PTA-mom took me shopping for a black suit to wear to my brother's wedding. My brother gets to wear a skirt, but I don't. Nope. Not me. It doesn't matter that the suit pants make my tummy appear to puff out like an angry porcupine. It doesn't matter that I look like a Vietnamese Communist in little black pajamas. No. It doesn't matter that the suit makes me look cut off and I hate them so much that I want to tear my hair out and break the mirrors. No. That doesn't matter at all. Pants. I think I'm beginning to agree with those British people and their definition of pants which I don't quite understand but certainly know is less than complementary. Pants.

And pants. Why are they plural? Unless you're talking about them in some weird way. "Do you want the cuff like that on your pant?" Dogs pant. My clothes don't. I don't think. I called them trousers today and PTA-mom laughed. She's wearing pants to the wedding. I'm making them for her. I really hope they turn out all right. I must remember not to rush.

Must remember. That reminds me of being in college again. To make sure that I didn't say idiotic things in class I used to write at the top of the page, "Shut up." And on the way to class I would say, "I must remember to keep my damn mouth shut." Eventually it began to work a little. Though not much. I'd write things in the margins to myself and they would suddenly seem so inspired that I'd have to say them out loud. The stares and silence would almost have made me turn to stone, except I think my brains were already close to that. Stone. Inspired. Insipid. Bleahhhhhhh.
posted by Dotty at 10:13 PM

Spring and Sprocket are sleepy today. When I woke up this morning, I went down to greet Sprock. She wagged and ran around and picked up toys and put them down. I forgot to give her the obligatory sit down and pet treatment. She likes to sit on me while she holds her Kong in her mouth. She looks like someone put the snoopy sno-cone machine cap on her face. She was very concerned that she get her sit down time. Spring is more restrained. She looks at me with her mournful eyes and has a tiny glimmer of mischief that she hides someplace deep in her ears. I know it's there because she always makes a funny, contented noise when I rub her ears. And I always laugh when my mischief is nearly discovered. Spring can't laugh, but I think she would.
posted by Dotty at 1:25 PM

I just got rid of the paperclip as my Microsoft office assistant. I feel really bad now. I feel like he knows that I don’t really like him. I’m trying out the cat. I think he’s staring at me with a very stupid look. My own cat never pulled that crap with me. I liked the dog. He would wear a cape sometimes. And he also had a welding torch. I asked him how to weld, but he played ignorant. How ignorant can he be when he takes dictation?

I had the weirdest dreams last night. I dreamt that my father died. And in true PTA-mom style, she went on and on, in the dream, of course, about how wonderful it was that he died at home. He was on the porch and he was so relaxed. I remember crying the hardest in my dream when they were going to do an autopsy on him. They didn’t know how he died, you see. And I woke up with my hand in a malformed fist like I was clutching a handkerchief or something. I’m still distressed about this. I should call my father and tell him to go to the doctor.

THEN I had a dream about my older brother. We should call him something like Angertrain. At any rate, Brilliant Editor and I were driving around in our car in the dream city that I visit often—I believe it’s a conflation of several towns, mostly the one I grew up in—and police guy stopped us and asked if we’d seen any Ford F150s. Which we hadn’t. But then he asked us if we knew Angertrain. Which we did. And somehow Brilliant Editor had to go home to get the address and I ended up riding around with the police guy who looked like Kevin Spacey and snickered at my employment. And what had Angertrain done, you ask? Why his driver’s license had expired.

It’s not okay for Kevin Spacey look-alikes to snicker at my job. It IS okay for me to snicker at my job. Snicker one should come at the mention that it’s part-time. Snicker two should come when you realize that I was told (by Napoleanna) that I couldn’t fold well. As in fold paper in half. As in only an idiot couldn’t do it and now I’m that idiot. What the hell kind of nonsense is that? I will tell you what kind of nonsense that is.

We were teaching a class last night to people who had just bought sergers. (You should see these machines. They’re instruments of torture, so called.) And people get frustrated. It’s late, they’ve worked a full day, they’re not convinced they should have spent the money, and so on. So, I think we should smile, say that they’ve done a good job, tell them how to improve and make their lives easier. Instead, they tend to hear: “No, this isn’t quite right, do it again.” Somehow, it doesn't seem right.
posted by Dotty at 11:45 AM