People Try and Hide the Light Underneath the Covers

For your amusement: the route of Jul's Desperation-Based Impromptu Road Trip '07. This is an inexact recreation; I couldn't come up with a way to accurately map those amusing little "Welcome to New York? I thought I was ALREADY IN NEW YORK!" moments.



Highlights:

- Showering in The Bachelorette Pad is a joyless experience. While standing under its lukewarm, erratic spray, I am often tempted to scrawl "HOW COME YOU SUCK SO BAD?" on the wall with one of J.Q.'s tub crayons.

Super Discount Hotel Chain's shower featured both a Shower Massage and a seemingly-endless supply of super-hot water. When I emerged, trailing clouds of steam hot enough to peel wallpaper, I was one happy stewed prune. Ed. Note: did I ever tell you guys about my Shower Massage song? The one which featured lines like "If you don't respect the Shower Massage / You are a total dope / I'll sneak into your shower / and strangle you with your soap-on-a-rope"? No? Yeah, I guess I see why...).

- Stopping in Promised Land, PA, just because the Springsteen song of the same name kinda rocks. I did manage to restrain myself from taking a detour through Cornish, NJ solely to inform the locals, "Dude, I LOVE your game hens!"

- Hiking in the splendid desolation of Stokes State Forest. No one else for miles... just a forest in the eerie, Blair Witch-y lull before a snowstorm. Did not encounter any bears, either, despite posted signs ("Bears Sighted In Area"... "How To Respond When You Encounter a Bear"... "Scream Like a Sissy or Run Like an Idiot? Weighing Your Options"... "LEAVE THIS AREA IMMEDIATELY OR YOUR ASS WILL BE BITTEN CLEAN OFF").

- Complete editorial control over radio. Hence, an eclectic blend of, well, crap: "True Blue"-era Madonna! C+C Music Factory! "Stuck in the Middle With You"! "Hey Man, Nice Shot" (which always begs the question: which son do you think Mr. and Mrs. Patrick love more - Robert, who played the Liquid Metal Man in "T2", or Richard, former lead singer of Filter?)! Plus one total gem... The Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)"... absolutely gorgeous. It receives a minor demerit for making me break my eighteen-hour crying-free streak, however.

Lowlights:

- Being informed by the front desk that I "must have misheard" the time given when requesting late check-out; having to go from "naked, surfing internet and picking chocolate chips out of trail mix" to "actively vacating premises" in ten minutes.

- Aborted detour to Otisville, NY... "Huh, state and federal penal institutes? Let's check this out!", I thought. Roughly ten miles later: "Why the hell are these prisoners so far from the rest of the decent, law-abiding citizenry? Oh, yeah. Better turn around."

- Alarming the locals during a pit stop at the McDonald's in Yuppie Snottington, NJ. I was covered in forest grime, squinty-eyed from the glacial wind and vaguely surly due to being stuck behind a creaky Ford for the past hundred miles. I felt very much like the protagonist of "Turn the Page".

Hell, maybe that should be a highlight!

- Vague sense of sadness and ennui returned the second I set foot in the Bachelorette Pad. Well, damn.

Future Highlight:

- Stokes Forest has cabins! And I can apparently live on trail mix indefinitely! I sense that my weekends are about to become Thoreau-iffic.

Greetings From Wilkes-Barre

... it's nondescriptastic! It's also pronounced "Wilkes Berry". Which sounds kinda like the breakfast cereal which assassinated Abraham Lincoln (see also: Aaron Burr-an Flakes, Lee Harvey Oswald or Possibly Castro or Perhaps the Illuminati or Maybe the CIA Crispies).

I am illin' and chillin' in tha W.B.'s municipal crib as a result of the most boring whim ever. On a scale of spontaneity ranging from "Mexican gender reassignment surgery" all the way down to "Mountain Fresh fabric softener instead of tried-and-true Spring Breeze", my sojourn hits bottom with a resounding clunk. But it's okay. I've got trail mix, HBO and free wifi. My hotel room is snuggly warm and not nearly as crappy as Super Discount Hotel Chain's usual offerings (this one time? In South Carolina? The entire carpet was damp and the room smelled suspiciously like a poorly-maintained pet store). The bath products are tiny and organic. The sheets are clean, crisp and unsullied by granola bar crumbs.

I didn't really intend to wind up here. However, yesterday evening, I was feeling rather somber. "Aaaaaagh fuck I can't do this any more nooooo," is how I believe I phrased it. I had just handed J.Q. off to the baby-daddy, along with a full status report (milestones, bad: vomited down mama's cleavage. Milestones, good: has 226-word vocabulary. Coupled with his all-abiding love of his tricycle and disregard for authority, J.Q. is fully qualified to be a Hell's Angel). I was young, free of responsibility and in the creamy center of a major metropolitan area.

I also had no plans save "work on novel" and "attempt to chisel vomit out of household linens". I found the prospect... unappealing.

"Nooooo gaaaaaaawd I am going to die of boringness aaaaaaaagh," as I succinctly put it.

So I packed a change of clothes. I grabbed my hiking boots... I wasn't sure where I was going, but I liked the idea that it might require hiking boots. I stopped at Local Retail Behemoth Not Known For Fucking Labor Laws Up The Ass. A road atlas, some electrical tape for my antenna (between that and the ossified fast food ground into the carpet, the DecrepiCivic has been awarded official "hoopty" status) and some trail mix were procured. I wasn't sure where I was going, but shit, more or less every destination would require trail mix. Well, except for Chocolate Chip, Raisin and Pepita Depot, and GOOD CHRIST, wasn't the point of this excursion to make my life slightly MORE interesting?

I spent many happy hours hurtling down the highway. I drove through snow, hail and the mysterious "wintry mix". I saw mountains and truck stops and tiny little airports. I explored local radio stations and wriggled my seat-bound ass to an utterly incongruous rural techno station. I hit the trail mix like a ravenous squirrel.

So here I am. Wilkes-Barre! Alternate town motto: "I Was Tired and It Was There". A few more hours of Kerouac-ing it up and slathering myself in tiny bath products (which contain sunflower seed oil? Shit, I'm gonna turn INTO trail mix), then I hit the road again. Further north? East, to the Delaware Water Gap (I have no idea what it is, but I intend to let its keepers know that a good motto might be "It's Gap-tacular!")? West, to... I don't know, I think mostly pine trees? Don't know. Don't care. Northeastern PA is my oyster, and I fully intend to crack this bitch open.

Jitterbug

I have had mostly-digested pizza crust vomited down my cleavage.

I have used a goodly quantity of Anglo-Saxon vulgarities during a technical presentation.

I have administered Pedialyte and a Q&A session.

Everything went down surprisingly smoothly. Saltiness is apparently better-tolerated than one would imagine.

I have renewed my FAFSA. I have been informed that my “estimated family contribution” is a quarter of my annual net income.

I have idly contemplated erecting a yurt in my parents’ backyard.

I have contemplated no fewer than sixteen different careers.

I have gotten two paragraphs closer to the most-desired and least-likely of the bunch.

I have wanted to run under cover of darkness. To walk two miles to the diner solely to warm my hands on a coffee cup. To curl up in the back of a movie theater with all the accouterments... bucket of soda, cargo container of popcorn, barely-suppressed memories of passing jujubes back and forth during giggly pre-feature kisses. To get a hot shower – a really hot shower, really, really hot, clouds of steam and all that – and press my back against the cool tile and try not to shiver.

I have performed the psychological equivalent of Tae-Bo in outer space : endless silly contortions, only to remain in exactly the same place.

I have not yet decided whether I’d rather get the things I want or stop wanting them.

I have fed my body on diet Coke and miniature brownies.

I have fed my spirit with wild speculation, morbid fascination and Chromacolor melancholy.

I have a headache.

I have faith tomorrow will be just as busy and a little bit better.

State of the J.Q.-nion

The kid has become... temperamental. Sort of like the easily-agitated love child of Leona Helmsley and Naomi Campbell. Whoa, that'd be pretty boss... an endless supply of shoes to fling at underlings! ["WHAM!... bitch!... WHAM!... get back here!... WHAM!... I'm not even up to the espadrilles yet!").

It is worth it, however, this taming of my own personal shrew. In the past twenty-four hours, J.Q. has:

1. Discovered Led Zeppelin. While driving to New Jersey, a block of Zep came on the radio. The child damn near voided his car seat's warranty, what with the gleeful whipping around. During "Misty Mountain Hop", he also kept yelling, "GO! GO! GO!" Were there such a thing as a Fisher-Price Baby's First Zippo (and why the hell ISN'T there, I ask?), he would have held it aloft over his tiny head. When we arrived at his grandparents' house, he requested more "Zeppin". Thus, I found myself encouraging my one year-old to dance to "Heartbreaker" at 10:00 PM. Perhaps I should start funnelling his college fund directly to the local bail bondsman.

2. Looked at the Dunkin Donuts coffee cup I was clutching and piped, "Dun-nit!" "HOLY SHIT, YOU CAN READ!", I thought. Before I'd finished mentally reorganizing my bookshelves (Will Self being the literary equivalent of a flaming, cyanide-tipped lawn dart), it became apparent that he'd merely recognized their logo. Still! Brand recognition! And loyalty ("Dunnit? Dunnit? DUNNIIIIIIIIIT!")! He could be a valuable market research tool... assuming there's a "0 - 2" market ("Okay, in regards to the Lil' Schiele Washable Crayon 8-Pak... HEY! Get the demo product out of your mouth, please!").

3. Devised the awesomest method of misbehaving, ever. J.Q. became somewhat agitated while we were browsing the local beauty supply store. Perhaps he grew weary of mommy's repeated demands that he not touch/lick/fling various products, lest he get killed/indelibly stained/Jheri-Curled. After being systematically relieved of four pairs of sunglasses, ten bottles of hair dye and a massive tub of leave-in conditioner, J.Q. finally had it. "Night-night!" he declared, flopping sulkily to the carpet. "Uh... sure. Knock yourself out," I muttered. He remained prostrate long enough for me to finish choosing between "Mutagenic Maroon" and "Known To The State of California To Cause Cancer Crimson". In retrospect, I probably should've feigned extreme annoyance in order to guarantee a repeat performance. "For the love of god, will you PLEASE stop lying motionless in one place and thereby enabling your mother to enjoy this retail excursion?"

He's sleeping now, no doubt dreaming of the lustrous golden locks he was thwarted from achieving (well, ingesting). And I am retiring to the bathroom to dump a batch of rouge goopiness on my scalp. Should I wind up looking more like Bozo the Clown than Franka Potente, I'll just have J.Q. sue Clairol for me. It's clear that he's already very much an American.

Format Change

And I haven't even hit the 100-post mark. Damn, yo. I feel all Madonna-esque. Especially coupled with my recent discovery of the underwire camisole, a device capable of sculpting the squishiest of protuberances into lethally-pointy peaks. And available at Discount Underthingie Warehouse, too! Eat it, Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Where were we? Boobs? Boobs capable of poking one's eye out? No. Format change!

I've decided to make this site more like an honest-to-goodness blog, and less like... well, I don't know. A freaky chimera, like Tyler Hamilton or Edward Scissorhands. It is an oddity which [voice becoming melodramatically shrieky] just doesn't have a place in your cruel, conformist world! It will not be mackin' on Winona Ryder any time soon, though, that's for damned sure.

Actually, I'd like to devote more (read: any) of my writing mojo towards loftier goals. Y'know, things which could potentially be published ("Well, Oprah, my 'turning point' came when I realized that the classical canon contained surprisingly few crotch-waxing jokes"). Things which will force me to hone my skills to a level of gleaming precision capable of piercing the heart of Michiko Kakutani herself (assuming she has one). Things which will, at absolute least, diminish my fear of rejection and overuse of adverbs.

I'll be writing shorter, more frequent posts. Kinda like a tapas bar, only without piquillo pepper slices festooning everything including the damned after-dinner mint.

I'll also be dishing up more substantial pieces on occasion... kinda like the McRib you wind up guiltily wolfing down on the way home from The Tapas Trough. They'll be posted on http://www.umamimami.com, Thumbscre.ws' newly-spawned and infrequently-updated sister site. "Umami" is the "fifth taste", present in meat, cheese, mushrooms... things which are goooood. MSG is effectively a Big Bottle o' Umami. It's meatiness incarnate; thus, Umami Mami is where my more-filling pieces will reside. (The "mami" should be self-evident.)

The first piece is already up - a few hundred words on the ass-kickingness of The Hold Steady's new album. If I am not consumed by a smoking, sulfurous chasm, the recap of my upcoming Centralia trip will be posted there, too.

Comments are, as always, welcomed with open arms... and I promise you won't even get your eye poked out.

'Screw Loose(d)

Thumbscre.ws is going interactive.

It will not be in a JenniCam kinda way. My reasons are twofold:

• While you may suspect that I let my child [poke me in the eye with a mascara wand while chanting, "MEK-up! MEK-up!" / derive 80% of his calories from Goldfish / stand on the sofa and dance to Sublime's "Caress Me Down"]... damn it, I'm not going to provide photographic evidence of such.
  


• While Jenni might've needed a webcam to display her bare ass, MY bottom line can be viewed in a decidedly lower-tech manner:
  
  <.HTML.>
  < .HEAD.>
  < .TITLE.> Jul's Ass Simulation < ./TITLE.>
  < ./HEAD.>
  < .BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF".>
  < ./BODY.>
  < ./HTML.>

It will not be in a Subservient Chicken type of way. Being decidedly less flush than Burger King, I can't really afford fancy-schmancy viral marketing techniques. Any ad campaign of mine would be more like a low-rent public access commercial. You know the type... they come on Channel 83 in the middle of the night. You only ever seem to catch them when you're drunk or violently ill... because, truly, would someone NOT busy expelling the contents of their very soul into the bottom portion of a Salad Spinner endure such awfulness? They generally feature at least one of the following components:

• Local Businessperson's sexy, bikini-clad wife reclining sexily against one of Local Businessperson's decidedly-unsexy products (Kia Spectra, recently-sold tract home, barbecue chicken cheesesteak).



• None-too thinly veiled aspersions on Local Businessperson's sanity:
  
  "Tell me, Actor Wearing Sigmund Freud-esque Beard, how would you characterize the mental state of someone practically GIVING AWAY Kia Spectras for the low, low price of $199.99 a month?"
  
  "Such an individual would clearly be suffering from a severe case of Discountia Extremenosa."
  
  "GOOD GOD, NO! Is there any CURE?"
  
  "Years of intensive psychoanalysis and ice-water enemas."
  
  [sotto voce] "That's NOT in the script, Carl..."
  
  "Oh, jesus... fine. Fine. Whatever. [heavy sigh] Yes. There is a cure. Selling. Every single Kia. On the freaking lot. By noon. On Saturday. HAPPY?"



• Hilariously offensive attempt to court a demographic to which Local Businessperson does not strictly belong ("Awwww, SCHNAP! San Giacomo's Pizza Palazzo has gots some BANGIN' barbecue chicken cheesesteaks up in the hizzle! Word is bond!").

Nay, Thumbscre.ws' audience-participation element will be more like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book... minus, of course, the ever-present cheating ("'You fall to the floor, clutching your throat and making a noise like several pounds of silken tofu being fed down a garbage disposal. Darkness closes in.' Awwww, schnap. Better go back and pick 'DO NOT touch petri dish'...").

The Tree of Jul's Life has recently grown heavy with the Fruit of Material, all but begging to be plucked and transformed into the Sweet, Sweet Vino of Journalistic Excellence (after, of course, a thorough stomping by the Bare Peasant Feet of Horrendous Protracted Metaphor).

(And yes, I am aware that wine is made from grapes, which grow on vines, not trees. This was a case of "purposeful distortion of facts in order to make readership more likely to spurt Yoo-Hoo from their collective nasal passages", rather than, y'know, "dumbness". [As opposed to my recent discovery that I wasn’t sure whether the moon orbited the earth or – and I quote – “just sort of hung out up there”.])

The question, my pretties, is which fruit... uh, no... grape? (oh, fuck it: I was referring to Calvados, okay? End of story!) to pick first. Which is where I need your help. I want YOU to choose which story you'd like to see me tackle next. You'll have one week to submit your votes (and, with Sitemeter as my witness, SUBMIT YOU SHALL. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Lansing, Michigan. You comment, or I'm takin' you DOWN, no matter HOW highly-regarded your Library and Historical Center!).

Thumbscre.ws Choose-My-Own-Adventure :

Choice One : Sitting Shiv-a. Following a parole violation, a friend-of-a-friend recently became an involuntary guest of Local Correctional Institution. When informed of Secondary Friend's re-incarceration, I expressed my sympathies thusly: "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD! CAN WE GO VISIT HIM IN PRISON? CAN WE CAN WE CAN WE? I WANNA GO VISIT PRISON!" Yes, I am a horrible person. In any event: I wanna go visit prison! Let me hasten to add that the institution in question houses primarily non-terrifying offenders; I'd estimate my chances of experiencing a "Silence of the Lambs"-style semen-splattering at, oh, 6.73% or so. I like those odds!

Choice Two : Air-Conditioned Nightmare. If you live near a major metropolitan area, odds are you've been to a “Mills” outlet mall. They're massive, manic and mind-numbing. Everywhere you turn, there’s retail action – slightly irregular boxers! Cinnabons! Terrifying Jesus-centric wall decorations! - as well as throngs of consumers descending upon it like those “28 Days Later” zombies on a nice meaty torso. My local retail-industrial behemoth is called Franklin Mills. In addition to gooey pastries and three-armed sweaters, it also features an enormous animatronic Ben Franklin head.

For you, loyal readers, I will brave The Head. I will spend an entire day at Franklin Mills. I will not permit myself to leave until I’ve visited all 219 stores, the mall is ready to close or I am carted out on a stretcher, softly babbling about deep, deep discounts as a Man ‘o War-sized dose of Thorazine makes its way through my veins.

Choice Three : I, Deliberately, Visited, A Buuuuuuuurning Ring of Fire. Centralia, PA. Enough said. While there, I will attempt to quite literally cook an egg on one of the remaining squares of sidewalk. As I’m gonna have to buy a dozen anyway, I may also try to poach one in a birdbath.

Choice Four : Zdrastvooyte, Uncle Vyacheslav! In which I travel to Schenectady to consult my Uncle Vyacheslav about a planned trip to The Motherland. My family feels that he will provide valuable insight regarding our vodka-saturated ancestral nation. However, Uncle Vyacheslav has not been to The Motherland since 1945. Yes, THAT 1945. As one might imagine, he still harbors something of a grudge. I suspect our conversation will go a little like this:

Me : "So how far away from Moscow is our family’s village?"
Uncle Vyacheslav : "Let’s see… approximately 4,559 miles."
Me : "I wasn’t talking about Schenectady."
UV : "Well, I was."

Me : "Are there any foods which my babushka used to make which I should try while I’m over there?"
UV : "You should try cassoulet. Which is French. And therefore located in France."
Me : "Piroshki? Borscht? Kholodetz?"
UV : "Paella? Sashimi? Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions on a non-genocidal bun?"

Go forth, my pretties… vote! Comment! To paraphrase a great work, choose my destiny!

Project : "Hurty Laundry"

Some people save things. Some people save things compulsively. Me? I'm a discarder. You name it, odds are I've dispatched it to Goodwill or the local landfill. Paper, clothing, rotten nectarines, masonry debris, cassette tapes, several dozen pairs of old-lady underpants (long story), magazines... I'm never so happy as when I'm flinging something into a Hefty bag and out of my life. Perhaps it's my genetic lineage... my ancestors were Jewish and Russian, two groups for whom "fleeing in the dead of night" might as well be an Olympic sport. While I have no reason to believe I'm in danger of being rousted from my futon by nefarious parties... damn it, if it DOES happen, I won't take long to pack.

True story: until recently, I didn't own a can opener. I avoided canned goods when I could. If unable to obtain a desired foodstuff in any other format (cream of coconut, I'm looking at YOUR saturated-fatty ass), I gamely attacked the can with the tiny, military-style opener on the side of my Swiss Army knife.

There are two notable exceptions to my "More Stark(e) than Philippe" policy: the sentimental and the scientific.

While my Crema Tropicale-splattered kitchen tells one story, my shelves tell quite another.

I've got the tiny stuffed giraffe my mother put in my crib before I was born. I've got the London Fog trenchcoat my father wore as a teenager. I've got the loose-leaf notes I kept during the weeks following J.Q.'s birth ("3:00 AM: 3 oz. milk. WHOOOOO! ROCK ON, BABY!"). I've got how-tos, textbooks, MLA citation guides and my own well-thumbed copy of the Merck Manual (which I should really replace with a little laminated card reading "STOP WORRYING. IT IS PROBABLY JUST GAS").

Emotion and information. In a minimalist existence, these two invariably get a free pass.

Nothing illustrates this as well as my crammed-to-bursting Sent Mail folder. It's like an archaeological dig through my heart.

The breakdown of my marriage led to some of my proudest moments, as well as some of my absolute worst. Faithful corespondent that I am, almost all of them were immediately adjectived up and fired off. Collectively, they're like "Jul In Review": a horrible, wonderful, hilarious, agonizing and enlightening synopsis of... well, ME, both with my soon-to-be ex and by myself.

There are dozens of messages that make me cringe. That's why I saved them, I think. If something makes me squirm with embarrassment or shame, it's a good sign that I need to confront it, rather than ditching it by the side of the information superhighway like a rusty muffler.

I'm sharing them because snooping through someone else's e-mail is a blast.

No! (Well, partially.)

I'm sharing them to confront them, and because they're freakishly fascinating. I like the idea of excavating the dark, intimate and seldom-shared and holding it up to the sunlight. Seeing if it will blanch or melt or spontaneously combust... or if I will.

In the words of the prophet, it's all the same, only the names (and identifying details) have been changed. As the soon-to-be ex, the OtherWoman and I still have to consort with one another for a few hours each week (and have managed to do so rather peacefully), please refrain from ripping them respective new ones. What's done is done.

That being said... go ahead... take a peek inside.