Sometimes I Feel Like Larry David

Why aren’t there more moats? What happened to the moat? Everybody builds fences nowadays but I’d like to have a moat filled with sharks--a saltwater moat--encircling my home. It seems like a better way to keep people off your property. You can scale a fence but who’s going to try and jump over a shark moat? You know? I wonder if that’s a real violation. Would code enforcement show up at my door and say “It says right here, no moats are allowed in the City of…" but I guess they'd yell from the street because of the moat. Or send a letter. And of course, I'd have to move the mailbox from my porch to the curb, or maybe I could just say I never got the letter? What do you think about that? You think that's a good idea? A shark moat.

Strum Playing Drums

26 Weeks Pregnant: Belly Shot

Arlington Rap

This is hysterical.

Size Matters

Everything is too big or too small or both. I dream of a wide open living space where I can spin around, flailing my outstretched arms like a brown-haired chopper. I wanna take big, giant steps that echo. I wanna live in a canyon, maybe one with a grand staircase. I grew up in a fairly small house in a small town, then moved to a big(ger) city full of more people than it can hold. I can't go to the store without feeling like a blade of grass bending this and that way, dodging all the other blades. In this big(ger) city I started out living in a basement, then I moved to another, smaller basement, then into a one-bedroom apartment, then into this little old house where I feel like I do in all the stores around here.

I'll die trying to attain that canyon. Then they'll stuff me into a casket...

How Do You Spell Revenge?

Again with my name. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's a little different. I'm just saying, people can't handle it. Flash back to second grade and I couldn't even spell it, or so Mrs. Fortner said in the note she sent home to my mom. I'm paraphrasing but it went something like this:

Dear Ms. Franco,

Amiee continues to spell her name, A-i-m-e-e. Please work with her on the spelling of her name. It’s important she know how to do this.

Mrs. Fortner


Dear Mrs. Fortner,

Aimee is spelling her name correctly. You are not.

Ms. Franco


The end result was more gratifying than you can fathom. Imagine being a second grader and having a school teacher insist you are spelling your name incorrectly. When you're that age you think teachers live at the school and know everything. I was second-guessing what my mother and former teachers had taught me because of this old bat. And I was not the kid who talked back at school. I sat there, freaked out, not understanding what warped turn my life had taken. I didn't know how to spell my name! Everything I thought I knew was wrong. The complex it gave me still lurks in my bones. And I have to say, I hope that slap in the face my mom gave her lurks in hers.

Lest you think I'm being unfair, the woman had a history of being profoundly evil. A parody of herself! She was "that" teacher--the one who dismissed parents' requests for extra help for their kids; the one who never smiled; the one everybody remembers for her worst qualities (except maybe one little brown-noser named naiviV yrogerG). She gave me worry-fueled tummy aches almost daily. Stressing out a seven year old to this degree is just shameful. I like to think she'll get what's coming to her...that maybe her headstone will read "R.I.P. Mrs. Frotner."

A-i-m-e-e

Me on the phone with any flavor receptionist

“Name, please?”

“Aimee-A-i-m—”

“A-m-e-what?”

“A-i-m-e-e.”

“A-m-i—“

“No. A. i. m. e. e. It’s ‘Aim’ like a gun, then two Es.”

“Okay, so, A-i-m-e-e?”

“Yes."

It's not a name, it's a dramatic dialogue.