On toilets and dog's mouths and all that is clean or dirty.....

You ever wonder about "common knowledge"? Well, it occurred to me today, as I was cleaning the toilet, that people are just full of shit. We don't believe we are, but in actuality, well, we are walking, talking crap factories. It all stemmed from cleaning the toilet - long ago, we had forsaken the traditional toilet brush, which, as you all know, would be used over and over and then sit in a little pile of wet filth until it was used again. So, we opted for those cool disposible toilet brushes, the ones with the wiry scrubbing pads. Well, this morning, I noticed that we had none left, and as I couldn't remember the last time it was properly scrubbed (the toilets get a good wipedown on the seats and rims and flushers and bases - I am not a good aimer in the middle of the night, I confess - on a regular basis, the scrubbing part of the bowl gets neglected. So, we were in Walmart and I picked up the refills and went home to commence cleaning. Well, I go into the bathroom and see Pine Sol sitting on the counter, so I pour some into the toilet and then went to do something or other and on my travels noticed there was actual toilet cleaner, and then I was all "oh, shit, I already put in Pine Sol, I dunno if they'll mix" and then started thinking if Pine Sol will kill as many germs as the toilet cleaner, and then I started thinking of all those things we hear, such as "the water in your toilet is cleaner than tap water" and then I thought "wait, maybe that was the water in the tank" and then I thought of the stories about how the toilet water is so dirty you better close the lid when you flush or the toothbrushes two towns over will be covered in feces. So I was actually confused as to which story is true. And then I had the aha moment - I thought "this internal conversation is just like how clean and dirty dogs are" because people are always so adamant when it comes to this stuff.
When I was a kid, I sometimes played with this kid down the road - I can't remember his name or what he looked like, but I remember what his house looked like, what his mother looked like (really sort of cheap looking), and I remember what his foster sister looked like. I also remember talking to the foster sister one day, as she smoked a Player's Light King Size and started supper before the foster mom came home (she was a social worker, which is I guess how she picked up this chick to live with them). I remember she started frying pork chops or something fried smelling in an electric frying pan. But I can't remember who the kid was I played with - I want to say David but I dunno. It doesn't matter. Him and his cheap slutty mom moved away anyway.
But anyway, foster sister was sitting on the steps with her smoke and drinking this big glass of milk and the big, mangy dog came up and she offered her milk to him and then he drank some and she drank some and she said "a dog's mouth is the cleanest thing in the world - people mouths are dirty." And she said it with such conviction (the trashy foster kid who ran away to Vancouver soon after) that I believed her. And, of course, when you start spreading that shit around, everyone pipes in like they know that is true, and why are you so late to the party, so the whole neighborhood was pretty much sharing the dish with the dog, just so we all could smugly say after "that's waaaaay cleaner than your mother's mouth".
Well, then, of course, I grew older and got a brain, and whatever. But I find it so interesting that people say these things with such conviction. Last week at work, a coworker was telling me about her boyfriend who was bit by this dog and got blood poisoning and yada yada, now he's off work for 6 weeks. And so I was telling her about this guy we both know who, last year, got just the slightest nick on his hand from his 18 year old dog's tooth, and ended up on IV every 8 hours and almost lost part of his hand, and she said "yeah, well, dog's mouths are the dirtiest things, next to human mouths of course."
It didn't sink in then, but now I've started thinking: How do you know that? Sure, you can deduce that dogs don't brush their teeth and they lick their own asses and whatever, so, yeah, it makes sense. But wouldn't my mouth be cleaner than a dog's? I may not floss every night like I should, but I brush my teeth every day and use Listerine. I may use my mouth in kissing or sexually, but I am not chowing down on my dirty arse or fishing turds out of a cat box, so why is my mouth dirtier than a dog's? I don't walk up to someone's poop and sniff it and get it close to my mouth - so why is the dog cleaner than my mouth? And what about cats? I've heard that CATS have the dirtiest mouths. Indeed, I got bit by my cat when she was a rambunctous (spelled wrong but I don't wanna spell check) kitty, and she bit my armpit in bed, which led to like 2 months of excrutiating pain and swelling and, well, a horrible odor of death. I remember sitting in this workshop thing, right after the bite, and thinking "what the fuck is that SMELL?" and looking around to see who smelled of rotting flesh, and then when I got in my car at lunch I was all "oh.... it's... me." I really should have seen a doctor, but I didn't know how dirty their mouths were then (cats, not doctor's mouths, although that would be a good one to spreas around). Luckily it healed. But after that, I stopped leaving my water on the nightstand (she used to drink it and I would pretend I didn't know, because I used to drink water all frigging night long, and who wants to get up to get new water?). Anyway. Who is to say a cat's mouth isn't the dirtiest thing? I think it's dirtier than a dog's mouth, but I don't know why. But what is stopping me from saying "You know, a cat's mouth is far dirtier than a dog's mouth?" I realize people in labs do tests and such, but really, I am sure you'll find people with grosser mouths than dogs, and cats with freaky diseased mouths, and cats with pearly whites, and dogs who could kill you just by sneezing in your direction. The point is, we all think we know it all. And really, we could know it all just from some dumb shit like the foster runaway who said dogs were so clean (I remember her saying dogs should lick a wound), or from someone saying "a dog's mouth is ALMOST as dirty as a person's." Really, we all think we know it all, but do we? It's interesting what cleaning out the shitter makes you think of. And now, if you excuse me, I must go and get a drink from the toilet tank.....

Since I have 4 readers, I can just write this here without any background explanations. I need to back up first though, to explain where all this might have come from. Let me preface all of this with this - it was a year ago on Thursday and/or Friday (depending on which day you count) that my world as I know it changed forever. It was the anniversary of my mom going into the hospital and not coming out. It was in that day (or the next day, depending) that life changed and I'll never be the same. I've been dreading this for ages. I am just going through the motions right now, waiting for August 15th to come around to mark the year anniversary of her death. It's all a little too much. I am just going with the flow. I'm cracking up a little. I guess it's supposedly normal. Whatever.
So there's that.
And then there is my uncle Andy, who died almost 2 weeks ago. I am still processing that. I knew Andy wasn't doing well, but my aunt told me, in late May, that they were giving him 6 months. Then I got an email from her 2 weeks ago tonight saying he was in hospice care, and he died two days later. Weirdly enough, I had just been thinking of her right before I got her email saying Andy was on his last days. It was Saturday night, and I don't know if I posted this before, but this one radio station I can pick up on my cable broadcasts old Casey Kasem Top 40 shows from the 80s. A few weeks ago, it was the top 40 from that week back in 1980. I tuned in late, not until it was the top 10. At number 5 was Bob Seger's "Against the Wind." I love me some Bob Seger, except Old Time Rock and Roll, which makes me want to hurt someone. But my sisters were all into him, so I grew up knowing the Stranger in Town and Night Moves and Against the Wind albums intimately. And whenever we'd go to Calgary to visit my aunt J and uncle Andy, which was 3 or 4 times a year, I'd hear some Bob Seger because my aunty J loved him. Any time I hear him, I think of her and those days, with the grown ups drinking in the basement, with the music playing. You see, J and Andy were the cool relatives. Andy was a car salesman, and when times were good, they were really, REALLY good. So good that in like 1980, in the duplex across from Margo's old one, which J owned and which Andy moved into after they got married, he put in 10 grand into doing the basement with a state of the art bar, and an 8000 dollar stereo and yada yada. They had pop on tap, with those hand mixer things like the bars have, and anyway, when the grown ups were down there drinking, Bob would be playing.
So when I heard Bob Seger that night, I was filled with so much.... I don't know... sadness and... LONGING, I guess is the word. Longing because it reminds me of a happy time, of a safe time, of a time with everyone there and alive and whatever. And now my mom is gone, Andy is gone, we will never go back there, and those are two less people who have those memories. My dad has no memory, so I guess that's three. So I was choking up really bad that night. I do every time I hear those songs now.
So after that experience of hearing the song, and of Andy dying and the anniversary of mom's illness, well, I'm a little fragile.
But even with all of that baggage, I still want to tell someone something - don't wait for conditions to be right or how you want them to be before you tackle something. Don't rationalize things in your head to make them right to you. Don't wait until September.
Just go now. Seriously, do it for an afternoon, when nobody else needs to be there. Whenever I hear Mike and the Mechanics' "The Living Years", I want to vomit in my mouth, but there is something to the lines of that song that are true.
She ain't ever going to be who you want her to be. She ain't going to say sorry I didn't live up to motherhood. But she's all there is, and you'll sleep better after the fact in seeing her sooner rather than never. Even if you don't even really want to see her, you'll be haunted, so do it. PLEASE.
And I have no idea what she was like to grow up with, but there is something I think about - she was a baby when all y'all were born, and it sounds like she married the same kind of man her mother married, and she did try to get out at one time - props for that. So, she may have failed miserably, but whatever - she is who she is and there is but one life we live, and think of Elton's words from "The Last Song" - "I can't believe you love me/I never thought you'd come....." Because if you think she doesn't want to see you, you're crazy. And it's all about her right now, no matter what the readers say. And I want to say that to you and I want to throw my arms around you and hug you because I don't wish that anyone join this club, and there is so much I would do differently, and so if I could encourage you at all, well. I'm here for you no matter what, you know that. But you have bigger balls than you know, so that's why I tell you this stuff.
Fuck all this rusted tangled dented goddamn misery in-fucking-deed, Jann!
Anyway, I've said my peace, and I dread hitting publish, but I'll dread it more if I don't.
Peace.

I'm a bitch: my review of BB

Yo yo yo, it's Britney, bitch! It's late but I just watched Big Brother and I have to weigh in. At first, I was all over the freaks and geeks. I was immediately drawn to Lydia and her ilk, and the nerds. So, I was completely ecstatic that they saved Lydia - I hate those muscle c**ts, I really do, so when they saved her, I was all "yeehaw, stick it in your grandma!" But then tonight, well, I want send slutty Lydia back to Burbank, along with her fucking arsehole gay sidekick, whatshisname. As my wife says, she needs an L tattooed on her forehead. And come on, in 20 years, how cute is that Hello Kitty! and Paul Frank tattoo shit on her shoulders going to be? It would be like me having Milli Vanilli and whatever the hell else from 1989 tattooed all over me - I am sure I would be regretting a Divinyl's tattoo about now. Anyway, rubbing the backs of jock assholes you would love to stab sort of does make you a slut, Lydia - I hope you google yourself when you get back home in 2 weeks and read this, you sleazy dumbass.
And her little gay sidekick - buddy, you are nothing but a drama queen stereotype to the nth degree. Your creepy little ass will be sent home sooner rather than later - it's pretty sad when a freakazoid bitchface like Ronnie has more balls AND personality than you do - I'd rather be locked in a broom closet full of rats than have to endure a conversation with you. Fuck off.
And all the people I hated last week, I now am cheering for. Like the fake-titted bitch, and the stupid blonde girl. Go figure. Jeff, I hope you outlast Russel or whatever that steroid case is named. Chima or Shima or whatever your name is - bitch, you are nothing but a crybaby, dramatic, annoying bitch. And you're ugly. Fugly, even. And your attitude? Bitch, shove it up your annoying ass. Quit flapping those fucking mudflaps and go the fuck home.
And Ronnie - you'll die a virgin, and I spit on you.
And that, my friends, is my review on BB. I can't wait until Sunday, because I'll take it all back and love the people i hate now.
Oh, and Julie is knocked up or what?!?!? Poor kid.
Peace.