18 years ago on February 27th, 2001, I wrote the first entry on this website, hand-coded the HTML surrounding those words, and sent it to a server in Illinois via FTP. 18 years. In Mississippi my website is old enough to drink a beer in the presence of a legal guardian. Skoal! to the Northland! Skoal!

Yeah. I know. That poem is about a Viking in Rhode Island. So the fuck what.

18 years after starting what I thought was a pretty silly hobby, something I thought only 12 people would read, I’m sitting here with thousands of pages chronicling the lives of a 15-year-old daughter, a nine-year-old rainbow unicorn, an 11-year-old dire wolf, and the fond memories of a SuperMutt who could balance an Instapot filled with squash soup on his head. And he’d be like, wait. This is nothing compared to the Chrysler minivan you put between my ears last week. Why are we regressing?

I miss him so much.

Two days ago I finished recording the audio version of my fourth book—this morning I had to go in to do what’s called “pickups” which are lines I needed to reread for clarity or because I sounded like a goddamn hick—and starting in April I’m going on tour for that book. To celebrate all of this:

I’m going to chose three subscribers to the newsletter I’m sending out about this book (sign up here for exclusive content) and send them a very Utah-themed care package that includes an advanced reader copy of my book. This is the kind of box full of stuff that Mormon moms send to their children who are out serving missions to remind them that people back home haven’t totally forgotten them, only somewhat forgotten but HEY! Look! Here’s some salt water taffy! And a quote about temple covenants from the prophet! And remember, no kissing with tongue!

I’ll choose three random winners on Sunday night March 3rd at 7PM MST and announce them at the top of this post once they’ve been contacted and have sent me their addresses so that I can stalk them I can send them the elaborate care package, the contents of which I will chronicle in the newsletter.

TOTALLY RELATED TANGENT SO I GUESS IT’S NOT A TANGENT: Reading the book you wrote about the most horrible depressive episode of your life out loud into a microphone in a soundproof booth is the best way to test whether or not you feel better.

Man, did that fuck me up. It stuck me in a meat grinder and then drove over me with a car. Which reminds me.

Remember that time I had a paragraph on my contact page that said I printed out hate mail and drove over it with my car? Good times. I haven’t done that in many years (yes, I did, in fact, drive over hate mail with my car and I recommend it all the time because it’s as soothing as a blowjob), but it turns out that certain individuals are still writing shit about me on the Internet and following that shit with, “She is so not important anymore,” because they failed English in high school and never learned what irony really means. It is not, as it turns out, like rain on your wedding day.

I know this because a friend of mine gets immense pleasure from taunting those people (she doesn’t knock my hobbies, so I don’t knock hers), taking screenshots of their comments and highlighting the “she is so not important anymore” line of the comment that invariably happens just in case I should ever be deceived into thinking that I am important anymore. She thinks I should compile all of them in a book, but I think that I should print them all out and drive over them with my car.

Anyway, I was trying to get this written and published on the actual birthday of my website but I ran into a little hiccup with a colonoscopy on Monday gone horribly wrong. I mean, I’m okay and the results are totally fine. I’m good, now. But the preparation for it went completely off the rails and by the time I arrived at the hospital, I had not eaten solid food in almost 72 hours (THIS WAS AT THEIR BIDDING AND NOT A MISREAD ON MY PART FOR YOUR INFORMATION), and the drink they prescribed me made me so violently ill that I puked for over 24 hours. I was hallucinating. I was delusional. And the fucking doctor was a hot Chilean with a hot Chilean accent and he was going to be sticking a camera up my butt and when I mentioned this in my delusional state to the nurse who had freaked the fuck out when she saw me because I looked like Contagious Walking Death, she casually said, “Oh. Him. Yeah. Every nurse here wants to bone him. Even I think he’s hot. And I know I’m old but I’m not dead, you know?”

No one. No. One. Not a single person alive. NO ONE. Not a human in this world wants to hear a hot Chilean doctor tell them in a hot Chilean accent, “I will be performing your colonoscopy.”

End scene. Dead. Beyond dead.

(My entire podcast is about this experience this week. I want to hear ALL of your stories about hot doctors handling you when you are at your worst. ALL of them. Send them to me. Please! What did YOUR hot doctor have to perform on you? Did she hold your flaccid penis in your hand? Because THAT HAPPENS IT TURNS OUT.)

And you know, I thought I was dying at one point on Monday. Normally I can handle pain and usually relish the idea of facing it head on. But that nausea, Jesus Conan Carter Craiglist Christ. I turned into my dad who’d wake up the neighborhood when he puked. I couldn’t contain the noise that was erupting from my face, and I’m sure the couple next door thinks we were bludgeoning very vocal sheep with axes or hooking them up to some electrical torture device. It was just awful, and I know other people have had experiences far easier and smoother than mine. You don’t understand why they made me fast for so long and are going to write me an email to tell me that you’re very concerned about this! I must have misunderstood the instructions! Guess what? I DID NOT MISREAD THE INSTRUCTIONS. ALSO. You are the valedictorian of colonoscopies! And I am not! It kills me to admit this!

But, here’s where it all went wrong: my pharmacist filled my prescription for the prep drink and said, “Well, you have a fun weekend ahead!” Like I’d just filled a prescription for chocolate cupcake orgasms topped with curly French fries and nipple clamps.

I said that I’d heard horror stories, but she waved it all off and said to take it easy and watch TV and clear my day of any responsibilities. She said I’d be fine. Hers was no problem at all. And without fucking thinking I said, “Well, it can’t be worse than an unmedicated childbirth, right?”

GUESS THE FUCKING FRIED FABIO WHAT. I’d much, much, much rather give birth without medication ten times than go through those three days ever again. Like, no question. Not even a toss up. And so my website has reached an undeniably signifiant age—I mean, super significant, right? Couldn’t be worse than an unmedicated childbirth, right?—and of course I had to have a hot doctor do butt stuff on me to celebrate it. Happy Birthday, Poop Blog!

GIMME YOUR BUTT CAMERA STORIES.