He’s the most adaptable kid I’ve ever met. He went from a conventional nuclear family to a 50-50 joint custody arrangement and didn’t bat an eye. He doesn’t cry while being handed off… he’s too busy lurching towards his other parent, grinning and yelling, “Hug! Hug! Huuuuuug!”

His eyes are brown AND blue.

He’s had his share of Category-5 meltdowns, but it’s clear even as he’s rending his tractor-printed vestements that he doesn’t want to be tantruming. He’s readily distractable; “J.Q. HOLD IT SCISSORS J.Q. HOLD IT SCISSORS J.Q. HOLD IT SCISSORS J.Q. HOLD IT SCISSORS WAAAAAAH!” can be nipped in the bud by a can of squishy Play-Doh goodness or an acapella rendition of “Dazed and Confused”.

He’s recently developed a pretty intense case of stranger anxiety. While I feel for him, I also secretly enjoy how he darts behind my leg and clutches my hand. Wide-eyed, overall-clad and cowlicked, he looks like a 50’s kid… I’m tempted to rename him Opie.

“J.Q. share it!” = “Give it to J.Q. RIGHT NOW, YOU HORRID BITCH!”

He troubleshoots. He can sit down with a toy for 45 minutes, taking it apart, putting it back together, rearranging it, making it 37% lighter and undetectable to commercial radar.

He loves crayons, but doesn’t actually color. He methodically peels the wrappers off of each stick (occasionally thrusting one towards me and saying, “Start it, mama!”)… then snaps them into the tiniest possible pieces. He am become J.Q., destroyer of Binney & Smith.

Two principles keep us happy:

1. Do as few things as possible which necessitate arriving somewhere on time, and
2. Do as few things as possible which must be completed in a fixed time span.

The everyday world is a source of immense wonder and joy. I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible. He can dye his hair fuschia, he can go on the road with a kazoo-based Primus tribute band, he can come home in a patrol car after spray-painting “COACH MURPHY IS A DOOSHBAG!” on the side of the gym… but please, please, please, don’t ever let that little electric glimmer in his eyes fade away.

He’s learning proper names. He calls me “Joo-la.” Very Star Trek. Joo-la, who has a third hand protruding from the base of her spine, clutching a baby wipe and nagging via telepathy… “COME TO YOUR PROGENITOR AND ALLOW HER TO CLEANSE YOUR COPIOUS NASAL DISCHARGE AT ONCE, YOUNG ONE! IT HAS BEEN ORDAINED!”

You love a one year-old for what they are. You love a two-year old for WHO they are.

I love you, kid.

Jizz : Unless you count “metaphorically jizzing self with excitement over meeting the fantabulous Feral”, this was an entirely jizz-less trip. Which - sorry to dash the public’s lurid dreams - my trips invariably are. I’m SHY, yo. My inability to think on my feet leads to a definite dearth of time on my back. While in Vegas last year, my homegirl Em’s friend Steve regaled us with tales of his vacationary debauchery. “Well, first there was Morty,” he reminisced, “… and then Ernesto…”. “Well, fuck,” said I, “Yet another reason to hate being straight and introverted. While you were sliding down the side of the Luxor pyramid on a trail of Astroglide, I was in my hotel room, gettin’ freaky with Chinese takeout and a ‘Law & Order’ marathon.”

Blood : there are those who argue that the best hangover cure is “the hair of the dog that bit you”… e.g. a little early-AM imbibing. But why stop at the hair, I ask? If that puppy is undisciplined enough to bite, BITE IT RIGHT THE FUCK BACK! This is the concept behind Blood Feast!, hangover cure par excellence. Take one extra-spicy Bloody Mary. Add one gargantuan helping of Irish breakfast, featuring the sangui-licious blood sausage. The morning after our Abbey revelry, Blood Feast! proved to be just the thing to soothe our ethanol-ravaged souls. Well, MINE. Feral was slightly squicked out. I don’t see WHY… fried hog’s blood?… Tabasco-laced vodka?… on top of a queasy tummy and aching head?… ummmn… wait a sec. I think I need some Saltines, yo.

2. Most Feral Activity, Solitary : eating cold deep-dish pizza. In bed. At 11 AM. While naked. And surfing online personals on my Blackberry (”Huh, ‘PhilaGuy3478′ says he likes ‘down-to-earth gals’… I HAVE RED PEPPER FLAKES IN MY NAVEL! THAT DOWN-TO-EARTH ENOUGH FOR YA, BUDDY? Mwa ha ha!”).

3. Most Feral Activity, Group : make no mistake, new frontiers WERE blazed in the field of basement alcohol consumption (that’d be consumption of alcohol while chillin’ a basement, not consuming alcohol which was BREWED in a basement ["A heady bouquet, with hints of Tide and Parcheesi"]).

However, after admiring the Abbey crowd’s inspired (though moronic) opening-act heckling, Feral and I spent the duration of the weekend heckling more or less everything in sight. Bad song on the radio? “FUCKYOU!” Trapped in interminable Chicago traffic? “FUCKYOU!” Disgusting, blood-centric breakfast? “FUCKYOU!“

Heckling a sausage? Now THAT is feral.

4. Least Feral Activity, Solitary : actually FOLDING the towel in my hotel room, rather than [flinging it on the floor/flushing it down the commode/setting it ablaze/twirling it above my head while shrieking, "WOOOOO TITS!"/and displaying said mammiferous protuberances], as well as only using it to mop up water, rather than [marinara sauce/Jim Beam/Skoal-flecked spittle/partially-masticated-worm-flecked tequila/evidence].

5. Least Feral Activity, Group : I’ve got two words for you: Shoe. Shopping. Cut us a break - we may be hardcore bad-asses (albeit hardcore bad-asses who have memorized the entire Dr. Seuss literary canon), but within each of us still beats the heart of a woman. A woman who requires shoes, goddamn it. I promise to rectify the damage by, oh, I don’t know, belching the lyrics to “Baby Got Back” while scraping week-old taco dip off the carpet with a bottle opener shaped like a naked ass and imprinted with the words “BOTTOMS UP!!! KEY WEST 1998″.

5. Cutest Thing Discovered Whilst in Illi-nwah… And Quite Possibly Ever : YOU MAY HAVE KNOWN… that the Feral-lings were adorable. BUT DID YOU KNOW… that they refer to Guided By Voices‘ Robert Pollard as “Bob”? HEE! It is cute enough to make one’s heart explode right out of one’s pericardial membrane like a grapefruit seed (albeit a gigantic, gory, life-sustaining one).

To Be Continued… We Do Not Buy the Drugs, But We DO Listen To Them; Jesus Fuck, What’s With All the Fucking Soy, Do Midwesterners Really Enjoy Their Miso Or Something?; As Melancholy as Elliot Smith, As Hung Over as Paul Westerberg, On a Steve Miller Band-Style Big Ol’ Jet Airliner : Goin’ Home.

Which makes it slightly more understandable (although no less hilarious) that I recently managed to get me and my siblings emblazoned with the Underwood Potted Meat Devil:

(A friendly [if utterly horrified, and smacking at forearm while shrieking, "GETITOFFME!"] shout-out to Julie for this startling revelation.)

I whipped up the design on a Post-It one night. We all loved it. It was a moment of pure serendipity. Or so I thought.

Turns out I wasn’t craving a powerful expression of sisterly love, but rather a fatty, hog-anus-laden snackie.

[Note: I still love my sister-tat, damn it. Potted meat? Not so much.]

---

2. Dear Jackass Date:

May I call you Jack?

Okay, I’m not sure what sort of mental picture of me you’d conjured up before our initial meeting. You’d seen photos of me (ones with minimal undereye circle Photoshopping, no less!). You’d enjoyed our witty e-mail banter. But okay, fine, so the Jul of your hopes and no-doubt humid dreams was NOT the Jul who came strolling up to you last week at Charming Local Taverna. It’s not as though I misrepresented myself in any way, but perhaps you have some heretofore-undocumented neurological condition which may’ve resulted in your confusion. Would you like Oliver Sacks’ number? How about a nice KICK in the sack?

There are ways to express disappointment, my lad. “Wow… thanks, Aunt Earlene! You must’ve worked REALLY HARD on this Carmen Miranda toilet paper roll-holder!” That? That’s classy.

You, my erstwhile friend, are not.

I tried. I joked, I smiled, I made The Dreaded Eye Contact. I asked you questions about yourself, I slipped in subtle compliments and affirmations whenever possible. I was ON, enough to make Miss Manners commit a faux pas in her sensible little panties.

But YOU? You radiated disappointment. You conversed, but much like a celebrity being interviewed by a Muppet… with an eye-roll and a smirk, as if to say, “I’ll play along, but JESUS, I can’t believe I’m discussing the situation in Darfur with a pimped-out duvet cover.”

When the waitress presented menus, you blurted, “No, no… just here for drinks.” Ouchie.

Seconds after the check appeared, you flung a few bills on the table (I generally like to pay my own way, but if ever there were a time to say, “Fuck progressiveness”, that’d be it), stood up and said, “Well, it was really nice to meet you… bye!”

I took a leisurely walk back to the Bachelorette Pad (it was seventy degrees out… I let nothing ruin a seventy-degree night). After giving it some thought, I fired off the following e-mail:

“Uh… wow. So THAT was awkward. Oh, well. Such things happen. Thanks for the drink. - Jul”.

A few minutes later, you replied.

“Yep. They do. Best of luck. - Jack”.

Back in the day, this would’ve resulted in a fury of self-loathing on my part, a torrent of bitter tears on my futon.

Fuck that shit.

So I’m not your physical cup of tea. That’s okay. Everyone’s got their preferences.

Like me. I’d have preferred to enjoy an hour or so of idle chit-chat, part ways amicably, then receive a “Sorry, just didn’t feel anything click” e-mail a few days hence.

You apparently preferred to take the “make date feel monstrously uncomfortable and uncomfortably monstrous” route.

A pox on you. Literally and figuratively.

May you one day squirm as badly. May it last a good deal longer.

May you contract one of the itchier STDs.

May it not have even been that good.

May every man who has ever regarded my body as a source of things OTHER than disappointment - lust and pleasure, comfort and joy - band together and kick your fucking ass.

There are plenty of them. There’s only one of you.

Your loss, asshole.