Relative Rant

I came home to find that my entire living room has been taken over by bits and pieces of construction, including two doors (no, I don't know why - I understand one of them, but why two, I wonder), bits of cabinets salvaged from the street, and various and sundry other things (most of which look sort of broken and have nails sticking out of them...). Joshua and Mel, the two mad construction types, seem to be very pleased with all this crud and keep assuring me it's going to be wonderful. If anyone has any extra cash floating around, could you please buy me a studio apartment to live in? I may need it by the time these two get finished with their improvements. Although as of tonight, one of the improvements is going to be a new floor in the kitchen, of which I am in truly desperate need - ever since Sarah's friend Celine caused a Christmas Eve flood in the kitchen many years back, the floor has been disintegrating and now looks positively leprous...not attractive. So maybe I'll stick around after all. (Anyway, who's got two million bucks to buy a studio in the West Village?)

At least Mel is around to sit on Joshua when he begins to have his usual delusions. Joshua is under the impression that he's a great interior decorator. Unfortunately, he also seems to be color blind. My kitchen is yellow and red (I feel very strongly that if you don't have a window in your kitchen, there ought to be a lot of yellow in it so you can have pretend sunshine). One of Joshua's firmly held beliefs is that things should be draped with things (when he first moved in, I spent way too much time politely undraping). With three cats, and being a person who spills a lot of shit when I'm cooking (or eating, or just shoving a cat out of my plate while I'm TRYING to eat), draping large pieces of fragile material on things is not a terribly viable idea...I need to be able to wipe up the beer that the cat knocked over in a hurry and without resorting to stain remover and the washer.

Joshua, you see, keeps trying to put a tablecloth on my nice scarred very kitcheny kitchen table...it's a sort of farmhouse type table that looks like generations have left their mark on it, and I use it for food prep a lot, so I like to keep it clear (well, all right, except for my little box of pills and all the mail and various books and cookbooks I'm currently reading, and...oh, well, you understand). So one day (without consulting me, of course), he got a tablecloth for it. He got a burgundy tablecloth. Can you please explain to me why someone who is supposed to have at one point made money as an interior designer would buy a burgundy tablecloth for a red and yellow kitchen? I mean, I have a lovely reddish and brown/beige/creamish tablecloth and matching napkins that comes out for our nice Christmas dinner every year...it's Indonesian batik and was a wedding present, and it's now old and faded and rather stained, but that works just fine and anyway it's our traditional Christmas tablecloth. If I were going to buy another tablecloth for our kitchen (which is the only dining area in the house on account of we don't have a dining room), I would buy one of those cheerful yellow and red Provencal tablecloths, which would also work perfectly. But BURGUNDY? Against yellow and red? Blecccch.

I fail to understand why I keep getting these men living with me. Now, everybody says, "Why on earth did you marry two men you had to support who refused to get jobs?" The answer is extremely simple. I didn't. I married two men who had excellent jobs with possibilities for advancement and that happy horseshit. However, within six months of marrying me, both of them decided not to work...ever again. I let my cousin move in with me because HE had an excellent job and was splitting the household expenses with me...six months later, he decided that having ADD and a gluten allergy made him eligible for food stamps, Medicare (or Medicaid, whichever - I must find out the difference within the next two years because two years from Monday I'll be eligible) and disability payments. (And the government, for God's sweet sake, seems to agree with him - but then, the government...yes, well). So now he doesn't work. I can only assume that some bad fairy appeared at my christening a la Sleeping Beauty...because boy, do I get the pricks. (Yeah, that was awful...but who could resist it?)

Meanwhile, another blue legged broad in bare legs and flip-flops today. Sheesh. It was friggin' chilly out there - even though that was mostly the wind. And in a couple of months, it'll be lovely and warm...and I will be tromping through Times Square on my way home. I've given up on the notion of a pellet gun for the tourists, but if there's anyone out there who can teach me to be really accurate with a pea shooter...

Love, Wendy