If You Belonged Here

...and hilarity ensued.

This is the post, after the other post, where you could see accessories from my real life. I'm referring to Secret Lulu. And, of course the teardrop. So if you ever spotted me on the highway, you'd be pretty sure to know it was me, even though I won't be nearly as glamourous as you pictured. But perhaps not as deformed by herpes, either.

Anyway, this is the post where, without permission, I post a picture of me and White Rabbit, who is my brother, and has a surprisingly similar, more recent photo of himself as his profile picture, both for his blog and for facebook.

Yes, I am facebook friends with my brother. I just double-checked. So far he hasn't defriended me. Although at least one other person has. Not that I'm bitter.

I just blame K-Fed. But only because I blame him for everything. Really, Britney was doing great until he came along. Really. But I'm not saying K-Fed is a bad person, just that he, you know, deserves to be blamed.

Anyway.

My brother and I used to fight every day. I don't know when it started. My mom claims it was when he was a baby and I asked if he was broken and if we could possibly trade him for a different one. In my defense, I just wanted him to stop crying, people. Or at least to stop the noise of the crying. I mean, I'm all for crying but cry quiet, people.

Seriously.

After that, he hit me in the head with a belt buckle. He was maybe six. Because I wouldn't play hide and seek. And he used to eat my Lucky Charms cereal, even though our mom had bought his own favorite cereal, Captain Crunch. He did it because I have an aversion to Captain Crunch, as it shreds the inside of my mouth and I'm morally opposed to cereal that hurts. My aversion meant that he could eat my cereal and then switch, with immunity, to having his own without fear of having to share it and thus avoid the healthy cereals that clogged our cabinets. Which wasn't fair. Because as much as I'm opposed to cereal that hurts, I'm also morally opposed to having to eat the healthy sugar-free puffed-wheat twiggy stuff because someone got all greedy guts with my Lucky Charms.

Long story short, our mom gave me permission to hide my cereal in my room.

Again, I blame K-Fed. But only because I'm sure he deserves it.

Whatever.

Then there was all the chasing each other around the house and locking ourselves in the bathroom and picking the lock only to not hit in the face because our mom would kill us. And I used to pin him down for like an hour at a time, only to jump off of him as my mom opened the front door and came in from work. My timing was impeccable, people, giving us both just the right amount of time to scramble to our feet and yet not so much time that White Rabbit could pop me one before our mom came in, blinked in confusion, and asked, "What's going on?"

The answer to that question was, of course, "nothin'."

I'd have to follow our mom around the house for like an hour so White Rabbit couldn't sneak attack me. Eventually he'd give up and go skateboard. He'd pay me back later, by smacking himself and yelling to our mom that I was hitting him, which got me in trouble every time until our mom walked in and caught him doing it. After that, I could basically run him over with a lawn mower and noone was coming to help him.

Heh.

Yeah, it was all fun and games until at some point, White Rabbit and I started to get along. Mostly because I developed breasts, which really creeped the White Rabbit out and meant that he couldn't hit me because it turned out I actually really was a girl and besides those things might be contagious.

Not that he said that. But I knew.

We called a truce. Even so, I kept my cereal hidden. Better safe than sorry.

Now we joke about the fact that I always wanted to be an only child. I mean, I did always want to be an only child. You know, for all the extra attention and stuff. And by stuff I mean consumer goods.And also so that I wouldn't be forced to hide my favorite cereal behind a pile of Cabbage Patch Kids.

Yeah, that's where I kept it White Rabbit. But don't bother going to look for it because it's gone, baby, gone. I ate it. All of it. And when you ran out of Captain Crunch you had to eat twigs just like the rest of us. I hope they were tasty.

Whatever.

Was I going somewhere with this? Oh. See that picture, up there on the left? That's me and White Rabbit. Being friends.

We were so cool.

Still are.

And if we're not, well, I blame K-Fed. Because, you know, I blame him for everything.

Teardrop Trailer

Okay, people, usually I'm not one for posting personal pictures, initially out of paranoia and now out of just plain laziness, but I thought I'd throw a few your way because I am so amazingly, over-the-top proud of Mr. Poppins and how cool he is. You see this trailer:

Mr. Poppins built it. As in a couple months before Secret Lulu was born we brought some tires to a welder guy and got them welded to a base frame (the visible black below the silver, a whole 2% of the trailer) and then we put it behind the car and towed it home. It sat in the garage for a while, being a flat frame thing with wheels. Then Secret Lulu was born and Mr. Poppins put some plywood over the frame and bolted it on and, little by little, year by year, for the last four years, he added pieces, wired stuff up, built cabinets, cut metal, riveted and hammered, measured and fitted, and researched door handles and built doors and found reading lights and wired them in. Seriously, a lot of work. And here it is again:

So every time we go camping, we have only to fill the cooler and water jug and pack our clothes, and then we hitch up, and presto, with less than an hour total prep, we're out the door. And then we get to camp and set up basically involves putting out the table cloth on the picnic table. And did I mention the sleeping quarters:

Yeah, that's Secret Lulu up there, before her matching LL Bean pillow came in and she's in a bunk that Mr. Poppins built from scratch, and the bed is full size with a real (high-end futon) mattress, and we can lock the doors and I just made little curtains for the windows, which is my only contribution to date. 

The best part is when people look for a logo and try to figure out what brand it is, because it is that attention-to-detail, manufactured perfect that it never occurs to anyone that it's homemade. Did I mention a lot of people stop by our camp to look at it? Yeah. Mr. Poppins actually talks to them and is all friendly and social-like, and looks forward to the visits from strangers, which I didn't even suspect was possible.

And yes it's insulated and that's a ceiling fan up there, so we are never too hot or too cold regardless of the weather. And Mr. Poppins does all the cooking and at least half the clean up.

Yeah.Mr. Poppins rocks.

Freakin' Herpes

I have this gynormous coldsore in the middle of my face--under my nose and above my upper lip, to the left (my left) of my divot.

To be precise. 

I can cover it with makeup but, seriously, what the heck? I hate it when my sordid past catches up with me. 

Ah, herpes.

The gift that keeps on giving.

Now it's not like cold sores are the really humiliating, carry-pamphlets-around-in-your-purse, below-the-waist kind of herpes that has to be disclosed. That's another kind entirely--a kind I am, thankfully, not afflicted with. But The Dol and I knew this girl once--can't remember her name but we called her Whips and Chains and she was kind of like a tough, leather-and-chain wearing biker girl--anyway, she carried the pamphlets in her purse. And had cause to hand them out to new and interested, ahem, tourists, practically every day it seemed.

But I digress.

The point is, it's not that kind of herpes, it's the other humiliating kind that attacks your face, in the middle, and looks like you have been infected by plague or might turn into a zombie and are definitely unclean and, "please, don't come anywhere near my baby with that thing."

Just don't.

So I have the face kind, not the not-face kind, and every so often, when stress hits, it arises to announce to the world that, "hey, Polly is anxious about something." Or maybe just not getting enough sleep. Whatever. But I'll tell you, the announcement, while perhaps unclear with the details is delivered with an enthusiasm that can't be overlooked. Kind of like those air-horn things at hockey games.

And the worse part, is that it hurts. It feels like a burn or like embarrassment incarnate.

And now there are probably some of you who didn't know coldsores are a form of herpes. Consider yourselves informed. And there are probably some of you feeling all smug because you've had neither the face nor the not-face kind of herpes. You think you're all superior. Well, let me just tell you that you've had herpes, I'm almost sure of it. Because chicken pox, well, that's herpes, too, people. And if you think you can't have another flare up, well, you're wrong because you can get this extra horrible thing called shingles and it's herpes. And it can make babies go blind.

There. Not so smug now, are you?

Anyway, I can't be alone in my plight because when I went to my local place of worship (aka, Target) they were all out of anointing oil (aka, Abreva--which totally does what it says) and I could not leave an offering and take my indulgences with me. Instead I bought goggles, bath salts and petals, and a water cannon for Secret Lulu.

She's way into fancy bath stuff right now.

Anyway.

I'd put a bandaid over the coldsore but a Hello Kitty mustache is not exactly an improvement, so I'm just living with it, people. And complaining. Because that makes me feel way better.

So thanks.