Turns out all I had to do to feel at home was bring over my kitchen stuff and manage to fit it all in. It feels so much more normal this week.

Meanwhile, the cats resemble a Pepe Le Peau cartoon. The kitten chases my cat. She also pokes him in the face when he’s sleeping. I would hiss and yowl, too. My cat takes it out on Foxy’s cat. Foxy’s cat takes it out on the kitten. I literally just watched the three of them prowl through the room like the scene from Peter Pan with the Indians and the Pirates.

I realize that no one actually cares what my cats are doing, but it really is the most dramatic thing in my life right now. Except we ate some of my garlic last night that I planted from grocery store stock, and it totally bulbed out and everything. The taste wasn’t really mature, since I’m not supposed to harvest it for another 3 weeks or so, but something rampaged through the broccoli and knocked this one garlic out on its way. So far, the beets are doing really well, the collards will be ready in like 5 days, and the broccoli was a complete no show. OF course, being ripped out of the ground and chewed on tends to take one out of the competition. See? No drama.

Yay! I have internet on my own computer now! Woop!

My life has become similar to that story about the man with all the animals who has to get everyone to the other side of the river, but none of the animals can ride in the boat at the same time. Dale and Bear, the adult male cats, are surprisingly chill with each other, but the kitten wears on Bear’s nerves, and every time she runs up to him and playfully pats him on the face, everyone goes ape-shit. Its like a catsplosion.

I have decided that books and kitchen utensils will make this feel more like my house, so that’s what I brought over today. Actually, what will make this feel more like my house is to not actually own a different house, so I have to run numbers for paying people who will finish my bathroom in something less than 8 months.

I don’t know. It feels weirdly formal, but that’s not quite the right word, since neither Foxy nor I are particularly formal people. Its more like we look up and think, “oh, shit, that’s right you’re still here.” Or “Why are you here all the time?” or “Who ate all the peanut butter?” Don’t get me wrong, all the things I was looking forward to, like cooking together and waking up next to each other and falling asleep watching TV on the couch, they’re all awesome. But we’ve both lived alone for so long that we’re a little bit like our cats, kinda jumpy and surprised around each other.

I woke up super early this morning to drive out to Candler and vote. For some reason, instead of putting the polling station, oh I don’t know, in the middle of Candler, they put it way out on some curvy ass road at the poo end of nowhere. Also, there are no snazzy electronic machines out in the county. Also, unlike in Westville, which has a polling station every 100 yards, there is 1 polling station for approximately 80 miles on the outskirts.

But I managed to overcome all these obstacles to cast my ballot. It was a near thing. I used up like $6.35 in gas just getting there.

Tomorrow, the plan is to ride my bike to work. I had 12 Bones for dinner this evening, so either I will have miles of energy bursting forth in the morning, or more likely I will fall off my bike and vomit ribs all over Sulphur Springs. Careful on your way to work.

Moved in with Foxy yesterday. This involved picking up the cat, the computer, what few clothes were still in Candler, and the waffle iron. Bear (my cat) and Maevis (her cat) are not on speaking terms yet. We’re trying to keep everyone separated. Luckily, her other cat Dale is stoned off his ass on pain meds cause he got in a fight with a neighborhood cat. He doesn’t want to leave his room and he just looks confused when Maevis and Bear yowl at each other.

But the post about moving should not be about my cats.

We’ve been planning the move for a long time. In January, we decided we wanted to move in together this year. Her roommate The Cleav moved out in March, and we were all set to go and I freaked out. What about my house? What about my garden? What about my bathroom? Did moving in with Foxy mean I was giving up, that I got beat by the difficulty of fixing up my place? I still feel that a little, but mainly I want to be able to wake up next to Foxy every morning and make dinner with her every night without having to worry about whether my cat and plants are taken care of. So now the cat is here and the baby plants will be until they’re ready to go in the ground. I know you were all worried about the baby plants.

A stellar lack of self control led this member of the Australian parliament to sniff his lady staffer’s chair. Thankfully the staffer was not in the chair at the time.

After the roller derby two weeks ago (I know, I’m horrible, I totally deserve that slacker award) we went to Rosetta’s. Luckily, it was the first time I had been there since the night Foxy and I met, nearly 20 months ago. Unluckily, I was outvoted and we still went there.

How do you fuck up a grilled cheese sandwich? How? Bread, cheese, fry. It is quite possibly simpler than boiling water. That was the reason I ordered it. “How could they possibly fuck that up?” I thought. And yet my Rosetta’s grilled cheese was the grossest thing I had put in my mouth since my dad made Brussels sprouts with raspberry yogurt sauce when I was 10. Bland, gluey, soggy. You name it, that sandwich had it. The cheese had no flavor. I don’t remember what kind of cheese it was, but I know that it wasn’t soy. It wasn’t supposed to be soy, anyway.

Now, I understand that they might not use butter to fry the sandwich. I also understand that crappy, cheap-ass nasty cheese melts way better than really expensive, fancy, local happy cow cheese. But my Kraft singles, wonder bread, and margarine grilled cheese should not be more flavorful, better textured, and more soulfully fulfilling than some $5 piece of shit I bought at 2 in the morning.

That is all.

The verdict on tailgating on the roof of the Civic Center parking deck: windy, sorely lacking in bathrooms. The ribs worked out ok, though they could have done with another hour of slow cooking before going on the grill.

The roller derby was kinda crazy. My crew got roped into being the “fearleaders,” which means cheerleaders in dark colors and black fishnets. I was the first of the non-fearleader (read: butchy mcbutch) girlfriends to arrive so when I walked into the arena, 6 hot ladies in short skirts and lots of eye makeup ran up to me and requested that I buy them beer. I mean, granted, they were all my friends, and my actual girlfriend was present at the time, but still, it was a big moment. I mean, I still have a hard time tipping belly dancers because of cheerleaders.

Afterwards, we went to Smokey’s and played pool until the wee hours. I discovered my new favorite drink: Stoli Vanilla and Ginger ale. Mmmm like cream soda. Not very butchy mcbutch.

Surprisingly, I was not sore from Friday’s efforts. Also, D’oh is buying a house on Thursday! Which is crazy!

There will be no moving for awhile. D’oh and I took out the trees in the backyard. I still have to rent a chipper to get rid of all the branches.

D’oh said to burn it. He’s a fireman. He may be right.

I may even be unable to wii tonight. Not even golf. We’ll see after more beer. I was able to kick D’oh’s ass at Street Fighter II though, until my SNES carpal tunnel kicked in. E Honda is the bomb with that fists of fury blazing speed. And you thought Sumo wrestling was all about the fat guys in bikinis getting pushed around. Street Fighter is not over until the fat man sings. And rotates his neck in that funny way.

I may also be sunburned. It’s all behind me, so I can’t see it, because my neck doesn’t go that far right now.

So I’m going to shower. We’ll see about tomorrow when it gets here. Your comments about the legality and/or advisability of tailgating on the roof of the Civic Center parking deck before the Roller Derby tomorrow are welcomed and encouraged.

First Step Farm, a local substance abuse rehabilitation center, has opened a retail space in Candler, on Smokey Park Highway across from Kruizers (or whatever). They have plant starts of the annual,  perennial, and vegetable variety at the moment. They’ll have local produce from July to September.

Dad, don’t read the last line of this post. Ok, fine. I warned you.

So, you know when you go to the doctor, and I mean the lady doctor, although I assume men have some version of this, and you go into the room and you get a PA or someone who comes in and does the preliminary stuff that it costs too much for a doctor to do? And she (always a she in my case) asks you a series of questions about your period and whether you eat well and how often you do crystal meth?

So then she asks you if you’re sexually active. And I say yes. Because I am. And she asks you whether you take birth control, going down a long list of drugs, each of which I must say no to. And I say no, because I don’t. Then she asks if you use condoms, and I say no, cause I don’t. Then she asks if I’m pregnant or trying to become so. And I laugh, cause that’s just silly.

Because OBVIOUSLY, I MUST be having sex with a man. I mean, what other options are there? So at that point, I say, ” No, I’m a lesbian.” and she gets all flustered and says, “oh.” and then we have the rest of the uncomfortable questions about my menstrual cycle and smoking 1 cigarette a month.

But my point is why is there no room on their form for me? How hard is it to ask “are you sexally active with men?” instead? Give me room, and I will come out, no worries. I have been and can continue to be about 3 drag queens shy of a walking Pride Parade all by myself, 6 being the minimum number of queens required for a parade. Or a fight. Scratch that, a fight only takes 3.

This happened during a Planned Parenthood phone survey I took once too. The questions started out all easy and general: cigarettes and beer. Then she started asking me about sex with men.

“Hold on!” I said. “I’m a lesbian. I’ve never had sex with a man. I’ve never taken birth control. You should talk to my girlfriend.”

“No, no, I’ve already started with you. We can totally finish.” She was young and earnest. She proceeded to continue asking me questions, attempting vainly to shoehorn my answers into her heterosexual “often, sometimes, not often, never” world. How hard would it have been to tack “have you ever had sex with a man” onto the beginning of that survey? Easy. Cheap. Save me twenty minutes.

But until things change I’ve decided that my own form of activism will be to reply, “Yes, I do use birth control. I make my girlfriend cum on my chest.”

Last night was my birthday party at Papas & Beer. We crammed 21 of my favorite people around one table, then proceeded to eat and drink ungodly quantities. I got really cool presents, including: The Best Apple Spice Cake Evah from City Bakery, The Frequent Fryer’s Cookbook, Betty Crocker’s Slow Cooker Cookbook, a charger for my Wiimotes, a Rosie the Riveter action figure, a special mix cd, Itunes money, and a carabiner with a clock on it. Know how I know I’m gay?

I also got a super cool t-shirt with my face on it from Gourmet Girl and Hidey Ho. I feel a little Perez Hilton-y while wearing it, but it is still awesome. At the end of the dinner, while we were milling around hugging and saying goodbye, some guy at another booth called to the DJ and said I had dropped a note that was on the floor. He was a scruffy redneck type, and he was sitting with two older people that I assumed at the time were his parents. When the DJ picked up the note and we read it, I saw that it had a phone number and the note “Weiner Master” on it.

Does that work? Who does that? Who does that with their parents sitting there? Is he listed in the Yellow Pages under that? Someone should have warned him that I’m blogging this.

We continued to mill and hug, but I moved to the other side of our table while Foxy checked us out. Papas & Beer is awesome in another way besides bean dip: No worries about separate checks.

Foxy got me out to the car with cake and presents in tow and we watched the redneck speed away in his truck. He had modified it with faux smokestacks behind the cab, like a big rig, and underneath his tow hitch hung a shiny pair of silver testicles. I wish I was making this up. So that was the only present I turned down: a fuck from the Wiener Master.