Nothing's Fair In Love And War..

He looks at me and says, "So who are you then? Really?"

And I take a moment to think about it as my eyes slide away from his caustic gaze. He's serious when he asks me this question and maybe it catches me a little off guard. Usually when people ask this question they want to know what you do, what you like, what you listen to. And most of the time they don't really care unless they're pursuing something like a romance. Even then it's just good small talk. Besides, who am I really? I don't think anybody's anybody, not really. Except for maybe if you're under the pretense that we truthfully are what we eat, in which case I'd be a Ritalin pill and two eggs, over easy.

Him and I, we're sitting in the corner of a bookstore off 5th and Baltimore in the Walldorf District, or what some call the French District, where nobody's really French but the cafe's sell baguettes and one of the boutiques has a cut-out of the Eiffle tower pasted to their front window. Nobody puts much effort into things these days. They don't have to.

I had told him I was 18. I wasn't. I told him I was Julia. It wasn't. I told him I loved him too. I couldn't tell you why. I didn't. I don't know. Maybe I did.

I tell him, I don't know. I tell him this because in all likelihood it's probably the only thing I know for sure is true. Anymore, when people ask me questions like this I just make something up to entertain them. I don't soul-search inside myself because I've never thought of myself as more than a composite of the rest of the world, a product of some sort. I figure, if they really knew themselves, they'd know me too. Anymore, it's easier to just make somebody up than to define the intricacies that comprise my whole and separate me from the masses. I'd have to know alot more about the world than just my perspective of it to determine anything for sure, and anyways, who's to say I'm who I say I am? People change, so nobody's ever really who they say they are. Not for long anyway. Besides, by the time I've figured myself out, somebody's fucked me up good and everything's changed.

And he tells me, "I think I deserve to know."

I don't think he does. I don't think he deserves anything.

I'm a liar, I say. It's the truth, which is funny when you think about it, and it feels weird saying it but his green eyes don't look hurt by any fallacy on my behalf and it bothers me so I tell him what he wants to hear so that maybe he'll shut up and leave, or so that maybe I can at least get some reaction. I don't know why he's here to begin with. I didn't invite him.

Then it dawns on me that maybe he likes the lies better. Reality's not a pretty place. People disappear under headlines and girls fall in love with other men. Maybe he needs the escape of spending the night inside somebody that doesn't really exist. Maybe he knew the truth all along.

Fuck. What is wrong with people these days?

"You're a bitch." And he says it like I should be offended, but he sat there moments ago asking who I am, and now he thinks telling me the answer solves the problem. Truth is, he's probably right. Lot of good it does the both of us now.

Me and him, we dated for about a month. It was fun at first, but only because it was wrong. I met him at a busy bar and grill on game night and had noticed he was married. I inquired about the ring and he said, "Yeah, what about it?"

So I asked him, "How married?"

Twenty minutes later we were fucking in the bathroom stall and the manager was knocking on the door telling us we needed to leave or he'd call the police. And it was supposed to be a one night thing. Nothing that lasted. Just, for one night in my life I wanted to be a whore like everyone else. It sounds silly now. Four weeks later he was talking about divorce and I was getting ready to graduate and didn't have time to deal with that shit. Half way through the fifth week he found a picture of me in the local paper with a couple of girls from the track team at a fundraiser for our school. The caption listed us by our first initial, last name, and age. The picture was of my profile, so it wouldn't have been a problem if I wasn't wearing the same thing in the picture as what I had left his house in the morning it was taken. His hoodie. With his last name. I could have tried to lie, say it wasn't me, but it would have been useless. I was caught, with red letters and scarlet hands.

Nobody's who they say they are. At least not for long.

And now he sat in front of me wanting to be able to distinguish fantasy from reality, facts from fiction. Unfortunately, that ship had sailed weeks ago. Somewhere along the lines I probably messed this man's life up something good. Down the road a while, maybe even tonight, when he looks at his wife he'll see a lie where truth used to be. Eventually he'll have to decide which realm he wants to exist in, and both are going to suck.

He says, "Just tell me your name. Tell me you're real name. Just, please?" And he pauses for a moment. "Tell me who you really are."

I felt bad then, for this guy. It was too easy for me to steal him from his world, and for no reason. "I'm Julia." And this time, when I told him who I was, I wasn't lying.

To Catch A Cougar

So I neglected to mention in my past few posts that I got canned from my nanny job due to the family's financial problems. The economy has left everybody slowly becoming unemployed, and quickly headed for the phone to call the unemployment line, which explains my inability to get through to an operator rather than just getting disconnected.

So I've been looking into new jobs online and somehow managed to stumble upon a youtube video of a scene from To Catch A Predator.

Really the only thing I ever learned from watching that show is that men like cookies. Trust me, this knowledge comes in handy as I have seduced many a man by using my own secret recipe for the chocolate chip variety which I will include below. For the most part I'm too old to worry about men who get their socks rocked by the prospect of boning underage girls. But it did get me thinking...

How come you never hear about older women preying on young boys? Those hyenas, or cougars, whatever, licking their lips at the posters of boys like Zac Efron or Joe Jonas.

And then I realized, THAT's what I want to be when I grow up. A cougar. An elderly slut. I'm going to be the only 90 year old woman in jail who still requests conjugal visits and swears "he said he was 18!"

In another 50 years, I'll be chatting up a twinkish looking boy in some online chat room and sending him pictures of my sagging breasts. And he'll be all "Ooh, you're so hot! I'm 18 and my parents aren't home. Want to come over for some cookies?" and I'll be all, "Hell yeah! I love cookies!"

And I'll walk in through the back door and sit down at the table and munch on some cookies, and Chris Hansen's grandson, the new host, will bust out of the living room and I'll whisper under my breath just loud enough for the mic to pick up, "Dude, I didn't know this was a threesome..." He'll say, "Well well, Ms. Carrot. What exactly are you here for? You knew this boy was only 17."

I'll start walking up to him, wrinkly finger twirling the string of gum hanging from my overly lined lips, thin grey hair framing my hollow wax paper cheeks. I'll get up really close, so close he can smell my White Diamonds perfume, and say, "Baby, I only came here for the cookies. But since you walked in the room I've been craving some thick juicy sausage..."

Then I'll pull out my dentures, slap them on the table, grab him by the belt, and pull him in for a slobbery wet granny kiss....

And the producers cut to commercial....

fin.

Secret Recipe For Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Ingredients:
1 package of store bought chocolate chip cookies.

Directions:
Throw package on kitchen counter.
Get naked and go wait in the bedroom.

Nanny McFuck This I'm Going Home

It’s a dark night somewhere on the other side of the world. Some girl has left her apartment for a well-deserved night out on the town with her friends and some Jim Beam. She’s walking down the side streets between buildings waiting to come up on Spruce St. or maybe Maple, or something like that. You know, wherever the bars are. She’s dressed up in a sexy black designer skirt and a top just tight enough to perfectly round out her breasts. Her curves sway with each step onto a pair of high healed Ferragamos.

And then there’s a hand around her mouth, and something sharp against her throat, and she’s thrown to the ground, skirt around her waist and the last thing she feels is a hand slip between her thighs.

Less than an hour later, the cops arrive, and pronounce her dead on the scene. A serious looking man pulls out a piece of chalk and begins to encircle her body in a thin white line.

I should be so lucky.

But nope. I’m laying on concrete in 90 degree heat while bright pink chalk is dragged along the length of my body by a 7 year old who doesn’t have enough sense to avoid allowing the chalk to come in contact with my new jeans and dirty white t-shirt. I haven’t been laid in over a year, and I could use a shot of whiskey twice as bad as the aforementioned dead chick. Right now, I’m this child's new best friend because I picked up a bucket of chalk at the dollar store as a sort of bribe to make her stop bugging me to play her version of soccer. I’m sorry, and maybe I’m stubborn, but I don’t think it’s in her best interests to grow accustomed to playing games in a manner in which the outcome is always in her favor. You can’t change the rules half way through the game, and you can’t stomp your feet, cross your arms, and cry like a fucking river if I score a goal after you make every effort possible to ensure that I won’t, and you will. Life doesn’t work that way kiddo. And if you’re going to get upset and be a bitch every time you loose, you’re in for a sour surprise once the real world hits. And the sad part is, I only scored 1 point. I let her score about 15. So for the next five hours, all I heard was “I like my other nanny better than you. She sucks at sports. She lets me change the rules.“ And in my head all I could think was well then why don’t you marry the bitch. I’m not exaggerating. I don’t have to. Life lugging around two brats is naturally hard, there’s no need for fluffers. Hell, last Thursday I was her worst enemy because I wouldn’t let her have a creamsicle until she had something healthy for dinner. Obviously, I am the devil. You don’t even want to know what happens if I try to turn off Spongebob before the credits start rolling because she has to do her homework. Let’s just say that the tantrum that follows has made me curious just how many Flintstones vitamins I would have to take before needing to be rushed away from this place and to the hospital where they’d pump my stomach and confine me to bed rest for a few days. Another day in the life of a nanny.

This morning, the five year old got a hold of a bottle of liquid soap. He’s autistic, and to him anything that isn’t supposed to be food is, in fact, food. And, like a normal child, if he doesn’t like the food he’s eating, he spits it out. So there ended up being a soapy spit wad trail leading from the back door to his bedroom all the way upstairs. This is less fun to clean up than, say, three pint sized containers of ice cream melted in front of the freezer door, because at least the dogs will help with that one. Dogs won’t touch soap. Another favorite activity of the boy’s is shredding. Paper towels, plastic bags, heads of lettuce, if it will tear, he will tear it. He can rip through a roll of toilet paper in five minutes flat. This is one of the interesting things about this kid and his Autism. I’ve never seen somebody shred the way he does. It’s like he’s turning everything he can find into a Halloween decoration. And he’s very calculated about how he shreds. Its how he regulates himself. He gets really into it, he has a preference for plastic and bubble wrap, and when he’s done turning a five inch piece of garbage into a two foot piece of art, he drops down in front of the nearest foot and uses his masterpiece to measure it. Which means, if you were walking somewhere, and he’s just finished shredding something, you better stop or you’ll kick him in the face. Last time I checked, kicking a kid in the face is child abuse. And last time I checked, child abuse is generally frowned upon. This is an average day. A house covered in shredded material, soap spit, and ice cream, a five year old measuring my feet with what’s left of a sheet of bubble wrap, and a 7 year old who hates me because I expect her to not be a spoiled bitch. Is that harsh? That sounded harsh. I didn’t mean for it to.

She’s a sweet girl. Or at least she makes a conscious effort to be. The effects are frequently not so innocent, but it’s the thought that counts. Everyday she gets home from school and immediately goes and plays with her hamster Cupcake. She’s terrified that he’s horribly lonely and bored in his three level hamster mansion while she’s at school. Now, I’m pretty sure Cupcake is the reincarnate of Hitler, so he/she probably deserves this, but if not, then what takes place in the fifteen minutes of “play” could easily be considered animal abuse by most modern standards. Let’s see if Cupcake can fit into my pocket. Let’s see if Cupcake wants to go on an arctic expedition in the ice cube tray. Let’s see if Cupcake would make a good cowgirl and let her ride the fat Australian Sheppard, Pepper. Let’s see if Cupcake wants to surf down the railing. Let’s see if Cupcake wants to go swimming in the toilet. Luckily, Cupcake has been fortunate enough to avoid going exploring in the mysterious oven, or basking in the warmth of the microwave, or tanning in the George Foreman grill.

I say, “Um, hon, I don’t think Cupcake can swim. Why don’t you try letting her run around in her ball.”

She says,“No! She’s my hamster and she can do whatever I want. Stop trying to tell me what to do. You always try and tell me what to do. I want my other nanny!”

*sigh*

Like, don’t get me wrong, I totally understand how it got to this point. When you have to maintain sanity while your autistic five year old son leaves cookies and cream handprints all over your new sectional, or drops an entire package of strawberries all over the floor because he wanted to shred the plastic bag they were in, putting up with a kid who’s screaming because she wants macaroni and beef instead of tuna salad, and you probably come pretty close to the comfort of a straight-jacket. So I can understand how these temper tantrums are frequently resolved with a “Fine, do whatever. Just stop screaming like that. I even can‘t hear myself contemplate suicide.” I give them credit. The situation could be much worse and I highly doubt I could do a better job.

When I have kids, I’m sure they’ll be little angels at the beginning, but when they’re three years old and start trying on that pre-tween attitude, I’m probably going to end up calling it a draw and having Teletubbies in the DVD player on repeat. I just don’t know if I can have the patience to be one of those “good” parents like the parenting magazines in the bathrooms of the homes I babysit at all tell me I can be. I can be a parent. Getting knocked up is easy. However, I cannot be a 24/7 source of joy and entertainment and la la happy thoughts. Fuck that. Let’s face it. I’m a cynical bitch at least 40 percent of the time, and that’s on the three days of the month when I’m not PMSing. But I guess I’m probably not alone here. I figure most parents eventually give up. I mean only partially, because you never really completely give up on your kid. But eventually you just realize they’re not a limb, and you can’t control them like you want to. So after a while you throw in half of the towel, and hope they don’t make you sound like a bitch when they end up on Dr. Phil. And if they don’t give up, they end up like my mom, which even with the best of intentions can turn pretty ugly at times. I think eventually you just have to trust that you raised them right the first 2 years of their life and that they’ll be okay the next 16.

They are wonderful children, bless their hearts. The girl has her sweet moments, and, let’s be honest, its not every day you find a 5 year old boy who doesn’t talk so much you start to daydream about how far out to sea you could swim before finding an adequate rip current, let alone doesn't talk at all. I love my job. I really do. It’s just, most of the time, I wish it wouldn’t be a bad example to throw a tantrum.

Grandmother, May I?

As my good friend The Bottled Leopard recently pointed out, elders love to use their age to their advantage. They seem to have this belief that since they've been around the block a few times, they have earned the right to speak their mind completely unfiltered and without regard for anybody else's feelings. 

Fine by me. I haven't exactly lived my share of years yet, but I allow myself the same privilege. 

If I want to refer to a fellow white person as a honky, than by God, Sarah Palin is a purebred Alaskan honky bitch. See? I don't censor myself. Fuck being the first female president. I'll be the first president to flip the press the bird and use a profanity in my acceptance speech. Hows that for the first amendment?

The difference is that elders like to believe that whatever they say in their uncensored little conversations should be held in reverence and adapted by all those who happened to be listening. Here's where I disagree. You are entitled to your wealth of opinions, and you're welcome to share them with anybody who wants to lend an ear. But don't expect everybody to want to hear them, or to give a shit about everything you have to say. 

For example....

Over the weekend I got to enjoy some time with the women of my mother's side, mother included. I had been begging my aunt for a recipe for pork chops and my aunt finally broke down and decided to share it with me. We went shopping, bought the ingredients, came home, and began to cook while everyone chatted around hors d'oeuvres and wine. I was in the process of browning the pork chops in a frying pan when my grandmother chimed in and decided to inform me I was doing it incorrectly. Or rather, I wasn't doing it her way. According to her, I needed to cut the chops so that they laid flat on the frying pan and the meat browned evenly, despite the fact that they were going to be baked for an hour and a half after they were done browning anyway. After voicing her opinion, she dug out a pair of scissors and headed towards the meat. 

Not on your life, Grandma. Back away from Lamb Chop, I'm in charge here.

Okay. Here's a little bit of a back story, since alot of my readers don't know me personally. I'm what most would consider the black sheep of the family. As far as I know, I'm the only person in my entire family who's ever dealt with a drug addiction, doesn't go to church, listens to Marilyn Manson, and has a tattoo, and has had more than just my ears pierced. (namely 9 other less common piercings, exempli gratia nose, lip, sternum, etc.) So let it be clear that if a member of my family and I disagree on something, anything, its never shocking and should be considered relatively commonplace. 

Now, I'll chalk it up to Grandma not knowing quite how to handle me, as I just explained, and I'll admit most people don't have a clue, even if they are fortunate enough to spend ample amounts of time in my presence. The few that do "get me" are those who tend to be similar to me. Let me make this perfectly clear. If there is one thing that boils by boobs more than anything else in the whole freakin world, its unsolicited advice. Usually out in public I can come up with some smug quip to shut the offender up right quick when they tell me that smoking kills, or that I shouldn't make out with strangers, or that I shouldn't throw away plastic bottles, or I should clean up the poo when the dog I'm walking craps on the sidewalk, but when it's family members it becomes a delicate situation who's delicateness I tend to ignore. Now, it's a different story in politics, and there are times when it's appropriate to approach me and tell me I need to do something different. But if I'm just minding my own business, having fun, and the world is not in peril due to my negligence or my future, career, or passing grade does not depend on adapting new knowledge, I don't want to hear it. I don't care if you're 105, if I didn't ask for your advice, it's because I don't want it. It's not that I don't respect your timeless wisdom, or your skilled know-how, or your years of first-hand experience. It's that I allow myself to screw up on purpose. I always have, and nothing about that is going to change. Don't mumble about how I will never learn or how I'm just allowing myself to accept a lesser level of intelligence.  I know better than anybody that I learn better by making my own mistakes instead of learning second-hand from other's mistakes. It's just how I roll, baby. 

Needless to say, egos were bruised in the exchange, and I apologize for that. I love my grandma. But it's all a matter of principle and it's a lesson that women everywhere need to understand before they reach breeding age.

If it's my meat, don't touch it.