someone tell me, please, why is it that the bag boys (or girls, or men or women) at the grocery store get so panicked whenever you bring your own canvas grocery sack? then, if they do consent to use said bag, they frantically pack every single item into the same bag (tomatoes on the bottom, naturally) as though the fact that i brought my own bag means that i shun the use of all other grocery sacks? what is so hard about this? and why won’t you just get out of the way and let me bag my own groceries, if this causes so much consternation?

i recall buying groceries for the first time in england and patiently waiting while all the items were scanned, paying for them, and then discovering that my groceries were in a heap in everyone’s way because i was suppose to have been bagging them myself, not to mention which, i was supposed to have brought my own or purchased grocery sacks. i think the clerk took pity on me and gave me a couple of bags to carry things home with, red-faced.

okay, so our anniversary date didn’t turn out to be the most romantic on record – we went rollerblading along the lake, then rented School of Rock and ordered a pizza – but we’re poor, tired, and the sheer novelty of us both having the same evening off was enough. we bought one another flowers, but when we weren’t looking zeke nibbled on them, tipped the wine bottle-vase over, and then barfed the plants back up.

later andy saved me from a giant bathroom spider.

the bathroom ceiling started leaking again late last night. not just drips, but great globs of plaster that came splatting down onto the cracked tile floor. immediately after that zeke began scratching at his chin and howling (he’s got this self-inflicted wound on his chin that won’t heal and necessitates many expensive trips to the vet). i did something rare: i put my head in my hands and left andy to deal with both problems.

on a happier note, today makes two years that andy and i have been together. since all of my long-term relationships in the past have seemed to peter out somewhere just before the two year mark, i feel as though this were an auspicious sign.

we’ve been treading on the uncomfortable side of the total-mental-breakdown line for a much of the past month; hence the relative silence on slithy tove. but its a compounding problem – the more i put off writing, the more intimidating it is to go back to writing, because there’s things i meant to write about and they just pile up…but really, what’s the point of being intimidated by one’s own blog? so, in place of all the posts i meant to write, a brief summary of the salient moments of the past month:

-waking up at 2am and going to get a drink of water (andy was still out at a late show so i was home alone). while standing at the sink in the dark of my kitchen, i watched someone climb OVER the 10 ft razor wire fence that seals our back porch off from the alley. not certain if i’d dreamed what i’d just seen, i stood paralyzed in the dark of my house, wearing only pjs, as i heard someone climb up the stairs, past our second story porch, and up to the third story porch. thumps and bumps and crashes ensued from upstairs. unwilling to wait and see if he’d break into our dark apartment next, i put on some pants, and ran out the front door and out of my apartment building. to then stand in the pouring rain feeling like a sleepy paranoid jerk without a cell phone with which to call the police. i went into the lobby of the hotel next door, and the very nice night clerk there called our upstairs neighbor to see if she was okay. no answer, even though her lights were blazing, so we called the police. i stood in the rain for another ten minutes till two very burly policewomen arrived and offered to come upstairs with me. embarrassingly, i was most concerned that they’d get upstairs and not find anyone and i’d be the idiot from Rear Window who was always hearing and seeing things. well, as it turns out, someone WAS breaking into the apartment upstairs – it just so happened to be our neighbor’s out of town friend who had gotten separated from her at a bar and wanted to get in out of the rain. the police shook him down for a while but ultimately left him alone. after they left i crept up the back stairs and apologized for calling the cops on him, and he was very nice about the whole thing.

-some buttmunch stole andy’s bike off our back porch by bashing in the wooden railings until the post the bike was chained to broke off. the thief did, however, leave us five pennies in exchange for the bike. andy intends to gamble those five pennies into a new bike at our occasional nickel poker games. it could take a while. for the now the pennies are safely set aside in a plastic baggie on the fridge.

-as many of you who know me already know, i am a clinical emetophobe. that is, i fear vomit in a pathological, compulsive way. so it was two weeks ago that my very worst stage management nightmare came true when i ate a hot turkey sandwich of questionable age and came down with food poisoning and had to barf DURING A SHOW. as in “electrics 243, go. (puke) sound 25B, go (puke).” god, the thought of a job where i can take a sick day seems like an unimaginable luxury. but that’s nothing compared to Alyson, one of the performers in BETTY Rules, who has been performing with pneumonia for the past two weeks, going off stage to cough up a lung and then running back on stage to rock out with her bass guitar. SHE is a rock star (well, i mean that both literally and figuratively).

-i am stupidly pleased with the white lab coat with my name embroidered on it that they gave me at the dentist’s office. unfortunately, it also means that i’ve agreed to work there for another year. a whole ‘nother year of working 3 jobs. i am so TIRED.

-meeting gloria steinem a couple of weeks ago at a benefit show we did for Planned Parenthood. i have a picture of us in matching BETTY t-shirts to prove the event occurred, but i’m not posting it here because the camera revealed my secret double chin.

-not long after the break-in that wasn’t, the bathtub pipes in our upstairs neighbor’s apartment begin to leak and our bathroom ceiling developed a minor waterfall. the walls bulged and slithered, the light fixture filled up with rusty water dripping off the electrical contacts, we lined buckets with towels to drown out the sound of the dripping. it took five days of intermittent dripping to convince the maintenance guy, Manny, that it was NOT because the girl upstairs, Jess, doesn’t use her shower curtain properly, meanwhile we brushed our teeth in the kitchen sink and had to use the toilet by candlelight for fear of an electrical fire. said pipes have now been fixed, and Manny came by and ripped the entire surface of the sheetrock off the wall. he has been less than enthusiastic, however, about finishing the work. on the upside, however, we are now friends with our neighbor – there’s nothing like having someone else’s bathwater dripping on your head to really seal the friendship pact. maybe she will let me borrow her vacuum someday.

-andy and i were looking for a quick bite before going to catch a show at Improv Olympic. we happened upon a cute little cafe in boys town called the Hearty Boys Cafe. the guy at the counter painstakingly prepared our goat cheese and roasted veggie sandwich – which was delicious despite the fact that it took him about 20 minutes to make it. it took so long, in fact, that we were back at the theatre and done with the sandwich before andy said, “wait, did you pay for the sandwich?” “no, didn’t you?” oops. in order to balance out our karma, we went back the next afternoon to pay for the sandwich. the waiter gave me a cookie for being so honest.

of particular note at this evening’s performance of BETTY Rules was the appearance of David Bowie’s band. i was disappointed that they didn’t bring Bowie with them, but apparently he’s kind of a homebody when they’re out on the road.

but visiting celebrities aside, i’m constantly in awe of the power, talent and sheer verve that the members of BETTY possess. if you’re in chicago, or new york, and have the chance to see or meet these cool ladies, take it. there’s not a whole lot of “manage” in my job as a stage manager for BETTY – all i have to do is make sure they’ve got the technical resources they need and then i just get out of their way.

Dear Miss Manners,

I’m wondering what the proper etiquette is for interacting with the homeless guy who picks through my garbage every morning. Should I separate my waste into categories – rotten fruit, credit card receipts, housewares – for easier scavenging? Should I skirt past that “I’m 90% sure you’re the guy who stole my bike last week” issue in order to make small talk? Should I wait until he’s gone to take out the trash? What if he’s set up shop and has been inventorying the contents of the dumpster for the past hour and I really want to take the kitchen garbage out because it’s stinky?

Please advise.

as andy points out, the creepy-crawly of last night’s adventure was likely actually a millipede, rather than a centipede, and therefore not poisonous, and didn’t look nearly so fearsome once his legs were curled up in a death pose. anyway. as far as i’m concerned, the more legs it’s got, the more creepy it is.

my heart is still pounding from the sheer terror of having tracked and killed the largest centipede that any one has ever found in their house outside of a south american jungle. zeke was instrumental in the tracking portion, but it was essential to keep him from actually catching and eating his prey, since aren’t those things poisonous? ugg. is this what passes for summer in chicago? the weather is mild and giant insects invade our apartments? all those wiggly legs, just racing to and fro on my dining room floor. the carcass is now trapped underneath a glass (just in case the swift blow from a rolled copy of The Reader wasn’t enough) so that disposal can be handled by the third member of this household upon his return from rehearsal. zeke has the radiator under careful surveillance, just in case the creepy-crawly or any of his creepy-crawly friends should make another appearance tonight.

the new and improved blogger informs me that i have posted 483 messages to slithy tove since taking blogger on. my goodness. 483 snide little essays. right now (and i mean the past 9 months or so) we are fighting sheer exhaustion and have had very little time to post, but the internal critic hasn’t been put to rest.

lately when i’m out in public and feeling crowded and grouchy, nasty critical thougths about strangers’ fashion sense ring through my head. like, to the woman whose ankles are rolling on her 4″ pointy-toed shoes: “your feet hate you.” or, “whoever told you that that orange lipstick looks great on you is not your friend.” or, “hmm. yeah. those mirrored sunglasses? they don’t hide the double chin.” but let’s be honest: i have ZERO fashion sense, so it’s not like i’m exempt from this game, as i look down at my feet on the train and discover that i wore the black socks with the white sneakers again. “what’s up, seinfield?”

i’m in idaho! it’s 64 degrees outside at 2 in the morning! the night air smells of summer – of wet grass and warm earth and fields of sage and mint. which is an improvement over the chilly smell of urine and industrial disinfectant of the el platforms.