Would you like fries with that? Gotta love those Crackheads.

My neighbors are absolutely, undoubtedly, indubitably on crack. And it’s actually kind of hilarious. I told Lupe today that she looked like a beauty queen after she dyed her hair tomato red, and she pointed to her missing row of teeth. “Yeah,” she said. “A toothless one!” And then she started crying. I held her hand and stroked her ultra-red hair until she stopped sniffling. How could you not be sympathetic to a crying crackhead? Poor woman.

As I was coming home last weekend, I discovered an unpleasant surprise in my driveway: an emaciated crackhead. (Stumbling, with shopping bag, in the sand. I had to pull in really carefully, so as not to mow her over.) The contractor says that this should be the title of my next book: There’s a Crackhead in my Driveway. Has a certain ring to it, I think. Kind of a Babs E. expose, keeping in line with my other projects.

My other favorite crackhead development?: The drive-thru McCracky Meal. All day and all night, horns beep, blaring for crack. And the crackheads get roadside service. The dealer pulls up, curbside, like a McD’s drive thru, good are exchanged…and there you have it -- a McCracky Meal special. Beep, beep. Where’s my crack, bitch?

That said, I had an alarm system installed, which is pretty worthless, except it may deter a break in – along w/ my scary-looking dogs (who, by the way, terrify the crackheads…one of them practically fell off of the sidewalk after Blue started barking ferociously).

The contractor and I have a deal: The house will be in reasonable shape by March 1st, so that I can get a HELOC to pay off my Home Depot debt. The place is a total construction zone at present (sawdust, nails, tools spilled on the floor), but it’s coming together. And we’re finding cool relics of the past – newspaper clippings, photos, and ticket stubs from the 1940’s. Fucking cool!