a voxier schmutzie

What's your favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie?
Submitted by My Lovely One.

I seriously.  Hate.  Girl Scout.  Cookies.

They are bad.  They are very, very bad, and I have always been highly suspicious of the fact that so many people believe that they like them.  Do they secret crack cocaine in the filling?

I found out last night that I had missed Knuckle Toes' birthday.  I am always missing birthdays.  It is the Schmutzie way.  The fact that I behave this way frequently and that it seems to be in my nature does not excuse my poor social graces, though, so I am hoping that my creative efforts will win me some points.

I spent two hours struggling with Photoshop, a photograph, and an online pop art tutorial in order to create her present.  TWO HOURS.  I am pretty much convinced that I am Photoshop retarded, which is kind of like being an idiot savant but inverted.

Behold!  The fabulous Knuckle Toes!

Join me in a round of "Happy Birthday", but first, because I would hate to encourage copyright infringement, I must ask you to refrain from singing "Happy Birthday" out loud if you are in a public place and simply imagine the song in your heads.  I would hate to have to report any of you to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for not paying royalties to Time Warner.  Gawd, the horror of it.

Mm mm mm mm mm mm,
Mm mm mm mm mm mm,
Mm mm mm mm mm Knuckle Toes,
Mm mm mm mm mm mm.

What's your dream career? 
Submitted by Something.

My dream career: novelist.  If I could just spend my days writing and writing and writing, I would be one happy cat.

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

So far, we've gone out drinking, missed out on a friend's kid's birthday party when we went to the wrong house, picked out a cat for our cat, and found a Polaroid camera at a garage sale for a dollar.  Tomorrow, we are going to pick up the new cat and go to see the world's best commercials film.  I may cut my hair.  I might do some laundry.  I will probably stop several cat brawls.

Oskar does, take my breath away that is, when he charges the camera at 7:30 am and smashes nose-first into the lens, which happened about two seconds after I got this shot.

I've decided to do a series of ugly self-portraits.  I did this first one yesterday afternoon and found it quite alarming to see myself in such a state.  It was also somehow freeing to be as ugly as I could be.  I can't wait to see how the rest will turn out, because now I'm constantly thinking up ideas for how to unmask my best ugly.

I AM LOV-ING THIS BOOK.  LOVING IT.

Soda? Cola? Pop? What do you say? Any other regional words that set you apart?
Question submitted by Gladys.

Vico.  In Saskatchewan, we drink vico.  V+eye+koh.  That is chocolate milk for you non-flatlander types.

Vox, meet Oskar, the very worst cat I have ever owned, but the one I love the most.  Take to poking me in the head at 4:30 in the morning?  I'll take you into bed with me.  Obsessively bite the tops of my feet if I am crazy enough to leave them uncovered?  I will patiently disinfect the holes in my skin.  Spill water, steal socks, and wrap yourself up in my best work pants?  I'll swear a lot and threaten to hobble you, but then I will apologize and give you kisses.  Why?  I blame the drinking.

"not swim;  and he thought, too, of nasty slimy things, with big bulging blind eyes, wriggling in the water.  There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose fathers swam"

A recent spammer of mine, xufymi, is a touch strange, but I think I could grow to like him.  I think that he's a poet at heart.