Lust, Love, and a certain amount of mercenary joy

I am in love.

No, really.

As at least 2/3 of my close personal acquaintances would have expected, it's with an item, one that requires batteries, no less; but the Kindle? C'MON, WHO CAN'T GET BEHIND THIS?!

As one of those people who frequently gets stopped by airport security (I choose to believe it's due to overwhelming fun personality rather than Code Orange hairdo), there is nothing a) more time consuming, and b) more embarrassing, than dragging out every item contained in one of your carry-ons for airport security to peruse. C'mon, people. I'm over thirty, and I knit. I don't own cats, for the two aforementioned reasons, but we all know it's just a matter of time.

Side note: Don't get me wrong, here. I am a doggie adorer. Max and Snarla will attest to that, despite being parked with grandparents who utterly adore them owing to a ridiculous theater schedule once upon a time. I adore animals of any kind, despite the fact that they excrete and want your time and attention and Touch Your Stuff. I love them more than children, for the simple fact that children only pretend to be independent. Let's face it, any dog in the world shows up on the end of an adoption leash and I am St. Francis of Assisi, ready and able to Run With The Pack, despite an alarming lack of muscle coordination or initiative. Nevertheless, I adore cats. There is something so magnificent in an animal whose every action basically says "If you don't want me to eat you, say something. NOW."

So think about it. Instead of unloading approximately 1,800 yards of the finest mohair in an albeit violating shade of pink (damn you, Favorite Knitting Store ladies, and your math skills that apparently rival my own), an iPod, and six or ten of the latest novels (depending on which one you're in the mood to read), instead you unleash this latest of modern miracles, the Kindle. No more having to pack fewer pairs of underwear or socks for you--you have the Kindle, and that means that umpteen books are literally at your fingertips! The entire concept of airport frequent flyer reading exchange programs fly out the window, because who remembers to bring those particular books back, and anyway who can keep track of a receipt over three or four months?!

(Okay, so if I wanted to be completely and morally accurate I would admit that you still have to unpacck the 1,800 yards of the finest mohair and an iPod, but now you don't follow that up with Michael Chriton, Dean Koontz, and Joanna Linsdsay as their compatriots; at least you stand a chance of pretending that you have something akin to class, which means that nobody knows that you're only reading Nebokhov for the dirty bits, which to this day still creep me out and which thwart me from being a Hipster, since I can't get behind Lolita, no matter how many times I start the novel and think that this time I won't find him to be a total pervert.)

I want a Kindle. I want one so badly that I'd almost sell someone else's vote for it. Of course, having found them (months behind the current electronic trend, of course) they are sold out on Amazon. Once again I choose to believe that the entire world is working against me.

Either that, or little Delanie Regiiiiiiiina (long "I" pronunciation, as is right and proper for a niece's name, no matter whether the mother in question is insisting the child's name is Kylie Jo or no) figured out that if I had a Kindle I'd never get her afghan done.

Clearly, they are all against me.

Mole Vs. Shrew

At the risk of being one of those creepy people who discuss their medical conditions, this post is centered on the physical rather than the emotional wellbeing. I've had a mole removed, both for looking funny and giving me attitude.

The irony of Delanie-The-Slug-Woman-Tucker having suspicious skin issues is lost on no one, save my family practitioner.

"I take it you're a bit of a sun worshipper?" Mr. Doctor asked.

"Are you kidding me?!" I shrieked. "I haven't seen the sun in twenty effing years! Why would I expose myself to the Evil Day Star? Who do you think I am?! I do not set foot outside without 50 sunblock, a wide-brimmed hat, and a burnoose! I could give vampires pointers on ways to hit the Nordstrom semi-annual sale at high noon in July!"

He just shook his head.

Not only have I been harboring a fugitive growth which my doctor INSISTS is not a teratoma, even though I had a really cute name for it picked out and everything, I also had to have a shot.
I haven't had a shot since I was 19 and in a rollover with my jackass exhusband, who was driving and wound up being ticketed for being a careless driver. (I tried to get them to ticket him for being a jackass as well, but apparently that's not against the law. C'mon, Obama. Give me a grass roots movement I can get behind) Anyway, yes. I am a carrier for tetanus, for polio, for the flu and ebola and, I don't know, TB or something. "You're one of those people who just count on everyone else getting inoculated to cover you from getting diseases, aren't you?" My boss said disgustedly. "Nope. I just don't care if I'm a carrier," I said, and he banned me from his office. Not before I licked a few pens and absconded with his coffee mug, though. (Later I will return to his office and lock it in the filing cabinet. I have taken to locking things in the filing cabinet with no warning or announcement whenever he does something that displeases me. I consider it training. A man who hasn't figured out that whether he knows it or not, he's generally done something to displease a female somewhere in his life isn't helping anyone, particularly himself. "You're the most passive aggressive person I've ever known," he accused, and I denied it pleasantly. Then I locked his reading glasses in the filing cabinet when he went to the bathroom.)
So I had a shot, and the doctor tried valiantly to be a respectful and informative caregiver. I didn't want to know anything about it, and kept telling him so every time he tried to share moments of note with me, important things like when he was trying to inject me, how it would sting, or what he was doing with various sharp implements behind my back. I would have none of it, which meant that when I got back to work looking for sympathy, every time anyone asked me what they did or how long it would take, I was forced to shrug my shoulders and tell them I have no idea. When you can't describe in vivid Technicolor detail exactly what someone in the medical profession did to you, you will find that sympathy is noticeably lacking. Not only that, people will then volunteer their medical stories and it turns into that horrible one-upmanship of who had to have what cyst removed the size of a lemon from their coccyx, and people's cousins whose story always open with "No, you think THAT was bad? Well, my cousin went in and..."

I do volunteer to show them my bacon-strip bandaids, though, which are the only thing that really brings me any joy in life at the moment--despite the fact that I am constantly getting a rash from the adhesive or silicone from bandaids. Who's allergic to bandaids? I ask you?

Not only that, because I keep trying to apply the bandaid to the part that doesn't yet have a rash, I basically have a Star of David rash on my back, caused by bacon strip bandaids.

I am the worst. Jew. EVER.

Anyway, they'll let me know in about a week whether or not I'm a walking carcinogenic bomb of melanoma, which is slightly different than being a walking ball of bitterness and rage at heart in that while both options will kill me, one of them doesn't help me take it out on other people, and where's the fun in that?

My doctor also recommended that I find someone who can check all my appendages regularly for unexplained pigment changes.

"Who do you have on Mole Patrol?" my brother-in-law asked. "Don't you have someone who can check it out and make sure that everything is okay?"

Oh, please. Let's ponder that scenario; I finally, finally, against all odds and current spinsteresque eixstence, get someone to volunteer to inspect my body, and what do I do? I lure them into my seductive web of delights...candles glowing, the sultry sounds of whatever vile Starbucks jazz compilation of the month could be found, legs shaved, the proverbial hydrangeas pruned so that hopefully I will never again hear "So, you ever seen the original drawings in the Joy of Sex?" at a crucial moment...the scene set for the penultimate of romantic interludes...

...And for openers I say "Hey, is this a rash?"