Weekend Plans: Fried Chicken, Showers, Pedicures

So Cass is away again, and I, Tiresias, at this late hour, must think of something to round out the week.

Usually doesn't bode well when someone begins with such a weak premise. I have a number of things in line, even along topics that don't involve defecation and vomiting and crude mentions of flesh falling out of their clothing ... though there's plenty of that, and no end of inspiration when I look to my own wardrobe and how sometimes unsuccessfully it encases all the bits, though I console myself with the fact that I'm really not out to vie with all the contestants of the Lil Kim Pageant to see whose bits fall out with the greatest of ease. I, on the other hand, look down in horror to see that my gardening pants that I wear on my dog walks have hitched down so far everyone can see the logo stripe on my underwear, plus a stripe of blinding anemic white that is my belly, that is something that has not seen the sun since the third grade, when I had that one-piece bathing suit with the midriff chopped out (I really shudder to think what some grown women with their very much grown bellies would look like if this suit were resurrected, and I’m gagging to think of the parade of fleshly bellies the texture of grapefruit skin and the consistency and jiggle of runny tofu, probably the next time I take to the beaches where I am, mind you, covered in 45 SPF and sunglasses and a winter-weight muumuu).

But I am not in the frame of mind necessary to work up a diatribe on fashion foibles, even my own, but instead offer the following words of advice, as a great wise prophet should. Things to look out for this weekend. And if you’re on the west coast, I am so very sorry. I’ve only been complaining of having to swim through warmish eighty-degree humidity and gagging from the smell of marinated pits and dog urine steaming from sidewalks and the asswipe over here at Hobos Inc. sneaking into the break room to reheat their grilled mackerel, the smell of death, only surpassed by the smell of warm anchovy, which on a summer day is the most evil gift one can bestow on your co-workers.

So here they are. Words. Between the lines on a page.

• If you feel a tantrum coming, stick your head under the shower, blast it cold, scream through the initial pain and then sing that one song you know from Die Fledermaus.
• If you feel inert and completely lackluster, check your personal email account to see if anyone cared about you in the last twelve minutes. Anyone? Hello? Upset? Well, see the above bullet point then.
• Soak your feet in hot water and lavender oil (with a cold drink in hand). Then scrub away the nastiness with a pumice stone.
• Start that chapter of your debut Blaze Harlequin novel. Start with a sex scene. That’s they only way the Blaze editors (or intern) will read your manuscript.
• Drink prosecco, Cass’s summer drink of choice. And mine? Limeade.
• Read something Russian. They are invariably set in the winter. It’s a good time to read about soldiers trooping through the upper reaches of Siberia and dying of frostbite. Don’t think about heat waves and the body count, both human and bovine, in California.
• Figure out who to blame for the heat wave. For the general rise in temperature. Think about it. Hard.
• Now that your feet are pretty, you might as well polish your nails.
• Watch out for the hobos in the park when walking at twilight. (Coming soon: hobo etiquette, a cautionary tale.)
• Watch at least half an hour of C-Span. Then repeat the first bullet point.
• Call up your old high school acquaintances and have brunch. Try not to talk about high school. Tell them how much you like to knit and crochet and how you’ve just discovered scrapbooking. Then tell them how and when you found the Lord. Tell them you’re running late to your knitting guild. Then go home and repeat the first bullet point.
• Then put on the Smiths. Blast that son of a bitch. Because you should, and because you can.
• If your dog whines at any point, throw her in the tub and perform a modified version of the first bullet point. Then when you’re warbling “Mein Herr Marquis,” you won’t be distorted from trying to sing through all that water. Then you’ll be able to shine undeterred.