I’m pretty much definitely going to land the #1 spot in this week’s Duolingo leaderboard. What’s crazy is that I practiced way less this week than last and last week I didn’t even make it into the top ten. Either people have way more going on this week than last or I just bobbed my way through a speedboat’s wake.

Mis padres have become the stereotypical old people who talk over each other on the phone and agonize about where to go for their semi-annual  dinner out.

There was no time to play Legos today but I did chill with the chickens. I told the kids it was a silent chicken experience so they passed me notes written on a pad Ella keeps stashed in Misty, the rubber tree.

It was a good day.

My new Legos are arriving tomorrow! One day early! This time it’s the Fiat 500. I have to look that up and then I had to look it up again to make sure I spelled Fiat right. It’s the yellow car with the easel you can set up behind it holding a painting of the very same car! I’d like to be the kind of person who takes time out of her day to paint her car.

I know I haven’t talked much about my other Lego creations. It’s just that Legoing is a thankless job. A fully built set hides your hard work and if you’ll never be able to take a photo of the finished project better than Lego themselves. I will let you know what I’ve been up to, though.

I finished this bad boy bookshop yesterday.* There’s an attached house with a lady who prunes her flowers** as friendly neighbors stroll by. One appears to be carrying a book called Moby Brick (Get it?) into the bookshop so I assume they buy used books which I appreciate. It has 2504 pieces. All floors are fully furnished. There’s a fucking iguana in a tank that’s a dozen bricks strong.

The nutcracker was a stress relief build. I did him in one shot, purely out of spite for the bookstore. I got him free last year, I think, or else he was meant for a kid and I forgot. 

Before the bookshop I bought the VW Bus (with real curtains!)

and the Beetle with multiple options for license plates!

I won’t rush to share my journey with the Fiat 500 with easel but I do hope you’ll keep us in mind.

* I impulse bought a corner garage while searching for this image.

**The lady on the stairs is pruning flowers on the box, I swear to God.

That’s all there is to it! Music choice is totally up to you. In my experience, Billy Ocean, EMF, and The Escape Club work well. I’m pretty sure Michelle was dancing to silence.

Dear Diary,

I did nothing today except for aprender Spanish. It was the last day of the week long competition for the Amethyst League and while I knew I was a shoe in to advance to Pearl I became especially competitive upon finding myself in third place this morning. I made some oatmeal and got going.

To be honest I didn’t initially give a shit about beating grodrieguez95. I just wanted wanted to best Deb in Germany whose entire persona seems suspect. But GRodriquez crept up from behind to beat me. It really fucked up my Funday.

Love,
You Know Who

Dear Diary,

Today we let the chickens “free range.” They pecked at a wall of dead foliage which I eventually ripped down creating a “dead stuff jungle gym.”

My great Aunt Alice stuck her head in the oven like Sylvia Plath.

I finally strung up some corn. I bought the pre-shucked kind so there was no clear spot to wrap the string and also I didn’t have string so I secured gold ribbon between trenches dug by kitchen sciossors.

My great Aunt Boo lost her eyebrows via over plucking.

I think chickens are attracted to shiny things.

There is always something caught in my throat.

a.

Tonight I tore off my PJ pants and army crawled into the chicken coop to retrieve Veronica. She can’t get to the upper floor herself, what with her diminutive size and backwards pointing foot, so it’s up to me to bring her to her sisters. She refuses to abandon her post at the foot of their stairs so I have to crawl all the way in.

Dear Diary, I’ve started sharpening my pencils with an Exacto knife and now I’m considering taking up whittling but I don’t know how to spell whittling which reminds me of the time when Ella was three and she was sobbing and I said “This is pandemonium! Why are you so upset?” and she answered, “Because I don’t know how to spell pandemonium!”

Dear Diary, after a couple of months of consistent watering, the lime tree is bearing fruit. Today I picked one, slicked it, and dunked it into a Bloody Mary.

Peace sign emoji,
Alison

Dear Diary,

Do you think that it’s weird that I still listen to Mother Love Bone?

Have we talked about garlic & onion pistachios from Old Town Roasted Nuts?
If so, how many times?

You know how I sometimes dream about fish floating out of their tanks, flailing through the air because I forgot to feed them? Last night I dreamt that I accidentally killed two of the chickens and almost sold the dog. Quan and I spooned for a long time after that. I wanted to reach for Amir but he looked like a wet painting, all perfect when he sleeps, and I felt like I owed Quan an apology.

What do you think about apologizes? Are they necessary? Are they worth the time it takes to say them and hear them?

My therapist says I take on other people’s shit or maybe I said it, I don’t know, my therapist and I tend to come to the same conclusions.

That’s a gift right there.

TTYL,
Alison

On the way back from Ramona Ranch Winery yesterday, Spotify identified both Fugazi and Nirvana as 80s music and that was alarming.

My dad’s birthday is next week and I haven’t considered what to get him because this doesn’t feel like November but the season of the election.

When Amir sent me the verdict I had just come in from caring for the chickens and my shirt was wet and filthy. I took it off and shivered in front of the news. Disbelief, goosebumps, tears, and a rare connection with my mother.

It’s hard for me to be with people during emotional times, no matter the emotion. It’s hard for me to share when I can’t share right.

By right I don’t mean correct but fully honest.

Veronica has fuzzy feet and it’s awesome. When she was a week old I had to hold her butt under warm water and peel dried poop from it. The condition is called Pasty Butt.

Love.

Love,
Alison

Dear Diary,

Do you ever struggle with who to turn to and then decide to turn to no one? Do you sometimes think that dancing is the answer and then quickly abandon that because you thought too much because you watched a poet greater than yourself wink at 500 people through a Covid screen do you remember walking down the street in $12 halter tops when we met our first bad love that way?

when we met our first real love that way, too, do you remember a woman who was prettier than me in thin, faux leather jeans who pretended not to love him even with her big breasts, even with her easy hair do you remember dying

every time we drove to his house, the interstate free of tolls–the interstate.
We didn’t speak much about him then. We were busy with boys. We were only ever busy with boys, we stole Chippenham

Parkway while he waited or didn’t. Do you remember tonight when we failed to light the fire pit?
It didn’t really matter. We didn’t really want it anyway. We didn’t know.

Anyway, Love,
Alison