the most judgemental person he has ever met, but that it makes him feel kind of lucky because he knows how picky I am.

To Do: 2005

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

1)Try Mexican food
2)Have fat around knee and groin area removed
3)Pick up excess dog doo in front yard,or hire a neighborhood child to do it
4)Rotate patriotic bumperstickers more often so they don't get all weather damaged, making me look cheap
5)Smile more!!!!! Why else did I spend all that money on clear braces?


Happy New Year.

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

Dear Stephanie,

You disgust me. I hope you die in a fiery car crash. What you did has no place in this society.

Call me later! Bitch!


Rochelle

when Martha met MARTHA!!!!

Martha Stewart never thought of herself as anybody special, until one day in the late '80's, when she saw a woman on TV dyeing Easter eggs who had her name.
Martha Stewart was cutting her son Wesley's hair at the time, and when she heard the morning news show host say her name is such an honorary way, she jumped in her Easy Spirit shoes, and cut Wesley's bangs uneven.

Martha Stewart suddenly had a role model. She'd always hated her name, thinking the plainness of it predestined her to the unchanging suburban life she led. Now, seeing this woman on the TV screen, in her sensible striped polo (isn't that what the kids call those shirts?), with her blonde hair done just right, not too racy, dyeing those Easter eggs so beautifully, with HER NAME, she did not care when Wesley screamed at her that now he looked like a faggot and that she was retarded.
In fact, from that moment on (at least for a good while), she seemed to not really care what the kids said to her. Quickly, the 7 bland beige rooms of her home became sponge painted, fruit centerpieced, silk potpourri sachet places- places with pizazz! And class.

Martha Stewart even got her 15 minutes of fame when MARTHA STEWART had to go to court about all that awful stuff, the money stuff. Martha Stewart took a plane from her home in Texas to New York City for MARTHA'S trial, with a carefully rolled piece of posterboard and a 10 pack of magic markers. She wasn't sure she could find poster board in New York City.

Turtle Head

Turtle figured that there was no shame in making your money in portable toilets, and he enjoyed making mention of it at any opportunity, especially at dinner parties to ladies who had their mouths full of pate.

Turtle Head

Turtle Head always did like his chili fries. When he went on vacations to high class places, he always embarrassed his wife and children by asking if the place served chili fries. He figured that, making as much money as he did, and coming from where he had, he was entitled to get a rise out of snot-nosed little punks weilding trays of espressos with lemon rind on the side.
Turtle had made his fortune in portable toilets, starting out as a port o john janitor, then buying a couple of them to rent out to people for family reunions and block parties and things, then moving on to gathering a whole fleet of them and landing some very key deals with people from the Olympics committee and places like that. His children were horrified when the other kids at their fancy prep school would make fun of them by calling them "turd burglars" and ask whether they were eating a poop sandwich at lunch each day.

Lamentation

Jeremy died a month ago today. I feel like a liar even writing it. Is that true? Did my boyfriend really die in a car accident in a goddamn Walgreen's parking lot last month?

All the times I thought about filling up the tank with gas and driving East until I ran out! All the fantasies about breaking up with him to be available to someone potentially cuter. My being unimpressed with his record collection.
This filthy burning hole in me, I never ever saw it coming.
Strangers don't understand my attempts to be cheerful that translate into high pitched cliches that go nowhere when I am ordering coffee or giving someone directions at work.

At night now, I smoke Menthol cigarettes out on the porch and knit. I was going to make my Mother a scarf for her birthday, but now I am making a hat for Jeremy. I knit, and with each poke of the needle I think about that life, and the life we had together.
We used to go grocery shopping every Thursday. He was a really good cook. His hands, the tentativeness of his touch, as if he almost wasn't there. He had dishwater colored hair and brilliantly bright eyes. He had a gradual smile. I was really attracted to him at the beginning.
I cry, and try to make the pokes tighter. I am not dealing with the heaps of dirty dishes he left in the sink, nor his scratchy, formless sweatsocks.

I knew a girl growing up, Stacie, whose sister drowned at summer camp. Her name was Vanessa. She was really short and had dark brown permed hair. She was really nice. Stacie had this pair of Jordache cutoffs that I totally coveted. She loaned them to Vanessa to wear at camp, and once Vanessa drowned, Stacie's mom wouldn't let her have them back. She kept Vanessa's whole duffel bag of camp clothes zipped up in her closet. She had a half eaten bag of peanut M & M's in her pocket and Stacie's best friend, Megan, told me that Stacie's mom shellacked each M and put them back in the bag,all so she could leave them in the pocket of the Jordaches where Vanessa had left them. I was always kind of pissed that I was never able to wear those cutoffs. It seemed like such a waste.

The remnants of the dead. All over my house, like depressing gold.

Charlene's Diary, Hands Off

Thursday, May 20
I can't believe I'm going to be on the news tonight. You always think that because you don't know the people on the news, no one else does either. Well, now here I am on the TV screen in my own apartment. The caption under my picture says "missing person found unharmed". I am so embarrassed!!!!!
They used my driver's license picture. I hate my hair in that picture!
My sister called the police because I didn't come home after my blind date with that idiot idiot IDIOT Karen set me up with. The date was a disaster. I wanted to leave as soon as I got to the ice cream parlor and saw him sitting there. He is so dumb!! He has a combover!!!
He dresses like a science teacher from the '80's. I think I spotted a fanny pack, and he was wearing these totally retarded black pressed dress slacks! With velcro sneakers!!!! Is he kidding? I stayed a half hour, just to be nice. He's only like 40 but he looks about 80. And I would bet my LIFE he's still a virgin. I hate Karen! How lame does she think I am?
He was all excited about us sharing an ice cream sundae, but I am doing Atkins so I just told him I was lactose intolerant, which brought on a 15 minute monologue about different rare allergies, and how he was allergic to Penicillan but now he isn't because he loves blue cheese dressing or something. I finally excused myself to the bathroom, gave myself a silent pep talk that didn't work, and then I just left out the side entrance and took off.
I guess the police were questioning the guy, Herbert, because he was the last person I was seen with, and he's a weirdo.

Herbert Yardler's Blind Date

PROPERTY OF
HERBERT YARDLER
(diary, typed on his mother's old typewriter)
Met Charlene at McFrackle's for ice cream. I got a great parking space right out front so that was a good start to the date. But it pretty much went downhill from there. It turns out Charlene is LACTOSE INTOLERANT. She had coffee and I had a banana split, and she looked like being there around all that lactate was making her sick, and it was really awkward because when I asked her on the phone if she wanted to meet for ice cream she said that sounded nice. I mean am I a mindreader?

Will not do this again. Yes, my sister means well but I am a bachelor. I like it that way. I don't need someone nagging me and being all mushy and crying and things like that.

meta one

There used to be a whole gang of us who would eat lunch together almost every day, take smoke breaks together, make birthday cakes for each other and just really enjoy one another. Some of my best friends of life I met through working at the Hospitable Professional Center. I worked front desk for a dentist for sixteen years, but he had a pretty nasty divorce and his ex-wife took him for everything he had. I guess he was having an affair with his tennis teacher. Anyway, I got re-trained and now I work as a dental hygenist for his ex-partner.
I don't really like it because dentists make me nervous, but I am trying to embrace this new part of my life.