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TT
I wish I had planned this CHSH outing better, as I felt I rushed through so many “hellos” and didn’t get to spend as much time catching up as I liked.
But some swift kicks in the ass and reflection make me shut up so I can focus on the good:
* Making new friends (more on them later)
* Absolutely falling in love with Elizabite’s baby.
* Seeing the crossover of my family meeting my internet family at the lobby.
* Finally meeting team Emergency Pants, Martin and Dave and SO many people I had no idea would be there.
* I finally ate BOZO’S DOGS and it was glorious.
* Goofing with two of the funniest people I have ever known on Tumblr, Yodelmachine and Katefeetie.
* Stacy taking time to hang out even though she was FILMING A DOCUMENTARY.
* POT ROAST.
Jason, Jess, Dan and Toni… you guys know how to throw a party.
I am so sorry to the people I told, “Be right back!” And didn’t finish our conversations. If you feel I blew you off, I SWEAR it wasn’t intentional, you forget so easily how overwhelming this can be. I am so sorry and hope I didn’t come off as a jerk.
I love you bastards and if you’ll excuse me, gonna continue my tradition of eating like I’m stilll on vacation because my bag is still unpacked.
This one? She makes it look easy. She really does.
This monster that is CHSH has grown and become a monster of it’s own.
But she still has a smile and will chat you up like you’re the most important person there.
Thanks again, Toni!
I live in Texas. We never get enough snow for “Dibs” to be a thing here.
But it doesn’t mean I can’t make an early valentine for my Chicago peeps.
Truthful Tuesday
I am barely just now able to write a Happy Birthday to Toni. Why? Because I didn’t know where to start.
Last year, I made a shitty photoshop referencing the no cup wearing Batman that creeped us out in Kansas City.
I never mentioned how much of an imspiration she is. But it’s in how “matter of factly” she does it.
When confiding my fears about how my Dallas Tweetup would be a close to no show disaster, she simply directed me to pics of the first CHSH and how intimate it was.
She posts pictures of her handsome boys and they do a fellow parent proud.
She is a writer, a mom, a humorist, and a “Shutup, just get out there and do it” kind of person in a world of goddamned fakery.
She is the real deal and I wish her only the fondest of birthdays.
You Wrote This Part IV
O.K. it’s done! Thanks to everyone who participated:
Impeccablepeccadillo, thefirefly, almostfancy, rjfromva, claviousrobinsky, rossruns, edgellace, titsandsass, rachelarogers, and stevewhitaker for their comments that shaped this story. It’s not very good, but it was fun to do this again. (Feel free to reblog, I may never use it in a compilation.)
‘The Wing Flap’
by John Esquivel
Waking up to the sound of Ann Coulter’s grating voice wasn’t the way to start a Saturday, but it was nonetheless for Patrick.
Patrick stretched out on the bed, reflexively tucking in his chin to let out an inhuman yawn and boorish scream. The kind all of us do when over thirty and working out the kinks for the day’s progression. This fact was not understood at all by his cat, Salmon Mousse. The fat orange tabby was laying comfortably on his left, still half resting on the remote that he accidentally turned on when Patrick startled him. He leapt off the bed and gave the usual condescending look back that was ignored by his caretaker.
It was never determined if the cat was still upset at what he was named after a suggestion from Patrick’s sister to name him Salman Rushdie was met with laughs.
“Look at how fat he is! More like Salmon Mousse!”
That was over three years ago, and the natural indifference the cat showed was hard to read.
Patrick fumbled for the remote as he heard Coulter talking to Chris Matthews about how acceptable civilian casualties were in the war in Iraq. “Jesus, shut up, you harpy…” he murmured. The TV clicked off and went to its low humming sound, indicating it’d days were numbered and Patrick nestled back into his pillow sleepily. He briefly fell asleep and had a brief dream of Ann Coulter baking him a pie.
“Mmm, what kind is this?” he asked eagerly, as she set it down on a table in front of him. She scrunched her face up and looked at him as if his face had turned into Bill Clinton’s. “Its Coconut vulva Buick, you insensitive asshole!” She turned on her heel and stomped out of the dining room, balling up her ONLY REAGAN COOKS BETTER apron and tossing it behind her.
“Ann, I didn’t mean..”
“Suck my dick!” She called out, not turning around.
Patrick’s eyes shot open and he grinned to himself. But after a brief thought about it, a realization hit him. Why was there an old interview with Ann Coulter on TV. He sat up in bed and turned the program back on and immediately saw the headline over the news crawl:
ANN COULTER CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST DEAD AT 49.
His eyes widened and the jaw muscles went slack. The news came in vaguely, reporting Coulter was found unresponsive in hotel room outside of Seattle, Washington. Clips of her controversial interviews were being played while reporters, stone faced, covered the events.
Patrick looked at his phone and saw the stream of texts that went unheard while he slept.
“Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead :)”
“LOL ANN COULTER DEAD”
“DUDE, Turn on CNN! The Bitch is mortal!”
At first he smiled, but a cloud unlike anything flooded his thoughts. There was no secret that he hated Ann Coulter. People would remind him that “hate” was a strong word and the reply was always, “You’re right, I need something stronger.” After some particular homophobic statements, he drunkenly announced to a Denny’s late night crowd, “Someone should strangle Ann Coulter with Ricky Martin’s anal beads!”
But there was no joy in this. This was like the time he wished for Bobby Ross, Mr. Fucking perfect, to fail the final exam in Biology, and when he actually did, and wasn’t able to participate in his band solo because of it… Well, he felt awful.
Or the time in college when he put a tutu on his passed out dorm mate after heavy drinking and took a picture of it. It wound up on the internet and his fiancée dumped him because it made him look low class.
Patrick felt he was the butterfly wing flap that started some terrible things, because even a whispered breeze picks up an awful amount of steam.
There was going to be a wonderful absence of vitriolic statements from the dark areas of conservatism now, that was a relief, but the cost was something amplified as tragic in his eyes. It was nothing to celebrate. Nothing to crack a bottle open or raise a glass to. Ann Coulter was dead, but was there ever any personal redemption for her? The fact that it was unlikely was a sad thing indeed.
In Patrick’s mind, the end of a short life was always a shame, more so when it was one used for terrible things and the spreading of a poisoned ideology. People at their core are always capable of good, fantastic things. It had nothing to do with a religious belief or something equally profound. It’s just a fun fact that one can always do better and make things easier for people with the darker mentalities find a sunny spot on the grass.
Patrick began composing his thoughts on his nearby laptop. Something brief to express how he felt about this that he could post on his Facebook page. Something short though. Something meaningful. Use a quote maybe? Who said that one thing about an obituary?
Patrick’s concentration was broken however, when he heard a news anchor sheepishly announce:
“Ann Coulter is very much alive, and we express sincere apologies to her and her family for not fact checking and revealing this hoax before going live earlier this morning. In a prepared statement, Ms. Coulter said: “I’m sure it is a great displeasure to the liberal, whack job left that I’m still here and kicking, but I’m still here, folks.”
Patrick huffed, and sent a response to all of the texts he received while he slept. He rose from bed, and headed to the kitchen to fight over leftover pizza with his cat.
Somewhere, a handful of phones buzzed, beeped, or vibrated with a reply response to their initial text messages.
It read: “The house missed the witch. LOL.”
(Photo by: Frageelay)
