Multi-tasking, HELOCs, and Sexy-texts

by Helene "I am a real estate agent, damnit !" Gresser

I am simultaneously taking an online continuing education course (required every two years to renew my real estate license), texting sexy fantasies with my phantom lover, scouring the internet for comedy ideas, and writing this here thang. I am your classic ADHD gal, all up in da Adderall, swimming in my messy wading pool of things-to-do-that-I-wait-too-long-to-do.  Oh, and now Microsoft wants to install a huge update to my iTunes account, and my sexy-texting has heated up to near-sext.  And yet I am typing this, trying to make a deadline that is technically three minutes away.  My toes are cold, I text my lovah. I want them warm.  Deep breath.

The online course could not be more boring if it droned in Ben Stein-like monotone:  federal financial disclosure rules. AUGH.  

And the course is TIMED so I am required to sit and stare at a paragraph for 42 seconds, even though it takes me five seconds to scan it.  Sexy-texting has reached the undressing part.  And the kissing.  And pressing.  And I am abandoning the internet-surfing but the cat wants to crawl onto my lap, which I spell “alp” because I guess I get dyslexic at times.  And now I am struggling with the wireless keyboard and the crawling feline and the Blackberry. And now my back is being phantom-traced via sexy-text, and I am warm from sitting and working at the computer. But my toes remain cold.

The software is still downloading for the update, and I am scanning a paragraph about HELOCs ---oh for the love of god I just want to sexy-text. I just want to think about this one thing, the sexy-thing.  And yet this is still drawing my attention.  I am ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- okay, I had to concentrate on the sexy-texting. I hate the word "sext" because it reminds me of "sextant" --which is not a sexy word, per se. 

And my god, sexy-texting on a Blackberry requires concentration, due to teeny-tiny buttons and bad reception and grammar issues and all that. I think making grammar mistakes is understandable but they can still make me laugh and lose the needed sexy-thought-concentration and focus on the to/too and their/there and teh/the. Which is stupid, because, whatever, but I need smart-sexy.  And I am my own worst editor.


Crap, I still have 45:23 minutes left of Home Equity Line of Credit shit and then there is this. I hope the phantom lover does not take offense at my typing about this, as he is sure to read this and wonder if I was fully present in our lovemaking. I was, truly. In my fashion. And I feel all loose and relaxed and ready to go. And now I am hungry for steak. Or a sammich. A cold meatloaf sammich with ketchup and mayonnaise and multi-grain bread and a Dr. Brown’s cream soda.  The cat finally got up just now and is lying on a piece of cardboard on the floor, in what I determine is resignation and vague disgust at my lack of proper attention to HER.  And I am disgusted at my sentence structure, or lack thereof.

WHY does the online course take so damn long? What does it matter if I sit for 42 seconds to read a paragraph or do it in five?  I know I just typed numbers and spelled out numbers in the same sentence but fuck it, this is ridiculous. If I pass all the course quizzes, what does it matter how LONG it takes??

I want to open the bottle of California red that has been sitting on my kitchen counter for 7 weeks, because it belongs to a friend of a friend and I have not gotten around to delivering it yet. Fuck it, I just opened it. I wonder how much it costs. It can’t be too much, because my buddy, though he has excellent taste (which I just corrected from “tatse”), is broke-ass like me.  Okay, maybe not quite as broke-ass, but shit, what if this is a special bottle?  I don’t care, too late now.  Mmm, it’s good. Almost as good as a sammich and Dr. Brown’s cream soda.  Okay, better, now that I’ve had a couple gulps.  Good swill, there, buddy. Thanks.

And the phantom lover would not be happy to know I am sneaking a cigarette, but he would not disown me for doing so. He allows me my faults, and wants me to be happy, which makes him an awesome phantom lover, I must admit.  He adores me from afar, which may be the most ideal adoration, as it is so much sexier than day-to-day chores and farts and disappointments and cellulite.  But it means I type this, drinking stolen wine, smoking sneaky ciggies, and I go to bed and splay comfortably, all alone.

I think comics are essentially loners, searching for commonalities but reveling in their/our superior and (hopefully) unique observation of these amusing banalities.  How any comic has a “normal” relationship with a non-comic is a mystery to me. And certainly comics CANNOT HAVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER COMICS.  That seems to be a rule. That is just a damn rule.

So we search for material, maintain jobs that we have to do to pay the bills, have sexy affairs and are never really satisfied because we are all over the damn place and never fully engaged in the present. Okay, maybe I am just talking about me.  But that is ironically what feeds the comedy. The dissatisfaction, the disarray, the mess, the morass.  The boggy ground.  Sexy-typing on a teeny-tiny machine instead of actual sex.  Wine instaed of meatloaf.   (Yes, I left instead spelled wrong, just to show you what I mean about the dyslexia, which is also impossible to spell.)

But my toes are very warm now.  By golly, that is something.