Note: The word count on this post hovers somewhere around 16 million, and some of those words are really boring. You should probably skip around a bit, and add just a few items to your shopping cart.

I started a new job yesterday. Please don’t congratulate me. While I’m happy to be generating some sort of income, this position involves insane hours, low pay, little stability, and it’s a soul sucker. I know, I know, you’re feeling a little envious right now, aren’t you? I’ll be working with a woman who has numerous disabilities, and she sounds like a sweetheart (truly). I won’t bore you with details– well, of course I will, but I’ll keep them to a minimum. In order for me to have benefits at this agency, I have to work 40 hours a week. In order to work 40 hours, I have to work 6 days per week– some mornings, most afternoons and evenings, and Saturdays.

I’m extremely grateful to be employed. But I have to be careful of situations that might be overly stressful, because I have Fibromyalgiaphobia, which is the fear that I’ll get overloaded and my stoopid Fibromyalgia will kick in and ruin Life as I Know It. It’s all a delicate balancing act, and one that I’m not very good at. Still, thank you, Employment Gods. I will try to handle my assignment well. I’m sure that this will all lead to something better, one door opens another, the big shiny rainbow is just around the corner, I know there’s a pony beneath all this manure, blahbiddy blah blah blah.

As Shakespeare once said, poverty sucks.

Due to the hours and the type of work I’ll be doing, I’ll have less time for my “real” job (writing), so I’m just going to Jackson Pollock a bunch of stuff all over the page here, random spatterings of things in my tiny head, before I meet my new client at two.  I really am afraid that I’ll soon be suffering from a serious case of Brain Drain, and that forming sentences will become as difficult as pushing a Kia Sportage up a mountain (which is also one of my fears, since I’ll be transporting this woman all over the place in my very K-Mart vehicle). Anyway, here goes. Please pardon my odd mood today.

Several months ago, I was talking to a friend about Alex Chilton, former lead singer for the Box Tops and Big Star. We hung out at the same club in Memphis back in the late 70′s and early 80′s, and I gushed for a while about what a down-to-earth, tremendously talented guy he was. The next day, Alex Chilton died. He was 59.

Then, last month, as you may remember, I was reminiscing with my roommate Amadeus about my friend Sam, and how fantastic he was. I recounted several Sam stories, lamenting that we’d lost touch. I decided to Google him to find out what he’d been up to, and that’s when I found out that Sam had committed suicide early last year. He was 52.

A few weeks ago, the wife of an old friend named Tony contacted me on Facebook. I was really happy to hear from her, and, in my usual Chatty Cathy way, went on and on to Amadeus about what an amazing, larger-than-life character Tony was. The stories I could tell you about this guy. Anyway, I wrote back to his wife and asked, “How are you? How is Tony?,” to which she replied, “Oh, honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Tony died three years ago.” He was also only 52.

I now have an agreement with several of my friends and family members not to say anything nice about them– ever, for fear they will die an untimely death. You have no idea how difficult this is. I tend to enthusiastically enthuse about a lot of people, many of you readers included. But I promise, I’ll try to keep these thoughts to myself, to ensure that those I care about will stay around for a bit longer.

It’s been such an odd month. I spoke to Sam’s sister and to Tony’s wife last week, and we reminisced and told funny stories and got all weepy. It was really great talking with them. Sam’s sister knew so little about her brother. “I don’t even know if he could cook,” she said, crying. I was able to tell her that he was indeed a great cook, and that he used to make all sorts of dishes to share with people at work. He served chili the last time I saw him, and it was nice to describe to her how delicious it was. In turn, she was able to fill me in on Sam’s last few weeks here on Earth, which gave me some closure. Some really heartbreaking closure, but closure still and all.

Lou Holtz, former football coach and current sportscaster, used to own the condo that I’m living in. It’s kind of weird, sitting with my roommate, watching football and listening to Lou commentate on ESPN in the same living room that he himself probably sat while watching football games and listening to former coaches commentate on ESPN. Did that make any sense? It’s like some spooky sports thing, but since I know almost nothing about sports, I can’t really convey it.

I have to tell you this horrible thing, because I just haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. It sort of astounded Amadeus and me. A convicted sex-offender was recently re-arrested for raping a three-year old girl inside the bathroom of a local Wal-Mart here. In one of the best explanations I’ve read in a long time, here’s how the accused told the story: The three-year-old walked up to him in the toy section of the store, and asked him to please take her to the bathroom. Being the good Samaritan sort, he obliged her. So, she was in one stall of the men’s room, and he was in another. Suddenly, there was a loud noise. He ran out of his stall, mid-stream. She ran out of her stall, and, in one of the freakiest freak accidents ever, he accidentally ran into her with his penis. Though there are surveillance videos showing him picking the child up and dragging her into the bathroom, I believe his story, because it just makes sense, despite the whole minimum-of-three-feet-difference-in-height thing. When Amadeus and I saw it on the news, our jaws simultaneously dropped. We still haven’t quite recovered from hearing about it.

If you’re a WordPresser, you know that you can see the search terms that people use to get to your blog. I get all sorts of things (really strange things, as you can imagine), and if you Google certain key words, my blog comes up first or second on their search engine (example: until a week or two ago, I came up first if you typed in “Pizza Hut Sucks,” although I’ve been knocked to number two because there is such a burning hatred for the Hut that someone actually started a Facebook page devoted to pizza rage). Anyway, here’s the search term that’s really got me puzzled:  “GOFYA.” It’s an acronym I made up many years back, and wrote about over two years ago. Suddenly, it’s coming up about twenty-five times a week in my WP Search Terms, and it’s the first and second item that appears on a Google search. The thing that I don’t get is that there is no such word in English. It makes me wonder what people are looking for when they type those letters in. Any ideas?

Amadeus and I have been recording a few of my stories and essays. It’s been really fun. He has a whole studio, and while at first I felt a little intimidated by the big old microphone, I got into the spirit of it all very quickly. It feels very This American Life-y. I have no idea what I’ll do with this stuff. “You could send CDs out to friends for Christmas,” Amadeus suggested, fully realizing the extent of my brokeness. “Yeah, because no one really knows enough about me,” I laughed. I can just see my close friends and my poor children, whom I tie to chairs and force feed my stories to at every opportunity, opening their little Moonbeam McQueen CDs. “Maybe I could give them 8 x 10 glossies of me too,” I suggested. Amadeus didn’t seem to find this very amusing, but maybe it’s because he fears that this will be his gift as well.

I’ve been going deer hunting with a friend. This has been in the works for some time, ever since I told him that I was a crack shot with a gun. My father was an avid gun collector, and during my childhood, he bonded over bullets with my siblings and me. When I told my friend that my brothers used to call me Annie Oakley, he called my bluff and took me to a shooting range. I fired one of his shotguns a few times, and got all the little holes in the center of the target. A few weeks later, he took me again. I fired a different gun, and again, the holes all made a pretty little pattern right in the middle. “We’re going deer hunting,” said my friend. I agreed, in keeping with my “yes, I can” policy.

We planned it for months. He set up a deer blinds in a couple of different locations, gave me a copy of the rules and regs from the Game and Fish Commission, and got me licensed. “Here’s how it’ll work,” said my buddy. “We’ll go out in the morning. You’ll shoot a doe. We’ll drag it back to my house, gut it and clean it, then rest up a little. In the afternoon, we’ll go back out. You’ll shoot a second doe, and we’ll repeat the process.” Having never done this sort of thing before, it all sounded perfectly reasonable to me. For weeks, every time I’d spy a deer off in a field or forest somewhere, I’d look at her for a long time and wonder if I could really rub one out.  ”Hi little deer,” I’d say. “Would you be mad at me if I killed you?”

Ultimately, I decided that I could do it. The deer population in the U.S. is insane. They don’t have enough to eat, they get sick, they run out into the streets and cause injuries and over a billion dollars in car damage each year.  And hey, I’m carnivore. So the plan was to cut out the middle man. Actually, the plan was to fill each of my children’s freezers with a ton of meat.  I also anticipated being very Native American about it all, and thanking the God of Venison for providing food.

It was funny, telling my friends and family that I was going to hunt. I know some of them think I’ve lost my marbles. My brother predicted that I’d drop a doe, then have to be sedated for about three weeks, due to guilt.

But deer season opened, and out we went. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and drove to a pre-determined location to meet my friend. I was grouchy and sleep deprived, but I must say I looked rather sporty in Amadeus’ flannel shirt and hoodie, along with the hunter orange vest and hat that my friend provided.  We crunched through the leaves as the sun began to rise, and went and sat in the deer blind. I was so excited! It never occurred to me that this would all play out in any way other than the one my friend had described. So we sat there and we waited. And we waited. We whispered and ate apples and we waited. And we didn’t see one single damned deer.  That afternoon, we went out again and the same thing happened. A few days later, we went out again, and I did spot two doe. Their silhouettes teased me through the trees, though they were very far away. And then it began to rain. I was beginning to realize that this is all much harder than it looks. Like golf, or brain surgery.

I do plan to go again. It’s awfully peaceful out there in the woods in that little tent. My friend calls it “redneck meditation.”  A part of me wants to call it a boring waste of time, but I’m a little hooked.  We’ll see what happens.

Theo the Wonderdog® is gay. I had my suspicions, mostly because of the fabulous way he’s decorated his kennel, and the way his clothing taste runs toward fur jackets and preppy seasonal sweaters, but now I know it’s true. When we lived in Texas, I’d take him to the dog park, where he was extraordinarily popular with the other pups. Huge dogs would chase him around lustfully, and although he’s been neutered, they all seemed to want to commit acts of doggie deviance on him. I’m ashamed to say that he enjoyed their attentions quite a bit. It was like watching the inmates of a dog prison in action, and Theo was their willing girlfriend (I think I saw one of them pay him in cigarettes). Anyway, since we moved away, and are currently nestled here in the Ozark Mountains, he’s been a pretty solitary little fellow. A friend has invited me to these dinner parties recently, and suggested that I bring Theo to keep her Dachshund, “George”* company. Well, um….I’ve done so a couple of times, and they hit it off in a major way. In fact, the dinner guests all agreed that these two tiny guys are soul mates. They snuggle up together on the sofa and commit unspeakable acts of canine perversion. We humans peek in on them from time to time, and the conversation turns from politics or movies to “Hey– you two stop that!” or “Wow– I didn’t know dogs could actually do things like that.” Anyway, Theo and George* are now a romantic item. They’ve come out of the dog house, so to speak.

Here’s a picture of Theo’s homosexual lover, coming out. I think it’s all quite wonderful, in a gross sort of way. And lest you think I’m homophobic, it would be gross even if George were a Georgina or Georgette, or Theo a Theodosia. But it’s kind of like thinking about your parents having sex. You just don’t want to go there mentally, and you certainly don’t want to see it.

(*I promised my friends I’d used a pseudonym if I wrote about their dog here. Apparently they’re ashamed of his sexual orientation. As for me, I’m just happy that Theo has found love).

I’ve been helping Amadeus sell an antique trunk online. I am happy to report that there are people all over the world who are interested in buying this item, and all we have to do is give them all of our personal banking information. They will send an agent here to the US to pick up the trunk, because all of these people seem to be going to missionary schools in other countries.  Here’s an example (I’ve changed the names and email addresses, and broken the links):

From: Jessica Slater <jessicaslater@rocketmail.com>

Subject: Antique Chest

To: “moonbeam”

Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 8:04PM

Is this item still available?

Thanks for the response,well I am ok with your asking price,but ill be paying through my online paypal account,as that’s the only way i do receive and make payments for my purchases online,i can’t be able to do the check up and pay by cash,because am a British woman,I live and work in Norwich,Norfolk,United Kingdom and i’m presently on a missionary course attached to St. Patrick cathedral here in UK, and this will last for couple of months,and this has beign keeping me busy everyday that’s why i can’t use any other form of payment than paypal;which i am familiar with, So if you think you are ok with paypal,and you have a paypal account,kindly get back to me with the email linked to your paypal account and if you are new to paypal,you can easily set up your own paypal account at www.paypal.com its easy,fast,safe and secured,all i need from you to make the payment is just the email address you use in your registration with paypal,and some more pics so i can go through them before i make the payment. I will arrange a shipping agent that will check and confirm it’s what i saw on your Ad on craigslist before he sign the purchase agreements on my behalf and ship it to my home address in United Kingdom,so get back to me with more pics,and your email linked to paypal,with your zip code and phone number in which i can contact you,mine is +447024021020. zip code. NR3 4TT I will need to mail your zip code to my shipping agent so he can estimate the shipping cost for me,so do not forget to send that in your reply. PayPal will charge little 2.9% per transaction,I will take care of that at my end and my shipping agent will come for the pick up after you confirm the money in your account. Very best wishes, Jessica.

Thanks, Jess, but your scam is all over the Internet.

Yesterday, I got this one:

Sorry, Herman. We sold it today for $25,000. The woman’s agent is coming by to pick it up tomorrow, after her Pay Pal payment clears. She can’t get it herself, as she’s in missionary school in England. Thanks for your inquiry.

I was really sad, because I wanted Herman to have this trunk. I wish I could have sold it to both of them. But then my heart became happy, because I got this:

From: Herman Fisher <john_hamby@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Re: Re:  Antique Trunk
To: “moonbeam”
Date: Tuesday, November 23, 2010, 2:31 AM

Attention Cl User,

My name is Herman Fischer, Chief executive officer of Craigslist. We have recently partnered up with Apple regarding a one-time promotional event today, we are giving awayfree Apple iPads to randomly selected folks who have submitted an advert on Craig’s list. You have been chosen as one of our newest winners for today. We randomly select numbers to match up with ads on Cl and your ad matched with our latest drawing.

We have partnered up with Apple inc to advertise their hottest product yet, the Apple iPad. Once yet again, we are running this campaign for one-day only. All you need to do is CLICK HERE http://tiny909.com/cWFHsMD to visit our web site made for this promotion and key in your email to get yours for free. Simply make sure you enter your email so we can locate our records to make certain that we have reserved one for you. That’s it!

Congratulations on winning a free Apple iPad (valued at $800). In case you have any question or concerns, feel free to e-mail me back. However, you should claim your free iPad 1st to ensure one will be reserved for you before the deadline ends. We do understand that you may possibly not receive this email until after the deadline, however, we advise you check the web site and enter your email to see if we still have yours on hold, which we often-times do because others have not claimed theirs in time.

Herman Fischer
CEO, C-list

From: ”moonbeam”

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Antique Trunk

To: ”Herman Fischer” <john_hamby@gmail.com>

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2010, 8:04 AM

Wow!!!! Herman!!! Thank you so much!!!! I’ve been wanting an iPad! How lucky I am to have won one, simply for running a free ad on your site. This is a dream come true. I’ll zip on over to your link right now to sign up. I just hope it’s not too late.

So, you see? This post ends on a happy note after all. Not only does Amadeus get all that money for the trunk, but we also won an iPad!!! Will our lucky streak never end? Maybe I don’t need this job after all.

P.S. After careful consideration, I did go into work.

P.P.S.  Sorry for the length of this one.