Martini, anyone?

I TOLD you I was sick.

2011-06-23T13:07:00.002-06:00

(I could say something flip like "that'll be my epitaph", haha. But it's just not funny right now.)
So, I haven't been feeling well. For about 2 or 3 years. It started with a rolling, oogy feeling in my tummy accompanied by a pain in my upper right abdomen. I went to my regular FP doctor, Dr. SpeedyArmyGuy, whom I love. He always listens and is very definitive with his diagnoses.
"It's your gall bladder. Let's get an ultrasound."
It wasn't my gall bladder. Just to be sure, he ordered a Hydroscan, which is an hours-long ordeal with much fasting beforehand and then having to lie very still in a scanner while gall-bladder-contracting-stuff is pumped into your veins.
Nothing.
The pain went away for a while.
Then it came back. This time Dr. SpeedyArmyGuy scheduled an endoscopy with a gastroenterologist friend of his. I talked to Dr. GI for about 2 minutes before he taped an O-ring in my mouth (making me feel ludicrously like a blow-up doll), knocked me out and stuck a camera down my gullet. While he was in there, he took pictures and nicked a chunk of my duodenum for a trophy.
Nothing.
It took 3 months to get in to see this gastroenterologist for a follow-up office visit. When I did, he joked that maybe I was faking it. Haha.
I went on a gluten-free diet and decided to shut the hell up about it for a year. I would be fine. I would make myself be fine.
Then I started having increasingly crazy PMS. For 2 weeks of every month, I would be exhausted, brain-dead, moody like you wouldn't believe, and felt like I had a pair of molten-lead bowling balls strapped to my chest. Then I would be okay for 2 weeks, would apologize to my family for being a bitch and to everyone else for being a flake, and would try to get caught up.
And the pain came back, bigger, more widespread and I kind of wanted to throw up a lot. I called Dr. GI. He ordered a full abdominal CAT scan. Right before this scan, I spent an AWESOME weekend water-skiing and wake surfing with some wonderful friends in a lake surrounded by cows. I might have swallowed some water. I know some water got into at least 2 orifices when I wrecked spectacularly while slalom skiing. It was brilliant. Then I came home, had the scan (fasting for a day, drinking a gallon of barium and then lying very still in a big machine again), and the next day started barfing and...well...the other thing that goes with barfing, only the other end. Ahem. Called Dr. SpeedyArmyGuy, who chewed me out for swallowing lake water and diagnosed me with giardia. Between talking with him and a friend of mine whose father is a GI doc, we started to think that maybe I had had a chronic giardia infection all along. Okay! A diagnosis! A treatment! Yes! Dr. GI did not take the news well and basically told me not to call his office anymore. Well, okay, I guess. Now I can move on and focus on this fucking PMS.
In the midst of the gut stuff, I had timidly asked my Gyno doc, twice at annual exams, if she could maybe check my ovaries, just to make sure that everything down there was okay and wasn't contributing to this gut stuff and the PMS. She said they felt fine. And if I wasn't going to take birth control pills, she couldn't help me. The pills made the PMS worse, I told her. She sighed and told me I was fine, it was nothing to do with anything down there and she wasn't going to test my ovaries because false positives are common and just not something she wanted to deal with. I was fine.

Yes.

I was fine.

Or not. But I decided, again, to just shut up. Maybe I was fine. Maybe I was faking it and didn't even know I was faking it. Maybe I was just that much of an attention whore.

Yes. I was fine.

Flash forward to March of this year. Everything started getting worse. The pain, the PMS. I read up on bioidentical hormones, found a (very expensive, non-insurance covered) Women's Health CNM. She made me spit into a handful of vials, sent them off for testing and then declared I was almost maybe peri-menopausal. It was something. So she gave me some (also very expensive) progesterone pills and cream and I dutifully used it.
I also saw a new GI doc, who was and is flummoxed and determined but decided to start by clearing my whole system and re-biotizing it. Great. I felt okay for 2 weeks. Then not. Really really not.
A month ago I got a postcard, randomly, for an ObGyn clinic specializing in "pelvic problems". I needed an annual poking and prodding and wasn't going back to the bitch who made me feel bad for asking if she could help me, so I scheduled an appointment.

Have you ever met one of those people who just...listens? And cares? And validates you, even when you come to them defensive and exhausted and at the end of a rapidly fraying rope? Yeah. He got it. He did the poking and prodding, then told me he would do every test that he thought might, at least, rule out anything wrong down there.
I cried. In front of him.

(Any men reading this might want to skip the next few paragraphs. Just sayin')

So yesterday I saw him in his ultrasound and super-poking lab office. He cranked open my uterus and poked it. That does NOT feel pleasant. At all. Then he wheeled over an ultrasound machine with a wand that he actually put an actual condom on. After I swallowed my humiliation and we giggled about it, he turned on the ultrasound and...started taking pictures of my inside. It took exactly 2 seconds before he said,
"Wow. Well, there you go. There's your problem."
On the screen was a big black ball. The size of a baseball. 700 cubic centimeters. (That's more than half a liter. A water bottle.)

I have a cyst on my ovary that would make a decent water balloon. It's making everything hurt just by being where it isn't supposed to be, and fucking up my hormones enough that my gut is discombobulated and my PMS is crazy.
I cried, again, in front of him. That insane laughing cry that just blasts out and you can't stop it. He hugged me. And I cried some more.

Because after 2 years of being sick, having my mental state and honesty questioned, tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary and uncomfortable and humiliating tests, being an emotional wreck and a physical noodle, it's going to be over.

He's taking it out on Tuesday. With a robot!

And then I'll be fine.

Yep.

Fine.

Update and Explanation on the Saga of the Drama with the Excitement on Gregson Street, Part II

2011-05-09T13:12:00.000-06:00

Sara is my best friend. Like my BEST best friend. She's that friend that gets me and likes me anyway and isn't afraid to tell me what to do. We used to be stay-at-home moms together but now our kids are in school all day, they go to different schools, and she went back to work (Huh. I seem to be the only one that no longer has an actual child at home all day who hasn't returned to the real world. Weird.). Thursday is her day off. So, Thursday is also my day off. Day off from what? Doesn't matter, really. What matters is that every Thursday I am lucky enough to be able to sit in my living room and have a drink and talk with my best friend. And when we talk, it's AWESOME. We could totally solve all the world's problems.

Last Thursday was Dirty Martini Thursday. (We generally pick a different cocktail every week. Recipes and suggestions gladly accepted). We were meeting at my house at high noon and the plan was that Sara would distract me with the awesome talking while I made fresh salsa. It's tedious, with all of the chopping. Right before noon, my dachshund started barking out in the yard. Not wanting to be the rude neighbor who lets their dogs just barkbarkbarkbarkbark, I stuck my head out the front door and hissed, "Wiener! Knock it offffff......" and then I choked. Because walking up the street past my house (along the cross bar of the T that I live on) were about a half dozen police officers, some in uniform, a couple in windbreakers that said SHERIFF on the back, one in a shirt and tie. All with their guns drawn. As they approached...wait for it...Creepy Gary's house, they trained their sights on his front door. Three of them ducked behind his car parked in the driveway. Two went to the porch to pound on the front door. One scampered one more house up the street and covered the front door with a big-ass rifle from behind a light pole. I decided there was something serious going down and called the dogs inside. And got Sara's ass on the phone.
"Where are you?" (I whispered so as not to tip Gary off that there were cops outside his house).
"I'm almost there! Sorry!"
"K, when you get here, park in front and then RUN to the side door. Hurry! There's cops surrounding my neighbor's house!" (I was yelling now, realizing that Gary couldn't hear me from way over here. That and the cops were knocking really loudly on his door and yelling for him to come out and it was very exciting). "Duck and cover! Hurry!"
"What the hell's going on?"
"I don't know, but it's some serious shit!"
I had no idea how serious it would get.

Sara pulled up and parked crookedly, almost like a movie-car stop. She scurried inside and she and I watched the half-dozen police officers give up trying to get someone to come out of Gary's house. They stood down, signaled to each other and then commenced closing the streets of the T. No one could get in, or out. So we poured a couple of extra dirty 'tinis and settled ourselves in my dining room so we could see out the big front windows and I could chop salsa. A while later, three enormous motorhomes and a bevy of cop cars flooded the bottom of the T. "Mobile Command Unit" said one motorhome. One was painted black. From that one, what looked like Army guys came flooding out. They positioned themselves in scary sniper-type places including the roof of a garage and behind some hedges. After about an hour, there was a small flurry of excitement, and the Army guys surrounded someone on the sidewalk. It was *dun dun dun* Creepy Gary himself. Looking scared and weak and like a crazy pedophile who has been in a stand-off with the cops should look. Wild-grizzled-hair-and-beard crazy. He's a cliche, really. They handcuff him and hustle him off toward the command center.

So we thought at that point it might be over. Wrong! Information about what was going on started trickling in from friends calling and texting. Apparently, Creepy Gary's latest boy toy was in a peck of trouble. He'd killed a young woman that morning; his girlfriend. And was now holed up in Creepy Gary's house with an unknown quantity of guns. Yep. These are the people Creepy Gary is bringing to this sweet quiet neighborhood.

Now I was getting worried. It was almost time to start thinking about children that would need to be picked up from school and there was no indication that the police were going to let Sara or I leave. Not that we wanted to, really, it was just getting interesting. So we made arrangements for our respective children, poured another drink and decided to watch more. But first we went out to the back yard for a minute. You know, for some fresh air.
I live on a corner. So my back yard is exposed to the cross-bar of the T of streets. The up-down part of the T starts at my front yard. This visual will help, trust me.
So Sara and I are in the back yard and can't really see what's going on, but we figure since my house is between us and Creepy Gary's house we're safe. As we're chatting about our current situation, I look up just in time to see a line of Army guys (turns out, they're SWAT team. I didn't know they wear camo) at my front gate. My front gate is locked with a carabiner to keep dogs in and small children out, and the lead SWAT guy can't get it open what with all the big-ass guns he's holding. So--BAM--he kicks in the gate and the whole team just files through my front yard, along the side, through the back yard and out the back gate. Would have been really sexy had I not just about peed myself. As they passed us one of them yelled at us to get inside and into the basement. Really? Yeah...No. We're not about to miss this action. But we nod and thank them for being awesome. Then we run back inside and duck down to watch through the front door and big front window.
Another hour or so goes by. There are little flurries of activity. Someone brings the SWAT guys hunkered around Gary's car a drink. Various official people go by my house, ducking behind Sara's car and using it as a shield which doesn't make Sara happy. A K-9 officer hunkers down behind of her car too. My dogs decide to bark at him, at which point I have to remind them that that dog has a JOB and they should just pipe down. My husband calls for an update and is righteously pissed that they cops kicked in our gate. Were they going to fix it? Pay for it? What the hell?
I gently reminded him that his beloved wife was trapped in the house surrounded by an alarmingly large arsenal of guns and nobody knew how much deadly weaponry was at the house across the street, potentially being tended by a wack-job who had already committed murder today.
"They just better fix our gate."
I feel cherished. Really.
(To give him credit, he called right back and apologized and said he loves me and hoped everything would be okay).

And finally, it was okay. The SWAT team brought out their door-basher-inner and some shield thingies and put on gas-masks. Oo! It's about to go down! They holler on the bullhorn for whomever is in the house to either answer the phone or come out or they're coming in. After some noises and more flurry, they're wrestling with someone on the front lawn. Five of them are dragging him away, right past my house to the command center.

He looks about 15. He's crying and looks like he's the one who peed his pants.

He's a boy. A lost sad boy who killed a girl and holed up with a crazy perv and nearly got himself shot by a sniper.

And it's over. The SWAT guys high-five each other, the cops in plain clothes pat each other on the back. Sara and I hug and laugh nervously and she leaves to get her kid. Cars being held back flood into the T. We neighbors gather in small groups and discuss.

And, to my utter indignant astonishment, Creepy Gary shuffles up the street. Free to go.

Part 3 soon. Must go do real world type stuff.

Update and Explanation on the Saga of the Drama with the Excitement on Gregson Street

2011-05-07T19:02:00.003-06:00

Whew. Okay. So.
We moved to this neighborhood when the Girl was 2. Mostly because she was getting to the age of wanting to make friends and we lived in Crack Central and I didn't really want her having playdates at the meth house. We didn't have a lot of money, but we managed to get a sweet teensy cottage bungalow in an old neighborhood on the east side not far from the city. It's a neighborhood that was mostly planted during and after WWII, and many of the houses still contain widows and widowers who have lived here since they bought their first house as newlyweds just after the Big War or their children who grew up loving this neighborhood. Neat yards, trimmed bushes, picket fences, a few odd additions. But lovely. And quiet. And no hookers walking past the house. Nor crying toddlers wandering through whose moms have passed out at noon. It's a small-yet-nice-house neighborhood full of people who love it here.

You know how there's always the ONE house? That one with crap all over the yard, needs paint and new awnings, weedy used-to-be-flowerbeds, either a rental or an inheritance? Yeah, we have one of those. His name is Gary. Bonus that he's a creepy fifty-something year old single man who has Hoarding Disorder. And likes little boys a little too much. He lives across the street from me. (Sort of. If you need a visual to enjoy this story, I live on the corner of a "T". My house is at the top of the up-down part of the T. Gary's hovel is across the street, on what would be the cross bar of the T. Clear? All righty then).
There have always been rumors about Gary. Even someone who doesn't cotton to rumors has to admit that there are just too many stories about Gary to ignore the feeling that we should all keep our kids away from his lawn. And maybe our dogs too.
Gary "rescues" young men with criminal pasts from homeless shelters and jail. He brings them to his house and gives them a place to stay (assuming they can clear a spot amid the piles of stuff in his house, that is). That's all I know for sure. I sure wouldn't want to be accused of slander by writing that we're all pretty positive that he buys them drugs in exchange for sex. Nope. But I have seen him and his creepy friends standing around the front yard and then one or more young men scurry from his house to the bus stop. But I'm sure it was all...innocent. And helpful. And Morally Upstanding. I'm sure his medal from the mayor is in the mail. Is there a sarcasm font yet?
Somehow, he has managed to get away with it. The cops know about him. He has a rap sheet, but doesn't appear on the sex offender list. We've had the U.S. Marshall on our doorstep showing us 'Wanted' posters and asking if we've "seen this man" at Gary's house. It's always a picture of a defiant young man, dark skinned, thin. But Gary is smart in that disgusting slimy way; he knows the line between legal and illegal and he skates it well. He knows the technicalities and he exploits them whenever attention is called to him. (When I confronted him Friday after the whole Saga of Drama with the Excitement, his only response was to make sure I knew that the boy in question is 23 years old. That was all). So we all live with Gary and his drug addicted boy-toys. And hate him. I feel sorry for the boys, but only to a point. They still make their own choices and choose to be there.

I'm a housewife. I'm not going to deny that there could be a chance that my inherent nosiness and writer's imagination may have...exaggerated...what I think is going on over there. I also won't deny that I've looked into how much trouble I would get into if I planted a sign on his front yard that reads: "Warning: Pedophile on Premises." The one time Gary saunter/shuffled over and tried to make friends with me over my fence, I made sure that Phoebe the Great Dane kept barking at him and let him know that she hates people (a lie; she's a marshmallow). I wouldn't let him in the yard. I've told my daughter and her friends to never, EVER talk to him or anyone at his house. EVER. I've let everyone who moves onto the streets of the T know who the Creepy Guy is. Sometimes I felt bad; was I rumor-mongering? Spreading nasty stories for shits-and-giggles because I am, after all, a bored housewife? Hmmmmmm.....

Sorry, gotta go have dinner with that wonderful man I live with. He smoked stuff all day on a grill-thingy for me. I opened a bottle of good wine. Will continue Part deux tomorrow. Or, you know, whenever.

Help an Up-on-her-luck housewife for charity? Please?

2011-03-08T13:30:00.004-07:00

I am a lucky person. If the world is, indeed, separated into the Haves and the Have-nots I am fortunate enough to consider my self squarely in the first category.

I'm married to a wonderful hard-working man who gets up unimaginably early and spends ten-plus hours every day at a stressful job that I don't completely understand. He's handsome and a great dad to boot. I have a smart, beautiful, healthy daughter who only drives me bonkers 48% of the time. I have supportive caring parents who are generous with their time and love. I have awesome friends who (mostly) aren't embarrassed to hang out with me. I live in a sturdy, albeit small, house that has heat and clean water and a pantry full of food and wine. I have dogs who are always happy to see me (until I kick their lazy bums off the couch, anyway). I have a car that takes me wherever I want to go. I'm healthy.

Yep; I've got it pretty good. I really can't complain. (Although, if you know me, you know I somehow manage to anyway. I'm working on that.)

Being a fortunate person, I feel like it's my responsibility to give back. To help others. In that spirit, I've volunteered (sort of) for a few different charitable events coming up. Unfortunately, I've somehow managed to volunteer in ways that put me in the position of having to do the one thing I hate the most: Asking for money. It makes me squirm and I'm not even really sure why. It probably has to do with the little bit of low self-esteem I've got going on; I'm always afraid people won't think I'm worthy of their hard-earned money. I also do not like being told "No" but do not have the cajones to persist. Having not had a lot of money in the past, I feel bad putting others in the position of unwillingly giving money they may not be able to spare. Even though this money is not for me and will be going to causes much greater than my little self...I dunno. I just suck at asking people for money. I'd much rather just sneak into my daughter's classroom and help the teacher a few hours a week. I'd rather go to the adult literacy center and teach people to read. I'd rather go to the Humane Society and clean kennels for animals who have known evil people and abandonment.

But that's not what I'm doing at the moment. I'm asking for money. Specifically, I'm asking YOU for money. Or stuff. If you can spare even a few (tax-deductible) bucks for a good cause, please read on:

Accidental Volunteer Position #1:

Junior Achievement. The wonderful husband works for the Evil Empire. The Evil Empire does a TON of good, honest charity work. More than most people would ever believe. The hubby put together a team to participate in the Junior Achievement Bowl-a-thon to raise money for JA Utah. The money raised will go to help kids who are not as fortunate as our daughter get a better education. If you'd like to help me out (Um, this happens tomorrow. I've raised exactly zero dollars. I was supposed to raise $200.), please click the link below:
Help Me Support JA of Utah

If you're nice, I'll post videos of me bowling. Now that is worth $20 and a laugh, right?

Accidental Volunteer Position #2:

Highland Park Elementary Arts Night Silent Auction Committee. Oy vey. I so did not mean to get on this committee. But here I am and I'm really trying to do what I'm supposed to do. But if one more business owner looks down their nose at me and lies to my face about getting back to me and smirking as I slink out the door, I'll...I'll...slink faster.
Ok, we're not looking for cash donations. What we are looking for is anything else. The committee wants lots of gift cards that parents can bid on. Honestly I don't get that, but ok. We also need art. Nice-looking art items that might bring in a few dollars. Big or small. Got anything? Please let me know. I'll even come pick it up from you! Etsy sellers, artists, hobbyist; this is your chance to showcase your wares! Businesses, we will pimp you out BIG TIME. Also, if you are feeling particularly philanthropic today, we really really need a Big Ticket Item to raffle off. Last year we had an iPod touch. Anyone have a spare new-in-box Wii sitting around? Yeah, something like that would be great. Thanks.

Whew. Ok. That's it for now. Seriously, if you are one of the lucky Haves and can spare any of your fortune, no matter how small, I will be forever grateful.

Thank you.

(But don't get too comfy. I have one more plea for donations to hit you with. But it's special and will get it's own blog. Or three. )

Sorry. Sorry. Oh, crap, I'm sorry.

2011-03-03T17:25:00.003-07:00

I'll come right out and say it: I'm a flake. A huge, monstrous, ginormous fucking flake. Chances are if you ask me to do something, need me to call you, expect me to help you with something, 74% of the time you'll be shit out of luck. No matter what I've said or how bright-eyed-bushy-tailed I was when I told you I would do/call/be there.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not bragging. I'm not proud of it. Hell, I'm not even conscious of it most of the time. I agree to do something, be somewhere, maybe even write it down. Maybe you call me or text me right before to remind me of my obligation. And I have every honest intention of following through. And then I just...don't.

Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad personality flaw, really, if I just didn't offer to do stuff in the first place. Or if I didn't care what people think of me. Or if my feeble excuses and apologies really made it all better. (Why do we tell kindergarteners that "Sorry" fixes things? It doesn't. Really. Right?) But the problem is twofold:

1) I volunteer for way too many things, whether it's being on the PTA board or offering to edit someone's manuscript or help my husband fundraise so he looks good at work. I just can't say no. It started in college, really...but that's another story.

2) I'm horribly disorganized and forgetful, and I procrastinate like I invented the concept. I also don't make much of an effort to force myself to do things that make me uncomfortable, like ask people for donations to charities.

So I guess my problem is partially unconscious and partially bad behavior. Does that make it a personality disorder?

Blog Vomit

2011-02-10T13:29:00.002-07:00

Because at some point, it aaaaallll just has to come out. Because my brain is overflowing with crap that is mucking up any creative anything that might be lurking in a dark corner of my frontal lobe.

I think I really need to get my ass in gear. Yeah. I'm sitting in my teeny house, surrounded by too many furry creatures whom I love but who also just keep making messes and wrecking my stuff. My stairwell, which I started painting 2 years ago, is in a limbo of incompletion that is starting to make me twitch. Yet I can't seem to get it done somehow. Just the thought of finding the stuff I need to finish it....ugh. Ditto starting to paint the rest of the house, which really really needs it. 6 years of dogs and people and rabbits (oh my!) means dings, scuffs, splashes, crackles, and giant splashes of red hair dye all over the bathroom door. I'm not very good at aiming the little squirty bottle at the back of my head, so the door looks like a prop for a low-budget Friday the 13th remake. But I just can't seem be be arsed to fix it.

My yard is full of junk. Junk I don't know how to get rid of. I shouldn't say yard; it's mostly confined to an out-of-sight out-of-mind covered patio behind my garage. It's there because the garage is full. The garage is full because I have that genetic predilection to not throw stuff out. Bonus: the genetic predilection of being afraid that whatever I do with it will be the wrong thing so it might as well
just...stay...right...there. Ugh.

I keep making goals. No. I keep setting goals and then not making them. Because it's just too damn easy to...not do anything different. My day is typically made up of running errands, doing something at or for the Girl's school, doing the dishes and facebook. Something has got to change. I've been saying that for...what, 5 years now? When do I really get off my proverbial and literal ass and do things?

Ugh.

People need to stop making more people. But maybe my priorities are wonky. 'Nuff said.

I need to make a copy of my car key.

My cat is deaf. It's both funny and annoying.

These extra 20 pounds just don't seem to be losing themselves.

K. I'll stop now before anyone who might accidentally read this really starts to worry. Or starts to seriously avoid me.
I'm not crazy, I'm just...distracted.

2010-11-17T13:52:00.003-07:00

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama and GameStop are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?

That we are all safe, happy and healthy together.
Yes, I know that's a very white-bread, vanilla, generically vague wish. We're lucky; we don't have any major issues right now, knock wood. But the alternatives to safety, happiness and togetherness are scary, and we need to remember to be grateful for every simple moment and (non-)thing we have.

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?

We all wake up together, go into the living room and make sure Santa has eaten his cookies and milk and read the note he has left. Then we rip and tear and thank each other. Stockings are last, and finally we have a giant greasy breakfast.

3. If you could ask Santa for one completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?

To fly away to London with my favorite fellow Anglophile girlfriends, meet up with AdieToots there and shop, relax and party British style.

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?

We go for a walk with the dogs, all of us together. It's the best when it's snowing and completely silent.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?

Monopoly, mostly. That or anything that involved throwing and catching something in the yard.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?

Santa leaves each person's gifts in a pile on their own special chair where we get to curl up and take turns opening.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?

I'd love to spend Christmas Eve night at my parents' house and let my daughter wake up to Santa's gifts there. My mom has always lamented never getting to see any of her granddaughters' faces when they first see what Santa has done. Unfortunately, actually doing this would be a logistical nightmare and my mother-in-law would never speak to me again. Hmmm....

8. Check out GameStop and tell us: What are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?

Ummmm, I'm going to go with a Wii Fit or the new Kinect system, Super Mario Bros for the DS because my daughter keeps asking and asking and asking for it, and Donkey Kong Country Returns (that is one of my all-time favorite games to play on our 12-year-old Super Nintendo. That's right; I still play on a Super Nintendo...I really need to win this contest, right? Sigh).

Merry Everything and Happy New Year!

Can I get some help here, please?

2010-07-26T14:26:00.002-06:00

So, I've been pretty quiet lately. In case you haven't noticed. Trust me when I say there are some people who were breathing a sigh of relief when the Myspace blogosphere quietly fell apart and I got writer's block. The attention whore took a break. I haven't asked for much; I haven't given much, either. And for that I'm chagrined. And it's about to change.

I'm asking you all now for help.

Usually by this time of year I've burst my little bubble of housewifedom and lit out for greener pastures with at least a few of my wonderful, raucous, caring, beautiful girlfriends. We load up on the food we won't let our kids eat, stuff our suitcases with more booze than clothes and go to Lake Tahoe. We sleep. We eat. We drink. We sit and read trashy magazines. We drink some more. We bitch and piss and moan and commiserate. Then we hit the casinos and spend money at the blackjack table and drink and laugh and drink and I dance. Well, I call it dancing. It's more accurate to call it "flailing like a decapitated turkey". We're mildly inappropriate and then we drink some more. Then we come home and immediately start planning our next getaway.
This year, through agonizingly horrifyingly unfortunate accident in one case and just general malaise and financial woes in the other case, both of my trips were canceled. I moped. I whined. I withdrew. I threw myself a huge pity party and wallowed in it.

Then I got an email from my friend Kim. Kim, whom I only know through her mostly hilarious and blush-inducing blogs back in the MySpace days. Kim who has no problem telling people exactly how she feels about them. Kim who has an adorable son and devoted husband and loyal friends. Kim who is best described by the word "spunky" (which, if you read her blogs, should make you giggle). Kim who has Multiple Sclerosis, a debilitating disease that has no cure. A disease she has mentioned but never complains about. A disease that she wakes up every morning with, says "fuck you" to, and leads the charge to destroy.
She was looking for team mates and/or donations for a fundraiser walk. Not just any fundraiser walk; a 3-day, 50-mile march of insanity. In Wisconsin, which is half a continent away from her. And from me.

She has MS and works full time, and she walked 50 miles last year. I have a cushy life as a housewife, and I drank my way down the strip at Tahoe last year.

Yeah. I think it's time for a change. So, I've taken all the cash I saved up for my Tahoe drunkfest trips and I bought a plane ticket to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I paid $125 entry fee to join her team (the LaDorkas, and a finer bunch of women you will never find). I bought new walking shoes. I've been training by dragging my overly energetic Golden Retriever all over town in 95 degree heat every day. I'm ready.

Here's the catch and where you, my patient and excellent friend and reader, come in. Ready?

I can only participate in the walk if I raise $1500 in donations. No funds, no walking. I'll fly to Wisconsin and watch while my brave friend Kim, who has MS, walks 50 miles hoping some medical genius will use the money to make it so that she can play with her son forever.

I don't want to watch her walk, no matter how cute her ass is. I want to do this walk with her. I want to do it for her. I want to do it for my friend Eric. I want to do it because horrible things happen to excellent people and maybe I can help. I want to not be selfish for a minute. I want to do it so that I can meet Janet and Kathy and Patty and Donna and the other Dorkas. I don't want to watch their sweet jiggly asses walk away without me.

So please, help a girl out, will ya? Click on the link below and donate in my name. The minimum suggested donation is $25. If every single on of the people on my friends list gives me $15 or even $10, I'm good to go and can leave you all in peace and not bother you any more. Nor will I have to resort to putting change cans on the counter at 7-11. I have 60 days left to raise this money. And I'm really pretty good at bothering people.

I can't promise much in return besides a heartfelt "Thank You". But I will mean it. And I will promise to continue trying to be a better person, a better friend, and a better writer. Which should make you feel better, right?

Thank you for your time. Now grab your credit card and click, please. Have I mentioned how fabulous you look today?

My link: Wisconsin Challenge MS Walk 2010--Vanessa Fravel

If you prefer to pay with cash or check, you can mail it to:
National MS Society - Wisconsin Chapter (include my name with your donation):
1120 James Drive, Suite A,
Hartland, WI 53029.

Or to me. If you send me an email, I'll send you my address.
Or you can give it to me in person. You know I'm going to ask, so you might as well just fork it over as soon as you see me.

Stop Protesting BP...

2010-06-25T09:34:00.004-06:00

...unless you are living a life without petroleum, petrochemicals or natural gas. Because otherwise, you're a hypocrite.

Don't get me wrong; I'm horrified by the spill in the Gulf. Saddened by pictures of guck-covered pelicans struggling to fly. Angry to read that sea turtles are being burned alive inside open-water booms. Disgusted at the stories emerging that British Petroleum side-stepped safety procedures, which may have ultimately caused the blowout. Indignant that many of BP's "cleanup efforts" were staged photo-ops.

But I am also willing to admit that I personally have some culpability in the root causes that lead to a massive oil spill.
I drive a car that runs on gas.
My house is heated by natural gas, my kitchen stove runs on it.
Right now, within reaching distance, there are at least 14 things made of plastic. That's just on my desk. Hell, the keyboard I'm typing on is plastic. (Plastic is made from petroleum. We all know that, right?)
I use lotion and cosmetics.
I dust my house with a microfiber cloth, wrap up in a microfiber blankie when I'm chilly in the evening, wear clothes made of polyester, love my flip-flops.
Click here for some more things made of petroleum. Surprised?

My point is: Oil and its refined, manipulated and packaged byproducts are ubiquitous in our modern society. We're addicted to it, and not only because we love to drive. We also firmly believe that our food is only good if it comes sealed in plastic or is deposited safely in plastic baggies before going anywhere; that tap water is inferior to that which sloshes around in a plastic vessel from a store shelf; that products we buy are only "new" if they come sealed in blister-pack plastic that one risks personal injury opening; that our cars, cell phones, computers, hairbrushes, garbage cans, children's toys, cleaning products, storage bins, shall-I-go-on must be lightweight, indestructible, ergonomically convenient and above all disposable.
Recycle plastic? Sure! But where does it go then? Who cares! I feel better just tossing it into the bin with the triangle of chasing arrows. Does anyone think to look for products made from recycled plastic? Or choose to purchase items that don't come in plastic, if that option is available? Use refillable water bottles? Take your own grocery bags to the store? Walk to the store?
For some depressing mythbusting about recycling plastic, click HERE.

So back to BP and the other oil companies. What is their responsibility in all of this mess? They are simply applying the rules of capitalism: Give the people whatever they are willing to pay for. And as the universe always manages to show us: Accidents and mishaps will happen. Nothing is ever perfect. And there is never any one entity responsible, no matter how opportunistic and dishonest the service provider might be.

Just like the current US housing crisis that was caused by companies willing to use devious and unfair lending practices because every Joe and Jane Sixpack suddenly felt it was their God-given American Right to own a big new house, whether or not they actually earned enough money to pay for it. Someone gave them a loan for it. Then the Sixpacks were astonished and angry when they couldn't make their mortgage payments and the evil bank took away their house.
Just like everyone on facebook was shocked that their personal information was being given out to any and all advertisers and other web sites, even though they entered all of it themselves. On the Internet. Where nothing, ultimately, is private because we've all demanded to know everything about everything. But not our own everything. Just everyone else's everythings.

Et cetera, ad nauseum. Personal responsibility, anyone?

Everything has a cost, monetary or intangible. What are you willing to sacrifice, really, to show Big Oil that there needs to be a change?

Until you (and I) can answer that question and behave accordingly, put down your placard, get in your plastic car that runs on gas and go home.

Motherhood of Squirrels.

2010-06-11T10:57:00.003-06:00

So, I'm a mom. Of one. Yes, on purpose (well, the One part, anyway). I love my daughter, I love being a mother, but I gotta tell ya: It hasn't been easy. I was terrified to become a mom, scared shitless that if I was left in charge of a small human being I'd probably wreck it, like I did my first car, or lose it like so many cell phones and keys. It's a learn-as-you go task, this Motherhood thing, and that in itself took me a while to figure out. But we soldier on. Just in case, along with her college fund, I've squirreled away a "therapy fund" for her as well. Because everything, as we all well know, will be my fault. Right?

Along with mothering my human child, I've raised several dogs, evil cats, rabbits, fish and hermit crabs. I've rescued wild birds.

And now I have squirrels. (Yay!)

After watching several of the Fingered Rodentates visit our oak trees every fall, I decided I wanted one of my very own. So I got a feeder and had The Husband attach it with large screws to our big messy pine tree in the back yard, filled it with peanuts and sat back to watch. It didn't take long for a bushy-tailed visitor to figure out this was a gold mine and take up residence in the tree. She was quick, cute and oh, so very bossy. Being territorial, she would promptly yell at any other squirrel who tried to belly up to the buffet. The dogs, cats and people in our yard are berated regularly for existing. Sometimes she will deign to grace us with her presence, resting comfortably on top of the feeder box, stretched out, little prehensile feet hanging off the corners. And every time she's there, you're guaranteed to see me standing entranced, quivering and giggling and wanting to love it and hug it and squeeze it and call it George. (But we named her Peach, instead). We watched as she, being compulsively squirrelish, stashed everything she could find in various caches around the yard. When I, in a rare show of industry, tried to rake up the leaves and pine needles last Autumn, she promptly ran to the branch above my head and held out her little paw, chittering anxiously as I turned over stashed acorns, peanuts and sunflower seeds. If I could have super slow-mo'd the audio I'm pretty sure it was an action-movie "NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!!!!!!" I apologized, stopped raking and poured a drink. Yard work is overrated anyway, right?

This Spring, Ms. Peach showed up at the feeder with teeny faucets on her belly. Been whorin' around, had Peach. Oh, Rapture! To think there might be baby squirrels! Teensy nekkid blind baby squirrels nesting somewhere above my head! Oh!

Having watched more than my fair share of Nature episodes, I know how perilous it is to be a baby in the wild. Watching her, that knowledge was confirmed. Peach has been an exemplary example of the Trials of Motherhood. I am a mother. Everything Peach has been through, I have shared in empathy.

Nursing babies is no picnic. Peach would regularly sit on the feeder, belly exposed, as if too cool off the radioactive nipples. Then she would frantically cram as much food as she could down her pie-hole. Been there, done that.
Kids eat. Kids eat a piggin' lot. She was in perpetual motion, gathering treats I left on the feeder, digging up her remaining autumnal stashes, back and forth, up and down, tightrope running across the power lines precariously with her mouth full. I would sigh and wave to her as I walked to my car, again, to go to Costco or Smith's or Big Lots or Shopko or Harmon's. Again.
Late one night last week as I sat watching something brainless on the boob-tube refusing to go to bed because going to bed means I have to wake up to another chore/errand/mess-filled day, I was alerted to Peach's signature chitter. But not her usual "Get-outta-my-sight" ranting, but a more distressed lament. Arming myself with a flashlight, I went to the back yard to see if I could find out what she was upset about, stepping gingerly in case my worst fear of fallen babies had come true. My search was fruitless, I have no idea what she was so upset about and my presence only seemed to fuel her fire. So I went back in, had another glass of wine to calm down, and listened to her yell for another hour. I can only imagine that one of her precious brood had possibly woken her in the middle of a good dream, had wet the bed, had a nightmare, needed a drink of water, wanted to write their Santa list, something. Motherhood, by definition, means very little sleep.

I've watched her for the past month run frazzled up and down that tree. No sign of the babies, the venerable pine kept them hidden. Until today.

The Girl had a sleepover at my parents' last night, and I almost slept in. But my Mom alarm went off at 7:30, so I was up. Feeling rebellious at not having to make anyone breakfast, I went out to read the paper at the patio table. And saw a squirrel at the feeder. A teeny one. He was unsure, clumsy, and hyperactive. Biting everything to see what was food and what was not. I froze, thinking I should grab the camera, knowing that if I did he'd probably disappear. He was soon joined by a teeny sibling, also clumsy and determined. Then a third. Three babies! Aw. They're striking out on their own now, nibbling sunflower seeds and trying to figure out how to open a peanut. One very brashly tried to carry the strawberry top I'd put out up to another branch. He made it, but only barely. He sat proudly, stuffing his gob and pushing away his little sister.
And the whole time, Peach was a wreck. She ran to the edges of her turf, chittering and swinging and yelling, looking like she would remove the face from anyone who got too close, looking like she really really needed a drink, chiding her babies when they explored too far. Finally, she got them back to the nest for a nap and sat on the feeder, gratefully nibbling the apple core I provided.

The Girl finished second grade this week. Now there's talk of her walking to school with friends, sans parents, next year. She wants a phone. She wants to go to overnight camp this summer. I think there's a boy she likes at school and another one down the block.

Sigh.

*lifting my martini* Here's to Motherhood, Peach.

Button it!

2010-06-02T12:46:00.002-06:00

We've all had it happen to us, right? We go about our day, interacting with people, maybe even engaging in some kind of large public event at which we may or may not be a focal person, only later to discover to our horror that we've been parading around with some small yet infinitely embarrassing physical gaff. Your fly is unzipped. There's a prominent booger boogying out of a nostril. The front of your hair is doing some sort of levitating trick (this applies mostly to me and my fellow cowlick-infected BFF). Something like that. Something that, once you've stepped in front of the mirror, makes you feel like never going in public again.
Good Lord, how many people noticed THAT?Was that there when I was talking with______________?(fill in the blank with appropriately important personage whom you really, really thought you'd impressed today).

Yeah. Yesterday was my turn.

I wore a very cute shirt-dress with leggings. Very outside my normal lazy-housewife-uniform of a t-shirt and possibly clean capri jeans with flip-flops, but I was feeling sassy. And I'd had to work that morning at my ever-so-demanding one hour per week job as a story-lady at an largish bookstore. They frown on my wearing something that might or might not have been purchased at Costco, so I dressed up a little.

Feeling ever so stylish and kicky, I left the outfit on even after having returned home from the exhausting hour of reading books to small people and making them color. I had a few hours before picking up The Girl from school, so I put on the good old iPod (which is never not on my body) and may or may not have attempted to clean something. Or fold things. I dunno, housework is all one big blur to me.
Anywho, for the safety of My Precious, I dropped it down the front of my shirt and threaded it through an opening between the buttons of my shirt-dress so it could rest comfortably in my pocket with the cord tucked away while I did those housewifey-type things. (Too many times has My Precious been ripped from my ears and person by the crafty cord-grabbings of drawer corners and vacuum handles. It's a dangerous game for the iPod, this cleaning gig).

When it was time to get The Girl, I jumped in my car, unthreaded the cord from my garments and went on my merry way. The earbud jack kind of caught on one of my buttons, but I was late as usual, so I yanked and drove on. I then talked to three of my daughter's classmates. Chatted with her teacher. Discussed the camping trip with my friend Lisa. Took The Girl to flute lesson and sat on the teacher's sofa brimming with pride at my budding musical prodigy. Went to see the flute teacher's new parrot, which was downstairs with the teacher's husband and three kids. Stopped at the pet store on the way home. BS'ed with the neighbor about the power outage. Went in to powder my nose and upon washing my hands glanced in the mirror to see:

My bra. And my belly button.

And came to the sinking realization that they had been having their world premiere for about the last 3 hours.

My first reaction: humiliation. Might as well go ahead with the big L tattoo on the forehead that I've been contemplating for the last few years. No wonder the pet store guy wouldn't make eye contact. I just thought he was one of those weird lizard people who disdain us bunny-food-buying folk. No, no: he was trying not to look at the blue lace and the mole I should have checked.

Sigh.

Then: indignation. What the Fuck?! Why didn't anyone SAY ANYTHING? A discreet "Hey, V, you're giving the kids a show" from someone in the hall at school? "Um, your button has come undone" from the flute teacher? Something? ANYFUCKINGTHING? No! These people let me wander around all day looking like either I'd lost the plot, or that I'd finally gone completely round the cougar bend to one of those desperate-to-still-be-sexy middle aged women who resort to getting their jollies by exposing their aging saggy boobs to any hapless passersby. (Ohhhh...is that what people think? Then that makes sense). See? THIS is why I live in t-shirts. Long enough to cover my zipper, no less.

Then I thought about the girl I'd seen in the largish bookstore earlier that day. She was with her big hunky boyfriend, buying coffee. She had pretty hair. Straight and layered and styled...except for the frizzy fuck-bump on the back of her head that she'd neglected to smooth after their afternoon delight. I could have said something to her, right? Whispered in her ear, smoothed it myself while pretending to bump into her, something. Save her from the whole of humanity knowing that she had gotten freaky with her man just moments ago.

Or the fellow housewife in Costco's parking lot last week who had the foot-long plastic size sticker still attached to her pants. Could have walked over and discreetly yanked it for her. I've been on the other side of that exact scenario and am endlessly thankful to the kind stranger who saved me. But I had not the courage to be her hero.

Why not? Why is it so hard sometimes for us to help someone save themselves from looking like more of a moron? Well, we're afraid we'll embarrass them, right? Even if we know that embarrassing them for a moment has got to be better than letting them be an embarrassment to their children and/or friends or possibly breaking some decency laws, it's just too awkward to intervene sometimes.

Well, not anymore, not for me. From now on I will point out every booger. I will XYZ every old man. I will yank tags and desticker cargo pants. I will smooth flyaway tresses (yes, my dear Sara, I mean you too). I will giggle at toupees. Can't help it.

But mostly, I will always, ALWAYS double check my buttons. Always.

2010-03-19T10:57:00.002-06:00

So, I'm going to write today! Yep...yes I am...Um...okay! Here we go! This'll just be a warm up for all of the brilliant literary crap that's about to spew from my noggin and light up the printed page! Here goes!

Floors downstairs are finally going in today. Fin.a.lly. It's been a week long ordeal (although at this point it feels much, much longer) of sleeping in the living room and all the shoes in the dining room and hoping the hermit crab is okay because no one can get to his tank right now. It was supposed to be done on Monday, before the husband left for NYC. But instead, I'm here by myself with the Girl, the dogs, some rabbits with a serious case of cage-fever and let's not forget we're all stuffed into 700 square feet of usable space right now. Well, minus the living room because it's got beds on the floor. So, roughly 550 square feet. And every one of those square feet is now---

Breaking News: Oh, my Effing Gawd.

The owner of the flooring place doing our install just called me with more GREAT news (.) The bamboo flooring we bought, which we thought we were getting a good deal on because we bought for a discount from Costco, is crap. First it wasn't acclimating and that's why we've had to wait 5 extra days for it to be installed. Now it's sort-of mostly acclimated and as the floor guy is laying it he finds it's bowed, warped and milled crookedly. So he might not be able to install it. Can I cry now? Would now be a good time or should I wait until he leaves again?

So now I get to call Costco and demand my money back, which I am not good at doing. I'm a retail wussy. And I get to call the Husband in NYC, interrupt his Very Important Meetings with industry bigwigs and tell him we now get to pay DOUBLE what we thought we were.

Thank the Gods that my Sara is coming to rescue me tonight and take me out for a very needed dirty martini at the Bayou.

Bookstore etiquette 101

2010-03-14T20:22:00.002-06:00

Ahem.

If you find yourself in a largish national chain-type bookstore, please observe the following suggestions in order to keep your booksellers from wanting to hurt you.

~Feel free to take a book off the shelf to browse/peruse/consider purchasing. If you do not wish to buy said tome and are not 100% certain where you pulled it from, please don't just stuff it somewhere hoping we won't notice. We'll notice. We'll be pissy. Please be a grownup and hand the book to a bookseller nicely. We'll reshelve it.

~Speaking of being a grownup, please don't turn your children loose in the kids' department. The train table only distracts them for so long and then they just start grabbing shit and screaming. I get paid to play with books, not your kids.

~On a related note: if you can't find anything free to do on a Sunday and can't grow a sack big enough to tell your kids to turn off the t.v. and go play, please do not come camp out with them in the bookstore children's department. All effing day. Yes, I do see you napping in the corner and/or reading an entire book for free while your brilliant offspring chuck every Spongebob Easy Reader from the spinner onto the floor and wipe snot on the stuffed Despereaux.

~And, while we are happy to see you browse and read a book, it is really bad form to sit for three hours and read the whole thing and then hide it on a shelf no where near the area you pulled it from. Or spill coffee on it. And dogear it. Yes, we do see you. Also, we are not a battery-charging center.

~Please do not get snotty with your bookseller. Yes, some of the booksellers seem snotty but that's only because being someone who loves books goes hand in hand with being slightly socially awkward. But if you come in looking for a book that you think you heard about on NPR maybe and you don't know the author's name but you think the title starts with the word "The" and the cover might be red and gold or maybe green and pink and we don't know what your talking about, leaving in a huff will get you branded as a snotty moron.

This public service announcement brought to you by your local cheerful bookseller. Me.

Wait. What time of year is it?

2009-12-14T08:59:00.002-07:00

We have the tree. We have the lights. I have the pile of well-chosen and very exciting gifts from the Big Guy stuffed into a corner of the garage and nonchalantly covered with an old sheet so it looks like just another pile o' crap in my crap-piled garage. I'm behind on the wrapping, can't remember what I've bought for whom (there's a very organized list around here somewhere, but I can't seem to get arsed enough to find it and make the little check-marks), I've bought but not sent the cards, I can't for the life of me come up with a gift for my dad that doesn't involve food.
Yep. Must be Christmas.
But, honestly, I'm just not feelin' it this year.

Maybe it's the music. Instead of flooding my auditory canal with the Nutcracker or Manheim Steamroller or even the Chipmunks Christmas, I've been obsessed with Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. I know. It's like a train wreck, that video; I can't look away. My fingers automatically click-click-click the click wheel on the iPod (aka the iCan't Be Without It) to the 'rah-rah-rum-mah-mah' and just. Can't. Stop. Between that and the Susan Boyle on endless loop at work, I'm just not dreaming of a white Christmas or walking in a winter wonderland.

Maybe it's work. Mine and The Hubby's. I got 'promoted' *polishes nails on shirt* from the one-hour-a-week story lady to a full-blown (albeit part-time) Bookseller at the B&N. Impressive, no? I like it; finding obscure books in the theatre/drama section for frantic students taking Drama 2, figuring out what book the customer needs when all they can tell me is "Um, it's like, square? And has, like, quotes in it?" And let's not forget the joy of watching the Sugarhouse Crazies wander through. Smudged-Glasses-Guy really put in some time lately. Both our Sweet Trannies got new wigs. Meth Gal buzzed around the store all day yesterday and only one guy passed out in the bathroom. Love the Sugar House neighborhood.
The Hubby, who works for the Evil Empire of banking, is still putting in 11 hour days and hitting the gym every night. So, when he's home, I'm usually at work or soaking my tired tootsies and when he's at work or the gym I'm...on facebook. When we're both in the same room at the same time we're too tired to do anything. And so is the Girl who wakes up at 5 a.m. We haven't done any Family Quality Time Holiday Things.

Maybe it's the chaos of my house. It's reached new heights, really. Besides having brought in all 3 rabbits so they wouldn't become bunnicicles, we got a puppy! A BIG puppy! So, crowd 3 cages in the dining room and three dog beds in the den and a Christmas tree and lots and lots and lots of puppy toys and viola! It's a wreck! Not to mention the fact that I still haven't gotten the floors done downstairs. So there are currently about 15 or so boxes of bamboo flooring taking up considerable room in the 'utility room' in the basement. And crap piled around them. And spreading.

Christmas parties? Yeah. Don't get me started.

Hm.

Ok.

Time for Operation Ho-Ho-Ho-Dammit!

I will use the handy-dandy "family share" feature on the iTunes and steal some of the Hubby's vast collection of Christmas music. I will play it. I will like it.

We will, as a happy-frickin'-fambly, go ice skating, see some uber-carbon-footprint lights display somewhere, I will buy Nutcracker tickets.

I will wrap the myriad of probably-not-quite-what-they-want gifts and put them under the tree. I will devise a method of keeping the puppy out from under the tree. I will sit and write addresses on envelopes and put cards in them. I will put them in a pile and forget to mail them.

I will sit on the sofa snuggling with my daughter and a cup of homemade peppermint hot chocolate and just...listen.

Complicated Santa

2009-12-03T15:38:00.003-07:00

It has begun. For the last 7 Christmases I've had it fairly easy (at least nothing in my pickled little brain jumps out as being hard to find on the Girl's list for Santa). A book, a puzzle, a rabbit or three, some of those foot-nabbing Littlest Pet Shop critters. Nothing I couldn't just stroll into any largish toy retailer and get it all in one fell swoop. I'd stop at the quaintly cool locally owned toy shop and get some brain-using thingie and call it good. Santa would then dust off her hands and pour a nice stiff peppermintini.

This year, I'm drinking the peppermintini in an attempt to calm the frustration and desire to choke the living you-know-what out of whoever decided that 7 was a great year to get them started on electronics. I know, I know. What's the big deal? Hey, here's the big deal:
I'm a moron who thought it would be cool to get her the green Nintendo DS instead of the pink DS because I found a green one at best buy.com for cheaper and it came with a really cool cooking personal trainer for me. I figured I'd just buy her little bimbo-in-training and a few college-bound-child games and call it good. Made sure she was okay with green instead of the boring pink that all of her friends have and wouldn't it be GREAT not to worry about getting yours confused with anyone else's because it's GREEN? Santa wanted to know, of course.
Notwithstanding the fact that I gained cool points for having talked to the big man himself, I was pretty proud of the Girl for being willing to break out of the pink mold. I'm tired of pink.
So I smugly snuck back to the computer and ordered the green one. Clicked 'checkout'. Was informed that it was no longer available. NO LONGER AVAILABLE? Then why in the great blue beyond is it still on your everloving website!?!?! And hey, guess what? You can't actually buy a green Nintendo DS lite anywhere in the US of A. It was a Mother's Day special. Ha ha all over me.

Ebay? Ebay! Of course! Oo, look, there are three of them!

Hang on, I'm the highest bidder right now, my ebay bid only has 30 more seconds. I'll be right back.

Crap.

I'm gonna need more Schnapps.

Trauma on 7

2009-11-19T17:34:00.002-07:00

It was a normal day. The Girl went to school, I wrote something and was so tired I gave in and took a nap, then dusted the living room while gabbing to my friend Susan for an hour about swine flu vaccinations, husbands' work, the stupid little bimbo-in-training trying to start an exclusive clique in the second grade at our daughters' school. I contemplated an afternoon gin and tonic but decided that would be a good start down a slippery slope. Normal stuff. I picked up our G's (they have the same name and oddly similar personalities, as do Susan and I. Love her. Wish she would drink with me) from school and headed with my G to meet a potential new flute teacher.
I had to stop for gas. The tank meter stood at a half, and that just isn't good enough for the Girl. She insists the tank be full at all times. One thing about my daughter: she's observant. Another thing about her: she's paranoid. She goes 'worst case scenario' in her head for any given situation. So, we stopped at a station/convenience store. I got the gas started, asked her if she wanted to come into the store with me to get a drink. I gathered my wallet and keys, noticed that a sheriff had pulled into the pumps behind us, was grateful it wasn't Friday night. (Me and my girls, New Moon private screening, yeah baby).
Heard the pump auto-feed kick off as we were about to head into the store, and decided to just get that wrapped up before leaving the car. G has never actually seen the process of gassing up a vehicle. She's always inside the car. When she was a baby, I was so paranoid about the whole "this thing could blow at any time' 6 o'clock news feature, I wouldn't get gas if I had her with me. I, despite what snopes.com says, won't use my cell phone at a pump and make sure I shock myself on the car frame before touching the gas pump. I'm careful, I think.
"How do you get that out?" asks the Girl, grasping the pump handle and peering at the hole in the car where the gas goes. She is almost exactly the same height as it is. I put my hand over hers and we pull it out of the car, just like I have done a thousand times. A thousand times I've pulled that fucking thing out, turned around and seated it in its little holster, pushed the three buttons it takes to get my receipt, and gone on my merry way.

So imagine my shock and awe when about a half-gallon of gasoline spurts out of the tank and nozzle. And hits my baby square, soaking her face, hair, shirt, and ohmygod, her eyes.

Thanks to Karma or God or Luck or Whatever, the Sheriff was still there. And now he was chatting with a guy in a SLFD sweatshirt. I yelled for help, and the sweatshirt guy turned out to be an off-duty firefighter/EMT. He very calmly took G in his arms and propelled her toward the station's water hose on the building. She's screaming, I'm freaking inside but trying to stay calm to not further traumatize my daughter, and he got her to lie down on the sidewalk and hosed her off. It's about 50 degrees today, and after a minute or two, she just couldn't take the cold water on her head and face anymore. The sheriff wrapped her in a blanket he had in his patrol car, and I tried to flap away the useless cashier who wanted me to sign a waiver. We huddled on the sidewalk, soaked and crying while the wonderful EMT made sure her eyes were okay before he sent us home with orders for a shower and to call the ER if her eyes started to burn. But, he said, she looked fine.
I think I asked him his name. I think it was Jim. Jim rocks.

So, a shower (her) and a gin and tonic (me) later, we're okay. She's downstairs playing with her other best friend, a little upset that she'll have to have another shower later and have her hair washed with lemon juice to get the rest of the smell out. Shampoo just didn't cut it. I told her it would make her more blonde, and she seemed a bit more receptive. She absolutely and unequivocally will NOT ever put gas in the car again, and doesn't want me to do it either. This little trauma on pump 7 didn't help her inborn sense of paranoia, at all.

I was really tired this morning. Now, not so much. It could have been so much worse; it was just gas on her, after all.
I don't want to think about the 'worse'.
I don't want to think about all the moms who have witnessed and lived through the 'worse'.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to let her sleep with us tonight, and I will be tired at work tomorrow and it will be okay.
Because she's okay. And this was pretty bad, but not too bad. And it could have been worse.

Not my usual post, I know...

2009-11-13T11:57:00.003-07:00

...but they're giving away a kickass bike. I need a kickass bike. I need something in my life that kicks ass. (My apologies to the TodaysMama person who had to read the word 'ass' there three times. Welcome to my blog.)

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme (And hey; what the eff is a 'meme'? Is that a pseudo-intellectual word for 'list of questions and answers?')
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleigh full (Sorry, TodaysMama, I can't let the word 'sleighful' onto my blog. It's not a word and I didn't make it up) of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme (whatever the eff that is) with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
~Case of Hendrick's gin and a cucumber plant.
~An account at the local plastic surgeon's. I'm getting on in years. Things have begun the sag.
~Cabana boy. With a cabana.
~Whirled peas.
~My daughter being thrilled with all her gifts, which I have already begun to stress over.

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
A scratchy afghan someone's great grandma crocheted for my wedding. I keep it on the dirty, smelly, squashy old chair under the patio by the garage. It's a good cat blanket. Keeps me warm when I sneak out for a smoke.

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
If by 'tackle' you mean throw to the ground and stomp on? I'm going to say all of them.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
Atari, dude. 1983 or so. Original Atari. I wasted SO many brain cells on Asteroid. That, or the time my brother spent the day puking on Christmas. That was pretty nice of Santa too.

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?

~Nintendo DS (She hates video games, but can't stand the fact that her best friend has one and she doesn't.)
~Moxie girl. (The new brainless, anorexic, hair-styling whore on the street. Look out Barbie; she comes with markers).
~Littlest Pet shop cow, porky pine (sic because Awww, how cute she spells!) and bunny. (Because you can NEVER have too many small plastic animals whose heads bob and can break an adult's foot arch when stepped on).
~a Toy Chinchilla (not a real one because her evil mother has said that three rabbits is plenty of caged rodents in one house, thank you)
~Something called a "paper roonys"? I have no frigging idea. Suggestions are welcome.

6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Candy canes. In my peppermintinis, spiked hot chocolate, and just to suck on to cover the booze on my breath so I can survive the holidays with my mother-in-law.

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
I very lovingly and carefully pour, shake and garnish some kickass peppermintinis. I put my heart and soul into every one. They'll put a twinkle in Santa's eye. Yes sir.

8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
Christmas Story, duh. That or the old "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with the horrible stop-action animation and cheesy hippie-free-lovin' song they snuck into the middle.

9. Favorite holiday song?
"The 12 Things At Christmas That Are a Pain to Me".
Okay, and even though it pains me to admit it in public, I mist up every time I hear "Do They Know It's Christmas?". Young Bono, George Michael and all those other yummy British 80's Pop icons on one song. Sigh. It's inspirational.

10. Favorite holiday pastime?
Did you read the bit about the peppermintinis?

Man, I am SO going to win this contest! Kickass bike, come to Momma!

Stuff I noticed today

2009-11-04T17:15:00.002-07:00

~If you own a hair studio and you're going to hire someone to stand on the corner and wave a sign at passing cars, it might be prudent to not hire a homeless dude with dredlocks and a ZZtop beard.

~ If you are a grown-ass adult and the samples at Costco get you so excited that you find yourself crammed into the corner between two seafood cases ramming a ravioli down your throat and grunting, or so enraptured by the fudge bar samples that you wander into oncoming cart traffic, it might be time to reevaluate where you are in life.

~ People call them "Weird Cat Lady" for a reason. Buying four tubs of litter and a case of K-Y, holding up the line by showing people pictures of your pwecious beeboo keekees and not making eye contact is not helping the image.

~I'm becoming more and more convinced there is a secret Grocery Store Baggers society that has a multi-level plan to circumvent the attempts of well-meaning shoppers who bring reusable bags. That or they are ALL fucking morons.

~If you work in a consignment store, you have no room to be snotty. You sell used shit. You give people money for their old shoes and then sell them for two dollars. Don't talk to me like that. Snot.

~There's a chance I'm in sort of a bad mood and don't like people today.

Thank the Gods for Girls Night Out.

2009-10-29T09:34:00.005-06:00

We've all heard the story: Stay-at-home-mom dutifully makes sure her flock gets their flu shots, even if she has to elbow old ladies out of line to get the last dose for her child. In the chaos her busy daily existence, she forgets to get her own flu shot. (Her dr.'s office is too far away and is out of vaccine, the grocery store clinic is also out, the other grocery store only offers shot clinics at the same time as the Girl's soccer game, the wondrousness of Costco overwhelms her and she forgets to get one when she's there...etc.) So, she gets flu. She fights it, she does not succumb, she faithfully and dutifully arises early in the morning, sees her beloveds off to work and school with fresh homemade lunches, does all her regular chores to keep the household running smoothly, has a hot homemade dinner ready when the family returns in the evening. (And if she's a working mom, let's just add 'goes to work' on top of all that, mmmkay?) She then collapses into bed at the end of the evening, melting into a sore sniffling puddle of goo. But she makes sure to set the alarm and feed the cat first.

Yeah.

That's SO not happening here this week.

I did forget to get my flu shot, again, this year. That part is true. The rest of it, for me anyway, is a cruel joke that society has decided to play on us Domestic Goddesses. It has told us that the very fabric of our family's existence will fray and decay if we take a day off. That chaos will reign if the laundry doesn't remain on schedule. That husbands will implode if asked to make dinner and help with homework. That children will be irreparably scarred if they see their mum prone on the sofa with a cup of tea in smelly frayed sweats for three days. Nay; we must soldier on, there are things more important than our minor discomforts.

Well, I'm calling bullshit on that. Okay, maybe it's just me; maybe I'm a huge whiny baby when I get sick, I won't deny that. But I'm putting out the call to all moms who didn't get their shots or who end up with the creeping gamboo that their kids bring home from the germ-factories we call "school":

Be sick. Lay on the couch all day. Ask for help. Eat crappy comfort food and drink hot chocolate and watch reruns of the Office online. Read a no-brainer novel; maybe something from James Patterson or Nora Roberts. Don't shower, wear your most comfy sweats, don't put on makeup or do your hair. Order Chinese delivered. Watch your husband bond with your kids as he tries not to go crazy helping them learn fractions and write a book report about a book about fairies and/or magical ponies.

If the world cannot deal without us, the world will have to hold on and just fucking wait.

I'm going to go get a cupcake and lie down now.

Oh, Pluck.

2009-10-21T16:44:00.002-06:00

Editor's note: This is a fairly long and somewhat boring account of my recent adventures. Please be aware before reading that I am a housewife and nothing exciting ever happens, so this was a Big Damn Deal for me. I'm sorry. I wrote this mostly for me.

So I have cats. I used to like cats, but over the last few years just...don't anymore. My cats are indoor/outdoor versions, and I was really grateful for them when we first moved to this house, because the garden and shed and garages were infested with mice. There was also a lovely family of rats inhabiting our neighbor's dilapidated shed and the "compost heap" she kept in her back yard. The cats very nicely and very quickly disposed of the diseased chew-partiers, lining them up in rows on the back porch. Ew. So that was good. No more rodentates.
But now the cats are bored. And well fed. So what do they turn to for entertainment? Birds, of course. We've always fed birds and love watching them at the feeders. We get swarms of finches and sparrows, and this summer had a visit from a beautiful yellow warbler and some juncoes. I likes the birdies. So do the cats. But they don't just kill them, of course. No; they go Guantanamo on their asses. I hate it. Several times I've had to put a bird out of its misery with a blow from a shovel, and I feel so awful every time. But I can't stand to see a creature in pain. We bury them under the pine tree and say nice things.
Last week while out in the yard, I heard the unmistakable angry chirp/squawk of a bird being tortured and found one of the cats with a mouthful of feathers. The bird appeared near the end, so I left the scene hoping the cat would do the honorable thing soon. An hour later, I heard the squawk again and looked out to see the wiener dog had joined the game and that the little bird, a House Finch, was not only still alive but was trying to fight. The feathers of one wing were upright, bent,all her tail feathers had been pulled out and there was a nasty puncture wound under her eye, but this little bird was still hanging in there. So I stepped in. I know you're never supposed to handle wildlife, but I couldn't stand it anymore. I scooped her up and took her inside and put her in a basket with a cup of water and a towel, hoping she would just pass in peace and quiet. I kicked the cat and admonished the dog and went back to my writing, keeping an ear out for the finch.
An hour later, I heard a rustling and found her sitting on the edge of the basket, alert but a little wobbly. She was still pretty willing to let me handle her, so I snapped this:

and called my husband to tell him to get a cage on his way home.
I spent the next two days frantically trying to figure out what to do. Googling "wild bird rehab" only sent me to bird chat forums, and I was desperate enough to register on one and post a "Help Please!" message. I got some good advice, but nothing on where I could take this bird. My vet friend doesn't do birds and had no idea. So. I figured as long as the bird was healthy, eating, drinking, pooping and hopping around I'd just keep her until she molted and grew her tail feathers back. She spent the days hunkered in my ficus tree:

And in her cage.

She seemed healthy, alert, and smart enough to hop from the ficus into the cage when I held it up in front of her. She no longer wanted to be handled, and I had to respect that even when the Girl got upset that she never got to hold her.
I started to admire this little being. For her courage, her personality and her naked bum, I named her "Pluck".

Then it was Saturday.

I woke up to find her puffed up and panting. I know from the little experience I had working as a pet store clerk in college that this is a bad bad sign. She was still drinking water, but not eating or pooping. Bad bad. Frantic, I made more phone calls. My vet friend could only suggest humane euthanasia, which I was not ready to do. Out of sheer desperation (Google was really disappointing in this area), I looked up the Great Salt Lake Audubon Society and called them, leaving a message. As a last resort, I called Backyard Birds, a little kitzchy shop that sells bird feeders and windchimes not far from my house. I told them the situation and they finally gave me a person to call.
This person was very knowledgeable and helpful, but not encouraging. See, not only do cats like to pretend to be furry little Dick Cheneys, they also harbor a gram negative bacteria in their saliva that is highly toxic to birds. She told me to keep her warm, make her comfortable and bury her in the morning. We cried, I resisted kicking the cat again and went to bed that night disappointed and sad.

Sunday morning. I postponed going into the living room where her cage was for an hour. I needed coffee and snuggling with The Girl before I could face the still little body that had harbored such a fierce big spirit. But I took a breath and went in.

She was fine. She'd beaten it. I took her cage out into the warm autumn sun and let her sit where she could see and hear her flock eating at the backyard feeder. I emailed the bird expert lady to ask her what to do now, with this now healthy and not dead bird. I think I smiled a lot.

Monday morning the Audubon guy finally called me, leaving me the number for a wildlife rehab center about an hour from my house, in Ogden. I called them and they informed me that it's illegal for me to keep her, that I should bring her to them for rehabilitation. "But she's just a little finch," I said, "do you really rehab finches?" They promised me they did.
So between that and losing her for a while when she went exploring out of the ficus and ended up behind the bookcase (she couldn't fly, remember), having escaped the now inside cats, I decided I probably wasn't the best person to be in charge of her if she was going to make it to be released. I didn't know what I was doing, and was afraid I would kill her with a stew of kindness and incompetence. And I really wanted her to be able to return to a normal finch life, not live in a cage with cats yowling below it and flutes being played in the next room and little girls screaming during a sleepover. She needed professional help.

So today, with a sad but hopeful heart, I took her to the rehab center and handed her over to people who work tirelessly and on no money to rehabilitate and release native birds back into the wild. They were positive about her prognosis, were pretty sure she injured at least one bone in her wing, but since she was flapping and getting around thought she'll heal. She now gets to spend the winter with four other rescued finches in rehab, with the goal that they'll all be better and be released in the spring.

Yes, I drove an hour and donated $20 to the WRC for a teeny little finch, of which there are hundreds in my neighborhood alone. It's just a little bird, why would I go to all this trouble?

Why? Because she was Pluck. My little Pluck. She put my pathetic life, the one I've been internally whining about, right the fuck in perspective. And I'll miss her.

This Bothers Me.

2009-10-14T09:35:00.003-06:00

A lot. It has for a long time. And I need help understanding it. Please.

I generally, in my blogs, try to stay away from controversial things and from things about which people might have an opinion (not that it stops some people from giving me theirs anyway), but I think it's time I got some input on this. Mostly because I look around at society in terms of this issue and ask WTF? But also because I have a daughter who is beginning to process input more personally and who is being exposed to more and more pop culture happenings every day, despite my best attempts at keeping her sheltered to a ridiculous degree, and I want to know why my opinion on this subject might come across as retarded.

So here's the thing:

Why is it that violence is okay and sex is not?

Let me explain. In college, I worked in a video store. One evening, a woman approached the counter with three or four movies and asked me about them. Specifically, she wanted to know why they were rated "R". I told her they had adult content in them (Duh). As I remember it, they were all movies along the lines of "Die Hard" and some sort of killer-robot sci-fi things.
"Yeah," she says, "but is it sex stuff, or is it just violence? I don't want my boys to see sex stuff."
Just violence? So, she's telling me she's all right with her "boys" (who were running around the store yelling and hitting each other with various items and knocking over displays) seeing the hero punch someone in the neck or rip their still-beating heart out , but it's not okay if the hero goes ahead and plants one on his damsel-in-distress? Is an over-the-blouse boob-squeeze really going to warp their little minds more than seeing people get shot, impaled, blown up, decapitated, etc?

When talking to several people about the Twilight books, a woman I don't know very well mentioned that she enjoyed the first three books, but didn't like the fourth one "because of all the sex. I liked that they didn't have any sex in the other ones, but the fourth one was just too raunchy and explicit." UmmmmKay. But Edward ripping out James' throat and dismembering him in the first one was just peachy.

Yesterday I took The Girl to the dentist. Yay! An hour in which I'm forced to sit on a comfy sofa in the waiting room and read. The dentist wanders in and asks what I'm reading.
"Hunger Games," I tell him, trying not to be rude, but obviously returning my attention back to the book. (Great book, btw. I cheered, I cried, I flipped it over and started again right after reading "the end".)
"Oh," he says, "that's a great book. I just listened to the audio version." I nod politely and turn the page. "I really like that there was no sex in it." Freeze mid-turn.
What there is in Hunger Games is a group of starving teenagers forced to play a gladiator/Survivor type game in which the last person alive wins. The heroine and main character shoots a guy in the neck with an arrow, watches the big bad competitor break another competitors neck with his hands, has her face slashed by a crazy chick with a coat full of knives, has to help her love interest recover from having his leg almost hacked off with a sword, watches her best friend get impaled by a spear...you get the idea, right?
"Yeah," I say, "but there's a lot of...kissing." I do my best not to roll my eyes and return to my chapter, perturbed.

So. I think you can probably glean which way I lean on this issue. I'm not a fan of violence. I don't like DickFlicks with people dying in horrible bloody painful ways. I don't want my daughter watching (or reading) that kind of thing. I hate HATE watching little boys play. But I would be okay with her seeing someone kiss someone else. Not that I want her to see anything sexually explicit, but if it came right down to me having to choose between her watching a movie rated R for violence and one rated R for sex, I'm going to have to go for the one with nookie in it, as long as it has a story and the people like each other while they're doin' it.

My question for you, oh patient reader, is: Why is violence in media considered more acceptable than sex?

Thanks.

Radiohead

2009-10-09T08:37:00.002-06:00

That's me. I'm one of those people, have been as long as I can remember, who always ALWAYS a song in their head. Even in my sleep. Sometimes it's the last song I heard (like right now, for instance, it's the chirpy little tune from the Farmville game on Facebook. I just harvested my squash and milked two cows. Cha-ching!) Sometimes it's a song that I have just latched on to and can't get enough of and will listen to over and over both on the iPod and in my head. And when I say over and over, I'm not kidding. It's a continuous loop in the neuron net of my sad little brain. It's just stuck. But more about that in a moment.
Sometimes it's embarrassing. I'll unconsciously do the head-bob to whatever beat is bashing around up there. When I was a personal trainer I had a client who was a local DJ on a popular morning show. When I'd work out with him he'd ask me at the beginning, "So what's playing today?" Luckily, most of the time it was something his station played. Sometimes not, and he'd give me endless crap about it.
I think my daughter might have the same issue. She's taking flute lessons, and has started whistling. Incessantly. Sometimes it's the song she's working on for flute, sometimes it's something from her playlist on the iPod, sometimes it's a tv show theme. So now I don't just have a song running over and over and over through my noggin; I have to hear the one in hers. Luckily, she's got pretty good tone. But usually, at some point at the end of the day I can't take it anymore and have to, with teeth clenched, say "Sweetie, let's give the whistler a rest, shall we?" And pour some more wine.

I've always had a somewhat eclectic music taste. I like a little bit of everything. The only exception is Heavy Metal and it's spawn (Speed Metal, Death Metal, those happy little sub-genres), which make me want to grab the nearest spoon and gouge my own eardrums out just to escape the screech-fest monotony of three cords and cheerful death, maiming and rape lyrics. Other than that, if a song is catchy, has a good beat and lyrics that make some sort of sense, I'll listen to it gladly.
I've mostly been a BritPop or Techno gal. In high school, I was one of the freaks not listening much to Poison or Def Leppard (although I must say that "Animal" is one of my all time favorite sexy songs), but instead combed the import bins at the record store when we ventured to Salt Lake. Give me some Roxy Music, Depeche Mode, Bow-Wow-Wow, UB40, English Beat, Dead or Alive, etc. They went well with the black clothes and pierced nose.
And, of course, there has always been Erasure. But that's another blog. Just suffice it to say, for this blog, that there have been hours-nay--DAYS worth of Andy Bell in my brain. Here's my favorite:

You're welcome. That particular diddy went round my brain for about six months. Non stop. Not exaggerating. I sort-of got over it after I met Mr. Bell.

I've always been a little snotty-proud of my eschewing Pop music in general. I've never heard, for example, a Miley Cyrus song. Or Britney Spears, at least on purpose. Who is Justin Timberlake, again? What's this Limp Bizkit everyone talks about? Why is it limp and could some Viagra help them?
So, I'm a little alarmed at the current track that is so entrenched in my head right now. She was another of the pop divas whom I had managed to avoid. But now, sigh, I not only spent $1.29 to get the song on my iPod, I even read her Wiki page. I watch the video over and over and over. I suddenly break out into step-ball-change while folding the laundry. It's in there and it's not budging.
I give you:
Beyonce.

Single Ladies

(Mrs. Jay-Z doesn't let her youtube videos embed. So click the link, then come back.)

I can't look away. How the hell does she do that with her hips without throwing her whole spine across the room? In those heels? And what does this say about my taste in music now? Am I going bubblegum in my old age?
Dunno.
But I likes this song. I'm going to go dance around the living room and try not to hurt myself. If you see me later in Costco doing the head bob, you'll know what's spinning in the radiohead.
*humming Uh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!*

Stay-At-Where-Mom?

2009-10-08T12:29:00.002-06:00

I hate answering the question: "So, what do you do for a living?" Mostly because my answer ("I'm a stay-at-home mom") usually results in a polite nod and some bullshit about wow isn't that great. Then their eyes glaze over or they find someone with a real job to talk to. Because, obviously, we housewives don't really do anything, do we? And, obviously, if we were truly interesting people we'd have a real job. Sometimes I mention that I'm a writer, but then I just feel like I'm desperately trying to justify my own joblessness. And writers tend to make people nervous.

This housewife gig isn't bad. At all. I'm incredibly lucky to be married to a man, despite all his other faults, is completely okay with me not having a job even though our baby is now in school full-time. I'm an educated woman; getting a job that would both increase our financial liquidity and fulfill some emotional needs I don't want to go into right now would be fairly easy. And I do, in official fact, have a job outside the home: I'm the story lady at Barnes & Noble. For one hour every Tuesday morning, I punch the clock.
Don't feel sorry for me much, do ya?
That's okay; me neither.
But the thing is, I went into this gig thinking it would be heavenly. That I would simply be home doing homey things like baking yummy yet healthy treats, polishing my rock collection and all the furniture, creating awe-inspiring seasonal decorative motifs in my living room, and, oh yeah, writing a book. It only makes sense, right, that someone with seven free hours in a day could get a lot accomplished at home.
Except I'm almost never here. And when I am, I'm exhausted and have exactly zero interest in or energy to do any of those above things. Or even catch up with the laundry and dog hair.
Typically, my day inexplicably gets filled with Other Things. Take yesterday. I was awoken by a panic-stricken child who is convinced that her first-ever book report (which is due in three weeks) will be a complete failure and we should do it right now. This was at 5:30 a.m. Abandoning sleep at that point, we got up and I commenced the Morning Routine, which included trying to do my hair in less than 30 minutes, which almost never works. I scooted the girl out the door for school at 8:20 and frantically finished the Hair from Hell, found clothes that don't make me look like a housewife, made three phone calls, and headed out the door for a dentist appointment, which I had blown off last week when I had jury duty.
After my new crown was safely cemented in place, I ran to Macy's to try to find the Girl the new shoes she's been begging for. Um, they don't carry kids' shoes. Duh. Well, since the library is just up the street, I ran there to grab some books The Girl had wanted. Then, being hungry, I swung through the McD's drive thru. Remembering that our wedding rings were at the jeweler being antiqued, I ran back home and grabbed the receipt, then drove up to the jeweler. Got the rings, called The Hubby to see when I could bring him his so I wouldn't lose it, stopped at Smith's for some groceries and shoes, ran the ring to The Hubby and snagged some Peets coffee from the canteen at his office. Remembered the Payless has socks The Girl could wear with her new ballet flats that don't show and so drove down there. Made it back home with more new shoes. Picked up the Girl and friend from school, stopped at B&N on the way to the doctor's office. Waited in the doctor's office for 90 minutes to find out that The Girl hadn't broken her wrist. Blasted her home to change for soccer practice, stopped to pick up the friend for soccer practice, dropped her off for soccer practice, came home to...make dinner.
Are you still with me?
This is not an atypical day. The only variables are the wheres.
So days like this, days that have nothing on my calendar, are a sweet treat. I had so many things I wanted to get done today; not the least write the rest of my Halloween dead-haunted-baby story. Instead...I had to nap. Now I have two hours left to pound out some literary crap and justify my claiming to be a writer.

I swear, the next person who asks me "But what do you do all day?" is going to get the above description, in even greater detail.
That or my foot up their ass.

With a friend like me, who needs enemas?

2009-09-23T08:35:00.003-06:00

I'm tired.
Really, right now, that's all I have to say. I'm. Just. Tired.
Sleeping on an ancient futon with a dachshund crammed against the backs of your knees all night because the daughter is in your bed with the husband because the Dane went all passive-aggressive and peed on the daughter's bed will do that.
Buuuuut, I'm trying to get all warmed up. For what? For the writing! Yes! I'm going to write today! Yep! Gonna do it! Nothing's going to stop me! Two pages of a scary-if-slightly-odd Halloween story. Yep. Here I go...
What else is on my mind now? Hmmmm...

I think people are sick of me. Or my grandmother is indeed haunting me with her paranoid bullshit and I'm channelling it. Talk about p-a, Oy,vey, the woman was crazy. But more about me, since this is about me.
I was an obnoxious child. I insisted everything be my way, I was loud, I lied a bit to make myself seem important. I would spend days playing or reading alone, telling my friends I didn't want to play; then I'd be pissed and lonely when I was done wanting to be alone and my friends had moved on and weren't ringing my doorbell to play every day (this was back in the Olden Days before kids had to text each other to say anything, even from across the room).
I'm pretty sure things haven't changed much. I go through phases of just needing to be left the hell alone, not wanting to talk to anyone, biting heads every time someone in my family speaks to me. These phases last anywhere from a week to several months. I don't text anyone, don't invite anyone over, don't write nice letters or emails asking "Hey! How've you been?" Because I just don't care. Isn't that awful? I want to care, I want to be that person to whom everyone runs and commiserates and asks advice. And sometimes I am. People really open up to me once I get them talking. But then, they don't stop talking. And it's the same bullshit over and over and over and I really just want to stop saying "Oh, that's too bad but it'll get better" and tell them to shut the hell up, get over themselves, look around at their problems and see that they are the common denominator.
But that's not what a friend does, right? So instead I just do a slow fade. And they eventually stop calling me. And most of the time, I don't talk to anyone because I really don't feel like I have much to say on any given day. Yes, Grace is getting big. No, my book isn't done. Yep, still have 2 dogs. Blah blah, who cares? And then when I need someone, no one is there. And I convince myself that no one wants to hear my whiney bitch-fest bull anyway. Then I get insecure and depressed because my phone is not chirping and the only things coming into my inbox are healthy recipes and messages from a Nigerian prince. (I must have had too much fun in Tahoe this year, because I don't even remember meeting a Nigerian prince).
Anyway. At the moment, I'm coming out of my solitary mood and miss my friends. But I'm not sure what to do about it. Maybe I'll take an unprecedented step and just email 3 people today and ask them what's up. And try to care.

Ok. Enough indulgence and delving into the Neuroticism of Me. Writing now. Haunted-dead-baby story, here I come!

Now I understand, oh Master.

2009-09-02T18:20:00.004-06:00

I've always listened to older women bitch. Bitch about their sagging boobs, the wrinkles that appear overnight, the saddlebags and expanding waistline, the sudden onset of invisibility around the opposite sex. I laughed it off. (Not to their faces, of course, I might be a socially-retarded bitch but I'm not cruel.) I was able to disregard their whining because I was young. I had a fairly nice body, my face and ass smooth, I could generally count on getting at least one "eye-contact" moment in a day. And my husband is hawt. So, yeah; I was one of those smug asshole women who probably think they're better looking than they actually are.
Hey, then I turned 37. And as some saying or other goes: the bottom dropped out of the market.
I have boobs that I can feel on my stomach when braless.
I have happy little waves of skin and that shall-remain-nameless subcutaneous substance cascading over my bra strap, the top of my pants, and oh dear lord, my jaw.
My waist is now inverse.
The folds of skin on my eyelids could now safely smuggle in a Mexican.
I swear men were purposefully looking away if I looked in their direction at the gym today. I was less than invisible; I am avoid-at-all-costs.

Now let's get something straight, before you click away in a huff thinking I'm one self-centered snotty cougar-wanna-be whose deep end couldn't drown a toothpick. I've never considered myself all that. I very realistically would put myself squarely at the "barely average" mark. My husband is an incredibly handsome man (and I am eternally grateful that he has no idea of it) and I am faithful to him. Yup. 101 percent. My number one concern on a minute-by-minute basis is the health and well-being of my daughter.
And I have been totally content with who I am, what I look like (other than the giant schnoz I got from my dad), my past history of feeling attractive. Really. I embrace much more important, profound, serious philosophies of life than whether I could still get laid by a 26-year-old swim-shop manager from South Africa.
But I do wonder about it. If I still could, I mean. But there's a sensible, grounded bit of me that knows that I really need to stop worrying about it. Right? There's nothing to be done, anyway. In ten years I'll look at photos of myself now and wonder what the hell I was complaining about. Will wish for the waist I don't have currently.

We all age; we all sag and get confused and leave the ones we love. Maybe I'm not really as shallow as all that. My hope is that I can age gracefully, stay healthy (K, gotta get healthy first), learn something everyday, make sure those I love are safe and happy.
Or, drink more martinis, get a shitpot of plastic surgery and botox, keep wearing inappropriately low-and-high-cut clothing, and someday strive to be voted "Sluttiest Senior" at the nursing home.
Yeah.
I'm hawt.

Feast, famine, fuck it.

2009-08-28T12:20:00.003-06:00

I was so proud of myself Wednesday. I made a to-do list in my happy-green little planner (which is the first one I've bought that I really use, when I remember) and by the end of the housewife day (they officially end when the kids come home from school), I had done:
7 loads of laundry, (check!)
cleaned the kitchen (check!)
vacuumed (check!)
swept the porches and the sidewalks(check!)
watered the garden (check!)
mopped the kitchen (check!)
And cooked a not-too-shabby dinner.

And did I feel good about my productivity? Yes, yes I did. Smug? Maybe. Feeling unfuckingstoppable? You betcha. Have an extra glass of wine as a reward? Well, if you insist.
I even made a list for the next day; the stuff I didn't get to on Wednesday.
Thursday:
Dust and polish
Bathroom
Mop big scary room downstairs.

Yeah, notice all the checks there? Me neither. Apparently, all I've got in me is one big day. Yesterday, I just...couldn't...do it. Still had that extra glass of wine, tho, as a balm to soothe the disappointed ego.
It's just too easy to sit right here. Clicking things, taking umpteen pictures of myself and finally settling on an almost-cute one. I hope nobody notices that my shirt was a little low-cut and pulled over. Call me Elaine. But it's a good pic, and that just doesn't happen very often. Also did some major facebooking, pretended to research something for my book, stalked the artist Wyland for a while, made a horrible loaf of bread, and that's about it.
And today? Suffice it to say my girlfriends came over this morning. Chuh, like I"m going to do anything other than my hair.
Ding! Must go. Housewife day is over.

2009-08-27T12:35:00.002-06:00

Shit. I was afraid this might happen. I've lost it; lost the mojo. Lost the will. Lost the drive. Lost the plot. Literally. I can't write! I don't know what comes next! Dunno how they get from the A I need to create to the B in the next chapter that's already written. Poop!
See? I can't even write a decent blog anymore. What do I do now? Give up and join the Stepford Wives that populate my neighborhood? Coz then I'm going to need a makeover; some fake french nails and a shorter haircut that goes all spikey in the back like WhatsHerFace with the 8 kids and husband who likes jailbait. Gonna need baggier capri pants too. Shirts that cover suspiciously large underwear. At least four more kids. A CriCut, whatever the hell that is.
Maybe they'll like me then. Maybe I won't stand awkwardly off to the side at every "neighborhood" event (Read: Ward activity that some big-hearted person invited the gentiles to) smiling like a moron and waiting for someone to talk to me. Maybe they won't suspect that I like my cleavage, that the only recipe I'm trying to perfect is one for a dirty martini, that I really hate Richard Paul Evans, that I think scrapbooking is enough to make me gouge my eyes out.
Ok. Going to go read my whole damn manuscript, again. See if I can crawl back into their heads so they can tell me what they've already done and how they felt about it.
Sigh.
Or maybe I'll just go run some errands...I'm low on gin.

Wait. What's that on the floor?

2009-08-25T20:43:00.003-06:00

Good Lord. What the hell kind of shit-bomb hit my house over the last 2 days?! I swear, I swear; I went camping Thursday. When I left, the house was clean. Giant mound of laundry conquered, floors sparkling, sink empty and scrubbed, no newspapers on the floor or empty cups scattered hither and yon. I got home Saturday evening; same. So nice to come home to a clean home, right? So now it's, what, Tuesday? I CAN'T SEE THE FRIGGING FLOOR. Mt. Everest of stinky drawers and sheets has arisen in the laundry room. The weiner dog tore apart his bed. Again. It smells like something might have expired with an evil chuckle in the pantry. There's something suspiciously sticky on the wall in the stairwell.
I keep my house in what I'd like to describe as a half-assed state. As my husband so sensitively put it earlier this evening: "You know, you can clean a house like no one I've ever seen. You are really good at cleaning, and I mean that in a good way. But," he says, "you suck at keeping things neat."
I nodded. I know. I start things; I get interrupted and have to come back to them later. Only later never seems to happen. I set something down, fully intending to put it in its rightful spot in just a minute. A week later, it's in my way and pissing me off. I have too much crap. But, most of the time, I get at least the major things done, like vacuuming, I clean the kitchen every day, the bathroom doesn't smell. At the moment, this place is driving me around the curve. I've suddenly snapped and can't take it anymore.
So: tomorrow I am not going anyfuckingwhere. I am taking the girl to school, I am coming home and brushing my teeth, I am checking emails and downloading the Bob and Tom Show podcast, I am getting OFF facebook after 30 minutes and I am cleaning this mo'fo. I am chucking shit. I am dusting. I will fold. Floors will once again sparkle. Dammit, I just might even *gasp* iron.

And then I'll do it aaaaalllll again next week.
Hey, ask me again why I drink so much.

My Laundry Room Scares Me.

2009-08-24T22:13:00.001-06:00

It's the last day of summer vacation. I was hoping to finally spend a whole day with my child, enjoying some relaxing time just absorbing who she is, riding a bike somewhere, making gluten-free zucchini bread (now THAT sounds appetizing, right?), feeling my heart thud when her lovely face shines with laughter, frantically trying to cram in all the reading and workbooks that she was supposed to do over the summer in order to seem really really smart tomorrow...and yet...we're busy today. She's at Mimi's, of course; that escape for her to the land of Whatever I Want, the place I'm so ambivalent about. I love that she has such a close relationship with my parents, I do. I appreciate that I get a night off every week. I'm glad that she has a soft place to fall when her mother gets overbearing and demanding. But. I had such plans today...

And, of course, with school starting tomorrow I have exactly ZERO excuses to not get stuff done around here. Now I'll have seven whole hours every day to myself. I have ambitious plans; I'm going to finish painting the house. I'm going to weed the roses. I'm going to fix it so that the front porch doesn't look like the Clampetts live here. I'm going to finish that little book I started four years ago. I'm going to see if I can shed this inner-tube from around my hips. And I'm going to clean out the laundry room. The scary, overflowing laundry room. That will involve ironing. It will also involve getting rid of crap, which right now is the biggest obstacle on my path to serenity. So. Much. Crap. Where did it all come from? Why, from my flibbertygibbet sprees involving buying stuff because it's on sale. From not putting stuff away. From my mom and my mother-in-law being convinced that they don't need to take anything to D.I.; maybe Vanessa will want it.
I've managed to avoid dealing with all this because we've been so busy the last 12 weeks. Now it looks like I have to swallow my fear and that choking, overwhelmed feeling that I don't know where to start, that I'll do it wrong, that I'll get rid of something that I'll then discover we really need, that there's something else I really should be doing instead but am not sure what that is so I'll just get on facebook.

But not today.
I'm going to go get my child.

Ummm.....

2009-06-27T10:13:00.000-06:00

......yeah. So, it's been awhile since I blogged. Or really been here. Or done much of anything apart from run around like a plucked headless chicken with a bum thumb. I'm sure you've all missed me *snort*, and I thought I'd catch you up on the DG's happs.

There was the thumb saga:

How, you might ask, did the Thumb Saga come about? Well, I'd like to say it was while doing something heroic like rescuing a litter of puppies from an abandoned mine shaft...or something intelligent like a petri-dish mishap in my secret microbiology lab...or something cool like setting the world record for texting.
But, this is me. So it's not that exciting.
I was making a sandwich. There was only one piece of cheese left, you know, the end of the block? It was too thick to be one slice, not wide enough to cover a whole sammich, so I decided to split it through the middle by laying it down and hawing through it horizontally. With a ridiculously large chopping knife that the hubby keeps honed to a laser-like edge. Of course it slipped. Luckily the back of my thumb stopped it from hurting anyone.
I went to the Instacare. Gotta love the instacare. Three effing hours later, the disinterested resident made sure I could still bend and straighten it and glued it together with CrazyGlue. I went home to continue my Spring Cleaning binge and finish planting my garden, thumb cozily wrapped in gauze and that rubbery ace bandage stuff. While scooping the giant Phoebe poo, hefting the ten-pound pile of crap into the garbage bin, I felt a sudden ripping, tearing, sproinging pain shoot up my wrist. And then I couldn't straighten my thumb.
It was funny at first. This limp little digit, waving at half staff. But, since having opposable thumbs, two of them, is what separates us from the lower beasts and since I am a right-thumb space-bar typer, I figured I better get it looked at. Figured it wouldn't be too big of a deal to have it fixed: a few stiches, maybe a splint, some bendy exercises and I'd be good to go in a week or two.
A way-major surgery, two months, three splints, a cast, a brace, and an eerily un-wrinkled thumb later, I still can't space-bar with the right thumb. It throws my whole rythym off.
But I'm plugging along. I'm amazed at how crucial the thumb is to the human existence. Luckily, it was my non-dominant hand, but still. I'm off balance, off-kilter, off the plot. I can't open jars. I can't sweep without making a bigger mess. The right side of my hair is all weird. It takes me three times longer to send a text, and I wasn't a quick texter to begin with. So, basically: it's made me even more of a moron.

But, it's always something with me, right?

Other things that have happened:

The girl finished first grade!

We bought a pop-up trailer!

The Mainers came to visit:

Grace gave her first public flute concert, with Caleb on violin:

And that's about it. Other than feeling fat, old, unattractive and useless, it's been S.O.P. But that stuff isn't for this blog.

And how have you all been? I've missed you! How's your summer, where'd you go, any bodily injuries we need to know about? Hello? Anyone still out there?

So I Have This Pile of Paper...

2009-02-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

..that formerly spent its life as twenty or so chapters in little separate files in my computer. Each file had a name, but no numbers because I am not organized enough to either A: outline a whole book, or 2) follow an outline even if I did. So I spent just over an hour the other day figuring out which ones went where and hitting "Copy-Paste" over and over and over and over until they were all tucked nicely onto one big document· Then I hit "Print". Then I changed the ink cartridge.

And now, ta da! I have a manuscript.

*giggle*

230 pages, 88881 words of original crap straight from my noggin.

I won't lie to you: I'm excited as a pig in shit.

I also won't lie to when I tell you not to get too excited yourself if you're one of the wonderful and supportive people who have heard me going on and on about this sucker for the last 3 years (especially my first and favorite blog commentator: CJ. Thanks, dude. You were there from the beginning and you didn't even know it. Just having one person want to read my blog helped me convince myself that I should try putting words somewhere else too). It's not done yet, not by a long shot. This is only the rough draft; the spew of my subconscious trying to tell a story that I think is fairly good, maybe even a concept that is important, but it still needs a lot of work.

And the best part of this for me?

I'm excited to do that work. I'm chomping at the bit so hard to get to work fixing and adding and backfilling and cutting the crap that I can hardly put the thing down long enough to type this. Or go to Office Max to have it three-hole-drilled so I can put it into a binder so I'm not trying to keep track of 115 pieces of paper. My organizational skills just aren't up for that.

It's good to be excited about the revision, because to be honest getting the rough draft out of me was like trying to get a toddler to do something. Didn't wanna! Might be scary! Might not be any good! The only saving grace I had was the brains to join a writers' group that meets every two weeks. That way I had to have something ready, most of the time. There were dry spells where I didn't take anything. There was a period of about a year in which I was writing short stories instead, hoping to hone my skills. (And avoid the scary.) But I finally took a deep breath and plunged. I wrote. I didn't worry that it wasn't coming out perfectly, I didn't worry if I suddenly had an idea that hadn't been properly set up in previous chapters, I didn't care that it was bare-bones with very little sensory detail. I just spewed. And it felt really really good.

So now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go read and clean up some spew.

Thanks for your indulgence of my dorky excitement, I know I'm not the first person to have done this. This is not really that big of a deal, right? I mean, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who tells you they've written a book nowadays.

But it's my first one, and I'm going to revel in it for now. I'm still not comfortable calling myself an "author", and I have no illusions that I'm going to get published immediately upon querying, but, yeah: I wrote a book.

Look! I writerd a book!

(And for those of you who have so nicely asked to see some of it, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait. Due to some of the tricky language in MySpace's "terms of use", I don't feel good about posting it here. There's all sorts of tricky lawyer-types who might try to wrangle some rights of first run bullcrap. If you really want to read some of it, let me know and I'll send you some. Maybe. If I don't chicken out. Thanks again.)

Catching up

2009-02-24T16:35:00.001-07:00

Been awhile since I've bloggded. Nothing much to talk about; which seems to be epidemic here on the Myspace lately. We're all out of topics, are we? And of course, myspace blogs must be topical because, really, who wants to read someone's random stupid daily boring crap?

Haha, you do. Right? Here you go.

So, speaking of MySpace: where is everyone? Oh yeah, you're all on Facebook and Twitter. Me too. I love how I can now find all the same people and follow them somewhere else, getting different little glimpses into their lives.
Why is that? Why isn't Myspace enough anymore? I mean, really, how different are the other social networks? Twitter is basically just like the "status updates" here. Facebook is just one big comment page with a notebook attached and photo albums, right? Are we that capricious and bored that we fool ourselves into thinking that it must be waaaaayyyy more happenin' at another url?
My facebook name is Vanessa Fravel
My Twitter name is NessaLuv.
Just sayin'.

Maybe Tom should poke Rupert and remind him that the little people of the Unwashed Masses don't like to have Big Brother peeking over their shoulder. Just a thought.

I got a job, again. After my happy little four week stint as a "Holiday Cashier' at the Barnes & Noble, I was more than okay being let go, released back into the wild of non-responsiblity and relative autonomy of the housewife gig. Not bored, that's for sure. Nope. Not lonely. Not back to wearing sweats that were chosen based on smell. No, I was just fine.
So I can't really explain why I was so excited when they offered me a 1-hour-per-week position as the Story Lady. I might have yelled something like "Hell Yes!" and bought more new shoes.
It's pretty fun. I get to read a couple of books to the kids whose desperate stay-at-home parent bundles them up and trudges to the upper floor of the bookstore. We do a craft. (Toddlers with scissors; always a good time.) We read some more. I give them sugar and send them back to their glassy-eyed mums who are huddled in a semi-circle trying to remember how to have a conversation with an adult.
I have to admit: I was a little nervous about it. I'm not really "Story Lady" material, you know. But once I put the little martini shakers in their hands and taught them all how to tell the difference between the word "fuck" and the word "buggar", we got on just fine. I might have wanted to choose a book other than "My Life In Gay Porn" from the "Alternative Lifestyles" shelf, but it's a learning process. Apparently those are NOT the picture books that were expected.

What else...what else....Oh! Yeah! I almost forgot.

I wrote a book.

Haha!

(Yes, I will write a more detailed blog about this. Just not today.)
So....what's up with you?

Putting the Mental in Self Improvement (al) Day 2

2009-01-28T09:16:00.002-07:00

Ok, I'm ok. I don't need a smoke right now. Do I WANT a smoke right now? Yes, yes, very much please, can I rip this stupid fucking patch off my ass and just have a cigarette?!

Wheeeeewwwww....deep brefs....deep brefs...going to go put on a new patch....

I've been trying, when these little cravings knock me upside the head, to visualize and remember why I want/need to quit smoking: so I can breathe, so I can smell nice, so I can quit traumatizing my young daughter who fully expects me to die any day now, to maybe halt the crevasse of wrinkles on my forehead and lips, so I can go to the gym and try to recapture my smokin' hawt (ok, sort-of hawt) bod. Good reasons. Healthy reasons. Being a smoker today is like being a leper a thousand years ago. People look on you, huddled outside pathetically, with a mixture of pity and disgust. They wonder how, with all of the health warnings and the proof that it will kill you and the smell how can a person be stupid enough to smoke?

I'll tell you why.

It's the sweet elixir of brain-calming balm in a convenient wrapper. It's a small rebellion for an invisible boring housewife. It's a ten-minute escape from every hour.

I heart smoking. I will miss it.

Book Snobbery

2009-01-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

An abashed book snob.
Current mood: embarrassed
Category: Life

Right now, I should be doing many other things. I should be addressing Christmas cards, wrapping presents from Santa, vacuuming and dusting the house, finishing the shopping that I've procrastinated about like I do every year, blah blah yadda yadda. And yet, I'm not.
I don't even want to be sitting here, writing this, really. But I need to write, as I haven't so much as touched my novel-in-progress in a week, even though I'm at a crucial point (as in: It's almost done, after four friggin' years!!!). But, no, I'm still in my jammies, hair all bed-headed, last night's mascara still smudged under my eyes, teeth mildly fuzzy due to an over-abundance of peppermintinis and a hot tub. And still I sit.

Now, some of you know me and know that I am the queen of procrastination, that me letting the house fall into complete chaos is not so much news. But this is just getting insane. It's worse this time, I promise.
Why the over-abundance of procrastination? Why is this normally laid-back-but-at-least-somewhat-productive housewife completely blowing off all responsibilities?

I'll tell you why. But it ain't gonna be pretty.

Twilight.

You heard me.

As loathe as I am to admit it because I swore I would never read it (I'll detail my book snobbery momentarily), I inhaled the first book in 3 days and am halfway through the second one, which I started yesterday. I can't put the stupid thing down.

So why was I so obstinately hesitant to read it in the first place?
1. It's by a BYU graduate. That right there is repulsive.
2. It's being fawned over by the women around here. The women who have very carefully decided that I am not one of them. The women whose idea of a Mom's Night Out involves squealing over the latest scrapbooking crap, whereas mine involves bottomless martinis and squealing over cute men who are not my husband. It is my personal crusade to rebel against all things Utah Housewife. Even though I am, technically, one.
3. I figured that the things in 1 and 2 immediately indicated that these books would be akin to the likes of Nora Roberts (*gag*) and Mary Higgens Clark (*retch*). I hate those kind of books. Hate them. The phony dialog, the implausibly convenient plot twists, the retarded narrative. They are written by and for mental midgets. (See? Book snob. Yes I am. Sorry if you're a fan.) I don't want to read about throbbing manhoods, windswept hair, smoldering looks, and bursting bodices. I need a good story and some realistically angst-driven conflict. Not formulaic crap.

So, then, why the hell am I enjoying this story so much?
1. It's an easy read, and not unpleasant. She's got a good voice, and absolutely does not sound like she's from BYU. There are actual funny quips, snarky lines, the characterizations are realistic (yes, even the vampires), and even though there are smoldering looks, it's done without much cheese.
2. I'm a secret fantasy believer. Love the Anne Rice books, love all things Harry Potter (written anyway. Don't get me started on the movies). Somewhere inside me, I want to believe that this shit could really happen, and love it when authors can make it plausible.
3. There's a chance that I, the snarky Domestic Goddess, might just be a bit of a romantic.

There. I said it. I'll even go further.

I love falling in love. That whole feeling of finding out you're attracted to someone, of not being able to tell them, of suspecting they want you too, the leaning and the covert glances and the smiling and the yearning. Love the yearning. Ms. Meyer very admirably covers all of this in a lovely literary way, without cheese. Without it being laughable and unrealistic. Even when eyes are smoldering, it's written in way that makes me remember way back when me and the hubby smoldered and leaned and tentatively touched. Sigh. I miss that.

He is my Edward, and even though I've been known to be addicted to the attraction phase of a relationship (or non-relationship, whatever), I still want to have that with him. But it's difficult, right? And I don't think Edward would be an Edward after 12 years. Comfort and happiness and knowing someone's annoying little personality quirks can just....delete the smoldering. I'm pretty sure there isn't much smolder when he thinks of me, either. We love each other, can't imagine life without each other, and there is occasionally some romance.

And we had those first moments with the glancing and the touching and the smoldering. We did. And it lasted longer than with anyone else. But, then, well....life happened.

So, I'm going to go read some more, before I absolutely have to rejoin the real world to get my daughter from school and take her flute shopping.

How about you? Any books that you never thought you'd enjoy and then ended up absorbed in?

Holiday Survey

2009-01-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

Everyone else is doing it, so why not I?
Current mood: indescribable
Category: Quiz/Survey

Hey! LOOKIT ME! I finished a chapter!

So, to reward myself and torture you, I'm doing the survey started (in my circle of brilliant bloggers, anyway) by Jo & Honey and completed very nicely by The DirtDiva and uhhhh... .
My brain has been swimming in creative fiction for the last week (for once), so I'm going to chill out with some honest nonfiction. Maybe. If it gets boring I'll try to spruce it up a bit for you.

1. What was your favorite Christmas/seasonal gift this year?

Okay, honestly? I'm not a huge fan of getting Christmas/seasonal gifts. Unless it's brandy balls or peppermint schnapps with a bow. (Sorry Mummy, I really do think the salt and pepper shakers and snack plate and knife are cute. Really. I do appreciate them. I do). I have SO FREAKING MANY Christmas decorations, it's scary. They're stuffed into a giant-size Rubbermaid tub stuffed full of holiday thingamabobs that is stored in the attic of the garage. And that's just the stuff that will fit in it. There's also 3 fake trees of various sizes and a box containing a holiday village. And the kicker is: I've actually purchased or chosen almost none of them. This stuff is taking up serious space in storage, to be taken out and displayed for about three weeks a year. There's a part of me that doesn't get that. Appreciates it, sure, but doesn't get it.
I was quite nostalgic this year, remembering my small apartment and the SHOE BOX that happily and compactly held all of my decor in the back of my closet. Especially as the hubby and I lugged the giant tub from the house across the frozen yard to the garage, where he risked life and limb with it on his shoulder on a ladder to put it away.
So, the short answer is: I love the Snowman and Tree salt and pepper shakers and snack plate my mom gave me.

2. What gift were you the most excited to give and to whom was it given?

(Sylow should skip this answer, I think. CJ too, probably.)
Duh: Santa!
Say what you will, there is nothing like seeing the tangible joyous expression, the awe of magic, the giggly wonder in my child's face every year when she sees the plate now containing cookie and carrot crumbs, the lumpy stockings, the modest pile of gifts where just last night there were none. She's a good kid, and only asked Santa for four things. Thanks to the DirtDiva, Santa was able to provide them exactly as requested. (Except for another rabbit. She got a stuffed one and a note instead). And, Thanks to my personal fairy Kris , Daphne was able to provide a special surprise in a beautiful handmade bracelet for Grace to always remember the magic of fairies.
Her joy made all of the stress, angst, searching, begging and sneaking worth it. Big thanks to the Mimi for sacrificing the pegasus so Santa wouldn't come off short.

3. What is your biggest personal wish for the New Year?

To be done with this book. Done with it. Whether or not it gets published, I just want it out of my head and the story told so it will leave me the hell alone.

4. What did you do New Year's Eve?

Went to "First Night" in downtown Salt Lake City. A rousing gathering of sober people, with tents set up to contain various artsy type people and foodstuffs. Grace ice skated for the first time, which was absolutely a hoot, and was promptly hypothermic when we finally peeled her off the ice. Little budger was so cold we had to go home early.
I must say, waking up New Year's Day without wanting to vomit was a nice change. I didn't know that could even happen.

5. You are on Death Row and being executed at midnight. What do you order for your last meal on earth? (We're going to assume you actually have an appetite.)

Maine lobster.
But more to the point: Why am I on Death Row? Certainly any murder I would commit would be justifiable, right?

6. The Power in Charge of Life and Death is granting you eight hours to spend with a loved one who has passed on. Who, among your loved ones, do you choose and what will you do? (This will take place on Earth, not in some far-flung nebula.)

This is tough. I know I should say my grandfather, because his life was so hard and interesting and he deserved to have a little joy, or my grandmother because I would like to talk to her about me not having to channel all her genetic psychotic energy anymore, please, but...I don't know. I loved them while they were here. And had lots of time with them. They both had good long lives with people who loved them.
So, inexplicably, I'm going to go with a baby that I only saw twice in his short life, and one of those times was when he was already in his teeny coffin. I would like Britain to come back, healthy and whole and happy, and have a few hours of a normal happy babyhood.

7. It has been deemed that you will live a life of abject poverty, but you get to choose where to spend that life - the Amazon Rainforest or Siberia. Which do you choose and why?

I am sick to death of the cold right now. SICK OF IT. So, botflies be damned, I'm going with the Amazon. That's where I was "supposed" to spend my life as a biologist, back in the days of idealistic young optimism. I would like to sit under the canopy and just goggle at the incredibly cacophony of life there, life that is slipping away, being lost and destroyed, and wonder at the miracle of it. And be warm.

8. If you could have one talent at which you excelled, what would it be? (and if you already have a talent at which you excel, unlike many of us, pick another one.)

I'm going to go with writing. Or playing the flute. I'm okay at both of those things, but would like to have one thing that I'm really really good at. I'm tired of being mediocre.

9. You are being forced to share a bed with someone, and you are given a choice between a snorer or a farter. Which do you choose and why?

I already sleep with the world champion of farters. I'm a fairly sound sleeper, I can sleep through snoring. The green clouds though, well, my nose doesn't sleep as soundly as my ears, and I'm tired of it.

10. You just won the gazillion dollar lottery. After all the excitement has died down, what is the first thing you do?

Who says the excitement will ever die down? Travel! Lots! See everything! Go everywhere! Go! Go! Go!
Then probably self-publish. Gotta get it out there somehow.
And then open a Best Friends-type animal sanctuary.

Okey dokey, enough self-gratification for today. I'm off to run errands, fold laundry, vacuum...it's nice to be back to the routine.

Cheers!

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit

2009-01-16T09:18:00.002-07:00

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit *Updated with comment replies. Thank you!*
Current mood:bunnified
Category: Pets and Animals

Well, I had a right crappy weekend, how about you? After cleaning every pet-related item in my house, which includes but is not limited to: three bunny cages, a frog tank, an aquarium, dog beds and the cats' closet, I was ready to get all pertied up to go on a date with The Hubs. But the headache gods decided they were bored and so smote me with the migraine to end all.

Some of you know I've had just over a year of Lars pounding around in the back of my noggin and have learned to live with my whining about being in semi-constant pain. So, what's a migraine on top of that?

Barfing, hyper-sensitive to all stimuli, full-body muscle aches and a skull full of rusty nails. That's what.

It was a party. For two days. But now I'm better, thanks. I'm drug-free and ready to take on the day!
But first, I'm going to indulge in some bunny talk.

So in case you were counting bunny cages up there, you might have noticed an addition. We got yet another rabbit. No, not the kind that buzzes and keeps Momma happy; an actual Sylvilagus floridanus for the girl. Am I a sucker? Yes. Yes I am.
We had innocently and selflessly stopped at the local Humane Society shelter just to drop off some old dog beds so the pound puppies can be comfy and have something to pee on. Having some extra time before flute lesson, we decided to hold the bunnies. It's something we do; the poor little things are trapped inside plexiglass cages barely big enough for them to stretch their big feet out in, so we feel it our duty to make the slack-jaw attitudinal chick behind the counter come get one out for us to cuddle and pet and talk baby-talk to. Usually I am very firm about not taking one home. We're just holding them. Okay, maybe not so firm; we ended up taking one home the last time we tried this. That's how we got Thumper.
But, no, today we were NOT going to get a rabbit.
But then, here's this ginormous lop. Who not only sits complacently in our laps, but actually snuggles her big head under G's chin.
And the begging and bargaining began.
"But, G, you have two rabbits already!'
"But, Momma, I promise I'll take care of her!"
"But, G, you whine when I ask you to change the bunny boxes now."
"But, Momma, I promise I won't! I'll change their boxes, I promise!"
"But, G, where will we keep her? There's no more room by the other bunny cages."
"But, Momma, she can live in my room. Momma, she needs me. They're going to kill her!"
And she has me there. I'm a sucker for the shelter animals. No-kill shelters, I'm okay, I can walk away. But not from an animal who might be living on borrowed time. And she'd been there for two months. So, we talked to the dad, agreed that it would be her birthday present (to which she says, "That's fine, my friends will get me toys. So will Mimi and Poppa. And Nana too, probably. So it's okay if you don't. I'll have enough. I just want the bunny from you."), and after a day of me running around to various pet stores to procure another set of supplies; Viola! Another bunny in my little, over-run house.

But I must admit, caving in to this bunny acquisition was not just about saving an animal from an untimely death or to further teach my daughter that she can have anything she wants. No, it's a much more neurotically driven one, really.
We're still searching for THAT bunny. That bunny who is happiest when it is being held by a small child. That bunny who bounds joyfully up to the nearest human and begs to be picked up and snuggled. That bunny who will complacently sit in my daughter's arms while she hauls it all over the house, and take a happy ride in a doll's carriage and never kicks when it's picked up and never struggles when it's put down.
See, we had THAT bunny once. And now we are forever frantically searching to replace her: the first bunny we had, the one who made my daughter the happiest little chick in the world. That bunny who was tragically and horrifically taken from us one awful night that none of us will forget, the night that not only ripped a little fluffy soul from our furry family, but earned banishment for my mother-in-law's dog. That and a punch to his head from me.
We got Asia to replace that bunny. Asia is beautiful and clever, but hates to be held.
Where the hell is my cage?
We got Thumper to try to at least have one we could hold. He's a sweetie and fairly tolerant, but still not joyful about the holding and the cuddling.
Thumper taking a turn about the garden
They're pretty tight.
bunny wuv
So, now here's Clover.
Clover
G and the new bunny, Clover
She's so far freaking out about this big new world of dogs, cats, children and other rabbits who want to beat the crap out of her. She's not quite sure about this whole litter-box thing. She doesn't want to be held right now, which is again breaking the child's heart. The child doesn't want to be patient, doesn't want to give Clover some time to settle in. The child wants THAT bunny back.
THAT bunny, Luna. We miss her.

I do too.

But I'm settling for these three sometimes letting me rub their little heads. For now.
We could do four rabbits, right?

I'll put up some videos of bunny cuteness right after I figure out how to do that. Technotard Go!

True or False or Just Crap?

2009-01-16T09:18:00.001-07:00

Me too! Me too! Oo! Pick me!
Current mood: devious
Category: Games

I hate being left out of anything. So I’m going to follow (or try; they’re pretty clever) Cog’s, Jo’s and Uhhh…’s leads and see how much you all know about me, or can figure out by using what you know about what a dork I am.

So, five of these statements are true, five are false. Do you know which is which? And just for fun, I’m upping the ante; the winner gets a trophy! Yay!

Ok, without further ado-whacka-do:

1. In my senior year of high school, I won a scholarship to study abroad in the summer. Since I had already graduated, I was sent as a “cultural exchange” student. Essentially, all I learned about Greek culture was that there was no drinking age and that Greek men are yummy little momma’s boys, and that it’s indeed possible to put on 20 pounds in six weeks eating cheese. In exchange, I taught the Greeks that American girls can drink and will make out with just about anyone.
2. Most of you know that I’m a writer, working on her “first” novel. What you might not know is that I’m secretly already a published author. Five years ago I wrote an extremely naughty and graphic adult/erotica novel that was published under a pseudonym and for which I receive a quarterly royalties check. Apparently I have some talent there.
3. A guy once pulled a knife on me in a dark corner of a club, I suppose to either rob me or rape me or both. I started to laugh hysterically and point at him, and he got embarrassed, dropped the knife and ran away.
4. While vacationing in London, I stalked Andy Bell (the lead singer of my all-time favorite band, Erasure) and ended up hanging out with him and a group of British music bigwigs in a gay bar until three in the morning. With the Underground and BlackCabs done running for the night, I had to take an illegal cab back to my hotel, which is exceedingly stupid for an American tourist to ever do. It was also Valentine’s Day, and my husband had stayed at the hotel and gone to bed alone while I partied it up in a club full of gay men.
5. I originally wanted to be a biologist, and interned as a zookeeper’s assistant in college, helping to take care of the chimpanzees and orangutans. While I was working one day, I accidentally left the lock to the chimps’ cage open while I ran to grab the rake I’d left down the hall. Since there were double barred doors and the latches were engaged, I didn’t think the lock would make a difference for five seconds. When I turned back to the cage door, the chimps had figured out how to open the double doors and had escaped. One of the other keepers was there, and he quickly tried to get them to go back into their cage. Instead, they attacked him and bit off his nose and half of an ear. All three of them (the chimps, not the wounded keeper) were shot dead by another keeper right there in the hall, while I stood brandishing my rake and nearly peeing my pants.
6. I was once engaged to two different men at the same time and neither of them knew about the other.
7. My husband was the sole heir to a German fortune, via his great aunt. Her estate was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and she sent us money every year. He was lax about keeping in touch with her regularly and when she died last year, her will was sent to us. We got really excited until we read the last part, where she had changed the will, disinherited us, and instead passed her fortune on to her husband’s great-nephew, who had been taking care of her for the last few years of her life. Instead of being set for life, we got a gold pocketwatch and a lecture from said nephew.
8. I have been engaged four times, but only married once.
9. When I worked as a personal trainer I once entered a body building contest, even though I had never trained for it and had zero idea how do the whole cheesy posing thing. I won second place.
10. In my adult life, I have had fourteen dogs, twenty cats and eight rabbits. All of them were rescues.

Okey-dokey, folks! Wanna guess?

What would a normal person do? Help please!

2009-01-02T12:41:00.001-07:00

I am a social retard.

There. Now all of you who know me can feel better knowing that I do, indeed, know what you've already figured out; and any of you who are new around here, well, it'll all just make more sense now.

As much as I'd like to go into defensive specifics outlining the exact nature of my social ineptitudeNess, I've got something of an emergency or three going on and could really use some advice from those of you in my brilliant audience who are not social troglodytes.

So here's my question:
At what point is it okay to tell someone exactly what you think of them and/or where in their life they are complete fucktards? Not in a mean way; just in the hopes that it might enlighten them and nudge them toward realizing that they might be able to make different choices and improve their own lives and those of the people around them.
Is that ever okay? I mean, I wish someone would sit me down and outline exactly what the hell is wrong with me. From their point of view. Like I said before, I know I'm a social retard, but am not always clear on why, exactly, or what to do to fix it.

Here's the situation. Any and all opinions and feedback are greatly appreciated, if you make it through this. Ahem.

I have this friend. We'll just call him "D". We were best friends in high school, in that "When Harry Met Sally" way, without the romantic ending. Just buddies. Really. He was the archetypal 80's wannabe-yuppie; he bragged that he was going to be a millionaire business/financial genius by the age of 30. He was an only child and his financially-struggling parents nonetheless showered him with the best of everything. He drove 2 Porches and wore designer clothes and was the first person in Pocatello with a cd player. Despite his deeply ingrained sense of entitlement, he was a good friend.
Flash forward 15 years. We lost touch after h.s. and reconnected via Classmates.com and facebook. We've exchanged a few emails detailing our grownup lives. He's accomplished some amazing things. Seriously. He's one of those people who wants something and BAM! does it. He attended West Point, went career military, did 3 tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, has received commendations from Senators and Brigadier Generals, has double Master's degrees and a Ph.D., and is now serving as a second-in-command over the NATO troops in Afghanistan. All of them. He's big time over there.
I know all of this because he sends out "fan letters." To the people he regards as his "fans". He forwards the internal emails between the military bigwigs praising the wonders of MGR D. I shit you not. He has very floridly regaled me with all of his wondrous accomplishments, including how he scored a hot wife and has two perfect kids.
Sounds like someone I'd be proud to call a friend, right?
Here's my problem:
He's a self-centered, arrogant little toe-rag.
In all of our exchanges, he's never, ever, not once remarked upon anything I've told him about my life. Ever. Not even when I told him that my husband trained plebes at West Point when D was a plebe at West Point and maybe they'd had some interaction; wouldn't that be some Six-Degrees-of-Separation? Nor when I told him I'm writing a novel or was a teacher or any of the little lame things I've accomplished. Lame compared to his, anyway. But he could have said something, right?
Our latest exchange was about his failing marriage and about how it's all his wife's fault. Because she's not a "Team player". As in "Team D". I sympathized, I empathized with helpful anecdotes from my own roller coaster of a marriage. To which he did not respond. At all. No "Wow, sounds like you know what I'm going through" or "My Gosh, Nessa, I had no idea of your personal struggles." Nup. Just talked over me on the IM about the shortcomings of his wife. He expressed his disgust at her daring to say that no one else would "put up with his shit". "What shit?" he asks.
Um, maybe the shit where you don't listen to anything anyone says and everything is about you? Maybe the shit where you don't give a shit what other people might need? Maybe the shit where nothing is as important as what you are needing/doing/winning right now? Maybe the shit where all you do is brag and expect everyone to sycophantically swoon at your every word?

Ok, I didn't say those things. But I want to. My question for you is: should I? Should I risk losing his friendship (or whatever this is; aren't friendships actually supposed to be two-way?) by telling him he's an arrogant toe-rag who should thank his lucky stars that this woman has put up with his shit for the last 12 years? Is this something that is normal social interaction: calling bullshit for what it is and hoping the person has an A-ha! moment because of it?
Or do I just keep smiling and deleting the fan letters and trying to have normal conversations with him?

Thank you for your time. You are contributing to an important public service with your response.

Social retard out.

Work work work...is work....

2008-12-30T12:01:00.001-07:00

Holy. Crap. I'm tired. Why didn't any of you little cheerleaders remind me how HARD working is? Huh? WTF? Didn't any of you think to poke me and say "Uh, you know, Nessa, this isn't going to be sitting on your arse and socializing. You might have to do stuff and learn new things?"

I'm a spoiled little wuss, I know. I know. I've worked three days in a row, eight hour shifts of standing behind a faux-cherry counter smiling like a sycophant and taking people's money. Not rocket science, right?

But the standing. Oy, vey; my dogs are barking. I very smartly purchased some spiffy new shoeses for the whole "business casual attire" requirement (I didn't think they'd be impressed with my housewife clogs or tennies, and the slut heels stay at the back of the closet), only to discover that cute new fashionable shoeses cause BLISTERS after a few hours. I think my feet swelled to the size of that colon in the Mutter museum after the second hour. They sure felt like it. I hobbled around wincing and muttering the 'f' word by about hour six Friday.

Not that there was much hobbling to be doing as a cashier. Because as a "Seasonal Cashier", the management feels that we are not competent enough to actually venture out onto the book floor where a customer might see our nametage and assume we know where anything is, so we are safely ensconced behind twenty feet of that faux-cherry wall. God forbid we usurp the Trained Booksellers by guiding some trembling social phobic to the Self-Help section. In our untrained ignorance and being, apparently, too stupid to read the shelf headers, we might take them to the International Travel section instead, thereby causing mass confusion and hysteria and the End Of Days. Nope. We stay behind and just ring up people's piles of stuff.

And my feet weren't the only reason I was exhausted. After the first day, I had WORK DREAMS. All night, I rang people up on a computer that didn't work and frantically ran around the Sugarhouse B&N searching for some elusive...something. WTF? I mean, I understood when I had the teacher nightmares, all teachers have those. You dream that you show up without any lesson plans or behavioral map and the kids have decided to take over. I get that; teaching is a hard job and I was constantly afraid that someone would find out that I really had no fucking clue what I was doing.
But this is cashiering at Barnes and Noble. Again, not rocket science.
Last night, I don't think I ever got to the REM stage of sleep in order to have the dreams. The girl came into my bed every hour (she missed me, which both bolsters my heart and breaks it), and the rabbits were staging an in-cage riot all night because no one had let them out while I was gone.
So now I'm all groggy, and I have writers group tonight. I'm suspecting there will be very little intelligent wittiness from me this evening.

It's been a few years since I've worked retail, and the times they have a'changed. Instead of just scanning and hitting 'total' and taking their money and wishing them a nice day, we have a script.
"Welcome to Barnes and Noble. Were you able to find everything you needed?"

" Great. Will you be using a Barnes and Noble member card today to save ten percent on all your purchases?" [If the answer is "no", mention one more benefit to paying 25 bucks a year for another card to clutter up their wallet]

"You are a member? Great! Let me tap four different buttons on my screen to get to the proper screen so you can swipe your member card. Ok, great. Let me re-tap the four fucking buttons to get me back to the POS screen. Nothing like an efficient computer system when you're surly and in a hurry, right?"

[Insert witty banter to feign interest in what they are purchasing, unless it's something uncomfortable like "Why Men Marry Bitches" or "How to Escape an Abusive Relationship" or "Smokin' Hawt Nekkid Chicks" or "How to Recover After the Loss of a Child". That purchase actually made me cry a little. With books like those, it's generally a good idea to shut the hell up and avoid eye contact.]

"Okay, then. We are doing a holiday book drive. Would you be interested in purchasing a book [indicate books nicely displayed next to my register in such a way that I knock them down every time I bag someone's order] to be donated to a local underpriveleged elementary school student?"

"And would you like a bag for your purchases?"

I am the High Inquisitor. I feel like a moron. They make me do it. I innocently asked if it would be okay to not ask all the moronic questions if it was a purchase like one of the above, or if the person had obviously just come in because we're the only place to buy a roadmap for Northern Iowa. NO! God NO! Never skip the questions! It might be a secret shopper pretending to be surly and uncommunicative and depressed and they might give you a BAD GRADE and then you've ruined EVERYTHING.

Oh-kay. Thank goodness the Corporate Gods are sensitive to their customers' needs.

And the customers. Ok. I think there is a secret conspiracy. I've been lucky; I haven't had any fit-throwers or real psychos. But, I swear, I think I've been ringing up the same twenty people, over and over and over. I look at them and I SWEAR they were just here. Is it just my brain being overloaded with new information and refusing to process anything else? Because here's who I keep getting:

Uncomfortable Guy.
Surly Old Man.
Big Burly Betty. And her girlfriend.
Dysfunctional Crack Whore.
Snotty College Professor.
Even More Snotty College Student.
Strung-out Housewife and her four screaming kids.
Perfect Hair-Nails-Boobs Barbie. (Chiseled and Uninterested Ken optional)
Defensive Dan.
Happy Heavy Honey.
Twilight-Might-Happen-To-Me Hopeful Girl
Granola Gus and his girlfriend Stinky Jane.
The Subaru Outback People.
JockStrap Jared.
Militant Mike and his Violent ADD son.
Squeaky Mouse Girl.
Vanilla Ice.
I'm-Better-Than-You 'Tude.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuude.
The Mormon Bishop.

Yep, I think that's about it. The entire customer base for B&N. I can, if you're bored, tell you exactly what each of them buys.

Ugh. That's it for now. My brain is SOOOOOOO done. Thank Quark I have five days to recover before going back. If you're at work right now, I apologize for being such a baby. You rock.

I have to go fold twelve loads of laundry now. Back to the daily grind, which I have discovered is no grind at all.

:)

Twilight is sucking my life away...

2008-12-16T13:10:00.003-07:00

Right now, I should be doing many other things. I should be addressing Christmas cards, wrapping presents from Santa, vacuuming and dusting the house, finishing the shopping that I've procrastinated about like I do every year, blah blah yadda yadda. And yet, I'm not.
I don't even want to be sitting here, writing this, really. But I need to write, as I haven't so much as touched my novel-in-progress in a week, even though I'm at a crucial point (as in: It's almost done, after four friggin' years!!!). But, no, I'm still in my jammies, hair all bed-headed, last night's mascara still smudged under my eyes, teeth mildly fuzzy due to an over-abundance of peppermintinis and a hot tub. And still I sit.

Now, some of you know me and know that I am the queen of procrastination, that me letting the house fall into complete chaos is not so much news. But this is just getting insane. It's worse this time, I promise.
Why the over-abundance of procrastination? Why is this normally laid-back-but-at-least-somewhat-productive housewife completely blowing off all responsibilities?

I'll tell you why. But it ain't gonna be pretty.

Twilight.

You heard me.

As loathe as I am to admit it because I swore I would never read it (I'll detail my book snobbery momentarily), I inhaled the first book in 3 days and am halfway through the second one, which I started yesterday. I can't put the stupid thing down.

So why was I so obstinately hesitant to read it in the first place?
1. It's by a BYU graduate. That right there is repulsive.
2. It's being fawned over by the women around here. The women who have very carefully decided that I am not one of them. The women whose idea of a Mom's Night Out involves squealing over the latest scrapbooking crap, whereas mine involves bottomless martinis and squealing over cute men who are not my husband. It is my personal crusade to rebel against all things Utah Housewife. Even though I am, technically, one.
3. I figured that the things in 1 and 2 immediately indicated that these books would be akin to the likes of Nora Roberts (*gag*) and Mary Higgens Clark (*retch*). I hate those kind of books. Hate them. The phony dialog, the implausibly convenient plot twists, the retarded narrative. They are written by and for mental midgets. (See? Book snob. Yes I am. Sorry if you're a fan.) I don't want to read about throbbing manhoods, windswept hair, smoldering looks, and bursting bodices. I need a good story and some realistically angst-driven conflict. Not girlie crap.

So, then, why the hell am I enjoying this story so much?
1. It's an easy read, and not unpleasant. She's got a good voice, and absolutely does not sound like she's from BYU. There are actual funny quips, snarky lines, the characterizations are realistic (yes, even the vampires), and even though there are smoldering looks, it's done without much cheese.
2. I'm a secret fantasy believer. Love the Anne Rice books, love all things Harry Potter (written anyway. Don't get me started on the movies). Somewhere inside me, I want to believe that this shit could really happen, and love it when authors can make it plausible.
3. There's a chance that I, the snarky Domestic Goddess, might just be a bit of a romantic.

There. I said it. I'll even go further.

I want an Edward. I have been yearning for an Edward my whole life. (Hey, there's some cheese now!) I am addicted to that whole pulled-toward-someone, to the first blooming moments of wanting someone. To the leaning, the covert looks, the tentative touches, the forgetting the rest of the world exists when you look at someone. It's an addiction that has almost cost me my marriage. It's something that I've done a lot of work to bury. I've written my own 12-step program for it.

We can go into the whole "Why don't you have that with your husband" thing, but, come on. As much as I love him, as lucky as I know I am, as handsome and caring and selfless as he is, there will always be something about an Edward. And I don't think Edward would be an Edward after 12 years. Comfort and happiness and knowing someone's annoying little personality quirks can just....delete the smoldering. I'm pretty sure I don't smolder when he thinks of me, either. We love each other, can't imagine life without each other, and there is occasionally some romance.

And we had those first moments with the glancing and the touching and the smoldering. We did. And it lasted longer than with anyone else. But, then, well....life happened.

So, I'm going to go read some more, before I absolutely have to rejoin the real world to get my daughter from school and take her flute shopping.

How about you? Any books that you never thought you'd enjoy and then ended up absorbed in?

Get to know me!

2008-11-04T21:45:00.003-07:00

Thanks to Susan, I'm finally feeling like a member of the blogspot community. (uh, other than Jesse wanting to recruit me as a stripper, that is).

So, without further ado:

8 TV shows I love: ( in no particular order)

1: Grey's Anatomy
2: NOVA (Geek alert!)
3: Desperate Housewives (Yup, we housewives are ALL that hawt. Yup.)
4: Keeping Up Appearances
5: Samantha Who?
6: MythBusters
7: Dirty Jobs
8: The Office (UK and US)

8 Favorite Restaurants: (in no particular order)
Uh, Okay. It's kind of against my husband's religion to eat out, but I'll do my best.

1: Ruth's Diner
2: Himalayan Kitchen
3: Millcreek Cafe
4: Yanni's Greek
5: Uh, there's a possibility that I'm overly fond of a Big Mac.
6: Cafe Rio
7: Citris Grill
8: Rino's

8 Things that happened yesterday:
(Shit. What was yesterday? They all blend together....oh! Yeah.)

1: Gym with the hubby.
2: Lunch with hubby
3: Christmas shopping (*shudder*)
4: Trying to surreptitiously check out the ass on the guy running the treadmill in front of me who was not my hubby.
5: New shield on the iPod (yay!)
6: Petted a bunny
7: Cooked something
8: Went to bed waiting for the hubby to return from head-banging at the Metallica show. *snicker*

8 Things I look forward to:

1: Wine
2: Friday Brunch, Bitch and Booze with Sara and Tami (and Susan if she dares!)
3: Wine
4: Annual Lake Tahoe Girls' Escape
5: Gambling in Tahoe
6: G becoming a bibliophile. (She has to. I will shrivel up if she doesn't)
7: Wine (is there an echo in here?)
8: The next four years.

8 Things I love about the Fall:
1: Wool socks
2: Rainy days that give me the excuse to curl up on the couch and read and drink tea. Or wine. Whatever.
3: School's in!
4: No more sunburns or additional freckles
5: Big comfy sweaters so I can stop sucking in.
6: Down comforters
7: Mulled wine
8: Playdates at Susan's.

8 Things on my wish list

1: A waist
2: A dog without a nervous bowel
3: My daughter having a life happy enough to spare her from ginormous therapist's bills in the future.
4: Boobs that aren't trying to make friends with my knees.
5: A month in London.
6: A vacay below the equator. (Not my equator...the Earth one where things are warm and sunny and there's a beach where someone will bring me endless drinky drinks.)
7: An end to knee-jerk hatred, close-minded opinions, uneducated rhetorical spew, no starving babies, no dead soldiers, no excuses for personal failure, a realignment of our national priorities.
8: That I could always be as deep and profound as that previous statement.

Um, I'd tag someone specifically, but don't really know anyone on here, so if you're reading this: Hey! Your it!

Quirks, Quarks and Qurap

2008-11-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

So. I dunno if anyone noticed, but I've been a little absent on the myspace scene of late. I know, I know; you all missed me horribly and were worried sick. Don't fret, I'm okay. It's autumn and I do this every autumn, it's just one of my things.

Speaking of "things", I have a thing. More specifically, I have a husband. Whom I love, who loves me, blah blah blah, we're livin' the dream, but really: at what point is it okay to smack someone upside the head and ask "What. The. Fuck?"

We got a new refrigerator. Which, in our household where the general philosophy is to use something until it dies a painful death, is pretty major. We stopped at Sears one night when driving home from the grandparents' house, which is also major because we never go anywhere that might involve shopping, but the husband had some fun money burning a hole in his pocket and was itching to sacrifice it to the Manly God of Craftsman. My husband doesn't do porn, it's all about the garage toys with him. So, the daughter and I left him happily fondling wrenches and other metal manly things and went to find the appliances. The fridge we had came with our tiny little house and was also tiny and had no crisper drawers nor ice maker but did come with annoyingly bendy wire shelves, which I was okay with, I'm no princess and can make my own fucking ice. But still, looking at the shiny new fridges with the adjustable shelves and the humdidity-controlled drawers, well, let's just call that a little bit of housewife-porn, shall we? Ditto on the front-loading washer and steam-cleaning dryers. Oooooohhhhh…..must…have….more….But; we are the people who live simply with what we have until it sends out smoke and bangs, so when I mentioned that I found a really nice fridge ON SALE, I nearly wet myself when he said "Okay." The fridge was delivered, the husband drilled holes in the kitchen tile floor and plumbed that sucker and viola! I am in ice, baby. My gimlets are chilled, mo' fo'. And my lettuce is not wilted, either. It does what I want it to do and I am happy.

He, on the other hand, has spent the last three weeks making minute adjustments to the refrigerator temperature settings with several different measuring devices, including the remotely read hygrometer/thermometer he had to pry off the outside of the house. He's moved that wheely-thingy inside the fridge a hundredth of a millimeter until the temperature holds steady at 34.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Which is fine, it's just one of those quirks that I've grown accustomed to over the years. My husband gets into something and cannot let it go until he knows every detail, has every aspect exactly where it seems he thinks it should be. Did I mention he's German? Not that I like cultural generalizations, but let's just say he might have made a mistake marrying an Irish girl who could give a rat's ass how something works as long as it does what she needs it to do.

Before, when I said that he said "Okay" to the new fridge? That was after a week of him researching EXACTLY which model would be right for our needs. I would buy the cheapest one that made ice. This fundamental difference between us is quite pervasive: His garage is immaculate with a place for everything and everything in its place, mine has a flattened soccer ball in the middle of the floor that I try not to run over every time, and if you move something on a shelf be prepared to have things fall on you. I can never find my keys or cel phone; his never leave his body unless they are precisely placed on his dresser for the morning ritual. I don't check voice mail until someone calls back asking if I got their message, he diligently reviews the saved messages every day and repeatedly tells me how many of them are for me. How we don't kill each other, I don't know.

What else….

I finished reading the His Dark Materials books by Phillip Pullman. Ate them up, actually. Remember the Golden Compass movie that came out last year? These are the reading-thingies that go with that. I'd not seen the movie, although it looked really cool, but I for some reason prefer to wait until something isn't cool anymore before I see it. That's how I roll.

Anyway, I LOVE THESE BOOKS. If you've been to my page, you might have noticed the What the Bleep? graphic posted under my movies. That movie was my religious epiphany. I've never gone into my personal religious convictions in here because, eh, who cares? But here's a hint: I believe that there is no Heaven, there is no Hell, there is only energy and God resides in quarks. So to find a story supporting that, my goodness, I was a happy little bunny. I would recommend these books to anyone who wants to be mad at the church, anyone who thinks physicists are on to something big, and anyone who ever thought it would be really, really cool to have a talking animal accompany you everywhere.

On the personal dilemma news: I'm here, writing. The book is eeking its way out of my head at a pretty darn satisfying rate right now. It might be a pile of crap, but it's mine and it won't be bugging me all trapped inside my noggin for much longer.

Hope you all are well, sure enjoyed talking with all of you and getting supportive messages while I was mired in a pit of despair and depression…oh, wait….;P

I Always Wanted To Be A Stripper

2008-11-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

There. I've said it. Secret's out. I feel much, much better now.

Of course, I'm going to qualify that statement by revealing that I wanted to be a stripper based on seeing that classic 80's movie, "Flash Dance" when I was eleven. I mean, come on; what could be more desirable than getting to work a badass job like welding during the day and then after that getting to go put on fancy frilly costumes and do really complicated choreographed dance routines on a stage in front of men who fall in love with you? And then use that valuable experience to gain entry into an exclusive dance company? How awesome!

And let's not forget the great little Burlesque routines that sometimes would show up on the variety shows in the 70's. Bah-dah-dah, Bah-dah-dah, BOOM-tsh-tsh! BOOM-tsh-tsh! And all they had to do was take off their dress, flip it around and maybe shake their still-brassiered chest. How much fun would that be?

Then someone took me to a strip club.

Never mind.

When I was 19 and still living at home and looking for gainful employment, I perused the want ads one morning over coffee. Well, I say morning, but I was a college student. It was probably more like noonish. Anyway, I see all these ads for "ESCORTS WANTED." Huh. Get paid to go out with men? I'd seen "Pretty Woman", and figured it was probably something like that, without the being a whore part. How hard could it be to wear really nice clothes and escort rich, handsome men to fancy-schmancy cocktail parties and dinners with the mayor? And then, of course, said handsome rich guy would fall hopelessly in love with me, climb up the fire escape and whisk me away to his mansion/penthouse. Done.

"I think I'll be an escort," I say nonchalantly to my mom as I sip my coffee. I think her coffee came out of her nose before she choked out "What? NO! God No! You're not doing that!" I'm sure I rolled my eyes, figuring my totally-uncool mom had it way wrong.

Hey, then I met an escort. By chance, while studying at a coffee shop, one of my friends introduced me to her. She looked like about ten miles of bad road (at the age of 20) and had two kids. She proudly showed everyone at the table pictures of her in her "Escort attire" when she was, oh, nine months pregnant. And my illusions were shattered. She told me what really goes down. Uh, including her. No Pretty Woman? No Richard Gere-type rich man falling in love? Nope. More like Dick the garbage man on pay day. Not that there's anything wrong with paying for a little lovin', but, um, no. No. Never mind.

Naïve?

Yes. Yes I am.

I also thought that I could major in Biology just by taking lots of classes in college about science stuff. Like Evolution, Morphology, Bird Care, Astronomy, that kind of thing. Imagine my shock and horror when I finally went to the Biology Department and met with a counselor. Physics? Organic Chemistry? Physics? Calculus? And, um, Physics?

Math is not my friend, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I needed Physics to be a zookeeper, but I gamely tried. Did you know it's really, really hard to learn Physics and Organic Chemistry when the classes are at 7 a.m. and the words are really big? Especially when one has a killer hangover from the Jager Bomb special the night before? Nope. New major!

So, after all that, I learned an important lesson:

Do your research. Don't go through life making big decisions with just half the story or with some crap someone forwarded you on the internet.

And never, EVER, innocently ask an escort how much money she gets for a hummer, especially when her boss is standing nearby. Ass-whupping all over.

So, how about you? Ever have a "dream job" and come to find out it wasn't what you thought?
Is there anything going on in the world right now that, oh, I don't know, you think you should do some research about before forwarding stupid rhetoric-and-hate-filled emails?

A whole New Generation of Playground Fun

2008-11-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

One good thing about being a parent is the ability to take your child somewhere that you loved as a child and relive the magic through their eyes. The wonder of experiencing something new, the joy of simply doing something for the sake of doing it, of learning new skills.

The Dinosaur museum: Ooo! What if we had pet dinosaurs? Would that one eat me? Did they REALLY live on Earth? Where's the gift shop? And I watch her crane her little neck up to see the dino's skulls and smile.

Swimming pool: Look! I'm a mermaid! NO! I'm a platypus! Watch me cannonball! Momma, why is that man wearing swimsuit bottoms like yours? Where's the vending machine? And I watch her slip through the water like she was meant to be there.

And especially:

The playground: Watch me do the monkey bars! Watch me climb up here! Look how much bigger the slide is than the kindergarten slide! Look what I can do on the big pole!
And then I watch her slide down the big pole, spinning around with one leg hooked around it, other arm gracefully extended, head back. When she lands with a little flourish, I clap like any good mom. Then I look around, to see one of the older girls (third grade) with whom we walk home also spinning around while sliding down the pole.
It's after school, so there aren't a lot of kids there, but I notice that there's quite a line for the pole. Each little girl climbs up the slide next to it, grabs as high as she can and then gracefully spins down. One even has mastered the behind-the-head grab, spinning slowly backward to the ground.

And I realize:

They're doing stripper pole moves.

A million questions start to spin through my brain.

What. The. Fuck?

Do they know what they're doing?

Do they get points for the difficulty of each move?

Could I do that?

And most importantly: How in the HELL did elementary school girls find out about this?!?

Walking home I'm trying not to giggle. The other third grader that we walk is a talker. I've been able to get some pretty juicy stuff out of her before, so I ask her if she likes sliding down the pole. "Not really," she says, but then brags that her mom "can do the one where she's upside down and only hanging on with one leg!"

"Wow," I say, "she, uh, do that in your basement?" Hoping to get some dirt on the neighbors, you know. *snicker*

Her face looks momentarily horrified, and I realize I might have tapped into something here. "Uh, No, uh—wait up, you guys!" And she scurries off before I can ply more secrets from her.

My friend Susan called me the other day. She was stuck at the school with a busted car and was watching the kids at morning recess.
"Have you seen the sliding pole thing? How they all line up? There's a line a mile long for this! How funny!"
"You mean the stripper pole?"
Pause.
"OH. MY. GOD. You're right. That's totally what they're doing!"

Ah, childhood innocence.

Something's gotta give

2008-10-27T08:53:00.004-06:00

I. MUST. Do something about my life. Seriously.
Maybe if I put down on cyber-paper exactly what I need/want to do and then outline a plan and daily check off what I've accomplished.....BWAHAHAHAAAaaaaahhhhh...yeah, that's totally not me.
I'll at least do this:

I need to quit smoking. I HAVE TO. I'm 36; I've been smoking off and on since I was 19. The little sticks of joy control my every waking moment. I love them. LOVE smoking, which is absolutely disgusting, right? I'm terrified to quit, which is something I've done about 452 times over the years. I did do one thing right: I quit when I found out I was preggers and didn't touch 'em for three years. Almost didn't even miss them, amazingly enough. Then, you know the story, I go to a party, my best friend is smoking, I'm out for a rare evening of freedom and I"m drinking and BAM! Next thing I know I'm sucking on those coffin nails like a starving man. Woman. Whatever. The point is, I'm so hooked on the nicotine that every little puff I take is simply a burst of happiness in my brain.
The worst part? Well, not the worst maybe, but definitely the most annoying. I'm a secret anti-social smoker. I don't want anyone to know that I smoke. My parents and I have this lovely dysfunctional little dance that we've done my entire adult life where I pretend I don't smoke and they pretend they don't know that I smoke. My raspy voice? Allergies, obviously. Bad breath? Musta been the pound of feta cheese I eat every day, mum, I dunno. WTF? And forget about telling friends, unless I know they're not going to judge me for it. I mean, let's be real, smokers are the new lepers. Nobody wants to be around them and look on them with a mixture of pity and disgust. So, I huddle in my back patio by the garage, in a corner where no one can see me, running into the garage if a neighbor happens to come out and might smell it. Pathetic. yup, that's me.
The other worst part? My daughter is now old enough to know what I'm doing, since they do the whole anti-tobacco thing at school. She keeps telling me to quit, I keep telling her I will, she keeps busting me, and Ta-da! She gets a few years in therapy as an adult because her mom lied to her. Or died early of cancer. I should probably not do that to the person I love the most.

So.

I need to feel the fear and do it anyway, or some such new-agey crapola. I'll bust out the last of the nicotine gum I bought 2 years ago and occasionally munch on when I attempt to quit. That stuff is fairly nasty, but better than being a screaming banshee. I'm a nightmare when I'm coming down from the nicky. What I really need is to hole up in a cabin in the remote woods for three weeks and have no one to yell at but myself. I'll just stock it with books, my laptop and about 94 bags of cheetos and I'll be fine. Fat, but fine.

Ok. That's that. One down, sort of, I just need to set a date. Okay....my quit date will be....hmmmm, when is my period? Uh, I'm going to go with SATURDAY. This Saturday, November 1st, 2008. Look, I've written a big Q on my calendar. I'll just tell my mom that it means that I'm renting the movie "Quigley Down Under" that day. Loves me some Tom Selleck.

Yup. Doin' it. Yes I am. Wish me luck.

Rutting sounds like it should be a fun word.

2008-10-21T15:10:00.002-06:00

I am in a rut. R-U-T. Rut. Rutting. Rut-rutty-rut-rut.

Which backward is only one letter away from being brown and smelly. Well, almost. You have to switch the R and the U around...oh, balls. See what I get when I try to be clever?

I'm just so....ick. Nothing is going on, I am making nothing happen, my world is caught in a bizarre spin of nothingness. I do nothing, even though I have much to do, I talk to no one, even though there a myriad of people I want to talk to, I just....linger and wallow and sit.

I know what I need to do to get out of it, I do.

Not being able to expend the effort to do so just makes it that much more depressing.

Rut.

My UnSmooth Moment

2008-10-08T10:40:00.000-06:00

Today I had a funny thing happen. Funny things don't often happen to me, at least not with an adult context to them. Most of the funny things that happen to me involve mud, something plastic and some part of my daughter or her friends' hair. So I'm sharing. Mostly to see if I can get on the Bob and Tom Show , only the funniest morning radio show in the country.

My friend Sara, who is my lovely, funny, smart little bibliophile, is also my tactless bitch-sistah and potty-mouth partner. We often send surreptitious text messages to each other's phones when something funny and/or irritating is happening, or when she goes to the gym without me and the hot firefighters show up. It's like they know I'm staying home in my smelly fat pants that day. Sheesh. I never get to see the hot firefighters work out. (Not that I want to, honey, it's just an odd coincidence....)Anyway. I digress.

So I'm enjoying a quiet lunch out on my own (hell froze over--uh, my parents had the daughter while I was at acupuncture), and my phone gives the happy text chirp. I, feeling oh-so-hip, flip it open and read:
"_______________ is a fucking brat from hell". Or some such similar wording. Now, I know the child to whom she is referring, and yes, sadly that child is nothing but a fucking brat. We've all tried to feel differently about it but it's simply a fact: she's a fucking brat with a fucking clueless mother who thinks it's amusing. I feel for Sara, who is trapped at a church activity with her. So I sympathetically text back:
"No shit, Sherlock."
To which she replies:
"HOLY FUCK"
I chuckle, close my phone and leisurely finish my bagel and chai.

Flash forward an hour or two. I've driven 18 miles to my grandmother's house, to retrieve my daughter and have a visit. My aunt is in town today and tomorrow and I haven't seen her for a while. We talk, we laugh, we listen to my grandma bitch so sweetly about the time the church ladies barged into her hospital room when she'd broken her hip and wouldn't leave until she said "Please go and don't come back." I love my grandma. My aunt is pretty cool, too. She's 50 but looks about 40, wears designer everything and parties like it's 1999.
It's time to go home, the daughter is tired and figety, I have to drive in traffic back across the valley, I'm a little loopy from the acupuncture. I get the whiny grandpa-stimulated child into the car, hug people and promise to visit again soon, head home.

Around dinnertime, the phone begins to ring. We have a rule: we don't answer the phone at dinner. It's family time. If it's an emergency, people will keep calling and/or call the cel, which I will check if it keeps ringing. But tonight my cel never rang so I didn't worry much. Basically, if any part of your body is on fire and/or hanging over a cliff around 6 pm, call 911 or just plan on hitting redial.
After dinner, I check the voicemail. First, it's Sara:
"Call me. Now. Call my cel. Or my work. Call me. Call me now. Dammit. Call me." Huh. That sounds kinda important.
Next message. It's my aunt.
"Nessa, you left your phone here (she's breezy and chuckling), and I thought it was Mom's. I deleted some stuff from your messages. Teehee. I think I scared your friend. Hee. Uh, call grandma's house."
Oh.
Shit.
I call Sara first.
"First of all, I'm NEVER meeting your grandmother or your aunt. Gawd. Second of all, what the hell? Do you not delete old text messages? Dude, your aunt scared the crap out of me. I didn't know who the hell I'd texted what to!"

Apparently my well-meaning aunt thought my phone was my grandma's. She has one, and can never remember how to use it. So every once in a while my aunt or my dad will give her a refresher course in how to find the contacts and how to dial and to remind her she doesn't need to listen for a dial tone before calling out.

Auntie noticed there were text messages in the inbox. And read them. And was appalled that someone would send such things to an 82-year-old-woman. My aunt is a tough cookie, and she called back and let Sara have it. Sara is a tough cookie as well, but crumbled under the assault and shame and confusion of having sent the F-word and other choice tidbits to an old lady.

After laughing til I about peed, I assured her that my aunt was really cool, and that my grandma would probably laugh when it was explained to her.
Which she did, mostly, but was shocked that one of my friends would use "such nasty language".
"I know, Grandma, you'll have to excuse Sara. She was having a really bad day and having to deal with a really unpleasant person. She's sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, Grandma."

She's sending home my phone tomorrow, with my dad when he takes my aunt to the airport. It'll probably be sealed in a ziploc baggie, reinforced with duct tape.

Maybe it's time to stop using the "F-word."

Do YOU have any good "unsmooth moments?" (Not affiliated with Keystone, Keystone Light or the Bob and Tom show. Just me. Wanting to see if anyone else is such a fucking idiot. Oops.)

Countdown

2008-10-04T13:16:00.001-06:00

Ten Things I Wish I Could Say to Ten Different People Right Now:
1) I love you like a sister. But there is someone else in your life that is damaging all of your other relationships.
2) I swore I would never, ever say this to another stay-at-home-mom, but: What the Hell do you do all day? Your house is a health hazard, I can smell it on those rare occasions when you crack open a window. Your kids are cute but they smell too and watching them try to run or think makes my heart hurt. Either get help or stop having babies or both. I think you're a really great and interesting person, but come on. You are a grown up. Stop eating candy for breakfast and letting (or making) your kids stay up until midnight and wash a fucking dish now and then.
3) I miss you. Our friendship taught me a lot about how to be a gracious, generous person and I miss that. Unfortunately, I'm in a place right now where the parts of you I don't like outweigh the parts I miss.
4) Look, assbag: I don't care if you have a really nice car and you like to park in the handicap space because then no one's doors will bump your car. I'm not going to say I've never been tempted to park there, when there are ten empties and I'm in a hurry. But really, unless you forgot to put up your handicapped placard before you got out, I'm going to assume that you're just a selfish, lazy, holier-than-thou slut with a mental retardation issue. Then I'm going to key your little red Infinity.
5) How ya like me now?
6) I'm so incredibly proud of you, and jealous of you. You are an amazing person who sets goals and then actually achieves them. I want to be like you.
7) You're one of my favorite people in the whole world. No one has ever understood me like you do or forgiven me more for being a lazy friend. You kick ass.
8) I probably don't deserve you. Thanks for being tolerant of that fact.
9) She was wrong, about all of it. I hope you believe that, I hope you look around and see how many people adore and are in awe of you.
10) Get a life.

Nine Things About Myself:
1) I can be incredibly lazy. I've made it an art form.
2) I love school. I would go back to college and get about 5 more degrees if I could.
3) I have very little patience for fucktards.
4) I like my writing, but fear that in reality it's hackish crap that will never be published and I'll spend my life indignantly and ignorantly wondering why the hell I'm not getting published.
5) I really do have good intentions most of the time. They're paving my road to hell…
6) My secret guilty pleasure is watching celebrity news shows and reading People magazine. That's about all my girlfriends and I do on our little getaways.
7) I love animals. To the point that if there's an animal in the immediate vicinity I will stop and watch it and point it out to whomever I'm with.
8) Except spiders. Evil little minions of hell. Squish 'em.
9) I can out-drink almost anyone. Except Becky. (Ain't ya proud, Ma?)

Eight Ways To Win My Heart:
1) Don't talk down to me. Ever.
2) Laugh at me, with me, and at yourself.
3) Leave me the hell alone when I need it, and understand that it's not about you.
4) Play with my hair.
5) Massage. Lots of massage.
6) Love my writing.
7) Love my dogs. Laugh and Awwww at my bunnies.
8) Be nice to everyone, even if they're fucktards.

Seven Things That Cross My Mind a Lot:
1) What the hell?
2) What is my daughter doing right now?
3) Is there something on my face?
4) I should accomplish something…sometime…
5) Do I have enough booze?
6) Is anyone else thinking that daily naps should be federally mandated?
7) Oo! Look! A pigeon!

Six Things I Do Before I Fall Asleep:
1) Watch something brainless on the tube.
2) Shower
3) Brush the choppers
4) Watch the news
5) Snuggle with the man
6) Read

Five People Who Mean a Lot:
1)My family
2) Susan
3) DirtDiva
4) Sara
5) Becky

Four Things You're Wearing Right Now:
1) shirt that hides the pudginess
2) jeans
3) heels
4) my heart on my sleeve.

Three Songs That You Listen to Often:
1) Viva la Vida
2) Everything by Erasure. (That's not a song title. I literally mean everything.)
3) Theme from Barbie as Rapunzel. (not my fault….sort of…)

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
1) See everything there is to see in England and Europe.
2) Spend two weeks in a tiny cabin on the beach all by myself with no contact with the outside world.

One Confession:
Ugh. I am a very insecure person who tends to freak out and withdraw when I think I've said something really stupid, which is most of the time. I'm afraid people don't like me and yet I can't seem to stop doing or saying the stupid things. I think of my friends often, but am often uncommunicative simply out of fear that I have nothing interesting to say.

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas

2008-10-04T13:00:00.004-06:00

- Wednesday

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas...
Current mood: animated
Category: Travel and Places

...until some attention-whore blogger writes about it. My husband and I have been together for 12 years, married for 10. And what better way to celebrate the bond of true, committed soul-mate sacred love than to spend five glorious days in:

Sin City!

Ah, Las Vegas....that oasis in the vast desert, the strip of flashy lights and sound of money clinking happiness into someone's life, the storied town of the mafia, high-rollers, legal prostitution, glamour and drugs.

Except...now there's a castle:

and the Statue of Liberty against the Manhattan skyline:

The Forum of Ancient Rome:

across the street from the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe:

And the Mediterranean Sea

Which all led me to ask:

WTF?

What happened to the old-school Vegas glamour? Where have the good days of tackiness beyond measure and slightly slimey shenanegans gone?
Sure, sure, I've always wanted to travel the world, see the sights of old Europe. Now I think I have. But it all feels so....plastic. There's just something vaguely wrong with seeing the Statue of David in the middle of a mall. And the tributes to fallen firefighters displayed beneath a fiberglass Statue of Liberty poised at the corner of the strip of fallen dreams seemed a bit....disrespectful. Now there's talk that Disney is actually putting up a resort. Disney! The bastion of innocence and childhood joy, running a casino for parents to sit and get schnockered while the kids...what? Ride on a replica of the pretend Matterhorn? Meet the Princesses? Will the Princesses be wearing their regular costumes or will they be decked out in Vegas Showgirl glitz? I might have to go back just to see that.
The country of Dubai is in the process of building a mind-boggling ginormous complex in the center of the strip, the construction of which is on a scale of disbelief.

But, to my relief, we did find some of the comforting, familiar aspects of Vegas still exist.

Like that good old original "Welcome to Downtown Las Vegas" sign, now hardly noticeable on an island in the middle of a 4-lane split in the strip.

And, we found Fremont Street, where the lights still flash and the bells still ring.

btw, did you know that you can now buy a plastic debit card, attach it to your shirt with a spiral cord and play slots with that, instead of the good sound of coins being plunked into oblivion? No sound of crashing payoffs, just electronic beeps when one hits the jackpot. Weird.

We also found a few freaks. Like the religious fanatic with his signs and placards, standing in the middle of Fremont Street, proudly proclaiming the evils of gambling, sex and especially *whispers* homosexuality. I'm sure he did God proud. Ass. Hole.

And the homeless, while surprisingly not a strong visual presence, still find refuge in Vegas:

And the girlie vans endlessly circling the strip:

I just felt bad for the girls. It must get awful hot and boring riding around in the back of that little van.

There was also some fountain fun:

Pointing at a pee-pee:

(He's so mature...)

...and there was some gambling. Some. I love me some blackjack; it's the highlight of my year to head to Lake Tahoe with my girls and sit at a five dollar table and drink for free and have people bet on my hand. Love it. I've always been an incredibly good blackjack player, and have never lost. I average about $250 winnings every time.

Not this time. I lost. I LOST! I lost $70 in about ten minutes, and that freaked me out so badly I couldn't bring myself to sit at another table the whole week. Well, it wasn't a complete loss; I did get a good dirty martini out of it for free. Yep! A free martini that only cost me seventy bucks. I'm praying that my mojo comes back in time for this year's Tahoe adventure, otherwise I'm going to need therapy.
The husband did enjoy some video poker and a big stinky cigar though:

But the piece de resistance was the wedding.

Instead of blowing a wad of cash on seeing the Blue Man Group, we decided to make a real memory that would last and give us a chuckle. So we found the Elvis impersonator that does wedding ceremonies. We figured it would be funny, tacky and probably really trashy. We were right on the first two. But the chapel was actually very nice, the people were all very helpful, respectful and sweet, and our Elvis (other than being Sicilian and a brunette and probably gay) was just the best ever.

(Our names are up in lights behind us, but the angle is wrong to see it.)

We were by ourselves, the only witnesses were a reporter and photographer from England's The Sun newspaper, which simply set me over the edge. I was chuffed! They interviewed us and everything, and claimed that the story would run the next week and they would email me a copy. No sign of it yet, which bums me out. It would be the be-all end-all to be featured in an English paper for getting married in the tackiest, trashiest American way possible.

So, to wrap it up, finally: While not the Caribbean cruise I'd hoped for, spending five days touring "the world" on The Strip with the man I love was a perfect way to commemorate our marriage.

Thank yew. Thank yew very much. Uh huh

Rambling RandomNess

2008-10-04T13:00:00.001-06:00

So, I've been a very good girl and have written in that book-thing every day for the past 2 weeks. At this rate, I might get it done before the 2010 deadline! With all that hard work, I figured I was due for a reward. So I'm blogging instead of noveling. Yay!

Uh, let's see....funny and interesting blog topic....hmmmmm....no....nup....not that.....crap. I'm out. Random b.s. it is.

Memorial Day. Gotta love the three day weekends. Well, if one has a real job I imagine it's nice, getting that extra day off. Funny thing; domestic goddesses don't get days off, much. We're pretty much here all the time, every day, on and on amen. There's always something to do, something to clean, someone's something to wipe. Even when my sweet hubby lets me sleep in on his day off, I still have to get up sometime. Even when my wondrous mum takes the girl over night, there's that obnoxious little buzz in the back of my brain that is ever tuned to the "what is the child doing now?" channel.

And speaking of baloney-filled holidays, I wonder when it was exactly that days like Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, and Labour Day went from being an opportunity for us as a society to take a break to remember all the people who have carried our glorious American freedoms on their back to being a day when we flaunt those glorious freedoms in almost obscene ways? Mega-sales, barbecues, pool openings, camping, yardwork; is that what it's really supposed to be about? Not that I"m complaining, really; when else can one get a mattress for the low low price of $150 and a free hot dog at the door? Politically-Correct Non-specific Deity Bless America!

So, I think I should be able to take a turn at running the world. I'm not happy with the way it's going now. Here are my first official changes in How Things Should Be:

1) It should be illegal to shut a bathroom door if no one is in there. Unless a person in doing something personal and/or embarassing, that door should be wide open to assure anyone who might need to use it that it is, indeed, vacant. No more standing meekly outside, rapping quietly on the jam, muttering "is anyone in there? Excuse me?" and then opening the door when there's no answer, only to find: Hello! Someone else in a compromising position that will be burned into one's retinas for all eternity. Nup. All bathroom doors, public and private, must remain gapingly ajar and there must be a functioning lock that must, by law, be engaged if you're a poopin'.

B: There should be two lines at the grocery store: Dumbasses and People Who Know What the Hell They're Doing.

III. I know I'm not the first person to come up with this concept, but: There should be a test and licensing procedure for anyone who even thinks about having children. It's too easy to become the person in charge of another small person and totally screw it up. You need a license to have a dog, a car, catch a fish or to be able to shoot someone. Why not a child? Or four? And don't give me that crap about freedom of genetics; there are some things that simply should be skimmed out of the gene pool.

Anyone else want to take a stab at this "being in charge" stuff? I'm tired.

I don't swim in your toilet, please don't poop in my pool.

2008-10-04T12:59:00.000-06:00

So, I'm sort-of an avid swimmer, in that I love to swim. I was never on the team in high school, but learned to do laps in college and it's my primary form of exercise. There's nothing, for me, as freeing and calming and energizing as jumping into the pool, doing that OOH!ACK!OHFUCKIT'SCOLD dance, stretching out, putting on my dorky cap and goggles and going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and breathe and stroke and kick and breathe and....you get it. It tends to re-set this little ADD-constant-loop-of-thoughts brain.

My daughter has also gained an appreciation of the liquid world, after a few years of step-clinging. She's a fish now, and I love it. We have a blast diving for diving rings, doing underwater flips, and of course, cannonballs off the side. And getting out every hour to go potty, whether we need to or not. And we've talked about how important it is to shower before we get into the pool, to wash off all the germs so we don't share them with the other swimmers.

Imagine my horror when I realized that not everyone does this important little scrub. In fact, almost no one does.

Once in the middle of a workout in the gym's pool (which is 25 feet long and 3 lanes wide, not large) I was the recipient of, I'm sure, some primo fecal-bacteria when a guy came bopping right off the workout floor, dripping in sweat including a rather large sweat streak right down the crack of his ass, took off his shoes and dripping sweaty socks and jumped right in. Right the fuck in. And exclaimed how fucking refreshing that was.
"Dude," says I, still wearing the so-cool cap and goggles, "you know you just flooded this pool with bacteria and sweat."
"So, it's a big pool."
You got me there, Einstein.
"Oh, right, my bad. Bacteria don't multiply. It being a closed system, I'm sure this water will all get filtered in the next month or so. I guess I don't mind swimming through your butt-sweat and athlete's foot funk. Silly me. Thank you, Dumbass, I'll be going now." And I hoisted myself out and went to the manager, who shrugged.

Last summer, all of the pools in Salt Lake Metro area were closed due to an outbreak of cryptosporidium . All of the pools. People got really sick, some almost died, we couldn't go swimming from the middle of July til almost September.

Why?

Let me give you the simple answer: Poop.

~Everybody poops. (Even you.)

~There are little tiny microorganisms living in poop. (Even yours)

~Wiping doesn't always get all the germs off the bum. (Even yours)

~Little kids often don't wipe very well. (Even yours)

~Poop and poop germs aren't always killed by chlorine. (Even in your pool)

~Swimming pools are closed systems, meaning the germs stay in it until they multiply or hit the chlorine filter. They're not going anywhere, even in a "big" pool. (Even the big big one you go to.)

~Water gets into your eyes, nose and mouth when swimming. (Even yours.)

~Poop germs will make you throw up and poop liquid until you want to die. Or do die. (Even you)

So, boys and girls to sum up: Take a cleansing shower right before you get in the pool. Shower your kids. With soap. Every time.

I know, I know: it's uncool, it's cold, it wastes precious time, the kids whine about it, it renders that first jump into the pool less refreshing, and surely YOU don't have any poop clinging to your bum.

Except you do. Poop is everywhere. Please don't bring it into my pool anymore.

Thank you.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by:

Poop.
Let's not share.

ANYONE CAN BE A BEST-SELLING AUTHOR!! (But should they be?)

2008-10-04T12:58:00.001-06:00

June 7, 2008 - Saturday

ANYONE can be a Best-selling Author! (But should they be?)**oops, I forgot something**
Current mood: creative
Category: Writing and Poetry

So I went to a writer's conference today. My first. I haven't been to any before because 1) I don't pay enough attention to the outside world to know when they are and b: They usually cost around 150 bucks to attend, and I need to save my money for more important things like playing blackjack in Tahoe.

Being "In Charge" of a local writers' group, I recently received an email on the group's website from a publicist for a small local publisher. They were hosting a conference today, the "6-7-8 Conference" (get it?) in a tiny town an hour away. They were only charging $25 and including lunch, so BINGO! I signed up. No one else from my group did. Maybe that should have been my first clue.

I'll admit it; I'm not always good at doing my homework. I'd never heard of this publisher, but I know that there are several small publishing houses in the area, and had heard this small town was considered "progressive" for the area it is in, so figured it'd be okay. Finally Googled the place on Wednesday. It's an LDS publishing company. As in, they pretty much only publish Mormon authors writing about Mormon or local-interest books, or at least one has to mention that they are a Child Of God and know how the Golden Plates song goes in the book to get in. Not that there's anything wrong with that. This is the land of Zion, after all.

I am soooooo not a Mormon author. My book is sooooooo not mentioning the Nephites, the temple or the funny underwear in a godly way. No one is converting to the Chosen People at the end. But, what the hell; free lunch. I just planned on bee-lining it out of there if there was an opening prayer. Not that there's anything wrong with that either, but I've spent enough time being talked (down) to about the glories of the church. I get it. I'm a gentile and okay with that. I began to have some trepidations that this was mostly going to be seminars on how to incorporate the D&C into one's story arc or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't want to. But I girded my loins and went.

It was nice, mostly. There was no coffee, obviously, but I'd anticipated that and had tanked up at home and was comfortably superhypercaffeinated at the go. There was no mention of the religious thing, the room was about a quarter full of non-Mormon authors from what I could tell, and there was absolutely no proselytizing. But still no coffee. And I kind of felt like a normal person at a job: I was bored shitless and kept wanting to sneak a look at my MySpace page.

What there was lots of was:

How to SELL YOURSELF as an author!!!

How to help your publicist SELL YOUR BOOK!!!

How to put together a Media Kit so the newspaper people will totally review your book!!!

Um. O-kay.

See, the naive babe-in-the-literary-woods thought that a writer's conference might be about....um....writing? Maybe? Like, how to strengthen a character or align a plot or maybe how to write a query letter. No. It was all about how to sell yourself and your book, no matter if it's done yet; no matter if it sucks. Sell it, baby.
**One of the presenters wanted us to each come up with a way to market ourselves, write it on a piece of paper and she would choose the best one for a prize. Not being good at this kind of thing AT ALL, I rolled my eyes and wrote:
"I could make a sandwich-board placard with my book cover on it, hang it on the Great Dane and take her for a walk at the dog park. Then I could get her a harness and pretend she's a therapy dog so we could get into the mall." Typical smartassery.

I won.

Have you ever been in a room full of authors? Let me tell you, it's like a party at the beach. If it's raining and dark and someone is insisting on playing charades. Writers, by and large, are not "people persons". They're awkward. They're socially inept. They have bad breath. That's why they write. To become someone else. (Not me, of course, this is just what I've observed...) How can these people possibly be expected to market themselves?

I was chastised for not having a "real" website and blog (Nope, MySpace doesn't count), and for not having business cards with my book title and the word "Author" after my name.

E'scuse me, WTF?

My book isn't done. I don't feel right about calling myself a "writer", much less bestow that honored title of "author" on myself, before I've been published. I don't know if my book sucks. (Haha, it doesn't suck. It's the best piece of literary awesomeness that has ever been trapped inside a Mac). I don't know if I'll ever get published, and yet, I'm supposed to act as though I already am? Am I just too humble? Is it silly of me to be a bit ashamed of the hubris it takes to do these things?

I've always considered writing to be an Art. A Craft. (Not like toll-painting or knitting; like the old-school meaning of the word). Something that one toils at, bleeds over, rends hair and shirts about, shyly keeps it close to the vest about, hopes and prays that some editor, agent and/or publisher will beg to put it on parchment and bind it together for all eternity. Amen.

Nope. It's a business. Anyone and everyone can be a best-selling author nowadays. It doesn't matter if your topic is a snore-fest, if your grammar is pure Utahvoo, if you have humans mating with eagles. Get a business card, put up a self-aggrandizing website, find ten people who like reading your crap and your in.

Sigh.

The only rays of heavenly light I saw today came from the keynote speaker (who wrote a book on how to use surfing philosophies to become a better salesman) and from the publisher himself, with whom I got to have a one on one meeting.

From the keynote speaker: "How many of you feel like you're not writing a book; but that THIS BOOK has chosen YOU to write it?"

From the publisher, who is very Mormon, and with whom I was straight in telling him that he would never publish my book: "It doesn't matter if you're following anyone's formula or writing what other people think you should be writing. I want to see a story that is written from the heart; one that means everything to someone."

Amen.

I'm going to go write now.

Doggie Style!

2008-10-04T12:49:00.002-06:00

For those of you who clicked into here looking for pictures of a certain bored yet not-bad-looking housewife in a *ahem* canine-like compromising position, scroll down....

...a little further....

you're almost there.....

Here you go!

GET OFF MY PAGE, YOU PERV!

This is a family blog. I won't even use the "F" word. Maybe Peabody will even read it.

Dogs. What would we do without them?

I'm a dog person. I was once a cat person, but have decided that cats are selfish, psychotic little midgets in fur suits that like to try to suffocate me by sleeping on my face. Many have been launched across the room in the middle of the night. But that's another blog.

But a dog! They're loyal, intelligent (well, most of them, we have an exception), loving and smelly. And they stay where you put them. Unlike the feline things.

Since meeting my husband, we've had a few mutts enter our lives. Some we went looking for, some found us, some we literally tripped over and had to take home for some damn reason. So today, I'm taking a trip down memory lane to share My Life With Dogs. And to introduce our newest doggie addition.

Winnie

Winnie was the first dog my husband ever had. We returned from our first vacation together, a few months after we had started dating, to find a pair of big black Newfoundlands in his fenced back yard. We made a few inquiries of his mostly-stoned-and-unemployed-slacker buds, figuring they might know something about it, since my husband-then-boyfriend was the only one with his own house and they generally left their detritus there.
"Yeah, dude," one said, "my girlfriend, like, has these dogs, you know?"
Yes, we know that now.
"And she, like, can't keep them cuz she's like getting evicted? So, like, they just need to stay there for, like, a while. Hope that's okay, dude. Heh. Heh. "
Okay.
Turns out, both dogs were big sweeties, and pregnant. Imminently pregnant. We could feel the puppies moving, and I decided to take the most-likely-to-blow to my apartment. I had a spare bedroom, she could whelp in there. And she did, after peeing green goop all over my new carpet (a landlord's dream come true) and attacking my own dog. Once the pups were stable, I took them back to the fenced-in yard (it was summer and shady) to give my poor mutt a break. The other dog whelped soon after and we had a whopping 17 little sausages wiggling under the maple tree.
Six weeks later, The girlfriend got her act together and came to get the dogs and puppies. We were attached to them by that time and decided she wouldn't miss one, so we picked the mellowest, yellowest one and hid her, saving her from a life of living in the backseat of a Honda. Yes, the girlfriend had certainly gotten her act together.
And we got Winnie.

She was the classic big dumb dog. And sweet. Apparently Momma Dog had gotten busy with a purebred Golden Retriever, and we had to have both of Winnie's hips fixed when she was six months old. That was back before the miracle of digital cameras, otherwise I'd share the beautiful photos of her naked bum and bucket-collar.
Winnie lived with us for eight years, boucing and drooling and teasing the cats and loving the new baby we brought home. She died in 2005 of cancer.

Hobie
He was a crotchety but sweet old man when Lance found him on the Golden Retriever Rescue website. It was love at first sight between those two. He insisted on having his bed in the middle of the hall so we all had to step over him and he could protect us from all things bad, sucked on a towel, and wanted to bounce but had a bad rear leg. Lance took him everywhere; to work when he could, to the gym every evening where Hobie would wait faithfully and patiently in the car, sucking his woobie the whole time.

Hobie died of bone cancer two years ago. He's still in the back of Lance's car, his ashes and woobie memorialized until my husband finds another dog with whom he can bond so strongly. I just hope that bonding doesn't include barfing up three gallons of blech into his lap this time. Rest well, old man.

Rudy
My mother-in-law called us one day to tell us she had gotten a new dog. We laughed nervously, as she isn't always discriminating about her canine companions.
She'd found an old Golden Retriever (anyone see a pattern here?) wandering the highway near her house. No collar, no tags, not neutered, ancient and stone deaf. She called the local shelter to ask if anyone had been missing one and they said no one had alerted them to a missing Golden. She called him Rudy and set him up at her place with her Rottweiler and multitude of cats.
Two weeks later as she was walking the dogs, a neighbor stopped her and asked her about Rudy. Turns out, he belonged to a friend of this person and they were looking for him. She returned him to his owners, laughed when they said he "musta just wandered off when we let 'im out" and gave them her phone number, just in case he wandered back.
He did. Twice. And they never called her or the shelter looking for him. So, we decided he must not be that missed and would probably rather come live with us than playing chicken with semis on the highway again. (She had her hands full with the Rotti, we only had two dogs at the time, what's one more?)

This is what he did the most of. And he was the only creature in our whole family who wasn't routinely attacked by this evil devil-spawn cat. This cat loved him and followed him around. Rudy was a Good Boy.

On top of being deaf, Rudy was also mostly blind and somewhat shaky. The vet put his age at around 15. At that point, we joked that our house is The Place Where Old Goldens Come To Die.

He lived a quiet, happy life with us for a year and a half, and passed away quietly at home the day after last Christmas. That's a dog for you; he'd been on the brink for a week, dying a little at a time but wouldn't go on a day that he must have, with that odd doggie-telepathy, known was a special day. Rest quiet now, sweet old guy.

Phoebe!
Gawd. Have you ever fallen in love with someone and have no idea why? And continue to love them even though they might be neurotic and flighty and possibly *whispering* not very intelligent?
Well then you understand my relationship with the Pheebs.

I went to the pet store one day, just to get dog food. They were having a big adoption event and Grace, being three, "hadda go seeum doggees. " And there she was. I had to have this dog, this "Phoebe". I couldn't quit thinking about her and whined to Lance that I needed her until he gave in. "Fine. Three dogs is just what we need."
I've always wanted a Great Dane, they are awesomely majestic dogs. Powerful. Commanding. Serene.
Phoebe, while definitely a Dane, is none of those things.

She's goofy, neurotic, and a bit passive-aggressive. She was surrendered to the rescue by a fine, upstanding gentleman who had used her for the previous four years in a backyard-breeding puppy mill. She'd been beaten, bitten by the male, and had apparently never been out of her kennel. He finally got rid of her after five litters because she experienced complications with the last one and he had to shell out money so the pups wouldn't die. Prick. I'd like to let a male Great Dane have his way with him....

She had to learn how to navigate the stairs (which she still sounds like she's falling up every time) and was terrified of the cats and the car. She's chewed through three seatbelts in my backseat, even from behind the doggie-gate in my SUV, which I had to buy specifically to transport dogs. She had to learn to play, and it's the funniest thing EVER to watch her bounce around. She cannot CANNOT lie or sit down without a bed. When I wash her beds (which is often, because she's pretty smelly), she about has a nervous breakdown until they're ready. In fact, she once bowled me over to get them out of my hands before I could get the covers back on.

She's my Big Dumb Schweetie. And after what some uncaring a-hole put her through for four years, I think she deserves every moment of sloth she now enjoys. Stick around longer, my gal.

Morgan.
I'm probably not going to make it through this one without crying. Yep. I was right. Ahem.
I was 21 when this puppy found me. I was in college, had just moved into an apartment from my parents' house (after a stupid detour with a boy), and was working at a pet store. A litter of puppies came in for sale, and the shop owner had room for all but one of them. The puppy people said the last one was going to the pound. I looked into her little brown eyes and something just clicked. I took her home with me, instead.
And that was the beginning of a long journey. She was Golden Retriever mixed with Border Collie, and we almost didn't survive her first year. She was too smart for her own good and tried to herd everything that moved including skateboarders. She would chase a ball until she burst or your arm fell off. She destroyed Christmas ornaments and figured out locks. She and I got through the first level of competetive obedience in under six months training time (it usually takes a year or two before a dog is ready), but couldn't compete or impress the dog trainer that I worked for at the time because she was a "mixed breed". She was the ring bearer at our wedding and was offended when the baby came home, but got over it. Mostly.
She was my constant companion, my most trusted adviser, the one who was just always there.

Until she just wasn't. She left me last year after 15 years together, and it's still not something I can think about without bawling. Like now, for instance. I miss you, Little Red Dog, and will see you on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, ready for our special greeting and a game of never-ending fetch.

Whew. Still with me? Okay then, I have one more:

Einstein
The daughter is tired of being the smallest being in the house. She wanted a dachshund or a pug. Pugs are not my favorite dogs, so I kept telling her if we found a weiner dog that needed us, we'd get it. She was excited to the point of yelling "I WANT WEINER!" out the car window one sunny afternoon after seeing someone walking their dachsies. Nice. Sssshhhh, honey, never say that again, okay?

Dachshunds are not easy to find in the rescue world. And then, out of the blue, ta-da! I found him.

He's our little man. He's a sweetie, a cuddler and is freakishly small. He's curled up in my lap right now as I type this, wagging his little tail every time I stop to stroke his llloooooonnnnngggg back. I've never had a small dog before and it takes some getting used to. Grace adores him; he sleeps happily tangled in her covers at night. And despite the size issue, he and Phoebe seem to be getting on just fine.

But she's jealous of his cool little bed. She's tried to get in it. She doesn't quite fit.
I hope he sticks around on his little stubby legs for a while.

So there it is. My Life With Dogs.

I hope you all noticed that all of our dogs have been rescues or adoptions. For a good reason. Millions of wonderful dogs are destroyed in shelters every year, given up or banished by people who either didn't have the time or the energy or the brains it takes to take care of their best friend. Please, PLEASE, if you feel you want and need a dog, do your research first. Dogs take time, patience, money and lots of love. Look at rescues first, don't ever buy from a pet store unless it's a rescue organization sponsored event, always always spay or neuter. They deserve better than what we've given them.

I don't remember who said it, but one of the best quotes I've ever read is as follows:
"Dogs aren't our whole lives, but they make our lives whole."
And
"Deal with stressful situations like a dog: if you can't eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away."

Lecture over.

Share your dog pics and stories! Let's all do it Doggie Style!!!

Friendship

2008-06-06T20:16:00.003-06:00

There's a chance that I'm obnoxious. That I'm overbearing, judgmental and have a hair trigger. That I'm closed-minded, that I'm opinionated and rude. That I don't communicate when I should, and say too much when I need to shut the fuck up. Mostly that second thing.

Is it possible to be friends with someone whose philosophical base is so very oppositional to one's own? Is it enough to love a person for who they are and the generous things they do if you don't respect their ideals or opinions when it comes to what you think matters? How far does friendship go?

The Birthday Bitch

2008-03-21T16:16:00.003-06:00

So it's my birthday. I'm not a kid, so it's not like I anticipate it all month and get giggly and try to spy out my gifts. I don't. I don't really expect that much, and am so touched and surprised every year when my family and friends acknowledge that I mean something to them, that they love me and enjoy my company. Especially my husband. He goes above and beyond in getting me gifts I want. My girlfriends also go to great lengths to make me feel special. And my daughter, of course, gets so excited that she can barely contain what I'm getting for my birthday and tries to give me hints about it. Even my mother-in-law did a nice job this year, and she usually gets me a book on how to clean. Or a new vacuum. Subtle, she is.

So, why am I now, as in years past, feeling so very pissy and put-upon and acting like a petulant child?

My parents house is being painted, so instead of dinner there, they offered to take me out wherever I wanted. I love the Silver Fork lodge in the canyon, so I asked for brunch there. They make the best eggs benedict ever. But Mom called yesterday and said we'd need to do it at 10:30 so they can be home in time for the painter at 2. Which meant I had to forego sleeping in til I wanted to get out of bed (which my sweet husband lets me do on my birthday--he always takes it off work), and had to get up early so I could satisfy my daughter's need for me to open my gifts in the morning. Then we had to rush rush rush to get out of the house in time to get to the restaurant, which is a 45 minute drive up the canyon from here. I hate rushing, especially in the morning, I am so NOT a morning person, and getting the daughter ready is sometimes like pulling teeth from a hippo with tweezers. She doesn't really understand the "hurry" thing; time is very different for a 6-year-old, which is fine, but the rest of the world doesn't run on kid time. We finally get her ready to go, my hair is very very bad today as I didn't have the 20 minutes it normally takes to tame it into any kind of down-style, and wouldn't stay in its pins.
Brunch was lovely, the restaurant was surrounded by 7 feet of snow and cozy and rustic and yummy. But the daughter, due in part to the close proximity of her favorite person, my mom, and because no one was paying enough attention to her (only child syndrome, compounded by only grandchild syndrome) started to whine and interrupt and generally make it stressful. She continued this on the way home, and by the time we got here, I'm ready to run away. Far, far away. I tried to be patient, I tried to be gentle, I tried paying as much attention to her as I could when she was being appropriate, and she just got more and more irate. She's been wanting to decorate for Easter, so I offered to do that with her when we got home, but she was more interested in getting the neighbor girl to play. Fine, fine. I'm glad she has a friend she so loves, B is definitely a godsend sometimes. It just ticked me off because when she helped my mom decorate for Easter, it was the funnest thing EVER. I guess I'm tired of being shown up by my mom. So I turned into BItchMom. And BitchWife, just for kicks. I didn't mean to, I didn't want to, I wanted to just let it roll off my back and be appreciative that I have what I have. But fuck, I'm tired of the drama. And the husband was so worried that he wasn't doing enough for me that he started pouting and making me feel guilty.
So I shooed him off to the gym, telling him I needed some time to myself and that's really what I want on my birthday. I love to be alone, always have, and he hates that. My wonderful girlfriends also saved the day by offering to get the daughter and take her to play with their kids.
So, now I'm alone, drinking a crappy martini (I can't make a martini to save my life, but I love them and keep trying to beat that dead horse), and I bought cigarettes (which I've quit but sneak now and then and shouldn't) and I don't know what to do with myself for the next hour. So I'm sitting here bitching.

How lame is that? Be careful what you wish for.

The Other Side of Me, Giving In to the Pain

2008-03-16T15:23:00.002-06:00

So, I've had this headache since last Thanksgiving, and I think it might be starting to affect my sanity.

I've been diagnosed with occipital neuralgia and the muscles in my neck, causing the pinched nerve to radiate pain throughout my skull, simply won't relax. I've tried drugs that relax muscles and stop nerve transduction, I've tried exercise and heat and some massage. I'm going to try to convince my husband that it might be worth it to try acupuncture and intensive massage therapy, but I think he's frightened and resentful of the cost, as those aren't covered by insurance. Does that sound shitty? Maybe. But it's his reality and I have to live with it, because it's his money. I don't work, I don't generate income, so all the financial everything is up to him.

I wrote another blog about the headache, on my Domestic Goddess blog on MySpace. It's a funny, sarcastic, lighthearted look at the pain I've been in and how I've tried to get out of it, and it's true. MySpace is where I go to have fun, my blog there is semi-popular and I have a great audience, who leave great comments and most of whom I consider friends, even though I haven't met them. But I am very careful to keep that blog light and fun, even while writing about complex issues. I consider it practice for writing my fiction. Plus, I don't want to be viewed as a dramatic, dark, whiny girl who wants fawning and delicacy and sympathy. I don't want that to be my persona.
So I've brought it here.
Because I need to get out what this pain is, really. And you people, if anyone is reading this, don't know my MySpace persona, which is a real part of me. But not the whole of me. This is where I will come to be the other part of me, the one who is weak and hurting and not very funny or clever at all. Consider yourself warned.

This pain, while bearable, is now wearing away who I am. It is waves of torment, smashing against the rocks of my psyche, turning them into sand as it bashes and foams and swirls along my nerves. My head is a stone, wedged in the vise of a crack in the earth, slowly being squeezed by incalculable pressure of the tectonic movement, and soon it will begin to shatter and crack and it will implode, taking my personality with it. I will become the pain. That is all I will be. I will no longer be Vanessa, the wife and mom, the sarcastic one in my group of girlfriends, the room mom who constantly invades my daughter's classroom to see what's going on, the writer, the reader, the cook who loves to try new recipes. I will simply exist; I will be one with the pain and I will not fight it anymore. I will give in to the need to curl up and weep, head clutched in fingers weakened by a drug that might be killing me.
I am fighting this urge, the urge to just give up; give in and be the pain. It is not who I want to be. But, can I continue? Is this pain just going to be something I have, or will it become who I am?

Things that annoy me

2008-01-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

What the Fuck!?!

(Look out, I drop the F-bomb quite a few times in here. Sorry. I know it's tacky, but I'm in a MOOD.) Okay, okay. I've cleaned it up. I'm calmer now.

Hi kids! Did everyone have a good holiday season? Good!/I'm sorry... (whichever applies to your situation). Mine was nice, thanks for asking. Glad it's over and everything is back to normal now.
This last week I finally ventured back out into the shopping world, having sworn all stores were shunned from my life FOREVER after the @!&%! Christmas shopping hell. But, we do need to eat on occasion, so I had to hit the Mega-Mondo Super Duper Consume-til-you-explode Mart of Super Deals So You Can Keep Up With the Joneses (otherwise and heretofore known as Costco). And I remembered why I hate people. Not YOU, obviously, just the stupid ones who are hell-bent on annoying the living crap out of me.
I can't very well strangle them in public, and apparently the tongue-lashings aren't working, so I've decided to take it out on you. I also have issues with some inanimate objects.
This could very well be an ongoing blog, so feel free to add what you see fit.

Ahem. WTF Is Up With:

~Not making eye contact does not excuse a person from having done a rude, annoying or downright anti-social act. Just because you pretend you don't see me doesn't mean I don't see you, you mental toddler. Don't cut in line in front of me just because you have one item in your giant cart and my giant cart is overflowing on coupon day. You know, you might try nicely asking if I would mind terribly if you went in front of me, because amazingly: sometimes I'm nice. Make eye contact and use your big-boy voice, dumbass. Try me.

~Packaging! Why is there SO DAMN MUCH Packaging?! I bought a two-pack of mascara today (coupon!) as I need a lot of help to look this hot. Each tube is about 2 centimeters in circumference and maybe 13 cm in length. And they were packaged in 3 square feet (I swear!) of a combination of clamshell plastic, steel-reinforced cardboard and NASA-approved bonding glue. WTF?
Why is it that every time I buy something I have to wrestle it out of material that can hurt me? My husband has lost a couple of clamshell-package battles and really needed stitches, but he was too embarrassed to go to the ER. Not to mention the environmental factor; there's enough petroleum in the packaging the spiral light bulbs come in to fund a Saudi's new Lexus and negate any benefit of using the spiral bulb. WTF? Is it a subtle lesson in irony? Do they think we're stupid? Yes, yes they do.

~Why is it that we can't walk anywhere anymore? My Costco is across the street from a strip mall of super stores. Circuit City, Petsmart, Zurcher's, The Dollar Tree, all lined up nicely in their hugeness just waiting for you to come spend money on shit you probably could live without. They have a giant parking lot there. Costco, across the street, also has a giant parking lot. We usually have to go to Petsmart for something, so I figure it's a good idea to just walk over after the Costco Experience. You know, get some exercise, save some gas.
There's one catch: You can't walk across the street. Well, you can, but it's an exercise in car-dodging and puddle-jumping. There are no crosswalks, and barely a sidewalk, and people drive 60 mph to get from the light at the corner to the parking lot 100 meters away. I'm not joking. People look at me like I'm the idiot for not getting back in my car, getting my daughter buckled in, waiting in line to get out of the parking lot, driving across the street, and finding another parking space. There are a couple of strip malls on the other side of the valley that you literally cannot walk from one end to the other. You have to drive. Seriously, do you still wonder why we have an obesity problem? Why OPEC laughs their asses off at every meeting? GET OFF YOUR ASS AND WALK!

~You people who equate your pets with children? Now, before anyone gets pissed at me, know this: I am an animal fanatic. I have, over the last 15 years, shared my home with (notice I didn't say owned): 6 dogs, 12 cats, 4 rodents, umpteen fish, 3 rabbits, 4 lizards and 3 frogs. I have bawled my eyes out every time one has died. My original major was zoology, my degree is in Animal Behaviorism. Ok? I like the critters.
BUT: WTF is up with people who spend thousands of dollars on a "designer breed" when there are animals being destroyed by the thousands in shelters, put your dogs on prozac, give your cats chemotherapy, and would buy pink or baby blue sweaters, beds and woobies for your new puppy or kitten? Get a life! Have a child! They're animals. Love them for what they are; stop anthropomorphizing them to make yourself feel better.

Whew....ok. There's my rant for today. Stay tuned for more as things continue to annoy me, and feel free to add your own WTF moment.
Cheers!

The never-ending case of the Blahs...

2007-11-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

Ugh. Have you ever had one of those time periods in which anything that might require effort is just a big No-no? When your body is heavy and stiff, you are dead-dog tired no matter how much sleep you get, and you can actually FEEL your brain inside your skull, and not in a good way? Maybe this feeling lasts a day, a week, a month or longer, but the whole time you want to tell people "sorry, I'm just not myself, I'm really not this lame/weird/comatose most of the time," because you've seen them looking at you like you've just flicked a booger on the wall. You know that feeling?

Ok, I've been in this state of existence for a few months now. This can't be normal. And, of course, the catastrophist side of me immediately goes for "You've got a brain tumor!" or "I need a COMPLETE life overhaul, NOW! Call the therapist! Buy all new clothes, furniture and move to a new country!" I can't write, I can't read, I can't play with my daughter or have a nice normal conversation with my friends. I scare new friends away, I'm pretty sure.

The stupid part is: I'm HAPPY. There's nothing in the world right now for me to be unhappy about. Handsome husband loves me. Daughter, while going through some admittedly annoying boundary-testing phase, is healthy, funny and smart and loves me and school. THIS IS NOT ME! I'm funny! I'm smart! I write really really well and have the most awesome novel in my head!

So, WTF?

Random Things about me...

2007-08-16T20:12:00.000-06:00

Ok, so my other blog is on MySpace. I was picked in a game of tag to come up with ten totally random things about me, so here they are:

1) I bump into things. Like, all the time. I am constantly bruised at the hips. Someone once told me there's a theory that people who bump into things are actually trying to affirm their reality and the reality of things around them. Ok. Sounds better than "I'm a clumsy dumbshit".

2) I love birds. The giant blue spruce in my backyard is nesting ground for a few pair of birds each year. Two weeks ago I watched a young robin get kicked out by his parents, and I've sat in my yard watching him learn how to fend for himself ever since. Now he's trying to learn his big boy song, and it cracks me up. He sounds like a teenager whose voice is changing.

3) I hate feet. Don't touch them, don't let anyone touch mine. I've never gotten a professional pedicure, that creeps me out. The only exception was when my daughter was an infant and I loved kissing her chubby little feet. Now they creep me out too.

4) I like the smell of dog breath.

5) The ocean is the most calming, life-affirming sound and sight ever. In my next life, I will live by the sea instead of a fucking desert with a pretend sea.

6) I hate shopping malls. Bad vibes. I will chew off my own arm to avoid going to the mall.

7) Metallica and other like-sounding heavy metal actually makes me throw up a little in my mouth when I hear it. My hubby loves Metallica and is teaching our daughter how to head bang and air guitar, which is quite alarming for me.

8) Even though I claim to be a Bitch, I am actually an annoying people-pleaser in most situations. I hate it and am doing my very very best to conquer it and be the Bitch Within when needed.

9) I am 1/4 through writing a book, which I seriously doubt I will ever have the guts to try to get published, even though I like it and others who have read it so far like it. I fear rejection above all things.

10) This is harder than I thought! I love to talk about myself, that's why I'm on MySpace. Now I find that there are all these other fascinating people. And I can't think of one more random thing to tell you. So there.

I'm a People Watcher, Which One Are You?

2007-07-19T11:30:00.000-06:00

I'm a people watcher.

In public, I love to see what people do, how they act, what they look at, etc. Admittedly, in the last few years most of my public gatherings have centered around children's activities, but I've found that there are a few constant Personalities that seem to pop up wherever a crowd gathers:

The Cackler: The person you can hear no matter where you are in a crowd. They laugh big, hearty laughs that sound as though a small animal is trapped in their throat. They don't actually ever say anything funny, but apparently EVERYTHING everyone else says is HILARIOUS.

The Sweet Old Man: He wears a baseball cap and fought in WWII. He usually chuckles at everything and is foggily clueless about what may actually be going on around him, but in a very sweet way. He might offer any random child a sweet from his pocket, not understanding why parents get all tense about it.

The Hens: They cluck. A lot. They might have come to watch a movie or a child's/grandchild's performance, but never actually see it as they chat chat chat the whole time. Much of their chatting is bragging about said child/grandchild who is desperately waving from the field/stage to get their attention. (I will admit to having hen-ish tendencies from time to time :O).

Mr. Serious: Everything is Serious. The world is one big CONSPIRACY and full of BULLSHIT. May or may not also be a Power Broker (see below) "Goddammit" is frequently heard uttered in their vicinity.

Power Broker: He's a busy, busy, very Important Guy. Cell phone, bluetooth, palm pilot, blackberry and/or laptop may be whipped out at any time. Most common gesture is the hand-up "oooh, just a sec, gotta take this" as he steps away from the crowd.

The MILF: She's hot and she knows it. Will not leave the house without perfect hair, lipstick and D/G shades, stilettos afoot. Pretends to be aloof, but knows EVERYONE is watching and admiring. Comes with or without optional silicone implants and bleach blonde hair. Child/husband is simply another accessory.

The Redneck/WT: Big people, may have many tatooes on various body parts, not all of which should be viewed in public. Mullets optional but preferred. Will give evil eye to anyone who DARES look at their cigarette in a less-than-condoning way.

The Stud: He's hot. He knows it. May or may not be compensating for something with the sportscar and big shorts. Will do everything in his power to hook up with the MILF.

The Social Butterfly: She knows EVERYONE. And MUST say "HI!" to all of them. Cross-introductions take hours but she does it. Big hair and capri pants a must. Has coffee/lunch with someone new every day and is on at least two committees for something.

Quiet One/Outsider: Usually sits slightly apart from the crowd, alone, often with a book or notebook and pen. May periodically try to join a part of the crowd by commenting on something they've said amongst themselves.

So: did I miss any?

Which one are YOU?

Which one do you think I am?

:)

Mars vs Venus? Try beef jerky vs. foccacia...

2007-07-13T09:31:00.000-06:00

So, I've been married for 8 years. Had a couple (ok, probably too many) "serious" boyfriends before that. I wouldn't presume to say that I'm any kind of "expert" on men. Who can figure them out? It's like figuring out how to program a cell phone when the 100 page manual was written in English by someone who speaks only Taiwanese. Yeesh. I'm also no pro on the finer points of navigating a relationship. I mostly flounder about and hope I don't get mashed by any icebergs. However, I've come to realize some rather interesting differences between my fair sex and the taller, generally smellier one.

The Games We Play and Refreshments Provided:

I play Bunco. For the uninitiated: it's a dice game, played by a group of people, who are usually women from what I can determine, divisible by the number 4. It is played in groups of 4, rolling 3 dice and counting. . (For more on the exciting rules and procedures for Bunco, Google it. I don't have time to figure out a link for you...). We meet once a month, precisely on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, rotating houses so each girl has a turn hosting. Hosting mostly involves trying to find enough tables and chairs and madly cleaning your house all day.. At the beginning of each year of play, the group leader has a list for food and refreshment sign-up, so we each have to put our names down to bring food and/or a non-alcholic beverage to share at least one month out of the year. (She also has a spread sheet with our names, emails and phone numbers and what month we're hosting. She's so organized. Bitch.) The rest of us just bring whatever alcoholic beverage we want to get tipsy on. This is usually wine, either a merlot or a finer non-fruity white. Except for me; I show up with a Riesling or a hard lemonade sometimes. I'm no snob. If we can't make it one month, we call the hostess at least a week in advance, who has a list of potential substitute players whom she starts calling.

Whomever has the honor of being the one to bring an appetizer for all of us to snack on usually goes all out, spending most of a day on it. We've had home-grown tomato slices marinated in the finest olive oil and fresh basil, served with fresh mozzarella slices. Someone brought homemade egg rolls and pot stickers with 2 different homemade dipping sauces. On my turn I made, from scratch, foccacia bread and baked a homemade artichoke and parmesan cheese spread for it. Mmmm. Now I'm hungry. .

During the game, there is occasional squealing and sloshing wine all over if a bunco is rolled. We nibble on dainty snacks like shell-shaped chocolates or wasabi almonds and cheer for one another ( OH, yay! Look at you! You rolled two threes! You go Girl!). There are cute little signs on each table (you rotate tables if you win or lose, and it's different for each one) like: "Winners stay; losers stray". We play until about 9 or 10 pm, then hand out the money and cute-as-heck prizes to the winners and losers, then hug everyone and head home to our hubbies, who have hopefully been able to wrangle the kids to bed all by themselves.

Contrast that with my husband's poker game. Every few weeks or months, someone in the office says "hey, we haven't played for a while." Then someone volunteers their house for the next Saturday, usually without first consulting with his wife. They then start emailing the other "cool" guys in the office, trying not to let the "uncool" ones know. Sometimes there are 7 or 8 who say yes, sometimes only 4, which is apparently the minimum, but hey, they can fake it if they want to. Most of the time, most of them show up. Those that don't show occasionally call at the last minute. Or not. Whatever.

Food? Oh, yeah. Usually, the wives separately remind each of them that it's a nice thing to bring a little something with you when you are invited to someone's house. My husband, this past Saturday, took a giant bag of beef jerky. Which I bought for him at Costco when he called me from the office on Friday afternoon. Most of the others can sometimes scrounge up a bag of chips and some beer. One guy brings a bag of Swedish Fish every time. My husband told me that last time, one of the other guys brought a sleeve of saltines. Wow. (Just a note: they used to let the wives play, and we brought good food. But, I kept winning and am no longer welcome. It's boys-only now. Wussies.)

They then proceed to spend the rest of the night in someone's basement or garage, huddled around a hexagonal (I think? I've never counted the sides) table and smoking really stinky cigars and laughing way too loud and calling each other names like "pussy" and "mama's boy" and sending out challenges like "you ain't got a hair on your ass if you don't bet now..". Keep in mind, these are all men who work for one of the most powerful financial firms in the world and most of them have master's degrees in business and finance. But, put them in front of a stack of cards and their couth leaks out of every orifice.

Around midnight or one or two am, they start to think about stumbling home. Hopefully there has only been one fistfight and a couple of "yo momma/wife is so ugly" threats, and then they collect however much they've won or lost and they all leave as friends.

So, there you have it. I think I've finally cracked the biggest riddle of human history: Why are men and women so different? It's not planets; it's the way we play in groups...

2007-07-12T19:16:00.000-06:00

Hello, my name is Vanessa, and I am a Dork.

I've been doing some research, and most sources seem to agree that a Dork is someone who thinks they are Cool, or wants others to think they are Cool, but are hopelessly oh-so-not Cool. That's me, to a "T". (Some of you may be under the impression that "dork" is a term for a whale's penis. I have done some research and found that there are some sources that claim that is not the correct term for whale penis. So, I'm using it!)
I finally accepted my fate last week, after visiting my brother and his family.

My older brother was always the ultimate icon of Cool. Mr. Joe Cool. Big Man On Campus. SuperJock. Could grow a full mustache at the age of 14, had a steady girlfriend throughout highschool. Can make anyone laugh. Played college baseball. Met and married an also very Cool woman. They have Cool stuff, like ALL their stuff is Cool. Their daughters are Cool; one is even a cheerleader.

I've struggled with Coolness my whole life. Idolizing my brother, I followed him and his friends around, trying to make them laugh and include me. For that I got teased, punched and once told that I was adopted (more about my dorky gullibility in a moment). His girlfriend would occasionally humor me and let me tag along with them and her Cool brother and sister. Despite their help, I was still a Dork.

I was a jock in highschool; I played 3 sports. I was also on the newspaper staff and in AP classes. But I still never quite "fit in" anywhere; I was the one that everyone knew but no one hung out with. I was stuck in the middle. Not cool enough for the jocks, not smart enough for the nerds. (Nerds and Dorks are completely different things, btw.) But I tried. And generally just pissed everyone off. I couldn't for the life of me figure out WHY the cute football players wouldn't ask me out. (I had stick-straight hair and wore black when BIG BIG hair and neon were "In" in the 80's in Idaho) Being a muscular and vivacious jock, the nerd guys were afraid of me; they tended toward the pale, quiet girls with bad perms. I couldn't win.

College, well, I think I just tried too hard. No study group would have me. The cute guys would flirt with me long enough to get a lil' somethin somethin and my flawless lecture notes, then run for the hills.

You'd think that having been a Personal Fitness Trainer might have made me cool. Hangin with the cool gym rats. No, no, I scared them off too...

Why? Why? I have asked myself this question a million times over the years. Now, I think I may have my answer. Here's a brief list of the things that make me A Dork (capital A, capital D):

-I have an uncanny knack--nay-- a TALENT for saying the wrong thing to the wrong people at the wrong time. For example: In college, I had a roommate who was African American. Nice guy who rented a room from me. One night, while hanging out with his friends in the apartment, I passed on a joke that I'd heard earlier that had cracked up everyone around. I don't want to repeat it here, but let's just say it may have been a teensy bit racist. Which didn't even cross my mind before the punchline crossed my lips. Oy. He quietly moved out a few weeks later.

-I try too hard. I WANT people to like me. I NEED people to like me and will stumble over my pathetic self to ingratiate myself to them. I once took Christmas cookies to someone whom I had only met one time, but were so cool I wanted to show them how much I liked them. So there I was, on their snowy doorstep with a paper plate of homemade cookies, giggling madly and waiting for them to invite me in. Needless to say, I made the walk of shame back to my car. After shoveling their driveway.

-I LOVE NPR. For those of you who don't know what that is (and I"m SHOCKED), it stands for National Public Radio. Like PBS, it mainly consists of news and current events shows, science and tech roundups and jazz or classical music. All of my podcasts are from NPR.

-I don't have cable and I hate reality shows. 'Nuff said.

-I am not impressed by name-brand expensive clothing. Well, ok, I'll admit I might be impressed by it, but I sure as hell am not going to spend the money to have it. I can't understand spending that much money on clothes! I start to twitch just looking at price tags in boutiques and department stores. I hate the mall. I would chew off my own arm to avoid going there. I even have a hard time at the outlet mall, which I love. Sure, it's a great deal to only pay $150 for a Coach bag that retails for $500, but Holy Shit! 150 bucks for a freakin purse! NO! Or $50 for a t-shirt? ACK! I just cannot make myself fork over more than $30 for any item, unless it's a really nice gift for someone I love. And even then, I'm checking the clearance rack first. I will proudly brag about how little I've spent on something.

-I'm a stickler for grammar and spelling and punctuation. I can't text message because reading something like:" whts up sum ppl r gtting 2gether 2nite 4 drnks wanna cum" makes me nuts. And replying takes me 5 minutes as I spell everything out and punctuate. Just call me, for cripes' sake!

-I'm gullible. I'll believe just about anything someone tells me with a straight face. When we first moved in together, I remarked to my husband that his stoneware dishes seemed to dry in a short time. Deadpan, he says, "Yeah, I bought them just for that. They're fast-drying dishes." I totally believed him.

Now, here are a few things that you'd think might make me cool, but, sadly...

-I have a tatoo. Whoo! She's a wild one, how cool, right? I had wanted a tattoo for years, but wanted (in true dorky style) to make sure it was THE RIGHT ONE. Something I could live with forever, in a place that wouldn't end up looking like I had an oddly-shaped birthmark when things start to sag. On my 33rd birthday, I had a crappy Oh-my-God I'm Old! moment and grabbed the first thing I could find and had it needled on. The small of my back. My brother giggles and calls it my "whore-too". I can't see the stupid thing.

-I have an iPod. Filled with Erasure and NPR. I make people listen to it in my car, convinced that they, too, will LOVE it. No one rides with me anymore....

-I have a MacBook. Very white, very cool. And I can't figure out how to find anything on it. We converted from a PC and I am so very confused.

-I have a MySpace page. I have 54 friends, and I get quite a few friend requests each day. From people who either want to sell me something or who have not even read my page but want to up their friend count.

Ok, I'll wrap this up.

Despite all of this, I've decided to like me. Even if no one else does! :) I guess I like what I like. I will, however, continue to be aware and attempt to curb the "trying too hard" thing. Sadly, I can't seem to fix the filter that is broken, causing me to continually stick my foot in my mouth. Sorry in advance for all the stupid things I might say, or nonsensical comments I might leave. Trust me; in my head, they're really funny.

So, I'm instituting International Inner Dork Day!! Express your inner Dork!

2007-07-12T16:17:00.000-06:00

Wow. So, um, here I am everybody! Yay!!! *curtseys to big cheers from adoring fans*....Oh, wait, do I actually have to WRITE something intelligible/intelligent?

Ok, well then. My name is Vanessa. I live in the lovely, lovely city of Salt Lake (and, no, I'm not one of THOSE). I am currently a housewife and stay-at-home mom, although I prefer the term Domestic Goddess and expect it to be used with reverence and awe. Just kidding.

My daughter is 5 going on 15 and my husband is handsome and hardworking. We've been married for 9 years (OI! How did that happen???), together for 11. I pretty much have the Ideal Life. Hm. So, why am I so bored and twitchy and looking for More? Maybe I'll find the answer here....

So, thanks for having me, hope we can chat soon!

PS. Just so you can get a feeling for my true blogging/writing style, I'll post a blog that I wrote yesterday on another, shall-remain-nameless blog that I run and am getting NO LOVIN from.

:)